(LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ) A study on the application of writing portfolio technique to second year English majors an action research project at Hanoi college of commerce and tourism

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** ĐINH THỊ NHUNG A STUDY ON THE APPLICATION OF WR

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

ĐINH THỊ NHUNG

A STUDY ON THE APPLICATION OF WRITING

PORTFOLIO TECHNIQUE TO SECOND YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT AT HANOI

COLLEGE OF COMMERCE AND TOURISM

Nghiên cứu về việc sử dụng hồ sơ bài làm trong môn viết đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh năm thứ hai: Nghiên cứu hành động tại trường cao đẳng thương mại và du lịch Hà nội

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60140111

Hanoi - 2016

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

ĐINH THỊ NHUNG

A STUDY ON THE APPLICATION OF WRITING

PORTFOLIO TECHNIQUE TO SECOND YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT AT HANOI

COLLEGE OF COMMERCE AND TOURISM

Nghiên cứu về việc sử dụng hồ sơ bài làm trong môn viết đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh năm thứ hai: Nghiên cứu hành động tại trường cao đẳng thương mại và du lịch Hà nội

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Dr Đỗ Tuấn Minh

Hanoi - 2016

DECLARATION

I, the author of this research, certify that this thesis is result of my own work and that I have provided fully documented references to the work of others The material in this research has not been submitted for a degree to any other university or institution

Hanoi,2016

Đinh Thị Nhung

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my most sincere gratitude and thankfulness to my supervisor,

Dr Do Tuan Minh, for his detailed instructions from the beginning of the thesis to the valuable comments till the end

I would like to express my gratitude to all of my lecturers at faculty of post-graduate studies as well, who provided me with precious knowledge and helped me gained

unforgettable experiences in pursuing my studies

Certainly, this study would not have been completed without the participation of the students at Hanoi College of Commerce and Tourism I thank them for their enthusiastic attitude in learning and participating in the study Besides, I am deeply indebted to Ms Luu Thi Duyen, the Dean of English Department at Hanoi College of Commerce and Tourism, who helped and supported me all the time

My deepest appreciation is for my husband who always supported and encouraged me with his love so that I could finish my thesis

Without all their help, this thesis would not be completed as expected

ABSTRACT

This action research explores the effects of writing portfolio technique on second year students’ writing skill and the possible challenges encountering by both teachers and students during the application process Students created portfolios by including all the final drafts and rough drafts into a folder; and together with students’ submitted portfolios, two sets of questionnaires: pre and post-portfolio questionnaires, and interviews are also used to collect the data for the research The findings showed that the portfolio technique not only helped to improve students’ writing skill, especially in terms of vocabulary, and grammar, which meet student’s demands but also changed students’ attitude to the writing skill positively and contributed to the development of students’ other skills such as commenting, editing, reading, internet using, and group work skill as well However, during the process, there happened some problems For example, this method requires students to give written feedbacks to each other, which is quite challenging to them Especially, students quite easily got demotivated by negative comments from their peers

Or, students felt boring and tiring when having to write up to three drafts for the same topics Nevertheless, the benefits of this technique outweigh all and prove to be effective in helping students learning writing

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

Page

2 Chart 2: Students spending time on practising and developing the

writing skill

26

6 Chart 6: Students’ agreement to the improvement of their

vocabulary knowledge

30

8 Chart 8: Students’ agreement to the improvement of their grammar

knowledge

32

TABLE OF CONTENTS page

2.1 Writing and Teaching Writing skill 5

CHAPTER 2: Research Methodology 18

3.3 Data collection instruments 20

CHAPTER 3: Data Analysis and Discussion 25

4.1 Data analysis of students’ pre-portfolio questionnaire before the

application process

25

4.2 Data analysis of students’ post-portfolio questionnaire after the

application process

30

4.3 Data analysis of interview after the application process 36

Writing

5.1 Major findings and discussions 43

5.1.3 Teacher and students’ difficulties in implementing writing portfolio

technique

45

5.2 Suggestions for teachers when applying portfolios in writing 45

6.3 Suggestions for further research 48

Appendix 1: Pre-portfolio questionnaire I

Appendix 2: Post-portfolio questionnaire III

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale of the thesis

Nowadays, it cannot be denied that globalization is affecting every corner of the world and that due to it most countries are experiencing changes in aspects like economics, politics, education and culture; and in that globalised world, English is considered a main medium of communication Therefore, it seems obvious that if a nation wishes catching up with others in those aspects, its government should raise public awareness about the significance of English and motivate them to learn and master the language

Recognizing this social trend, Vietnamese educational authorities have implemented specific policies encouraging their citizens to learn and use English Now, English is a compulsory subject which is taught from primary schools to universities and an obligatory one in Vietnamese national exams Furthermore, various professional courses and conferences aimed at enhancing English teachers’ teaching skills and language competence are provided to ensure a better educational service Also, English teachers are required to get appropriate certificates aligned with CEFR

to be qualified for the job

What’s more? More and more state-owned or private companies, factories or organisations prefer and employ only labor who demonstrate their ability to use English at work and these employees are paid much higher and easily get promotion than others Apparently, English is one of measures for one’s career success

The above reasons explain why teaching and learning English is recieving much concern from society Scholars, educators or teachers are continuously exploring suitable and effective teaching approaches and teaching methods to improve the English teaching and learning quality Especially, teachers who directly work with students and understand their needs, their intersts, their learning styles play an important role in helping students achieve their academic and future professional success Therefore, it’s the teacher’s duty to discover and solve problems which the majority of his students have

Working as a teacher at Hanoi College of Commerce and Tourism and teaching four skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening to English majors, there has always been a question for me that why students are not very interested in writing class and their performance in writing tests prove disappointing results Being aware of the unsolved problem and of a teacher’s responsibility, I would like to investigate the situation That is the reason why I am going to conduct this research with the hope that

a new teaching method will benefit students, making them keen on the subject, and

improving their writing skill

1.2 Objectives of the thesis

This research intends to investigate the possible issues happening during the application

process of writing portfolio technique and examine its effects on second-year

students’writing skill at Hanoi College of Commerce and Tourism

The specific objectives of the thesis are:

(1) To find out what the effects of portfolio on improving learners’ writing skill are

(2) To find out what problems emerging in the application process are

The research hopes to benefit students and teachers at Hanoi College of Commerce and Tourism and to be useful for reference

1.3 Research questions

The thesis is carried out in order to find out the answers to two research questions:

(1)To what extent do second year students at Hanoi College of Commerce and Tourism improve their writing skill through the application of writing portfolio technique?

(2) What challenges may teacher and students encounter in using writing portfolio technique?

1.4 Scope of the study

The study focuses on only second year English majors at Hanoi College of

Commerce and Tourism because these students have already learnt writing skill for one

semester in the first year of college Therefore, they can probably identify their difficulties

in writing skill Besides, they do not know portfolio technique As a result, it is easier to

examine the effects of portfolio technique on students and explore the difficulties emerging

in the application process

1.5 Method of the study

To improve the validity of the research result, both qualitative and quantitative data will

be collected in order to explore the effects of portfolio technique on students and the

difficulties in the application process

Two main research instruments will be used to collect the data: survey questionnaires

(pre and post-portfolio questionnaires) and submitted portfolio analysis Besides, teacher’s

notes and informal talks between teacher and students are also manipulated to increase the

reliability of student’s information about the effects and difficulties of using portfolio

technique

1.6 Design of the study

The study consists of three parts:

Part I: Introduction

This part presents the rationale, the objectives, the scope and the organization of the

study

Part II: Development

This is the main part of the study It is divided into three chapters

Chapter 1: Literature review

This part presents the theoretical background relevant to the topic

Chapter 2: Methodology

In this chapter, detailed procedure of the study is presented: population selection, and methodology for data collection and data analysis

Chapter 3: Data analysis

In this chapter, all the data collected from pre- and post- portfolio questionnaires, informal interviews as well as the portfolios will be analyzed in detail

Chapter 4: Findings and suggestions for using portfolio technique in writing

The findings drawn out from the analysis of data will be dealt with in this chapter The findings and discussion base on the information gained through the two questionnaires, informal conversations between participants and the researcher, as well as through the students’ submitted portfolios

Part III: Conclusion

In this part, the researcher will summarize major findings of the study and also she provides the implication for English teachers as well as recommendations for further resrearch

PART II: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Writing and Teaching Writing skill

2.1.1 Definition of writing

Writing can be considered a very important means of communication However, the context of writing is through words alone and there is no immediate or direct interaction between the writer and the audience so it is highly required that the author needs to provide

a clear and comprehensive message to avoid misunderstanding for readers

So, specifically what is writing?

“When we write we use graphic symbols that is letters or combinations of letters which relate to the sounds we make when we speak” ( Byrne, 1979 ) or “Writing can be said to be the art of performing graphic symbols” ( Byrne 1990:1) Words, sentences are then formed

by symbols being arranged properly and in an organised way Besides, when our communication is done by writing, ideas will be expressed by different ways of combining and arranging words or sentences which lead writers to drafting, revising or even redrafting “Good writing gets your ideas out of your head and into the reader’s head without losing or distorting those ideas” (Leki 1976:4) Our thoughts and ideas are translated into language and are represented through writing, which is expected to be able

to communicate with our readers successfully Those above processes could be the nature

of writing, which clearly include the sub-skills such as drafting, editing, revising or organising, etc

Writing is really a complicated process, which, according to Murray (1978:29) and Perl (1979:43) is “a creative discovery procedure characterized by the dynamic interplay of concten and language: the use of language to explore beyond the known content.” In a social perspective, “Writing is therefore an engagement in social process, where the production of texts reflects methodologies, arguments and rhetorical strategies constructed

to engage colleagues and persuade them of the claims that are made” (Candlin and Hyland (1999:107)

What’s more, Writing is an important skill needed to develop for communicating with others and one should keep in mind that to become a good writer, for both native speakers

or non native speakers, it requires a very hard work Besides, as for teachers teaching writing skill, it is necessary for them to understand that there is not much difference between the process of learning writing skill in first and second language According to Fitzgeral (2006) , second language learners’ developmental process of writing skills in English does not differ much from native speakers of English, except that “one special aspect that target language learners bring to their writing is their bicultural and bilingual experiences” (Hyland, 2003) It is due to the fact that foreign language learners have a tendency of using their first language knowledge and their different strategies when writing

in the second lanuage, which is perhaps caused by the gap in the learners knowledge between their first and second language In other words it is “the use of linguistic or prior skills to assist in comprehension or production” (O’Malley and Chammot, (1996:120)) Hence, while students write in second language, there will be some interference of their first language like phonology, vocabulary or grammar

In short, writing can be defined differently according to different views and the nature

of writing, and obstacles while studtents write in second language are issues that a teacher teaching writing should deeply understand

2.1.2 Approaches to Teaching Writing Skills

There are various ways and approaches applied to teach writing However, “One of the most controversial aspects of writing pedagogy has been the tension between process and product approaches to the teaching of writing” (Nunan, 1999, p.272)

2.1.2.1 Product Approach

This approach focuses on the text, the final output of writing process Teachers who follow this approach will mark or grade students’ final product Readers are teachers who play such different roles as an examiner, an editor, or a proof reader This leads to a fact that students will view “the major function of writing is to produce texts for teachers to evaluate, not to communicate meaningfully with another person” (Nunan, 1991, p 88)

Besides, teachers’main interest is not the quality of ideas or expressions but the correct use

of formal linguistic features (Kroll, 1997) Then, writing instruction involves mainly in training grammatical accuracy “Foreign and second language writing “mainly involves linguistic knowledge and the vocabulary choices, syntactic patterns, and cohesive devices that comprise the essential building blocks of texts” (Hyland, 2003) If teachers follow this approach, “students are taught incrementally, error is prevented, and fluency is expected to arise out of practice with structures” (Reid, 1993, p.24) In other words, this product approach is defined as the emphasis on grammatical correctness and adherence to given models or guidelines (White, 1988) Also, it has the focus on the production of neat and grammatically correct pieces of writing (Mahon, 1992) As a result, it favors activities like organizing ideas to ideas, emphasizing on grammar exercises and correctness (Nunan, 1991) or exercises which can be copying , combining, substitution ones to provide students with “no freedom to make mistakes” (Pincas, 1982, p.91) What’s more? “ The product approach to writing usually involves the presentation of a model text, which is analyzed and then forms the basis of a task that leads to the writing of an exactly simliar or a parallel text” (Evan and St John, 1998: 116) Students’ final product is made according to this sequence “Model text - Comprehension / analysis/ manipulation - new input - Parallel text” (Robinson, 1991 cited in Evan and St John, 1998) Also, the focus on language structure

as a basis for the teaching of writing was indicated by Hyland (2003) through a four-stage process which includes:

1 Familiarization : learners are taught certain grammar and vocabulary, usually through a text

2 Controlled writing: learners manipulate fixed patterns, often from substitution tables

3 Guided writing: learners imitate model texts

4 Free writing: learners use the patterns they have developed to write an essay, letter and so forth

To sum up, this product approach put emphasis on students’abilities of memorising and applying grammar rules Students are asked to do tasks whose main goal is syntactic accuracy; and the teachers, when marking students’ final work will simply find out and correct grammatical and mechanical errors without give students suitable feedback to students’ writings Clearly, this approach cannot fulfill enough the teachers’job of

developing student’s writing skill

2.1.2.2 Process Approach

This approach is a shift from product to process which shows:

-How do I write this?

-How do I get started?

In other words, this approach focuses on the writer rather than the text Writing is then seen as a process of discovering meaning and developing organisation (Matsuda, 2003) Students will be trained to generate ideas for writing, to think of purpose, audience, ways

of communication and so on Those who follow this approach believed “a research-based, audience-focused, context-based approach to the process of writing” (Reid, 1993) Writing can be understood in two different views In the Expressivist view, writing is seen as a creative activity and “writing is learned, not taught, so writing instruction is nondirective and personal” (Hyland, 2003) Meanwhile, in the Cognitive view, writing is viewed as a non-linear, recursive process (Emig, 1983; Zamel, 1983) White and Arndt (1991) view

“writing as a complex, cognitive process that requires sustained intellectual effort over a considerable period of time” Therefore, to produce a writing text, students may go through six steps:

Drafting

Structuring Reviewing Focusing

Generating ideas Evaluation

From Process Writing (P.4), by R White and V Arndt, 1991, Harlow United Kingdom: Longman

There is another model of writing process created by Flower and Hayes which is “the most widely accepted by L2 writing teachers” (Hyland, 2003):

Selection of topic: by teacher and/ or students

Prewriting : brainstorming, collecting data, note taking, outlining, etc

Composing: getting ideas down on paper

Response to draft: teachers/ peers respond to ideas, organisation, and style Revising: reorganising, style, adjusting to readers, refining ideas

Response to revisions: teacher/ peers respond to ideas, organisation and style Proofreading and editing: checking and correcting form, layout, evidence, etc Evaluation: teacher evaluates progress over the process

Publishing: by class circulation or presentation, noticeboards, website, etc Follow-up tasks: to address weaknesses

A Process Model of Writing Instruction from Second Language Writing (p.11), by K Hyland, 2003, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

From the above models, it can be recognised that in the teaching of writing to help students “discover and engage a topic”, firstly, invention techniques or pre writing techniques are used (Myer, 1997, p.1) Students formulate and organise their initial thoughts using such techniques as free writing, listing, wh-questions, clusters and looping

to choose the ideas that interest them or are worth developing (Leki, 2000, p.20) After that , students will move on the planning and composing process and during this stage, response to or feedback on students are provided by both teacher and students Students, then, revise their work and refine their ideas, adjusting content and organisation so that their work will be suitable for readers Finally, students will proofread, edit their work and pay much of their attention to grammatical and mechanical errors, layout, evidence and so

on

The process approach aims to help students improve their writing skillsthrough the changes in the teacher’s or students’ roles and attitudes Teachers act as supporters and students as independent writers and the collaboration between them will help develop students’writing skill over several drafts (Furneaux, 1998) Hence, providing feedback and

responses are crucial in this appoach Furthermore, language accuracy such as grammar patterns, collocation and word choices can also be enhanced through revision and editing stages However, the question of how learners learn to write or how they approach a writing task has not a satisfying answer yet because “process models are hampered by small scales, often contradictary studies and the difficulty of getting inside writers’ heads

to report unconcious processing” (Hyland, 2003, p.13) Additionally, psychological factors are probably not the only factors in developing writing skills Therefore, there should not

be an over emphasis on this process

In conclusion, a writing teacher should make use of these two approaches in teaching writing because writing can be interpreted, according to Arndt (1987) in several ways: it can be the product of a composition or the act of composing itself; and the process approach should be considered as “formative feedback” aimed at refining student’s works and the product approach as “summative feedback” to students which help teachers know how much their students have achieved and how well the intended learning outcomes have been fulfilled

“collections of student artifacts which can be thought of as both objects and methods of assessment As objects, they are a place for holding materials such as papers, photographs,

or drawings that are representative of students’s work and progress As methods of assement, portfolios provide ways for teachers to continuosly collect and assess student work” Portfolio, according to Collins (1992: 452), is “a container of collected evidence with a purpose Evidence is documentations that can be used by one person or group of persons to infer another person’s knowledge, skill” Portfolio can also be “ a purposeful collection of student work that exhibits the students’ efforts, progress and achievements in

one or more areas The collection must include student participation in selecting contents, the criteria for selection, the criteria for judging merit and evidence of student self-relection.” (Paulson, Paulson and Meyer, 1991:60) Similarly, According to Arter and Spandell (1992, p.210) portfolio is seen as “a purposeful collection of student work that tells the story of the student’s efforts, progress or achievement” or it can be “ a collection

of materials assembled by students to demonstrate achievement” (Freeman and Lewis,

1998, p.271) Portfolios, therefore, can allow teacher to track progress, view individual growth and foster student reflection (Baack, 1997; Melville, 1996) Grace (1992: 1) considers portfolio as a record of the child’s process of learning: “what the child has learned and how she has gone about learning; how she thinks, questions, analyzes, synthesizes, produces, creates; and how she interacts-intellectually, emotionally and socially-with others” Likewise, Winson and Ellefson (1995: 68), share the same opinion about the definition of portfolios but develop it more They describe portfolios as “a fusion

of process and product It is the process of reflection, selection, rationalization, and evaluation, together with the product of those processes” In addition, “portfolio is a cumulative and ongoing collection of entries that are selected and commented on by the student, the teacher and/on peers, to assess the student’s progress in the development of a competencey” (Simon and Forgette-Giroux, 2000:36) In the context of writing instruction and assessment, a portfolio can be defined as “ a colection of texts the writer has porduced over a defined period of time” (Hamp-Lyons, 1991:262) In this study, portfolios are understood as that way and also a way to reflect the students’ performance, efforts, progress, and achievement over a period of time

2.2.2 Characteristics of portfolio

The characteristics of a portfolio are determined differently by different researchers

For example, according to Sharon S.Moya and Michael L’Malley (1994) in an article A

portfolio Assessment Model for ESL, the following five characteristics feature a portfolio:

*Comprehensiveness: the potential for determining the depth and the breadth of a

student’s capabilities can be realised through comprehensiveness data collection by the students

*Predetermined and systematic: what should be included in the portfolio was informed by the teacher before she starts using portfolio and she should provide guidance or possible standard guidelines in using portfolios as well

*Informative: the information in the portfolio should be meaningful and useful for students and teacher which show student’s progress in learning

*Tailored: it should be tailored before implementing to make sure there will no problem in the applying process

*Authentic: portfolio should provide students with authentic learning materials

contents are intended to be diverse and inclusive Especially, portfolios are created

collaboratively by the students as author, working with their partners and the teacher who help them revise, evaluate their writings

2.2.3 Types and contents of porfolios

It is quite obvious that the purpose of the portfolio determines what goes in it Portfolios

can include various items such as, rough drafts, graded assignments, peer responses and so

on Therefore, portfolios can be classfied into many different types by different specialists

According to Cooper & Love (2001) there are two basic types of portfolios: formative portfolio and summative portfolio While the former is considered to have the focus on the process of learning of a particular student which consists of samples of a student’s work to

“demonstrate changes over the period of time” , the later places its focus on learning

outcomes Also, Cooper & Love (2001) suggest three distinct forms of summative portfolio:

 The competency-based or outcomes-based portfolio It may show samples of a

student’s work collected as evidence of his/her skills and knowledge, which is relative to the curriculum or syllabi

 The negotiated learning portfolio in which the outcomes of the negotiated learning

processes are assessed through a portfolio

 The biographic portfolio, which is a record of achievement This type may have a

collection of work experience of a student which is collected over a period of time and arranged chronologically

Similarly, William P Banks, in his article “ Preparing Your Writing Portfolio” suggest

only two types of portfolios : complete and showcase portfolios He states that complete

portfolio is a collection of everything the writer has done during the semester- all the major essays and their drafts and all the pieces are used for evaluation purpose; the showcase portfolio may include all the writings the student has done but the student is allowed to choose which projects will count for evaluation purposes

Following are samples of these two mentioned types:

a Complete portfolio sample organisation

(students are required to put all four assignments for evaluation)

instructor comments, etc)

Section 4 Essay 2 archive (rough drafts, peer review,

instructor comments, etc)

instructor comments, etc)

instructor comments, etc)

etc

class and want credit for)

b Showcase portfolio sample organisation

(Students are required to put three out of five assignments for evaluation)

instructor comments, etc)

instructor comments, etc)

Section 5 Essay 3 archive (rough drafts, peer review,

instructor comments, etc)

instructor comments, etc)

instructor comments, etc)

class and want credit for)

Whereas, Portfolios are classified into three types by Columba & Dolgos (Cited in Ramazan 2012) but in different way

 Showcase: this type focuses on students’ best and most representative work

 Teacher-student portfolio: it is often called “working portfolio” or “working

folder” This is an interactive teacher-student portfolio that aids in communication between teacher and student The teacher and student conference to add or delete within the content of the show-case portfolio

 Teacher alternative assessment portfolio: all items in this type of portfolio are

scored, rated, ranked, or evaluated Teachers can keep individual student portfolios that are solely for the teacher’s use as an assessment tool

Portfolios are aslo grouped into three types by Slater (1996): Showcase, open-format and checklist portfolio

A showcase portfolio is a limited one where students are only allowed to present a few

pieces of evidence to demonstrate mastery of learning objectives

An Open-format portfolio is one in which sudents are allowed to submit anything they

wish to be cinsidered as evidence for mastery of a given list of learning objectives

A checklist portfolio is composed of a predetermined number of items (for example: a

number of assignments for students to complete.)

Meanwhile, Valencia and Place (1994) classfied portfolios into four types:

 The showcase portfolio (including students’best work)

 The evaluation portfolio (including specified and marked work)

 The documentation portfolio (including student work kept by teachers but not

marked)

 The process portfolio (including ongoing work and student’s self-reflection)

Clearly, there exists different types of portfolios which are classified differently by different researchers so teachers should choose proper ones and adjust them to suit their teaching context

2.2.4 The Effects of Portfolio on Writing skills

Nowadays, there are more and more teachers choosing portfolios as their teaching technique because it has many advantages “It enables students to have a self assessment for their studies and learning, and to review their progress” (De fina, 1992) And it also provides “visual and dynamic proofs about student’s interest, their skills, strong sides, successes and development in a certain time period “ (Baki & Birgin, 2004) In writing classes, portfolios prove to help students to have “self-improvement in the subject and sharpen their writing skills Portfolios are proved to have positive effects on helping students overcome their writing anxiety as well (Hande ÖZTÜRK & Sevdeğer ÇEÇEN, 2007) Furthermore, Murrey (1994), Wade and Yarbrough (1996), and Wade, Abrami and Sclater (2005) point out that using portfolios in teaching writing can help build up

students’ autonomy, reflection, learning motivation, collaboration, personal and comprehensive relationshiop between the teacher and the students Besides, in the research

“Portfolio as a Tool to Improve Writing Skills among First Semester EFL Learners at a Public University in Colombia”, the author Yessica Elena Sierra concluded that portfolios can help students produce more complex and complete writing products

Portfolios have been found avantageous to students’ learning writing by many researchers However, writing portfolio when being used in different teaching contexts and when having different purposes may lead to very different results in student’s writing performance Therefore, an investigation into the application of portfolios in writing classes is never a redundant thing

2.2.5 Summary

In summary, in this chapter, necessary and core issues and aspects related to the topic of the thesis such as approaches in teaching writing, portfolios in writing have been reviewed In the following chapter, the context of the study, the methodology, data collection procedures and data analysis will be proposed

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, the author mentions the methodology applied to conduct the research

It consits of two main parts: 1 The information about the context of the study : General

information about the college, the teachers and students, the writing course; 2 The

methodology: participants, data collection instruments, data collection procedure

3 1 Context of the study

3.1.1 The college

The study was conducted at Hanoi College of Commerce and Tourism, a longtime established school founded in 1965, which was firstly called Trung Cap Thuong Nghiep

School It officially became a college in 2008 and it has seven primary departments: Basic

sciences, English, Finance and Accounting, Food Processing, Hotel and Tourism, Information Technology, Commercial Trade

As for English department, English classes all have projectors Especially, there are two rooms which are equipped with 60 computers and two smart boards However, most of the teachers do not use them alot because the computers are not in good condition

3.1.2 Teachers and students

English teachers aged from 25 to 54 and most of them graduated from Hanoi University

of Languages and International studies, VNU and the rest was from Hanoi University They are all very enthusiastic and some very experienced

All English major students are those who failed in the University Entrance examinations and they chose the college as their second choice Therefore, their language proficiency level is rather low Besides, these students come from different regions: cities, provinces,moutainous areas which may partly contribute to the difference between students

3.1.3 The Writing Course

English major students at Hanoi College of Commerce and Tourism need to study writing in three semesters so that they can graduate from the college They start learning this subject from the second semester of the first year to the second semester of the second year

The author’s action research occurred in the first semester of students’ second year at the college It means that these students had chance to learn and practice writing for one semester They learn sixty periods of writing per semester, 30 of which is for theory, 28 for practice and 2 for tests Specifically, they learn four periods of writing per week

The course book is “Effective Academic Writing 2” series by Alice Savage & Patricia Mayer, Oxford University Press-a notable publisher The book provides systematic writing process necessary for successful academic writing: Stimulating ideas-> Brainstorming and outlining-> Developing ideas-> Editing Writing-> Putting it All Together The book

consists of six units:

Unit 1: Paragraph to Short Essay

Unit 2: Descriptive Essays

Unit 3: Narrative Essays

Unit 4: Opinion Essays

Unit 5: Comparison and Contrast Essays

Unit 6: Cause and Effect Essays

The Course Objectives: as stated in the English Department’s syllabus, after this writing course, students will be able to write short essays (three paragraphs), understand what essay is, and know the basic structure for each type of essay and know how to write it: Descriptive, Nasrrative, Opinion, Comparison & Contrast, Cause and Effect

In short, the objectives set for the course are quite ambitious because students need to learn to write up to five different types of essay, which are quite difficult for them

Meanwhile, their writing skill is rather low because their College English entrance mark is not high Consequently, both teachers and students have to work very hard to catch up with the course requirements

3.3 Data collection instruments

Basing on the purpose of the study which is to explore the problems occurring in the

application process of writing portfolio technique and how much this technique improves

students’ writing skill, two main instruments for collecting the relevant data were manipulated : Survey questionnaires and the students’ submitted portfolios Along with these two major instruments, interviews undertaken in the form of informal talks between teacher and students at break time were also used so that the researcher can get a mix of qualitative and quantitative data, which was expected to increase the accuracy of data interpretation and to increase the levels of achievement and success of the study

3.3.1 Survey questionnaires

3.3.1.1 Pre-portfolio questionaire

The first research tool for data collection is a pre-portfolio questionaire which is

divided into two parts: Participants’ background and writing skill and portfolio This

questionaire, which consists of 10 questions, was designed to get general information about the participants The first 3 questions in part I aim at getting such data as gender, purposes

of studying a specific skill, and students’ past English level The next 7 questions in part II were designed to find out students’ opinions on writing skill, their writing habit, their most concerning difficulties in terms of this skill

To sum up, the pre-portfolio questionnaire provides fundamental knowledge about the participants which then helps teacher be able to design a suitable writing portfolio for English major learners

3.3.1.2 post-portfolio questionnaire and interviews

After students had submitted the portfolio, learners were asked to complete another questionnaire to find out what students gain from the writing portfolio and how they feel about it so that the teacher will be able to give suitable suggestions to make portfolios more beneficial, suitable for students

Also, teacher kept a journal about her informal conversation with students (which happened during break time) to obtain more accurate information from students about the problems they encountered

Nevertheless, data resulted from these two quetionaires and interviews are quite subjective Therefore, portfolio itself had to be used to get more reliable and valid data

3.3.2 Submitted Portfolios

3.3.2.1 The type of submitted portfolios

Students’ portfolios play a very important role in helping researcher determine how much her students’ writing was improved through the application of writing portfolio technique All collected writing portfolios were analysed and graded by the teacher to

reveal students’improvements in writing The researcher adopted showcase portfolio type

which is suggested by William P Banks and adapted it because she found it simple, easy to understand and to apply in practice The submitted portfolios consist of these following sections: table of contents, three outstanding final drafts out of five writing assignments (student’s choice), first drafts of written products and revised versions

Students were told to keep all their writings in a folder and submitted to the teacher so that she could grade the written products

The portfolio can be illustrated as follow:

1 Table of contents

2 Three final drafts out of five writing assignments

3 Descriptive Essay archive (first draft, second draft, third draft with peer’s comments)

4 Narrative Essay archive (first draft, second draft, third draft with peer’s comments)

5 Opinion Essay archive (first draft, second draft, third draft with peer’s comments)

6 Comparision and Contrast Essay archive (first draft, second draft, third draft with peer’s comments)

7 Cause and Effect Essay archive (first draft, second draft, third draft with peer’s comments)

All these above instruments: survey questionnaires, interviews and portfolios are strongly hoped to obtain detailed, reliable and valid data for analysis

3.3.2.2 Portfolio evaluation

As stated in website grammar.about.com, there was a popular method, T-unit analysis,

used successfully by Larsen-Freeman & Strom (1997) as a way to measure the quality of ESL student writing As mentioned in the website, Gaies (1980) stated that this method was developed by Hunt (1964) to measure the overall syntactic complexity , including fluency, accuracy and grammatical complexity of both speech and writing samples Therefore, the reseacher decided to use this method in analyzing students’portfolio in terms of fluency, accuracy, and grammatical complexity According to Hunt (1965) T-units are the “shortest possible grammatically allowable sentences” The term “unit” was coined

to avoid the problem of confusing the word “sentence” with other meanings and use of word Fluency is defined by the number of words or production units (e.g sentences, phrases) (Wolfe-Quintero et al, 1998) that a writer can produce However, in this study, the most applicable fluency measure was words per T-unit method (total number of words

divided by total number of T-units/ sentences) Besides, in terms of accuracy, there has been a question of what kinds of errors were determined as errors For example, in some researches, errors in punctuation, lexicon, morphosyntax, and spelling were counted as errors (eg Lason-Freeman and Strom, 1977) Meanwhile, there are other studies considering only morphosyntactic errors as errors In this research, the researcher will adapt the former; and the frequency of error-free T-unit ratio will be regarded as a measure

of accuracy (total number of error-free T-units divided by total number of T-units) Finally, grammatical complexity, the varying structures in students’ written compositions, will be measured relying on the total number of clauses which are divided by the total number of T-units

3.4 Procedures

The writing class lasted in fifteen weeks in the first term of the 2015-2016 academic year but the study only took place during first eleven weeks because the rest of the term was used for class revision, tests and end of term examination On the first week of the course, as the researcher went through the syllabus, she delivered questionnaires (see appendix 1) for students which aimed to explore students’ previous experiences and their knowledge on the use of portfolio That is how the application process began Next, the teacher presented the objectives (acounting for 30 % of their total grade) and the procedure of writing portfolio (Meanwhile the tests taken during the semester were the obligatory conditions for them to continue the course) Also, students and teacher had a short discussion and went to an agreement about how they would give comments for their peers She then proceeded usual classroom activities which had been planned for the whole term

Specifically, students were asked to write five different essays during the semester: (1) descriptive essay (2) narrative essay (3) opinion essay (4) comparision and contrast essay (5) cause and effect essay For each essay, students wrote a first draft in class and they would give and recieve peer feedbacks on the basis of provided writing checklist (which

was also introduced and instructed to students during first two weeks) After necessary

revisions and corrections, students created their second drafts They again gave and recieved peer feedbacks Then they wrote final draft and handed it to the teacher Besides,

students were asked to note down on the top of their drafts about the number of words,

number of sentences they have written Finally, the portfolios were completeted with table

of contents, entries, drafts Students were told to keep all their writings in a folder, in

which three best writings are in the front and submitted to the teacher so that she could

grade their written products When the teacher finished grading portfolios, she would give

them back to students as references for their end of term exam

The portfolio applying procedure can be summarised as follow:

Finally, a post-portfolio questionnaire (see appendix 2) was handed to students to

find out how students feel about this technique and how helpful the portfolio technique to

students’writing skill

In conclusion, this chapter has covered the issues related to the methodology of the

study

1 Write first draft

peer’s comments

3 Write second draft

peer’s comments

5 Write final draft

6 Collect final drafts and

other rough drafts in the portfolio

Repeat the same pocedures for different types of essays

*Select best three final drafts for summative grading