SKKN applying whatsapp group discussion to improve 10th students’ ability in writing skill at dien chau 2 high school, ESPECIALLY FOR offline learning

NGHE AN EDUCATIONAL AND TRAINING DEPARTMENT DIEN CHAU 2 HIGH SCHOOL --- * * * --- TEACHING EXPERIENCE Applying WhatsApp group discussion to improve 10th students’ ability in writing

NGHE AN EDUCATIONAL AND TRAINING DEPARTMENT

DIEN CHAU 2 HIGH SCHOOL

- * * * -

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Applying WhatsApp group discussion to improve 10th students’ ability

in writing skill at Dien Chau 2 high school, ESPECIALLY FOR

offline learning

SUBJECT: ENGLISH

AUTHOR: NGUYEN THI THUY GROUP: ENGLISH - LITERATURE SCHOOL YEAR: 2021-2022

TEL: 0931362263

I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Reason for choosing the topic:

Nowadays, technology presents some media to be used in communication like social media, especially in this time when COVID 19 is increasing quickly Most people use technology to deal with problems around their lives With the increase

of time, scope, and frequency of the Internet and technologies use, people have started to shape the way they communicate, share, and behave Social networks, which are very popular among young people, are becoming prevalent due to their nature to meet the needs of individuals towards socialization Process of interaction has become one of the important elements of the daily life The high numbers of people join the social networks, which are defined as programs that ease to interact

between individuals and groups

Technology has invaded all aspects of life and education system is also developing rapidly Technology such as computer, mobile phone smart phone, and the internet are considered as effective tools to support teaching and learning process However, most teachers have not utilized optimally the technology yet in teaching English language It is supported by Lailiyah and Cahyono (2016) who claim that

“some EFL teachers are reluctant to take the opportunity to integrate technology into their classrooms” For example, teachers prefer to choose traditional ways to teach English language It is probably because the teachers are not creative in integrating the internet and mobile phone technology to make the teaching and learning of English language to be attractive and different in the classroom The mobile phone technology is the most potential tool to be utilized in teaching English language EFL teachers can utilize message application through mobile phone and smart phone The most famous messenger application is WhatsApp WhatsApp is the most potential technology to support teaching and learning of English language today that can be accessed by mobile phone In addition,

teaching and learning English language by using WhatsApp is regarded as the

newest innovation of English language teaching strategy

Teachers and students can interact online with others through the features of WhatsApp WhatsApp can present multimodal media through its features for learning English language Then, WhatsApp also facilitates students with audio visual According to Marshal (2002) as cited in Gon and Rawekar (2017), people have ability to remember what they read only 10%, 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see and 50% of what they hear and see The technology that combines images, texts and audio all in one is able to improve people in remembering something more than 50% Thus, WhatsApp will make the teaching and learning process of English language to be interactive and can create a new atmosphere for both students and teachers The use of WhatsApp as a new technology that can be utilized for teaching and learning English language The writer will explain about

use WhatsApp in teaching English language, especially for online learning in Viet Nam where is influenced seriously by COVID 19

I would like to share my teaching experience “Applying WhatsApp group discussion to improve 10 th students’ ability in writing skill at Dien Chau 2 high school, especially for offline learning” in the hope that my colleagues can apply in

teaching and we can discuss more to get the best result in teaching students how to write effectively

1.2 Objectives of the study:

This study aims at examining the effectiveness of WhatsApp on developing EFL Students’ writing skills

1.3 Hypothesis of the study

This study has hypothesized that using WhatsApp English medium groups for chatting and sharing news articles or topic with requesting students to read and comment on are effective in developing students ‘writing skills

1.4 Research Methodology

This study presents a practical work that examined the effectiveness of WhatsApp

on developing students ‘writing skills in English as a foreign language

a Participants

The participants of this study are students from grade 10A and 10D at Dien Chau 2 high school They were requested to join a WhatsApp group for developing their English, especially in writing skills for online or offline learning All the participants are all students feel comfortable to participate in WhatsApp group and share the mobile numbers with their male classmates for social considerations

b Data collection instruments:

The data were collected through their writing ‘performance before and after applying the research and researcher’ daily observations of students’ progress and

a questionnaire given to the participants at the end of the study The pre-test and post-test based on writing tasks given to students when they joined the group and later on at the end of the study period in addition to assessing their chats in the group in the first week Researcher’s daily observations aimed at noticing students’ progress in writing A questionnaire prepared by the researcher was also given to their opinions regarding the effectiveness of the WhatsApp in developing their writing skills based on the experience they had during the study

II THE CONTENT

1 THEORICAL AND PRACTICAL BACKGROUND

1.1 Theorical background

1.1.1 Definition of teaching writing skill:

Writing is a skill that is highly required nowadays Written communication, for example, is the most common form of business communication Emails and formal letters fulfill conversational-like purposes that the students have to master if they were to integrate today’s job market Writing serves not only communicative purposes in professional activities but also in social ones In our everyday lives, we write or reply to invitation letters, thank-you letters, text messages, etc Even journals carry a social-communicative load Journal writers try to communicate their thoughts and feelings to themselves

How to teach writing presupposes some prerequisites Teachers should be aware of not only the theoretical underpinnings of the writing tasks but also the practical procedures that contribute to the success of the writing lesson In the following section, we will have a look at:

o The basic knowledge that learners should develop in the writing lesson

o The different types of writing activities

o Writing as a tool for learning

o Writing as a major syllabus component

o Teaching writing as a product, as a process, and as a genre

To make the writing to be qualified, students need to read a lot to enrich the information and idea related to the topic of the writing It is because writing and reading activities go together in such a way that completes each other So, teachers can do vary activity in teaching writing in the school by using WhatsApp

1.1.2 Technologies in language learning:

Technology has a positive effect on both teacher and the learner Lam and Lawrence (2002) claim that technology provides learners with regulation of their own learning process and easy access to information the teacher may not be able to provide The wireless portable devices such as IPods, MP3 players, smart phones (like Blackberry, iPhone), and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) could provide opportunities to respond to the need of this generation Evans (2008) believes that

a distinguishable feature of mobile learning or M-learning is the potential to study when travelling on transport

a Face to face instruction This is the beginning of teaching that continued till

now It depends on the existence of the producer (tutor or instructor), the receiver (the learner) in one place

b Distance learning: Historically, distance education has not been isolated from

the use of technology to support learners and learning Nipper (1989) classified three different generations of technology use over distance education in the twentieth century According to him, the initial emphasis was solely on the print-based model of teaching Nowadays, distance education offers a variety of digital technologies, including websites and digital libraries as well as communication tools such as email, virtual learning environments (VLEs) and the recent application of social networking and blogging This is referred as 'social media' and it relies on free shared digital content that is authored, critiqued, and reconfigured by the community of users rather than individuals (Lee, 2009)

c Blended learning It represented the middle stage between this technique of

teaching tries to make benefit of both previous ones Through this stage, researchers make the best use if face to face environment and distance learning environment (Abdul Fattah, 2012)

d Mobile learning: There is an increased use of wireless technologies in

education all over the world In fact, wireless technologies such as laptop computers, and mobile phones are revolutionizing education and transforming the traditional classroom-based learning and teaching into anytime and anywhere education The term “mobile learning” or "m-learning", is not a new one It describes learning of the learners' not defined location or when he or she uses the benefits of mobile technology when learning The strengths of mobile learning lie primarily in the use of learning programs not dependent on time or place, that are

in the extremely efficient use of the available time Therefore, the vision behind this is the learning is to get what you want, where you want and when you want Mobile learning importance has increased since the beginning of the twenty first century The following figure shows to what extent is mobile learning is important

for youth They can be as follows:

1 For kids, mobile is not important for them

2 75% of 12–14-year-old uses a mobile phone

3 90% of 15- 17-year-old use a mobile phone

1.1.3 Importance of Mobile Learning in Education:

Berger, (2001) lists the implications that mobile technology can bring to teaching and learning:

• Better realization of “anywhere, anytime”

• Freedom of organization in and out of the classroom,

• Collaboration among students separated geographically,

• Transparent connection to nets,

• Remote sensing and integration of information,

• Shift from “anywhere, anytime” to “everywhere, every time”

1.1.4 Mobile Usages in Language Teaching Mobiles have a lot of usages inside

and outside the classrooms There are some usages here for that

1 Use the Text Messaging feature to reinforce vocabulary learning For

example, you could text the words covered in class to encourage students to review them outside the school context By sending out the word’s multiple times, you increase the chances that students will remember them

2 Use the Text Messaging feature for circular writing The reality is that

many students do not like to write They associate writing in the school context with boring assignments and a punitive environment of criticism and negative feedback The challenge is to encourage that type of writing that helps students learn English If students are not ready to write essays, they can practice with shorter texts to develop their writing skills One activity is circular writing, where students create a story together by contributing one text message at a time Each student writes a sentence or two and then sends this on to the next student, who adds another message, and so on until the story is complete The teacher is copied and has a record of the story as it emerges

3 Use mobile phone memory to distribute listening material Many phones

have memory for graphics, photos, and music that you can use to download listening material for your students, who can in turn transfer them to their phones

or other media This could be a recording of your class, a podcast, or course listening materials

4 Use the mobile phone to check student comprehension and get feedback

The previous ideas focus on learning, but mobile phones can also help you in your teaching One way is to add an element of interactivity to your classes through audience participation Students respond by texting their responses and the results show up immediately in a Power Point presentation or on a website This is very useful for checking student comprehension and to get their opinions You could, for example, ask students to choose from one of several options for the next classroom activity This tool is particularly useful in larger classes where it is not easy to get feedback from all students

1.2 Practical background:

1.2.1 Difficulties in teaching writing skill in the classroom:

Each student may face different challenges in learning writing All the students are

the students from moving forward to produce a good piece of writing The following paragraphs are about challenges faced by students in writing

1 Lack of vocabulary has caused the students to face challenges in acquiring

writing skills claimed Misbah et al (2017) Students almost use spoken and written words every single day to communicate their ideas, beliefs, and feelings with people around them Good vocabulary repertoire can help students to speak or write to deliver their thoughts Usage of electronic dictionary and more reading activities can help students with limited vocabulary

2 Some high school students are also having trouble with grammar

Grammar plays an important role in writing Grammar provides information that helps the readers to understand its meaning It is a structure that conveys the detailed meaning of the writer to the reader Grammar also explains the forms and structure of words, called morphology and how they are arranged in sentences, called syntax

3 Poor spelling is another cause of anxiety for students in learning writing

skill Having good ability in spelling will lead to positive learning of writing skill

If the students are struggling with spellings, it will hold them back to move forward The students have the habit to spell according to their pronunciation and this will lead to wrong spelling as mentioned by Afrin (2016)

4 Students’ readiness is another challenge in learning writing According

to Winarso (2016) in order to complete a task successfully, readiness is very important The readiness can either be physical readiness and mental preparedness

If this is not occurring, students will be having challenges in writing Students will not be mentally prepared to learn in the classroom if they are not ready It is very important for the students to be ready before they enter the classroom

5 Lack of exposure to books and reading materials are other challenges for

high school students in learning writing and this is supported by Foster (2015)

Lack of extensive reading will not help the students to write good sentences or paragraphs This is because reading and writing are interrelated If the students are not reading books or other reading materials, they are going to have lack of ideas and vocabulary to write

6 Last but not the least, lack of motivation is another challenge faced by the

students If the students are not motivated, they might not be interested to proceed

with their learning process Motivation is important in improving students’ learning results claimed Gbollie & Keamu (2017) Teachers could motivate the students by rewarding them with simple motivational phrases by saying “Good job!”, “Good try!”, “Keep it up” etc Positive reward will make the students go

1.2.2 Difficulties in teaching writing skill in online learning:

Due to the decrease in the number of Covid19 cases, new normalization steps have been taken afterward Accordingly, schools were opened gradually The students continued face to face online education However, the rising number of cases has made it inevitable for the Ministry of National Education to take new measures In this sense, schools have been shut down and a decision has been taken in favor of distance education or called online learning Meanwhile, via video conference programs, teachers began teaching online courses

Therefore, writing seems to be the most difficult one, because it involves some

elements such as grammatical function, content, vocabulary, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling When the Covid 19 appears, learning online becomes more popular Students must learn at home through computers or mobile phone It is difficult for them to understand or get all the knowledge and it makes them bored in front of the screen They seem not to pay attention the lessons like in class They can feel tired, boring, and even sleepy With some lessons on the screen, teachers cannot control most of students because of they are not face to face

Here are some popular difficulties that teachers often meet while teaching online:

- Shortage of Time

- Managing class is difficult

- Low student motivation

- Insufficient supply of course equipment

- Inability to control student's writing

- Difficulty in giving feedback and making corrections

- Inadequate use of technology

- Failure to provide parent support

These are some of the students’ writing when they take part in online and offline class with popular method teaching Teacher asks them write in 25-30 minutes with the help of text book

UNIT 5: INVENTIONS – WRITING – TIENG ANH 10 TEXTBOOK

UNIT 6: GENDER EQUALITY– WRITING – TIENG ANH 10 TEXTBOOK

UNIT 7: CULTURAL DIVERSITY– WRITING – TIENG ANH 10 TEXTBOOK

UNIT 8: NEW WAYS TO LEARN – WRITING – TIENG ANH 10 TEXTBOOK

1.3.2 Students’ Ability in Writing Analytical Exposition Text before Using an Online Discussion on WhatsApp Messenger

As we can see in some students’ writing, the most of students' errors were in punctuation marks and sentences structures It was noted that most of them memorize punctuation rules but don't know how to use At the same time, students got bored when you teach them these rules on the white board They felt they are useless and a waste of the time So, there should be a new technique encourage them to get involved in a learning program for punctuation Also, teaching punctuation in separated programs does not really develop their writing skills This problem was the same for spelling and general ideas In some writings, they do not understand the questions and they are out of the topic or vague That was very clear in the pilot study results So, the current study deals with writing skills not only sub skills The most mistakes that students often make are lack of vocabulary,

so their writings are quite short and meaningless Their paragraphs are not too long, and they often use some simple structures

(a) Content Before using an online discussion on WhatsApp messenger, some

students still had some difficulties to explore their ideas due to lack of knowledge about the topic They had difficulties in exploring their ideas because they did not have any ideas to write They could not improve their ideas because they did not have enough references about the topic

(b) Organization Before using an online discussion on WhatsApp messenger,

students could not determine the topic sentence and supporting details They could not sequence their ideas systematically They also still had difficulties in developing their ideas to make a good paragraph

(c) Grammar Before using an online discussion on WhatsApp messenger,

students still had difficulties in determining whether the subject is singular or plural They did not know when they had to attach the inflection of –s/-es to the verbs They also still had difficulties in constructing sentences with modal auxiliaries

(d) Vocabulary Before using an online discussion on WhatsApp messenger,

students still had difficulties in exploring their ideas because of lack of vocabularies They just wrote their ideas with familiar words, so there was no improvement in their writing, especially for their vocabulary items

(e) Mechanics Before using an online discussion on WhatsApp messenger, some

students sometimes did not use a capital letter to begin a sentence and to write the subject I However, they used capital letters in the middle of sentences which they did not need to use them They also did not know the different functions in using comma They never used a comma before a coordinate conjunction, but they always used a comma before a causal conjunction They sometimes also still

misspelled the words such as bussy for busy, dificult for difficult, and

dissappointed for disappointed A sentence fragment- a sentence that’s missing a

subject (the thing doing the action) or a verb (the action) are errors that students often made They use it like in spoken language

What’s more? the top ten student writing mistakes is singular subjects take singular verbs and plural subjects take plural verbs In most of their writing, they forgot how to give the correct verb tenses And here is the summary of their mistakes in writing:

Spelling errors Punctuation

errors

Generating ideas

Sentences structures

Lack of vocabulary

Thus, the study problem is identified in Dien Chau 2 - level EFL students’ poor performance in Essay writing Therefore, the current study attempted to develop these students’ performance in writing skills through using WhatsApp technology

To reach this aim, the study tried to answer the following main question:

1-What is the effectiveness of using WhatsApp technique to developing students' writing skills, especially for online learning?

2- What are the theoretical bases of teaching writing through using WhatsApp Technology as one of mobile learning technique?

3- What are the appropriate techniques and activities of teaching writing through WhatsApp technology?

4- What steps should be undertaken for developing writing skills to students through using WhatsApp technology?

2 THE SOLUTION:

In order to improve the ability to write paragraph or essay at Dien Chau 2 high school, I applied WhatsApp in teaching in 2 classes: 10A and 10D in this school year so that student can have motivation to learn in writing lessons effectively

2.1 What is WhatsApp?

WhatsApp is the most widely social media tool than others such as Facebook, Skype, Instagram, and Wechat Speroff (2016) states that, WhatsApp is a cross-platform mobile messaging app which uses the internet to send messages It will help users easier to communicate with other by saving other users number phone that has verified as their WhatsApp account in their internal telephone memory This application provides users with useful features that can support teaching and learning English language The teachers can facilitate all features to support their English teaching

English teachers in several countries in the world, so that WhatsApp is very effective tools for teaching English language This application is interesting because it has several features that can allow the users to send, chat, speak, write, and share many things in chat room easily Then, WhatsApp has interesting emoticons to represent the users feeling in chatting The last is WhatsApp is easy

to be accessed by the students anytime and anywhere

WhatsApp, as a relatively new tool in education, has similar positive characteristics

as previous technological tools that are implemented, but it seems that WhatsApp has some up-to-date features that encourage teacher and students to use it in order

to enhance understanding, this research is conducted among high school teachers, while most of the studies mentioned above were conducted among college and university students Although the characteristics of the different platforms and of

unique phenomenon in high schools Here are the comparison of common social media and messaging tool in education (Table 1)

2.1 The Use of WhatsApp in teaching:

Teaching English Language To use WhatsApp in English language teaching in the classroom, there are some steps that must be followed by teachers The steps are adapted from Speroff (2016)

Step 1 Create a WhatsApp group: Teachers ask and save their students’

WhatsApp numbers in the internal telephone memory After that, teachers create a group based on their class WhatsApp group Teachers also send link of the new group for each member

Step 2 Set the rules: Teacher must make a deal with their students about the roles

of using WhatsApp It includes students’ language must be polite Then, they might want to add their own rules about whether it is ok for learners to send teachers private messages outside of the group, what kind of information should and should not be shared in the group e.g jokes, and informal chats in English or not?

Step 3 Set up for class use: Teachers can set up for class use For examples,

teachers ask their students to bring their earphones or headphones to the class the day before (and then the morning of) class Sometimes, one or two students who

forgot to bring theirs, here teachers can either have students double up and share the earphones or have a few inexpensive headsets on hand to lend to students

Step 4 Assign the tasks: An important stipulation is that WhatsApp is not a

teaching tool as such – it is a mean of providing input to students and a way for them to share their output Both can be done in class to alleviate classroom management issues (e.g., large classrooms where students don’t get enough speaking time) and to help learners improve their speaking performance and outside of the class, to provide an additional opportunity for listening and speaking

or to assign and collect homework

2.2 The Use of WhatsApp Group Discussion:

WhatsApp is a free messenger application for smartphone that works across multiple platforms and is being widely used by the people WhatsApp uses internet

to send messages, images, audios, and videos WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, now has one billion users worldwide and is the biggest online messenger application on market Founded in 2009 by ex-Yahoo employees it started as a small start-up and swelled to 250,000 users in just a few months In 2014, it was acquired by Facebook and has seen continued growth, reaching more than one billion users There are many features that are available in WhatsApp One of them

is group chat In WhatsApp group, all the members stay in one house, where all the members of group can connect and share everything In the features provided, students and teachers can interact with each other Discussion groups allow them to communicate, have the discussion, and send pictures, recordings and more

2.2.1 Create WhatsApp Group on mobile devices

Follow the steps below to Create WhatsApp Group on mobile devices

1 Open WhatsApp on your iPhone

2 Make sure you are on the ‘Chats’ screen and tap on New Group option located at

the top-right corner

3 On the next screen, select the Participants that you want to add to this Group and

tap on Next

4 On ‘New Group’ screen, type a Name for your WhatsApp Group and tap

on Create

5 On Group Info screen, you can Add Group Photo or Logo by tapping on

the Camera icon and tap on Add Group Description to add some information about your Group

The participants that you add to WhatsApp Group will be automatically notified that you have added them to a Group in WhatsApp

The features of WhatsApp are as follows: 1 Message, 2 Voice call and video,3

Photos and Videos, 4 Document, 5 Chat Group, 6 WhatsApp on Web and Desktop, 7 End-to-end encryption

2.2.2 Some features of WhatsApp Group in learning on mobile devices:

We can see that using WhatsApp in learning English is good for students, but they also have some drawbacks For example, if student don’t make their effort, they are difficult to learn with this new approach

The participants described both advantages and challenges involved in using WhatsApp with students I will give this category for these were categorized into three types of issues: technical, educational and academic (Figure 2)