Finding the effective techniques in teaching pre-Writing stage to be used in teaching writing at the...

Finding the effective techniques in teaching pre Writing stage to be used in teaching writing at the 10th grade at Quang Xuong 4 high school 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS A INTRODUCTION I Rationale 2 II Researc[.]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A:INTRODUCTION I Rationale … 2

II Research questions … 3

III.Ojective of the study……… 3

IV.Methods of the study … 3

V Scope of the study … 4

VI Design of the study 3,4 VII Significance of the study ….4

B:DEVELOPMENT I.literature review and theoritial background 1.Prewriting……… 5

2.Identify the problems……….5

3.Previous researches on prewriting activities 5,6,7 1 Summary … 7

II.Methodology 1.Brainstorming ……8

2.Clustering ……9

3.The journalists’question………10

4.Working from an outline …11

III.Effects of applying prewriting activities 12,13,14,15,16 C.CONCLUSION I.Summary of the main finding………17

II Suggetions …17

REFERENCES …18

A: INTRODUCTION

I RATIONALE

Together with our country’s integration English takes an extremely important role in every field,which requires the teachers of English in Vietnam education systems in general and high school as well to renovate the methods,techniques,skills to improve students’ability to speaking,listening and writing.We communicate with the foreingers in English so we have to listen to them and talk to them as well.Many people can listen and speak very well but when being asked to write a report,a description or something else in English they often feel confused and some even do not know how to write as they want

to express their thought.It is because they only focus on grammar,speaking and listening at school,many people are bored of writing lesson,some find it difficult

to write so they pay little attention to writing.While teaching at Quang Xuong IV high school,a school near the sea where many students here come from poor families with little support from their family for learning,especially English I find students prefer doing grammartical exercises to listening,speaking and writing.They do not like writing at all

Thanks to the innovation of ways in teaching English, English lessons are taught with four skills (speaking, reading, listening, writing) in one unit Moreover, there exists three stages – Pre - while – post - teaching in one lesson This really helps students improve their skills beside the grammar exercises to pass the exams

When teaching writing skill to the 10th graders,The lessons having interesting pre-stage get students more than others which means to me thet pre-writing stages are very important in teaching writing and it also has significant effects

on the students’writing performance.I have used some activities on teaching pre-writing with the hope to draw students’attention to pre-writing and they will be better and more confident while writing

II RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1 Do students pay much attention to the pre – writing activities in a

writing lesson?

2 How do pre – writing activities affect the students’ writing

performance?

III OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

Finding the effective techniques in teaching pre-writing stage to be used in

teaching writing at the 10th grade at Quang Xuong 4 high school with the aim of making students be confident at writing as well as improve this skill

IV METHODS OF THE STUDY

The study is basically a qualitative research, which employs the following methods:

1.Collect students’opinions and the sesults of writing skill before using the activities for pre-teaching

2.Applying the activities in appointed teaching classes,observing the attention of students,giving writing task,getting the results,taking lesson and experiences

V SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This study was carried out in three English classes with 120 10th grade students

at Quang Xuong IV High School in Quang Loi The research focused on how pre – writing activities affect the students’ writing performances in writing lessons

VI DESIGN OF THE STUDY

The research consists of three main parts : Introduction, Development and Conclusion

Part 1: Introduction presents the rationale, the research questions, the method of study, the research procedure, the scope of the study, the significance of the study and the design of the study

Part 2: Development consists of part one “Literature Review and theoriatical

background of action research are introduced with its definition, three reasons to use it, and ways to carry it The concepts of writing, approaches to teaching writing and some pre – lesson factors affecting students’ writing performance are also presented in this part What is more, the writing program for grade 10th

students at Quang Xuong IV High School is described in this part, too Part two namely “Methodology” describes the procedure of this action research with the following main steps: defining the problem, observing class, conducting some techniques (brainstorming,clustering,the journalists’questions,working from an outline) and giving out conclusions from findings

Part 3: Conclusion is the last part which offered a summary and suggestions for more effective writing activities and some limitations and suggestions for further studies

VII SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Writing, one of the two productive skills, has always a significant position in language teaching Nevertheless, how to teach and learn writing effectively often poses great problems to both teachers and students For the teachers of English at high school, writing is considered a difficult skill to teach Some of them even ignore teaching writing skill and focus only on grammar excercises for the exams However, nothing is difficult if we, the teachers make decision to make it easier Hopefully , with a range of suggestions of how to make pre – writing activities effectively in writing lessons introduced in this research, it will

be more motivating for the teachers to teach and make progress in teaching writing Therefore, their students will be interested in writing lessons

B DEVELOPMENT I.LITERATURE REVIEW THEORITICAL BACKGROUND

I Prewriting

For most of us, getting started is often the hardest part of writing A blank page, begging to be filled with ink, can be intimidating, especially when our words come slowly or when our minds go blank Pre – writing is considered to

be very important in teaching writing Pre – writing is the paper In addition, that Pre – writing is the first stage of the writing process and is also called the idea – generating stage which stretches back to include anything that you have ever done or have ever been that might have given you ideas to write about

II.Identify the problems

Nearly all 10th grader students in Quang Xuong IV high school can write a complete sentence without making error,they have habit of translating into English words by words from Vietnamese while writing so they often use wrong words or structures in written Engli

The lack of vocabulary and structures make them hestitate writing,furthermore students tend to prefer doing grammartical exercises than writing

III.Previous results of the study

1 Topic for the writing task

“Writing about people’s background-Unit 3,textbook 10 ”

2 Time allowance: 10 minutes (3 minutes for warm – up and 7 minutes for pre

– writing activities)

Class Teachers’ activities Students’

activities

Comments

10B For warm – up:

Teacher pointed at the

textbook and asked her

students “What is this?” –

Some of them said “It is a curriculum

No effective activities

given,student have little chance

“OK Today we are going to

learn how to write about

people’s background”

For pre – writing stage:

Teacher asked her students to

do Task 1, and then she

explained some cues given

below the table

Teacher asked students to do

Task 2 for the while –

writing stage

vitae” Some said nothing, some kept on personal talks

The class was noisy because of the hot weather

Most of the students did nothing and only some of them listened to what the teacher said

to get what a background is in

an interesting way

games,activites for them to do so they easily feel bored and make noise

10K For warm – up:

Teacher showed a table of

one’s information copied in

A4 paper and asked the

students “Can you see what

do you call this? Is this a

curriculum vitae?”

For pre – writing stage:

Teacher also asked students

to do task 1 in the textbook

and then she answered all the

questions by herself if there

was no reply from the

“Yes”

Students seemed tired and nervous and tried to finish their task

Students have nothing to think about, to discuss and nothing to challenge them.

Teacher also asked students

to do task 2 with no emphasis

on what they had to do to

write about peopls’s

background

IV.SUMMARY

The above results show that the pre-writing lacks effective activities and this situation needs improving,which asks the teachers of English in our school think

it over to find something more effective to get students’attention to writing from the beginning of the lessons

B: METHODOLOGY

I BRAINSTORMING

Brainstorming, also called listing, is a process of generating a lot of information within a short time by building on the association of previous terms you have mentioned

 Jot down all the possible terms that emerge from the general topic you are thinking about This procedure works especially well if you work in a team All team members can generate ideas, with one member acting as scribe Don't worry about editing or throwing out what might not be a good idea Simply write down a lot of possibilities

 Group the items that you have listed according to arrangements that make sense to you

 Give each group a label Now you have a topic with possible points of development

 Write a sentence about the label you have given the group of ideas Now you have a topic sentence or possibly a thesis statements

II CLUSTERING

Clustering is also called mind mapping or idea mapping It is a strategy that allows you to explore the relationships between ideas

 Put the subject in the center of a page Circle or underline it

 As you think of other ideas, link the new ideas to the central circle with lines

 As you think of ideas that relate to the new ideas, add to those in the same way

The result will look like a web on your page Locate clusters of interest to you, and use the terms you attached to the key ideas as departure points for your paper

Clustering is especially useful in determining the relationship between ideas You will be able to distinguish how the ideas fit together, especially where there

is an abundance of ideas Clustering your ideas lets you see them visually in a different way, so that you can more readily understand possible directions your paper may take

III.THE JOURNALISTS’QUESTIONS

Journalists traditionally ask six questions when they are writing assignments, 5

W's and 1 H: Who?, What?, Where?, When?, Why?, How? You can use these

questions to explore the topic you are writing about for an assignment A key to using the journalists' questions is to make them flexible enough to account for the specific details of your topic For instance, if your topic is the rise and fall of the Puget Sound tides and its effect on salmon spawning, you may have very

little to say about Who? if your focus doesn't account for human involvement

On the other hand, some topics may be heavy on the Who?, especially if human

involvement is a crucial part of the topic Possible generic questions you can ask using the six journalists' questions follow:

Who are the participants? Who is affected? Who are the primary actors? Who are the secondary actors?

 What?:

What is the topic? What is the significance of the topic? What is the basic problem? What are the issues?

Where does the activity take place? Where does the problem or issue have its source? At what place is the cause or effect of the problem most visible?

When is the issue most apparent? (past? present? future?) When did the issue or problem develop? What historical forces helped shape the problem or issue and at what point in time will the problem or issue culminate in a crisis? When is action needed to address the issue or problem?

Why did the issue or problem arise? Why is it (your topic) an issue or problem at all? Why did the issue or problem develop in the way that it did?

How is the issue or problem significant? How can it be addressed? How does it affect the participants? How can the issue or problem be resolved? The journalists' questions are a powerful way to develop a great deal of

information about a topic very quickly Learning to ask the appropriate

questions about a topic takes practice, however At times during writing an assignment, you may wish to go back and ask the journalists' questions again to clarify important points tat may be getting lost in your planning and drafting

IV.WORKING FROM AN OUTLINE

Once you have a general idea of what will go in the introduction, body, and conclusion of your paper, the next step can be to develop a more specific outline

in which you break down what specifically will be in each paragraph of your essay Although some students find it more effective to create an outline based

on a draft that they have already written, creating an outline ahead of time can help keep your writing more focused than inventing paragraphs as you go

Either method can create great writing - you might want to experiment with both methods to see which one works best for you The purpose of an outline: An outline helps organize your ideas An outline presents your material in a logical form An outline shows the relationship between the ideas in your writing An outline constructs an ordered overview of your writing An outline defines

boundaries and groups within your paper An important part of outlining your ideas is to remain consistent For example, if you are presenting information or ideas in a certain order at the beginning of your paper, don't switch that order half way through your paper This may confuse your reader Try to make it obvious to your readers why and how you are presenting your information so that they don't have to work at figuring out your organization as they are reading your paper Here is an example of an outline covering the topic of rain forest preservation

OUTLINE

1.Introduction

A Square miles

B Location

C Thesis:

Because of the valuable characteristics rain forests possess, the rapid

destruction of the forests is creating negative effects on the environment

2 Characteristics of rain forests

A Variety of species

B Value of rain forests

- Medicinal values

- Food values

3 The destruction of rain forests

A Rate at which rain forests are destroyed

B Reasons why rain forests are destroyed

- Poverty

- Large company projects

4 Effects on environment

A Extinction of species