The effect of pairwork and groupwork in improving writing skills for the first year students at the university off technology, hcm

In other words, they have difficulty doing the pre-writing act the hardest stage of the whole writing process as well asexpected; 3 the first-year students' and teachers' wrong attitudes

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I here by certify my authorshipof the thesis submitte d today entitled :

THE EFFECT OF PAIRWORK AND GROUPWORK

IN IMPROVING WRITING SKILLS FOR THE FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY,HCMC

interms of the state me ntof

Requirements for These s in Master' sPrograms

issued b the HigherDe gre e Committee

HoChiMinh City, August 30, 2006

HUYNHTHJatcn PHUQNG

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, Huynh Thi Bich Phuong, being the candidate for the degree of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities relating to the retention and use of Master's Thesis deposited in the Library.

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original version of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for care, loan, or reproduction of thesis.

H6 Chi Minh City, August 30, 2006.

HUYNH THl BtCH PHVC,jNG

Iam also grateful tothe organizers of thismaster course, Dr Le Hiru Phuoc,Head

of the Dep artm ent of Post Gradu ate Studies of H6 Chi Minh City Univer sity ofSocial Scienc e s and Humanitie s and Mr Nguyen Huynh Dat, M.A., De an of theDep artm ent of English Linguistics and Liter atur e, H6 Chi Minh City University ofSocialScienc e s and Humanitie s, and their staff memb er s

My spec ial thank s must go to the teacher s and student swho were very responsive

to the survey questionn aire s, without whom the the sis could not have beenpossible ; all teachers who gave rem ark s and advice , which are inva luable for thethesis In part icular, I wish to thank the teachers who were willing to aid me tomark the stude nts' writing paper s that are conside re d the indispe nsa ble part of thethesis

I also wish to thank Ms Yvonne Bissonnette who was very enthusias tic to readand give corre ction of mechani cal errors, ambiguous sentences, as well asstructura l probl em s

In addition, these friend s and colleagues of mine : Nguyen Thi Thu Hien, NguyenThi ThQ, Ha ThiTu yet Trinh, Huynh Qu6c Minh Chau wer e particularly of greathelp in my prep aring of the thesis and searching for rele vant refere nces My

he artfelt appre ciation is expressed to allof them

Last, I would like to ded icate the thesis to my family: my father, my mother, mysister, and especia lly my husband who, as always, have been wholeh eartedlysupportive The y have taken care of everything so that I could devote all time tothe writing ofthe the sis Iamgrea tly indebted to allofthe m

iii

This thesis examines how to improve the quality of first-year students'writing performance at the University of Technology, HCMC in the light ofapplying pairwork and groupwork to the pre-writing act

In order to do this, questionnaires were delivered to the first-year students

in Course 2004-2005 and teachers currently in charge of GE at UT to elicit dataabout (1) first-year students' difficulties in writing; (2) some suggestions of whatshould been done to facilitate the situation Besides, a quasi-experiment wasconducted to prove the activities in pairs and groups can be very helpful for pre-writing act in particular, and writing performance in general

The results of the study show that (1) pairwork and groupwork can greatlyhelp the first-year students in idea discovery and organization; (2) the first-yearstudents have difficulty generating and organizing ideas, finding out appropriatewords, phrases, expressions, etc or even making grammatical sentences and toexpress their ideas clearly and exactly In other words, they have difficulty doing

the pre-writing act (the hardest stage of the whole writing process) as well asexpected; (3) the first-year students' and teachers' wrong attitudes toward theteaching and learning writing skills

The thesis suggests that (1); pairwork and groupwork should be applied fordiscussions to assist the first-year students to be able to discover and organizeideas more effectively; (2) the topic for discussions and writing tasks should be thesame and the first-year students should be offered enough time for discussionbefore starting to write; (3) a design of tips, techniques, and even guided questions

as a writing supplementary material should be made to assist the first-yearstudents to understand more about the forms of paragraph writing as well as toorient them to do the pre-writing act more effectively; (4) an amount of fixed time

and assignments for writing should be spent regularly in class (and even at home).However, neither the teachers nor the students alone can make the whole process

of teaching and learning successful; in fact they should be both aware of theirshared roles in a writing class and willing to cooperate in order to create afavorable atmosphere in which collaborative work is a must There is no doubt that

if pairwork and groupwork are applied for writing performance together withefforts of both teachers and students, a lot of success will be certainly made

v

ABBREVIATIONS & SYMBOLS

: Cambridge University Press : English 1

: English 2 : English 3 : English 4 : English as Foreign Language : English as Second Language : General English

: Ho Chi Minh City : Second Language : Oxford University Press : University o f Technology

: indicates the source for the information mentioned above on the same page.

0.3 1 1 Participants and their syllabus 3

0.3.1.3 The writingperformance involved in the thesis 4

Chapter 1: BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY • •.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.• • •.• 81.1DESCRIPTION OF THEENGLISH SYLLABUS FOR UT FIRST-YEAR

1.2.1First-year stude nts' writingbackground 10

1.2.2First-yearstude nts' attitudes toward writingskills 11

vii

2.1.2.1 The process of writing 15

2.2 BRIEF INTRODUCTION OF METHODS RELATING TO

2.2.2.5The Functional-N otional approach 252.3THE RELATION BETWEEN SPEAKING AND WRITING SKILLS 272.3.1Differ en cesbetweenspeakingskillsand writingskills 2

2.3.2Reciprocitiesbetween speaking and writing skills 28

2.4 PAIRWORK AND GROUPWORK IN RELATION TO

2.4.2 Advant ages and disadv antages ofpairworkand groupwork activities 30

2.4.3How pairw ork and groupwork assistto improve writingskills 32

2.6SOME RESEARCHES RELATING TO THE IMPROVING OF

3.2.2.1Que stionnair es forstude nts 41

5.1.2 Skill-integrated approac hes toteaching and le arningL2writing 8

LI ST OF FIGURES

Page

Chapter 2

Figure 2.1: Theprocess of the writingskill byHed ge 16

Figure 2.2: The stages andsub-stages ofthe writing process 16

Figure 2.3: Procedu res involvedin producing a written

Chapter 3

Table 4.1: First-ye ar stude nts' perception about the importance ofspea kingand

writingskills toward the process ofcommunication _ 5

Table4.2:Effects of the conte ntsoftests on the first-yea rstude nts'

Table 4.7:First-ye ar stude nts' selfassessmentabout their abilityofspea king 61

Table 4.8: First-yearstude nts' ideas about the effec tsofpair/ groupwork on

Table4.9: First-ye ar stude nts' ideasabout theimportance ofteachers'

Table 4.10: Te acher s' opinionsabout the degree ofdifficulty of the stages

ofthe writing process for the first-ye arstude nts _ 67

Table4.11: Teachers' ide as about the first-year stude nts' common mistakes

Table4.12: Teacher s' commentsabout the first-yearstudents' expec tationof

Tabl e 4.13: Te achers' ideas abouteffec tsofpair/ groupwork on pre- writing act 71

Table 4.14: Teacher s' viewabout their roles for the first-year stude nts'

Table 4.15: Te achers' commentsabout their effectson the stude nts' pre- writing

Table 4.16:Results of task I, scored by threedifferent teacher s 79

Table 4.17: Re sults oftask 2, score d bythreedifferent teacher s 81

x i

THE EFFECT OF PAIRWORK ArtD GROOPWORK

In IMPROVinG WRITlrtG SKillS FOR THE FIRST-YEAR STODEnTS AT THE onlVERSITY OF TECHnOLOGY HCMC

be good at the four skills namely listening, speaking, reading, and writing aftergraduation That is the very aim of the General English (abbreviated as GE)syllabus for the first-year students as well.

As a matter of fact, every skill has its own importance that can make itdifferent from other skills Writing is the "form of social communication", andconsequently writing well means "knowing well" because writing can help ussort out a misunderstanding with a friend, plan a vacation, or make an importantdecision Moreover, "Writing permits us to understand not only the world, butalso the self"(Lindemann, 1995)

In language learning, writing helps to foster the other skills as it isaffirmed by Raimes (1983); Truong Quang Phu (1996); Bello (1999) ManyTESOL authors, according to Young et al (1999), capitalize on the significance

of the teaching and learnin g of writing to enha nce language acquisition such as

Conn or (1987),Dolly (1990), Raimes (1991),Urzua (1987), Zamel , (1983)

However, most of the first-year stude nts at UT do not seem tohave good

motivati on in learnin g writing skills The ypaymore atte ntion to othe r skills such

as speaking and listening As a result, their ability to do a piece of writing

bec om es problematic More convincingly, the obse rva tion and examination of a

conside ra ble number of the first-ye ar student s' written papers in recent years

rev eal a noticeable problem in their low language competenc e , lack of ideas, aswell as failure to orga nize ideas Thus, it can be inferred that bad motivation in

learning writing skills of the first-year stude nts at UT neg atively effects the

quality of their writing performance, mainly in the stage ofpre-writing (one of

the three stages of the writing process):discoverin g ideas, selecting appropriate

word s,phrases, andexpres sionsas well as organizing ideas

0.2AIMS AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Since the writing skill is nece ssary to the first-yea r stude nts at UT, due

atte ntion should be paid to the le arning of this skill by stude nts and even the

teachers This thesis is one of the atte mpts to d that On the basis of curre nt

problems tow ard s writing skills and first-year stude nts' attitudes toward s studyingEnglish, the res earcher spec ially focuses on finding out ways or techniques that

can be helpful for crea ting positive motivation in le arnin g writing skills for thefirst-year students.Finally , some recommendationsshould be given to improve the

teach ing and learning of the skill to such students In orde r to achieve the overa ll

objectives , the twofollowin gresearchquestions are taken intoconsid eration:(1) What are the basic factors that negati vely effe ct the first-year stude nts

in learningwriting skills at UT?

(2) Can oral activities (mai nly pairwork and group work) motivate the firsyear students and bring any good effects on the pre-writi ng act in order

t-to improve theirability of writing?

The study also de als with three more sub-ques tions which will support and

keep the study on the right track forthe achievemen tofthe genera lgoals

~ What is the writing process? How many stages are the re in the writingprocess and the ir characteris tics?

~ Wha tare the basicrequ irem en ts fora successful discussion in pairs

and ingroups?

~ In what ways can pairwork and groupwork assist the first-year students

at UT to do the pre-writing act better ?

0.3 LIMITATION AND DELIMITATION

0.3.1Limitation

0.3.1.1 Participan ts and theirsyllabus

As a matter of fact, the students at UT are supposed to finish the GEsyllabus includi ngcourses ofEnglish I (abbreviatedas EI), English 2 (abbreviated

as E2), English 3 (abbre viated as E3) and English 4 (abbreviated as E4)

respectively be fore starting the obligatory courses ofEnglish for SpecificPurposes(abbreviated as ESP)

Howe ve r, all students ha ve to take the place me nt test in the first-year The

results collec ted are used to place stude nts in the right course in orde r to assure

that students' proficiency of English is equal in the same class That also means

the first-year students can skip E3 or E4 if the results of the test prove their

English level is high enough In reality, most of the first-year stude nts are only

qualified for course EI, the re fore , course EI is the focus of the thesis, and themain parti cipants, absolute ly, are the first-year stude nts who are using the

3

courseb ook KnowHow 2 (by Angela Blackwell- Therese Naber 2003, OxfordUniver sity Pres s) as theirmain coursebook

0.3.1.2 Stages of thewriting proce ss

The writing process has three stages and pre- writing is the most important

stage to the discover y and organiza tionof ideas This stage can effect the quality

of the whole piece of writing and therefore , finding out the appropriate ways andtechniques to assist learner s to perform this stage effec tively is the focus of the

study

0.3.1.3 The writing per formance involved in thethesis

All of the atte mpts in the thesis are to assist the first-year students to write

paragraph swith given topics effective ly because (1 ) paragraph writing isthe focus

of the syllabus; (2) para graph writing can be understood the basis for developing

thewritingskill

0.3.2 Delimitation

Ways, techniqu es and strategie s that are suggested in the study are only

applicable to the first-year stude nts at UT,HeMe. because they are mainly drawn

from studying the se stude nts' characteri stics and problems as well as their GE

syllabusat UT They are mainly suggested with the aims to improve the first-year

stude nts' pre- writing act, and thus, the other writing stages are excluded Last but

not lea st, the El course is the focus of the study Therefore , the findings andimplications for te aching and learning sugges ted in this thesis are mainlybeneficial tothe stude ntsof El course only

0.4 METHODOLOGY

The studyis carriedout using:

(a) qualitative methodology to describe , explain, and investigate thefactors that influen ce the first-year stude nts' writing skills in the hope of gaining

effect ive ped agogical strategies and techniques In addition, writing is proved to

be the very necessary skill for the students at UT in particular, for the people

working in English- using environme nt in gen eral b two different interviews : (l )

one with Dr Nguyen The Bao,the Director of the Foreign Language Centre at UT

about the requirem ents of GE syllabu s, (2) one with the graduates from UT who

have been working for forei gn or Joint-Venture companies, toget their idea s about

the importance of writing in their jobsand their life

(b) quantitative methodology that aims at a full analysis of the descripti ve

data relating to the answe rs to the rese arch questionsand sub-ques tions The data

are collec ted through (1) a questionnaire for about 20 colle agues about problem s

and meth ods of teachingand learn ing writing skills,(2) a que stionnaire ofattitudes

and difficulties in learning writing skills among 150 first-year stude nts at UT, (3)

last but not least,a quasi-exp erim ent is applied totwo groups of participants (120

first-ye arstude nts in total ) togeth er with two tasks of writing (tas k 1and task 2) to

prove the feasibilityofthe sugges ted ways and techniquesin the thesis

0.5 OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

A survey is conducted to identify factors that effect the first-yea r students'

ability to produce a good piece of paragraph writing, especially in the term s of

lan guage competence, ide asdiscovery and organization(the pre-writin g stage) In

addition, que stionnaire s are deliv er ed to students to ask about their writing

difficultie s, writing practice , need s, and their attitudes toward writing skills

Moreover, they are asked to express their idea s about ways to facilitate writing

activities Questionnaires are also sent to teachers and their recommendations to

improve the situation are collected Small talks with teachers and students are

carrie d out deli catel y in a frie ndly way to understand bett er their thoughts and

worries The re sults of analysis of the questionnaires' responses are the bases to

workout whattodotofacilit ate and improve the first-year stude nts' writing skills

5

Beside s the introduction (which introdu ces the probl em of the study, its aims

and the overvie w of the thesis), and the conclusio n (which is the closing words

restating briefl y what the thesis has discussed ), the thesis consists of five

chapt ers:

./' Chapt er I provid es the background informa tion of the study: a des cription

of English sylla bus for UT first-ye ar stude nts and the factors effecting them on

their studying writingskills

./' Chapt er2 gives a revi ew ofthe rele vant literature tothe issues oftea ching

and learning of writing skills in five major sections: (1 ) the nature of the

writing skill; (2) a brief introdu ction ofmethods and some researches relatin g

to the writing skill; (3) the rel ationship bet ween the writing skill and speaking

skill; (4) effects ofpairw ork and groupwo rkon improving writing skills;and(5)

designin g guide d que stions in rel ation to improve the quality of stude nts'

discussion in pairs and groups This chaptergives the theore tical contex tofthe

study

./' Chapt er 3, which is orga nize d in two sections, presents the meth odology of

the study In the first section, the steps applied to carry out the study (as well as

to give answers to the re search que stions menti oned in the Introdu ction) are

ide ntifie d In the second section, descriptions of (1 ) the participants (to whom

que stionnaires are deli vered i.e , the first-year studen ts and te achers ) and (2)

the instruments (ques tionnaires and aquasi-e xperiment) are given

./' Chapter 4 ana lyzes the questionn aire responses (in two sections: stude nts'respo nses, and te achers' re sponses), and the quasi-experiment The data

ana lysis is inte nde d to ide ntify (1) what main obstacles pre vent the first-year

stude nts from doing the pre- writin g act well and (2) how helpful discussions in

pairs and groups are for improving the first-yea r stude nts' ability ofdoing the

pre- writin gact parti cularl y andwriting per form ance gene ra llyat UT

./ Chapter 5: reveals implications and suggests some techniques and strategies

to facilitate the first-year students' pre-writing act in order to improve thequality of their writing works

Hopefully, this thesis brings about practical benefits to the teachers andstudents at UT in terms of teaching and learning writing skills by pointing out first-year students' problems and giving useful and feasible suggestions, thus makingthe learning of writing skills of the students concerned more effective

7

Chapter 1- B ackground to th e study

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

-_._ -_._

_ -_._ -_._._ This cha pte r provides backg round information crucial to underst anding why

the first-year stude nts at UT have difficulty producing a good piece of writing.This chapter is organized in two sections The first section is a description of the

GE syllabus with writing skills currently in use at UT for the first-year students

The second section is about the factors effecting the first-year students on writing

1.1.1 Aims of the syllabus

Being part s of the whole GE syllabus of UT to help stude nts achieve PrInterm edi ate level with equalconsideration for the fourskills(listening, spea king,

e-read ing, and writing),requi rement s for the El course also concentrate on the four

skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing In other words, the four skills are

conside re d equally important and should be treated equally among the learners.It

means w riting is an es sential and o bligatory skill for th e first- year stud ents s tudying

th e£1 sy llabus at UT and s hould n ot b e n eglected

The first-year stude nts, who are also the participants of this study, use

Kn owHow 2 (by Angel a Blackwell-Therese Naber 2003, Oxford University Press)

as the ir course book; which has 1 units The first six units are for course El and

the other six are for E2 Course El consists of 70 periods (45minutes/ a period)

Chapter 1- Background to the stud y

There are 2 se ssions per week:one sessionis 3 period s long and the other is only

2.The total time length of course El isaccordingly 14 weeks

1.1.2 Coursebook

In general, the four skills in this book are designed in the light ofintegration The topics for all skills are often closely related to one another Inmore details,the structure of the course book can be illustrated in this table:

Items

§ c::

Table 1.1 : Items in the courseb ookKn owHow2for first-year stude nts at UT

(Source : Course book Kn owHo w2 by Angel a Blackwell - Therese Naber 2003, OUP)

N ote:

a Numbers (l ~ 14): the order of the items in each unit.

b *Oth ers:

- Unit 3: Building vocabulary.

- Unit 5 : When you don 't know a word.

- Unit 7 : De aling with mistake s

- Unit II : Choosing vocabulary to learn

9

Chapter 1- Backgroundto thestudy

The data from the table show that conside rable attention, in the courseb ook,

has been paid to language skills such as listening, speaking, re adin g, and writing

In one unit, each skill is designed with two items for stude nts to practi ce

Howe ver, an unequal treatm ent of the four skills can be seen clearly: only one

item is for the writing skill Other items are not designed to support writing skills

exce pt as grammar focuse s Moreover, the content in this course book lacksessentia l techniques and tips that are supportive for writing perform ance and even

instru ctions for the features ofdifferentform sof writing (for exa mple a summa ry,

are view, a descripti on )are not found , eithe r

One might argue that if the course book lacks some thing, the teache r is

supposed to add it,or that the bookislea ving the teacher a cha nce toindividualize

his instructions How e ver , te acher s need some gene ral framew orks as a basic It

will be even more compli cating and confusing if differ ent teacher s say differ ent

things Moreover, such framew orks will be neces sary for stude nts' further se

lf-study Thus, it is esse ntial to have a unified suppleme ntary materi al forstude nts to

follow

1.2 FACTORS EFFECTING UT FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS ON STUDYINGWRITING SKILLS

In this section, the researcher of the thes is is going to present the main

causes which de-motiv ate the first-year stude nts at UT in studying writing skills

These causes are colle cted from opinions and answer s of the first-ye ar stude nts of

five classe s chosen at rand om ; of twenty teacher s te achin g El; and of the

re se archer' steachin g expe rie nces

1.2.1 First-yearstudents' writing background

The most notice abl e thing is that a conside rable number of the first-year

stude nts at UT are non-majors in English whomight tak e the English curriculum ofthree to sevenyears at their high schoo l They are not awa re of what they need to

Chapter 1- Background to the study

do toprod uce a good piece of writing andmostof them probably have nothad anyformal writing course Moreover, the High School curriculum mainly taught them

some knowledge of vocabulary and grammatical rules (Le Nguyen Minh Th9,

2000) Hen ce , they do not seem to master the stages for composing a piece ofwriting (including pre-writing, while-w riting, andpost-writing) Asked abouttheir

obstacles, many students unhesi tatingly express their worries about lacking ideas

or appropria te words, phrases, expressio ns, and even structures in some cases.90% of the total participants of the survey expressed the same idea : "I do not

know how to write ", "I d not know what to write" or "I am not goodatwriting"

Ther efore , there is actually a lot to be done to get stude nts ready for writing

complete texts because they confronta lot of difficulties, especially in the stage of

managi ng how to get started and what to do

1.2.2 Firs t-year stude nts'att itudes toward wr itingskills

Inrecent years, globalization as well as its effects on various aspects of life

is a phenomenon about which people are talking a lot.One of its mostremarkablefeatures is the process of globalizedEnglish As Russell (2000) points out, English

has spread "through the products of the new technologies, including: the internet,the mass media, the mass enterta inment industries, and international political

bodies " As a result, English now has become "the main language " whenever

people ment ion issues of "publishing, science, technology,commerce, diplomacy,

air-traffic control" andeven "pop music " (Culpep per, 1997).Therefore ,it is easy

to under stand why more and more people in the world generally, and in Vietnam

in particular, take English classes to learn the language or why more and moreschools are opened to offer learners better facilities in their learning of English It

is someti mes exaggerated that people who know no English at all are outsiders of

a society So, English these days seems to be "a must" in people's life Inmost of

the colleges and universities, English gradually becomes an obligatory subject in

11

Chapter 1- Background to the study

order to equip students with English knowledge, that is necessary for them to meetsome of society's needs as Dr Nguyen The Bao once stated in his view of thespecial importance of English to graduates and applicants* It means that themastering of four skills to be able to use and communicate in English is the coreobjective of the English syllabus at colleges and universities However, a surveyconducted by handing out questionnaires to one hundred and fifty first-yearstudents showed unsatisfactory results Most of them pay very poor attention towriting skills but they are more concerned with listening and speaking skills.When asked to number the language skills in order of importance, 66.6% of first-year students named listening as the number-one skill, 64% thought that speakingwas the second important, and 49.3% were in favor of reading Writing alwaysoccupied the fourth position Moreover, the first-year students at UT do notunderstand that writing skills can be helpful for them to achieve their aims at beingable to communicate in English in life or work As a matter of fact, writing skillsplay an important role for them in communication and in jobs This is provenclearly by results of an interview carried out among the engineers at the HolcimJoint- Venture Company and the Dutch Lady Company (see appendix 4) 95% ofthe participants insisted that they usually use English to write reports, go on dailyinternal e-mail contacts, do presentations, or reports at workshops and seminars,etc Undoubtedly, part of the failure is caused by students' attitudes towardswriting

1.2.3 Other factors

• Thi s information was s upplied by Mr Nguyen The Ba o, the Director of the Foreign Lan guage Centre o f

UT HCMe in an informal interview on 12 June 2005

Ch apter 1- Background to th e stud y

Fir st of all, there is a mism atch betw e en the cont ent of the t est and the

r equirements of th e sy llabus Th e w riting s kill is alm ost n e ver t ested d ire ctly i n th e

f orm o f p aragraphs, es says, e tc but o nly i n th e f orm of g rammatical point s a nd

s truc tures b oth in mid -term a nd fin al p ap er s, th ere fore , m ost of th e s tude nts m ay

h ardly r e cogniz e it s i mporta nce, a nd th ey t end t o fo cus o n th e skill s and p oints that they have t o t ake in th e tests t o m e et the impending r equirements

S e condl y, m ost o f th e t e acher s o fte n co mplain th e y d n ot h ave e nough tim e t o c over a ll th e it ems in e ach unit Th e y r eve al that th eir fi rst-year s tude nts

a re t oo w eak f or all th e as pec ts of s tudying En glish S o, in th eir o pinion, th ere is

n o goo d r e ason t o t ake tim e t o t each a ny s kill th at d oes n ot sa tisfy s tude nts' current need s or that is not r el evant to th e test s Th at also m eans , to s ome extent,

so me t eachers a re r elu ctant t o t e ach th e wri ting s kill, whi ch unintent ionally d

e-m otivates s tude nts ' e nthusias m of s tudying w riting a nd effec ts n e gativel y t hei r writin g ability M ore co nvincingly, th e r em arks a nd sco res ( made b y thre e

d iffe rent t e achers) of th e w riting p aper s fro m o ne hundr ed a nd t wen ty p art icipants ( in the qu asi-experiment) s howed that ove r h alf of th em a re w eak at w ord c hoice

a nd id e as d iscove ry a nd o rga niza tion.

la ng ua ge; ( 3) i nsufficie nt wr iting tip s o r t e chniqu es for th eir n e ed s Thu s, th ese

f actors sh ould b w ork ed o ut t o f ind a ppropriate so lutions fo r impro ving fi rst -ye ar

s tude nts' wr iting s kills and sa tisfying th e r equirem ent s o f th e GE sy llabus.

13

Chapter 2- Literature review

- _ -

- _ - _- -_.

In the previous chapter, background informati on to the study has been

given Chapt er 2 is the review of the relevant literature to the issues of teaching

and learning of writing skills including: (I) the nature of the writing skill; (2) a

briefintroduction of methods and some rese arches relating to the writing skill; (3)

the relationship between the writing and speaking skills as well as the effects ofpairwork and groupw ork on improving writing skills The discussions are intended

toprovide a theoretical ske tchof the study

2.1 THE NATURE OF THE WRITING SKILL

2.1.1 What is writing?

Writing, stated by Bui Ye'n Ngoc (2000), is a proces s of translating our

combinations of lett ers, which rel ate to the sounds we make when we spea k

Howe ver, we rar ely write just one se nte nce or even a number of unrelated

sentences We produce a seque nce of sentences arranged in a particular orderand linked together in cert ain ways While they are linked , they form a coherent

whole- a text Through the medium of writing we hope to be able to

communicate successfully with our re ders.According toByrne (1988),writing is

a proce ss of encoding (putting your mess age intowords) carriedout with a reader

in mind; or " a complex, cognitive process that requires sustained intellectual

effortover a considerable period of time " (White& Arndt, 1991)

In terms of skills, the writing skill is one of the two productive skills:

speaking and writing However, it can be distinguished from speaking skills

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thanks to "the single most importantdifferen ce ", that is "the need for accuracy"(Harme r, 1991) In other words,ther e is a grea ter need for logical orga nization in

a piece of writingthan there isin a conve rsa tion,for the reader hastounderstandwhat has been written without asking for clarification or relying on the write r' s

tone of voice or expression Hence, "producing a coherent , fluent , extende dpiece of writing is probably the most difficult thing" (Nunan, 1999) to do inlanguage It is some thing most native speakers never master For thisreason, thechallenges become more enormous for second language learners

In terms of communication, Lindemann (1995) notes that writing is aprocess of communication that uses a conventi onal graphic system to convey a

message to a reader Writing is also considered dialogue because throughwriting, people can exchange ideas, information, etc In other words, writing

can help comm unica tion carried out indirectly for "wr iting wa s a s ubservient skill ,

w hose f unctio n was t o s upport t he deve lopment of o ral l anguage"(Nunan, 2000)

In summa ry, writing is a process of communication that uses a conventiona lgraphic syste m inorde r toconve y amessage toa reader

2.1.2 The writing process

2.1.2 1 The process ofwriting

The proce ss of writing is defined as "the step s a writer takes to write anessay or some othe r kind of writing Whate ver rel ated thinking, rese arching,drafting, revising, getting re sponses from readers, editing and proofreading you dofrom the moment you recei ve your assignment to the moment you hand in your

essay-th es e ste ps taken together make up your writing process By improving

various part s of your process, you may improve the written product, your essay".(source: <http : //w3 l vi cc nm us/- n s eek ing/eOOconcp htm>)

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The writing process is very necessary because (a) it can help writers toorganize their thoughts; (b) it can help writers to avoid frustration andprocrastination (c) it can help writers to use their time productively and efficiently

2.1.2.2The stages of the writing process

As a matter of fact, different researchers approach the writing process indifferent ways Hedge (1988) suggests the writing process with a number of stepsmaking a sequence as in the following figure:

Figure 2.1: The process of the writing skill by Hedge (1988)

It is noticeable that the main contents indicated from the sequence operate

in tum and consist of the stages of preparation (being motivated to write; gettingideas together; planning and outlining; making notes), writing (making a firstdraft;revising; replanning; redrafting),revising, and editing

Another writing process is found in the form of a pyramid in which onestage (with some steps) is the base for the others to profit:

POST ·WRlTING

WHILE· WRITING

PRE·WRITING

Figure 2.2 : The stag es and sub-stag es of the writing process.

(Sourc e : <http ://owl.english.purdu e.edulworkshops/pp/writproc.PPT>)

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- - - - - - -

-Obviously, de spite different express ions, the step s ofthe writing proce sscan

be grouped into thre e main stages as Smalley (200 I) states "while different writers

can approach the process in different ways, all writers g through a general

sequen ce of stages called pr e-w riting, drafting , and r evising " Moreover, these

stages can be nam ed in othe r words such as (1) pr e - writing, w hile-w riting, r

e-w riting (Linde ma nn, 1995), or (2) pr e-writing, whil e-writing, p ost- writin g (Holt &Winston, 1988):

• (1) Pre-writing: involves using structure d activities to help stude nts gather

andorga nize material for writingand become engaged withspecifictopics

• (2) While-writing:consists of makin g afirstdraft,reviewing, and revising

• (3) Post-writin g: consists of reading through and trying to apply a reader ' s

perspective inorde r to assess howclearly readersmightfollowthe ideas

It is convincing that all the stages and steps of the writing process d not

ope ra te sepa ra te ly They either serve as a base to one another or work as a

recursive proce ss While you are revi sing, you might have to return to the

prewriting step to dev el op and expand your ideas Discussing this characteristic,

White (1991 ) suggests a recursive process involving six procedures that learners

should compl et e before producing a firstdraft:

Dra fting f- - - _)

Figure 2 3: P rocedu re s i nvolved i n pr oducing a wr itten t ext b Wh ite (1 991)

In short, the writing process has three main stages that make a recursive process:

pre-writing, while -writing,and post-writin g

2.1.2.3 Pre-writing

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There i s n d oubt th at pr e -writing i s th e s tage of ge ne rating id e as, ga the ring

in formati on , and o rga nizing th em fo r w riting It i s co nside re d a cru cial s te p i n

pr eparing t o w rite b ec au se it ca n p rovide wr iter s w ith "a se nse of purp ose a nd a

se nse of a udie nce" th anks to a nswe ring th e tw o qu e stions: (a) w hat i s th e pu rpose

o f th is p iece of w riting? ( b) wh o am I writing for?( H ed ge , 19 88) B es ides, it i s th e

ri ght s tage that c an h elp writ er s finish th eir writ ing p er form ance well Thu s, pr writing i s known as " the hard est part of writing " b ec au se it i s " the c ompl ex netw ork o f initial m ental se que nce s we undergo wh en we write a paper" ( Gould,

e-1989 ) If th e pr e-writing s tage i s prepared pe rfe ctly, th e whole pie ce of w riting will

be b etter. For thi s r eason, d iffer ent s tra tegies a nd t echniques f or r emoving som e of the p erceptual b arri ers that pre vent writ ers fro m thinkin g a re alwa ys in

re se archers ' mind s a nd thi s th esis i s a lso f or th at purp ose

2 1.2.4 T e chn iqu es fo r pr e-writing

A Ch ara cteri st ics of goo d pr e-writing activ ities:

In or der t o p erform th e pr e- writing s tage we ll, it i s imp ortant t o co nside r

so me o f the c ha racteristics of goo d p re-writing act ivities Acco rding t o Z em elm an

& D ann ie ls (1 988), th e re a re five ch aracteri stics th at s hould b e t aken int o

co nside ra tion:

A l Pre-writin g m ay includ e intern al a ctivities s uch as thinking, m em ory sea rch, and c ont empl atin g p erson al v alues, but it c an a lso i nclude s uch thing s a s dialogue , r esearch, data gath ering, experiments, cla ss di scussion, or debate.

A.2 Pr e-writing is the s tage that h elp s s tude nts r e aliz e they h av e a gre at

d e al of c hoice in ge ne rating and ch oosing id ea s Thu s, t e acher- guided pr e-writing

d oes n ot n e ce ssaril y m ean di ctating th e co nte nt o f s tude nts' wr iting, o r eve n

i ndica ting th e f orm o r s truc ture of wh at th e s tude nts w ill w rite

A.3 Pr e-writing i nvo lves mul tiple s te ps a rra nge d in a se que nce th at

s uppo rts stud ents ' ow n t hinking, a nd th e o rder of th e se s te ps di ffer d ep end ing o n

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-the circumstances It is common that the first step is to surface some sharedconcern or interest in the class Next, students can list questions and ideas thathave de vel oped in their minds as a result of the initial stimulus Finally, they canlook for a focus inthe material the y have begunto amass before the ybegin actualdrafting

A.4 Pre-writing takes time whateverapproac hes are used

A.5 Pre -writing is just as important for transac tional-pers uasive,

de scriptive , and info rmative-writing as for personal, autobiogra phica l pieces Infact, not only is tran sactional writing important throughout schooling, it is a

valuab le avenue of persona l growth, andauseful tool in life Pre- writing activitiesare an efficient way to make such writing meaningful and help stude nts improveits quali ty

B l. Brainstorming: Brainstorming is a sudden insight or connection.Brainstorming is a way to associate ideas and stimulate thinking, and can be used

to focus on a particular topic or to develop more examples or ideas for essays inprogress Its goal is to create as long a list of topics (or ideas, ) as possible ina settime period (Smalley& Ruett en & Kozyrev, 2001)

B.2 Fre e writing: Free writing is writing without stopping It means writingwha tevercomes to the writer's mind withoutworryingaboutwhether the ideas aregood or the grammar is correct Its purpose is to free up his mind to let it makeassociations andconnections (Smalley & Ruett en ,& Kozyre v, 2001)

B.3 Making a list: Making a list is listing as many different items as awriter can think of concerning his topic Its aim is to generate de tails and toaccumulate as much raw material for writing as possible (Langan, 1996)

B.4.Journal keeping: Journal keeping is a way that many writers keep to jotdown thei r thoughts, experiences, and ideas flowing into their minds every day

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- - -

-Later, when they need a referenc e or an impre ssion of some past event, these

note sbecome very helpful (Go uld& DiYann i&Smith, 1989)

B.S Clustering (Diagramming or Mappin g): Cluste ring is making a visual

map ofyour ide as by using lines, boxe s, arrows,and circles to show relationships

between the ideas and det ails coming to writer s (Sma lley & Ruetten & Kozyrev ,

200 1)

B.6 Discussion (in pair s and in groups): Discussion can help to generateideas well for some reasons: (a) it increases the amount of individual participation

for a given time peri od; (b) itallows for stude nt initiative and responsibility (since

the group can not ha ve the teacher sitting in with them ); (c) it encourage s friendl y

compe tition(whe n the groups comp are notes) (Ze me lman& Danniels, 1988)B.7 Using questions: questions are an important prompt for writers Good

writers always think of inter esting questions to ask because these yield interes ting

answe rs The common questionsbeginning with Who, What, Wher e ,When , Why,

How can be recomb ined to form more complex ones In teaching and learning

writing,questions cancome from stude ntsthemse lves or the y can be given setsof

que stionsinste ad (White & Arndt, 1991)

B.8 Making notes: Making notes on a topic is a long-standing techniquethat includes unstru ctured and structure d notes to provide a basis for organizing

ideas when drafting (White & Arndt, 1991)

B.9 Using visuals : Using visuals is using a wide range of visually -ba sedmateri alin the tea ching of writing.Visual materi alcan beclassified as follow:

- Photographs,pictures:r epresentationalmaterialVisually-

based - - - Physicalobjects:rea lia

material _Charts,diagrams,maps:s y mbolicmaterial

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- - - - -

for writerstouse theirimagination (White & Arndt, 1991)

stimuli for many different type s of writing Inrole play or simulation,stude ntscan

Arndt, 1991)

scra tch outline, a writer thinks carefully about the exact point he is making , about

arra nge them Henc e ,a scrat ch outline is espec iallyimportant toplanning anessaywith three parts: an introdu ction, supporting paragraph s, anda conclusion(Langa n,

1996)

2.2 BRIEF INTRODUCTION OF METHODS RELATING TO WRITINGSKILLS

fore ign lan gua ge for a great de al of stude nts and even teacher s Man y of them

skill in languag e learnin g until the 1970s.Later, when the dem and for writing skill

eme rge d among the stude nts whowanted to study in English speakingcountries or

the othe rs with desire s of various occupations, researchers started to inves tigate

2.2.1Early ESL Methods

2.2.1.1 The Grammar-TranslationMeth od

TP HO CUI MINH

• A (\ ' ) ( I ) ~

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-This method is cle arl y rooted in the forma l te aching of Latin and Greek ,

schoo ls all ove r the world (Ta ng, 2003; Rivers & Temp erl ey, 1998) It aims at

enabling studentsto read scie ntific works and enjoy liter aryworks,mostlyclassics.Grammar is taught dedu ctivel y b means of long and elaborate explanations Thewritingskill is almos t negl ected

2.2 1.2 The DirectMethod

This method is based on the theory that students learn to understand a

This method mainly aims at developing the students' abilitytocommunicate in the

foreign langu age (Ta ng, 2003; Rivers & Temp erley, 1998) The teacher s

encourage learning b the direct association of foreign words and phrases with

objects and actions without any use of the native language b the teacher of the

stude nts It makes the stude nts participate , encourages good pronunciation and

intona tion, promote s communica tive use of the language ;but studen ts may lack asyste ma tic learn ing of structures and vocabulary as well as instructions for writing

four language skills, beginning with listening and spea king, and using these as a

1998).It can be understood that oral languag e was seen as a pathway to language

success.It was beli e ved that if a stude nt can spea k English well, he will be able to

limite d to the teaching of handwriting skills to students whose native language

Chapter2 - Literaturereview

which instructed them to copy piece s of discourse and make some discrete

changes orfill in the blank s (Dykstra, 1977;Ross, 1968)

In fact, the philosoph y of controlled writing gre w directly out of the a

udio-lingual method : stude nts are taught incre me ntally, errors are prevented, andfluency is expectedto arise outofpractice withstructures

2.2.1.5 Guided or Free Writing

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was a slight development fromstrictly controlled to free writing However, the process of composition was stillguided In practice, teachers would ask their students to read a paragraph, thenanswer comprehension questions and write anothersimilar paragraph afterwards

Convincingly, such exercises reflect the behavioris t hypotheses that

stude nts will learn the language with constant practice of correct structures,therefore they are able to transfer the repeated (controlled, guided) skills toorigina l utterance s However, according to Bialystok (1990); Hatch (1992);

Krashen (1982), lan guage le arning is not limited to stimulus- response beh avior(Bialystok, 1990; Hatch, 1992; Krashen, 1982) Learning is a process that thelearner controls and to which he contributes (Fromkinand Rodman, 1988) In otherwords, those exercises only serve grammar lessons as they have little to do withthe composing process

2.2.2 Recent approachesto te achingwriting

2.2.2.1 Language-BasedWriting

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-As a matter of fact, this language-based approach to the teaching of writingwas reflected in many textbooks of the early 1980s (Bliss et al, 1985; Frank, 1983)and prevailed in many ESL classrooms Exercises were mainly based on thepractice of language items such as a specific verb tense, a kind of adjective, aparticular sentence structure According to Raimes (1983), writing is considered ameans to "reinforce grammatical structures, idioms and vocabulary."

Audio transcription and sentence combining are two other applications oflanguage- based teaching techniques Actually, audio transcription is also nameddicto-cornps, in which the teacher dictates short passages, students try toremember and recreate them partially or completely after listening to themseveral times (Kroll, 1991) Sentence combining is like a short of transformationdrill in which the teacher gives three or four separate sentences, and the studentswill combine into one There may be more than one way to do this

2.2.2.2 The Pattern/ Product Approach

The shift from language-based writing classrooms to the study ofcomposition techniques and strategies begins with the recognition of ESL students'needs in the academic setting It was also recognized that teaching students to

write correct sentences was not a sufficient preparation for them to do writtenassignments at academic institutions Therefore, Reid (1982); Wohl (1985); Rice

& Burn (1986) tried to bridge the gap between language- based writing classesthat focus on sentence writing and writing- based classes that focus on creatingcompositions.Simultaneously, the new elements in a composition and strategies tocreate them were discovered including the thesis statement, topic sentence, unity,organizational strategies, and paragraph patterns- comparison/ contrast, cause-effect, classification, definition, etc

The pattern/ product approach IS the very significant step from thelanguage-based writing classroom, and students in many writing classes today are

Chapter2- Literaturereview

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-still be ne fiting from this change However, the focus is only on the organizational

conventions in academic prose

2.2.2.3 The Process Approach

Re ce ntly, the te aching of writing has moved away from a concentration on

the written product to an emphasis on the proce ss of writing The writer asks

himsel f! he rsel f some other questio ns: " How do I write t his? ", " How do I get

s tarted?" etc The act of writing should then become the result of a genuine need

to express one's personal feelin gs, experie nce, or reactions, all within a climate ofencourage me nt (Za me l, 1980)

So, for this approac h, writers may start with a draft and then, revise ,reorganize, add or cross off details, etc Therefore , in ESL classes, students areencouraged to explore a topic throug h writing, to share drafts with peers andteachers, and revise them.The writing process eventually becomes the process bywhich the students discover new ideas and appropriate language forms to expressthe very ideas Writing in this way, as it is believed, lowers students' anxiety levelbecause students partially possess what they are supposed to learn, and theirteacher'sjob is to find what is already there andwhat needs to be added

2.2.2.4 The Comm unicative Approach

The communicative approac h emphasizes on the purpose of a piece ofwriting and the audie nce for it So, students are encouraged tobeh ave like writers

in re al life and to ask them sel ves the crucial questions about the purpose andaudience: "Why am I writing this? Who will read this?" (Reid, 1993) In otherwords, the classroom activities help studen ts to develop an awareness of theaudience's expectation and even strategies to identify them Hen ce , assignme ntsshould be purposed- based and directed towardanauthenticaudience

2.2.2.5 The Functional-Notional approach

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of reading, writing , listening , and speaking, in conjunction with each other, as when

a lesson involves activities that relate listening and speaking to reading andwriting" because "the purpose of integrated approach in the classroom is toenable learners to transfer naturally between one mode and another" ( Brookes &Grundy, 1990) This means the four skills are not taught separately but they are allpracticed simultaneously to assist each other for a successful performance oflearning In real life communication, there is rarely a separate and independent

use of any of these skills and skill use is typically simultaneous or overlapping andintegrated (Celce- Murcia & Olshtain, 2000) because production and reception arequite simply two sides of the same coin and one can not split the coin in two

There is no doubt that one of the most accepted and favorable teachingmethods and approaches is the integrated approach It is especially applied toteaching and learning GE Most of the course books designed for GE teaching andlearning are based on the technique of integration Harmer (1991) suggests tworeasons why skills should be practiced in the integrated way Firstly, it is true thatone skill can not be performed without another Secondly, people use differentskills when dealing with the same subject for all sorts of reasons Actually,

"integrated skills activities provide opportunities for using language naturally, notjust practicing it" and "many pair- and group work activities call for a variety ofskills, sometimes simultaneously, in order to involve all the learners" ( Byrne,

Chapter 2 - Literaturereview

-1987) It is the se reasons which can help to infer that speaking skills can absolutely assist to create a good piece of writing.

In terms of communication, writing is an activity (unlike talking) that isusually both private and public at the same time (Broughton, 1980) It is privatebecause the act of composition is by its nature solitary, but i is public in that mostwriting is inten ded for an audie nce, often one which is extremely difficult to

de fine The act of writing is less spontaneous and more permane nt, and theresources which are available for communication are fewer because we can not-

as we do in conversation- interact with the listener s and adaptas we go along Forthis reason, the conventions of writing tend to be less flexible than those ofconversation, and the language which is used tends to be standardized

In terms of skills, speaking and writing are the two skills that suggestdifferent requirements for learning well Harmer (1991) states that "mostimportantly, there is a greater need for logical organization in a piece of writingthan there is in a conversation" In more detail, "effective writing requires anumber of things: a high degree of organizatio n in the development of ideas andinforma tion; a high de gree of accuracy so that there is no ambiguity of meaning;the use of complex grammatical devices for focus and emphasis; and a carefulchoice of vocabulary; gramma tical pattern s, and sente nce structures to crea te astyle which is appropriate to the subject matter and eventual readers" (Hedge.1988)

Moreover, Spoken and Written language differ in terms of the demands onthe part of the language performers and language recipients They also differ inthe way they represent reality Written language represents phenomena as

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