(Skkn 2023) applying genre based approach in teaching 12th graders’ writing skills in ha huy tap high school

As the teacher of English at Ha Huy Tap High school, when teaching my students in writing lessons, the author realized that my students did not seem to be interested in learning writing

NGHE AN DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION & TRAINING

-

TEACHING INNOVATION

APPLYING GENRE-BASED APPROACH

IN TEACHING 12TH GRADERS’ WRITING SKILLS

IN HA HUY TAP HIGH SCHOOL

GROUP: ENGLISH

Năm học: 2022 - 2023

NGHE AN DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION & TRAINING

HA HUY TAP HIGH SHOOL

-

TEACHING INNOVATION

APPLYING GENRE-BASED APPROACH

IN TEACHING 12TH GRADERS’ WRITING SKILLS

IN HA HUY TAP HIGH SCHOOL

Tác giả : NGUYỄN PHAN QUỲNH TRANG

Tổ bộ môn : Ngoại Ngữ

Số điện thoại: 0944211987

Năm học : 2022 - 2023

4 Scope of the study

5 Methods of the study

6 Significance of the study

1.1 A definition of writing and its importance

1.2 Different approaches to teach writing

1.3 The Genre-based approach

1.3.1 Definition of genre

1.3.2 Genre-based approach

CHAPTER 2: AN OVERVIEW OF TEACHING AND LEARNING

WRITING SKILLS IN HA HUY TAP HIGH SCHOOL

2.1 Teachers

2.2 Learners

2.3 The textbook

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

3.1 Rationale of using action research

3.2 Participants of the study

3.3 Data collection instrument

3.3.1 Pre-test and post-test

3.3.2 Pre-questionnaire and post- questionnaire

3.4 Data analysis procedure

3.2.1 Analysis of student’s preliminary questionnaire

3.2.2 The results of the students’ pre-tests

3.3 Hypothesis

3.4 Intervention

3.5 Evaluation

3.5.1 The results of the students’ post- test

3.5.2 The results of the questionnaire for student after taking part in

PART IV: CONCLUSION

4.1 Conclusions of the study

4.2 Suggestions for further study

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

The Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training has reformed English textbooks concentrating on the four skills: reading, speaking, listening, and writing

Of the four skills, many teachers and students alike consider writing to be most difficult and complicated to teach and to learn In fact, there are a variety of reasons for this problem, and therefore finding appropriate techniques and methods for teaching writing effectively to students requires long serious research English is a required subject for high school students in Vietnam nowadays But most of important tests including graduation and university entrance exams do not have a writing component As a result, students only focus on learning grammar and vocabulary They have considerable difficulty in learning the writing skill

At Ha Huy Tap High school, the dominant approach to teach writing is process approach which focuses only on process of writing As the teacher of English at Ha Huy Tap High school, when teaching my students in writing lessons, the author realized that my students did not seem to be interested in learning writing and had some difficulties to learn writing better

It appears to me that I need to make some changes And the question was raised that “How can teacher help students to make an improvement in learning writing?” Through reading the literature, the writer was impressed with the idea of teaching writing through a genre-based approach I decided to experiment this approach to my teaching writing to my own students in my school The aim of this action research is to examine whether a genre-based approach to writing is helpful

to students or not In what follows I shall concentrate on: “APPLYING BASED APPROACH IN TEACHING 12 TH GRADERS’ WRITING SKILLS

GENRE-IN HA HUY TAP HIGH SCHOOL”

At this paper, teacher observations and student surveys were collected to determine the effectiveness of using this approach The research results of the study become a reference for the process of teaching, testing, assessment and developing the capacity of students in high school

2 Aims and objectives of the study

This study is designed with an aim to improve students’ writing performance

of English by applying genre-based approach to teach writing skill to students

In order to achieve this aim, the following objective was set out for the study:

To examine how genre-based approach to teaching writing affected students’ writing performance

3 Research questions

My theme focuses on making clear about:

- What is genre-based approach?

- How is genre-based approach applied?

- Does applying genre-based approach help improve the quality of my students’ writing?

4 Scope of the study

Because of the limitation of a minor study, the research is only conducted at

Ha Huy Tap High School in order to recognize the problems in learning writing skills of the 12th grade students with the textbook “Tieng Anh 12” by Pearson, Vietnam Education Publishing House The study mainly focuses on application of genre-based approach in teaching writing

The research scope includes the two classes, namely class 12A4 and class 12A5 at Ha Huy Tap High school, Nghe An province In total, more than 70 students take part in this study

5 Methods of the study

The researcher decided to adopt action research because this type of research

is aimed at improving a situation After a preliminary investigation had been carried out, a writing instruction course was designed, and then implemented in the school year 2022-2023 with the participation of more than 70 students from two classes 12A4 and 12A5 at Ha Huy Tap High school The data was then collected through survey questionnaires Questionnaire responses were analyzed by means of descriptive statistics In addition to the questionnaires, students’ writing were collected through pre-test and post-test and analyzed to measure the students’ progress in their writing performance

6 Significance of the study

Theoretically, the study systemized the theory of a genre-based approach in teaching writing, together with its advantages and disadvantages The study also provides suggestions for successful application of the approach into teaching composition in real classroom

Practically, the research provides language teachers and learners with a number of activities and exercises using the genre-based approach in all stages of writing

PART II: CONTENTS OF THE STUDY CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 A definition of writing and its important

One way of viewing writing, called cognitive view, is to see writing as decision making When we write something, whether it is an email message, a letter,

or an essay, we are engaged in making one decision after another We decide what

to begin the text with, whether to include or leave out an idea that comes to mind, whether to begin a new paragraph or continue the same one, what information to place in the beginning of a sentence and so on Successful writing is the result of making the right decisions most of the time the act of composing and revising

“The ability to write effectively is becoming increasingly important in our global community and instruction in writing is thus assuming an increasing role in both second and foreign education" (Alderson and Bachman, 2002) Bazerman (1989) stated that "writing makes things happen in the social world, and much of that social world is embodied in previous pieces of writing" In addition, Alderson and Bachman (2002) confirmed that "the ability to speak and write a second language is becoming widely recognized as an important skill for educational, business and personal reason."

Nunan (1995) also said "language exists to fulfill a range of communicative functions and that these functions will be reflected in the shape of the language itself” (Nunan, 1995) Therefore, "writing will be an essential component in the learning program.”

1.2 Different approaches to teach writing

There are three most widely known approaches to teach writing: product approach, genre approach, and process approach First, the product approach emphasizes the final product of writing with a special focus on correctness and conformity to rules Second, the genre approach focuses on the appropriate writing structure, the content, and the style to be used for the purpose at hand Finally, the process approach is a sequential process where the writer goes through several specific processes to produce a piece of writing, including planning, drafting,

revising, and editing

1.3 The genre-based approach

1.3.1 Definition of genre

As this paper focuses on the genre-based approach, it’s necessary to understand

the concept of “genre” What is genre? For Callaghan and Rothery, “genre is the

way people make meaning with one another in stages to achieve their purposes.” (1993:35) Genre has the special characteristics as follow:

▪ It is culture specific, and it develops and changes along with the culture

▪ It is goal oriented

▪ It has distinctive stages: beginning, middle and end

▪ It contains particular linguistic features

According to David Butt et al (1995), genre, which relates to the purpose of the text, is one of the contexts of a text The other context is register, which is made up

of three variables: field, tenor, and mode Field refers to what is talked about or written about It can be something that happened, is happening or will happen Tenor

is the relationship between the writer and the reader or between the speaker and the listener Mode is the channel of communication, the kind of text that is being made

to convey a message

“Genre” refers not only to types of literary texts but also to the predictable and recurring patterns of everyday, academic, and literary texts occurring within a particular culture (Hammond and Derewianka, 2001) In the Western countries, genre, either spoken or written, is often identified/grouped according to its primary social purposes According to Swale (1990) the genres which share the same purposes belong to the same text-types Derewianka (1990) identified further six main genres according to their primary social purposes:

 Narratives: tell a story, usually to entertain

 Recount: to tell what happened

 Information reports: provide factual information

 Instruction: tell the listeners or readers what to do

 Explanation: explain why or how something happens

 Expository texts: present or argue a viewpoint

 Procedure: give instructions how to do/ make something

These social purposes of the text-genres in turn decide the linguistic inputs of the text (i.e their linguistic conventions, often in form of schematic structure and linguistic features) Specifically, schematic structure refers to internal structure or text organization of the text-type in forms of introduction, body, and conclusion, while language features consist of linguistic aspects such as grammar, vocabulary, connectors, etc that the writers must use to translate information/ideas into a readable text

1.3.2 Genre-based approach

Genre-based approach is the approach in which students are explicitly exposed to the language features, text structures and the social purposes of each text type Then, students step by step produce the text with appropriate scaffolding of the teacher

Genre-based approach promises very benefits for learners as they pull together language, content, and contexts, while offering teachers a means of presenting students with explicit and systematic explanations of the ways writing works to communicate

For teachers, genre-based approach draws teachers into considering how texts actually work as communication By categorizing and analyzing the texts they ask students to write, teachers become more familiar with the ways meanings are created and more sensitive to the specific communicative needs of their students Teachers are therefore in a better position to reflect on their own writing and that of their students, offering them a means to understand, deconstruct, to make decisions about the teaching methods and materials to use, and to approach current instructional examples with a more critical eye

Derewianka (1990) indicates that in order for learners to learn to write a specific genre, teachers and learners work through a cyclical process which consists

of four stages, namely Building the Field, Modeling, Joint Construction and Independent Writing The first stage is intended to give students time to gather information about what they will be writing Then, in Modeling, they are exposed to

an authentic text of a particular genre to familiarize with its generic structure, language features and communicative purpose Then with the help of their teacher, they jointly construct a text Joint writing allows students to experience the processes

of thinking and social interaction in writing by observing how meanings and language are chosen to serve a particular communicative purpose and by participating in the decision making which mould them into more confident writers Finally, students write the text of the same genre on their own

The principles of the genre based approach are realized in the teaching and learning cycle or model The teaching model consists of a number of stages that the teacher and students go through so that students gradually gain independent control

of a particular genre The stages usually come in circle to indicate that there are different points of entry depending on the needs of the students

In addition to providing teachers with a way of organizing their courses, genre based writing instruction follows modern theories of learning in giving considerable recognition to the importance of collaboration, or peer interaction, and scaffolding,

or teacher-supported learning

In short, while study genre-based approach students move backwards and forwards through alternate processes of induction and deduction, between language and meta-language, activity and received knowledge, experience and theory That’s why the aim of teaching genre to grade 12 students in my school would empower them to write a variety of purposes and audiences So writing should be taught as how it can be used in context meaningfully

CHAPTER 2: AN OVERVIEW OF TEACHING AND LEARNING WRITING SKILL AT HA HUY TAP HIGH SCHOOL

2.1 Teachers

In terms of teaching English writing, most of the teachers just focus on providing their student writers with vocabulary relating to the required topic and some guiding questions in order to help them shape their ideas into the completed paragraphs Teaching writing in this way only benefits them to an extent that it can assist them in producing the error-free texts following the models of correct language

In addition, there was a tendency among English teachers to ignore teaching writing Teachers provided students with less opportunity to practice writing English In other word, the English teachers in general were more concentrate on teaching skills such as reading and listening, and language components such as vocabulary and grammar

2.2 Learners

Writing skill is seemed to be difficult for all students in learning foreign language at high school The difficulties include those in generating and organizing ideas using an appropriate choice of vocabulary and putting such ideas into an intelligible text

For my students, besides these difficulties, they also have to face many other obstacles when learning to write compositions in English They worry about expressing their ideas clearly within the boundaries of correct usage, grammar, spelling, and punctuation Often in the first years of their language learning, there is little focus on the creative aspects of writing because exams focus on grammar, spelling, or punctuation Because of this, students develop a fear of writing and think that everything they write is riddled with errors These fears hinder them and frequently make their writing process slow and also unsuccessful As a result, it is rather difficult to engage all students to the main content of the lessons

Apparently, applying teaching approaches and using teaching methods should

be taken in order to foster and develop their writing skills efficiently

2.3 The textbook

The pilot English 12 textbook is a series of books organized and complied by the Vietnam Education Publishing House according to the pilot English curriculums for upper secondary schools issued by the Ministry of Education and Training in

2012 The series is the continuation of the Elementary English program and the Secondary English program The book series is compiled in a communicative way

to help students, through the use of corpus (phonetics, vocabulary, grammar),

develop their ability to communicate in English in four forms: listening, speaking, reading and writing The English 12 pilot book focuses largely on vocabulary Therefore, students who have access to this program will have many advantages compared to the old book series

The textbook is compiled around topics that are close to students Each topic is divided into two or three units corresponding to the topics in the program All are prepared according to the 10-year English program (from grade 3 to grade 12) according to the 2020 project of the Ministry of Education, with standards meeting the ministry’s capacity output The book is compiled in sections, including: Getting Started, Language, Skills: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing, Communication and Culture, Looking back and Project After 3 Units on vocabulary topics, there will be a Review, designed according to the same sections as the previous lesson The book contains ten units, with each unit presenting eight periods Writing is the sixth periods in each lesson It is the last and the most challenging skill in each unit which is put after three others kills due to its productive nature and dependence

on input from other skills Writing guide students through the writing process and focus on the specific text types Some tasks in the textbook are difficult while some others are not really challenging In the 12th grade, students are expected to work on

a variety of writing tasks, each of which goes with a particular topic

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents a detailed description of how the research was carried out including the rationale of the using research, participants, data collection instruments and data analysis procedures

3.1 Rationale of using action research

Action research is conducted to investigate a specific teaching situation or practice when the teacher wants to find a solution to that situation or practice This action research was carried out in an attempt to find out solutions to the improvement

of students’ writing skills It was carried out by the researcher with her own students

in an intact class For these reasons, the researcher believed an action research design would fit well her purpose

In this study, the researcher followed the model proposed by Nunan (1992) because the steps in his model made it easier and more convenient for the researcher

to carry out the research Besides, it reflected correctly what steps were taken during the study

According to Nunan (1992), the action research process has seven steps illustrated as: Problem identification, Preliminary investigation, Hypothesis,

Intervention, Evaluation, Dissemination and Follow-up

Although there are seven steps in an action research cycle, because of the

limited time of study, the researcher conducted the research within 5 steps: Problem Identification, Preliminary Investigation, Hypothesis, Intervention, and Evaluation

More specifically, after realizing that most 12th grade students were not interested in learning writing, the researcher began to gather data about the target population and then interpret the data to see whether they had the same problem After the results were obtained, the study was conducted to improve the situation Finally, the results were evaluated to propose possible next steps

3.2 Participants of the study

More than seventy students of two classes 12A4 and 12A5 at Ha Huy Tap High school were invited to take part in an experimental writing class in which I used the genre-based approach in teaching writing English in order to teach the student to write Most of them were not good at learning English, especially their writing skills were not acceptable, but eager to master this subject like communicating fluently, making a good speech

After that the researcher conducted a cycle, in which the researcher, being the only teacher at the research site knowing the genre-based approach, used this method

to teach them how to write in English

3.3 Data collection instruments

In order to collect sufficient data for the study, a number of instruments were

employed: pre-test and post-tests, questionnaires

3.3.1 Pre-test and post-test

To measure the quality of the participants’ written texts before and after the

research, the researcher designed a pre-test and a post-test (see appendix 1) on

English writing The test types selected for this study are popular kinds of writing test similar to the tests which students are instructed Therefore, the students are

supposed to be familiar with the test format

Actually, the pre-test and the post-test on English writing are similar but not the same They are similar in format, instruction, length, level of difficulty, and allotted time However, the specific writing topics between the two tests are different although they are both the same genre, writing a narrative

To score the pre-test and the post-test, the same marking scale (see appendix 2) will be used This analytic marking scale with specific evaluation criteria was

adapted from Jacobs et al’s (1981) (cited in Weigle, 2002: 115-116) The main reason for the choice of this analytic marking scale instead of a holistic scale is that

it provides more useful diagnostic information about students’ writing abilities

3.3.2 Pre- Questionnaire and post-questionnaire

Survey questionnaires were chosen because they allowed collecting a large amount data in a relatively short time

The preliminary questionnaire (See Appendix 3) was conducted at the first week

of the research with 71 students The questionnaire aims to investigate students’ attitudes towards writing skill (items 1, 2) their self assessment of their writing performance (item 3) and their problems they faced (item 4) The results from the questionnaire, in cooperation with pre-test results could help the researcher identify possible problems for students’ writing skill

The post-questionnaire (See Appendix 4) was carried out after the intervention

step finished This was done to investigate the effect of new writing methods on students The questionnaire included 3 items, the first item is to find out the students’ attitude to new genre, the second requires students to self assess their ability after taking part in the research, the last one facing with the changes they could have from this approach in writing

It is hoped that the combination of these instruments would enable the research questions to be answered

3.4 Data analysis procedure

The researcher used the questionnaire to collect data in this action research Then the responses were analyzed by means of descriptive statistics This research method was aimed at providing information on students’ attitudes towards, and opinions about the genre-based approach

To gain information about students’ progress in their writing, students’ writing pre and post test papers were collected before and over the treatment period and analyzed of the marking scheme

PART III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

In this part, the main stages of this action research will be presented under the

following headings: Problem identification, Preliminary investigation, Hypothesis, Intervention and Evaluation

3.1 Problem identification

During teaching writing for the 12th grade students at Ha Huy Tap High school, I realized that my students did not seem interested in writing lessons and their writing performance seemed poor Therefore, the author decided to investigate the problem that her students faced

3.2 Preliminary investigation

To illustrate the problem that students had in learning writing skill, the researcher conducted a survey questionnaire and pre test The collected data was analyzed to find out how students were not interested in learning writing and to assess students’ writing skill before the new approach to be implemented

3.2.1 Analysis of students’ preliminary questionnaire

From the preliminary questionnaire, the students’ personal information was gathered There were 71 students taking part in the study

3.2.1.1 Students’ attitudes towards writing skill

Students’ answers to question 1 and question 2 help the researcher understand their attitudes towards writing skill

Chart 1: Students’ attitudes towards writing skill

From chart 1 above, we can see that a majority of the students realized the importance of learning writing skill The results show that most of them answered that learning writing skill was important or rather important (25.4% and 38%) whereas only 14.1% of students said learning writing was not important and 22.5%

of them thought it was little important

In response to question 2, it is noticeable that 10/ 71students respondent liked learning writing very much The population of the students who liked learning writing skill a little is nearly the same as who did not like it at all (35.3%, 31% respectively) 19.7% of students said that they were rather interested in writing skill

3.2.1.2 Students’ self assessment of their writing competence

Students’ self assessment of their writing competence

The data in Chart 2 shows that the writing performance of students was not

good Surprisingly, it can be seen clearly that only five students (7%) thought that their writing was very good The percentage of the students who self evaluated their writing performances were very bad was 25.3 % and bad was 39.5 % What is more, 18.3% of the asked students assessed that they had no idea of their writing performance Meanwhile, the percentage of the students thinking their writing performance were good was only 9.9% It is remarkable that the attitude of students about the importance of writing skill did not seem to be affected toward their writing performance

3.2.1.3 The difficulties students had encountered

Difficulties in learning writing skill Frequency Percentage

c Lacking some necessary grammar structures 35 49.3%

Table 1: Students’ difficulties in learning writing skill

The data from the questionnaire, as presented in table 1 above, shows the fact that most of the students in this class saw the lack of vocabulary and expressing the ideas logically as the two factors that caused the most difficulties for them in writing lessons With the highest percentage (66.2%), lacking vocabulary seemed to be the most challenging for students to develop their writing skill despite the fact that their teacher had tried the best to provide them a number of vocabulary exercises Besides that, 46 participants (about 64.8%) in the survey found it very difficult to present their ideas coherently In other words, the students’ discourse competence was limited They always wrote the first thing coming to their mind without rearranging them even they had nothing to express The third biggest problem of the students was that they did not know how to use correct verb tenses (60.5%) It can be inferred that although the teacher had tried to explain the pattern of grammar to them, they still encountered the problem of distinguishing the use of tenses in English Nearly the similar number of participants used the structures in writing incorrectly Therefore their writing text seemed to be the hard thing to complete Ranking the number four in causing matters to students’ writings was the way of organizing the written text with about 40 students in this research It is the frequent problem for any students learning foreign language at the pre-intermediate level There were 25 students in this class thought that it was the connectors that made it difficult for them

to write There existed the minority of students (8.4%) reported that they had nothing

to write

3.2.2 The results of the students’ pre-tests

Table 2: The overall results of students’ writing tests

Findings from the table tell us that students’ writing performance was rather poor Only two students had excellent mark and 11 students which accounts for 15.5% got good mark It was not satisfied that there were 31 students making up 43.7% had bad and very bad writings, whereas the frequency for students at average level was 27

From the result, it can be seen clearly that the majority of the students evaluated their writing skill accurately

To sum up, the preliminary investigation helped the researcher recognize the fact that most of the students had difficulties writing because of without vocabulary, structures, languages features as well as lack of expressing ideas logically It suggests that instruction of writing skill should be changed to improve students’ writing performance

3.3 Hypothesis

The analysis and discussion of the initial data above proved that most of students lacked interest in writing lessons and difficulties made their writing performance unacceptable As a result, the researcher had to think of solution for the

problems Then, the results led to the following hypothesis: Genre-based teaching

may help solve the students’ problem and applying genre-based approach would effectively improve students’ writing skill in English writing lessons

Stage 1: At the first session, the concept of “genre” was introduced to students

to familiarize themselves with the new approach to teaching Then, the narrative genre was explained with its social purpose and schematic structure A narrative is

an account of a sequence of events, usually in chronological order The focus of the text is on a sequence of actions Aspects of the narrative genre were then introduced explicitly to the students These aspects are follows:

+ The identification of the events, climax, and the conclusion

+ The use of the past tense to retell the events

+ Words that show the order of events

All of these aspects were taught based on the two model texts chosen to the

sample narrative texts (See Appendix 5)

Stage 2: Building the field

This stage was done to give students ideas about what to write This included

activities related to vocabulary and grammar (This can be seen in the Appendix 6)

Stage 3: Modeling: Teacher provided a detailed scaffold for the narrative:

- Explicitly introduce the model text

- Ask students to find out the steps of constructing a narrative and language

features (See Appendix7)

Stage 4: Joint-construction

The students began to contribute to the construction of a narrative text in groups of 4 to prepare to write about unforgetale birthday party The outline were about: who was in your story, when did it happen, where did it happen, what happen, Why did it happen, how did you and the others feel

3.5 Evaluation

After the intervention step, to assess the effects of genre-based approach and

to find out the answer for the research question “Does using genre-based approach

help improve the quality of my students’ writing?” the post questionnaire and post

test were conducted to collect the data

3.5.1 The results of the students’ post-test

From the post test results, the writing scores of 71 students who participated

in the action research were calculated (presented in table 3 below)

Table 3: The overall results of students’ post- tests

Then we could check whether applying the genre based approach had impacted students’ writing performance by comparing the results of two tests (pre test and post test) The comparison is shown in chart 3 below

Chart 3: Comparison of the results from pre-test and post-test

Chart 3 shows the results of students’ writing scores in pre-test and post -test Obviously, at all levels, students’ marks for writing had been improved There was

a noticeable decrease at very bad level, the number of students who got the very bad mark in post-test dropped to 3 whereas in pre-test it is 15 The second change is at good level at which the number of students with rose to 32.3% compared to 15.5%

in the pre-test From the two analyzed results above, it can be seen that the based approach really helped students to improve their writing skill

genre-An analysis of the students’ performance in detail based on the five main characteristics was given below

3.5.1.1 The performance of students in the content of the writing test

When looking into the content of the writing tests of the students in this research, we can see that their performance varied from students to students 39.5%

of the students were at good to average level while the same number of students (35.2%) had the scores ranged from fair to poor The researcher found out that there were 11/ 71 students got the scores at very poor level, which account for 15.5% This meant that not all students were satisfied with their writing tests

3.5.1.2 The performance of students in the organization of the writing test

Chart 5 below figures out the way students organized their writing As can be seen from the chart, the number of students who got the excelent to very good points was few; there were 2.8% of the respondents in the treatment The students whose scores in organizing the writing were at fair to poor accounted for 28/ 71 making up 39.4% and very poor grade were the half of this figure with 17% It is noticeable that the students still had difficulty in putting their ideas in the logical order

Chart 4: Students’ performance in the

content

Chart 5: Students’ performance in the organization of the writing tests

3.5.1.3 The performance of students in using the vocabulary

Let’s see whether there is any difference in the vocabulary using of the students Only 4/71 students (5.6%) had the excellent to very good scores for ther variety in choosing the suitable words and knew the collocation There is one thing

to mention here, nearly half of the population was at good to average level 12.6%

of the participants used vocabulary badly In short, the genre-based approach did some help in improving students’ vocabularies in writing

3.5.1.4 The performance of students in using the language

The word forms or good structures were the main problem to the students experienced in this research After the teaching treatment with genre-based approach, there were still some of the students whose language in writing was not

Chart 6: Students’ performance in using the vocabulary

improved much From the chart below, 54.8% of the students got the results in using the correct language in writing at very poor and fair to poor level There were 10 in

71 students (14%) whose scores in language were excellent to very good This can

be seen that the genre-based approach did not help students much in using the correct language

Chart 7: Students’ performance in using the language

3.5.1.5 The performance of students in using the mechanics

This genre-based approach can be seen to help students using the right mechanics in their writing texts Only 3 students accounting for 4.2% got the scores

at very poor level and 14/71 participants with 19.8% at poor level 47.8% of the respondents did very well with mechanics using

Chart 8: Students’ performance in using the mechanics

3.5.2 The results of the questionnaire for students after taking part in research

To be more detailed in evaluation of students’ improvements in learning the new approach, the questionnaire was given to 71 participants after the teaching treatment

3.5.2.1 The students’ self-assessment of the genre-based approach

Students’ answers to question 1 and question 2 help the researcher understand their attitudes towards the new approach which was implemented to teach them

Question

Choice Very

boring Boring So so

Interesting &

challenging

Very interesting

What do you think of the

writing lessons in which the

genre-based approach was

implemented?

Table 4: The students’ attitude towards post-improvement lessons

As can be seen from Table 4 36.6% of the students loved the writing lessons which applied genre approach and 46.5% of the students said that they liked those lessons because they were interesting and challenging However, 16.9% of the students had no ideas of them

Question

Choice Extremely

unsatisfied Unsatisfied Satisfied Good

Very good

What do you think of your

writing performance after

taking part in action

research?

0% 0% 42.3% 40.8% 16.9%

Table 5: The students’ self-assessment of their writing performance

It appears that students preferred the post – improvement lessons compared with the pre – improvement ones The number of students who satisfied and felt confident with their writing performance account for 42.3% and 40.8% respectively while there was no students stated that their writing performance is very bad or bad (0%) The students' writing performance improvement should be assessed by the teacher but students’ ideas toward what they have done is an important matter that the teacher should take into consideration

This might be concluded that the new approach which was applied in teaching writing lessons has some good effects

3.5.2.2 The changes the students had after participated in action research

Chart 9: Students’ responses on changes they had from new approach

The students’ self-assessment of the things they gain from the new approach

is clearly presented in chart 9 An overall statement made based on the data in the chart is that students’ positive changes have revealed obviously It can be inferred from the fact that 76% of students said the new approach helped them to express their ideas logically The same percentage (76%) of respondents agreed with the ideas that they could write the correct grammatical sentences A considerable number of students accepted that their vocabularies were enriched 52 participants with 73.3% reported that using right connectors could not puzzle them more 59 students emphasized their improvement in writing abilities after being instructed by the teacher with useful words and sentence structures

To conclude, these findings in this section provide us evidence to believe that the new approach have an influence on the students in some ways

Firstly, it was revealed that the difficulties puzzled students The biggest difficulty students had encountered in writing was the lack of vocabulary; they had

a few words to convey their ideas so there was no good choice of words The difficulty in expressing ideas was listed by most of the respondents; they do not know how to use the English structures well to reveal their ideas Using the incorrect verb tenses and unacceptable structures when expressing the sentences were also the problems the students of the research cycle experienced; therefore, their sentences and their text were written incorrectly Moreover, it was their way of organizing the text that made their writing products the hard thing to be seen

Secondly, with the new writing method, students’ writing ability was improved considerably Most students could learn vocabulary and use the grammar correctly It was not simply vocabulary in the textbook because they had to think of the right word to use in suitable situation And the grammar might be more than what they have learnt in the previous lessons

In conclusion, the objectives of the study were satisfactorily accomplished

3.7 Survey for the necessity and the possibility of solutions

3.7.1 Purpose of the survey

Through the survey, the author confirms the necessity and possibility of applying genre-based approach in teaching 12th graders’ writing skills

3.7.2 Content and methods

a Content

It focuses on 2 main problems:

- Are the solutions really necessary for research problems?

- Are the solutions possible for research problems?

b Methods and scales of measurement

The author used questionnaires in Google form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1TXiJQICN4FkHd09Iqs7IYn-CQsb9qIntssN6VqD0-wI/edit with 4 scales of measurement (1-4): unnecessary, less necessary, necessary and very necessary The author also used SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) software for analyzing the data

3.7.3 Object of the survey

3.7.4 Results for the survey of the necessity and possibility of solutions

a The necessity of solutions

Figures

X Scales

4 Joint- construction of the field 85/ 85 100%

Table 6: The evaluation of the neccesity of solutions

The figures from table 6 show that the participants assessed the highly necessary of solutions The majority of opinions agree that all 4 proposed solutions are necessary

b Possibility of solutions

Figures

X Scales

3 Modeling the field 85/ 85 95.3%

4 Joint- construction of the field 82/ 85 96.4%

Table 7: The evaluation of the possibility of solutions

Results in table 7 show that teachers and students participating in the survey assessed the possibility of solutions

The above research results confirm the necessity and possibility of solutions

We can see that participants rated necessity higher than possibility This proves that the solutions proposed by the author were initially supported by the majority of teachers and students