(LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ) The use of genre based approach to 10th form students in Tuyen Quang gifted high school to write better personal recount

PHAN NGUYÊN NGHỊ STUDENTS IN TUYEN QUANG GIFTED HIGH SCHOOL TO WRITE BETTER PERSONAL RECOUNT Sử dụng đường hướng dựa vào thể loại để giúp học sinh lớp 10 Trường THPT Chuyên Tuyên Quang

PHAN NGUYÊN NGHỊ

STUDENTS IN TUYEN QUANG GIFTED HIGH SCHOOL TO WRITE

BETTER PERSONAL RECOUNT

(Sử dụng đường hướng dựa vào thể loại để giúp học sinh lớp 10 Trường THPT Chuyên Tuyên Quang viết bài văn mô tả tốt hơn)

M.A MINOR THESIS Field: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLODY Code: 601410

Hanoi-2012

PHAN NGUYÊN NGHỊ

STUDENTS IN TUYEN QUANG GIFTED HIGH SCHOOL TO WRITE

BETTER PERSONAL RECOUNT

(Sử dụng đường hướng dựa vào thể loại để giúp học sinh lớp 10 Trường THPT Chuyên Tuyên Quang viết bài văn mô tả tốt hơn)

M.A MINOR THESIS Field: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLODY Code: 601410

Supervisor: ĐỖ BÁ QUÝ, M.Ed

Hanoi-2012

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS i

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale and theoretical backgrounds of the study 1-3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Literature review

5 Genre-based approach 7-13

6 Benefits and Limitations of Genre based approach to teaching writing 13-15

Chapter 2:Methodology and research schedule

2.1 Independent and Dependent Variables

Chapter 3: Data analysis

3.2 The two groups‘ writing performance before the experiment 21-23 3.3 The two groups‘ writing performance after the experiment 23-25 3.4 The experimental group‘s improvement in writing proficiency 25-27

PART C: CONCLUSION

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: Pre-test descriptive statistics

Table 2: Post-test descriptive statistics Table 3: Pre-post test descriptive statistics of experimental group Table 4: Students‘ interest in writing skill

Table 5: Students‘ attitude in writing skill using Genre-approach Table 6: Students‘ need in writing skill using Genre-approach Figure 1: Pre-test results of both groups

Figure 2: Post-test results of both groups Figure 3: Pre- post test results of experimental group

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the study

Tuyen Quang Gifted High School is located in Tuyen Quang City – Tuyen Quang province There are 21 classes with about 820 students selected from all secondary schools in the province through an entrance examination held annually on late June or early July under the supervision of the Department

of Education and Training The classes are divided into three grades, so there are seven grade-10, seven grade-11 and seven grade-12 classes There are at most thirty six students in one class, majoring in one subject that they have chosen right from the step of sitting for the entrance tests There are seven major subjects: Mathematics, Informatics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Literature, and English The students in my school are required to get in-depth knowledge on their majors besides fulfilling all other subjects in the National Syllabus, which piles up the study pressure and contributes to the difficulty of teaching and learning English, especially for non-English major students

In my school, there are ten English teachers All of us graduated from English Departments in Pedagogy Universities and three of us have got MA degrees However, only eight of us are actually in charge of teaching at school because there are always two teachers attending to MA courses either in other provinces or abroad Therefore, each of us is responsible for three classes on average, which is equal to about ten 45-minute periods a week

Although most of the students have realized the increasing importance of English in their study and future jobs, they clearly show the lack of interest in some aspects in their learning English, especially in learning writing skills One

of the reasons for this may come from the test structures which focus on reading comprehension and grammar points in the forms of multiple-choice questions Another reason may be the students‘ belief that only speaking skills are the

most important and useful ones for them in communication I myself also have found that one of the reasons for students‘ low interest in writing may come from the teachers In other words, the teachers‘ methods to teach this skill may not be motivating enough to get students involved in These reasons are the very incentives for me to carry out this action research on using genre-based approach to motivate students to write in class time

Up to now, the application of genre-based approach to teaching writing a recount has been carried out in many countries since the 1990s And although genre-based approach has been a controversial topic, it was stated to be very effective in teaching and learning English in EFL classroom Teachers use models can help free students from the fears of writing (Kay & Dudley-Evans, 1998) Moreover, with the knowledge of recount genre, students are familiar with the linguistic skills and can produce the right text type to achieve their intended communicative purpose (Gwee, 1990) Genre-based approach has been widely used to teach writing in many schools as well as universities worldwide, and positive results have been attained The findings from the study

of Chandrika (2001) was a typical example

Genre-based approach is still new to Vietnamese teachers Particularly in

my school, most of the teachers and students who use English as a foreign language find that writing is the most laborious of the four language skills The current curriculum requires my colleagues, who have been used to traditional teaching methods, to use numerous strategies to help the students develop those skills only in three classes a week Although our students have some background knowledge of general English in the last five years, their writing ability is at a very low level They are only able to write at sentence levels, while the syllabus demands them to produce essays When being asked to write

a personal recount, most of them do not know how to make ideas well

organized, and even produce texts with an inappropriate genre And most students in my non-English major classes may find writing the most difficult and heavy lessons to follow because either they lack vocabulary and ideas or they do not know the text organizations They have the tendency to translate their thought organized in Vietnamese style into the English written forms, which often culminates in unnatural and incomprehensible writing products As

a result, their scores are unsatisfactory even though they are hard-working Furthermore, the students are not highly motivated to learn English except for preparing for tests or examinations English is one of the compulsory subjects in their school-leaving exam whose questions are multiple choice

As an English teacher for five years in a gifted high school, I understand the greater study pressure that my students have to experience in comparison with their peers at normal high schools Therefore, I am interested in improving

my teaching in a way to help my students to study writing English, particularly writing an English recount

I myself had heard about genre-based approach before but not until I was exposed to the specific steps in genre-based approach to teaching writing a recount Therefore, I felt confident enough to apply it to my classes With my personal knowledge, understanding and observations of this new approach, I am equipped with theoretical and practical stimuli to conduct this action research And to teach my students, who have been rarely exposed to authentic writing, to create better personal recounts

2 Aims of the study

The goal of this study is to investigate whether the teaching with based approach will help students overcome the difficulties in writing personal recount Therefore, the researcher‘s first objectives are to find out the

genre-difficulties his students are facing, and how much the new method helps improve their writing A number of lessons which are planned based on the steps of this approach will be applied in classroom for a period of time to answer that question Besides, through questionnaires the researcher will explore the students‘ feeling about the use of genre approach in teaching writing personal recount

3 The study questions

In short, the study is designed to investigate the following questions:

a What difficulties do grade 10 students in Tuyen Quang Gifted High

School face in writing personal recount?

b To what extent does teaching with genre-based approach help the

students improve their personal recount writing?

c What are benefits and limitations of a genre-based approach to

teaching writing?

4 Scope of the study

The sample of this study was the 10th form students of Tuyen Quang Gifted High school, Viet nam The study lasted for 5 weeks and the treatment was applied to all students in a classroom

5 Design of the study

This study is divided into three main parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion

The Introduction provides an overview of the study with rationale, aims of

The Development includes three chapters:

Chapter 1 deals with Literature Review (Definitions of Genre, recount, personal recount, benefits and limitations of Genre-based approach to teaching writing as well as methodology and research schedule) Chapter 2 presents Methodology and research schedule Chapter 3 offers data analysis of Pre, Post-test, data analysis of questionnaires

Conclusion presents the findings of the study, limitations and implications for further research are also explained

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter consists of six sections The first section definition of genre and recount, types of recount, personal recount The next sections deals with genre-based Approach The last section is benefits and limitations of Genre-based Approach

goal-2 Recount

A recount is a piece of text that retell past events, usually in the order in which they occurred Its purpose is to provide the audience with a description of what occurred and when it occurred (e.g blogs, diaries, eyewitness recounts, historical recounts, etc.) (Anderson, M & Anderson, C., 1998)

3 Types of recount

There are several text types should taught to eleventh grade students such as :

- Personal recount: (conversations, interview, letters ): retelling of an activity the writer or speaker has been personally involved in

- Factual recount: (depositions, observational reports ): recording the particulars of an event, sometimes in order to evaluate their significance

- Imaginative recount: (accounts of a dream written in letters or interviews,

or fictional recounts of pure imagination): taking on an imaginary role and giving details of event

However, to focus the discussion, this study only deals with the teaching of personal recount text as one of the text types should taught at High school

on the teaching of writing in a foreign language commenced, which resulted in the process approach whose primary concern is about the final piece of writing

with attention being paid to the appropriate use of vocabulary, syntax, and cohesive devices (Pincas, 1982) Then in the 1970s, the process approach started

to take over the product approach According to Badger and White (2000, 155), this approach is seen as ‗predominantly to do with language skills‘ and is criticized for its views of writing process being the same irrespective of who is writing what Thus, certain drawbacks can be seen in these two approaches as they fail to acquaint students with the text type structure in conjunction with its language features, which can both facilitate and determine the quality of EFL learners‘ writing products Another approach termed the genre-based approach which began to catch on in the 1980s is believed to have been able to make amends for the above-mentioned approaches

p.154-Over the last many years, much of the teaching of writing that occurs in the EFL classroom has been dominated by product and process approaches On the other hand, genre approach also became quite popular in the 1980s, yet it did not gain many supporters until the beginning of the last decade It was noted that student writers could benefit from studying different types of written texts Although the literature exposes us to some different approaches and various genres, this review is concentrated on the use of genre-based approach to teach personal recount

The genre analysis approach tries to explain how different genres achieve their communicative purpose ―The essence of the concept of genre, as is now used in applied linguistics, ESP, and rhetoric, is an emphasis on the primacy of communicative purpose and the way in which communicative needs shape or influence both surface and deeper rhetorical structure‖ (Mirhassani and Reshadi,

2001, P.69) According to functional linguists, language is a social phenomenon and is shaped by the purposes to which it is put and the audiences to which it is addressed Hence, there exist various genres, each of which has its own

structural features that are the organizational structure and linguistic features according to its communicative purpose As stated by Badger and White (2000, p.156), in the genre-based approach, writing is seen as essentially concerned with the knowledge of language and as being attached to a social purpose and learning how to write takes place through analysis and imitation of modals provided

However, Genre-based approach also is fundamentally underpinned by a socially-based theory of language According to Halliday‘ (1985), genre-based approach is a systemic-functional model of language which see grammar as a

―resource for making meaning‖ This approach focuses on the communicative purpose of writing in a specific social context Therefore, different text types have different purposes and audiences, and practitioners of the genre approach attempt to make students aware of the differences between the genres to aid their writing Swale‘s definition introduces genre as ―a class of communicative events, the numbers of which share some set of communicative purposes which are recognized by the expert members of the parent discourse community‖ (p.58) The communicative purpose is the most prominent criterion for the identification of genres The purpose of the genre is, therefore, not rooted in a single individual‘s motive for communication, but in a purpose that is recognized and reinforced within a community (see Amirian, 2002)

According to Kay and Dudley-Evans (1998 p.310), genre approach enables students to improve their writing skill and produce the right text that suits their intended goal of communication It also helps expose them to the knowledge of the surrounding world so that they can take part in it Being provided with models, learners are able to be unbridled from the fears of writing Furthermore, the approach empowers them to comment on the effectiveness of their products

After analyzing and comparing the three approaches, Badger and White (2000 p.155-157) found that genre approach has been criticized as it undervalues the processes needed to produce a text and sees learners as largely passive However, they strongly agreed that the approach emphasizes that writing happens in a social context whose heart is the purpose It was noted that learning can take place through imitation and analysis Students are encouraged

to explore different samples of a text type to comprehend the rules, features and the structure in order that they improve their ability to create their own writing

As Cope and Kalantzis (1993, p.7) put it, ―genre is a term used in literacy pedagogy to connect the different forms text take with variations in social purpose‖ This means that in genre-based approach, learners are facilitated with the comprehension of a wide range of text types to serve a wide range of social demands Accordingly, when learners are exposed to the accurate and appropriate language in use, they experience the opportunities to take the role of language users in various contexts, which leads to the heightened motivation to learn that language (Ngeow, 1998 Cited in Rachel, 2002, p.81) What is more, the social-determined-language-structure factor mentioned here has the potential to meet relevant future needs of individual learners such as their jobs and higher education‘s requirements In this case, learners consider the practical aspects of learning the target language, which is defined as ―instrumental motivation‖ (Gardner and Lambert, 1972 Cited in Jacob, 1996, p 43) As it can be seen from this very first place, genre-based approach embraces the potential to motivate language learning

The second factor of prevailing genre-based approach presents the learners‘ chances to expose to various text types or genres Cope and Kalantzis (1993, p.7) defined ―genres are social processes.‖ Text patterns are predictably accumulated from social interactions in a certain culture Therefore, learning

new genres equips learners with the linguistic capability to interact in the context of culture of the target language (Cope and Kalantzis, 1993, p.7) In other words, genre-based approach grants learners empowerment, ability and permission to understand and thus join the discourse community (Kay and Evans, 1998, p.310) This is again in line with the definition of instrumental motivation by Gardner and Lambert (1972) Furthermore, it can also inspire the desire to interact and to be a member of the target discourse community, represented as Gardner and Lambert‘s notion of integrative motivation These two elements of motivation in learning foreign languages are positioned at the first level - the Language Level – in Dornyei‘s 1994 framework of L2 motivation (Dornyei, 2001, p.18) Whatever motivation model is used to identify these impacts originated from the application genre-based approach on learners, once again it obviously indicates the potential of this approach in motivating language learning, including the learning of writing skills

The final influential factor of genre-based approach considered in this paper is narrowed down to the area of teaching and learning writing in foreign language, specifically English When putting genres in practice, Callaghan, Knapp and Noble (1993, p.180:181) nominated the Curriculum Cycle or Wheel with three major stages of ―modeling‖, ―joint negotiation‖, and ―independent construction‖

In ―modeling‖, learners are exposed to the context of communication to arrive at the understanding of the social purpose of a certain text type (Callaghan, Knapp et al, 1993, p.181) Also in this initial stage, learners get to grips with text structure and language features through some model texts of the target genre (Callaghan, Knapp et al, 1993, p.181) According to Hidi and Boscolo (2006, p.145), this stage puts ―an emphasis on writing in natural

settings‖, thus writing in class is turned into a meaningful and authentic task with specifically practical goals and contexts

In the second stage, ―joint negotiation‖, learners as a class or group begin

to construct the text accompanied by the teacher‘s guidance, support and scaffolding (Callaghan, Knapp et al, 1993, p 181) This is regarded to be valuable in the teaching and learning of writing in the respect of enabling learners to be free from fears and to gain inner safety and security to get started (Kay and Evans, 1998, p 310:311) Hidi and Boscolo (2006, p.145) viewed that this ―collaborative writing‖ in ―the dialogical dimension of written communication‖ played a decisive role in forming an essentially supportive and positive classroom atmosphere, which in its turns motivates students to write Getting through two stages, learners are granted with the holistic knowledge about the genre and the safe and sound practices to construct the text At this phase, learners can be left to deal with the genre individually Therefore, in the final stage, ―independent construction‖, learners with the prepared and shared knowledge and language can individually cope with their writing creatively within and even beyond the investigated genre (Callaghan, Knapp et al, 1993, p 182) This is in line with Boscolo and Cisotto (1997 Cited

in Hidi and Boscolo, 2006, p.147) and Nolen‘s (2003 Cited in Hidi and Boscolo, 2006, p.147) shared viewpoint that motivation for writing may originate from the feeling of attainable capability to communicate one‘s thoughts and moods This levels off the motivation in learning foreign language

to the Learner Level in Dornyei‘s 1994 framework of L2 motivation (Dornyei,

2002, p.18)

The application of genre-based approach to teaching writing has appealed

to the attention of a large number of practitioners and language teachers in

effectively, especially on learners of English as a foreign language and learners with low English proficiency Singapore English language Syllabus has included this approach since 2001 (Wang, 2000, p.19) In the case study to teach writing to L2 learners with low proficiency, Firkins, Forey and Sengupta (2007, p.350) found that genre-based approach played a considerably significant role in improving the learners‘ writing skills

Although there is not much consideration taken into the genre-based approach‘s effects on teaching writing, thanks to the application of the genre-based approach in teaching writing, we can help EFL students to minimize the difficulties of limited language proficiency and to logically organize their ideas

by activating their prior knowledge on writing experiences when they are asked

to produce a piece of writing in a familiar genre Furthermore, being aware of the rhetorical goals can ensure more persuasive writing This research is aimed

at investigating whether teaching with genre-based approach positively impacts the personal recount writing of students in Tuyen Quang Gifted High School, Tuyen Quang, Vietnam

6 Benefits and Limitations of Genre based approach to teaching writing

The application of the genre-based approach to teaching writing had some benefits and limitations First, on the positive side, students generally appreciate the models or examples showing specifically what they have to do linguistically Studying a given genre also provides them with an understanding

of why a communication stile is the way it is through a reflection of its social context and its purpose Swales (1990) pointed out how rhetorical instruction plays as pivotal a role in writing improvement as prior knowledge (p.83) In this context, the genre approach is very beneficial because it brings together formal

and functional properties of a language in writing instruction, and it acknowledges that there are strong associations between them

Moreover, the genre approach encourages students participate in the world around them, to comprehend writing as a tool that they can utilize, and to realize how writers manage content to promote logical organization It is also allows students to be come more flexible in their thinking and eventually to realize how authors organize their writings However, some proponents have indicated that the genre approach is more suitable for learners at beginning or Intermediate levels of proficiency in a second language rather than those at advanced levels, in that it releases students from deep anxieties about their writing tasks When people learn something new, they commonly want to find some cases that they can refer to or consider as samples There is no doubt that writing tasks can be more demanding than other language skills, so students at low level of proficiency absolutely need something that they can reply on since they have little exposure to English writing ( Kay & Dudley-Evan, 1998,p.310) Although genre approach helps learners to produce written work with confidence, there are two concerns about the genre approach One is that it underestimates the skills required to produce content, and the other concern is that it neglects learners‘ self-sufficiency ( Byram, 2004, p.236) The genre approach not only places too much emphasis on conventions and genre features but also is less helpful for students in discovering the texts‘ true messages due

to the targeted aspects of the specified genre Likewise, if teachers spend class time explaining how language is used for a range of purposes and with a variety

of readers, learners are likely to be largely passive Thus, the genre approach is blamed for limiting learners‘ creative thoughts about content and is criticized in that it overlooks natural processes of learning and learners‘ creativity (Badge&White,2000,p.157)

Finally, Bawarshi (2000) pointed out that, at its best, it helps learners to identify and interpret literary texts, while at its worst, it interferes with he learners‘ creativity (p.343) This concern means that students may end up writing genres as meaningless reproductions Moreover, the negative side of the genre-based approach is that learners may not have enough knowledge of appropriate language or vocabulary to express what they intend to communicate

to specific audience an other weakness, as Badger and White (2000) point out,

is that the genre approach undervalues the writing skills which learners need to produce a written product and ignores the writing abilities learners have in other areas Similarly, Kamler (1995:9) criticizes the genre approach because of … its narrow focus on language and text and its lack of attention to the instructional and disciplinary contexts in which texts are constructed

In conclusion, the study pointed the strengths of the genre –based method

to teaching writing, identifies numerous advantages However, we can‘t deny exist some limitation, but generally less significant than the benefits of this approach

This study was carried out on students in 10 Physics and Chemistry class

in Tuyen Quang Gifted High school A total of 72 students (32 male and 40 female students) 59,1% of the participants were female students The participants‘ age range was 17 And this study was designed to discover if the genre-based approach would positively affect students‘ writing and how it does

so One class of grade 10 students were given writing instruction using the genre approach Pre and post tests were delivered to assess any change in personal account writing performance as a result of the use of the new method

A questionnaire was administered to find out whether the approach impact

The use of genre-based approach

To help students write better personal recount

Teacher uses genre approach to teach students to write personal

recounts

Students‘ improvement in writing personal recounts This

is measured by pre-test and

post-tests

students‘ feeling about composing personal recounts based on the genre approach

2 3 Data collection

This study is carried out in Tuyen Quang Gifted High school with one class of grade 10 students Most of them are interested in learning English, especially writing because of their love for writing diaries, letters, emailing, and

so on Furthermore, the current English Syllabus requires them to learn to write personal recounts However, their writing ability is still at a low level, and their prior test scores were below teacher‘s expectation My students often make mistakes in using vocabulary, sentence structures and verb tenses Besides, some of them cannot identify the text type, particularly the structure and language features of a personal recount

2 3.1 Data collection procedures

In order to collect data on the qualitative and quantitative aspects of EFL writing performance, I focused on the task of writing a personal recount in English And the data collection procedure is indicated in the following flow chart

Writing Pre-test

Pre-intermediate grade 10 students

Student questionnaire

Writing pre-test