Luận văn the use of post writing activities in improving grade 10 students' english writing skills a case study at gia binh 2 high school bacninh

LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES Chart 1: Teachers’ frequency of using post writing activities Chart 2: Students' experience of learning English Chart 3: Student participants’ experience of lea

writing activities and their importance in improving learners’ writing proficiency Among all,

teacher's feedback, group’s feedback and peer’s feedback are the activities used lo revise 10” form studenis’ papers al GR2HS, in which Icacher’s commonL play the erncial role and mostly applied However, there are numerous problems preventing thos? activities from working efficiently in the study context Some implications are then drawn up based on the findings for the bollerment of the teaching and learning post writing stage al GROHS With emeful and detailed investigations, it is hoped that this study will be a useti source of reference for teachsrs, students and those who concern about feedback activities in improving writing skill

TABBLE OF CONTENT

PART A- INTRODUCTIO:

1 Ratlonale

2 Aims of the sindy

3 Scape of the sturty

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Theoretical background to English writing teaching

1.1.1 Overview of writing

1.1.2, Overview of writing teaching

L121 Why do we teach writing?

1.1.2.2 Theoreticul qpproaches to wriling leaeliHr ccccccecie ii

1.1.2.2.2 Current: traditional rhetoric approach - 8

1.2.2.4, The stages in the writing process „10 1.2 Overviews of Teachers and l'eers’ Feedbacks in Ieaching and Learning W ring]2 1.2.1 What is feedback?

2.3 The writing syllabus of grade 10 students

2.4, Description of data collection instruments

3.1 Data analysis of teachers’ performances, attitudes and evaluations

3.1L Yeacher participants’ demography information and teaching experience 20

3.1.2, Teachers’ perception of teaching English writing ax a process

3.1.8 Teacher participants’ representation of stages in writing teaching

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3.1.4, Teacher participants’ representations in Post writing stage

3.1.5 Teachers’ evaluation on the effectiveness of post writing activities

3.15.1 Frequency and procedure of using Past- writing aciVIHie

3.1.5.2, Teachers’ evaluation on the importance and effectiveness of Post writing

3.1.5.3 Teachers" eualaution on the students’ unprovement

3.2, Data analysis of students’ performances, attitudes and evaluations

3.2.4, Student participants’ learning experience

3.24, Students’ evaluations on their improvement in writing skill

3.2.4.1 Students’ perception on factors that affect writing proficiency oc 32

3.2.4.2, Students’ self- assessment on their improvement in writing shHl 32

3.2.5, Students’ presentation of errors in writing papers and their improvement in

Appendix B: Researcher’s Observations fom Class Hours Attended

Appendix C: Checklists and Exror Codes

Appendix D: Tnterview Questions and Survey Questionnaire

Ministry of education and training

Gia Binh 2 High School Content

Organization

Paper

Before After

LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES

Chart 1: Teachers’ frequency of using post writing activities

Chart 2: Students' experience of learning English

Chart 3: Student participants’ experience of learning English in process

Chart 4: Students’ frequency of participating in post writing activities

Chart 5: Students’ perception of the importance of Post writing activities

Chart 6: The post-writing activities used by respondents

Chart 7: Respondents’ evaluation on the most effective activities to students’ writing

Chart 8: Respondents’ evaluation on the effectiveness of post-writing activities

Chart 9: Students’ perecption on the factors affecting writing proficiency

Chart 10; Respondents’ evaluation on their improvement Iruwriting

Table 1: Student participants’ presentation of errors in writing before and afler teachers" giving feedback

Table 2: Students’ writing extor presentation of errors betore and after peer comection

Table 3: Students’ writing extor presentation of errors betore and after group correction

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PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

As the development, of the world; Tinglish has, of course, become the official tanguage of Iman beings and leaming English is compulsory in every comer of the earth Leaming this language effectively means the leamers are sufficiently proficient in all its sub- aspects namely wadding, speaking, listening and writing skills, Among these skills, teaching how to write English well has been noticed as early as since English was taught English language teaching methods, in general, and Lnglish language writing skill methods, in particular, have changed over time It's comsidered the process-oriented pedagogy approach which has permeated the English language tcaching and English writing teaching as well over the pasl twenly years onc

of the most effective

The process-oriented approach requires tcaching writing regularly with numcrous stages

namely Pre- Writing, Writing and Post- Writing: in addition, each stage can also contain

several sub siages with different techniques to appropriate writing teaching and tearing

Among those stag

, His very clear thal we ean nol contral how and whal axactly the loarncrs axe writing sinee writing skill as known is a productive skill- gach writer with his’ her own imagination and knowledge can bear different products With the role as an instructor, teachers can only intervene in Pro- writing slags lo provide the learners with available vocabulary or suggested ideas and they will start writing more smoothly or in Post- writing stage to help them edit and improve the writing

Since process- oriented approach gained its popularity, each of English skills has been treated the same or taught both separated and integrated with one another Especially, thank to the MORT’s policy of texthooks change af high schools in Vietrarm in school year 2006- 2007, English skills in general and writing skill in particular have been really taught in process with Pre- writing, writing and Post- writing stages, of which the third one seems worth asking

‘What are really lappening in this stage? Is il roally lictping lcarnars aexuire the skill?

‘To edit a language product, numerous ways have been introduced including peer reviews, teacher-student conferences, and audio-taped commentary and so on However, with written ones in real situations of Victnam, it scerns that handwritten corrections with teachers or pecrs are the most applicable, Gia Binh 2 High School in Bacninh is one like other high schools in

Vieinain applying teaching Fnglish writing skill in a process as follow the textbook "Tiếng Anh 10, 11, 12” issued by the MOET since at first, therefore, teaching writing skill, in general, and post writing stage, in particular tend to be worth researching

Last but not least, research on teaching writing skill in general and dealing with students’ wrillen

of work in particular in Victnam has been so rare and books about these arc also quite limited, Being one of the teachers who are in charge of, the researcher feels really concemed in investigating the effectiveness of the Post- writing activities applied in her context, Gia Dinh 2 high school in improving grade 10 students” writing skill

2 Aims of the study

This study is intended to measure the effectiveness of Post- writing activities in teaching English language writing skill for the grade 10 students at Gia Binh 2 lligh School, Bacninh-

"the study desires to obtain the main following aims:

(1) to investigate which Post- writing activities are being used in writing lessons of grade 10

students at Gia Binh 2 ITigh School, Bacninh, their frequency and their relations

(2) to investigate the teachers and students’ performances in these activities, their attitudes

towards each activity and find out the advantages and disadvantages of each Post- writing activity in writing lessons of grads 10 studlonls at Gin Binh 2 High School, Bacninth

(3) to compare among these activities and evaluate the effectiveness of each and draw out

which one is the mast beneficial

3 Scope of the study

This study is hoped to carry out within the following scopes:

(1) Being a productive skill and processed in stages, teaching writing is such a broad topic thal

can not be wholly discussed within the framework of this paper Only one specific and commonly-practiced stage of teaching the skill will be central to the discussion: teaching Post- writing stage

(2) Every EFL composition class needs feedback in order to revise their papers successfully

Tiowever, the study’s contexl, Gia Binh 2 Tigh School with more than 2000 is so large

area, Therefore, this study will deal with only 89 student participants among, the starters- two groups of grade 10 students in school ‘Together with these two groups are four icacher participants who arein charge of teaching English for 10 gradors in this school

(3) Writing skill needs practicing frequently and, of course, will fake much time Nothing done

in process can get the result over night Therefore, this research will be carried out neatly during the academic year 2010- 2011 along with using the textbook “Tiéng Anh 10” The result hopes to come to an end in the last of the academic year to propose recommendations to improve the next academic year’s teaching of writing

‘These points are made clear to the participants in the process of conducting this study so that

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the study can be more feasible and its results more applicable into the real classrooms As a resull, the resol of the sludy will be recommended to apply in leaching writing skill for the grade 10 students at Gia Binh 2 High School, Bacninh and may be for the others, the grade 11 and 12 ones in this school,

4, Research questions

With the scopes and the detailed aims as above, this rescarch will be wished to answer the

following questions:

(1) What are the post- writing activities often used in English writing lessons in grade 10 at

Gia Bink 2 High School?

(2) What are the 10th form teachers and learners’ altitudes to the post- writing activities

applied ta teach writing skill af Gia Binh 2 High School?

(3) What are the advaniages and disadvantages of the past- writing activities used in

teaching writing for grade 10 students at Gia Binh 2 High School?

(4 Which posi- writing activity ix the mosi effective? (as perceived by these teachers and

learners?)

5 Methodology

‘This study’s scopes, aims and hypotheses need to pick the combined approaches ‘I'he

following approaches will be used Lo conduct the rescarch

(1) An initial interview is done among the teacher participants to find out which Post- writing

activities are being used in writing tessons of grade 10 students at Gia Binh 2 Tligh

School The teachers’ attitudes and techniques in conducting post- witing activitics arc

also expected to be revealed through this interview ‘Then the follow-up interview is casried oul afer writing lessons allended by the researcher Lo evaluate [he strengths and

weaknesses of each post- writing activity in tenms of teachers’ opinions

(2) A survey questionnaire is piloted among grade 10 students at Gia Binh 2 Ltigh School to

discover their performance in the post- writing activitics and their aftiludes to these

activities Questionnaire data collection and analysis is also hoped to reveal the leamers’

own assessment of each activity

(3) Students” papers will be collected and analyzed to measure each post writing activity’ s

interventions on students’ writing and their improvement in the writing proficiency

(4) Researcher’s observation and assessment on the post writing activities are also an

important source to gain the aims of the study

lô

6 Outline of the study

This study consists of three parts: introduction, development and conclusion

‘The introduction presents the background, aims, research questions, scopes as well as the approaches and oulline of the stacy

The development comprises three chapters:

Chapter | reviews the literature on the writing teaching and handwritten corrections in teaching

andl learning writing as well

Chapter II describes the research methods used in the process of doing the thesis It consists of the justification of data collection instruments, the description of data collection instruments, the procedure to cutlvet data, The subject of the sludy is also mentioned in this chapter

Chaptar TH presents the results and discussion on the data collecled by means of survey

questionnaire among student respondents, interview responding among teacher participants

and student writing analysis Researcher's observations are also revealed here

The conclusion offers some suggestions for furthcr improvements in feedbacks on students writing and provides future directions for further research which are not touched upon in the

Tint of this thesis.

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

‘this chapter reviews important issues in the theories of teaching writing in general and conducting post- writing activities in particular, Two main features will be taken into consideration, namely, theoretical background to the teaching writing and theoretical background to feedback: teachers” feedback and peers’ feedback They are also the foundation

on which the questionnaires for Ihe teachors and students are set up

1.1 Theoretical background to English writing teaching

LLL Overview of writing

Writing is onc of the four skills taught when uastoring any Tanguages In English lanigua

teaching, writing skill is nominated a productive skill with numerous definitions sounding

it Basteally, it is seen as an “act of forming graphic symbols” (Byme, 1991, p 1) It means writing anything is really simple, we use letters or combinations of letters according to certain conventions to form words, words are combined to make sentence, and then sentences are put

with each other to “produce a sequence of sentences arranged in a particular order and linked together in certain ways” In the other word, writing, in Byme’s view, is reflected from the lowest level- letters to the higher and higher levels of performance- words, sentences and discourses and as stralegies to obtain a Gal product or actions of “taking marks an the flat surface of some kinds”

Other views consider it as a more complex process which are “profiausd, or funny, or

provocative, or highly persuasive” (Veit, Gould & Clifford, 2001) and involves a mumber of separate sub- skills “from the basies of handwriting and spelling to the subtler muances of tone

and organization.” as a social process, “Writing is therefore an engagement in a soctal process, where the production of texts reflects methodologies, arguments and rhetorical strategies constructed to engage colleagues and persuade them of the claims that are made.”

(Candlin and Hyland, 1999, p 107}

Cognitive view sees writing as decision - making process (Flower & Hayes, 1981) When waiting something, whether an email message, a letter, or an essay, the writer is engaged in making decisions one by one, Ile or she has to decide what to begin the text with, whether to inclnde or teave out an idea that comes to mind, whether to hegin 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 fime during the acl of composing

defined as “learning iv muke decisions appropriate for the siluaiion (ike purpose of the text,

the writer's objective, the reader's purpose in reading the text, the circumstances in which the

writing ard reading fake place) and learning fo recognize where inappropriate decision have

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been made, so that they can be put right before the text arrives at the reader's desk”,

Renandya é& Richard (2002, p.1)

Murray (1978, p 29) and Parl (1979, p 43) also raises their opinions of waiting as “a creative disvovery procedure chuvaclerized by the dynamic interplay of content and language: the uve

of language to explare beyond the known content.” As tollow this view, language becomes the great instrament to create and reflect the background knowledge or experiance we have already gained in the social life In brief, all the views gradually considered writing more complicated as an art that need creativity and effort

Consequently, writing is not a simple one to master Ur (1996) said “most people acquire the

spoken language (at least their own mother tongue) intuitively, whereas the writien form is in

most cases deliberately taught and learned” (p.161) In addition, writing, ftom the language

teachers' view point, is also "2 language skill which is difficult to acquire" (Tribble, 1996, p.3)

His “a process that occurs over a period of time, particularly if we take inta account the sometimes extended period of thinking that precedes creating an initial draft” (Ferris, 1993, p

10) ‘Tribble also stresses that writing “narmally requires some forms of instruction” and that

“it is not a skill that is readily picked up by expasure” (1996, p.11) Learners have to spend

il “a process of transforming the material you discover by inspiration, research,

accident, trial and error, or whatever into a message with a define meaning In short, writing

is a process of deliberate decision” (p 9)

1.1.2 Overview of writing teaching

1.1.2.1 Why do we teach writing?

Byrne (1991, pp: 4-5) indicates the nate of wiiting, being a difficult skill in a language

acquisition, through three aspects of, namely, psychological, linguistic and cognitive He sees writing process as one which is different from speech making process Writing must be carried out in one’s own merely nol basing on others’ responses or feedbacks with fixed linguistic gules and writers’ awareness of structures used, texl organization and fhe readership Or as jnsightfully claimed by Richards and Renandya (2002, p.303), “there is no doubt that writing

ts the most difficult skill for L learners to master The difficulty lies not only in generating and

organising ideas, bul also in translating diese into readable text” However, writing is essential to teach due to its dynamics, This is a skill that not only is tested in every internationally valid language examination, but also a skill that learners should possess and demonstrate in academac context Writing includes numerous considerations and choices to be

made regarding “higher level skills”, such as content, structure and organization, and "lower level skilis" such as spelling, prmetation and choice of appropriate vocabulary items and

grammatical structures, Richards and Renandya (2002)

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Ronald White (1981) also finds that writing is essential for iis usages as a “high face valve” device Mostly used lo salisly a psychological

dl, all peuple would like to write rather then

lo talk to inform, especially the sensible matiers Or in educational aspeel, a variety of activities thal interes| to the lesson is often conducted by writing aotivities, Moreover, not only

in warming- up bul writing is also a reliable test devive reflecting students’ progress Almost

of the tests are mainly cartied out in writing papers

Ur (1996) views writing’s importance “as a means”, “as an end” and “as both means and

end” À3 a means, writing can reflect its role in engaging aspects of language for we often use

wriling to lake nole new vocabulary, write down the answers for reatling and listening tasks ot

copy oul grammar rules, ic, As an end, writing activiti

s are often done variously al different

and requires tt {ferent performances; therefore, cach Ì

Cumy, MJ & Hewings, A of l (2003) also share the above poinis of view Thal we teach wailing for itis “ay assessment; as an aid to critical thinking, understanding and memory; 10 extend students’ learning beyond lectures and vther formal meeting; to improve students’ communication skills, and to train students as future professionals in particular disciplines”

it will have valuc in itself'as part of the tong-term cilacalion proc

1.1.2.2 theoretical appraaches to writing teaching

With the importance of teaching writing, in the 20ih century, humm beings witnessed

numzrous approaches such as Audio- lingualism, Suggestepedia and Silent Way in the first

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half (Richards & Renandya, 2002) and in the second half as Communicative Approaches Language lowards the end of the 1960s was nia longer seen solely in terms of struclures, bul as something more complex including a munber of nolions and fimetions that have to be

quired Tlymnes, (L968, p.278) Gist imroduces the nofien ef communicalive compslence,

“there are niles af use without which the rules of grammar would be useless” He mizarss Thai

Janguage study should move away fiom stict grammatical and syntactic structures, as

“competence for use ix part of the same developmental matrix as competence for grammar” (1988, p 279)

Approaches ware Taised, ø

hieved the dominance and then faded bul they never disappear Raimes (1983, pp: 6-11) indicaics: “There is no one way lo teach wriling, bul many ways” and presents the six most typical, namely, @) The Controlled+io-Frec Approach which tainly cinphasizes accuracy of grammar, synlax and mechanics, (i) The Free-Writing Approach which puts the focus on tluency, ideas and audience, (iii) The Paragraph-Pattem Approach which deals with text organization and the language’s culture of organizing, texts, (iv) The Grammar-Syntax-Organization Approach which combines the need to organize well and using right grammar and syntax, (¥) ‘The Communicative Approach which concentrates on the purpose and the audience of the writing (who and why), (vi) ‘he Process Approach which stresses more on the written prodnet through steps with multiple- drafts

Nunan (1991) also discusses the two typical writing teaching approaches sức produet- otlenled and process- oriented The preduct- oriented stresses on the end work which is desired to be similar to a sample, whereas the process approach emphasizes thinking and writing procedure

at discourse-level with various steps and multiple drafts (pp 86-87)

Up to now, despile being waned differently, the approaches developed and more ar fess indluential to the writing teaching,

1.1.2.2.1, Controlled- composition approach

‘This approach regards language as speech and leaming as habit formation {1 meas thal wriling is seen as» sccondary/supporting concern or reinforcement far oral habits: only Writitysis considered: “the handmaid of the other skills, , which must not take precedence as

a major skill to be developed,” Rivers (1968, p 241) or “as a service activity rather than as an end in itself,” Rivers (1968, p 258) Writing, then is imitating or manipulating of the learnt structures in speech It does not care for the quality of ideas or expressions but formal

linguistic accuracy, so this approach lacks audience and purpose, In this approach, teachers tend to focus on form and role as editors or proofreaders

1.1.2.2.2 Current vaditional rhetoric approach

This approach then appears with the increasing awareness of the students’ needs in producing extended writien discourse, Controlled composition is not enough but writing needs more than

Is

making correct grammatical sentences ‘hs approach is the combination of the basie principles

of Young’s current- traditional paradigm (1978) with Kaplan’s theory of contrastive rhetoric

sary (0 “provide the students with a form within which he may operate” (p 20) In the

other word, writing should have logical constiuction and arrangement of discourse forms, in which paragraphs have to consist of topic, supporting and concluding sentences linked by transitions and larger essays must be developed with introduction, body and conclusion

Seemingly, this approach is still to focus on form The approach, as a result, still lacks of

audience and purpose It just encourages students to “see fornt as a mold inte which content is

somehow poured” White (1990, p.6), and results in “mimii,

coptes of a particular organizational plan or style” and “stultifving and inhibiting writers rather than empowering

hofz (1986, p.24)

them or liberating them”

1.1.2.2.3 The process approach

Richard (1985) sees communicative language teaching (CLI) that emerged in the 1970s as a

major breskthrongh in langnage teaching and marks the maving away fram the Iraditiona

attempt to operationalize the concept of communicative competence and to apply it across all

levels of language program design, from theory, to syllabus design, ta teaching techniques”,

Richards (2002, p 22) Teaching writing in process is mainly fecus-on-forms and includes a Jot of different stages The content, the ideas, and the needs to communicate would determine the form Raimes (1992) states that “composing means expressing ideas, conveying meaning Composing means thinking” (p 261), in addition, Zamel (1983) expresses writing as a

“complex, recursive, and creative process whereby the writers discaver and reformulate their

ideas as they attempt to approximate meaning” (p 163) The pracess emphasizes on the

content or meaning firsk or whal message the writing conveys Learners neci te pay more altenlion lo whal lo convey through the writing work Final producis are just “secondary,

derivative concern, whose form is a fimetion of its content and purpose” (Silva, 1988, p 16)

Inaddition, Cohen, (2001) interprets Hymes’ model of communicative competence as a model

consisting of four different components, grammatical, discourse, sociolinguistic and strategic competence Grammatical competence refers to the choice of lexis and grammatical and

to make up for any communication breakdowns In relation to teaching writing, so that writing

acts as communicative role, form is not of great importance as content, meaning and intention

However, the focus on content with exclusion of form has also faced disagreement by the academic community For example, Silva (1990) argued “student writing must falls within the range of acceptable writing behaviors dictated by the academic comnumity” (p.17) Yet, the

approach still seems to be the most preferable As developed through time the approach is to include both form and content- focused features with the stress mainly on meaning This

approach enables

“learners to write their way into more precise, interpretive texts, while at the same time fostering

greater attention to forms of the writing, to reflection on what is involved in the creation of a text

and to adapting writing style to the audience and context of writing” Reid (1993, p 30)

In this approach, “teachers are encouraged not to impose their views, give models, ar suggest

response to topics beforehand” (Candlin & Hall, 2002, p 23) Learners are enhanced to

brainstorm and outline their overflow of first thinking Then, “the idea behind it is not really to

dissociate writing entirely from the written product and to merely load students through the

various stages of the writing process” (Seow, 2002: 315 - 316) Therefore, process means through various stages

1.1.2.2.4 The stages in the writing process

Since development of this approach, there have been many views on the number of stages in

writing Hedge (1990) describes it including “being motivated to write —+ getting ideas

together —> planning and outlining making notes — making a first draft — revising,

replanning, redrafting —+ editing and getting ready for publication” Or Oshima and Hogue

(1991) draw out a process with three stages: pre- writing, planning (autlining) and writing and

revising drafts Ron White and Valerie Amat (1990) divide the writing process into:

And another one, Reid (1993) raises the process comprising five main stages: prewriting,

planing, drafting, revismg and editing in addition to three others initiated by the teachers:

responding, evaluating and post- writing Or Gardner and Johnson (1997) describe the stages

of the writing process consist of eight steps namely: “Prewriting—Rough Draft + Reread >

Share with a Peer Revisor —» Revise —+ Editing —+ Final Draft + Publishing” These steps are

collaborative and continual

Different linguists give different views, yet the process always cover numerous stages Of the

mentioned above, this study will pick one by Oshima and Hogue (1991) in detailed analysis

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Pre- writing

Pre- writing is not only seen as an initiating stage of the process, but it is also clearly a crucial part of the writing process Learners can be cither guided or unguided This means they can usc questions or brainstorm to start, Questions which are often composed in advance by the instructors can also be used as a means to prompt ideas, Penaflorida (2002) suggests that teachers should be careful when assigning a writing task ‘They should neither encourage their leamers to solely imitate model compositions thus this impede theiz imagination, nor ask them

jo write a task without any preparatory exercises Pre- writing exercises are very essertial to

remain the proce:

Writing

In this stage, writers make the transition ftom the writer-based writing of the earlier idea- generating and (heme-identifying phases lo the reader-hased writing which constitutes thơ ñmaF prodnel which is aimed al the andicnee and the purpose Fundamental to the approach to

Revising is very time-consuming This slage is des

senlencc or scanning a (cxl for misspelled words or grammatical zIrors and sigmiỗcanly

altering a piece of writing, content and organization- an idea needs to be developed more

thoroughly, another omitted Or, rcarranging paragraphs will previde clarity and support for

the argument, strengthening the paper as a whole In the other words, 1evising means paying attention to the purpose, the audience, the form, the grouping of ideas, the coherence and

cohesion of the writing on the basis of the response given by the teacher and their peers At this st

which writing is to be judged as students have a right to know, and the teachers have an

obtigation lo tell tham, whal the criteria are by which their work is beinyg evaluated In writing,

il is believed that the leachers and sludents should jointly work on the crileria by

it is suggested drafts nol draft, it cans writers should advocate mmming through the “drall- revise-rewrite’ cucle at least one, twice through the circle is recommended, or more if needed until both teacher and students have a product that is as good as they can,

All the interventions after the first draft can be called post- writing activities that aim to cure

ing sludents’ dra which can be

and improve the writing, Inlervertion may consist of asse

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dons sither by peers or /and teacher, and responding to the text as a reader rather than simply

as a marker There are three kinds of responding The first is a personal and individual response by the feacher lo the student wriler, the scoond is a public respond by the leacher to

1.2 Overviews of Teachers and Peers’ Feedbacks im Teaching and Learning Writing

From the above theories, we all see that leaning a language skill as writing is always

complicated Te needs much time and effort because writings always conlain errors, IIbbard (1989, p.144) said that “she pupil does not learn by making mistakes bist by having correct respanses properly reinforced”, Studants* errors are seen as a sign of failure bul also a sign of progress, so they should he tealed us soon as they appear Process-oriented approach in

teaching writing requires students to write as many drafts as needed and also frequently revise

to corrcet and improve their writing Among all, teachers and peers’ written fecdbacks arc the

most popular and applicable ones in Vietnamese high schools

1.2.1 Whatis feedback?

Chaudron, (1988, p.133) defines “feedback as contrasted with the narrower notion of

“correction”, is therefore un eviiable constituent of classroom inleruction , the provision of

feedback is a major means by which to inform learners of their accuracy of both their formal

target lampuage production and their classroom behavior and knowledge” Another, Keb

(1990, p 294) shares that feedback is “input from a reader to a writer with the effect of

providing information for revision" Readers here can include all teachers and friends or anyone who proof read one’s writing These readers’ contributions are lo heÏp edit and revise

pi

wriling The reflection should be pretiminary and intermediate as Seow (2002) claims

“feedback is reparded teacher's quick initial reaction to the students’ drafts” Adding lo this

point of view, Renandya and Richards (2003) state that: “for stadenis whe write only one draft,

of writing Tn facl, fecdback is regarded as an effective way to toflecl on students?

which is then graded by the teacher, feedback on what is wrong in the composition comes toa Jute” Tn the other word, feedback should be provided in the “process of writing” rather than in the “single act of producing a text”, Obviously, cooperation between teachers and students is very much necessary for the successful implementation of feedback for giving feedback is a quite effort and time- consuming process

Lewis (2002) insightfully claims that giving feedback is aimed at the five purposes of as follows: (i) Feedback provides information for teach: mul students about stuđenis" langimi

evaluate their progress, understand their level of competence, and maintain their effort in striving to reach realistic goals (Riviere, 2000) (v) Feedback can lead students towards autonomy, by which they can find their own mistakes as in many cases

Penaflorida (2002, p.346) stresses the importance of feedback as “an integral feature of

student writing, in as much as it enables students to identify their own strengths and

weaknesses", which, in the case of the later, will make students know haw to go about

auproving themselves and becoming more effective writers”, unlike uatks or grades, which

tend fo compare one student with another The comments can also give direct information about language, by stating a rule or by giving example

4.2.2 Teachers’ Giving Feedback in Teaching Writing

Giving feedback is very important in teaching, as the provision of feedback proceeds from the

demands and expectations of teaching and lcaming process Penaflorida (2002) highlights that

there is a close connection between teaching and providing feedback; thus teachers’ giving

feedback is something needs doing in teaching writing According to Raimes (1983),

responding to students’ writing is an excessive part in teaching writing procedure and teachers”

responding is to help the students knowing what to do next with their writing products

‘Teachers can provide students with more than simple descriptions of their language use

Comments nalso be made an [he students” learning processes Also, feedback as an ongoing

process Sommers (1982) sees this process of response as too general, incentive, confusing,

abitrary, and idiosyncratic 1 only cracks the surface of the sludenI’s writing, but does not

“directly address the writers’ main problems, which are more related to the way in which they accomplish « given writing task’(Chenoweth, 1987, p.23) Sharing the points, Keth (1989) ciiticizes that onc - shot commentary provides little information for the students to improve their papets in terms of coherence or content, zither in the short or long term, Therefore, this approach proves to be ineffective to the student revision,

20

As a result, the multiple draft approach is essential In “process writing” classes, students may wile several drafis using the feedback offered by leachars or peers In facl, the process approach lo leaching writing nol only leads students lo write multiple drafts, but also encourages teacher la respond fo sludenL writing as a process This process emables students to

pmctive through several revision cyeles and gives them more chances to develop and przsa

their ideas, to improve both the form and content of their compositions effectively

In addition, “Yke mayor question confronting any theory of responding to student writing ix

where we should focus our attention”: grammatical errors or content, Griffin (1982, p 299) Danna Ferris and Jobn Medgcock (1998) and Arm Tallunan zmd Phzabeth Whalley (1996) concludes thal fsedback needs to focus more on contzul than an form Nevertheless, the

authors add sesponsz on content in this stage is nat the one Lal student wrilers expect from

iheir teachers but (he teacher's comments on forms For that reason, they conclude the

comments should be both on content and gramunar but with the focus on the former This pout

of view is shared by Fathman and Whalley (1996) that “Stadent can improve their writing in situation where content and form feedback are given simultaneously”, and "grammar and

content feedback can be improve at the same tine without over-bundling the students” So as

teacher’s feedback can allow the student to revise and be capable of transferring the change to

other pieces of writing, Reid’s (1993)

Lillis, T.M & Swann, J (2003) confirms that giving feedback on sludenls’ writing is a

“central pedagogic practive im higher education” and it should follow QAA (the Quality Assurance Agency)- academic standards and the quality of teaching and leaming in higher education so that the feedback does uot look like an evaluation sheet As a result, to get students reinforced to learn and get improvement, we must notice:

* the timeliness of feedback

© specifving the nature and extent of feedback that students con expect i relation to particular types and

units of assesrmunni, and whether this is to he ancempanied hp te return of assessed work

© the effective use of comments on reiurned work, inchuling relating feedback to assessment criteria, in order

to help students idewlify areas for improvement as well as commendirs them for evident achievement

+ — the vole of oral feedhark, either on a group or indivicual hasix as a mecns of supplementing written feedback

éo9, 102-103)

Teachers’ feedback can be formative or summative or both as well Formative feedback is a

kind written in the margin or between sentence lines of the student’s paper to refer to the teacher’s immediate correctionvintervention in discrete parts of the student's draft By contrast, summative feedback at the end of the paper is normally an overview of more consideration in

an essay (Reid, 1993) In aditition, giving feedback must also be several of forms: question,

21

statement, imperative, and exclamation and inolude both negative and positive comments from

as “studenw have better attitudes towards writing if they ¥

(Kroll, 1990, p62) Yel, Ferris (1997) reveals

changes in the revision, nor were thay apparenily intended ta” She finds (hat critical

lat “few of the pasitive comments led to any

comments are worth giving for it is of greal help in improving [he learners’ writing Another

well supported is Joy M Reid (1993) and M Smith (1991), they claim that “Ay they write, receive response and revise, students should be able to feel good about what they have done

well and realize thai they can improve on what they have not done effectively”

1.2.3 Peers’ Feedback’ Response in Learning Writing

Hansen and Liu (2005) states that “Peer response can be defined as the use of learners uy

sources af wformution, and interacts for each other in such a way that learners assaue roles and responsibilities normally taken on by teachers in commenting and critiquing each other’s performances in both written and oral formats” (p.1) Leamers ate not able to aware of all their own errors in writings; but with the help from teachers and peers, this can be done more effectively Peer means “a person who is the same age or who has the same social status as

you" (Oxford Advanced leamer’s Dictionary), so peers here aim at the classmates or the

partner silting nexl to a student in class Às ø tesull, pecr Tesponses mcan pair- working ar

group working as in Brown (1974, p.73) “a generic term covering multiplicity of techniques in

which two or more students are assigned a task that involves collaboration and self- inHiated

language”

In fact, all learners have errors in their learning process lirrors are failure but dealing with the errors shows progress Kerris (2003, p.127) states that “evidence that learners do take seriously and Ums wlilice iin order lv enhance their writing ability” Finding and cotecting those exrors are very important but teachers ouly sometimes are not enough As a result, peers become the altemative source For some extent, we all can sce the good points of peer working:

-When two students work together on correcting each other's work, the discussion helps each other to

dearn fram his or her own errors Two heads are hetter than one

-We ail have difficulty in seeing our own misiakes, even if a teacher has given us a1 signal as to what sort

ofa mistake it is Cooperation helps develop an ability io see out own mistakes

Edge (1989, p 53)

In writing skill, peer working help students “exchange information in an open- ended, real life context to fulfill personal goals"- Savova and Donato (1991)

Another, Chaudron (1984, pp 2-3) states:

“Teacher's time my be sewart hy eliminating certain editing tari, duss free

instruction and guidance;

-Peers’ feedhack is more at the learner's level of development ar interest, thus perceives ax mare informative than the superior or older leacher’s feedback, despite the assumption thet the leacher “karow niore"

tem for more belppit

22

“Since multiple peers may be used, learners gain a sense of a wider aucience than simply the ome

teacher;

~Learners' attitudes toward writing can he enhumced hy the mare socially supportive peers;

~Leamers aiso learnt more about writing aud revision by havig to read each other's deapis critically,

From the above, we can see that students should have mare opportunities to work together and learn from cach other, cvcn it can help to orzatc authentic audicnee or readership Emma

Pathare in her article “Encourage peer response” claiwed that “Likes, distikes, opinions, dream, goals, creative thoughts all these can be expressed in writing tasks, and through reading each other's work, students can build swonger relationship” Tlowever, sume students may sometimes feel confused that they begin to make unnecessary corrections and comments;

or some other can doubt ahout the quality and accuracy of corrections and comments ‘Thus, teachers must help student become questioning readers themselves, “because, ultimately, we believe that becoming suck a reader will help them to evaluate what they have wrilien and develop control over their writing” (Sommers, 1982, p 148)

Ideas raised by Pathara (2005) that teachers should notice when arranging peer working since the leamers are not all at a high proficiency enough to comment on others’ work smoothly

Also, he adds some criteria as follow:

Clear and achievable task

-Non-campetitive card non- drectening

Positive and constructive feedback

-Fun and motivation

This guidance should be paid soinc attention by writing teachers before having Icamers do any peer working including composilion peer clicking

23

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

‘This chapter presents the research methods used in the process of doing the thesis It consists

of the justification and description of data collection instruments, and the procedure to collect

data The subject of the study is also mentioned in this chapter

2.1 The context

Gia Binh 2 High School founded in 1996 and locaied in Gia Binh Town of Gia Binh district,

Bacninh province is a very spacious and well- constructed with classrooms, laboratories, a Library, a multi-purpose gym and playgrounds in an area of more than one hectare The 42 standard classrooms are very well- equipped with three sets of laptops, projectors and scrzens removable Like other high schools in Vietnam, Gia Binh 2 High School includes students of three grades 10, 11 and 12 and study 12 subjects as follow the Schedules and Syllabus enacted

by the MORT of Vietnam English is one of those subjects Teaching Tnglish las been changed a lot in Gia Binh 2 in recent years together with the adaptation of new textbooks in school year 2006- 2007,

2.2, The participants

‘the participants of this study include four teachers being in charge of teaching Unglish in 12

classes of 10" graders and 89 students chosen by “cluster random sampling” (Fraerikei and

and 1047 instzad of randomly

cling individuals from 12 different classes wilt really hop

to observe the participants’ performances and piloting the questionnaires, These classes have been assigned with a relatively equal proportion of good, average, and poor English proficiency students

2.2.1 The students

‘The 89 participant students, including 25 male and 67 female aged 14 to 16, all started learning English at lower- secondary school Now, they arc 10” graders and follow the Syllabus and textbooks promulgated by MOET of Vietnam It means that they are having thee forty-five- minute periods or class hows of English study a week, and following the textbook “iéng nk 20° with a writing lesson per five class hours

Despite having learnt Engtish for at Icast four yoars, they arc sfill rovesling as bogimers in English language and English writing as well There arc discrepancies between their language proficiency, which will some what, affect their writing ability Two- thirds of them have performed at low proficiency in entrance exam, All the 89 students will take part in class contacts observed by the researcher and in answering the survey questionnaire; however, about

7 to 10 voluntary students’ writing papers will be collected for regular corrections in each post

writing feedback conducted by teachers ot peers

24

2.2.2 The teachers

‘The four teachers taking part Im fhe study are in charge of teaching English in grade 10 classes

in Gia Binh 2 High School, All of them arc tenured and hold a B.A in English; among thom, one holds an M.A in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Foreign Language) and another is doing a master in TESOL One aged 33 has taught English for over 10 years while the 3 others aged 28 to 30 have five- year experience All of the four are familiar with teaching

writing lessons in process and aware of the essentiality post- writing activities bring in They

are all willing to conduct the writing lessons in process and be observed by the researcher to investigale the leamers® improvement and alliludes

2.3, The writing syllabus of grade 16 students

Covered within sixteen skill- specified units, writing syllabus for 10" graders is designed as theme- based Sixlzen unils of the textbook gel students lo write in sixleen differant topies aiming at developing leamers’ writing skills of authentic writing documents snch as various

2.4, Description of data collection instruments

This study uses three rain instruments together with the rescarcher’s own observation to obtain adcquats data for the study The instruments include document analysis, questionnaire and interviews Data gathered is both qualitative and quantitative

First, an interview (Interview 1) including six questions is carried ont among the teacher

participants to get their personal information: age, sex, job status teaching experience and their opinions in teaching Tglish writing as « process (Questions 1, 2, 3) Their methods and techniques of teaching wriling and post writing activities they used as well are also reveated through this interview (Questions 4, 5, 6)

“Then, the researcher takes part in teacher participants’ writing lessons to observe and describe what they do in post- writing stage ‘This helps investigating what the teachers have actually

don:

in post- writing slage Students?

are also captured and reflected on the result analysis of the study

After each lesson participated, about 7- 10 writing papars are collected and analyzed Comments on the students’ first and second drafts are interpreted What students show in two first drafts are synthesized quantitatively in numbers of errors and then compared to each other

to measure the progress of students

28

A follow-up interview with another six open- ended questions (Interview 2) is conducted

Finally, 4 questiormaire is designed to survey 89 students in two cl

of conmnenting on students’ writing, In addition, their expectations fiom teachers and peers’ feedback in writing are desired to reveal as well to get further information for the study There axe 10 items both close and open- ended in this questionnaire In detailed, Questions 1 and 2 are to get students’ personal information and their learning experience of English language and English writing skill Question 3 examines how often the post-writing activities occur in writing lessons, The three next questions (4, 5 and 6) search ont the post- writing activities the students receive, their attitudes towards them and their most preferred activity Vollow- up question is both clase and open- ended to get the students’ own evaluations of each activity

they expericuce and their progress in the skill Thon, Question 8 gives Ihe studenls a chances lo self: evaluate their improvement thanks to post- writing activities, Finally, Question 9 and 10 arc designed to gct students’ expcotations and recommendations in teaching and leaming writing skill

‘The purpose of Questionnaire is to investigate what they really think of their doings in writing

Jessoms, wll, their p md whal problems they are having On this

the researcher wilt propose some relevant suggestions lo improve the currently used methods

for the students’ benefit

26

CILAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDING

Chapter 4 plays a very important part in the study It serves two functions: giving a

presentation on the data collected by means of survcy questionnaire among student

respondents, interview responding among teacher participants, researcher’s observations and student writing analysis; making interpretation based on the data

3.1 Data analysis of teachers’ performances, attitudes and evaluations

3.1.1 Teacher participants’ demography information and teaching experience

Among the four teachers participating in the present study, there is only one malz teacher aged

33 and, granted, the most experienced in teaching Linglish Ile first spent 6 years teaching English for upper- secondary students in Dien Bien and then has beer teaching English at Gia Binh 2 High School for 4 years The other three are fexmale, onc 1s 30 years ald and bwo tel are 28; all these three female teachers have boon (caching Fnglish ai Gia Binh 2 [or 5 ycars These

four teachers arc termed at Gia Binh 2 High School and all graduated from College of Forcign

Languages, Vietnam National University and holding a B.A in English Now, one female aged

28 holds an M.A in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Foreign Language) and the other female aged 28 is doing a master in TESOL

These four teachers are in charge of leaching English for 10 graders at Gia Binh 2 high schaot and afl of thon have taught 10" form sines they slated, this means their sxpericnce in

teaching for 10" form students varied from 5 10 10 years At Gia Binh 2, there are 12 classes of

10" grade, so cach teacher is responsible for 3 classes, Each of class has from 42 to 49 students

with three class hours of English per week That means each teacher has about 1.5 class hours

of writing teaching each week and deals with about 63- 70 students’ papers per week This amount of work is quite overloaded, even time and energy consuming as well

5.1.2, Teachers’ perception of teaching English writing as a process

When being asked what they think of teaching English writing skill in gencral and teaching

English writing skill as a process in particular, all the teacher participants share the same point that writing is not an easy language skill to teach and leam in addition, the students do net pay mich concer to this skill and their proficiency in waiting is low ‘Therefore, writing lessons are always boring and unexpected

Teaching writing skill in process requires teachers and learners to cooperate in mumcrous

stages with large numbers of drafts This process takes much time, energy and participants’ effort At Gia Binh 2 High School, according to researcher's observation from LO grade teachers’ performances in class and analyzing their lesson plans, this process is conducted insufficiently Students’ drafts are often collected to edit once only Even many students lack

of teachers" supports to self- edit their products at home as they do not pay attention ot do not understand leachers’ editing guidance due to their low proficiency or bigs classes,

27

In brief, writing teaching and leaming at Gia Binh 2 School is not favorable and of great

cơn Án inerzasing numiber of problems seem lo prevent the process of teaching and

learning writing skill fron being well per formed

3.43, Teacher participants’ representation of stages in writing teaching

‘The Ministry of Fducation and Training (MORT) has been implementing the renovation of textbooks on Lnglish on a large scale sinee 2006; and writing, as a result, becomes the compulsory part iw English syHabus, The new texthook for 10” graders is “Tidng Ani 10” which is clearly composcd under the Tight of Communicative Approaches, cach Reatting, Speaking, Listening and Writing skill is acquired to teach m separated lessons with :umerous stages namely Pre, While and Post Being asked about the method of processing a writing skill lesson, all the four teacher participants declare that they have been trying their best to make their class the most communicative in way, which means teachers must generate the class activities to develop learners’ four skills of reading, speaking, listening and writing ‘The lesson

is always including stages with various activities and tasks Writing lessons often comprise

stages namely Pre- writing, Writing and Post writing Llowever, the stages in writing lessons

seem to be tasks which are nol simnple lo perform Teacher 1 shares “I always face with the

problems of getting my students to participate in I know T have to motivate them as the skill is very difficult and horing, hut it seems that I do not understand my students enough to know

what they really want and what can enhance their learning.” Whereas, tcacher 2 finds

providing writing lesson with numerous stages absolutely a challenge for her, especially in big and mixed ability classes It always takes much of her time to undertake the two first stages She ties to explain her students all the things clearly and provide them with all the vocabulary

and grammatical structures they ask for about the topic so that they are well- prepared to write Moreover, she has to give her low proficiency students much time to write

Jacks lime for students are tov crowded and not good at the skill as she expects Large- sized

cacher 3 Gnds slages in wriling leaching and learning nol difficull to undertake bai

classes sometimes prevent her from offering editing activities but she always ties her best so that her students have products after writing lessons Having some similar problems, teacher 4

says “The two first stages are not ty problem but the last one.” She is a well- organized

teacher when giving instrumental suggestions, writing time and other support In contrast,

helping students revise the papers really take her great consideration, even an excess of tims

and energy “7 know that my siudents all like to he commenied on their writing producis, so T often spend excessive time on Post- writing stage.”

‘As seen, all the four teacher participants divide their writing lessons into quite clear stages with specified aims, However, conducting those stages still causes them many obstacles;

28

mostly in the last stage namely post writing stage which will be discussed more detailed as

follow

3.4.4, Teacher participants’ representations in Post writing stage

Post writing comprises any classroom activities that can be used by the teachers and the Jearners in teaching and tearning writing to revise the finished written drafts Successfil

writers understand that revising is an integral part of the writing process it is so important that

snosl authors spend the wajorily of (heir lime revising their lexts, Writing is an intellectually challenging, and draining activity, buf revising the writing so that they are persuasive, cogent,

and form a solid argument is the real work of writing As vou review what you have written,

you will undoubtedly sec holes in your logic The revision can include a wide range from big

issues such as Audience, Organization, Content, Support, and Concision to technical issues

such as Usage, Word choice, Transitions and Mechanics, or the more detailed mechanics and presentations like Spelling, Punctuation, Format, Typographical errors and Textual

inconsistencies As a result, revising and editing the written products is really a hard job

This is nol only time taking bul alse needs an approprials reader to carry out The four teacher

participants in the present study all weigh up this stage and pay uvuch attention to this stage

All the four state that they have tricd to get post writing activitics donc regularly by teachers or

peers during all writing lessons of the syllabus Moreover, they all claim that this oan not be

done individually by writers Writers can only edit their papers after getting sufficient

suggestions from readership ‘They view self- correction as a sub- activity not main instrament

in dealing with writing papers in class Self assessment immediately after writing something

can not result in any effect ‘That should be done at home after someone else’s intervention

According to teachers 1, 3 and 4, revising and editing written products must be taken in

consideration dircetly in facc- to- fac elasscs They show that the teachers need balanec the

time so that they can have enough time to conduct this stage as early and directly as the papers

written Another point of view, teacher 2 shares that he must get his students really ready to write first Then, we can have students to check their work at home in pairs or groups if no time for revising is left

In addition, all the four agree hat their sludents are nol competent enough to de much of the

correction so they always have to consider the topics to decide which activity, peer correction, group correction or teacher’s correction 1s the best Among those, all the four declare that teacher’s feedback are dominant about three- fourths of the lessons while the others are used as

the alternatives and sometimes as the motivating and supporting activities for teachers are too tired and overloaded by students’ writings They admit that this occupies much of their time

‘birt it can be seen the best “/t is a substantial challenge for our students to realize their own

and even their parmers’ mistakes thus their limited knowledge” says teacher 2 Sharing the

29

same opinion, teacher 1 with his teaching experience confirms that he tries large numbers of strategies to take advantages of students’ ability in pair and group work but that does not

succeed due to the learners” limitation of knowledge and their tricks in class They make use of

the time working in pairs and groups to chat or do the other things Teachers 3 and 4 also think

that their students who are proficient enough to conduct the correction in their class are so rare

that they should be the undertakers These two teachers believe that all their students prefer the

feedback from the teachers to their partners’

3.5 Teachers’ evaluation on the effectiveness of post writing activities

3.1.5.1 Frequency and procedure of using Post- writing activities

As discussed above, of all the Post writing activities, according to teacher participants’ views, teachers’ critic is the major while the others are insubstantial In order to discover the real figures, the researcher attended and synthesized writing classes and finds that all classes at Gia

Binh 2 are over- sized with mixed- ability students and poor quality facilities for language teaching; therefore, activities designed are quite limited Totally, there are 96 writing class

hours synthesized during the eight unit duration of the study (approximate six months), in which the researcher has attended 8 class hours of writing teaching, one per each unit of units

from 4 to 11 of “Tieng Anh 10° conducted by the four teacher participants, two lessons each teacher equally For the other class hours, which perform the same content but in other classes

by these 4 teacher participants, the researcher collects all the lesson plans from the participants

to review and synthesize After the duration of teaching these units, she finds out activities

used in Post writing stage of those class hours as presented in chart 1

Chart 1: Teachers’ frequency of using post writing activities

mpeersteadback

‘group's feedback {aselt correction

30

these figures, we can sce that teachers tond to work mmch 1n adởition, as knowrt a productive skill, iL can ake the leachers a lot of lime anil energy to undertake the stage

Being asked to describe more detailed the procedure they conduct the post writing activities, four teacher participants are all very helpful and eager to invite the researcher to take part in their writing lessons and review their lesson plans as well In seen in lesson plans, (sarnples in

Appendix B) the teacher participants are quite well- organized in planning revising activities

“they arrange the pairs and groups carefully and plan the error codes for their students (see Appendix C) Vurthermore, they plan to manage the pair- work and group- work or the whole class very flexibly during the duration of finding and correcting the mistakes in papers in

aled in interview, teacher T cmphas

so combining pairs and groups tmusl

ctivities af pairs or groups bul there ara

be done carclully lo force students to really work Another view, teaehers 3 and 4 ask their students, even in paizs or groups, to scan word for word to review with the changes of

in class do not result in outputs as expected

3.1.5.2 Teachers’ evaluation on the importance and affectiveness of Post writing activities

All the activities applied in Post writing stage are aimed at getting the students’ written

products revised and their skill improved but those activities are defined as the variables There

are no cues to prove that students’ writing skill is completely improved only due to those activities Actually, there are numerous other factors affecting it To investigate the teacher participants’ opinions in factors helping students improve writing skill, the researcher asks

them to answer an interview question to measure the imporlance of post wriling activities in

improving learners’ writing proficiency, all the four participants agree that post writing

activities among in- class factors play a crucial role Their measurement ranks trom 70- 90% (teacher 1: 80-90%, teacher 2: 85- 90%, teachar 3: 70- 80%, and teacher 4: 75- 80%)

In this research, all the teacher participants agree that post writing activities play an important

tole in improving students’ writing proficiency, so finding out which activity is the most helpful contributes a fot to teaching and learning ‘To evaluate the effectiveness of these

3)

activities, the four teacher participants all weigh up their manifestations in lessons and the

studsuls’ proficisncy in writing al the end of the academic year Teacher 1

activity has ils own advantages and disadvantages bul it depends ont the situations when aud which activity is the most appropriate due to teacher’s preference and his pedagogical expericnee He highty appreciates both working with friends and with teachers though obtaining feedbacks from teachers can consume his time and energy and pair or group revising can cause disorder and his students’ certain difficulties “Only showing learners their errors helps them learn from their own failure and develop their proficiency and independence”; whereas, teacher 2 overweighs the dominant effectiveness of teachers’ giving response, In her point of view, this activity can bring students most improvement due to its direct and highly

accurafe treatments In contrast, the others just kill the time and cause disorders in class as she

still has to redo the corrections afterward “Responding ta an overload of students’ papers can

take my time and energy hut [ think I must effort io avoid the matters of disordered classes”

Teacher 3 sees different activities as different choices to enhance the learning and teaching atmosphere Working in pairs, groups, or with the whole all are alternatives fo encowage learners to contribute to each other Students can learn from the others’ mistakes and also

develop their communicative and interactive skill “2 apprectate all of those activities but Ï

also admit the dominance of teacher's feedback using in my writing lessons since pair or

group working does not seem to work weil in my contexts” Sharing the same point of view,

teacher 4 declares “Qur students are toa low proficient so engaging them in some kinds of

activities like patr ov group working in writing revising seems not to work effectively.” She

admits those kinds give her students a chance fo communicate but there are very few

corrections they can support their partners in writing Sometimes, with the big classcs, pair or

group working may give the students opportunities to do other things or chat with each other Therefore, she also uses her feedback as the main instruments

As socn, afl the four teacher participants overwaigh the benefits teachars’ critic brings in, They

an essential To revise, however, is to significantly alter a piece of writing that alt the teacher

participants share the points that it is performed best by the teachers (as presented above) So,

is their learners’ writing really improved as they expect?

‘Teacher | reveals his dissatisfaction, “F tink that all the activities are beneficial but whether

they work or not depending on the context / always try using any strategies to involve my

32

learners in those activities but that does not work as { expect.” ile feels that he has to force

to work They are not motivated Tn contrast, feacher 2 is not surprised thal, her

s” writing moBeientey is not improved much “Mv students are low proficient in English

in general, not only writing As we know, writing is a verv difficult stall to all foreign learners

80 gaining less improvement in writing skill at my classes te not so surprising to me However,

1 still have to admit some improvenent in writing skill thanks to the correction activities”

‘Teacher 3 also expresses her uncontentedness In post writing activities, she offen involves students in correcting or revising the writing papers ‘Ihe students” mistakes should be shown

so thal they

m pr

ice writing beller and betler She Iries all (he line to show therm the major

crrors in the papers logother with fImdamontal principles in waiting to help thom develop the

smooth flow of writing Bul, the improvement is not as sxpoctable

samc silualion, teavher 4 slates that “Ady snidents’ writing skill ts improved but not much, I can

see that the only few treatments given to their writing misiakes really works Those are

Jundamental and easy to correct ones Besides, some others seent to exist My snidenty still repeat them I think that I have to reconsider this.”

3.2, Data analysis of students’ performances, attitudes and cvalwations

Fighty- ning student participants are randomly selected among 967 grade 10 leaners of Giá Binh 2 High Schoo! to answer a questiormaire including 10 both milliple choice and open-

ended questions Their answers and opinions are all revealed as follow:

4.2.1, Student participants’ learning experience

Being tenth graders, student participants of the present study work with the textbook “Tidag Anh 10” which is composed for learners who have at least 4 years of studying English

However, there arc 7 of 89 student participants (about 8%) having less than 4 years of Icarning

this language Of them, two start at grade 10, one starts at grade 7 and 4 others are at grade 9

Holding the required years of experience in studying English are only 4 leamers accounting for about 5% while the left have more than the minimum, about 5 or 6 years as they start learning the language in the primary This group accounts for the biggest number: about 87% (78 students) a3 seen in chart 2

33

Chart 2: Students’ experience of learning English

[8stgrads fest grade 10

IDatgrimay, [others (grade 7 ana

About experience in learning English in process of Communicative Approaches 89 student

participants also show a quite big difference There are 14 of them (16%) having familiarized with it for 1 year Holding the same percentage are learners with 3 or 4 years (from grade 7, 8

or 9) The leamers with 5 year experience (from grade 6) are 8 accounting for approximately 9%, The biggest number is 53 students (59%) who have experienced the approach for more

than 5 years as required

‘Chart: Student participants’ experience of learning English in process,

syllabus are at achievable level to the student participants at Gia Binh 2 High School

3.2.2 Students’ perception of importance of Post- writing activities

Teaching and learning writing skill in process means the lesson must consist of numerous

stages, in which post- writing is a very crucial one As the teacher participants declare above,

all writing lessons for 10" graders at Gia Binh 2 High School include this stage However, it is

very surprised that the student participants’ frequency of taking part in the stage is quite various Fifty students (56%) show that they occasionally do that while about a half of that

number (24 students) accounting for approximately 27% do that more often There are 14 participants (16%) declaring that they never participate in such a kind of activity And only

one left expresses his unsure opinion.

Chart 4: Students’ frequency of participating in post writing activities

[Baiways

lm sarnetimes other

activities are helpful and of great interest to students’ writing However, about one third (38%)

of them consider them as very boring despite admitting their essentiality Only 3% held a contradict opinion They stated that those activities are not of great assistance to students’

writings They are not only uninteresting but also the redundant According to the left (11%), they do not share any agreements with the three groups above but they also give no their own

3.2.3 Students’ evaluation on the effectiveness of post- writing activities used

The respondents are then required to answer two questions to clarify the activities they use in

post writing stage and which activity they find the most helpful to students’ writing Their

answers are illustrated in charts 6 and 7

Self correction, as revealed, is rarely used as a post writing activity in class but often as an at

home to rewrite papers having commented by friends or teachers, yet in chart 6, we can see only 7 students over 89 respondents state that they have ever self- edited their writing That

means most of them do not rewrite after their fends and teachers comment on their papers as

expect

In class activities include peer correction, group review and teacher’s response Of three

teacher's correction ranks first with the number of users is 83 (92%) Coming the second is

group work with 69.7% (62 students) A bit smaller number is the students who have ever corrected their writing papers in pairs (53 students)

‘sellcomsction peer group tnachefk

omaction —cottction correction

When being asked to express their opinions about the most beneficial activity/ activities, student participants, in chart 7, show quite obvious views The greatest number is the students who find teacher’s comment is the most helpful (67 students accounting for 75.3%) Critics

receiving from friend readers in activities of group working, pair working or self- editing are

not highly appreciated They are overweighed by 16, 9 and 3 students respectively Therefore,

the respondents are asked to give further evaluation on the advantage of each post-writing

activity Their responses and explanations are performed as follow

There is only one student who states that self- correction on writing is effective and of great interests (14.3% of 7 student respondents who use self correction in revising writing papers) while there are 2 others (28.6%) who partly agree with that only one They think that self-

correction is helpful but boring The first one see self correction as a chance for her to review

what she learnt, thus she will improve faster; in addition, the two later state their reasons that

self revising is very essential as we ourselves can do it regularly and at any time and revising

helps us realize our own mistakes and thus improve our competence of writing and even

reading and vocabulary but working alone makes them unmotivated More than a half of those

7 students (57.1%) see self revision as ineffective Some of them explain that what we write

are the things we feel the most satisfied so we can not find out any mistakes in such papers by

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self correction, and even others state the reason is that they become lazy correcting their own papers if no one works with them

Chart 8; Respondents evaluation on the effectiveness of post writing activities

comrecton cotreeton —cometon eomtecton

lack of understanding or even misunderstanding between the commentators and the comment receivers but revising papers between peers make him more confident with what he writes

Another adds that some teachers do not rely on students’ comments, so learners are not

motivated to engage in that activity and he does not know whether it is helpful or not

Group working seems more preferable than pair working on student discussions since we can see there are 62 respondents commenting on this activity and 51.6% of those respondents consider group’s feedback as helpful and of great interests Some of them state that thanks to

observing some different written feedbacks received from their friends, they could learn many things: new knowledge, new language, new ideas to edit their own writing and the ways to give comments more effectively There is only a percentage of 16.1% who find it beneficial but uninteresting As same as pair work, they blame group- working dislike on reliability of

comments from learners and disorder as working in group The number of respondents who do

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