Luận Án Những bài học mẫu để phát triển kỹ năng viết của sinh viên năm thứ nhất Đại học Thái Nguyên

Title : Prototype Lessons on Developing Textual Skill of First Year College Students of the Thai Nguyen System Language and Literature... As can be seen, in four skills, writing or text

YEAR COLLEGE STUDENTS OF THE THAI NGUYEN SYSTEM

A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of Graduate School Batangas State University Batangas City, Philippines

In Partial Fulfillment

Of the Requirements for the Degree

Doctor of Philosophy Major in English

By:

HOANG HUONG LY (LILY)

2015

Title : Prototype Lessons on Developing Textual Skill of

First Year College Students of the Thai Nguyen System

Language and Literature

lessons may be proposed to develop students‟ textual performance?

Two sets of instruments - the survey questionnaire for teacher respondents and the teacher-made test for student respondents - were used to determine textual skill of first year college students of Thai Nguyen System and teachers‟ assessment on the same areas The research found out that college students have equal gender distribution, well-educated parents, not well exposed to the English media, came from urban areas, and pursued their secondary education in public schools They have skills in sentence combining with average performance in constructing sentences, connecting ideas, using words effectively and developing paragraph Male students‟ performance in

combining sentences, connecting ideas and developing paragraphs is different from the female students‟ performance College students

performed their textual skill in using words effectively, but the performance of the students in this area is significantly different

Teachers considered all the component skills important for students

to develop and they had a very high assessment of the degree of importance of the different items under the textual skills However, student‟s

performance in the areas of combining sentence, constructing sentences and connecting ideas are not related to the teacher‟s assessment Based

on the findings, the prototype lessons are designed to provide a learning

being part of the emerging trend of responsive and outcome -based language education

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The researcher wishes to acknowledge with her profound gratitude to the valuable constributions of the following individuals:

Dr Matilda H Dimaano, her dissertation advisor, for her enthusiastic guidance, critical comments, thorough suggestions, and great encouragement that help her to accomplish the dissertation in time

Dr Corazon Cabrera, Dr Remedios P Magnaye, Dr Amada G Abanaag, Dr Ma Luisa Valdez, and Dr Felix Panopio, members of the panel, for their insightful comment and suggestions, their wisdom and expertise in research to enrich her study

All the members of ITC, Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry, for their assistant and facilitating

The teachers of English at Thai Nguyen University, especially at four selected universites, for their friendship, generosity, assistance, and cooporation

The first year college students of academic year 2014-2015 who served as the subjects of the study, for their enthusiasm and cooperation

Her love and inspiration, Pham Hong Thai and her lovely son - Pham Hoang Minh, who are always with her and always in her heart, for their deep love, unceasing support both moral and finance, and their faith and great encouragement that push her through writing

who always believe in her and are proud of her - their daughter

Hoang Huong Ly

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

TITLE PAGE………

TABLE OF CONTENTS………

LIST OF TABLES………

LIST OF FIGURES……….……

CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM Introduction 1 Statement of the Problem……… 5

Scope, Delimitation and Limitation……… 6

Significance of the Study……… 8

II REVIEW OF LITERATURE Conceptual Literature……… 10

Research Literature……… 44

Synthesis……… 51

Theoretical Framework……… 53

Conceptual Framework……… 55

Hypothesis……… 58

Definition of Terms……… 58

III RESEARCH METHOD AND PROCEDURE

Research Design……… 62

Subject of Study……… 62

Data Gathering Instrument……… 64

Data Gathering Procedure……… 66

Statistical Treatment of Data……… 66

IV PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA 68 V SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATION Summary of Findings 116

Conclusions 128

Recommendations 129

BIBLIOGRAPHY……… 130

APPENDICES A Letters of Request ……… 138

B Questionnaires ……… 144

C Documentations……… 160

CURRICULUM VITAE

Table Page

1 Distribution of Population and Sample……… 63

2 Gender Profile of the Student Respondents ……… 68

3 Parent's Education Profile of the Student Respondents 69

4 Profile of students‟ exposure to English media ………… 70

5 Type of English media exposure by the student

respondents ………

71

6 Place of origin of the Student Respondents …….……… 73

7 Type of High School of the Student Respondents …… 74

8 Level of student's performance in the different textual

skill test………

77

9 Student's Performance in the Textual Skills Tests

stratified according to the Profile Variables ………

13 Student's Performance and Teachers‟ assessment on

the Students‟ Textual Competence………

94

14 Basis in the Design of Prototype Lessons to Develop

Students‟ Textual Performance ………

96

LIST OF FIGURES

1 Conceptual Paradigm of the Study 55

Although English is only the third in rank among the world languages, the first of which is Chinese Mandarin and the second is Spanish, the wide adoption and acceptance of modern English in business communication drive its continuous success In fact, countries

in Africa and Asia for example who are multi-lingual and multi-dialect have made English as their common language bridging the communication gap among their regional constituents Therefore, English has risen from its former status as the language of the colonialists to a language of democracy and progress

Globalization has created a demand for proficiency in the English language Important business transactions in the world‟s biggest

economies are crafted in the English language The movement of people either for tourism, business, education or migration to a foreign country requires a minimum level of English language proficiency

These are some of the several reasons why English language schools have proliferated, that is to cater to the increasing need of the wider speaking public While the teaching of the English language has taken a full and formalistic engagement like the programs for English as the Second Language (ESL) or English as a Foreign Language (EFL) assumed by designated language teaching institutions, deficiencies have been and continuously being identified The ESL and EFL pedagogical styles were seen to follow the scholastic or traditional approaches of teaching English

With traditional approaches, it is meant that the English language

is taught in the way that it is taught in schools, like building vocabularies and putting heavy emphasis on grammar This approach has been challenged as evaluations of the non-native speakers in various foreign educational institutions that showed preponderance of ineffective English communication skills In fact, the ESL program was primarily geared towards developing written English proficiency, not spoken English proficiency

It is clear that people cannot use only spoken language to communicate because written language plays very important role in every field As can be seen, in four skills, writing or textual skill is creative and difficult one that learners at different levels of English, especially elementary encounter because they need to gain basic knowledge of

English in general as well as writing in particular If they are taught textual skill thoroughly and often pratise writing, they are able to use words and compound or complex sentences exactly and effectively to express their ideas logically

Language learning proceeds in a longitudinal and sequential fashion and several researches have provided evidence to this effect In fact, there were 5 stages identified in communicative development that L1 learners need to undergo ESL/EFL learners were also found to undergo communicative development in a similar process, suggesting the universality of the language learning process And following L1 learners‟ pattern in acquiring linguistic skills of their native language that

occur in stages, macro and micro skills are acquired as well

The four macro language skills that occur in sequential process include listening first, then speaking, followed by reading, and finally writing These macro skills as indicated are related to each other in two ways, and these are the direction of communication - the in or out, and the method of communication - the spoken or written The micro-skills acquired would include grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and spelling

The linguistic skills development and maturity of the second language learners can be evaluated cross-sectionally through a sampling assessment of their macro skills as well as their micro skills

Such is particularly important especially among freshman students of the University, where a linguistic performance assessment would be critical in making a decision for English language remedial programs Aware of the academic tasks of a tertiary education, a minimum skill and proficiency in the English language is required for them to successfully tackle the requirements of their courses

During the process of teaching basic English at university, I notice with deep concern that many first year students have difficulties in writing skills The reason for this is that students often write simple sentences and do not know how to use compound and complex sentences Also, they are confused with constructing sentences, connecting ideas and using words effectively They, consequently, make mistakes in the process of writing, especially writing a paragraph

or an essay Besides, most of them are afraid of writing or do not practise writing regularly

Therefore, in this study an attempt will be made to probe the textual skill of the Vietnamese first year basic English students and this will be compared with the linguistic rating of their respective teachers This approach will not only validate the authenticity of the data but also gauge the student‟s performance relative to the teacher‟s linguistic performance evaluation

It is true that several studies have been done regarding the assessment of grammatical performance and textual performance, however, what we often see is that these parameters are evaluated either alone separately with respect to another performance parameter

or comparing the effect of one over the other In most of the studies conducted, grammatical performance was utilized as an index for a longitudinal interventional studies, the same way with textual performance This research which will examine these two performance parameters at the same time among first - year Basic English students

in a cross-sectional and non-interventional design will be the first of its types to be conducted among Vietnamese students

Because of all reasons given above, I would like to study students‟ ability of writing expressed through the way they combine

sentences, construct sentences, connect ideas, use words effectively, and develop paragraph Based on the results and findings of the study, helpful prototype lessons can be proposed with the hope of providing the students with useful learning materials to improve their writing skills

Statement of the Problem

This study assessed textual skill of first year college students of Thai Nguyen System

Specifically, it sought answers to the following questions:

1 What is the demographic profile of students in terms of:

1.1 gender;

1.2 parents‟ educational attainment;

1.3 students‟ exposure to English media;

1.4 place of origin; and 1.5 school graduated from?

2 What is the respondents' textual performance in terms of:

Scope, Delimitation and Limitation of the Study

The study covered the textual skill of first year college students of the Thai Nguyen system The output of the study is the prototype lessons

in order to develop the textual skill of first year students of the Thai Nguyen system

This study was limited to the responses of 379 first year Basic English language students from selected Universities in Thai Nguyen and their respective English teachers The students answered the teacher–made test on textual performance relative to combining

sentences, constructing sentences, connecting ideas, using words effectively, and developing paragraph which served as the source of the quantitative data that were analyzed statistically

The students‟ demographic profiles were included in this study

These student respondents were enrolled in the Basic English course

in the University The teacher respondents were the respective teachers of the evaluated students and the teacher‟s assessment of the student and the students‟ scores in questionnaire were compared

Comparison of means and t-test were done as well as correlation analysis but not limited to these statistical parameters Demographic data were presented as graphical figures The study is limited only to first year college students enrolled in the four Thai Nguyen University systems Those students who were not enrolled in the Basic English Course as well as those who were in the upper year levels were excluded in the study

Significance of the Study

This study is believed to have profound significance to the Administrators, teachers of English and first year college students in Thai Nguyen University, and future researchers

Administrators This study will also be significant to the

administrator and policy-makers because of the information that they will be provided regarding the textual performance of their students, that way they can make the grand decision to establish an English language remedial program for the affected student population or whether the teachers‟ strategic intervention and the prototype lessons

which are the output of this study would suffice to supplement the deficiency needs of the students

First Year College Students at Thai Nguyen University

Results of the study will help them understand their textual performance This will also serve as basis for improvement on the areas they find most difficult The output developed in the study in the form of prototype lessons in English language will reinforce them in the deficiencies encountered

Teachers of basic English The results of study will benefit

the teachers because they can inject their impressions on their students Similarly, they would benefit from the results that will be cascaded to them at the end of the study so that they will understand why their students perform accordingly They will also be benefited by

the prototype lessons developed as these serve as pedagogical aids

in their students‟ learning

Policy-Makers Results of the study will provide them with the

latest textual performance of the first year college English students which can form the basis for national policy formulation This will also substantiate the status of the primary and secondary education whether they have successfully prepared the students to this tertiary level

Future researchers This may be useful for other researchers

who might wish to conduct a similar study Future researchers may use this study to enrich their own literature in the field of writing skill

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

This chapter presents the relevant conceptual and research literature which are found relevant to the present study, synthesis, theoretical and conceptual frameworks and definition of terms The literatures included are found substantial to the study and give the necessary background to understand the present research

Conceptual Literature

The following concepts which focus on Basic College English, grammatical and textual performance, and writing English composition and prototype lessons in English are reviewed to substantiate the study

Basic College English An English-based controlled language

which is also called simple English is referred to as Basic English It is

an international auxiliary language intended to serve as a means of communication between people whose native languages differed (www

5 minuteenglish.com/ basic-english-lang.htm) This was created by British writer and linguist Charles Kay Ogden as an aid for teaching English as a second language Basic English is a simplified subset of regular English which Ogden believes that with a controlled English learning experience would be easier to achieve

In learning English, there is a need to have knowledge of some basic rules of the language Developing a solid foundation in English grammar will help students create sentences correctly and easier to improve communication skills in both spoken and written English The requirements in the offering of Basic College English vary depending on the college or university the student has chosen A good rule thumbs for anyone interested in knowing exactly what those site specific pre-requisites are to check with the college However, if a student is uncertain as to which college to attend, there is a method to determine and be prepared for some of the most basic college English requirements (every-day life.global pointt.com/ basic-college-English requirements 6092, html)

Since reading is dominant in college English classes, these can

be a mixture of classical literature, contemporary poetry, social commentary, opinion pieces, academic articles and or drama According to Harvard report for reading, for students to absorb these works properly, they must develop a habit of reading with purpose They must know what they want to get out from the reading assignment and be able to look for those points

In college English classes, writing is heavily dealt on and one of the most difficult aspects considered along this area is grammar It is expected by everybody that students will be able to show an

understanding of the basic rules of grammar For students to have better understanding of grammar, they need to seek and purchase the latest edition of a writer's handbook which contains all the rules of grammar, syntax, citation, formatting and vocabulary Students can easily use and refer to these books every time needed as these guides come with online resources of writers

College students should have a strong vocabulary through reading The institution wants to have students who possess strong lexicon Students can effectively communicate if they have many ideas Since words represent ideas, it is believed that the students who possess more words the better they could express themselves For that reason students should continuously learn and add new words to their vocabulary

There are seven secrets to succeed in taking Basic College English (grammar.about.com/od/yourwriting/a/fresh.com.tips/htm) These include: knowing the writing handbook and be able to use this; reading twice where the first reading if for pleasure and the second is for facts; using the college writing center and reviewing the basic grammatical structures and terms; preparing to move beyond; using online resources wisely as well as avoiding plagiarism

It can be daunting to combine words together to form phrases and phrases to form complete sentences and communicate in the

English language Once the basics of English communication is mastered, the next step is to advance the speaking, reading and writing skills (Ideboen, Alyssa, www com/ how- 7489732 -learn -basic-college english.html)

To improve English language education the following are the study tips and tricks to follow to master the basics of College English: review the basis by grabbing an English grammar book and a tutor or

an English speaking friend and making some of understanding basic English grammar since college level English involve a bigger vocabulary and more complex structures; use of English daily through practicing listening skills such as watching television or listening to radio or communicating with people by talking to friends Have practice with TOEFL example questions to get idea of advance English test-questions, and work through practice exams as well as get corrected by having a tutor or close friend to help hone skills by listening and adjusting pronunciation

As a flexible major, English offers many opportunities to students

to take electives within the major area of study A solid grounding in undergraduate studies can prepare one to pursue an advance degree English requirements differ from university to university, but there are some general basics Most universities require all students to take a composition class, while a writing-focused class may be required to

graduate from college (education/ seattlepi com/ic – college -english- requirements-1224 html) Some universities require a survey course in English literature, a class that covers a breath of literature overtime Other universities require two or three courses focusing an older works, such as phrase by Shakespeare, Chaucer, or other pre-1800's writers

Grammatical and Textual Performance of Students The set of

structural rules governing the composition of clauses, phrases and words in any given natural language which include morphology, syntax, and phonology, and often complemented by phonetics, semantics, and pragmatic is referred to as grammar As the basic backbone of any language, both in spoken and written forms of language, grammar does not only include rules for usage of proper tenses and proper sentence construction, but also deals with punctuation and correct usage of words Without grammar, a language will be totally coarse and ugly to deal with, and would eventually become completely illegible and nonsense (Importance of Grammar [Internet] 2013)

There are five reasons why grammar is important in a language These include: to be able to maintain uniformity where the use of language according to one‟s own whims and fancies would result to a

preponderance of language variations which results to ambiguity and vagueness, miscommunications and communication problems; to be legible where language which doesn‟t make sense will be useless in

communication like an improperly constructed sentence Miscommunication is caused by the use of wrong words or not be able to relay intended information to the listener or re-punctuation of which the entire meaning of the sentence is changed To insure the correct communication of thoughts and ideas through language is the ultimate purpose of grammar

Another reason is to sound good and interesting like a grammatically sound piece of prose or verse A person will become disinterested if one talks or writes something without proper grammar For language to have smooth flow and interesting sound, it must abide

by the rules of grammar in constructing the sentences Professionalism

is another reason why grammar is important It is a must that in business and professional speaking and documents language used must be free from any grammatical error The last reason is to break it and make it The value of correct grammar is realized by Individuals who are into literary careers

According to Cruz et al (2001) grammar is that science which deals with words, forms of words, word combination and the relationship between words It is a system of rules for the use of a language or the study of what is preferred and what is to be avoided in effective speech and writing It tells us what words do in sentences and how they

combine to convey meaning It is the use of words appropriate to a language as it is spoken and written

The analytical study of grammar includes the study of syntax, or sentence structure, and morphology, or word structure Syntax in particular delves with linguistic structure above the word level, morphology, concerns with structure at and below the word level, and does not involve the level of individual sounds, in the same way with intonation, which is in the domain of phonology (Carlos and Haike, 2005)

Grammar can be classified in different varieties - that is, depending on the way the structures and functions of language are described and analyzed (Nordquist, 2013) One of these basic distinctions is that between descriptive grammar and prescriptive grammar also called usage While both concern with rules-, these are employed in different ways In descriptive grammar, the practitioners would examine the rules or patterns underlying the use of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences Meanwhile in prescriptive grammar, the practitioners would be concerned with the implementation of the rules specifically on what they believe to be the correct usage of the language The rules of usage are more arbitrary in comparison with

those of grammar in a way that the core conventions constituting the grammar of a language are established by the vast majority of users

while the canons of acceptable usage are derived from the authority of

a relative few While the rules of grammar result from humanity's intrinsically social nature; those of usage appears to result from social hierarchy Authorities of English language usage follow at least three kinds of rational consideration in their decision-making process; these considerations are lucidity, simplicity, directness; character; and aesthetics

(http:www.writingguide.geneseo.edu/?pg=topics/grammarusage.html)

Other varieties of grammar have emerged as an offshoot of specialization and conceptual evolution These are: Comparative Grammar, Generative Grammar, Mental Grammar, Pedagogical Grammar, Performance Grammar, Reference Grammar, Theoretical Grammar, Traditional Grammar, Transformational Grammar and Universal Grammar

Grammar as a micro-skill in language learning is a far-reaching concept with wide application Grammatical performance and grammatical competency are concepts developed for the assessment of the learner‟s grammatical skills Grammatical performance also referred

to as grammatical ability is a quantifiable skill that can be measured through a grammar-test Thus, grammar-test are developed in order to obtain information about how well a student knows grammar to be able

to correctly convey the desired meaning in situations where the target language is used

The information gathered from this assessment more often than not forms the basis for decision-making Bachman and Palmer (1996) identified those situations in which language is used either for instruction or testing and referred to them as target language use (TLU) situations Grammatical ability is contextual in nature and depending on the test purposes, the target language use domain, and the target language use tasks with a specification of test tasks can be defined There is a requisite to identify the grammatical constructs and consider the types of evidence and how much of it the examinees would need to provide in order to demonstrate that they possess grammatical ability A grammatical test task then can be defined as any activity designed to elicit scorable grammatical performance within a TLU domain where without the requisite knowledge or ability the test-taker would not be able to complete the task successfully (Purpura, 2004)

Writing or textual performance while recognized to be a macro linguistic skill of importance is a concept of variabilities in point of view Writing was traditionally identified as a form of transcribed speech and

is a reflection of linguistic mastery as it assumes that the students' ability to write is only possible after he has developed a minimum level

of spoken language proficiency Another view of writing is that writing is

considered to be decontextualized (Ellis, 1994) as the written communication is assumed to have taken place in the absence of the writer and the reader

Grabe and Kaplan (1996) and Matsuda (1997), however argued against this view and asserted that writing is far from decontextualized because every writing task is situated in a rhetorical context, involving complex interrelationships among various elements of writing: the writer, the reader, the text and reality

In Canale and Swain (1980), writing is defined as a manifestation

of, as well as the process of manifesting, sociolinguistic, strategic and grammatical competences mediated by the use of orthographic systems Candlin and Hyland (1999) on the other hand considers writing as a social process and states that, writing is therefore an engagement in a social 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”

Language teachers, however, views writing as a language skill which is difficult to acquire and normally requires some form of instruction and is not a skill that is readily picked up by exposure Tribble, (1996) Consequently, writing is considered to be a process that occurs over a period of time, particularly if we take into account the

sometimes extended periods of thinking that precede creating an initial draft (Phung, 2004)

Writing in ESL and EFL scenario often requires students to write primarily for their teachers, or perhaps for an examiner, both acting in

the role of evaluator Thus, in the point of view of Grant (1987) it is asserted that, although transferring real-life writing directly to the classroom is problematic, what we should be aiming at is at least the creation of „plausible contexts (McDonough & Shaw, 1993)

A number of different approaches to the practice of writing skills

of second language writing have been advocated by different second language writing professionals These approaches are controlled composition and the paragraph pattern approaches appeared to be the most prominent and widely practiced in a series of new English textbooks for Vietnamese secondary school students In spite of that, there were dissatisfactions with controlled composition and the paragraph pattern approach which led to adoption of the process approach, an „expressive approach‟ that became popular in English-

speaking composition classrooms during the 1980s, undertaken as a kind of „process movement‟ involving a major focus on personal writing,

student creativity, and fluency (Reid, 2001)

The writing process is an evolving concept from the time it was conceived as a pedagogical approach It has moved from a non-

directional model of instruction in the early years (Hillocks, 1984) to the process approach model in the formative years (Pritchard & Honeycutt, 2005) and later to an improved version of the process approach where procedural knowledge and many other kinds of strategies are directly taught This includes teachings on activating schemata to access prior knowledge, self-regulation strategies, helping students understand genre constraints, guiding students in revising and in editing surface errors, providing structured feedback from teachers and peers, teaching the differences between reader- and writer-based prose, developing audience awareness and effects of audience on style, content, and tone, and dealing with emotional barriers (Chau, n.d.)

Becoming popular among teachers and L2 students in based writing classes is the development of multiple drafts to achieve meaningful communication – as well as focus on the problem - solving aspects of identifying and practising discourse conventions In this context, teachers design their curricula based on the balance of institutional, program and student needs rather than around dogmatic theories or approaches and calls for provision and maintenance of a positive, encouraging and collaborative workshop environment, and provision of time and minimal interference to allow students to accomplish their composing processes

school-This approach has the aim in helping students develop viable strategies for getting started, drafting, revising and editing Thus, writing as

a complex, recursive and creative process similar in its general outlines for first and second language writers requires the development of an efficient and effective composing process

There are different stages in the writing process According to Hedge (2000) these stages are: getting ideas together, planning and outlining, making notes, making a first draft, revising, re-drafting, editing, and final version For Oshima and Hogue (1991), however, the writing process is consists of only three stages: pre-writing, planning (outlining) and writing and revising drafts, and in each stage there are certain kinds

of task that the writers have to fulfil for them to construct a good piece of work Richards & Renandya, (2002) however appears to have conceptualized the more complete description involving four basic writing stages: planning, drafting/ writing, revising/ redrafting and editing – and three other stages externally imposed on students by the teacher,

namely, responding or sharing, evaluating and post-writing

Planning or Pre-writing refers to any activities in the classroom that encourage students to write This would stimulate the students' thoughts to get started and moves away from having to face a blank page toward generating tentative ideas and gathering information for writing Some of the activities that provide this learning experiences for

students at this stage are group brainstorming, an activity where group members spew out ideas about the topic spontaneously while there are

no right or wrong answers, the students will be encourage to cover topics that are familiar those that are more abstract, and clustering, an activity where students form words related to a stimulus supplied by the teacher These words are encircled and linked by lines to show discernible clusters This activity is a simple but a powerful strategy: its visual character seems to stimulate the flow of association and is particularly good for students who know what they want to say but just can‟t say it (Proett & Gill, 1986)

Rapid free writing, an activity where individual students are made

to freely and quickly write down single words and phrases about a topics within a limited time of one or two minutes, thus keeping the writers‟ minds ticking and thinking fast This activity is done when group

brainstorming is not possible or because the personal nature of a certain topic requires a different strategy, and Wh-questions, an activity where the students generate who, why, what, where, when and how questions about a topic As more questions can be asked of answers to the first string of Wh-questions, this activity can proceed indefinitely

When several ideas have been gathered at the planning stage, the next step is drafting This is the stage where the writers are focused

on the fluency of writing and are not preoccupied with grammatical

accuracy or the neatness of the draft The ability to visualize the audience is a valuable dimension of good writing at this stage because

it helps shape the style incorporated in writing

Responding to student writing is an important activity in process writing that teachers need to do as responding intervenes between drafting and revising A teacher‟s quick initial reaction to students‟ drafts

will make the feedback mechanism effective and timely This can be done as an oral or written activity, ideally performed after the students have produced the first draft and just before they proceed to revise In this way, it will help students rediscover meanings and facilitate the revision of initial drafts The responses can be provided in the margin, in between sentence lines or at the end of students‟ texts Similarly, peer responding may be done to allow students to respond to each other‟s

texts in small groups or in pairs

The next stage is revising where students review their texts on the basis of the feedback given in the responding stage It is here that they re-examine what was written to see how effectively they have communicated their meanings to the reader The act of revising does not merely constitute checking for language errors or editing but aims to improve global content and the organization of ideas so that the writer‟s

intent is made clearer to the reader

In the editing stage, students are engaged in tidying up their texts

as they prepare the final draft for evaluation by the teacher The editing activity involves checking for grammar, spelling, punctuation, diction, sentence structure and accuracy of supportive textual material such as quotations, examples and the like Only basic editing work is done while formal editing is delayed to avoid disruption of the activity to the free flow of ideas during the drafting and revising stages

Evaluation as the next step in the writing process includes the overall interpretation of the task, sense of audience, relevance, development and organization of ideas, format or layout, grammar and structure, spelling and punctuation, range and appropriateness of vocabulary, and clarity of communication It is at this stage that often teachers plead for lack of time but in fact compressed responding, editing and evaluating all into one with a concomitant result of depriving the student the vital link between drafting and revision – that is, responding – which often makes a big difference to the kind of writing that will eventually be produced Evaluation of the student‟s writing has

to involved criteria for evaluation that should be made known to the students in advance

Post writing stage includes publishing, sharing, reading aloud, transforming texts for stage performances, or merely displaying texts on notice-boards This is a platform for recognizing students‟ work as

important and worthwhile and can be done as classroom activity that the teacher and students can do with the completed pieces of writing This can be capitalized as a motivation tool for writing as well as to hedge against students finding excuses for not writing It is also at this stage that the students are made to feel that they are writing for a very real purpose

Writing skills are complex and having to teach them is difficult as mastery would require not only grammatical and rhetorical devices but also of conceptual and judgmental elements Thus, the varied skills necessary for composing a good piece of writing are grouped into five components: namely; language use, the ability to write correct and appropriate sentences; mechanical skills, the ability to use correctly those conventions peculiar to the written language like punctuation, spelling; treatment of content, he ability to think creatively and develop thoughts, excluding all irrelevant information; stylistic skills, the ability to manipulate sentences and paragraphs, and use language effectively; and judgment skills, the ability to write in an appropriate manner for a particular purpose with a particular audience in mind, together with an ability to select, organize and order relevant information (Heaton, 1989,)

In evaluating writing ability, the ability itself is not measured directly, but rather, assessed on the basis of inferences drawn from an

individual‟s performance through his or her written text Peha

(1996-2003) made a list of what constitute good writing as follows: ideas that are interesting and important: ideas are the heart of the writer‟s piece –

what he is writing about and the information he chooses to write about it; organization that is logical and effective where organization refers to the order of the writer‟s ideas and the way he moves from one idea to

the next; voice that is individual and appropriate It refers to how the writer‟s writing feels to someone when they read it Voice is the

expression of his individual personality through words In word choice that is specific and memorable, good writing uses just the right words to say just the right things; for sentence fluency that is smooth and expressive, fluent sentences are easy to understand and fun to read with expression; and conventions that are correct and communicative, are the way all agree to use punctuation, spelling, grammar and other things that make writing consistent and easy to read

In formulating the rating scale for a written text, McNamara (1996) emphasized that the scale used in the assessment process should represents, implicitly or explicitly, the theoretical basis upon which the test is founded; that is, embodies the test or scale developer‟s notion of

what skills or abilities are being measured by the test Thus, the development of a scale or set of scales and the descriptors for each scale level are of critical importance for the validity of the assessment

Analytic scoring is one of the several ways to score a written work and involves rating based on several aspects of writing or criteria rather than given a single score Scripts are often rated based on features like content, organization, cohesion, register, vocabulary, grammar, or mechanics This type of scoring scheme provides more detailed information about a test taker‟s performance in different aspects of

writing and it is for this reason that it is preferred over holistic schemes

by many writing specialists One of the famous and widely used analytic scales in ESL was developed by Jacobs et al (1981) where scripts are rated on five aspects of writing such as content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanics These five aspects are given different weights to emphasize the importance of the different component; like content is 30 points, language uses 25 points, organization and vocabulary weighted equally 20 points and mechanics

5 points

One major disadvantage of analytic scoring is that it takes longer than holistic scoring, since readers are required to make more than one decision for every script Furthermore, analytic scoring schemes that involves combining to make a composition score, results to a loss of the vital information provided by the analytic scale

Writing English Composition A composition is more than its

words, sentences, and paragraphs Dependent though it is upon its

units of composition, a paper needs more than these; it needs a sense

of wholeness Its parts must unite, must work well together (Shaw, 1979) In writing the rewards of competence are both academic and economic The ability to write enables one to excel in studies and continues to be useful even after studying It is useless to have mere knowledge of words without application The means towards the achievement of a completed whole, an entire composition include the word, the sentence, and the paragraph

When one sit down to write, his training in the construction of a variety of sentence structures, improvement in vocabulary, and development of a feeling for appropriate words can only be enhanced and effectively put to use One will only learn to write if he writes Learning to write correctly, clearly and effectively will take time, but it can be improved if one tries hard and spend enough time on writing In learning to write, it is stated that there is no set procedure, but there are useful fundamental principles

There are qualities of a good composition which are considered marks of effective writing These are: it adheres to the principle of unity

in the development of a single idea or emotional effect; it achieves coherence in the arrangement of its sentences and paragraphs; and it secures appropriate emphasis in the disposition of its ideas It also possesses originality and a characteristic style (Jackson et al, 1968)

A single, definite subject is termed theme Unity in the whole theme necessitates that all its sentences and paragraphs contribute to the development of one idea or one effect, and fit into the organic pattern of the whole (Fernando, 1988) It is possible that every paragraph in a composition is unified in itself, and yet the whole theme lacks unity Every part of the theme should serve the central purpose of the whole Irrelevant materials which have no connection with the main theme should be eliminated

When there is an unbroken chain of relationships among the paragraphs and these relationships are clear to the reader, a whole composition is said to be coherent Paragraph relationships are considered organic when they are based on a logical coherence in the subject matter Ordering one‟s thoughts properly is said to be the best

way to achieve coherence When applied to a paragraph, all the sentences are closely interrelated and interdependent A thought holds them all together, disruptions are kept to minimum Transitions are also done in such a way that the reader is not kept wondering why one thought moved on to another apparently without any reason for the transition (Cinco, 1988) A coherent paragraph is necessarily a unified paragraph It makes sense, since all its parts fit in very well together The paragraph becomes a smooth whole with consistency in tense, number, person, point of view and subject matter