Impacts of the implementation of the process genre approach to teaching writing on majored students writing at khanh hoa university a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the require

With a view to limiting obstacles that learners, especially the English majors at Khanh Hoa University, encounter in learning to write English compositions, enhancing their writing skill

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale of the study

Writing is one of the four main language skills which learners need to possess

so as to be able to demonstrate their communicative competence in the use of English language It is considered as the most demanding task (Tribble, 1996; Zheng, 1999) because it requires the application of the knowledge of the other three skills as well as the linguistic and cognitive skills of the learners (Silva, 1990; Raimes, 1991) In fact, Nunan (1999, p 271) considers it an enormous challenge to produce “a coherent, fluent, extended piece of writing” in one’s second language Being competent in writing is necessary not only for tertiary level learners to complete their assignments or assessment tests at colleges or universities but also for their future work after graduation

Although writing skill is so difficult and important, in reality of teaching and learning English in Vietnam for a long time, especially at high schools, teaching and learning writing has not got much attention from teachers and investment from learners Practice listening, speaking, reading skill and language areas including vocabulary, phonetics and grammar has been paid much more attention from the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers and students for exam-driven purposes Meanwhile, writing skill is mostly regarded as a consolidation practice of grammar, vocabulary and structures they have learnt and “is frequently accepted as being the last language skill to be acquired…for foreign/ second language learners” (Hamp-Lyons & Heasley, 2006, p.2) These lead to the fact that most learners who have just graduated from high schools and been admitted to colleges and universities, especially those left high school before the school year of 2013-2014, have only got used to doing the multiple-choice tests, which consist of sections on grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension and writing, with some kinds of tasks transformed from rewriting

sentences in another way, using the suggested words and keeping the same meaning with the original sentences; rearranging jumbled words or phrases into meaningful sentences; making sentences using suggested words or giving the correct forms of verbs in brackets to complete sentences (Hoang, 2007)

Those types of writing tasks given by high school teachers only aim at helping the learners get good scores and pass the multiple-choice exams at schools, not enabling them to improve their writing skill because they hardly have chances to write their own paragraphs Therefore, when they are asked to write a paragraph on their own, they can hardly write a short complete paragraph about a familiar and easy topic

as they have not defined what the real purposes of their writing are, who their target audiences are, in which contexts and what linguistic conventions of texts they have to follow They also meet difficulties in generating and organizing ideas, using an appropriate selection of vocabulary and arranging such ideas into a completed coherent text so that the readers find it easy to understand (Richard & Renandya, 2002) These purely have shown the students’ limited ability in writing Consequently, students become unconfident, even discouraged in writing learning and develop a negative attitude towards writing As a consequence, even when becoming English majors in colleges or universities, their writing ability is rather low

English majors at Khanh Hoa University (former Nha Trang College of Education) are not exception Based on the results of the college entrance examination

of the school year 2013-2014 as well as students’ low college reports after two terms

of their first year at Khanh Hoa University from the source of the Training Department

of Khanh Hoa University, it can be inferred that their writing competence is not improved much It seems that writing instructions have not been employed appropriately Therefore, it has not made great impacts on their writing competence In the course syllabus of the school year 2013-2014 at Khanh Hoa University, listening and speaking, reading and writing are taught as integrated skills Reading and writing skills are taught within 45 periods per semester, each of which lasts for 50 minutes, and theoretically, writing accounts for half of that amount of time It is rather time-constraint for both teachers to present the lecture and students to have a chance to practice writing Besides, teachers of writing are in charge of large-size classes, over

40 students In order to have enough time for all the students to practice writing in class and apply what they are taught, normally, teachers adopt the easy way by giving lectures on how to write generally What the teachers usually do in the classroom is giving the writing tasks, analyzing the model of the writing type, introducing the main structures, tenses and vocabulary used in this type of writing, then giving students 20

or 30 minutes to think and write about that topic For the second-year students, they

are supposed to write reports on topics What they have to do then are reading the

requirement of the writing task, brainstorming and writing following what is required Then, if there is enough time left, teachers can correct some students’ writing products

in class; otherwise, the teachers collect their papers and mark them at home (Hoang, 2007) These familiar steps of teaching writing in EFL classroom are obviously product-based in which students are hoped to produce as few error-free writing products as possible and the teachers care for only forms such as syntax and word forms, not the meaning, the writing content (Hoang, 2007)

In other words, writing classes in most colleges and universities nowadays in Vietnam, especially at Khanh Hoa University, have been quite product-oriented and the written product is often evaluated mainly in terms of language knowledge (Tran, 2007) This “is greatly shaped by the grammar translation method that has dominated the language teaching and learning reality in Vietnam for decades” (Pham, 2000, p 21) Therefore, grammar points together with sentence structures have been important factors in the teaching of writing in Vietnam Moreover, writing has been conducted in the classroom as an individual activity with the teacher as the only reader, and the students are quite quiet (Tran, 2001) Consequently, this situation makes students feel bored in writing sections Compositions created seem artificial and do not serve the purpose of plurality of real readers outside the classroom context

From the practical aspect, there is an urgent need to utilize a different approach

on a combination of writing approaches in order to improve the students’ writing skills and give them motivation in writing Besides, all teachers in Khanh Hoa university have been encouraged to apply the new appropriate teaching method into their teaching career provided that all contents in the course syllabus are covered, teaching objectives are gained and the outcomes are the same or better From the theoretical

perspective, a number of scholars in second language writing, such as Tribble, 1996; Badger and White, 2000; Hyland, 2003b, have suggested the combination of the process approach and the genre approach to teaching writing to students in second language contexts While the process approach deals with the process of writing, encompassing four phases like prewriting, drafting, revising and rewriting; the genre approach addresses the knowledge of social context and its effect on textual features through three phases: (1) the target genre is modeled for the students, (2) a text is jointly constructed by the teacher and students, and (3) a text is independently constructed by individual student; writing in the genre approach is said to take place in

a social situation and reflect a particular purpose; it can occur consciously through imitation and analysis, which facilitates explicit instruction By exploring different genres, students can master the differences in structures and forms in order to implement what they learn on their own writing (Tribble, 1996; Badger and White, 2000; Hyland, 2003b) When implementing the process genre approach integrating process and genre in writing, students are supposed to gain the necessary knowledge of textual features, process of writing and social contexts; to enhance their positive attitude towards writing and be willing to face any types of writing assignments at colleges or universities or even at their work places in their future

With a view to limiting obstacles that learners, especially the English majors at Khanh Hoa University, encounter in learning to write English compositions, enhancing their writing skills, mastering diverse types of texts and creating their positive attitude and perceptions towards learning writing, the process genre approach to writing was chosen to be applied in this study It was hoped that after the treatment, students would become more confident and compose effectively kinds of report writing they have faced during the course

1.2 Background of the study

1.2.1 The learners’ background

Khanh Hoa University is a state university situated in Nha Trang city which was jointly established in September, 2015 from two colleges, Nha Trang College of Education and Nha Trang College of Tourism, Art and Culture The participants of this study were from the former Nha Trang College of Education, whose main responsibility is to train teachers of all subjects for primary and junior schools in Khanh Hoa province In the last 10 years, it has been allowed to provide three-year bachelor courses in Culture and Tourism, English and Social work The participants in this study were the second-year English majors of the Foreign Languages Department Most of the students had just graduated from high schools in Nha Trang suburbs, some from other provinces like Phu Yen, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and few from Nha Trang city center According to the data in a survey conducted

at the beginning of the school year 2013-2014 by the researcher, 100% of the students from the two second-year English-majored classes who took part in the research had learnt English for seven years, from grade six at their junior schools to grade twelve at their high schools before they took this course In addition, basing on the results of the college entrance examination of the school year 2013-2014 from the source of the Training Department of Khanh Hoa University, these students were selected to the college with rather modest standard scores, in which the scores they had of mathematics or literature were usually much higher than that of English, their learning major for their three years at college It can be inferred that they were usually of the same low level of English proficiency They then were arranged into the same classes with the same teaching method and the same syllabus as well

As mentioned above, basing on the results from the Training Department

of Khanh Hoa University, after the first two semesters at Khanh Hoa University, their writing skill has not been improved much According to the data in a survey conducted

at the beginning of the school year 2013-2014 by the researcher, there were a variety

of reasons resulting in their poor results Few learners had ability to self-study while

most of them were still shy, passive and dependent Their learning goal seemed just to pass the final tests, so they rarely made use of all resources of materials introduced by the teachers let alone search for other new sources of materials relating to their major

Relating to their learning style, students faced a lot of difficulties in learning writing because of their limited vocabulary and structures as well as lack of ability in generating and organizing ideas to create an appropriate and complete text When they were asked to write a paragraph about one topic, they were not confident to write on their own; they needed the support from their dictionary and their phone assessing to the Internet Some relied on what Google translated and could not correct mistakes themselves because they could not distinguish which words or phrases to be used in which appropriate context The survey also showed that students were dependent on what had been suggested and analyzed in the outline by the teacher, lazy

in thinking, poor in generating ideas and not creative

1.2.2 The teaching staff

There are 37 teachers in all in the teaching staff of the Foreign Languages Department at Khanh Hoa University, including 21 teachers of English, four teachers

of French, two teachers of Russian, two Korean, three Japanese, and five teachers of Chinese The teachers of English, aged from 26 to 54, two got PhD degrees, most had

formal tertiary training and got MA degrees in TESOL, three taking PhD courses, and

three others taking MA courses in English All of them are enthusiastic, devoted and committed to their teaching profession

1.2.3 Teaching and learning English writing at Khanh Hoa University

In the detailed plan of the third term in the writing subject of the school year 2014-2015 at Khanh Hoa University, teachers are supposed to apply the process approach for second-year English majors, with the following order: prewriting (topic analysis), planning outline, drafting, revising and rewriting In this approach, students are required to brainstorm their ideas, plan their own outlines, draft, revise and rewrite

own their own However, in reality, due to the fact that learners’ language proficiency level is rather low, students have often had difficulties in producing a paragraph on their own without looking at a model for reference; therefore, with the hope of enabling students to be able to easily complete their writing tasks with as few errors as possible, teachers in charge of teaching writing in the classes in their third term, with the support from the Head of Languages Department, highly agreed to mainly apply the product approach with only one piece of writing, no draft The writing task is given, suggested and analyzed by the teacher and students; some main structures are introduced, relevant tenses and vocabulary used are also mentioned Students have a short time to think and complete the writing task They are required to make a complete product at the first time If there is enough time, some of their writing tasks are marked and analyzed in class Some good writings chosen will be written on the board to be analyzed for reference Most of the writings left will be collected to be corrected and given scores by teachers at home

1.2.4 Materials

In the syllabus of the course 2013-2016 for English majored students at college level of Khanh Hoa University, writing is taught in five semesters out of six semesters

of the whole course The aims of the whole writing course are to enable students to

master not only the ways to write sentences, paragraphs and essays, even academic writing but the characteristics and requirements of writing types as well; and, most important, give students chances to practice writing all types of writing planned in the course in order to help them express their critical thinking and be ready to encounter with different types of writing in their future In particular, in the first term, students are asked to practice writing paragraphs about personal information, a place, a habit, giving instructions and writing a biography In the second semester, mastering how to write paragraphs of a description, a narrative, an invitation letter and a business letter

is required In their third semester, the course aims at writing small advertisements, as well as writing assessment reports and descriptive chart and graph reports In the fourth semester, writing essays to give an opinion about some certain topics is

practiced a lot In the last term of their writing course, students are required to master structures of an essay, know how to outline an essay, write an essay with unity and coherence, and be able to write various kinds of essays like comparison and contrast essays, classification essays and cause and effect essays

This study was carried out during their third term of their course The main content of the writing course in the third term is writing reports In fact, report writing

is an essential skill for professionals in almost every field: accountants, teachers, graphic designers, information scientists, etc It is also one of extremely necessary skills for English Bachelor students who would like to be professional workers serving

in tourism in Nha Trang city, Khanh Hoa province in the near future It is this reason that is one of the reasons why writing reports is one of the main requirements in the integrated course of Reading and Writing for the second-year English majors at Khanh Hoa University

In terms of materials employed in the writing course in the third semester, lessons on writing small advertisements and reports are extracted from following

books, including Visual writing about graphs, tables and diagrams by Duigu (2006), Outlines by Hopkins and Tribble (1990), and Cambridge IELTS Practice Tests by Griffiths (2015)

All writing classes follow the same content, same assignments and same rating criteria In the Reading and Writing course for the second-year English majors, writing accounts for 50 per cent of the total of the course; however, in reality, in detailed plan

of the course, in their third semester, reading is planned to be taught in four weeks of

15 weeks in all One week is for mid-term test, one week for correction and revision and the rest of time (nine weeks) is for writing Out of nine weeks, one week is for writing advertisements, the first four weeks are for writing assessment reports and the following four weeks for writing descriptive chart and graph reports Reading and writing are instructed interleavedly There are three 50-minute periods in each week All students’ writings are rated basing on the criteria suggested by Foreign Languages Department Particularly, content aspect (ideas) accounts for 3.5 points; language accuracy: 3.5 points, and coherence: 3 points, respectively

1.3 Objectives of the study

This research aims to investigate the impacts of the process genre approach on students’ writing In detail, the impacts are considered related to, firstly, how the implementation of the process genre approach to writing affects the second-year English-majored students’ report writing performance and secondly, their attitudes towards learning writing

2 What are students’ attitudes towards learning writing through the application

of the process genre approach?

1.5 Significance of the study

Although the process genre approach to teaching writing has been suggested for

a long time, it seems not to be implemented much in teaching writing in colleges and universities in Vietnam This research is an endeavor to find out to what extent the process genre approach to teaching writing influences on both students’ writing, especially their report writing competence, and their attitudes towards learning English writing so as to try to convince English teachers to utilize this method in their own teaching contexts with the aims of enhancing students’ awareness of characteristics of genres of writing, improving their writing proficiency and building up students’ motivation, confidence and positive perceptions towards learning this skill as well

1.6 Scope of the study

This study mainly focused on second-year English majors at Khanh Hoa University The time this study was carried out was eight weeks in the first semester of their second school year, in which only report writing was taught Two types of information reports, including assessment reports and descriptive graph and chart reports, were investigated as they were the two types to be taught in the course syllabus of the university

1.7 Organization of the study

The study consists of five chapters Chapter 1 provides an introduction of the study, consisting of its rationale, background, then the objectives of the research, research questions, its significance, its scope and lastly the organization of the study Chapter 2 reviews the concept of writing skill, its characteristics, components of a good piece of writing, types of writing, especially information reports, approaches to teaching and learning English writing, namely product approach, process approach, genre approach and process genre approach to establish grounds for the conceptual framework of the study Besides, writing rubrics, the concept of attitude and previous studies on the implementation of the process genre approach to teaching writing are also taken into account Research design, description of research site, research participants, pre-test results, experiment operation, instruments of data collection, and data analysis are considered in Chapter 3 Chapter 4 supplies data analysis methodology as well as analysis and discussion of tests and questionnaire from the experiment Chapter 5 presents the conclusions, recommendations, limitations of this current study as well as suggestions for further study

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter introduces the basic of writing skill; its characteristics; components

of a good piece of writing; types of writing, especially report writing implemented in this study and how to teach and learn writing Rubrics for rating writing products, attitude concept as well as previous studies are also taken into consideration

2.1 Writing and its characteristics

There have been a variety of definitions of writing so far Raimes (1983) states that writing is an important skill that all learners of a language need to develop because

it not only is a means to reinforce grammatical structures, idioms and vocabulary taught but also allows for communication through the use of the language in a necessary way, making efforts to express ideas through the constant use of eye, hand and brain Later, writing is defined as a demanding task, as writers are required to incorporate a range of knowledge, including content, context, language system and writing process when they produce text (Tribble, 1996) And most typically, according

to Archibald and Jeffery (2000), writing is a complex activity in which writers requires knowledge of textual features, the writing process and the content to produce successful texts

In terms of characteristics of writing, like speech, writing has been considered a powerful mode of communication Both speech and writing utilize words, phrases and sentences to make conversations be understood by listeners and readers However, unlike speech, writing is not for the audience present, the context is created through the words alone and without the direct interaction between the writer and the reader

Therefore, it is necessary for writers to form clear and comprehensive messages so that

the readers can comprehend what has been written without asking for clarification

(Nunan, 1999) Moreover, writing should be learned and organized through the understanding of writing as cognitive and social activity; writers produce a text not only to express their own ideas or meanings but also to achieve social purposes in a certain context Writers go through a complex process of composing to discover the meaning they wish to express, and need to be aware that their ideas need to be transformed into text with specific rhetorical and linguistic features aimed at achieving communication with participants in that particular social situation

2.2 Components of a good piece of writing

Raimes (1983, cited in Wong, 2011) indicates that in order to produce a good

piece of writing, writers need to pay attention to at least nine factors, such as content, syntax, grammar, mechanics, organization, word choice, purpose, audience, and process of writing Content of a good text needs to be relevant, clear, original, and logical Syntax focusing on sentence structure, sentence boundaries, stylistic choices, etc; grammar related to rules of verbs, subject-verb agreement, articles, pronouns, etc.; and mechanics including handwriting, spelling and punctuation all must be utilized appropriately Writing goes through a process including the phases of getting ideas, getting started, writing drafts and revising to generate and organize ideas Organization

of a writing pays attention to how to produce paragraphs, how to write topic sentences and supporting sentences and make sure its cohesion and unity Word choice is concerned with the choice of vocabulary, idioms and tone used in a piece of writing In addition, a meaningful communicative writing also requires defining clearly who the real readers of the writing are and what its purpose is All of these components need exploring to create an effective communicative writing product

Besides, according to Peha (2003), an effective writing needs six qualities First, content of the text, or in other words, the ideas, should be important and interesting The ideas, what the writer is writing about and the information he/ she chooses to write about, are the core of the text Second, organization of the text, which refers to the order of ideas and the way the writer moves from one idea to the next, needs to be logical and effective The third quality is individual and appropriate voice

of the writing Voice is the expression of the writer’s personality through words Readers feel voice of a text when they read it to find whether it is formal or casual, it is friendly and inviting or reserved and standoffish, etc Fourth, a good piece of writing needs specific and memorable word choice Good writing uses just the right words to say the right things Next is the fluency of sentences as well as that of the writing Sentences need to be really smooth and expressive Fluent sentences are easy for readers to understand and fun to read with expression Last but not least, it is conventions that are the rules to use punctuation, spelling, grammar, and other things that make writing consistent and easy to read They are required to be correct and communicative

In brief, as can be seen, both definitions about a good piece of writing from two researchers, Raimes (1983) and Peha (2003) have five things in common They are (1) content, (2) organization, (3) vocabulary, (4) language use/ grammar and (5) mechanics of writing, all of which are the important components creating a meaningful and effective piece of work Students are required to have good knowledge of linguistic, psychological and cognitive matters; master the basic system of a language, including knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, spelling, formatting, punctuation and sentence structures as well as have good awareness of types of writing to enhance their writing performance

2.3 Types of writing

The social purposes of the text-genres in turn decide the linguistic inputs of the text, including their linguistic conventions, often in form of schematic structure and linguistic features In terms of social purposes in writing, most typically, Derewianka (1990) states that there are six main genres including: (1) narratives: to tell a story, usually to entertain; (2) recount: to tell what happened; (3) information reports: to provide factual information; (4): instruction: to tell the listeners or readers what to do; (5) explanation: to explain why or how something happens; (6) expository texts: to present or argue a viewpoint Of all these types of writing, basing on the writing

course syllabus of Khanh Hoa University, information report writing, which is the main content of the writing course in the third term, is taken into account in this study

2.4 Information reports

2.4.1 Definition and types of reports

Several definitions of reports are taken into account Virginia (1998, p.120) states that “a report is an informative formal piece of writing concerning a particular person, place, situation, plan, etc; it is addressed to one’s superior/colleagues, members

of a committee, etc, and is written in response to a request or instruction” According

to Oxford English Dictionary, a report is a statement of the results of an investigation

or of any matter on which definite information is required A report is a factual text which provides information about what is or what has happened Reports can be written about a range of things - natural, cultural and social - in our environment They may contain accounts and descriptions, but they often do more than describe a thing, event or situation Some reports state a problem and suggest a solution Some argue a case for or against a particular option, supporting their case with evidence and making

a recommendation (University Centre Grimsby, n.d)

Different researchers give different categories of types of reports According to

Galko (2001), there are seven kinds of reports at work, consisting of (1) meeting minutes: summarize what was discussed at a meeting; (2) status reports: tell the current progress made on a certain project; (3) travel reports: describe the different aspects of a business trip; (4) expense reports: list the expenses incurred on a business trip; (5) accident reports: describe an incident; (6) performance appraisals: evaluate

an employee’s performance over a period of time and (7) competitive analysis:

compares your company’s products with similar products put out by competitors However, more generally, Virginia (1998) states that there are four various types of

reports, such as: (1) assessment reports which present, evaluate the positive and/or

negative features of a person, place, plan, etc; and also include writer’s opinion and/or

recommendation; (2) informative reports which present information concerning a

meeting that has taken place, progress made on a project, etc.; (3) survey reports which

present and analyze information gathered from door-to-door surveys/ questionnaires, including conclusions drawn from this information and suggestions or

recommendations; and (4) proposal reports which present plans, decisions or

suggestions concerning possible future courses of action for approval by one’s superior

at work, a bank manager, members of a committee, etc In addition, in documents of Lithgow high school (n d.), there are eight different kinds of reports, namely:

information report, journal entry, news report, review, timetable, graph or table, observation and commentary Regardless of any classifications, basing on the course

syllabus, both assessment reports and descriptive graph and chart reports belong to

the genre of writing reports which are mainly mentioned in this research

2.4.2 Characteristics of report writing

There are several typical characteristics in report writing The purpose of a report is to describe and classify factual information; therefore, a sequence of facts is logically stated in a report without any personal involvement, and varies in their purpose, but all of them require a formal structure and careful planning, presenting the material in a logical, objective manner and employing factual, free of opinion, clear and concise language A report should be an orderly and objective communication of facts aimed at a particular reader for a specific purpose It must be well organized with one part logically following or explaining another part Therefore, it can be clearly seen that a well-written and effective report must be as accurate, factual, clear and complete as possible in itself and easy to read (University Centre Grimsby, n.d)

According to documents of University Centre Grimsby (n.d), a logical structure

of a successful report usually encompasses three main parts: introduction, body and

conclusion In the introduction part, an opening statement must be supplied Students

are asked to provide a context for the report by giving enough background information, state the purpose of the report and clarify the key terms and indicate the scope of the report These key terms of reference are a guiding statement used to define what students have been asked to find out, or, in other words, what the report will cover

Students must be clear from the beginning what they are being asked to do Besides, it

is necessary for students to give the procedure of writing reports showing how they

found out the information In the second part, the body, the relevant information is

presented in details under suitable subheadings; students need to describe the most important trends, select and present the findings explaining what they found out or a series of facts about various aspects of the subject which are grouped into paragraphs, and each paragraph has a topic sentence; diagrams, photographs, illustrations and maps

used to enhance the text In the last part, the conclusion, students are required to sum

up the main points of the report The conclusion should clearly relate to the objectives

of the report Moreover, recommendations which are suggestions for future action are also needed in this part Students should show what they think should be done All suggestions given must be logically derived from the body of the report

In academia, there is some overlap between reports and essays, and the two words are sometimes used interchangeably, but reports are more likely to be needed for business, scientific and technical subjects, and in the workplace An essay presents arguments and reasoning whereas a report concentrates on facts Basically, a report is a short, sharp, and concise document which is written for a particular purpose and intended audience Therefore, whenever writing a report, writers must bear in mind why the report is written and who it is being written for It generally sets out and analyses a situation or problem, often making recommendations for future action It is

a factual paper, and needs to be clear and well-structured; therefore, it is a more highly structured form of writing than an essay, and is designed so that it can be read quickly and accurately without reading from beginning to end (University Centre Grimsby, n.d)

2.5 Approaches to teaching and learning writing

Four popular approaches to teaching writing, namely, the product approach, the process approach, the genre approach and the process genre approach, will be taken into account in turns in this section First of all, the product approach is mentioned because it has been mainly employed in the reality of teaching writing for English

majored students at College level at Khanh Hoa University, normally, students felt unmotivated and they lacked the ability to vary or create the contents The second approach taken into consideration is the process approach, which is not only the one that, in documents, teachers are supposed to apply in teaching writing at English classes but also an integral part in the integration of the process genre approach The third is the genre approach, one of popular approaches that have commonly been implemented in most English writing classes nowadays, which is combined with the process approach to create the process genre approach The last one mentioned is the process genre approach which is mainly employed in this study It can be inferred that the process and the genre approaches are the ones taken consideration in this study only to help understand the new approach, the process genre approach better Only the product and the process genre are two main approaches applied to make comparison in this study

2.5.1 The product approach

2.5.1.1 Its definitions and characteristics

A few decades ago, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the product approach dominated in teaching and learning writing The product approach has been called by several names: the control-to-free approach, the text-based approach, and the guided composition (Raimes, 1983; Silva, 1990) Gabrielatos (2002, p.5) claims that the product approach is “a traditional approach in which students are encouraged to mimic

a model text, usually is presented and analyzed at an early stage” During the product approach-based class, teachers focus on what a final piece of writing will look like and measure it against criteria of “vocabulary use, grammatical use, and mechanical considerations such as spelling and punctuation,” as well as “content and organization”

of a piece of writing (Brown, 1994, p 320)

2.5.1.2 How to implement the product approach

In a typical product approach-oriented classroom, learners are provided with a standard sample of text and they construct a new piece of writing (Hasan & Akhand, 2010) Particularly, this product approach consisting of four phases is outlined below: familiarization, controlled writing, guided writing and free writing (Pincas, 1982; Steele, 2004) In the familiarization stage, model texts are presented by the teacher and read by the students, and then features of the genre are analyzed and highlighted The familiarization aims at making learners aware of vocabulary and grammatical features

of a model text In the controlled and guided writing sections, students practice writing with freedom increasingly until they are ready to write on their own in the free writing part, using their knowledge to build their text independently (Badger & White, 2000) Learners are supplied with relevant knowledge of grammar, vocabulary and structures

of a particular type of writing via a model text analyzed by the teachers Ideas are

organized In the free writing phase, students use the skills, structures and vocabulary they have been taught to produce their own product in order to show what they can do

as fluent and competent users of the language

In sum, according to Lam (2013), who adapted Robinson (1998), this approach usually involves the presentation of a model text which is analyzed and the basic of a task that leads to the writing of an exactly similar text It can be introduced in the following figure:

Figure 2.1: Model of the product approach (Lam, 2013)

Model text comprehension/ analysis/ manipulation NEW INPUT PARALLEL TEXT

2.5.1.3 Its advantages and disadvantages

According to Zamel, 1982, Brown, 1994, and Yan, 2005, the product approach brings about the following advantages First, students are provided with enough knowledge of grammar and vocabulary through a model text supplied and analyzed by

the teachers Students have chances to practice not only writing a good sentence but also combining good sentences into a paragraph and connecting paragraphs into a good essay Obviously, this approach enables students, especially the ones at a lower level

of language proficiency, rather, beginners, not to worry about writing task and be able

to create their own error-free writing product for their exam-driven purpose with confidence

Second, this approach also helps instructors raise students’ L2 writing awareness, because the basic knowledge of writing, especially in grammatical structures, word choices, how to vary the content and how to organize the writing are taught by the teacher It is owing to these strengths that the product approach to writing has been applied popularly in the writing classes, particularly for beginners, at high schools, colleges and universities in Vietnam

However, apart from those strengths, this approach has weaknesses Firstly, the

actual writing processes used by students, or any writers, to produce a piece of writing

are ignored in this product approach (Brown, 1994) Students are not introduced about knowledge of the process of producing a piece of writing, how the content of the text

is explored, where ideas come from, how they are formulated and developed, or what the various stages of composing entail Instead, they are asked to concentrate on imitation of the model text given and analyzed by the teacher and producing a similar free-error piece of writing, which very few people can create a perfect product on the first draft

Secondly, writing with this approach gives little or even no attention to audience and the writing purpose Zamel (1982, p.195) states that “the whole notion of why and for whom student writers are writing is not taken into account on the product-based approach” It also neither effectively provides students with the real contexts of writing nor teaches them to write better (Yan, 2005) They give a problematic assumption is that producing a piece of writing is for the teachers to evaluate, not for the writers and the readers in the real world to communicate and negotiate meaning (Nunan, 2000) This also hinders students from feeling of motivation and interest in writing

Thirdly, this approach requires constant error correction, and that also affects students’ motivation and self-esteem (Yan, 2005) Writer students only focus on imitating the model text and avoiding making mistakes of grammar, syntax and mechanics, which makes writer students have high pressure in creating their writings with accuracy of the language structures and prevents them from comfort and inspiration to write They are not encouraged to be creative even though writing is a productive skill, which need their creativity to enable them to express their thoughts and ideas in words effectively in order to communicate successfully with the readers

If they have no chance to be creative in writing activities, real writing seems not to occur, rather, only stereotyping Therefore, students easily feel discouraged and lose interest and motivation in writing activities

In order to overcome these weaknesses, the researcher as well as the teachers teaching writing in Khanh Hoa University tries to analyze the content of the model text

as well as the writing task to help students define the purpose of writing and at the end

of the session, ask them to exchange their writing products with each other for correction if there is enough time left This enables students to enhance their awareness

of the readers, and more important, they can create complete meaningful writings

2.5.2 The process approach

2.5.2.1 Its definitions and characteristics

In the late 1960s and in the early 1970s, the process approach appeared and overwhelmed the traditional product approach which emphasizes the form of writing (Susser, 1994; Tribble, 1996) Steele (1992) defines the process approach as focusing more on the varied classroom activities which promote the development of language use; brainstorming, group discussion and rewriting The process approach focuses on the steps involved in creating a piece of writing and a writer can make a piece of writing more and more perfect by producing, reflecting on, discussing and reworking successive drafts of a text as no text can be perfect at the first time (Nunan, 1991) The process approaches have a major impact on understanding the nature of writing and the

way writing is taught (Hyland, 2003b) The process approach pays attention to the writer as “language learner and creator of text” and focuses on “process,” “making meaning,” “invention,” and “multiple drafts” (Raimes, 1991, p.409)

Of a variety of different process approaches to writing, such as Hedge (1988), White and Arndt (1991), Tribble (1996), Harmer (2006), the most typical writing process model is from Tribble (1996) This typical model focuses more on four phases

in writing, consisting of prewriting, composing or drafting, revising and editing (Tribble, 1996) In fact, these phases are not linear at all but rather recursive (Raimes, 1991), and they can interact with each other throughout the writing process That means while students are in the revising phase, they can return to the prewriting activities to refine or add more new ideas They can receive a lot of feedback from their peers and their teacher and produce many drafts with much crossing out of sentences and moving around of paragraphs The correction of spelling and punctuation is not of central importance at the early stages The following diagram is presented to illustrate the recursive and unpredictable process of writing (see Figure 2.3 below)

Figure 2.2: Dynamic and unpredictable model of process writing (Tribble, 1996)

2.5.2.2 How to implement the process approach

During the first phase of the process writing approach, the prewriting phase, a global outline for their writing is made, ideas are generated and gathered through brainstorming and discussion The students are advised to always keep in mind the intended readers and content of the text They are free to discuss to produce ideas and

be provided language support if requiring (Tribble, 1996) In the process writing approach, this prewriting stage is one of the most essential writing processes because it affects all of the writing processes Although prewriting activities are done before actual writing, students can revisit this stage at any time

Next, in the drafting phase, students will write a rough outline of what will be addressed, extend ideas into note form, and judge quality and usefulness of ideas Students concentrate on getting ideas on paper, focusing on more global issues like topic, organization and evidence without worrying about surface problems of grammatical and mechanical errors, such as spelling, punctuation and wordiness because the surface problems can be dealt with in subsequent drafts They organize ideas into a mind map, spider gram, or linear form and decide how to organize the text

in order to convey meaning effectively (Tribble, 1996, p.107) The first drafts are written in class and frequently in pairs or groups and shared peers or their teacher to receive comments for the final draft

In the revising phase, drafts are exchanged, students become the readers of each other's work and they, as readers, increase an awareness of the fact that a writer is producing something to be read by someone else, and thus can improve their own drafts They reread their first drafts, look at their writing from a different point of view and focus on developing the content and organizing the ideas of the whole text, not minor grammar errors because “revision is not just polishing writing; it is meeting the needs of readers through adding, substituting, deleting, and rearrange material” (Tompkins, 1990, p.83) They revise their writing, using feedback from peers and the teacher as well, focusing on content of writing and comment on improving coherence and organization of writing In this approach, whenever students may come up with

some interesting ideas, they also can add those ideas, go back to the pre-writing and continue to compose, revise their drafts

The editing phase focuses mainly on “putting the piece of writing into its final form” (Tompkins, 1990, p.88) Drafts are returned to be modified and improved basing

on the feedback from their peers or a teacher Grammatical as well as mechanical errors like spelling or punctuation are edited and corrected in this last stage to provide

a final draft

2.5.2.3 Its advantages and disadvantages

This process approach to writing is appreciated owing to its advantages as the following First, this approach mainly focuses on the process of writing and skills of writing It helps students gain explicit knowledge of the process writing, and draws their attention to the roles of skills involved in writing Particularly, it increases students’ awareness of the process of writing, enables students to master the stages in writing and provides students skills involved in writing and time to practice them It is owing to the procedures of process writing that help students develop effective ways of conveying meaning and better comprehend the content they want to express (Kim, 2007) Second, in the process approach, students have a chance to contribute their own knowledge to their writing to improve their writing skill What students bring to the classroom contributes to the development of their writing ability In other words, this approach emphasizes meaning or content of the writing text It can be clearly seen that the topic and process of writing are closely connected, which gives students something interesting to write about and the tools to finish it Therefore, the result of students’ writing will be improved Third, it focuses on the audience in writing and encourages students to interact with each other in peer response activities

Despite the meaningfulness the process approach brings to students, it has some shortcomings Firstly, it does not focus much on the social contexts and purpose of writing texts From a genre perspective, writers should not only write to express their ideas but also write different texts to achieve different purposes in different social contexts (Halliday & Hasan, 1989), and these social factors are key aspects in

determining the lexico-grammatical features that the writers use (Kress, 1993) In fact, the process approaches give insufficient importance to the kinds of texts writers produce and why of texts are produced It seems to narrowly focus on the skills and processes of writing in the classroom itself and as a result fails to take into account the social and cultural aspects that have an impact on different kinds of writing (Atkinson, 2003) As can be seen, process approaches fail to let students understand why certain linguistic and rhetorical choices are made on their writing (Hyland, 2003a)

Secondly, the process approach fails to provide students with explicit knowledge of the formal language features used in writing the texts The writers are provided with “little systematic understanding of the ways language is patterned in particular domains” (Hyland, 2003a, p.18, 19), so they have to discover the meaning of what they want to say This inductive view of learning advantages L1 students, who are familiar with cultural norms and the texts they are required to write, but not L2 learners It is difficult for L2 learners to access this cultural resource because of their lack of knowledge (Hyland, 2003a) Thus, they are forced to draw on discourse conventions of their own cultures, and they may fail to reproduce L2 texts that are contextually and educationally appropriate

Thirdly, it takes time to implement this process approach in EFL classroom Hedge (2000, p.10) argues that it is difficult to use this approach because although the process approach allows students to write and revise the drafts, they have to finish writing in a limited-time exam The multiple draft approach is not suitable for limited-time exam Furthermore, giving feedback on multiple drafts is time-consuming, particularly in EFL context where writing classes are often large in number

2.5.3 The genre approach

2.5.3.1 Its definitions and characteristics

The genre approaches emerged in the 1980s and quickly became popular They are strongly similar to the product approaches, and in some ways, genre approaches can be considered as an extension of product approaches (Badger & White, 2000)

Both genre approaches and product approaches pay much attention to linguistics and final products; however, the genre approaches mainly focus on the social context in which writing is produced, whereas product approaches do not Genre, according to Swales (1990, p.58), is “a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes” In other words, the genres which share the same communicative purposes belong to the same text-types Therefore, writing in the genre approach is deduced to take place in a social situation and reflect a particular social purpose; it can occur consciously through imitation and analysis, which facilitates explicit instruction (Badger & White, 2000)

There are some basic characteristics of the genre approach First, the social contexts of a text influence the forms, rhetorical structures, grammatical and lexical features of the text, such as narratives, recount, information reports, instruction, explanation and expository texts This means that the context in which genre is being produced affects the writers’ choice of language as different discourses require different structures to reflect a particular purpose of each type of text Thus, to produce

an effective writing achieving purposes of communication in a social context, student writers need to be aware of the appropriate use of choices of form, rhetorical structures, and linguistic features Second, in the genre approach, besides the linguistic conventions that need following in a text, the role of readers is more highly appreciated than the role of writers as “any students who want to be successful in communicating in a particular English-language discourse community needs to be able

to produce texts which fulfill the expectation of the readers in regards to grammar, organization, and content” (Luu, 2011, p.123)

2.5.3.2 How to implement the genre approach

In terms of writing development, “genre approaches are very closely similar to product approaches” (Badger & White, 2000, p.155) Hammond (1992, as cited in Burns, 2001, p.202) proposed “a wheel model of a teaching learning cycle having three phases: modeling, joint negotiation of text by learners and teacher, and the independent construction of texts by learners” In the first phase, modeling, the target genre which

the students have to produce is introduced as model text to students Educational and social function of the genre is mainly discussed as well as the text structure and language is analyzed in this stage In the second phase, joint negotiation phase, students finish exercises which utilize relevant language forms The teacher and the students are promoted to negotiate and jointly construct a text The independent construction of texts is the last phase in which an actual text is independently created

by individual student through activities such as choosing a topic, researching, and writing Theoretically, the cycle can be repeated when necessary, but it would seem that often each phase appears only once

2.5.3.3 Its advantages and disadvantages

In terms of advantages of the genre approaches, first, student writers easily find that they can benefit from studying different types of written texts in the genre approach because different genres of writing “are typified by a particular structure and

by grammatical forms that reflect the communicative purpose of the genre” (Nunan,

1999, p 280) Exploring “a variety of genres written in and for a variety of audiences and context” (Johns et al., 2006, p.248) enables students to master the characteristics in structure and form of different text types in order to implement what they learn on their own writing effectively and be always ready to encounter any rhetorical situations

at school, in work, and in their social and cultural contexts

Second, like the product approaches, the genre approaches provide students with an authentic text or an input to enhance students’ involvement and bringing relevance to the writing process With this input, students are provided with “explicit understanding of how target texts are structured and why they are written in the ways they are” (Hyland, 2007, p.151) which assists students, especially L2 learners, to understand how the choices of rhetorical structures, grammar, and vocabulary create meaning in particular contexts and “understand how language itself works” (Hyland,

2007, p.153) so that students easily “produce effective and relevant texts” (Hyland,

2007, p.148) appropriate to their target contexts, whether academic, occupational, or social

Next, knowledge of the typical structure of the content made it easier for learners to arrange their ideas in terms of both achieving their communicative goals and producing more well-organized writing It is clear that the learners’ understanding

of both the rhetorical structure and the linguistic features was increased by the based instructions (Henry & Roseberry, 1998)

genre-However, this approach receives criticism First, it focuses more on forms and styles, undervalues the writing processes and writing skills needed to produce a text Second, the teaching of explicit genres hinders a writer’s individual voice and creativity in writing (Hyland, 2004, 2007) and it sees learners as largely passive (Badger and White, 2000) as because it is assumed that writing instruction will be more successful if students are aware of the discourse of text, when used in context (Hyland, 2003a) In order to help students understand how the texts become meaningful, teachers provide students with opportunities to develop their writing through analyzing “expert” texts (Hyland, 2003b, p.22) Students only need explicit awareness of language, rather than through experimentation and exploration by students themselves In spite of those weaknesses, the genre approach has still been implemented in EFL classrooms, especially in ESP classes

2.5.4 The process genre approach

2.5.4.1 Its definitions and characteristics

Nowadays many EFL researchers have identified that the teachers should not adopt just one approach all the time in the writing classroom Each approach has its strengths and weaknesses Combining approaches enables us to think about writing in

a new way Some scholars of teaching writing (e.g., Tribble, 1996; Badger & White, 2000; Hyland, 2003b, 2004) have suggested the integration of both process and genre approaches to the teaching of writing, called the process genre approach Badger and White (2000) state that the blend of the process and genre approaches can compensate for each other’ weaknesses and form an effective approach to teaching writing to

enable students to overcome most of the obstacles they have when writing and be

ready to easily produce a good piece of writing

Tribble (1996, p 61) states that process and genre approaches are not

“incompatible”; it is possible to see that writing instruction that draws on the strengths

of both approaches can encourage students to express their ideas individually in an authentic voice and to write a socially appropriate text In this approach, according to Badger & White (2000, p.157, 158), writing is viewed as involving “the knowledge

about language (as in product and genre approaches), knowledge about context in which writing happens and especially the purpose of the writing (as in genre approaches), and skills in using the language (as in process approaches) Writing

development happens by activating the learners’ potential creativity (as in process

approaches) and by providing input to which the learners respond (as in product and

genre approaches)” The synthesis of process and genre approaches in practice may ensure that “learners have an adequate understanding of the processes of text creation; the purposes of writing and how to express these in an effective way through formal and rhetorical text choices; and the contexts within which texts are composed and read and which give them meaning” (Hyland, 2003b, p 24)

2.5.4.2 How to implement the process genre approach

Below is Yan (2005)’s diagram, which is adapted from Badger and White (2000)’s, illustrates how these six steps interact in a recursive way with themselves and with other writing skills

Figure 2.3: A genre process model of teaching writing

(adopted from Yan, 2005, p 21)

PREPARATION Providing the situation

Indentifying the purpose MODELING & REINFORCING

Brainstorming, clustering,

JOINT CONSTRUCTING Drafting

INDEPENDENT Editing, responding & evaluating CONSTRUCTING

TEXT

In this diagram, the teaching procedure for the process genre approach is divided into the following six steps: (1) preparation, (2) modeling, (3) planning, (4) joint constructing, (5) independent constructing, and (6) revising A short description

of what occurs during the six steps will also illustrate how elements of the process and genre approaches work in unity

In the preparation stage, the teacher helps students prepare to write by defining

a situation which requires a written text and put it within a particular genre, such as a persuasive essay arguing for or against an issue or a report essay of an incident This stage helps activate the schemata and lets students anticipate the structural features of the genre

In the modeling phase, a model of genre is introduced and students are required

to consider the social purpose and the real readers of the text For example, the purpose

of an argumentative essay is to persuade the reader to act something on And then, how the text is structured and how its organization develops to gain its purpose are discussed Students may compare with other texts to reinforce what they have learned about the particular genre

In the planning phase, a variety of meaningful activities activating the students’ schemata about the topic, such as brainstorming, discussing, and reading associated material are done in this stage It aims at enabling students to develop an interest in the topic by relating it to their experience

The joint constructing stage is useful for the later independent composing phase The teacher and students work together to begin to write a text, using the writing processes of brainstorming, drafting, and revising The students contribute their information, ideas and thoughts, and the teacher writes the generated text on the board The final draft provides a model for students to refer to when they work on their individual written work Collaborative writing between teacher and students and among students themselves required in this phase can offer a very caring and sharing learning environment Students have a chance to write in a group and prepare for their later individual work

In the independent constructing phase, students have discovered model texts and have jointly constructed a text in the genre They now carry out their task of composing their own texts on a related or similar topic They use the knowledge, skills, feedback and final drafts in the previous steps to support their writing Teacher

is willing to give help, clarify, or consult about the process Because of time limitation

in classroom, their writing task can be continued as a homework assignment The teacher has to explain what students should do for writing homework

Eventually, in the revising phase, students will have a draft that will undergo final revision and editing This does not necessarily mean that teachers have to collect all the papers and mark them one by one Students may check, discuss, and evaluate their work with their peers, as the teacher again guides and facilitates The teacher may attempt to issue the students’ work, which will report an achievement and encourage the students to write better Their final achievement will help students enhance their confidence as they have created a product

2.5.4.3 Its advantages

It is clear that the latest approach has more advantages than the previous ones The integration of process and genre approaches to teaching second language writing develops the strengths of both approaches and limits the disadvantages of each This incorporation should be considered as complementary, rather than competing theories; the strengths of each approach compensate for the weaknesses of the other approach The product approach focuses only on a free-error final product with linguistic knowledge from the model provided by textbooks or by teachers while the process approach emphasizes on writing process with varied classroom activities of prewriting, composing/ drafting, revising and editing which develops their language use exploring their ideas and experience without paying much attention to the final outcome Besides, the genre approach pays more attention to the social context in which the text comes from (Tribble, 1996, Badger & White, 2000, Yan, 2005)

Generally, the process genre approach combines the strengths of these approaches, allows teachers to help students recognize the stages they go through to create a written text, define clearly their audience, purpose, content, textual conventions of their product, all of which lead to less stressful and motivated writing, and students are encouraged to confidently discuss, evaluate, and analyze their own writing to produce their writing tasks efficiently All of the abovementioned factors are also required for a report to be produced Before creating a report, writer students need

to define clearly the context, content, the real reader, the purpose, and then the conventions of using appropriate vocabulary, grammar, structures Moreover, in order

to produce effective reports, it is necessary for writer students to undergo stages in teaching and learning writing in the process genre approach, such as planning or proofreading or revising These are the reasons why the process genre approach to writing was chosen to teach writing reports in this study as an intervention in this experiment study

According to Mertler (2001), rubrics are rating scales which are often employed with performance assessments “They are formally defined as scoring guides, consisting of specific pre-established performance criteria, used in evaluating students’ work on performance assessments” (p.1) In common usage, there are two types of rubrics - holistic and analytic Holistic rubrics assess student work as a whole while analytic rubrics identify and assess various components or criteria of a finished product

Particularly, a holistic rubric requires the teacher to score the overall process or product as a whole, without judging the component parts separately (Nitko, 2001) and errors in some part of the process can be ignored provided the overall quality is high (Chase, 1999) Holistic rubrics are mainly utilized when there are various correct answers for each performance task acceptable as well as the task cannot easily be divided into separate components to be assessed as it emphasizes on overall quality, proficiency, or understanding of a specific content or skills Therefore, employing holistic rubrics in scoring process takes little time as teachers are required to “read through” or “examine the student product or performance only once, so as to get an

“overall” sense of what the student was able to accomplish” (Mertler, 2001, p 2) It also provides teachers with an “overview” of students’ “performance” However, it is

this manner to assess students’ performance that provides the students with little detailed feedback, which may be difficult for students to make improvement in their writings and for scorers to decide on one overall score

In contrast, in an analytic rubric, the teacher scores separate, individual parts of the product or performance first, then sums the individual scores to obtain a total score (Moskal, 2000; Nitko, 2001) This rubric is commonly employed when the teachers would like to see “relative strength and weaknesses” of the students’ products as well

as detailed feedback so that then both teachers and students have an awareness of what are in need of improvement in their performance Exploring analytic rubrics is quite significant First, both teachers and students can receive more specific feedback on their performance with respect to each of the individual scoring criteria, which does not happen when using holistic rubrics (Nitko, 2001) This enables both teachers and students to be aware of students’ specific strengths to develop as well as their weaknesses to overcome, in order to, at last, improve their writing skill Moreover, scoring using this analytic rubric ensures the objectivity because it is consistent across students and raters Nevertheless, utilizing the analytic rubrics is more time-consuming than applying a holistic rubric since the teachers need to read the students’ writing products several times to evaluate different skills or characteristics individually

Of these two types of rubrics, analytic rubric was selected in this research to rate students’ writing performance The widely used writing scale that was adopted by Lam (2013) (see Appendix 1) was employed It detailed the aspects about the quality

of the students’ writing products that the researcher wanted to measure, including

organization, content, vocabulary, grammar and mechanics These are also the aspects

reflecting a good piece of writing as discussed in Section 2.2

Students’ writings were evaluated through specific and very detailed ratings from 0.25 to maximum point for each component Particularly, content aspect accounts for 3.5 points with its specific requirements, such as knowledgeable, substantive, thorough development of topic and relevant to assigned topic Students can get maximum of 1.5 points for the organization when their writing meets the requirements like fluent expression, good organization, clearly stated and supported ideas, logical sequence and cohesion With the vocabulary criterion, the writing needs sophisticated

range, effective word as well as idiom choice and usage, word form mastery and appropriate mastery to get the maximum score of 1.5 points Grammar or language use criterion accounts for 1.5 points when accurate use of relatively complex structures, fewer errors of agreement, tense, number, word order/ function, articles, pronouns, prepositions are utilized In the last criterion, mechanics, with 1.0 point maximum, writings need to demonstrate mastery of conventions; few errors of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and paragraphing Detailed rating scale is presented in Appendix 2

2.7 Attitudes

Gajalakshmi (2013, p.1) indicated that “education is a powerful tool which helps to modify the behavior of the child according to the needs and expectancy of the society Students’ attitude is an integral part of learning and that it should, therefore, become an essential component of second language learning pedagogy” Students’ attitudes toward learning are thought to have an affect on their behaviors, such as selecting and reading books, writing or speaking in a foreign language, etc Thus, Gajalakshmi (2013, p.1) added that “in education, if the students have positive attitude towards any subject, they can achieve many things in that specific area”, and conversely “Both negative and positive attitudes have a strong impact on the success

Attitudes consist of three main components which are cognition, affection, and behavior (Zimbardo, Ebbesen & Maslach, 1977) First, the cognitive component involves the beliefs of the language learners about the factual knowledge about a person or object that they receive and their understanding in the process of language learning The cognitive component can be classified into four steps of connecting the previous knowledge and the new one, creating new knowledge, checking new knowledge, and applying the new knowledge in many situations Particularly in this study, it is students’ opinions about advantages and disadvantages of the new approach mentioned that belong to the cognitive component of attitude

Next, affective component usually represents an individual’s emotional response or liking to a person or object; it is described as positive or negative feelings that a person holds towards an attitude object Attitude can help the learners to express whether they like or dislike the objects or surrounding situations It is agreed that the inner feelings and emotions of learners influence their perspectives and their attitudes towards the target language (Choy & Troudi, 2009) In this research, affective component may be considered as students’ feelings about the writing skill after the trial time

And finally, the third component is the behavioral one which deals with the way one behaves and reacts in particular situations It involves actions and responses towards an attitude object based on the two prior components (Zanna & Rempel, 1988; Thomas & Alaphilippe, 1983) In this study, it is the students’ desire of implementing the trial approach in learning English writing from then on that is their reactions to the intervention, the genre process approach, investigated

As such, attitudes, including cognition (a thought or belief), affection (a

feeling), and behavior (an action), enable us to “define how we see situations, as well

as define how we behave toward the situation or object” (Pickens, 2005, p.44)

Attitudes may simply be an enduring evaluation of a person or object, or other emotional reactions to objects and to people Attitudes also provide us with internal

cognitions or beliefs and thoughts about people and objects Attitudes cause us to

behave in a particular way toward an object or person Though the feeling and belief

components of attitudes are internal to a person, we can view a person’s attitude from

his or her resulting behavior

When a person has enduring evaluation or bias of a person or object, it may be difficult, even takes time, effort, and determination to change a person’s attitude; but it can be done (Pickens, 2005) According to Pickens (2005), to change one’s attitude, the cognitive and affective (emotional) components need to be addressed first by

“providing new information” “for changing a person’s attitude and therefore his or her behavior” Particularly, in this research, new information needing to be provided is the new approach, the process genre approach, applied in learning English writing Students need to experience with the new approach to realize the effectiveness of the trial approach (cognitive component), from that then they are convinced to like or dislike to apply it in their learning English writing (affective component) and ultimately they give responses towards the implementation of the new approach in the future time (behavioral component)

2.8 Previous studies

A variety of studies implementing the process genre approach were carried out

in the world, at both universities and high schools At the tertiary level, first of all, Jarunthawatchai (2010) investigated the effects of implementing the process genre approach in teaching writing of a letter of job application to Thai students at the university level The participants of this study were 50 English majors at a public university in central Thailand They all were divided into two groups: the experimental group consisting 26 students was given the process genre approach and the control group including 24 students studied writing through a traditional process approach in a 15-week writing course A quasi-experimental design and portfolios and think-aloud protocols were used to collect data in this study The results from the analysis of students’ scores showed that, at the end of the course, students instructed by the process genre approach enhanced their L2 writing ability, made greater improvement

in areas of organization, content, and linguistic appropriateness

Secondly, a study on the effects of the process genre approach on the written basic English performance of computer science students was carried out by Babalola and Halira (2012) in the Federal Polytechnic, Ede Nigeria The participants are majoring in computer science but by the curriculum they have to undergo compulsory language courses in each of the four semesters The students were randomly selected from two classes and were divided into two groups of 20 students each Group 1 was instructed in the process genre approach for six weeks Students in group 2 were taught using in the traditional lecture method The results indicate that there is a significant effect of the process genre approach on the performance in written English of

computer science students involved in the treatment

At schools, similarly, Gupitasari (2013) carried out a study on the implementation of the process genre approach to teaching writing business letters for twelfth graders at one vocational school in Cianjur in Indonesia The study lasted in a 15-week term The participants involved were an English teacher, a student from Indonesia University of education who was conducting the action research and 28 twelfth graders Observation sheet, writing test and questionnaire were employed to collect the data The results demonstrate improvement in students’ writing ability and students’ positive responses to the implementation of the process genre approach to teaching writing business letters Besides, the researcher suggests that other researchers in the same area of study should implement the process genre approach in senior high schools in other graders as in the tenth and eleventh scores in teaching other texts such as recount, narrative, report, or argumentative

At the same time, Rincón Velandia and Cuesta (2013) carried out a research on

the effects of using the process genre approach and e-portfolio dossier to improve short

story writing skills of 33 eleventh graders from a state school in Bogotá in Chia,

Colombia Their English proficiency corresponded to the A1 level defined by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages This action research study conducted during seven weeks reveals the significant improvements in students’ written performance and shows new emerging roles in learners The students are more active, which enables them to become planners, builders and reviewers of their own short story writing process These roles helped students reflect upon their learning and

become better decision makers and critical thinkers The employing of e-portfolio dossier as a learning and assessment tool is evaluated effectively

Utami (2013) conducted a quasi experimental research on the effectiveness of the process genre approach in teaching writing viewed from students’ self-esteem 76 grade eleven students from two classes at SMA Regina Pacis Surakata took part in the research in the academic year of 2013-2014 Data were collected from a writing test and questionnaire on self-esteem The results analyzed revealed that (1) the process-genre approach is an effective approach to teaching writing, even more effective than the product approach, (2) the students who have high self-esteem have better writing skill than those who have low self-esteem; in other words, this affective factor, self-esteem, may also influence students’ language learning because it affects their belief

in their ability to undergo every stage of writing process, and (3) there is an interaction between teaching approaches and the students’ level of self-esteem in teaching writing

Locally, in the same year, Lam (2013) investigated effects of the trial modified process and genre model of writing proposed by Badger and White (2000) approach on the 11th graders’ writing performance on a variety of types of writing in the English 11 textbook, including: people description, recount, writing an invitation letter, a thank-you letter, a reply letter, report through description of chart and celebration description The study involved in 87 high school students in Tien Giang province The students in the experiment group were exposed to the process genre approach while the students in the control group were instructed the traditional product approach The study lasted 8 weeks and involved pre-, post-tests, journals and questionnaires The outcomes of the study indicated that the experimental group attained the significant improvement in the post-test results Additionally, the students expressed positive attitudes towards it and showed high appreciation for its effects in terms of raising their linguistic awareness and application, boosting confidence in writing in the particular genres and improving their overall writing skill

In conclusion, all of the studies on teaching writing both in Vietnam and in the world have focused on the students’ tertiary level and secondary school’s level and made use of the process genre approaches to teaching writing short story or business

letters in their research There seems to have been few research integrating the process and genre approach to teaching writing reports for students at college level, apart from

a study conducted by Lam (2013) with only one session related to describing graphs and charts for high school students Consequently, the researcher finds this study necessary and suitable to implement the process and genre approaches in teaching and learning report writing in English writing at college level in Vietnam in order to find out to what extent the application of the process genre approach affects the students’

English report writing performance, and what their attitudes towards learning writing

through the application of the process genre approach to teaching writing are

2.9 Chapter summary

This chapter reviews concepts of writing skill, especially writing reports,

components of a good piece of writing, and attitude concept as well writing rubrics for assessing students’ writing performance In addition, main approaches to writing, namely the product approach, the process approach, the genre approach and the process genre approach, are reviewed, analyzed and compared Previous empirical research on teaching writing in Vietnam and other contexts similar to Vietnam like Indonesia, Nigeria, Colombia and Thailand are also reviewed in this chapter so that the researcher show that the process genre approach has positive effects on students both

in writing performance and their positive attitudes All of these issues have been taken into consideration with the aims of showing that, firstly, the process genre approach to teaching writing is appropriate as in theories; it meets the requirements of how to help students write reports; and secondly, previous studies also add empirical proofs of the positive effects of the process genre approach to teaching writing Therefore, the process genre approach will be applied to investigate whether in specific situations of Khanh Hoa University with second-year English majors and with the report writing genre, the process genre approach still has positive effects on students’ writing performance and their attitudes as what has been reflected in theories and in previous research

The following chapter introduces more details of the research site, research participants, experimental teaching procedure, methods of collecting data and the analytical framework of the data