Some experience in helping grade 11 students at le loi upper secondary school to improve their paragraph writing skills

Understanding these problems, I decied to choose " Some experience in helping grade 11 students at Le Loi upper-secondary school to improve their paragraph writing skills " as the topic

A INTRODUCTION

I THE REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE THEME

English, an international language, has been developing rapidly It is asubject that features regularly on study timetables all around the world Everycountry does not want to be isolated in international communication, so it putsEnglish in cirriculum of their education at program In Vietnam, English is acumpulsory subject at schools and it has recently been choosen as a cumpulsorysubject in the national examination for the General Certificate of SecondaryEducation or GCSE for short In learning English, there are four skills to bemastered, they are listening, speaking, reading and writing Listening andreading are receptive skills On the other hand, speaking and writing areproductive skills

It is true that writing is a very important skill in teaching and learningEnglish especially paragraph writing Evidently, in GCSE English's test ,students have to write a paragraph within 140 words This is not a smallchallenge for most students in general and for the students at Le Loi high school

in particular In fact, they have difficuly in collecting and rearranging ideas,writing the topic and concluding sentences, using the transitional words, usingvarious structures and vocabulary and so on Moreover, writing skill takes timeand regular practice

In the school setting, writing of 11th grade plays an important role because

it prepares needed things for students such as: grammar points, content,vocabulary and especially helps them write well at higher level of 12th gradewhen they are obligated to sit for important examminations Otherwise, for thelast several years, the final and university entrance exam have put high press onwriting skill As a result, most students have been widely aware of the necessity forlearning and practicing writing skills

Understanding these problems, I decied to choose " Some experience in helping grade 11 students at Le Loi upper-secondary school to improve their paragraph writing skills " as the topic of my experience initiatives with the hope

that I can help my students to be more confident in writing and practically, theywill succeed in their final examinations

II THE OBJECTIVES OF THE PAPER.

The study is aimed to serve some main objectives as listed following

- To give teachers an experience in teaching how to write a parapraph by using some effective techniques which are appropriate and effective in teaching writing skill to the grade 11 students

- To give students in grade 11th input to improve their ability and

competence in writing skill

- To equip stdents with the system of writing exercises so that they will

have chance to practice paragraph writing skills.

As a result, they will have high motivation to write and they will also know how to write a parapraph effectively

III THE SCOPE OF THE PAPER

Based on the background and identification of the theme, the paper islimited on teaching writing skill to the students in grade 11th by using someeffective techniques The research was conducted at my workplace- at Le Loihigh school, Tho Xuan district, Thanh Hoa province The subject consists of 90students who come from class 11A2, 11A6, school year 2015-2016 All of themare at the age of seventeenth to nineteenth years old They have to take every skill

in each period; learning time is 3 periods per week

IV THE METHODS OF THE PAPER.

The writer did some steps to do this research, they are as follows;

- surveying the literature relating to do the problem;

- defining the problem;

- constructing an experimental plan by writing the research design;

- design the research instrument;

- doing the instrument try-out;

- giving the test to the students;

- practicing teaching

- collecting the data through the posttest;

- analyzing the data;

- drawing conclusions;

- proposing suggestions;

- writing the report as subject

- Exchanging experience with colleagues

In short, the definitions of writing are various However, writing ischaracterized with some basic features, i.e being linguistics, creative,progressive and interactive Besides, the word “writing” itself may imply an act,

a process, or a skill, which needs practice and study to develop It requires both

physical and mental powers from the writers

2 Writing a paragraph

2.1 What is a paragraph ?

A paragraph is a group of sentences that fleshes out a single idea In order for aparagraph to be effective, it must begin with a topic sentence, have sentencesthat support the main idea of that paragraph, and maintain a consistent flow Itoften ends with a concluding sentence

2.2 Parts of a Paragraph

2.2.1 Topic Sentence

What is the topic sentence?

The topic sentence is often the first sentence in a paragraph A topic sentence is

an introductory line that addresses what the main idea or thesis of the paragraph

is going to be It should contain the most important and relevant point you wish

to make regarding your topic, thus summarizing the paragraph as a whole

Example:

There are various reasons why many people think that friendship plays an important role in their life The most important reason can be that everyone

needs at least a friend to share everything regardless of sadness or happiness For

me, I like chatting with my friends about what happened every day anddiscussing personal problems Furthermore, our friends will be ready to help usout of our troubles They will give us some good advice and support when weare in dificulty Finally, thanks to friendship, we will have fun and enjoy a

meaningful life In conclusion, in my opinion, without friends, life would be dulland boring

2.2.2 Supporting Details

What are supporting sentences?

They come after the topic sentence, making up the body of a paragraph.

What do they do?

They give details to develop and support the main idea of the paragraph.

How do I write them?

You should give supporting facts, details, and examples.

Example:

There are various reasons why many people think that friendship plays an

important role in their life The most important reason can be that everyone needs at least a friend to share everything regardless of sadness or happiness For me, I like chatting with my friends about what happened every day and discussing personal problems Furthermore, our friends will

be ready to help us out of our troubles They will give us some good advice and support when we are in dificulty Finally, thanks to friendship, we will have fun and enjoy a meaningful life In conclusion, in my opinion, without

friends, life would be dull and boring

2.2.3 Closing Sentence

What is the closing sentence?

The closing sentence is the last sentence in a paragraph.

What does it do?

It restates the main idea of your paragraph.

How do I write one?

Restate the main idea of the paragraph using different words.

Example:

There are various reasons why many people think that friendship plays animportant role in their life The most important reason can be that everyoneneeds at least a friend to share everything regardless of sadness or happiness For

me, I like chatting with my friends about what happened every day anddiscussing personal problems Furthermore, our friends will be ready to help usout of our troubles They will give us some good advice and support when weare in dificulty Finally, thanks to friendship, we will have fun and enjoy a

meaningful life In conclusion, in my opinion, without friends, life would be dull and boring

2.3 Kinds of Paragraphs

2.3.1 Definition Paragraph

When writing a definition paragraph, you take a thing or an idea and explain what it is

Example: Write a paragraph giving the definition of a pest.

The following words can help you to write a good definition paragraph: -"is defined as"

Example: A pest is defined as any animal or plant that damages crops, forests, or

property

- "is a kind of"

Example: A pest is a kind of animal or plant that damages crops, forests, or

property

2.3.2 Classification Paragraph

When writing a classification paragraph, you group things or ideas into specific categories

Example: Write a paragraph discussing two types of energy resources

The following words can help you to write a good classification paragraph:

 is a kind of/can be divided into/is a type offalls under/belongs to/is a part of/fits into/is grouped with/is related to/is associated with

Example: Coal is a kind of non-renewable resource.

Energy resources can be divided into two types.

Coal is a type of non-renewable resource.

Describe where Canada's industry is located

The following words can help you to write a good description paragraph:

Properties Measurement Analogy Location

nearnorth/east/south/west

Example: Most of Canada's manufacturing is located in Ontario and Quebec.

2.3.4 Compare and Contrast Paragraph

In a compare and contrast paragraph, you write about the similarities anddifferences between two or more people, places, things, or ideas.

Example: Write a paragraph comparing the weather in Vancouver and Halifax

The following words can help you to write a good compare and contrast paragraph:

on the other hand

Example: On the other hand, winter is much colder in Halifax.

first, second, third, etc recently

first, second, third, etc.

Example: First, you need to become a leader of a political party Second, you need to win a seat in the House of Commons Third, your party must have a

Example: After winning a seat in the House of Commons, you must make sure

you have a majority of seats

2.3.6 Choice Paragraph

In a paragraph where you have to make a choice, you need to choose which object, idea, or action that you prefer Often, you will need to give your opinion

on a choice of actions or events

Example: Write a paragraph stating whether you would prefer to play hockey

or lacrosse

The following words can help you to write a good choice paragraph:

Example: Write a paragraph explaining why so many Europeans moved to Canada during the nineteenth century

The following words can help you to write a good explanation paragraph:

is due to / was due to

Example: The large influx of people to Canada was due to economic pressures

in Europe

Effect

therefore

Example: Living conditions in Europe were terrible Therefore, many people

moved to Canada for a better life

thus

Example: Living conditions in Europe were terrible Thus, many people moved

to Canada for a better life

2.3.8 Evaluation Paragraph

In an evaluation paragraph, you make judgments about people, ideas, and

possible actions You need to make your evaluation based on certain criteria that you develop In the paragraph, you will state your evaluation or recommendationand then support it by referring to your criteria

Example: Write a paragraph evaluating whether pesticides should be used on farms

The following words can help you to write a good evaluation paragraph:

Criteria for Evaluation Recommendation

correct / incorrect recommend

right / wrong

Example: It is wrong to use pesticides because they harm the environment Recommendation

suggest

Example: I suggest that pesticides should not be used to control pests.

2.4 How to Write a Paragraph.

2.4.1 Prewriting Paragraphs

What is the prewriting stage?

The prewriting stage is when you think carefully and organize your ideas for

your paragraph before you begin writing

Six Prewriting Steps:

Step 1 Think carefully about what you are going to write Ask yourself:

 What question am I going to answer in this paragraph ?

 How can I best answer this question? What is the most important part of my answer?

 How can I make an introductory sentence (or thesis statement) from the most important part of my answer?

 What facts or ideas can I use to support my introductory sentence?

 How can I make this paragraph interesting?

 Do I need more facts on this topic?

 Where can I find more facts on this topic?

Step 2 Open your notebook Write out your answers to the above questions.

You do not need to spend a lot of time doing this; just write enough to help you

remember why and how you are going to write your paragraph or essay.

Step 3 Collect facts related to your paragraph or essay topic Look for and

write down facts that will help you to answer your question Timesaving hint:make sure the facts you are writing are related to the exact question you aregoing to answer in your paragraph or essay

Step 4 Write down your own ideas Ask yourself:

 What else do I want to say about this topic?

 Why should people be interested in this topic?

 Why is this topic important?

Step 5 Find the main idea of your paragraph or essay Choose the most

important point you are going to present If you cannot decide which point is themost important, just choose one point and stick to it throughout your paragraph

ideas will best support the main idea of your paragraph Once you have chosenthe facts and ideas you plan to use, ask yourself which order to put them in theparagraph Write down your own note set that you can use to guide yourself asyou write your paragraph or essay.

2.4.2 Writing Paragraphs

What is the writing stage?

The writing stage is when you turn your ideas into sentences.

Five Writing Steps:

Step 1 Open your notebook and word processor.

Step 2 Write the topic sentence, supporting sentences, and closing sentence Step 3 Write clear and simple sentences to express your meaning.

Step 4 Focus on the main idea of your paragraph.

Step 5 Use the dictionary to help you find additional words to express your

ideas

2.4.3 Editing Paragraphs

What is the editing stage?

The editing stage is when you check your paragraph for mistakes and correct

them.

Grammar and Spelling

 Check your spelling

 Check your grammar

 Read your essay again

 Make sure each sentence has a subject

 See if your subjects and verbs agree with each other

 Check the verb tenses of each sentence

 Make sure that each sentence makes sense

Style and Organization

 Make sure your paragraph has a topic sentence

 Make sure your supporting sentences focus on the main idea

 Make sure you have a closing sentence

 Check that all your sentences focus on the main idea

 See if your paragraph is interesting

2.4.4 Publishing Paragraphs

What is the publishing stage?

The publishing stage is when you produce a final copy of your paragraph to handin

Three Publishing Steps:

Step 1 Make a paper copy of your paragraph.

Step 2 Show your work to your teacher, tutor, or parents.

Step 3 Ask them for hints on how to improve your writing.

II PRACTICAL BACKGROUND

1 The writing objectives and required writing tasks listed for students in English textbook 11, Education Publishing House.

The aim of the course is to equip students with English writing skill forbasic communication For grade 11 students, the objective is to develop students’abilities to provide 100 - 130 word paragraphs on familiar topics

In order to realize the course objectives, the writing section focuses on daily and popular topics The required competences and objectives of the writing lesson in each unit are detailed in the following table:

1 Friendship Writing about a friend

2 Personal experiences Writing a personal letter to describe a past

experience

3 A Party Writing an informal letter of invitation

4 Volunteer work Writing a formal letter expressing gratitude

5 Illiteracy Describing information in a table

6 Competitions Writing a letter of reply

7 World Population Interpreting statistics on population from a chart

8 Celebrations Describing a celebration’s activities

9 The Post Office Writing a formal letter to express satisfaction or

dissatisfaction

10 Nature in danger Describing a location

11 Sources of energy Describing information from a chart

12 The Asian Games Describing the preparations for the coming Asian

Games

13 Hobbies Writing about a collection

14 Recreation Describing a camping holiday

15 Space Conquest Writing a biography

16 The Wonders of the

world

Writing a report on a man- made place

2 The teacher’s and students’ attitudes towards the teaching and learning of writing paragraphs.

It is a matter of fact that writing is not highly appreciated by the studentsand even the teachers do not take the importance of writing seriously This isbecause of the main purpose of teaching and learning English at Le Loi highschool The results of the final exam and university entrance exam areconsidered the most importance of teaching and learning English at school soboth the teachers and students there focus mostly on grammar and reading skill

rather than on other skills such as speaking, listening and writing This certainlyaffects the students’ writing competence and prevents the improvement of theirwriting ability Consequently, most of the teachers and the students think thestudents’ writing competence is bad

2.1 Students’ difficulties in learning writing paragraphs

It is clear that the students in my school have to face many difficulties.These difficulties are from two causes: (1) from the students themselves, and (2)from the teachers’ lectures

In terms of the first cause, the majority of the students have trouble withwriting because of their low level of English proficiency Their vocabulary andsentence structures are poor Grammar mistakes and spelling are also a commonfear for many of them Besides, their low background knowledge also makesthem feel stressed when writing Many of the students said they found it hard togenerate ideas and make an outline because of their low background knowledge.Their low motivation is also a problem These students consider the result of theexams as the most importance of their learning Therefore, they care much aboutgrammar, structures and reading skill

In terms of the second cause, the students do not highly asses their teachers’assistance They find their teachers’ feedbacks are not comprehensive and theirteachers’ instructions are not adequate

2.2 Teachers’ difficulties in teaching writing for grade 11 students.

Not only the students but also the teachers cope with numerous problemswhen teaching writing

The first difficulty I and my colleague are coping with is the low Englishlevel of the students Our students often lack vocabulary and have difficulties inword choice The students’ low motivation and low background knowledge arealso other problems encountered by the teachers

The second difficulty is the problem of large and multilevel classes Inmultilevel classes, we face difficulties in shortening a big gap between ourstudents In the same class, some students who are good at English are activewhile many others are de- motivated In addition, English classes at Le Loi highschool are very large There are at least 45 students in a class Hence, it isdifficult for the teachers to give each of the students individual attention andmake sure who is on task and who is off task

For the next difficulty, teaching equipment and reference materials areimportant in the teaching process; however, the teaching condition in my school

is not good Teaching aids such as pictures, sub- board are not equipped.Teachers often use only textbook, chalk and board in their lessons To make ourlessons more interesting, we had to create teaching aids by ourselves

3 The investigation of the students’ paragraph writing skills

In the process of teaching, I have been given the duty to teach the grade

11 With the awareness of researching and studying the situation of students’learning the subject and learning from experience, right since the beginning ofthe school year, I outlined a specific plan and method to actively investigate the

situation of students’ learning in my classes by giving them the topic " Write a

paragraph about your favourite subject in about 120 words." in 30 mitutes And

the table below shows the result of the investigation.

Class Total

number

of students

These findings would serve as the foundations for further suggestions that

I would like to make in the next part

III THE SOLUTIONS

Basing on the process of writing, I wish to share some experiencesincluding applying effective tecniques to help students get the ideas; providingstudents with the basic theory and useful exercises to practice writing paragraphs

as well

1 Applying some effective techniques to help students to get the ideas in teaching writing skills to the 11 grade students

1.1 Techniques in pre-writing stage:

Prewriting helps students gather ideas and give them a bank ofpossibilities for their writing This way, as students write they do not have tomake decisions simultaneously about content and language Help your studentsget a head start before they write with any of these six methods forprewriting The bank of ideas they will generate will be an invaluable resource asthey write The techniques I often use for this stage presented below

1.1.1 Analyzing models

To make the teachers’ writing lessons more effective for the students, Ioften find some extra sources besides the textbook and provide students with one

or two more model texts These models can be relevant to the writing tasks (interms of topic, content, form, language, etc.) After that I make copies for thestudents and elicit the students’ discussion over the models.

For example: The sample of unit 13 about hobby

My hobby- collecting stamps- has its own story I began to collect stamps when I was 11 years old At that time, my English teachers used to give colorful pictures as a reward to those students who are good at her subject Being one of those students, I very much loved those pictures and carefully kept them one by one in an album Seeing how I treasure the pictures, my father advised me to collect stamps as a hobby Now there are over 150 stamps of insects, animals, flowers and plants of all kinds in my collection In addition, there are also foreign stamps that I have received from my pen pals in Australia, France, and The United States To increasing the size of my album of stamps, I sometimes exchange stamps with those who share the same hobbies with me What a pleasant thing to look at my beautiful stamps

Then, the students are asked to examine the writing in pairs, individually, insmall groups to analyze what they see To help the students to analyze modeltext more easily, the teachers could use some guiding questions:

- Which sentence states the main idea?

- Which sentence directly supports that main idea?

- Has the writer used the listing words?

- Which of the followings did the writer do to support the topic: describe,divide into parts, explain, give reasons, etc?

- How did the writer end the passage? What did the writer do in the end- ask

a question, summarize, introduce new point ?

- How many parts would you divide the passage into? What is typical/

special about these parts?

1.1.2 Interview

In this activity, students are asked to interview other group members.According to Raimes (1983), interviews can be done in many ways Students caninterview each other in pairs and note down the ideas Interviews can be used tofind out detailed information from students’ partners such as: how their friend islike (Unit 1- English 11 textbook), how they celebrate their birthday parties(Unit 3- English 11 text book), how they prepare for Tet holiday (Unit 8- English

11 text book) Then they write a report This kind of activity gets students to talkand motivates students to write in a relaxing manner

1.1.3 Asking journalists’ question

These questions - who, what, when, where, why, and how- are easy forteachers to help students to generate ideas They are especially helpful in writing

an event For example, in unit 2 (English 11 textbook), students are required to