Some methods in teaching pre writing helping class 11a2 improve their writing skill

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAININGLE HOAN HIGH SCHOOL THE INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE Author: Le Thi Hong Occupation: Teacher Field Subject: Foreign language THE THESIS: SOME M

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

LE HOAN HIGH SCHOOL

THE INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE

Author: Le Thi Hong Occupation: Teacher Field ( Subject): Foreign language

THE THESIS:

SOME METHODS IN TEACHING PRE-WRITING HELPING

CLASS 11A2 IMPROVE THEIR WRITING SKILL

THANH HÓA NĂM 2016

PART I: INTRODUCTION I.1 Reasons for choosing the thesis.

As you know, English is an international language which is used by a lot

of countries all over the world It also becomes main language incommunicating among different people in different countries in the world

With the trend of integrating, Vietnam has been promoting their abilities

in all aspects Therefore, in education, Vietnam really pays attention to teachingand learning English all schools in Vietnamese educational system English isalso becomes a chore subject in national educational system From those, we seethe importance of teaching and learning English in the development andintegration of our country

English is a device for communicating and integrating with manycountries in our region and in the world, a device for approaching moderntechnology and science and exchanging economics, politics and culture betweenour country and others in the region and in the world

In Vietnam, nowadays students begin to learn English at primary school

In high school, they continue the teaching program from primary school tosecondary school They learn English with four skills such as writing, listening,speaking and reading along with language focus to continue improving theirskills and knowledge Furthermore, they also prepare the best knowledge fortheir most important examination of graduating or use the knowledge for highereducation

As an English teacher I know the importance of English with my students,

so I always try to find out the best methods in teaching English for them In ourschool system, English is both different and characteristic subject It makesstudents curious and passionate However, it also creates a lot of difficulties andmisunderstandings As a result, students sometimes feel discouraged In thissituation, teacher has an very important role to transfer the passion and theenjoyment to their students

When teaching English at high school, specially teaching the 11th grade at

Le Hoan high school, I see that most of my student like learning English Theyalso try their best to learn it in all skills and language focus While teachingthem, I see that my students are attractive and exciting with reading, listening,writing skill and language focus, but they seem indifferent to writing skill.However, nowadays writing skill is step by step becoming an important part intheir study As you know, this skill has been becoming a important part in theexamination for English excellent students for many years A Large part ofstudents hadn't done well in this part Besides a few years ago, writing skill orparagraph writing didn't appear in the final exam of graduating and highereducation, but now we can see that in this exam, writing skill is becoming anessential part and accounts for 2 marks in total 10 marks for all parts From theseelements I see that I have to update and change my method in teaching writing

skill so that I can make students really like this skill more than ever before So

as to help students improve their writing skill, I also see that in this skill, writing stage is a very important stage in teaching writing and also hassignificant effects on the students' writing performance If students are notprepared well enough, they can't write well, they can't write anything in theirnotebook

pre-With my own thought and my own experience in teaching English at LeHoan high school for many years, I strongly try to give my own brightexperience: Some methods for teaching Pre-writing effectively helping the 11thgrade students improve their writing skill

With the thesis I hope that I will contribute my little experience to help

my students like and improve the writing skill in the next courses

I.2 Objectives.

When teaching writing skill to the students in the grade 11A2 at Le Hoanhigh school I found out that pre-writing stage is very important in teachingwriting skill and it also effects students' writing result, so I decided to carry outthis thesis Firstly, I want to find out some other methods in teaching pre-writingeffectively From changing this stage helps students improve their writingperformance result in writing skill Secondly, I want to create my ownexperiences which are useful and necessary for my teaching The experienceswill be used in the next courses and bring out the good results in my job.Furthermore, I also want to contribute my own experiences in teaching English

at Le Hoan high school Hopefully that the results of this study would be sharedwith any colleagues who had the same problem or anyone who is interested inthis study Last but not least, Based on the results of this action research, somechanges and new methods could be applied in some lessons I hope that mystudents will love writing skill more than ever before and work effectively in thewriting lessons

I.3 Participants

The subjects chosen for the research include 45 students in the class 11A2

at Le Hoan High School with the survey questionnaires The research wascarried out during the first term of the academic year 2015 – 2016 at Le HoanHigh School

I.4

Methods of the study.

The study bases on teacher's main activities: teaching time in the classThe data is collected by sets of questionnaires some were set before usingthe methods and others were set after using the methods

Other sources of data come from writing tasks from the textbooks Theanalysis of the data hopefully will bring about reliable findings useful for theteaching of writing to students at Le Hoan High School

PART II: CONTENTS OF THE THESIS II.1: Rationale which affects to the thesis.

Students' result in writing lesson can be affected by some major factorswhich originate from students, teachers, and other external factors

II.1.1 Students' factors

II.1.1.1 Students' learning style

As we know, it is normal that there are about 40 to 50 students in peerclassroom at high school They are different individuals in a class Differentindividuals may have different learning styles and different kinds of work Theywant to get different degrees of care and attention from the teacher It means thatthere are different reactions from students toward the pre-writing stage Fromthose If teacher realizes the differences among individuals in the class when theycreate an activity, the students will take part in the lesson actively

II.1.1.2 Students' language level.

It can be easily seen that Le Hoan high school is situated at thecountryside in Xuan Lai commune, Tho Xuan district Most of the people herehave medium living condition, so most students learn English with very simpleways They only learn English from their teacher at school These students havemedium level, few also have low level Others, but not large a mount of studentswith good living condition from their parents, find out some extra ways forlearning English such as learning outside the school, using cassette, computerand cell phone to learn online This group of the students has good knowledge Itmeans that students' language level is different Therefore, teacher may havesome difficulties in choosing a suitable teaching method, language and activitywhich are used in a class

II.1.1.3 Students' attitude

Beside students' learning style and students' language level, students'attitude in writing is very important This decides the success in learning aforeign language Students' attitude may derive from the society, the friends, theparents, their purpose or the teacher and his or her method Among thesesources, teacher and his or her method may be the most important factors Forteacher, his or her attitude and enthusiasm helps himself create a positiveclassroom atmosphere For the method, it means both teacher's and students'confidence shown in the way of teaching and learning If they lose theirconfidence the chances of success in learning a language will be very small

II.1.2 Teacher's factors

II.1.2.1 Teacher's teaching method.

In pre-writing stage as well as pre-lesson stage, teacher's teaching methodfocus on the ways which teacher designs appropriate activities to motivatestudents to write Most students believe that the teacher is a fountain of

knowledge and their main responsibility is to transfer that to students Besidesthe more knowledge of the lesson a teacher can apply to his student, the teachershould make students feel more interested in it When students feel comfortableand interesting, they can produce a good writing.

II.1.2.2 Teacher's instruction.

Before asking students to do something, teacher always has to explain andinstruct them If students don't understand teacher's instruction They don't reactanything This is a problem that teacher's instruction should be clear and shortnot too complicated To have a good instruction, before giving instructionteacher should prepare what they are going to say and ensure that the class'sattention Next they should give the information more than one That helpsstudents know exactly what they will have to do next

II.1.3: Other factors

II.1.3.1 Time limitations

Normally, in pre-stage it takes from 7 to 10 minutes to conduct theactivities However, in some large classes with a number of students whoseEnglish knowledge is limited, it often takes more time to conduct these activities

II.1.3.2 Classroom and material limitations

In teaching lesson, there are some facilities in classroom which also affectstudents' learning and students' result such as the lightness, the temperature orclassroom atmosphere and facilities for displaying pictures and chart As weknow English is a subject which is using and updating a lot of pictures aboutmany aspects in daily life the use of visual display to show these pictures inteaching and learning is an effective way, that makes students exciting andwants to discover the subject more However, most schools of Vietnam don'thave the best condition for students to learn foreign language Most classroomdon't have computer screen or visual display unit, students have to sit in acrowded number Those surely affect students' learning result Others such aslightness, temperature or classroom atmosphere if they are not good enough ,they also makes students are not comfortable, so their learning result is also notgood

II.1.4 The writing program for the grade 11 th at Le Hoan high school

Basing on the new text books designed by the Ministry of Education andTraining English is taught with four skills and language focus which focuses ongrammar and pronunciation The writing program at Le Hoan high school is the same asthis book with the aim of improving students' abilities in writing On English 11textbook, we have 16 units with 16 topics for student's writing There are a range oftypes to practice writing with narrative, writing letters, describing statistics from

a chart or a table or writing a report or a biography

From the content and writing lesson of the textbook, We can see the writingtopics in the first term of the academic year It consists of the 8 units with 8

topic for students' writing After 8 units they review to prepare for the final firstterm test.

Topic 1 Unit 1: Friendship - Writing a narrative: Writing about your friendTopic 2 Unit 2: Personal Experience

Writing a personal letter to describe a past experienceTopic 3 Unit 3: A Party - Writing an informal letter of invitation

Topic 4 Unit 4: Volunteer work - Writing a formal letter expressinggratitudeTopic 5 Unit 5: Illiteracy - Describing information in a table

Topic 6 Unit 6: Competitions - Writing a letter of reply

Topic 7 Unit 7: World population

Interpreting statistics on population from a chartTopic 8 Unit 8: Celebrations - Describing a celebration’s activities

Final first – term Test

The teaching and learning tasks for the second term will be shown as follows:Topic 9 Unit 9: The Post Office

Writing a formal letter to express satisfaction or dissatisfactionTopic 10 Unit 10: Nature in danger - Describing a location

Topic 11 Unit 11: Sources of energy

Describing information from a chartTopic 12 Unit 12: The Asian Games

Describing the preparations for the coming Asian GamesTopic 13 Unit 13: Hobbies - Writing about a collection

Topic 14 Unit 14: Recreation - Describing a camping holiday

Topic 15 Unit 15: Space Conquest - Writing a biography

Topic 16

Unit 16: The Wonders of the worldWriting a report on a man – made place

Final Second – term Test

II.2 Some problems before implementing the thesis.

II.2.1 Some features about class 11A2

II.2.1.1 Advantages

Class 11A2 is the class with 46 students Most of them have goodknowledge about Math, Physics and Chemistry because they choose them astheir main subjects for their studying and their higher education When they

learn those it means that most of the students in class 11A2 have a good logicalability Beside their main subject, they can have special ability for learningothers quickly and well

With my subject, English, most students in the class 11A2 really like itand also aware its importance for their future Therefore they always feelattractive and try their best to learn it From each lesson, I saw my students'passion and attention They always listen to me and have a good interaction withtheir teacher, which makes me feel satisfied and exciting when teaching them

II.2.1.2 Disadvantages

My student's attitude in learning is very good, but it also have somelimitations Firstly, their main subjects are Math, Physics and Chemistry, so theyspend much time studying them It means they spend little time on the others aswell as English Secondly, I began teaching them when they was lass 10A2.That time I saw my students writing bad They didn't like this kill, they didn'tpay attention it much When I asked them to write, they seem indifferent to thiskill and became passive Maybe, my students didn't practice this skill well andregularly at secondary school and that time writing skill didn't mention in theirexams so they didn't need and pay attention too much Last but not least Most ofthem also don't have good condition in using modern devices for studyingforeign language such as computer with internet connection, radio or expensivecell phone These are some disadvantages affecting my students in learningEnglish

II.2.2 Old method in teaching pre-writing and its results.

I began teaching class 11A2 last year In that time I taught writing skillbased on the design of the textbook I also taught this kill with three stages pre,while and post stage sometimes I taught four stages consisting warm-up I didn'tchange anything in the textbook I also asked my colleges for how they taughtthis kill They gave me the same steps as I did You can see the method and itsresult which I and my colleagues used last year in teaching writing kill in class11A2 and other classes at Le Hoan high school as some following examples:

Example 1: Topic " write a letter to express gratitude " Unit 4: Volunteer work Stages Teacher's activities Students' activities

Warm-up

(3 minutes)

- pointed at the letter in the textbook and asks students " what isthis? "

- said " ok, today we are going tolearn how to write a formal letter ofexpressing gratitude"

- listened and did the task

- called students to give theiranswer for the task

- went around and gave help forstudents

- listened to the teacher.Some began to do thetask by writing the letter

of expressing gratitude.Some did nothing, someasked teacher's aboutsome new words, someasked their friend

- Some students in theclass did not know what

to do with their writings

so they copy the wholesample letter in the textbook ignoring therequirements of thewriting tasks

- chose the celebration

- listen to the teacher

- went around to view students'writing

- wrote the paragraph

- some wrote, some thoughtabout the lesson, some lookedindifferent to it

Question 1: " What do you think of your writing performance today?"

The result in the table shows that the writing performance of the class11A2 wasn't good The percentage of students who thought their writingperformance on that day very bad got the highest rate with 42,22% and 26,66%

of the students thought their writing result was bad 17,77% of the studentsaccessed that their writing was fair Meanwhile the number of students whothought their writing good and very good accounted low rate with 8,88% and4,47% The number showed that students' writing was boring and not effective.Question 2: " Why can't you give a good writing performance today?"

Reasons:

a My vocabulary, grammar and structure are so poor

b I don't have much information about the topic

c I don't feel being motivated enough

d I don't know what and how to write

e you choose all

Factors:

a Teacher should create pre-writing stage effectively and attractively

b Teacher should speak louder

c Teacher's instruction should be short and clear enough

d change teacher's mood and teacher's lifestyle

From these causes and students' ideas I think I should change my method

in teaching writing skill, specially in teaching pre-writing stage

II.3 Some methods in teaching pre-writing effectively helping class 11A2 improve their writing skill.

II.3.1 Some notes teacher should remember when teaching pre-writing

From students' ideas as well as my own experience, I gives some noteswhich are necessary for pre-writing stage

a prepare more than one suitable activity for pre-writing stage

b if teacher can, make the writing topic easier

c try to give clear and short instruction

d make sure that students are motivated to work and are more interested

in the writing lesson

e pay more attention to less-active or quiet students and encourage them

to work

f manage time well in each part of the writing lesson

II.3.2 Using some popular and useful techniques in teaching pre-writing stage.

To have an effective pre-writing stage, we need to mention and use somepopular and useful techniques They are the keys to create a successful andeffective pre-writing stage We should mention these following techniques

II.3.2.1 Brainstorming:

In this technique, teacher asks students to work in groups and producewords and ideas about the writing topic Then teacher asks a member of eachgroup to go to the board and write down their ideas From this activity studentsproduce their words and then use them for their writing in next part

II.3.2.2 Free-writing: It is simply putting on paper every thought that is going

through their head like with brainstorming anything However, brainstorming