7 colaborative writing in vietnamese secondary schools

Writing tends to be a neglected area in English language teaching at secondary schools in Vietnam. Among the reasons behind this trend lies an assumption that a good piece of writing is composed of grammatically correct sentences. Most hours of English instruction in

7 Collaborative writing in Vietnamese secondary schools – an innovative approach to teaching writing in a second language

Tran Thuy Duong, MA Chu Van An National High School, Hanoi, Vietnam.

Writing tends to be a neglected area in English language teaching at secondary schools in Vietnam Among the reasons behind this trend lies an assumption that a good piece of writing is composed of grammatically correct sentences Most hours of English instruction in Vietnamese schools, therefore, put a great emphasis on teaching abstract rules and fixed patterns Such a structurally based approach to writing certainly plays a role in developing students’ language knowledge However, learning to write should go beyond the boundaries of sentence structure to convey meanings and ideas, as it could be argued the final aim of the majority of language programs is to develop learners’ communicative competence, including the ability of effective self-expression

With this view in mind, this workshop seeks to demonstrate a two-hour writing lesson as part of the “Intensive Writing” course, a Course Design Project for ELT Professional Practice at Warwick University where I completed an MA in ELT The development of the materials is based on Badger and White’s (2000) model of process genre approach to teaching writing Through emphasising various discourse structures of a written text and the intended audience of the text, the lesson intends to get learners involved in different stages of a writing process, from the generation of ideas and writing the first draft, to the revising, editing of work and the publication of the essay

The lesson is aimed at promoting students’ creativity, confidence and independence in English learning through collaborative writing, real life tasks, consciousness raising

activities, peer-feedback activities and the use of portfolio as assessment for creative

learning

The first distinctive feature of the lesson is it seeks to provide real life tasks relevant to what students will do in the outside world Writing essays for the school forum on a variety of issues raised by teenagers will likely encourage students’ interests in learning and allow students to draw on present realities and meet their distant future goals of effective communication This view is shared by Kaplan (2001), believing that writing is both a communicative and internally motivated activity Therefore, writing on a topic of their own choice rather than teacher assigned tasks would stimulate learners’ motivation and increase creativity

Another distinction is a number of consciousness raising activities designed to involve learners’ participation in pair work and group work to find out the rules for themselves These activities aim to encourage students to move steadily away from dependence on teachers to becoming more confident and self-reliant One example might be learners noticing the text pattern or discourse features of an argumentative text through labelling

each paragraph of the sample text with its functions before reaching an explicit understanding of the overall structure Consciousness-raising activities can promote learners’ retention because they have to learn through self-exploring, and as Schmidt (1990:144, in O’Brien, 2004:10) argues, “those who notice most learn most, and it may

be that those who notice most pay attention most”

Taking a perspective that writing is a communicative act, the emphasis of the lesson is to draw students’ involvement in collaborative writing at different stages of the writing process Group discussion to brainstorm the topic would likely generate a variety of ideas from which each individual could benefit and learn from their peer’s strengths It also builds up students’ sense of teamwork when each member makes the highest quality contribution to the successful completion of the task Drafting is accomplished individually based on the group’s selection of content and logical sequence of arguments with the help of the teacher as a facilitator or consultant The revision stage includes whole-class feedback given by teacher on common problems in the first draft, followed

by students giving comments on a peer’s first draft and the final revision Peer-feedback activities allow for peer writer-reader interaction and help students refine their drafts by diagnosing their own mistakes with the help of a peer and a checklist on organisation, content and language use prepared by teacher Learning through self-exploration and negotiation of meaning in the revision session will likely lead to students’ improvement

in writing and establish a sense of taking responsibility for their own learning

A process-oriented approach to writing would require a new form of assessment that could address different aspects of writing rather than the traditional holistic marking Students’ works are assessed in terms of portfolios, including their first drafts, the final pieces of written work and their reflections on the process of composing the final products The final products will be graded according to how much progress the students have made in going from first ideas, to drafting, revising and editing Portfolios will be marked on the basis of students’ improvement in writing throughout the course Portfolios can provide teachers a wider view of students’ progress by “focusing on both the process and product of learning” and can be seen as evidence of students’ self-development and enable students “to demonstrate their potential for future self-development” (Paltridge, 2001:114)

Contrary to the widely held belief among students that writing is a lonely activity where the writer works at his own pace in silence and suffers to convey the meaning with no one to help out, this workshop has demonstrated that a supportive learning environment

in the classroom context with the help of peer and teacher as a facilitator could stimulate learners’ motivation and develop their confidence in writing It has also been evidenced from the lesson that writing whole pieces of communication for intended readers rather than simply producing single correct sentences tends to encourage students’ creativity and interests in second language writing

Actual Session Breadown

* Brief summary about the Intensive writing course designed for the English majors at Chu Van An National High School (slide show, computer) : 8 minutes

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Welcome to the workshop on interactive writing This is a demonstration lesson, which is part of the intensive writing course designed for intermediate students aged between 16 and 18 at Chu Van An National High School in Hanoi, Vietnam The course aims at developing students’ ability to communicate effectively in real life situations

The degree to which students have learnt from the lesson is assessed in terms of portfolio, which is made up of students’ first draft, second draft and the final product

The course is intended to be carried out for the period of 14-week term with one hour (60 minutes) of instruction a week

The goal of the lesson is to

* Help students undergo different stages of the writing process:

 Sample text analysis

 generating ideas

 writing the first draft

 whole class feedback

 peer editing and feedback

* Raise students’ awareness of the audience

Students will be able to

 Participate in group work to brainstorm the main ideas of the issue discussed

 Share and present the group’s ideas with other groups

 Write the first draft

 Give peer feedback

* Now I would like to introduce a short film of 12 D3 writing lessons : 4 minutes

- Generation of ideas

- Group presentation

- Group writing

*Introduction of D3 forum (log on to the webpage of D3) : 3 minutes

One distinctive feature of the course is the writing topics are chosen by the students, rather than teacher-assigned tasks In this way, students feel more motivated and

interested, as these are the issues raised by the members of 12D3 or other students within

the school All essays written by students are posted to D3 forum – a webpage designed

by 12D3

Over the past two months students have discussed such topics as “How to be an attractive girl”, “Your favourite book and author”, “Should secondary students go dating”

- Main page

- English Club

- Students’ discussion

- This week topic raised by Hong Nhung : Students tend to have preference for extracurriculum activities rather than typical academic course

II Pre-writing activities 25 minutes

First argument

Evidence/examples to support the first argument

Second argument

Evidence/ examples to support the second argument

Third argument

Evidence/ examples to support

Evaluation and restatement of position taken

Q2 How can we predict the main content of paragraph 2,3,4? Did the author give any

signal in the opening paragraph? Underline these signals, if there are any

T

 Give a sample argumentative text for analysis (OHP)

 Provide consciousness-raising activities

Ss

 Label the paragraphs with their functions

 Underline topic sentences, the author’s statement of purpose, supporting evidence, restatement of purpose in the conclusion

 Discuss the issue

 Generate main ideas and find supporting examples/evidence

 Make a list of vocabulary related to the topic

 Write down the main ideas discussed on the transparencies

 Ss share the ideas with other groups, using OHP

 Other groups listen and give additional information

III While-writing activities 10 minutes

Ss write the first draft in group

IV Post-writing activities 15 minutes

 Ts provides a student’s text taken from the previous topic (OHP)

 Ss., with the help of Ts., give feedback on content, organization, language use

Activity 1

Step 1 Read the first draft of your essay Complete the following checklist about the

structure of an argumentative essay (  in the  of Yes or No)

Checklist 1: self-evaluation

Structure of an argumentative essay

Have you provided one main argument in each paragraph? Yes  No 

Have you provided evidence or examples to support your

Have you restated your position in the conclusion? Yes  No 

Step 2 Exchange the first draft of your essay with your partner Read the essay of

your partner carefully and complete the checklist

Activity 2

Step 1 Read your essay again and complete the following checklist about the content of

your essay (  in the  of Yes or No)

Checklist 2: self-evaluation

Content of the essay

Have the main arguments in your essay supported your position in

the opening paragraph?

Have the examples or evidence provided relevant information to

Are the examples provided relevant to the question you have

discussed?

Step 2 Exchange the first draft of your essay with your partner Read the essay of your

partner carefully and complete the checklist

Activity 3

language features of an argumentative essay ( in the  of Yes or No)

Checklist 5: self-evaluation

Language features

Have you used present tense to state the arguments? Yes  No 

Have you used connective words (eg First, second, etc) to link

paragraphs?

Have you used connective words to show the relationships

Step 2 Read your friend’s essay Complete the following checklist about some language features of an argumentative essay

Error Correction Checklist

We spend all day on the beach yesterday.

Sp Wrong spelling It was very confortable.

V Wrong verb form She go swimming every day.

/\ Missing word We had /\ wonderful time.

// New needed paragraph

Wrong word order We ate buffet seafood for dinner.

Not necessary We are having a lovely time in the Hong Kong.

ww

T

Sp V

? I don’t understand what you are trying to say.



Three groups exchange drafts and give feedback, using the checklist prepared by Ts

 Each group makes final revision based on the feedback

 Ss finish the second draft and post their final products on the wall

 Every group now has a chance to walk around and read other groups’ essays

VI Summary and question 15 minutes