Using techniques to improve the students’ english writing skill in describing charts at nhu thanh high school

So, English is the first and the most importantstandard for workers who want to work not only at foreign companies but also Especially, as one of the types of writing skill, describing c

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

I RATIONALE OF THE STUDY

Today learning English is very important because it is the only languagethat truly links the whole world together English may not be the most spokenlanguage in the world, but it is the official language in a large number ofcountries It is estimated that the number of people in the world that use inEnglish to communicate on a regular basis is 2 billion English is the dominantbusiness language and it has become almost a necessity for people to useEnglish if they are to enter a global workforce, research from all over the worldshows that cross-border business communication is most often conducted inEnglish Its importance in the global market place therefore cannot beunderstated, learning English really can change people’s life Many of theworld’s top films, books and music are published and produced in English.Therefore by learning English you will have access to a great wealth ofentertainment and will be able to have a greater cultural understanding Most ofthe content produced on the internet (50%) is in English So knowing Englishwill allow people to access an incredible amount of information which may not

be otherwise available!

In fact, many Vietnamese students who have good professional knowledge,but can’t use English well don’t get good jobs or if they could get a job theyeven couldn’t have success So, English is the first and the most importantstandard for workers who want to work not only at foreign companies but also

Especially, as one of the types of writing skill, describing charts seems to

be the most challenging to students because to get success in this type of writingskill beside literature knowledge, students also need some more relevant skillssuch as: analysis, comparision, sum up and some useful language as well asuseful structures

At Nhu Thanh High school, my students often see writing skill as hardwork, boring, unrewarding, and not a lot of fun Typically, they often get stuck

in describing a chart

Therefore, in this study I present some techniques which I have used successfully over the last few years with classes of different sizes and levels to improve the students’ writing skill in describing charts

II AIMS OF THE STUDY

I do the research to know about the fact of teaching and learning writing skill

in Nhu Thanh High School more clearly This study also investigates whetherthe techniques can have positive impact on writing process among students andcan develop their writing skill or not Bearing in mind, I decide the research

with title “Using techniques to improve the students’ English writing skill in describing charts at Nhu Thanh High School”.

III RESEARCH QUESTIONS

This study aims at finding answer to the following research question:

How can the techniques help the students at Nhu Thanh High School improvetheir describing charts skill?

The question has been addressed to the two classes of two levels (11A3 and12C6 of the school year 2018-2019 ) that I have been teaching in Nhu ThanhHigh School with the aim to examine how the techniques affect the process ofwriting here

IV SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This study aim to teach writing skill in a systematic way, because it isexperience for teaching as well as for practice The study investigates usingtechniques to help teachers present their writing lessons in describing chartsmore clearly and help students practice more successfully so that they canimprove their writing skill

V METHODS OF THE STUDY

In this study, I use some research tools to collect and analyze the needed data:-Recording is used to record the process and the result of using the techniques.-The second tool used in this study is interviews with students at the end of theresearch to study whether using the techniques in English writing lessons ofdescribing charts is really suitable and comprehensible for them or not

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

I OVERVIEW OF WRITING SKILL INCLUDING DESCRIBING CHARTS

Lannon (1989) claims that writing is a process delivering meaningfulmessages and including its own specific goal This process requires students towork hard instead of regarding it as an uncomplicated act (Byrne, 1988).However, in language teaching and learning process, Tribble (1996, p.3) defineswriting as a language skill that involves “not just a graphic representation ofspeech, but the development and presentation of thoughts in a structured way”.This means writers need to arrange their ideas logically and systematically Describing charts is a special kind of writing Here students have to work onnumbers and charts in bar, pie or line shapes They have to use their own words

to express the trend, the difference or the changes of the items in the charts inthe ways to give the readers a clear imagination and comprehension of thecharts

Some of the difficulties associated with the teaching of writing in foreignlanguage classes come from the nature of writing itself Writing is an artificialactivity in a way that speech is not; while every normal human being on thisplanet learns, eventually, to talk and to listen, far fewer people become literate,able to write Writing is learned, while speaking is acquired as part of growing

up

Describing charts is indeed difficult, for several reasons Firstly, the writer has

to decide what information the reader needs on the chart, and how best to

express this So there is a psychological difficulty, in that the writer cannot

consult the reader- the audience is not immediately present, in contrast withmost conversations Writer has no immediate feedback to let them know howthey are doing and whether they should change their approach There is noimmediate interaction between the producer and receiver Secondly, there is a

linguistic difficulty, in that the language used in describing charts is different in

most ways from that used in speech or in other kinds of writing

In schools, writing is taught partly as a vital part of literacy program, but also

in order to show that work is being done Writing is often associated,particularly in weaker students’ minds, with “chores” or even with discipline(the traditional writing lesson is quite quiet, so the teacher is easily able to keepcontrol) This “homework syndrome” can lead to students making less and less

progress because they are poorly motivated, perform badly, receive low grades,and end up disliking writing more and more

II THE REASON WHY DESCRIBING CHARTS IS DIFFICULT

By its nature, writing, especially describing charts is often a solo activity, donesilently, involving physical effort and taking a lot of time This may not make itattractive to learners or teachers as a classroom activity In addition to this,describing charts is difficult, there are linguistic, psychological and cognitiveproblems involved, making teaching it and learning it a considerable challenge

It is also important to remember that many people never write anything of anylength in their daily lives, or anything using paper and a pen, or without using aspellchecker But this is often what we ask them to do in English

CHAPTER 2: PRACTICAL SITUATIONS

I METHODS OF THE STUDY

The research is done qualitatively in the context of two English classes 11A3and 12C6 of the school year 2018-2019 at Nhu Thanh High School) In thissurvey, I use the survey questionnaire for students This survey is designed tocollect information for the study on “An investigation into the Reality ofteaching and learning English writing skill at Nhu Thanh High School

II THE REALITY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH WRITING SKILL AT NHU THANH HIGH SCHOOL

The whole procedure of teaching and learning is implemented similarly to allstudents of the class after all of them give consent to be part of the research.However, due to the limit of the study, I only focus to collect information fromthe learning engagement of two classes 11A3 and 12C6 of the school year2018-2019 at Nhu Thanh High School) during this process as the data foranalysis Below is the survey of the practical situation of learning Englishwriting skill on describing charts at Nhu Thanh High School

types oof writing

do you think the

most difficult ?

Description 10%

discussion 20%

Argument 25%

Describing charts 45%

Analyzing the chart 16%

Deciding which is essentil information 47%

Using language suitably 25%

Interestin g

7%

Boring 41%

Really boring 49%

4 What do you

think of the

materials used for

writing skill about

charts at Nhu

Thanh High

School?

Difficult and boring 51%

Difficult but interestin g

8%

C Interesting and

stimulating 9%

Easy and boring 32%

From the survey number 1, we can see that writing about charts is often donesilently at Nhu Thanh High School, this may not make it attractive to learners as

a classroom activity The students often see describing grraphs as hard work, boring, unrewarding Moreover, students are poorly motivated so they dislike being involved in writing activities about charts.

In addition to this, one problem in the writing classes is that some teachers feeldifficult to present clear steps to help students feel more motivated and easier to

do the task Therefore, both teachers and students don’t feel willing to engage inwriting lesson about graphs.

CHAPTER 3:

TECHNIQUES TO IMPROVE THE STUDENTS’ ENGISH WRITING

SKILL IN DESCRIBING CHARTS

I RECOMMENDATIONS

According to the data analysis from the survey, it can be personally concludedthat the most important feature that makes my students to engage more in thelesson is the kind of assessment which forces them to learn although themeaningfulness of tasks also more or less affect the level of engagement

the most meaningful tasks to my students are tasks that can help them to passthe tests at the end of the semester not tasks that give them reasons tocommunicate as I expected For them, the most motivating task is also easy andclear enough But all the writing lessons about charts are complex andchallenging and not for the final tests or exams so the sudents all thinkthemseves it isn’t necessary to learn describing charts

Therefore, I have used some techniques to improve my students’ writing skill

n describing charts.

Using games is one of the most important ways to teach efficiently in alanguage class Games mean the world to children Nothing is more fun thanplaying games for them because they feel happy and free while playing.Remember when you were young, you will remember the games you playedand the happiest moments of your life

It does not matter indoor or outdoor, we can not deny the importance of games

If students learn with games, have fun, feel happy and free, it means that youhave reached your goals Games strengthen language skills, besides learnersdevelop social skills and good relationships while they interact with each others.Whatever your goal is(speaking, grammar points, vocabulary, writing, etc.) youmust believe that every game you have students play, is much more useful thantons of exercises and worksheets and you get more positive results thananything else

II PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS: USING TECHNIQUES.

1 Giving a clear format:

1.1 Write an introduction to the topic of the graph in your own words

(content+ place+ time) by rewording it

1.2 Give an overview of the main ideas in the graph (most general

trend/difference…)

1.3 Describe the most important changes and numbers Remember to include

relevant comparison

2 Illustrating how to carry out the three above steps.

2.1 How to reword the introduction:

2.1.1: Giving some examples:

Eg 1: The chart shows information about visitors to Australia, 2000-2008

 The graph illustrates/provides information/data about how many people visited/ the number of people who visited Australia over an

eight-year period between 2000 and 2008

Eg 2: The graph shows data about the annual earnings of three bakeries in

London, 2000-2010

 The graph highlights data about the amount of money which was earned /

how much money was earned by three bakeries in London from 2000 to 2010.

2.1.2: Giving some topics then asking the students to practise:

Write the introduction in two ways using how much/howmany, the number of/the amount of

1 Unemployment rates, India and Brazil, 1995-2000

2 DVD sales, UK and USA, 2005-2008

3 Chocolate production, Colombia, 1997-2000

4 Gas production in Russia , 2003-2008

5 Employment rates in the public sector, UK, 2006-2010

2.2 How to write an overview:

- Possible sentences: representing some models of sentences used to write

an overview for discribing a chart:

There was a (significant) upward/downward trend in …

……saw/witnessed a (considerable) fall over the period

……fluctuated significantly over the period

- Some examples

Ex1: Overall, what stands out from the graph is that there were

considerable upward trends in the income of both Bernie’s Buns and Robbie’s Bakery, while the earnings of Lovely Loaves saw a substantial fall over the period in question.

Ex2: In general, it can be seen that the income of Bernie’s Buns and Robbie’s Bakery rose whereas the income of Lovely Loaves went down

significantly over the time period covered by the graph

Ex 3:Overall it can be seen that Bernie’s Buns is generally the busiest bakery, outselling Lovely Loaves in six out of eight items On the whole, savoury foods such as toasted sandwiches , salads and fresh loaves are not as popular as sweet items like cakes and cookies.

2.3: How to write the details:

- Focus on the small changes or visible trends or the various differences in

fingures

-Analyse the data to show the paticular view

- Use a variety of comparison structures and expression structures to describe the charts

3: Languages to describe changes or differences:

3.1: Verbs:

Inprove, increase, rise, grow, go up

Rocket, shoot up, jump, soar, surge, double

Fall, decline, decrease, drop, godown

Ex: Asks the students to put a suitable verb in each blank based on the two charts above:

The income of Burnies’ Buns …….between 2006 and 2008

The amount of money earned by Robbies’ Bakery … between 2008 and 2010 Earnings of Lovely Loaves ….between 2004 and 2005

The income of Robbies’ Bakery ……during the first five year of the period

- X is nowhere near as + adj + as + Y (big difference)

- X is not nearly as + adj + as + Y

- X is almost as + adj + as + Y (small difference)

- X is not quite as + adj + as + Y

- Not verb + as NP + as

- X is + three times/ twice/ half + as adj + as + y

Examples:

Monster Records- 230,000 CDs, 1990- Crooner- 225,000 CDs

→ Monster Records sold more CDs than Crooners in 1990

→Crooners did not sell as many CDs as Monster Records in 1990, with 225,000compared to 230,000

→ Monster Records was more successful than Crooners

→ Crooners was not as successful as Monster Records

→ Crooners was almost/not quite as successful as Monster Records

3.7: Structures to vary expressions:

- There was a/an + adj + N…

- S + witnessed/saw/experienced + a/an + adj + N

Ex: Vary the expressions:

Sales of DVDs in the UK rose sharply between 2001 and 2004

→There was a sharp rise in sales of DVDs in the UK from 2001 to 2004

→Sales of DVDs in the UK experienced a sharp rise between 2001 and 2004

→The number of DVDs (which were) sold in the UK shot up…

Giving some more sentences and asking them to vary them:

Chocolate production in Colombia saw a significant fall

There was a steady growth in average incomes in Europe between 1998 and