Solutions to master upper secondary students’ performance in the essay writing task

Hence, the topic “Solutions to Master Upper-secondary Students’ Performance in the Essay-Writing Task in the English Examination for Gifted Students at the Provincial level” has been stu

“Solutions to Master Upper-secondary Students’ Performance

in the Essay-Writing Task in the English Examination for Gifted Students

at the Provincial Level”

PART I: INTRODUCTION

I Rationale for selecting the topic of the study:

Training excellent students of English at the upper-secondary level of education is generally considered a greatly challenging mission for each teacher of English The success of this aspect of the job is mainly determined by the students’ performance in the major examinations, especially the provincial English examination for upper-secondary gifted students throughout Thanh Hoa province In fact, the students’ performance is directly based on their exam results concretized with the total marks of the exam paper The exam questions are divided into various parts that test the participants’ different English skills One of the skills playing the key role in deciding whether the students’ achievements are high or not would be the writing skill in the last part with its most important task is writing an essay It cannot

be denied that it is essay writing that has been a terrible nightmare for many students, including talented ones The nightmare is so haunted that my students usually get too nervous to accomplish their writing entirely, they even skip this task Thus; the hope to achieve satisfactory results seems to be an unrealistic dream that never comes true This fact, along with the desire to make a quality breakthrough, has constantly urged me to do something practical to improve the situation Hence,

the topic “Solutions to Master Upper-secondary Students’ Performance in the Essay-Writing Task in the English Examination for Gifted Students at the Provincial level” has been studied in the hope of finding out more suitable teaching

techniques and approaches to apply for gifted student training so that it will be more productive in the coming time

II Purposes of the study:

This study has been conducted with a strong desire that it can help raise students’ awareness of the importance of English essay writing in written communications as well as in the gifted student examinations at the provincial level

On that basis, they can have more motivations and interests in studying how to write essays and doing practice more regularly As a result, they will gradually be able to master their performance in essay writing, which may give them much help to get prizes, especially high ones in their important examinations Furthermore, with this experience initiative, I hope to contribute some of my personal ideas on the good

student training to teaching experience sources for my teacher colleagues to use as a reference in the English teaching process in general

III Objects of the study:

This teaching experience initiative specially focus on researching and analyzing problems or difficulties that gifted students encounter in English essay writing, and finding out possible solutions to these problematic issues to help master their performance in such an important competition as the Provincial English Examination for Gifted Students

IV Scope of the study:

The study process was mainly based on the English programme for the upper-secondary students at Mai Anh Tuan High School in the school year 2017-2018, and through English tests, examinations for gifted students in Thanh Hoa province, as well as other provinces throughout our country, in the recent years

V Bases and of the study:

The experience initiative has been studied based on my own practical teaching experiences, referring to documents related to the researched topic, including database from the internet, observing other teachers’ lessons, and consulting my colleagues, who are experienced in gifted student training

PART II: DEVELOPMENT

To improve high school gifted students’ performance in English Essay writing, first and foremost, it is necessary to investigate and analyze students’ difficulties related to this task and their negative impacts on exam results Afterward, the previously analyzed problems will suggest effective ways to find out possible solutions that help better the situations

I Problems facing gifted students in English Essay writing:

Gifted students are great learners; however, as learners of English as a foreign language, they are confronted with a wide range of difficulties in writing English essays The problems may be caused by the outer or intra-lingual factors of English These factors, whether internal or external, can make the task of mastery difficult for learners of English to achieve, and can have a negative effect on their proficiency Following are the common challenges that may face gifted students in writing and restrict their achievement

1 Over-obsession named essay writing:

Nowadays, most students are too obsessive with writing essays whether in their mother tongue or in their second language such as English They tend to think that this task is beyond their ability, and that it is only a waste of time because they can never write a good essay; hence, they choose to quit the task right from the

2 Effects of modern lifestyle:

Schoolchildren are living a fast-paced life in which everything seems to run at the speed of light With the support of modern devices, spoken communications become easier and more convenient than ever before Rather, the tendency of teaching and learning English at present is to focus more on spoken communication skills than on written ones In consequence, writing skills, including essay writing, attract little attention from high school students

3 Gifted students’ fear:

Gifted children sometimes have a fear of vague concepts and prefer to study things that have a right answer Some gifted children prefer factual writing to creative writing This is due in part to the fact that many gifted children are perfectionists and perfectionists like getting every assignment right the first time! Unfortunately, in creative writing, there is not always a right or a wrong solution

4 Lack of motivation:

At upper-secondary level of education, one of the primary motivations to master writing skills seems to be examinations However, apart from the gifted student examinations, there are hardly other ones to motivate students Also, a flash

of anxiety about future careers appears not to be great inspiration to urge students to pay much attention to essay writing

5 Improper development of analytical and cognitive skills:

Students need to develop their cognitive and analytical skills in order to improve their essay writing This includes learning to understand and think better, which is something rarely implemented in high-school education

6 Lack of vocabulary:

Students hardly enjoy essay writing when they have an insufficient stock of vocabulary The outcome of their vocabulary insufficiency is nothing but poor quality essays

7 Thinking in the mother tongue:

Students are greatly influenced by their first language They tend to do their thinking in the mother tongue, and then try to translate what they have thought into English Their habit usually makes their writing products become a mess!

8 Poor Grammar and Syntax Skills:

Even the most talented students need to learn how to understand complex sentences, differentiate different parts of speech, use proper punctuation and proofread their writing for errors

9 Lack of evidence and relevance:

Students sometimes provide evidence that is not relevant to the main topic This is a consequence of not spending enough time for planning the essay or trying

to reach the word limit It may also be the case that even relevant facts can appear irrelevant because students sometimes do not use appropriate wording and fail to link different paragraphs and ideas with each other As a result, even relevant facts and arguments sound irrelevant

10 Essay question misunderstanding and wrong identification of essay types:

Students sometimes fail to understand the questions, and get difficulty in identifying the right essay type to write Thus, their writing may easily digress in an inappropriate format

11 Weak or no thesis statements:

Gifted students’ creative ability seems to be infinite, so that sometimes they keenly pursuit and try to express their creative thoughts without realizing that they have written a long paragraph or essay with a weak or no thesis statement

12 Lack of cohesion and coherence:

Sometimes students write such rambling essays that can be difficult for their readers to understand The information may be presented without being clearly related to the given assignment question, and/or without conforming to the genre pattern expected in the context An incoherent essay, of course, can never get great appreciation

13 Failing to structure ideas effectively:

Gifted students may have numerous interesting and creative ideas; however, their time for essay writing is limited, so they occasionally fail to find the best way

to structure their ideas in content effectively

14 Poor time management:

Many gifted students are not very good at time management, which leads to inappropriate time division for different tasks and task incompletion Undoubtedly, when the task is not completed, their essay cannot be highly valued

15 Plagiarism:

It is seen as stealing someone else’s intellectual property when students use their work without crediting Gifted students have a good ability to remember what they have read about a certain topic and then try to use as much as they can when meeting the same topic Once, one student remembered almost all the whole essay

of the same topic and wrote it down on her paper without forgetting a word from the original

16 Formatting and resource organization:

Sometimes, students’ essay is not properly formatted The sources used for their essay are not well organized and cited in a way suitable for its type

17 Lack of writing practice:

Gifted students, with their talent and intellectual ability, can deal with tasks, even the most challenging ones, rapidly and effectively Therefore, sometimes they seem to be a little bit impatient with essay writing practice, a task that needs doing regularly and seriously

18 Little feedback on gifted students’ essay writing:

Many teachers assign essay-writing tasks to students, but fail to provide them with comprehensive feedback Giving a student a grade for her/ his writing is simply not enough if one wants to teach her/him how to write better

II Suggested problem solutions:

Generally, high school gifted students today face numerous challenges in terms of essay writing In order to help them overcome these obstacles, there are possible solutions as follows

1 Over-obsession named essay writing:

To help students steadily overcome their over-obsession named essay writing, the teacher has tried to find out their strengths, even the smallest ones, to give them positive comments and timely praise them To the best of my knowledge,

it is these fair comments and well-timed praise that can help the students have more confidence in themselves as well as motivate them to bravely face such difficult tasks as essay writing Further, the teacher has given a very clear explanation of English essay writing importance, not only in their exams but also in their future career and life, to them so that they can realize how vital it is Besides, the teacher has provided them with essay writing tasks with the level of difficulty gradually increasing in order to avoid their obsession with the tasks

2 Effects of modern lifestyle:

To limit the effects of modern lifestyle on students’ essay writing, the teacher often chooses common topics and encourages them to share their ideas on these topics by writing them down sometimes Moreover, the teacher shows them that it would be better when they could make improvements in both spoken communication skills and written ones, especially, to the ones who want to get a scholarship for studying abroad

3 Gifted students’ fear:

An interesting question has been raised for students “Why has Einstein’s theory of relativity been greatly appreciated up to now?” Isn’t it because the theory

is about the fact that everything in life is relative? Thus, the teacher should always share with them that it is completely fine when they are not right the first time and how interesting and challenging to do creative tasks like essay writing where they have opportunities to express their own ideas, opinions and attitudes that may help change their life positively!

4 Lack of motivation:

Writing examinations are great motivations to students, so that essay-writing contests have been suggested being organized to stimulate the spirit of studying writing essays among my students This kind of task has also been proposed being included in the English exams at Mai Anh Tuan high school to create more chances for our students to train themselves and improve essential skills for their future career

5 Improper development of analytical and cognitive skills:

Enhancing students’ analytical and cognitive skills can be implemented by the following simple ways The first would be active reading, involving questioning what they are reading when they read By asking questions as they read, they are engaging their brain in higher thinking Another useful technique is to question and compare the writers’ perspectives on a subject to their own They also should take note of new ideas and thoughts that are a result of their reading Active reading stimulates and expands their brain and allows it to think in new ways

Students are advised to join discussions or conversations, ask everyone they meet questions, and try to learn something from them Whether it is life lessons such

as how to manage stress or how they developed successful careers or what their parenting philosophy is, questions are essential to keeping the brain engaged They can improve their interpersonal communication skills at the same time and maybe even make a friend or two By improving their analytical skills, they can be able to comprehend and appreciate debates and concepts, break down complex information and streamline solution-finding processes

6 Lack of vocabulary:

Students can enrich their vocabulary stock themselves by reading and learning new words or phrases in contexts They can also study more words from their dictionaries When they meet a new word, they should learn all other words in its family and patterns as well as idioms related to it Another better way to help them build up their vocabulary is to try to have conversations or discussions about topics where new words or phrases are inserted

7 Thinking in the mother tongue:

Thinking in the native language is a normal tendency to foreign language learners However, it is too difficult for students to get a great success when they wish to express their ideas in English while doing their thinking in their own language! Therefore, it is important that students stop thinking in their mother tongue and trying to translate in their head

One good way to do it is to use monolingual dictionaries where the entries and their definitions are written in the language they are learning By using this kind

of dictionary, students can train their brain to focus on the meaning, or the concept that a word represents, rather than its literal translation into their native language That way, they are less likely to translate it themselves when they use it

Another useful method is to use images instead of translations when learning new vocabulary Using images or symbols while writing new words down again and again can help students train their brain to stop translating words when communicating in English That is because they can learn to associate words with images or symbols rather than their exact translations

Besides, students are advised to read a lot and memorize phrases When reading, they have to be confronted with idiomatic expressions and phrases This time, they should try to memorize those phrases that they come across – this will help them when constructing their own sentences Instead of having to make them from scratch when you need them, students will be able to recall some of the phrases that they learned when reading And, because they have the ready-made phrases in their head, they won’t have to look for translations of individual words and their brain will be less likely to be preoccupied with that

One more way that is a bit funny to help students prevent themselves from thinking in their native language and trying to translate into English is that they tell themselves off! Whenever they catch themselves translating words in their head, they must say “translation, translation, translation.” By doing that, they can draw their own attention to the frequency with which they translate in their head Consequently, they begin to do it less frequently

8 Poor grammar and syntax skills:

To notice the progress that students makes in terms of grammar and syntax, the teacher always tries to listen to them and point out to the mistakes they make The teacher also asks them what they have learned every day and has conversations with them often While speaking to them, the teacher needs to pay attention to the sentences they form Moreover, the teacher often spends some certain time reading and marking their essays, then taking notes of their errors of grammar and syntax and suggesting possible ways to correct these errors

9 Lack of evidence and relevance:

With irrelevant evidence, students cannot support and prove their argument effectively Therefore, students should have relevant evidence in their essay in order

to persuade the readers and increase the validity of the argument The best solution

is to study well and get acquainted with the topic While reading about their topic, they need to take notes on the most relevant issues and store them for later use (for references and citations)

Additionally, to limit irrelevant evidence in their essay, before students start writing an essay, they had better make an outline and plan their essay carefully They also try to connect each part of their essay, arguments and facts to the main idea and the topic At each stage of the essay, they need to keep asking themselves

“Is this relevant?”, “Am I answering the question?”, and “Does this relate directly to the subject I have been asked to discuss?” If they begin to introduce a new and separate problem or topic to discuss and prove a part of their argument, they have to

make sure that they return to the main subject and explain how these secondary facts are relevant to the main argument

10 Essay question misunderstanding and wrong identification of essay types:

One of the reasons why students sometimes misunderstand the essay questions and fail to identify the right type of essay is because they get too nervous when reading these questions Therefore, students should study the questions carefully to know what to do At the same time, they need to try their best to keep calm and enhance their confidence while confronting with difficult questions in important exams And, the best way to be free from fear in this situation is to study well and make good preparations for it

Moreover, right identification of essay types is much dependent on the nature

of each type of essay Hence, the teacher needs to discuss with the students the significant features of different essay types, focusing on prominent signal right from the essay questions There are four main genres of essay writing, including Expository essays, Descriptive essays, Narrative essays, and Argumentative (Persuasive) essays

a Expository Essay Definition:

An expository essay explains something or answers questions like:

What is it?

How should we define it?

How do you do it?

How does it work?

What is the history of it?

What caused it? What are the effects?

What is the meaning of it? [1]

b Descriptive Essay Definition:

A descriptive essay, as the name implies, is a form of essay that describes

something In this genre, students are assigned the task of describing objects, things, places, experiences, persons, and situations The students use sensory information to enable readers to use their five senses of touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight to understand the topic of the essay [1]

c Narrative Essay Definition:

A narrative essay is a type of essay that tells a vivid story, usually from one person’s viewpoint It uses all the story elements - a beginning, middle and ending, plot, characters, setting and climax - all coming together to complete the story [1]

d Argumentative (Persuasive) Essay Definition:

An argumentative essay is a type of essay that presents arguments about both sides of an issue It could be that both sides are presented equally balanced, or it could be that one side is presented more forcefully than the other It all depends on the writer, and what side he supports the most [1] To recognize this type, the students need to pay attention to such words or phrases in the questions as:

Give the arguments for and against

Assess the importance of

Examine the arguments for and against

What are the advantages and disadvantages of ?

Evaluate

Critically examine the statement that

To what extent is true?

Discuss

Give your views on

What do you think about ?

Do you agree that ?

Consider whether

To what extent

How true

How far do you agree [1]

11 Weak or no thesis statements:

Every paper students write should have a main point, a main idea, or central message The argument(s) they make in their paper should reflect this main idea The sentence that captures their position on this main idea is what we call a thesis statement

A thesis statement focuses their ideas into one or two sentences It should present the topic of their paper and make a comment about their position in relation

to the topic Their thesis statement should tell their readers what the paper is about and help guide their writing and keep their argument focused

Students should provide a thesis early in their essay - in the introduction, or in longer essays in the second paragraph - in order to establish their position and give their readers a sense of direction

In order to write a successful thesis statement, they should do the following:

- Avoid burying a great thesis statement in the middle of a paragraph or late in the paper

- Be as clear and as specific as possible; avoid vague words.

- Indicate the point of your paper but avoid sentence structures like, “The point of my paper is…” [1]

12 Lack of cohesion and coherence:

12.1 Cohesion:

Cohesion is basically the interconnection of two different sentences How these sentences are related to each other that is called cohesion

To make their essay cohesive, students should do the following:

1 Use connectors/linkers

Candidates forget to put a simple linker that may be necessary When they are writing, they simply know their thoughts but when the examiner reads, he is not aware of their idea He will find it difficult to follow their ideas without linkers

Linkers like for example, in addition to this, to my mind, etc are some of the

cohesive devices used in writing

2 Use pronouns

Students can definitely use pronouns to avoid repetition of abstract nouns Repeating a name would seem awkward and therefore may fetch them lower bands

For this, they can use pronouns like this, that, it, they, etc.

3 Use synonyms

To avoid repetition, a candidate can definitely use synonyms or different grammatical structures with various forms of a word For example, a verb can be converted into an adjective or a noun and so on

So, this is how their essay writing task coherence and cohesion is marked The students need to know all these to focus on their weakness So, prepare well and get their required results [1]

12.2 Coherence:

Coherence is the logical arrangement of the writer’s ideas All ideas should be logically arranged and one key point should inevitably follow its explanation That

is what makes a good paragraph

Usually, students tend to write too many ideas in a single paragraph and that often results in an incoherent paragraph Those ideas are not fully developed

Basically, the students need to include vital information in every paragraph First, they need to have a clear idea of their essay structure How many paragraphs they’re going to write and how these paragraphs will link with each other

a Introduction

b Arguments in favour of your opinion