GRAPH DESCRIPTION dạy kĩ năng viết mô tả bảng biểu trong đề thi học sinh giỏi quốc gia

Statement of the problem and rationale for the study With the development of science and technology and the increasing demand ofscientific inquiry skills in the 21st century, students ar

TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG CHUYÊN LÀO CAI

ĐỀ TÀI: DẠY KĨ NĂNG VIẾT MÔ TẢ BẢNG BIỂU TRONG ĐỀ THI HỌC SINH GIỎI QUỐC GIA

Họ và tên giáo viên thực hiện: ĐỖ NGỌC HOA

Tổ chuyên môn: Ngoại Ngữ

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study

2 Aims of the study and research questions

3 Scope of the study

4 Significance of the study

5 Organization of the study

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Theoretical background of interpreting Graphs and Charts 5

2 Types of graphs and tables

3 Writing graph interpretation process

4 Challenges with Graph interpretation

1 Step 1: Identifying a problem/paradox/ issue/difficulty

2 Step 2: Thinking of ways to tackle the problem

2.1 Expanding students’ lexico resource

2.2 Guiding students to interpret charts or graphs

2.3 Train time management skills

3 Step 3: Implementing the action

4 Step 4: Evaluating the action

5 Step 5: Modifying the future practice

PART I: INTRODUCTION

This section provides the research problem, rationale for the study, its scope and

significance The two research questions are also presented together with the aims and objectives of the study and the organization of the study.

1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study

With the development of science and technology and the increasing demand ofscientific inquiry skills in the 21st century, students are required to have not onlystrong academic knowledge, the ability to apply their knowledge to solve practicalsituations but also the skills to process information and interpret data, for example, tomake inferences from provided information, find trends, compare and contrast data,relate different sources to evaluate visual data presentation in the form of graphs andtables Plus, being able to build and interpret statistical charts is also regarded as animportant part of statistical literacy (Watson, 2006) Therefore, mastering dataanalysis skills will help students to better their understanding of informationencountered daily such as the data provided through the media, weather report, stockmarket, medical results and financial figures (Nirit Glazer, 2011) By dint of itsposition in today digital age, the ability of interpreting data always grabs theheadlines and become one of criteria widely used to assess students in manycountries However, teaching this skill is often given minimal class time partly due toits level of difficulty and students’ lack of motivation According to Gal (2002) datacomprehension is a complex task To be capable of reading and describing charts,students need to achieve necessary competences such as the competence ofinterpreting and critically evaluating the statistics based on the information provided

as well as formulating a reasoned opinion about such information At Lao Caispecialized upper secondary school, teaching graph interpretation is mainlyconducted at English major classes, particularly for advanced students due to itscomplex nature Despite a lot of time and effort spent on this activity, most studentsstill have to struggle to complete the task In fact, many students reported that they

particularly when dealing with multiple graphs Others stated that they failed todescribe graphs smoothly and have the tendency to use repeated words andstructures Moreover, teachers who are the main supervisor of this activity are notfully aware of the problems influencing the poor performance of students indescribing charts or graphs, thereby being unable to give effective guidelines tostudents As a result, the misinterpretation of graphs, together with the ambiguity inexpression has led to the poor performance of students in the exam It also bringsabout the confusion and hesitation among students while doing the task Therefore,there is a need to conduct a study on the problems and solutions to improve students’data processing skills

2 Aims of the study and research questions

The aim of this study is first to clarify the problems that students have encounteredwhen interpreting and describing charts It then shares the techniques and strategiesthat have been used by teachers to monitor change and empower the students toachieve graph interpretation skills Two research questions that this study is expected

3 Scope of the study

Due to limited time, the study was carried out with a small group of 11 advancedstudents who studied at 12th English Class The study focuses mainly on clarifyingfactors that influence the quality of student writing through marking and givingfeedback to students’ assignments The 12th grade students and their assignment paperswere therefore chosen as research subjects

4 Significance of the study

The data analysis skills is proposed to be one of the central skills in this century due toits practical use in reality The findings of this study will firstly help teachers to havebetter insight into their teaching data interpretation skills to students Secondly, it helps

students who are struggling to accomplish this task to find out the main problems thataffect their writing, which will enable them to employ more effective writing strategies

to enhance their performance This study may also provide some useful information forother writers who want to have further research into this issue

5 Organization of the study

The paper consists of these following parts:

Part I: Introduction

Part II: Development

Chapter 1: Literature review Chapter 2: Research findings and Application Part III: Conclusion – summarizes the major findings of the study

PART II: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Theoretical background of interpreting Graphs and Charts

Writing is an essential skill that ESL leaners have to develop There are several types

of writing, and each type represents a different purpose of writing As mentionedabove the aim of this study is to develop students’ writing ability of interpretinggraphs and charts; or analysing data in the form of tables, points, lines, bars, and piecharts

Statistics and data analysis appeared as a vital part of the school mathematicscurriculum during the 1990s (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM],

1989, 2000) Shaughnessy states in Garfield, & Greer (1996) that the currentmeaning of data analysis from graphical representations reflects the use of visualdisplays of quantitative data According to Gal (2002) data analysing activities maypresent in two main kinds of context: ‘enquiry’ and ‘reading’ In inquiry researchers,statisticians and students participate in empirical study of actual data and usuallyhave to interpret data and results, infer the information from data and report findingsand conclusions The reading contexts involve in everyday situations in which anindividual sees and illuminates graphs Without noticing the readers are actuallyengaged in the research while watching TV, reading a newspaper, looking atadvertisements; going shopping and surfing Internet sites Another definition aboutinterpretation of graphs (e.g., Cleveland, 1987; Noss, Bakker, Hoyles, & Kent, 2007)

is the process of reading and understanding a graph which is built by encodingaccurately and efficiently the information using different elements like geometricalfigures or colours; then the information visually decoded in a process of graphicalperception (Cleveland, 1987) Therefore, in order to read and understand statisticalgraphs and tables, learners have much to learn about the processes involved in

reading, analysing, interpreting and comparing information presented in differentdata graphs and tables

According to Wainer (NCTM, 2000; Wainer 1992), there are three major levels ofgraph interpretation:

1) Elementary comprehension level focuses on extracting particular data pointsfrom a graph Students are only expected to locate and read the specific datapoint

2) Intermediate level of understanding concentrates on finding trends andrelationships in the data

3) Advanced comprehension level requires extrapolation from the data andanalysis of relations expressed in the data, for example: generalising to apopulation, making a prediction about an unknown, a comparison of trends andobserving groupings

And in writing section of English tests, graph describing task often combine two orthree levels of reading

2 Types of graphs and tables

To achieve comprehension and analysis for any types of graphs and tables that areoften appeared in examinations for excellent students, learners should understand thepurpose of representing data in different types and the process of analysing this data Below is demonstration of different types of tables and charts that are used to expresssocial studies data

a Bar graphs

A graph contains rectangles with lengths that represent a quantity Bar graphs aretypically used to demonstrate comparisons or contrasts (Shah et al., 2005)

b Circle graphs

A graph in the shape of a circle which had been divided into percentages used for thepresentation of proportion data (Shah et al., 2005)

c Line graphs

A graph contains points that are connected by a line Typically, line graphs are used

to show changes over time and/or space (Barbara M Waxer – 2010.p7)

d Table

It is used to show information by using columns and rows in order to demonstratedifferences, similarities, and changes over time (K E Possler, Continental Press –1995)

e Combination

The use of multiple charts, graphs and/or tables to demonstrate trends, patterns,differences and/or similarities (Elizabeth Reding, Lynn Wermers, 2013)

3 Writing graph interpretation process

Among the 4 types of writing, graph describing is considered as the most complexstyle that requires interpreting the information correctly As such, data are notcollected randomly, but based on some questions that the researcher expects toanswer Antonius (2003) reveals that there are two methods used to analyse data,called qualitative and quantitative Schurink et al (2011); Atkins and Wallace (2012)and Tuckman and Harper (2012) also state that a qualitative study involves aninseparable relationship between data collection and data analysis in order to build acoherent interpretation of data

On the other hand Morgan and Krueger (1998) voices an important opinion that theanalysis of qualitative methods must be systematic, sequential, verifiable andcontinuous While qualitative method is aimed at comparing, seeking to enlightenand entertaining alternative explanations by using words (concepts, terms, symbols,etc.); quantitative method is expected to produce findings by using procedures andtechniques to analyse data numerically

On the whole, in order to do produce findings, data should be analysed to transformdata into findings Regarding qualitative and quantitative analysis of data, Kreugerand Neuman (2006) provide a useful outline qualitative and quantitative methods of

data analysis in four ways They are “reducing the volume of raw information, siftingsignificance from trivia, identifying significant patterns and constructing aframework for communicating the essence of what the data reveal”

Both forms of data analysis involve: Inference - the use of reasoning to reach aconclusion based on evidence

4 Challenges with Graph interpretation

In order to develop students’ ability in describing tables and graphs, it is necessary toidentify the learning problems that students are experiencing The researchers such asChinn, Briewer, Freedman, Shah, Trafton and Tricket (2001) all agree that graphinterpretation is hard and complicated to handle However, the more students canunderstand a graph’s characteristics, the better they can interpret graph and analyseits data

Although inquiry and related skills such as data analysis and data interpretation

are essential components in describing graphs, there are not many documents orresearch studying about the challenges that students have to face while writing Thisstudy will focus on finding the challenges in graph interpretation and data analysisthat students may encounter

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH AND PRACTICAL APPLICATION

In this chapter, the main findings and analysis of the research are presented Some suggestions are also proposed

The research was conducted from August, 2017 to October, 2017 The researchsubjects are a group of 11 English major students studying in grade 12th and theirassignments Due to the time constrain, the research conducted followed five simple

steps proposed by Norton, L S (2009) in his book about Action research in teaching

and learning These steps are described as below.

Step 1: Identifying a problem/paradox/ issue/difficulty

Step 2: Thinking of ways to tackle the problem

Step 3: Doing it

Step 4: Evaluating it (actual research findings)

Step 5: Modifying future practice

DETAILED RESEARCH STEPS

1 Step 1: Identifying a problem

The researcher employ qualitative, interpretivist approach Two main data collectionmethods including Participant observation, Questionnaires, Interview, Documentreview were adopted to identify the real factors that influence students’ motivationand their writing quality

1.1 Participant Observation

In some lessons about charts and graphs, the researchers saw that there was anunwillingness of students to write a graph and chart description Therefore, anobservation sheet was used to note students’ attitude and performance when learningabout charts and graphs interpretation (Appendix 1) The observation was done intwo weeks’ time The data collected from observation sheet was summarised in table1

Students’ attitude in writing class No of

students

a Paying persistent attention to the lesson 11

c Writing activities are challenging for the students 8

Table 1: Overall class observation

This result revealed that the students (11 students) concentrated persistently to thewriting lesson but were not really active during 90 minutes Besides, they neithermuch enjoyed the lessons nor found the activities interesting With the data collectedabove, it can be explained that the many students found the writing activities were

quite challenge for them Researchers realised that students often felt reluctant todescribe charts They showed the hesitation and lack of motivation when required to

do the task While they did the data interpretation, students had to struggle to finish

the task Therefore, the first question of the research “what are the problems that students encounter when describing the chart?” was posed.

Question

Results (%) How important is graph describing skill to you?

D I write whenever I am told to 63,6

Table 2: Students’ attitude towards writing skill

Table 2 indicates the information about students’ attitude towards graph describingskill Most of the students (81.8%) claim that this writing skill is important to them innational examinations for excellent students while 9.1% of them reckon graphdescribing is rather or little important And no one thinks this is unimportant It can

be seen that the students have positive attitude towards this type of writing

However, few of them feel willing to practice writing this type in class or at home.Only one student (9.1%) actually usually spends time practicing with graphinterpretation and data analysis Two students corresponding to 27.2% said theysometimes practice writing while most of them said that they wrote whenever theywere told These figures prove that the frequency of the students’ unwillingness inwriting was high

In short, the majority of the students agree that English graph describing skill is crucialfor them to get high mark in national examination for gifted students or in IELTsexams However, the number of students who feel willing to write in class or practice

at home is small So what are the reasons for this situation? The answer can be found

through an interview

1.3 Interview

A set of 3 questions (Appendix 3) were used to ask students in order to find out thereasons for learning graphs and charts and the problems that students have in writingthe data analysis The chart below show the reasons for their writing The data wascalculated based on the first questions

A Graph interpretation and data analysis is necessary for their future job.

B Graph interpretation and data analysis is part of tests or exams

C They are interested in Graph interpretation and data analysis skill

D Others:

Chart 1: Students’ reasons for learning Graph interpretation

In response to the first question, three students said that they were interested in graphinterpretation and data analysis skill, only one student believed that this skill wasnecessary for their future job while eleven out of eleven students claimed that theylearned graph interpretation and data analysis skill because it is an important part inWriting section in exams Nine of them gave another reason that it would benecessary for their abroad study after graduating In short, many students are awarethe necessity of English for their future job However, the number of studentsadmitted that they studied English because it was a compulsory part in exams is thehighest

In order to find out factors leading to the students' low motivation and poorperformance, students were required to answer the other two questions “How do youfind chart and graph description?”, “What problems do you often encounter withwriting chart and graph description? Specify these problems” (Appendix 3) Here arethe result collected.

have the same answer

2 Be unable to figure out the main figures 8

3 Have limited use of words and difficulty in

paraphrasing the sentence smoothly

10

4 Be confused by the chart and graph interpretation 11

6 Lack of time to complete the writing as expected 8

7 Find the use of grammar in writing complicated 2

Table 3: Factors influence students writing quality

All students interviewed (11 students) expressed that they found dealing with chartand graph interpretation, particularly mixed charts or graphs the most challengingtask While 10 students admitted that their ability to use variety of words andrephrase the ideas is rather restricted, 8 students reported that they found hard to grabthe main trends and features as well as manage the time effectively Other factorsraised by 4 and 2 students were having no idea/approach to write and dealing withcomplicated use of grammar respectively

In summary, the findings in Questionnaire and Interview revealed many useful factsrelated to the students’ motivation Firstly, most of the students learned how tointerpret graphs and analyse data mainly because it is an important part in examsyllabus Most of the students were aware of the importance of this writing type tothem but the frequency of the students’ unwillingness in practicing writing was high.The three main causes include the lack of lexico resource and paraphrasing,confusion in interpreting the data and the time management skills These findings

were really important because it would help the researcher form the hypothesis ofaltering activities to motivate students in writing lessons.

1.4 Document review

To specify the problems raised by each students Researchers collected some writingsample to read and analyse (Appendix 4) The mistakes in students’ writing reflectedthe issues that they mentioned in the interview

Some authentic samples collected from students

Sample 1

The pie charts illustrate two opposite sides of Fairmont Island, the advantages anddisadvantages in the visitors' view point Overall, high cost of living is the weakestpoint, in contrast, the people seems to be an extraordinary attraction

In the first place is what visitors claimed to dislike about Having the proportion

of 45%, the visitors points out high cost of living as the most tremendous problem.The first runner up is entertainment, eliminated 30% About one fifth of these peopleunderrate weather condition, and only 5% see the food quality down low

On the other hand, some benefits are highlighted 40 percent of visitors vote forthe people in Fairmont Island as the best factor With a slightly lower of percentage,the scenery takes up for 37% and successfully becomes the second tourist attraction

12 and 11 percents are respectively the proportions of culture and goodaccommodation

All in all, Fairmont Island should be proud of their people as for the fact that it isthe most attractive factors However, the government should consider of the solutionsfor their high cost of living

(Bao Ngoc Nguyen – 12 English) Sample 2

The graph illustrates the number of prizes in the National Exams for gifted students

in three provinces Yen Tay, Yen Bac and Yen Nam from 2008 to 2011 In overall,Yen Bac usually has the highest number of prizes compare to other two provinces

It can be seen that Yen Nam has the highest number of prizes in 2008 withapproximately 38 prizes This number started dropping to 30 in 2009 then roseslightly by 2 prizes in 2010 From2010-2011, the number of prizes declined deeply tocirca 20 prizes

The second province, Yen Tay, started with 15 prizes in 2008 This number went upconstantly in the whole period and peaked at 32 prizes in 2011

The last province is Yen Bac, it also started with 15 prizes in 2008 However, unlikeYen Tay, Yen Bac dramatically rose in the first 3 years and peaked at 52 prizes in

2010 Then the number dropped to 30 prizes in 2011

In conclusion, only Yen Tay had a constant strategy in coaching students to rise thequality of the prizes.

(Minh Phuc Nguyen – 12 English)

Sample 3

The line graph illustrates three different types of crimes and their rates in Newport city from 2003 to 2012 Overall, while car theft and robbery fluctuated over the giventime, burglary rate showed a downward trend

It can be seen that there was 3400 incidences of burglary in 2003 and 3750 in 2004

In the next 4 years, it fell down sharply and reached the absolute minimum in 2008 with 1100 incidences, however, it then grew by 300 accidents and remained fairly constant by 2012

Car theft has a steady level of crime from 2003 to 2004 and got reduced in next 5 years from 2700 down to 2250 The number then increased to 2700 in 2012

Robbery reached its peak in 2005, which was 900 cases and decreased back to 500 in

2008 In the following two years, the number of incidences rose to 700 and continued

to stay at this level in 2012

(Minh Tu Ly -12 English)

Sample 4

(Bao Long Tran – 12 English)

1.5 Discussion

Through the data collected, researchers found that there are three main problems thatmost students in the research group have encountered

Lack of lexico resource

Interpreting and describing data requires students a wide vocabularies to present thedata given in a pie/ bar/ line/ mixed graph or to describe a process or a flow chart Toachieve the high score for this task, students need to be able to use appropriatevocabularies, making inference from visual data, comparing and contrasting the data

data accounts for 25% of the total mark for the whole writing As the findings gainedthrough information investigation stage, most of the students interviewed revealedthat the difficulty in expressing their understanding in words discourages them fromachieving a successful writing Some students stated that sometimes they failed toparaphrase or transforming the text as they wished Others kept repeated themselvesusing the same words over and over The findings gained from the questions aboveindicates the limitations of students in expanding the vocabulary used for this type ofwriting As some studies of Kershner (2000); Westwood (2006) pointed out thatcognitive abilities and other deficiencies which related to memory or poor motivationcould contribute to students’ language problems Moreover, students’ learningmethod may be taken into consideration as a hindrance to their flexibility in usingwords Some students might not be motivated enough to practise and undertakelinguistic exercises on daily basis so they have little enhancement in linguistic andcommunicative capability

Confusion in charts or graphs interpretation

Through the interview questions and students’ assignments, the findings reveal thelow competence in interpreting charts or graphs as another matter that deters studentsfrom effective writing Despite the students’ awareness of the importance inunderstanding the statistical data, it is not an easy task due to "the interpretation ofstatistical graphs is not a technical process, but an activity in which a wide range ofknowledge, experiences and feelings are mobilized" (Monteiro & Ainley, 2004, p 8).Most students in the research group stated that interpretation and organisation ofgraphs or chart are the most challenging to them, particularly, when they have to dealwith mixed data “In some cases, the students understand separately a sub set of thecomponents, but fail to integrate them for many possible reasons such as informationoverload and/ or the student’s cognitive skills” (Glazer, 2011) In this research groupmost students displayed their great confusion when required to cope withcomplicated graphs or charts They don’t know how to analyse the data as well asgroup or sequence them in a logical way This inability to make sense of these visual

message results partly from the limited knowledge of individuals about the fields.This was also demonstrated in the model presented by Shah and colleagues(Freedman & Shah, 2002; Shah, 2002), graph comprehension is underpinned bymany components, not only the graph characteristics such as format, colour, type butalso by the content of the graph and the prior knowledge of the individuals As aresult, students did not group the similar values as well as contrast the strikingdifferences Instead, the try to simplify their writing by describing it separately or inthe order the data collected Consequently, they cannot help the readers to identifythe general trend as well as compute the different values of the data

Poor time management skills

The data collected from the observation and interviews shows that besides the limitedvocabulary and the lack of prior knowledge about different fields, what students have

to handle is the time frame assigned for each task The time allotted for the dataprocessing is assumed to last for 15 to 20 minutes With the limited time frame,students have to interpret the data as well as try to create sentences and paraphrasethem flexibly and logically This requires students to process information givenintelligently and manage time effectively The weakness in students’ timemanagement may result from the little attention that learners devoted for the outlinestage prior to the real writing Some students have problems in structuring theirwriting so they spent a great deal of time figuring out what they should include intheir description Consequently, many of students’ writing pieces were not completed

in expected time Some students include all the data given in the charts or graphs to

be on the safe side Instead of grouping, comparing, and contrasting the main figures,they mention even unnecessary information, which consumes a lot of time andineffective Certainly, when students are pushed for time, they cannot produce a goodpiece of work

2 Step 2: Thinking of ways to tackle the problems (Planning the action)