Applying portfolio to improve writing skills of 11th grade students at a high school in lang son province

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES BÙI BÍCH NGỌC APPLYING PORTFOLIO TO IMPROVE WRITING SKILLS OF 1

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

BÙI BÍCH NGỌC

APPLYING PORTFOLIO TO IMPROVE WRITING SKILLS

OF 11 TH -GRADE STUDENTS AT A HIGH SCHOOL

IN LANG SON PROVINCE

(Áp dụng portfolio để cải thiện kĩ năng viết cho học sinh lớp 11 tại một trường trung học phổ thông tỉnh Lạng Sơn)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

Hanoi – 2019

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

BÙI BÍCH NGỌC

APPLYING PORTFOLIO TO IMPROVE WRITING SKILLS

OF 11 TH -GRADE STUDENTS AT A HIGH SCHOOL

IN LANG SON PROVINCE

(Áp dụng portfolio để cải thiện kĩ năng viết cho học sinh lớp 11 tại một trường trung học phổ thông tỉnh Lạng Sơn)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Hương, PhD

Hanoi - 2019

DECLARATION

I certify that the work presented in this research report has been performed and interpreted solely by myself I confirm that this paper is submitted in fulfillment of the requirement for the M.A Degree and has not been submitted elsewhere in any other form for the fulfillment of any other degree or qualification

Hanoi, 2019

Bùi Bích Ngọc

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It was a long journey with many challenges and difficulties but fascinating to work on this dissertation The dissertation required more efforts so it would never have been completed without the supports and assistances of many people

First and foremost, I would like to send a special thanks to my academic visor Dr Nguyen Thi Huong for her effortful support, prompt guidance and detailed feedbacks and especially, her helpful suggestions and encouragement which assists me

super-to find out the right direction and complete this dissertation I also would like super-to press my appreciation to the lecturers of the University of Languages and International Studies for providing me with comprehensive knowledge and supporting me in my master course

ex-Finally, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my family who always encourages and unfailingly supports me throughout my year of study and the period of doing my dissertation Also, I am thankful to all my colleagues (Nguyen Bich Hien, Phan Thu Huong, Du Ai Hue Chi, Nguyen Phuong Thuy, Nong Thi Hao and the oth-ers), especially thanks to my beloved husband, Nguyen Huu Duyet who continuously encourages and helps me cope with the difficulties at University as well as in my per-sonal life Without their enthusiastic assistances and strong supports, I definitely can-not accomplish my dissertation and finish my master course at University of Lan-guages and International Studies

30th September 2019

Ha Noi, Viet Nam Bui Bich Ngoc

ABSTRACT

One of the effective approaches helping students to sharpen their writing skills, which is currently being overshadowed by other skills in teaching and learning Eng-lish, is Writing Portfolio However, this method has not been applied widely at high schools in Vietnam in general and Lang Son in particular Thus, this study is conducted

to examine how Writing Portfolio influences students’ writing skills as well as how students think about its implementation The study adopts action research with the use

of both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods, including writing ment evaluation, questionnaire, and interviews

assign-The research’s findings reveal some significant improvements in participants’ overall writing scores, as well as in each of the criterion, namely task achievement, co-herence and cohesion, grammar and vocabulary By being given the marking rubrics, the educator’s regular feedback and chances to revise and rewrite the writings, the lan-guage learners can better monitor their progress in writing

Apart from that, though most of the students think this activity has positive fluences on their writing skills, they still fail to see the advantages of this improvement

in-to their language acquisition process as writing skill has not been included properly in testing Therefore, they do not think it’s necessary to apply Writing Portfolios in the next academic year

Despite the positive outcome of the research, there is still a need for further studies to assess more Writing Portfolio’s effects and the best way to apply Writing Portfolio in official school curricular

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF TABLES vii

LIST OF FIGURES viii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale of the study 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

1.3 Scope of the study 3

1.4 Significance of the study 3

1.5 Methods of the study 4

1.6 Structure of the thesis 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Writing skills 6

2.1.1 Definition of writing skills 6

2.1.2 Paragraph writing 6

2.2 Approaches to teaching writing 7

2.3 The role of teachers in teaching writing 8

2.4 Assessment of writing 10

2.4.1 Types of writing assessment 10

2.4.2 Scoring method for paragraph writing 10

2.5 Portfolio Assessment 11

2.5.1 Definitions of Portfolio 11

2.5.2 Types of portfolio 12

2.5.3 The advantages of portfolio 13

2.5.4 Portfolio writing assessment procedure 13

2.6 Related Studies 14

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 17

3.1 Setting of the study 17

3.2 Participants 17

3.3 Research design 18

3.4 Data collection procedure 22

3.4.1 Writing assignments 22

3.4.2 Questionnaire 22

3.4.3 Interviews 23

3.5 Data analysis 23

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 25

4.1 Research question 1 25

4.1.1 Effects of writing portfolios on students’ task-fulfillment 25

4.1.2 Effects of writing portfolios on students’ coherence and cohesion 27

4.1.3 Effects of writing portfolios on students’ vocabulary 28

4.1.4 Effects of writing portfolios on students’ grammar 30

4.1.5 Effects of writing portfolios on students’ overall writing skill 32

4.2 Research question 2 33

4.2.1 Students’ opinions about the benefits of the writing portfolios in general, marking criteria and teacher’s feedback in particular 34

4.2.2 Students’ opinions about teacher’s instructions 36

4.2.3 Students’ opinions about the application of Writing Portfolios in the next

academic year 37

4.3 Discussions 39

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 41

5.1 Major findings of the study 41

5.1.1 The effects of Writing Portfolios on students’ writing skills 41

5.1.2 Students’ opinions about Writing Portfolio implementation in class 42

5.2 Implications 43

5.3 Limitations of the study 43

5.4 Suggestions for further studies 44

REFERENCES 45 APPENDICES I

1 Marking rubrics for writing assignments I

2 Questionnaire V

3 Interviews VI

3.1 Participant 1 VI 3.2 Participant 2 VI 3.3 Participant 3 VII 3.4 Participant 4 VII 3.5 Participant 5 VIII

4 Samples of student’s writing and teacher’s feedback IX

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 The percentage of students arranged by results of task fulfillment criterion 26

Table 2 The percentage of students arranged by results of coherence and cohesion criterion 27

Table 3 The percentage of students arranged by results of vocabulary criterion 29

Table 4 The percentage of students arranged by results of grammar criterion 31

Table 5 The percentage of students arranged by results of writing assignments 33

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 The percentage of students arranged by results of vocabulary criterion for the

1st assignment 29

Figure 2 The percentage of students arranged by results of grammar criterion 32

Figure 3 Students' opinions on their involvement in Writing 34

Figure 4 Students’ degree of agreement in their improvement in all aspects 35

Figure 5 Students' opinions on the appropriateness of the teacher's instruction 36

Figure 6 Students' opinions on carrying out Writing Portfolios in the future 38

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, the rationale, aims and objectives, significance of the study are presented Also, the research questions, chosen research methods and structure of the researcher are put forward

1.1 Rationale of the study

Learning English as a foreign language has been made compulsory in the ity of high schools in Vietnam Based on the current curriculum, it is evident that the teaching of English at this level places equal emphasis on all four skills, namely read-ing, speaking, listening and writing As a teacher of English, I come to realize that many high school students, including mine, find writing skills a hard one to master In fact, even though it is more challenging to acquire writing skills than others, both teachers and students seem not to pay enough attention to it

major-To be more specific, after having spent a long time agonizing over the reasons for the issue, as I am aware, part of this may lie in the fact that high school students are not provided with adequate comments and chances to revise their writings after receiv-ing comments from their teachers or peers According to Oshima and Hogue (1997), there are four steps in the process of writing, consisting of prewriting, planning, writing and revising drafts, and writing the final copy However, in my teaching context, the majority of the writing lessons in class normally lack the final step of the process, which is revising drafts and writing the final copy To be more specific, in the first sec-tion, the teacher leads in the lesson and gives students a writing sample to analyze, and then, some necessary words, structures, and expressions are supplied In the next stage, students have approximately 15 to 20 minutes to start writing based on what they have learned from the previous stage Normally, one or two learners will be called on to write their writings on the board Lastly, it is time for the teacher to correct the writing

on the board, give feedback and score The problem is, as the educator’s comments and

feedback put an end to the writing process, students will not have the opportunity to revise as well as rewrite their writing Of course, they can do this step at home and ask for teacher’s help to comment on their writings the second time However, this can hardly happen in real life as Vietnam still follows the exam-driven curriculum, which

is believed to make a large proportion of students learn English to pass the national

ex-am solely and in most of the tests, students’ writing skills are only measured by ple choice questions Le (2000) revealed that Vietnamese learners have the extrinsic motivation as a result of the pressure to pass exams As a result, they cannot see the benefits of the rewriting step in a writing lesson and often ignore it Besides, due to the large number of students in one class and the time limit, some teachers cannot evaluate the writing abilities of all students in the classroom In fact, she/he even gives scores to the writing of some students only, without giving feedback Consequently, students rarely realize their mistakes and errors in writing Therefore, their progress in writing skills can hardly be observed In conclusion, I regard the lack of the rewriting step and teachers’ remarks a significant contribution to the deficiency in students’ writing skills

multi-Looking for a solution to the issue, I have read a number of studies examining methods to improve students’ writing skills at different levels I come to realize that writing portfolios are being used at a wide range of universities in Vietnam Besides, in one of those studies, E-portfolios at high school level proposed by Nhi and Mai (2018) have shown considerable potentials Therefore, I suggest that improving my high school students’ writing abilities may be achieved by using portfolios in teaching and learning English as a foreign language

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

The study is conducted to investigate the efficiency of adopting portfolio in proving the writing skills of 11th students at a high school in Lang Son province The progress that students make can be observed in their own portfolios after a semester

im-Additionally, the paper aims to find out students’ viewpoints on the use of portfolios in class in term of the effectiveness of portfolios and the obstacles that they encounter while applying portfolios

In short, the objectives of the study could be summarized into research tions as followed:

ques-1 To what extent does portfolio help to improve writing skills for 11th grade students

at a high school in Lang Son city?

2 What are students’ opinions about applying portfolio in writing skills?

1.3 Scope of the study

The intent of this study is to investigate the impact of Writing Portfolios on English major 11th-grade students at a high school in Lang Son city The chosen partic-ipants are from an intact group who are taught by the researcher due to the time and logistic constraint It should be noted that students at this level are only required to write paragraphs instead of the whole essays There are 4 criteria that should be con-sidered when evaluating students’ writing skills, including task fulfillment, coherence and cohesion, vocabulary and grammar In addition, this study focuses on the partici-pants’ opinions of Portfolio application in writing skills at high school level

non-1.4 Significance of the study

Once the study is completed, it will serve to investigate the use of portfolio as a recommended activity in writing skill lessons Thus, it may be of considerable use for other English teachers in this high school or researchers who want to investigate more

in applying portfolios to high school students to enhance their writing skills

Furthermore, as the study is an action research, it helps to enhance the validity of the feasibility of portfolio using at schools Therefore, the recommendations and con-clusions from the study could be useful to the policymakers in other schools nation-wide if portfolios are considered to be applied into school curricula

1.5 Methods of the study

The study is carried out as an action research To be more specific, writing folios would be applied directly into the class that the researcher is teaching In this study, portfolios are integrated in teaching writing lessons at class After the research is completed, the effects of portfolios would be assessed so that some recommendation would be given to make portfolios a mandatory in-class activity in the official curricula

port-in the researcher’s school

Also, both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods are applied into this research In terms of qualitative method, interviews are used to gather student’s attitudes towards portfolios activities in class When it comes to the quantitative meth-

od, a questionnaire and writing assignments would be applied The results of students’ writing assignments would be calculated to determine the effects of portfolios on the students’ writing scores Both the methods are triangulated to enhance the validity and reliability of the study The results from the writing assignments would be compared with the data collected in the interviews and questionnaire

1.6 Structure of the thesis

The thesis entitled “Applying portfolio to improve writing skills of 11 th

-grade students at a high school in Lang Son province” comprises five main chapters: Intro-

duction, Literature Review, Methodology, Data analysis and Findings along with

Con-clusion and Recommendation, followed by the List of References and Appendices

Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter provides a general background and clarifies the rationale of this search Besides, research aim and objectives as well as research questions are also specified In general, the Introduction serves as an overview of this study

re-Chapter 2: Literature Review

In this chapter, through studying the existing literatures, the definition of key terms including writing skills and portfolios are provided Besides, the previous studies

by other researchers are also mentioned

Chapter 3: Methodology

The research process is demonstrated in detail through each stage Apparently, the setting, participants, research design will be discussed Additionally, data collection procedure, and data analysis are also justified

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussions

After data collection process, the findings from students’ portfolios are duced in this chapter These data are analysed thoroughly to answer the research ques-tions Additionally, the result comparison to the previous studies is given in the Dis-cussions section

intro-Chapter 5: Conclusion

This final chapter summarises the results from all analyses of the prior sections

as well as provides some recommendations for further research Besides, the possibility

of limitations is also recognized in relation to the outcomes of this study

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter would examine and analyze relevant aspects that are related to the aim of the thesis First, it commences from analyzing Writing skills in terms of its defi- nition, paragraph writing and process of writing The next parts are approaches to teaching writing, the role of teachers in teaching writing, and assessment of writing Finally, after the Portfolio Assessment is reviewed, a brief overview of related studies discloses the research gaps and justifies the aims and objectives of this research paper

2.1 Writing skills

2.1.1 Definition of writing skills

Writing is a visual representation of speech which writers use to communicate their ideas and feelings Together with speaking skills, writing skills is considered a productive one, which involves actively producing the language instead of passively receiving it In other words, learning how to write in a second language is not merely trying to arrange the conventional symbols of the writing system that represent the ut-terances one has in mind It requires the learners to apply suitable words, use grammar with ease and present facts in the order of time and space According to Lounis (2009), writing is the most integral skill that needs to be mastered by ESL or EFL learners However, the process of writing is not as simple as it is assumed In 2002, Richard and Renandya stated that writing is regarded as the most challenging skill compared to oth-ers in teaching and learning a language

2.1.2 Paragraph writing

A paragraph is a group of sentences about a single topic They are fundamental building blocks of texts Their main purposes are to inform news, state opinions, give facts or provide explanations When it comes about the structure of a paragraph, in ac-ademic writing, it is required to include at least 5 to 7 sentences in one paragraph In general, a paragraph consists of three main components, including a topic sentence,

several supporting sentences and a concluding sentence The topic sentence is usually the first sentence of a paragraph It is basically a summary of the argument the writer is making in the paragraph The supporting sentence gives example, explanation, infor-mation and opinion to support the main idea stated in the topic sentence of the para-graph Therefore, all supporting sentences should help the reader to understand the top-

ic and focus of the paragraph Concluding sentence is normally the last one in the graph It is often similar to the topic sentence in which it reminds the reader of the top-

para-ic and focus of the paragraph However, different words and ways of expressing should

be used, if possible Besides, in order for a paragraph to be effective, it must have 3 following characteristics: unity, coherence and paragraph development Unity means that all sentences in the paragraph are written to explain, develop, and support a central idea which is stated in the topic sentence As regards coherence, the paragraph must be easy to read and understand by the organization of supporting sentences in a logical order and the appropriate use of transitional signals Last but not least, it is important to fully develop and discuss the topic of the paragraph A good rule of thumb to stick to is

to make sure that a paragraph contains at least four sentences explaining and ing on the topic sentence Some suggested ways that the writers can use to develop and support the topic sentence is using examples, telling a story to illustrate the idea, com-paring and contrasting, and showing data

elaborat-2.2 Approaches to teaching writing

Product approach to teaching writing skills appeared in the mid-1960s, ing to the final product without focusing on the writing procedure or to the writers themselves The normal procedure is to assign students a piece of writing, collect their final products, and give them back for further revision with the mistakes either correct-

attend-ed or markattend-ed for the students to do the corrections (Raimes, 1983) In other words, in this teaching method, teachers do not act as a facilitator of learning, and students’ work

as an indication of achievement is the only focus

Approximately 20 years later, in the mid 1980s, there was a shift from product approach to process approach which place more emphasis on the process of composing texts rather than on the products themselves Oshima and Hogue (1997) state that the process of writing comprises 4 steps in total, including prewriting, planning, writing and revising drafts, and writing the final copy To be more specific, in the first step, the writing topics are chosen and narrowed down as well as the ideas are brainstormed Subsequently, these ideas are organized, and the outline of the writing is drawn up Writers are highly likely to revise several drafts before making the final copy of their product As Oshima and Hogue claim, there is no writing that is flawless in its first draft; therefore, writers have to refine and improve their writing until they feel content-

ed with the final writing version Similarly, Harmer (2004) also says that 4 main stages are required in order to create a great writing: planning, drafting, editing and final ver-sion In the planning stage, writers think about the topic they are going to write Simul-taneously, the purpose of writing and the organization of the facts will be decided Af-terwards, they start to write the first draft or even several drafts Editing the writing is the next stage in which writers can ask for readers’ comments or suggestions At the last stage, the final version is completed

One more approach that can be reviewed is genre approach, in which mation concerning the types of writing is provided The notion of genre stem from the idea that writing is situational; hence, good writing is determined by the context, pur-pose and the audience In conclusion, genre-based approach gives students chances to get to know a wide range of purposes of writing and deal with various ways of writing

infor-in formation

In conclusion, it should be noted that process approach is the one that is cated in this study

advo-2.3 The role of teachers in teaching writing

In teaching writing skills, teachers act as facilitators who supply students with

support so that they can produce their own good writings Brown (2001) says that teachers are the ones who give responses to students’ writing He also highlights teach-ers’ guidance instead of forcing students to follow their thoughts In addition to this, Harmer (2004) indicates five responsibilities teachers have to take during the writing process They are presented as follows:

(1) Demonstrating: teachers are responsible for introducing to the students the various genre constrains and writing conventions so that students are mindful of what they are going to write

(2) Motivating and provoking: Brainstorming ideas and choosing appropriate lary are the most common challenges to students when they are dealing with the writing assignments Teachers can make some connections between reality and the writing assignments to keep students motivated or plan various kinds of tasks as an introduction to writing Some suggested activities are rearranging a jumbled para-graph or finishing an uncompleted paragraph

vocabu-(3) Supporting: During the writing process, students are likely to encounter difficulties

By being available in the class and offering constructive advice, teachers are the ones who encourage the students confront the problems

(4) Responding: When making response to students’ writing, teachers can give ments or suggestions for students to improve their writings It should also be no-ticed that these suggestions belong to the writing process, not the evaluation proce-dure

com-(5) Evaluating: This task is performed at the end of the writing process by the teacher when students finish the last version of the writing assignment Through this step, students’ work is marked and the progress they have made is observed

To sum up, a teacher acts as a demonstrator, a motivator, a supporter, a responder and an evaluator

2.4 Assessment of writing

2.4.1 Types of writing assessment

In teaching and learning language, particularly in writing skills, in order to measure the progress and examine the achievement that students have made, teachers can adopt some forms of assessment, including the traditional and the alternative ones

To be more specific, traditional assessment requires learners to select a possible answer from a given list of choices, which also means students’ writing are assessed at sentence level only Brown (2004) also states that the characteristic of the traditional writing assessment is the emphasis on the correct answers as well as the final products Besides, he points outs that alternative assessment requires students to perform, pro-duce, or do something at text level Portfolios, journals, self-assessment and peer-assessment are categorized as means of alternative assessments In fact, a wide range

of alternative assessments are being increasingly deployed due to the students’ volvement in learning

in-2.4.2 Scoring method for paragraph writing

There are 3 types of scoring method, which are holistic, primary trait and lytical scoring (Brown, 2004) Holistic scoring is used to judge the writing assignment

ana-of the student by giving one single, integrated score only after the educator reads the whole text In other word, the score given is mostly based on the personal assumption

of the teacher as a reader The aim of this method is generally used to rate the writer’s overall proficiency Hyland (2003) suggests that holistic scoring method concentrates

on what writers can do well instead of diagnosing writers’ deficiencies Although this approach is easy to use with larger classes, it is believed to undervalue the process in which learners plan their writings

Besides, if the assignment only concentrates on a particular aspect of writing, or

a specific linguistic form, or the use of a certain semantic group, primary trait scoring allows the instructor and the students to focus their feedback and attention specifically

In terms of the last type of scoring method, Weigle (2002) defines analytical scoring method as a way to evaluate students’ writing assignments based on the com-ponents of writing such as content, organization, language use, and mechanics The idea behind analytical scoring is that writing quality is not a holistic unified scale but a combination of certain distinct features As this scoring method is believed to be more helpful in diagnosing students’ writing abilities than holistic and primary trait scoring,

it will be used in this study

2.5 Portfolio Assessment

2.5.1 Definitions of Portfolio

In fact, portfolios have been used for many years in a wide range of areas, for example mathematics, chemistry, teacher training, etc As for the assessment of lan-guage skills, the application of portfolios is a growing trend and has been of dramatic interest to teachers for the past few decades (Douglas, 2000) There are various defini-tions of portfolio According to Hyland (2003), portfolios consist of various writing samples which are written over a period of time and give description on students’ de-velopment and ability in a certain context He also adds that portfolio assessment refers

to students’ practice of writing by using some information sources as reference, ing and resubmitting it after receiving constructive comments from their partners and teachers Barnard and Deyzel (2003) defines portfolio as a “portable, systematic, pur-poseful collection of work, selected to provide information about attitude, level of de-velopment and growth during a given period of time” Another definition of portfolio,

revis-as Yang (2003) states, is a collection of students’ activities which record the effort revis-as well as the progress in learning process and their reflection on the materials In general,

a portfolio is a purposeful collection of students’ work that exhibits their efforts, gress with achievement in one or more aspects Portfolios offer a way of assessing stu-dents’ writing skills that is quite distinct from the traditional methods To be more pre-cise, while traditional achievement tests offer outcomes in units that can be counted,

pro-portfolios assessment offers the teachers opportunities to observe students in a more general context: taking risks, seeking optimal solutions, and learning to make judg-ments about their own performances It is a portfolio when a student is a participant in, rather than the object of assessment

2.5.2 Types of portfolio

The types of portfolios are varied according to their purposes and collected items in it Consequently, many researchers define different types of portfolios As Co-lumba and Dolgos (1995) say, there are 3 types of portfolios for classroom use, includ-ing Showcase, Teacher-Student and Teacher Alternative Assessment Portfolios To be more specific, showcase portfolios are designed to display a leaner’s best quality of work In other words, it aims to demonstrate the highest level of achievement attained

by the students The main idea of this portfolio is that the developer chooses what to showcase and how to recognize it What creates the difference between this type of portfolio and the other two types is that this portfolio is completely individualized and

is based on the perceptions the developers make on himself or herself Concerning

Teacher-Student Portfolios, they are also called “working portfolios” or “working

folders” that are to assist interaction as well as communication between teacher and

students The content of this portfolio is discussed and agreed by both the teacher and his/ her student Last but not least, all items in Teacher Alternative Assessment Portfo-lios are scored, rated, ranked or evaluated Teacher can keep individual student portfo-lios at their disposal as an assessment tool

However, according to Epstein (2005, p 2), portfolios can be divided into two categories: Process-oriented Portfolios which tell the story of a students’ growth over time and Product-oriented Portfolios which are a collection of a student’s best work Both of these types are used in all grade levels Nevertheless, it also should be noted that the Process-oriented Portfolio is considered to be more common at elementary lev-els since individual progress is likely to be of more concern than determining specific

levels of performance The product-oriented portfolio, on the other hand, is more ble for advanced levels as mature students generally have higher thinking skills to choose their best work as well as to engage themselves in deep self-reflection process-

suita-es (Sweet, 1993; Epstein, 2005)

2.5.3 The advantages of portfolio

The advantages of portfolios have been mentioned by many of the experts In

1994, Moya and O’Malley claimed that portfolio assessment is one kind of alternative assessment that not only provide information about students’ weaknesses and strengths but also keeps records of their development Besides, by giving students chances to re-view their own work and better understand what they have learned, portfolios are said

to encourage students to self-reflect and self-evaluate

Being more specific, Brown (2004, p 257) lists some of the benefits obtained from portfolio assessment as follows:

(1) It can help to promote students’ intrinsic motivation, ownership and responsibility (2) It assists in promoting the interaction between students and teachers as well as stu-dents and their peers

(3) It provides valuable and reliable information about students’ work

(4) It aids critical thinking, self-assessment, and revision process

(5) It allows assessment of multiple aspects of language learning

2.5.4 Portfolio writing assessment procedure

It is believed that several steps are required to be done by the teacher if portfolio assessment is applied to measure students’ learning development As Birgin and Baki proposed in 2007, there are three steps in developing portfolio assessment, including: (1) Identifying the purpose of the portfolio

(2) Determining the evidence included in the portfolio

(3) Selecting the assessment criteria

In addition to these steps, Brown (2004, p 257) adds more in preparing

portfo-lio assessment as presented below

(1) Determining the aim of the portfolio: It should be noted that the aim of the

portfoli-os must be in line with the integrated goal of the school curriculum

(2) Considering the evidence included in the portfolio: In this step, the students are given a sample from which students draw conclusion about the content of the port-folio

(3) Communicating the assessment criteria: This is regarded as the most complicated aspect of portfolio assessment as both self-assessment and teacher’s assessment has

to be integrated and published clearly to the students

(4) Deciding the time for portfolio development: Teachers should make sure that dents have sufficient time to finish their writings as well as to self-reflect on them (5) Determining regular schedules to review and conferencing: Teachers and students should arrange discussion sections in which the details about students’ progress are mentioned personally

stu-(6) Choosing a place to keep portfolios: A place in the reading room or at the school’s library is more convenient for teachers and students to keep portfolios

(7) Giving positive washback and final assessment: Brown (2004, p 259) also put ward a recommendation that teachers should use holistic scoring method to evalu-ate students’ portfolio

for-(8) Final assessment

2.6 Related Studies

There are quite a few researchers who conducted studies on deploying portfolios

to improve writing skills Their findings have supported the fact that portfolio is an thentic assessment in teaching and learning English as well as a useful approach to sharpen writing skills

au-To begin with, Shober (1996) conducted a study to investigate how helpful a portfolio can be in showing students’ progress in narrative writing in a period of 12 weeks After the treatment, he reached a conclusion that there was a marked impact on students’ progress in narrative writing In 2012, Tabatabaei and Assefi also undertook a study in which the impact of portfolio assessment technique as a teaching, learning and assessment tool on writing skills was examined They even took sub skills of writing into consideration In the study, forty Iranian EFL learners were classified into 2 groups, including the experimental group and the control one The former group re-ceived portfolio assessment while the latter had the conventional approach of writing The results of this study revealed that writing skills, especially sub-skills of writing in-cluding organization, vocabulary, and elaboration were improved significantly to the experimental group Similarly, Aydin in 2010 indicated that portfolio keeping helps students to enhance their vocabulary and grammar learning and practice Andrew and Romova (2011) found enormous benefits of the use of a multi-draft, which is one essential component in writing portfolios It is considered as an effective evaluation tool, because it improves learners’ understanding of writing as a recursive process and the student gains a sense of progress and hence builds up their confidence In Vietnam, there are also researchers who carried out studies on E-portfolios Two teachers at a high school in Soc Trang province, Tran Thi Que Nhi and Le Xuan Mai (2018), aim at investigating the students’ perceptions of the use of E-portfolios in an EFL writing class The results showed that the contributions of e-portfolios were highly appreciated regarding the improvement in teacher-student interactions, as well as in learners’ con-fidence and motivation for writing Besides, no significant problems were found in us-ing E-portfolios Despite some studies on E-portfolios at high schools and writing portfolios at universities, there are hardly any studies in Vietnam investigating apply-ing writing portfolios with high school students

In terms of learners’ attitudes towards portfolio assessments, in 2008, Wang and

Liao considered how satisfied the students in writing classes in the technological and vocational education system are After the instructional procedure, the experimental group who received portfolio assessment technique showed much greater satisfaction

in writing than the control group did Liu (2003) worked on a study which looked into ESL students’ experiences with writing portfolios and their attitudes towards portfoli-

os According to the data analysis, students show different attitudes to their portfolio assignments Besides, one important thing to notice was that most students in the study didn’t see the immediate impact of reviewing their portfolio

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of research methodologies along with the detail of each stage of research design that are undertaken in this study Due to the purpose of any research to gain the research’s aim and objectives, structur- ing research methodology widely and deeply is essential through a method or multiple methods which are the most appropriate with the nature of study Thus, in this chapter, the author considered and went through some main areas of research methodology from the definition of action research, setting of the study, participants, research de- sign to data collection and data analysis methods in order to develop a research design aligned with the purpose of this study

3.1 Setting of the study

This high school is located in Lang Son which is a mountainous city to the north

of Vietnam The research is conducted in the second semester of the academic year 2018-2019, and the schedule of the research follows the school calendar Concerning the textbook used, it is the old version published by the Ministry of Education It also means that writing skills are given only one lesson each unit, after the reading, speak-ing and listening lessons are taught so that students can acquire more language and in-formation needed One more fact to note is that writing skills seem to be dominated by others as the number of extra writing lessons allocated in the syllabus is much lower compared to those for reading, listening skills and grammar

3.2 Participants

The subject of the research is 35 Vietnamese students at 11th grade of a high school in Lang Son city They are not majoring in English, and they are learning Eng-lish at school as a foreign language All of them are those whom I was teaching at that time They have been studying English for approximately 8 years, and their English proficiency is expected to be at intermediate level However, it should be noted that

while they have a wide range of grammatical structures, they find Speaking and ing skills the hardest ones With regard to their writing learning strategies, they have never used Writing Portfolios or any other alternative approaches before

Writ-In addition, one English teacher in the Foreign Languages Department is also

invit-ed to evaluate students’ writing basinvit-ed on the given marking criteria so that the reliability of the scores that the researcher gives to learners’ writing products will be ensured

3.3 Research design

This study is implemented as action research because it aims to improve writing skills of students at 11th grade at a high school in Lang Son by using portfolio assess-ment Thanks to this study, the problems in teaching and writing process has been re-vealed and the solutions to overcome the problems will be proposed According to Ko-shy (2005), action research is defined as an investigation which is launched to promote improvement in the teaching and learning process It helps to generate new knowledge based on enquiries carried out within specific and often practical contexts He also adds that the emerging evidence-based outcomes of action research will make a great con-tribution to the professional development of the teachers who are also the practitioners

of the research and the improvement of the students There is an agreement among searchers when Burns (2010) also states that the purpose of action research is to detect and tackle the problems occurring in the teaching and learning process through certain ways so that a more productive process will be achieved

re-There are some reasons why action research is chosen as following To begin with, the study is carried out from the point of view of a teacher rather than a research-

er As the research is conducted in the real teaching context, real solutions and mentations are implemented Secondly, action research can be referred as a circuit, which means it can be revised, re-planned and redone in order to reap better results Thirdly, action research involves the participation as well as collaboration of both teachers and students in the English writing class

imple-For all the reasons mentioned above, action research is the optimal choice for teachers to identify the problems and plan reasonable solutions so that the current teaching and learning situation can be changed appropriately, and impressive progress will be made in the students’ performances According to MacIsaac (1995), a typical action research cycle involves four steps, including plan, act, observe and reflect

Step 1- Planning: After the problem is identified, a plan is made in order to

make a change and solve the problem

Identify a problem: Observing the unwillingness and inactiveness of students in

writing lessons, and their poor performances including the repitition of some mistakes when they hand in their products, the teacher as well as the researcher decides to im-plement writing portfolios in her own class The effects of writing portfolio assessment would be evaluated to see whether it is suitable to the researcher’s students and helps students to improve their writing skills or not

Develop a plan of action: In this stage, the researcher plans some actions to

ad-dress the problems related to students’ writing skills that were identified in the ous steps The topics of writing assignments are taken from the 11th grade English Textbook Detailed lesson plans are developed, and advanced homework will be as-signed if it’s necessary

previ-Step 2- Action: The plan is conducted

Writing portfolio assessment implementation: Students are introduced about the

definition of writing portfolios and instructed how to make their own writing

portfoli-os Of course, the writing rubric which gives them information about how their ings are assessed is provided (Appendix 1) Students are required to read the writing rubrics carefully and ask for clarification if necessary In class, the process of a writing lesson still follows the regular pattern To be more specific, firstly, the writing topics are introduced Afterwards, words, phrases or structures related to the topic are given

writ-to the students so that they can use them in their writings However, after finishing the

first draft at class, students are asked to write the second version Due to the time limit

in each lesson, the length of each piece of writing should be within 150 words, and the second draft must be written at home and submitted to the teacher the next day after the students receive the comments and feedback All of the students’ writings including the first and the second version will be collected by the teacher It should be noted that the scores given to each writing assignment has to be returned to students before they write the next writing topic The purpose is for students to realize their own mistakes and weaknesses as well as to utilize teacher’s feedback so that they can make appropriate corrections in the next writing assignment

school year)

Task

1 23 Unit 9: Expressing satisfaction or

dissatisfac-tion Students are required to write their satisfac-tion/ dissatisfaction about the service provided

by Thanh Ba Post Office

Students are required to write a description of Cat Ba National Park, using some facts and figures as suggestions

Students are required to write more graphs to describe the given charts, two first paragraphs of the description have already been provided

para-4 34 Unit 12: Describing the preparations for the

coming Asian Games Students are required to write a paragraph of about 120 words to describe the preparations for the Asian Games Vietnam is going to host

Students are required write a paragraph about their collection, real or imaginary

Students are required to write a biography of Neil Armstrong

Step 3- Observation: The process of implementation and results are observed

In this step, the researcher collects the data and observes the effects of the tions After the second version of the final writing task is collected by the researcher, the researcher starts to analyze the writing scores of students’ assignments from the first topic to the last one to see whether improvements have been made or not

ac-Questionnaire: In order to find out the answer to the second research question, a

self-reported questionnaire which includes twelve Likert-style questions was handed to the students to fill in The questionnaire focuses on the perception of effectiveness of the application of portfolios in learning writing skills As the questionnaire is written in Vietnamese and is explained clearly after being handed to the students, the possibility

of misunderstandings is more likely to be eliminated

Interviews: An interview with 5 questions will be conducted among 5 random

participants The interviews are conducted in Vietnamese as well, since it is possible for the learners to ask for clarity when necessary and to give participants comfortability

to be able to further express their opinions in a more precise way Nevertheless, when the researcher conducts the analysis using this information, both the questions and an-swers are translated into English

Step 4- Reflection: After being observed, the research process and results are

analyzed and evaluated In this step, the researcher will:

- Reflect on how the data answer the research questions

- Reflect on the teaching practice

- Reflect on the research process

- Relate the study’s findings to broader literature

Of course, some adjustments may be added to the initial plan so that more tive effects will be obtained

posi-3.4 Data collection procedure

3.4.1 Writing assignments

The writing assignments of the Portfolios were given to the students when they learned the writing lessons in the textbook at class It also meant that all of the topics were fixed and taken from the textbook After the teacher collected students’ writings and gave marks to each of the products students submit according to the evaluation ru-brics which was constructed by the researcher and colleagues in the foreign language department based on the high school curricular, students’ overall scores for their 6 writing assignments were compared to see if their writing ability witnessed any im-provement or not Additionally, the progress of each criterion of writing including task fulfillment, coherence and cohesion, vocabulary and grammar were observed by the researcher

3.4.2 Questionnaire

In order to evaluate the effectiveness of applying writing portfolios, apart from the results obtained from the writing scores, the researcher also used the results of the questionnaire To be more specific, after the first stage writing assignments was com-pleted, the researcher put some questions in the questionnaire and asked the interview-ees about their opinions on the appropriateness and the influences of using Writing Portfolios, the clarity of teacher’s instructions, as well as the advantages of teacher’s comments Besides, the questionnaire also required the participants to self-evaluate

their own progress concerning the four criteria of the writing skills The answer to each question in the questionnaire of the participants revealed their own perception of effec-tiveness of when they were using writing portfolios It also tried to investigate stu-dents’ opinions towards portfolio application as well

3.4.3 Interviews

Finally, structured interviews were carried out with 5 participants after all of the participants finished doing the questionnaire Notably, the students were chosen ran-domly The answers of the participants obtained from the interviews helps to explain the results of the students’ writing assignments as well as the answers they provide in the questionnaire

3.5 Data analysis

There are two research questions that need addressing in this thesis To answer the first question regarding the effectiveness of Writing Portfolios on students’ writing skills, quantitative data was first collected from their writing assignments The result of all the assignments are then entered into SPSS program and compared to observe the improvement

The researcher answered the second question regarding their opinions about Writing Portfolios based on the responses from the survey and interview Their an-swers in the questionnaire was analyzed using frequency statistics in SPSS program

The data from the interview are analyzed by means of a coding scheme As the second question deals with students’ opinions about Writing Portfolios based on the effectives of Writing Portfolios, of teacher’s feedback and the marking criteria Also, the clarity of instructor’s explanations and students’ wish to keep Writing Portfolios in the next academic year are put into questions While the researcher read through the transcript and notes, words and phrases related to these three categories were high-lighted with different colors Afterwards, all the data with the same color were put into

the same group under the subheadings of Students’ opinions about the benefits of the