An action research study on keeping a writing journal to improve the eleventh grade students’ writing at a high school in yen bai province

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES  NGUYỄN THỊ HẰNG AN ACTION RESEARCH STUDY ON KEEPING A WRITING

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES



NGUYỄN THỊ HẰNG

AN ACTION RESEARCH STUDY ON KEEPING A WRITING JOURNAL TO IMPROVE ELEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS' WRITING

AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN YENBAI PROVINCE

(NGHIÊN CỨU CẢI TIẾN SƯ PHẠM VỀ VIỆC SỬ DỤNG NHẬT KÝ GHI CHÉP ĐỂ NÂNG CAO KHẢ NĂNG VIẾT CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 11 Ở MỘT

TRƯỜNG THPT TỈNH YÊN BÁI)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

HÀ NỘI- 2018

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES



NGUYỄN THỊ HẰNG

AN ACTION RESEARCH STUDY ON KEEPING A WRITING JOURNAL TO IMPROVE ELEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS' WRITING

AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN YENBAI PROVINCE

(NGHIÊN CỨU CẢI TIẾN SƯ PHẠM VỀ VIỆC SỬ DỤNG NHẬT KÝ GHI CHÉP ĐỂ NÂNG CAO KHẢ NĂNG VIẾT CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 11 Ở MỘT

TRƯỜNG THPT TỈNH YÊN BÁI)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: EnglishTeaching Methodology

Code: 8140231.01

Supervisor: Vũ Thị Thanh Nhã, PhD

HÀ NỘI - NĂM 2018

DECLARATION

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report

entitled " An action research study on keeping a writing journal to improve 11 th grade students’ writing at a high school in Yen Bai province" submitted in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Teaching Methodology Except where the reference is indicated, no other person‟s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from

a number of people

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Vu Thi Thanh Nha, PhD, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly supported me through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher

Next, a special word of thanks goes to Mrs Phan Thi Kim Phuong- my collaborator and many others, without whose support and encouragement it would never have been possible for me to have this thesis accomplished

Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, my husband and my children for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work

ABSTRACT This research is the investigation of the predominant problems in learning writing at a high school in Yenbai province and the implementation of new technique to deal with situation, which, in this case, is journal writing The primary purpose of the study is an attempt to find out how to apply journal writing in teaching writing to the 11th grade students and to what extent the journal writing impacted on the students‟ attitudes and their writing performances Action research was adopted in research and conducted in two cycles: cycle 1 and cycle 2 The study data were collected by means of informal interviews, observation checklists and field notes The result indicated that the problems in students were the lack of practice, low writing attitudes, ideas limitation, lexico- grammar mistakes After implementing the journal writing, analysing the collected data, it finds that (1) there were positive changes in students‟ attitudes toward writing (2) there was an improvement of the time to generate ideas in students Two weaknesses were found out at the first cycle: first, some students were demotivated and reluctant to write Second, many students found difficulties in vocabulary mastery and grammar structures Dealing with those weaknesses, the researchers used grammar review strategy The findings showed that the students were motivated in writing and writing journals, they also got progress of the students‟ writing performances Moreover, students built themselves their own writing habits as well as created an intimate study environment in class

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS L1: First language

L2: Second language

CEFR: Common European Framework for Reference

M.A : Master of Arts

VNU: Vietnam National University

GCSE: General Certificate of Secondary Education

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1.Number of students with scores below average 41

Table 3.2 Time to think about the ideas in students 39

Table 3.3 Students' positive attitudes and negative attitudes toward journal 45

LIST OF CHARTS Chart 3.1 Manifestation of students‟ attention to the teacher‟s lecture 37

Chart 3.2 Manifestation of the students‟ positive response to journal writing 37

Chart 3.3 Negative attitudes 38

Chart 3.4 Time to think about the ideas in students 40

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF TABLES iv

LIST OF CHARTS iv

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 3

3 Research questions 3

4 Methods of the study 3

5 Scope of the study 3

6 Significance of the study 4

7 Design of the study 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 6

CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

1.1 Introduction 6

1.2 Writing 6

1.3 Approaches of teaching writing 7

1.3.1 The controlled writing approach 7

1.3.2 The freewriting approach 8

1.3.3 The paragraph-pattern approach 8

1.3.4 The process approach 9

1.3.5 The communicative approach 10

1.4 Writing assessment 11

1.5 Journal 13

1.5.1 Definitions of journal 13

1.5.2 Benefits of Journal writing 14

1.5.3 Overview of previous studies related to journal in teaching writing 14

1.6 Recount texts 17

1.6.1 Social functions of Recount texts 18

1.6.2 Generic structures of Recount texts 18

1.6.3 The language features of Recount texts 19

1.7 Conceptual framework 19

CHAPTER TWO : METHODOLOGY 21

2.1 Introduction 21

2.2 Research setting 21

2.2.1 Description of school and facilities 21

2.2.2 Description of the students 21

2.2.3 Description of English teachers 22

2.2.4 Description of textbook, curriculum, testing and assessment 22

2.4 Research design 23

2.4.1 Research method 23

2.4.2 Action research 23

2.5 Research Instruments 25

2.5.1 Observation checklist 25

2.5.2 Fieldnote 25

2.5.3 Semi structured interview 26

2.5.4 Pre -test and students' journals 26

2.6 Techniques of analyzing the data 27

2.7 Time of the research 28

CHAPTER THREE : RESEARCH FINDINGS 29

3.1 Introduction 29

3.2 Identifying the problem 29

3.2.1 Observation 29

3.2.2 Interviews 30

3.2.3 Pre- test 31

3.3 Research process 33

3.3.1.Cycle I 33

3.3.1.1 Treatment 33

3.3.1.2 Observation 36

3.3.1.3 Reflection 42

3.3.2.Cycle II 42

3.3.2.1 Plan 42

3.3.2.2 Action 43

3.3.2.3 Observation 45

3.4 Suggested solutions for problems of research 52

3.5 Summary 54

PART C: CONCLUSION 55

1 Overview and summary of the thesis 55

2 Limitations of study 56

3 Implications 57

REFERENCES 58 APPENDICES I

APPENDIX 1 I APPENDIX 2 III APPENDIX 3 V APPENDIX 4 VII APPENDIX 5 VIII APPENDIX 6 IX

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

English plays an important role in most of the world‟s entire population‟s lives It can be used to develop a relationship in international forums and to strengthen the link between the nations in the world It is also used for job prospect, promotions, academic function, and business interactions Consequently, many people tend to master English to be more competitive in globalization With the goal of using English as a second language, the Vietnamese Ministry of Education approved a 10-year National Plan for “Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in the National Formal Educational System in the Period of 2008-2020” (Decision

N˚1400, 2008) shown " By the year 2020 most Vietnamese youth who ever graduate from vocational schools, colleges and universities gain the capacity to use

a foreign language independently " Obviously, to be acknowledged as having

mastery in English, the language learners should master the four language skills including receptive skills, such as listening and reading, and productive skills, such

as speaking and writing It means that students should be able to use English either receptively or productively and writing as one of the four language skills is a part of syllabus in English teaching However, Harmer (2004) states that making good writing is more complex than producing speaking Different from speaking, writing

is more difficult to acquire because there are many aspects related to writing which need to be mastered, such as organization, mechanics, and grammar In fact, being able to speak in English is not enough, people sometimes need written form In the globalization era, many aspects of life need writing skill as a part of the requirements

However, based on the observations conducted by the researcher while doing the research in a high school in Yen Bai province, the researcher found out that there were some problems appeared in the English teaching and learning Among the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing, the writing skills

Firstly, the students' motivation to write was low Some students were unconfident and reluctant to write They found writing boring, difficult to learn and hard to write well with a specific topicor task They had little experience of writing and might be very anxious about having to write marked by a tutor Most students even judged themselves that they were not good at writing They thought that they did not have talents in writing Actually, those kinds of thoughts often burdened themselves and influenced their attitudes towards writing So, the result was that they tried to avoid writing, and when they did the writing, they did not give their best effort

Secondly, students' writing ability was not good which can be seen from the process of generating ideas, grammatical features, and organization and vocabulary Predominantly, high school students had difficulties in generating ideas mostly The students did not know what they to do and what to write When starting to write, the students often ran out of the ideas and they took a plenty of time to think it out and they even did not remember how to write some common words and when they had already got the ideas of what to write about, the limit of vocabulary, grammar, and sentence organization made them dificult to convey their ideas properly

In addition, the lack of practice was the problem The teacher did not give enough writing practices both in the classroom and outside the classroom Teacher rarely gave the students opportunities to experience the process of writing and merely explained the theories of making good pieces of writing without actual practices

Based on the phenomena above, the teacher needs to find alternative teaching techniques which can encourage and motivate the students in the writing class, and also can improve their writing skills Langan (2008 & 2011) states that writing is a skill, it makes sense that the more they practice to write, the better their writing will be He also proposes that keeping a journal can be an excellent way to

get practice in writing Since the main problems, in this case, are the students' lack

of practices, their low writing attitudes, limitation of vocabulary and grammar

knowledge, this urges the researcher to conduct the minor research “An action research study on keeping a writing journal to improve 11th grade students’ writing at a high school in Yen Bai province”

2 Aims of the study

With the above rationale, the main aim of this research is to change in students' attitudes toward writing and their writing performances

To achieve this aim, some specific objectives are defined as follows:

(1) To identify the problems rising before and during research

(2) To find out how to implement journal writing

(3) To show how students‟ attitudes and their performances are improved after being taught to write journals

4 Methods of the study

In order to achieve these objectives, this research adapts an action research which is conducted in two cycles The qualitative data is collected through observations and fieldnotes to measure students' attitudes and their performances in writing lessons Besides, informal interviews with students are carried out to collect more information and to reinforce the findings from observations

5 Scope of the study

This study aims at implementing journal writing and the effects of journal writing on 11th grade students‟ writing in a class at a high school in Yen Bai province However, because of time and my knowledge, I could not cover all

aspects of this theme I only focus on procedures and the impacts of journal writing

on students' attitudes and their performances

6 Significance of the study

This study expected to give a precious contribution to :

1 Theoretical significance

This study is an attempt to apply journal writing to mitigate the problems in students' writing, the researcher expects to provide an example of how journal can

be used to teach writing in context of Vietnam

To the other researchers who wish to discuss the topic journal writing, the study could be a beneficial reference with meaningful insights from the findings It can inspire the other researchers to conduct further studies on the use of journal writing to improve students' writing in any level of education

2 Practical significance

To the students, especially the 11th grade students at a high school in Yen Bai province, this study is expected to improve their writing Hopefully, the implementation of journal writing would be part of the students' way of finding their own voices in writing and also to enhance their creativity and confidence in writing English

To the English teachers, the research aims at giving new alternative medium

of teaching for English teachers which have been proven to be effective The teachers can apply the journal writing as a part of the teaching tool for better results

7 Design of the study

The study is divided into three parts:

Part A, INTRODUCTION, presents the rationale for the study, the aims and objectives, the research questions, the scope, the methods, the significance, and the design of the study

Part B, DEVELOPMENT, consists of four chapters

Chapter one, LITERATURE REVIEW, provides an overview of the theoretical background and the previous researches related to the study

Chapter two, METHODOLOGY, restates the research questions and describes the setting, the participants, and the research methods of the study

Chapter three, RESEARCH FINDINGS, displays a detailed discription of data analysis Besides, the chapter also presents some discussion and interpretations

of the findings of the study, and then gives suggestions for the teachers and the students and other researchers

Part C, CONCLUSION, briefly summarizes the study, the recommendations are proposed and makes some suggestions for further studies

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Introduction

This chapter reviews prominent literature to support the research To begin, I first provide an overview of writing, teaching second language approaches Then I will give brief information onjournal writing and recount text which directly involve

in problems discussed and overview of previous studies related to present ground

Raimes (1983) states that writing is not just speech written down on paper It means that writing is a form of the written language generally demands standard forms of grammar, organization, and vocabulary

According to Diana (2007, p.7), writing was seen as a skill that was essentially learned, not taught, and the teacher's role was to be non-directive, facilitating writing through an encouraging and cooperative environment with minimal interference

Byrne (1988) gave a long and complex definition which might be summarized as follows: writing is the act of forming graphic symbols (letters or combinations of letters) which were arranged to form sentences, and we produced a

sequence of sentences arranged in a particular order and linked together in certain way, on a flat surface of some kind

In conclusion, it can be stated that writing is one of the language skills which need a physical and mental process of students to express ideas, feelings, experiences, messages and opinions through words Furthermore, writing is a productive skill, so it is writing that provides students with chances to put the language itself and practice communicative skills at the same time Through the act

of writing students will realize what they are already good at and what they still need to learn to become better

1.3 Approaches of teaching writing

In this section, the researcher is going to briefly discuss some approaches to teaching L2 writing

1.3.1 The controlled writing approach

This approach belongs to the Audiolingual methodology which was widely popular in the second half of the last century As previously stated, the Audiolingual method focuses primarily on speaking and secondarily on writing to strengthen speech through mastering grammatical forms According to Silva (1990), the controlled approach is an accuracy-focused model that teaches writing through introducing L2 learners to model paragraphs and asking them to modify them by changing pronouns, and tenses In addition, to play with the sentence tense or aspect, learners may also adapt those paragraphs by adding, combining, replacing or deleting some sentences In that approach, students are encouraged to focus on writing error-free sentences while the teacher‟s job is to mark students‟ papers and correct any errors

It is clear that the correctness of written products plays an important part in teaching writing However, good writing involves more than correct spelling and punctuation A learner does not learn writing by achieving mastery of written forms

Rather, they learn to write through practicing writing in a meaningful situation where they feel the need to write and develop confidence in their own writing abilities

1.3.2 The freewriting approach

The free-writing approach aims at developing students‟ ability to express themselves and generate ideas without worrying too much about errors which are considered natural (Raimes,1983; Grabe & Caplan,1996; Elbow, 1998b) In other words, this approach values writing fluency over accuracy Learners are encouraged

to compose on topics that interest them while teachers read students‟ products, commenting on the content without providing any structure or mechanical corrections To help their students learn free-writing, some teachers ask students to write continuously, in class, on any topic of their choices for a certain period of time (Elbow, 1998b; Hacker, 2004) At the beginning, students find it difficult to decide

on a topic, but they eventually become used to it Students also learn to consider their audiences, who are most likely their teachers or classmates

This approach seems effective to value fluency However, in some cases, students are soon disoriented or disappointed as their limitation of vocabulary, or the product is a mess, disorganization or incoherence

1.3.3 The paragraph-pattern approach

This approach is based on the fact that writers from different cultures organize discourse differently Students are required to copy model paragraphs, analyze them, and write their own paragraphs following the organization of those models They may also write topic sentences for the analyzed paragraphs, delete sentences, add others, or write a conclusion to make the text more coherent (Raimes, 1983) The paragraph-pattern approach seems to be nothing more than a revised version of the controlled writing approach in that it focuses on paragraphs not sentences It stresses that proficient writing depends on the writer‟s ability to imitate previously prepared models, which does not encourage students to be

creative Writing is a process that should emanate from the writer‟s own background knowledge, needs, and interests The above mentioned approaches focus, in one way or another, on the final product Little if any effort is dedicated to teaching students strategies or any cognitive operations involved in composing a coherent piece of connected discourse

1.3.4 The process approach

This approach flourished in L1 writing contexts in the 1960s-1990s and then was soon after adopted in L2 writing pedagogy In the process approach, the emphasis is shifted from the product to the process through which writing is produced Proponents of this approach believe that the finished product is a result

of complex nonlinear processes of prewriting, writing, and post writing activities (Casanave, 2003; Hyland, 2003) According to Flower (1985), thinking stage helps students to identify the rhetorical problem, plan a solution or series of solutions to the problem and finally conclude appropriately This stage can follow the sequence below:

Generate ideas ->Select ideas -> Group ideas - -> Order ideas

In the view of Hedge (1990), the process contains a lot of stages which can

be illustrated as follows: “ being motivated to write- getting ideas together- planning and outlining- making notes- making a first draft- revising, replanning, redrafting- editing and getting ready for publication

Williams (1989) points out that effective writing instruction in the process approach focuses not on the finished product, but on helping students go through the overlapping stages in which that product is composed (p 8) The biggest challenge for writers lies in producing the first draft that can be revised through receiving feedback from teachers and colleagues Hyland (2003) states that in the process pedagogy, writing is learned, not taught in an environment where the teacher is expected to work as a writing facilitator; assisting learners to express their ideas rather than correcting their errors

In short, the process approach encourages student‟s activity and motivation

in writing It is a learner-centered approach that stimulates students to play an active role and the teacher works as an observer However, beginners of writing skill need help and guidance from the teacher This procedure is good for class practice, but students are still encouraged to write on their own and get feedback from their teacher for mistake corrections

1.3.5 The communicative approach

The process approach for teaching writing has been criticized for focusing on the internal psychological processes of individual writers and overlooking the social context in which writing is produced through writing cannot be separated from the situation in which it gets done The process view, therefore, has little to say about how the social context affects what writers create (Williams, 1989; Atkinson, 2003a; Atkinson, 2003b) The communicative approach, however, focuses on the context of writing through emphasizing the importance of the authenticity of the message to be communicated, the purpose for writing, and the social environment in which writing is initiated Student writers are encouraged to behave like real writers and write to achieve certain purposes (Raimes, 1983) Therefore, every act of writing is interactional and social Even when writing is done for personal interests, the writer will be the audience for his or her own script and in this sense writing is still a communicative act Obviously, the communicative approach does not aim at replacing the process pedagogy Instead, it broadens the process perspective and builds on it by considering the social nature of writing Writing is thus viewed as a socially situated process in which the product is shaped In addition, the communicative approach highly values the functional aspect of the written discourse and advocates the idea that written performance develops when the writing process is meaningful

To sum up, this communicative approach emphasizes the communicative role of writing Students should have the reason for writing and think about whom

they write to or for This approach requires situations which allowed them to write purposefully and shows how writing is a form of communication

1.4 Writing assessment

Assessment is regarded as a process of collecting, synthesizing and interpreting information in order to make decisions on students‟ performance According to Hyland (2003, p.211) assessment is used to collect information on a learner‟s language ability or achievement In the class, assessment can be conducted

to diagnose the students‟ problems, to judge the academic performance, to provide feedback to students and to plan instruction (Airasian, 1994) In line with that Hyland (2003, p.212) states that assessment also provides data that can be used to measure students‟ progress, identify problems, suggest instructional solutions, and evaluate course effectiveness This reflection enables the learners to take more control of their learning and to be responsible

Yancey (1999) divided writing assessment into three distinct though overlapping phases; indirect assessment (testing), direct assessment, and portfolio assessment Indirect assessment is one valuating writing skill through using objective tests Test takers are required to answer multiple choice questions about grammar, usage, and punctuation That assessment is widely adopted because it is easy to administer, less costly, and reliable However, it lacks validity as it is not measuring what it is supposed to measure While direct assessment is writing where students are required to write on a certain topic for a specified length of time Direct writing assessment has many advantages First, all students take the exam under similar controlled conditions, which makes it easier to make comparisons across classes, schools, and districts in order to take decisions accordingly Second, this controls procedure guarantees that the products to be graded are actually written by students themselves Lastly, a portfolio is a folder including samples of a student‟s writing produced over time, under a variety of conditions (White, 1994) in which the student attaches what best represents him or her as a writer

Regarding to scoring students‟ written products within the direct assessment, there are three common ways : primary trait scoring, holistic assessment, and analytic assessment Firstly, “Primary trait scoring is based on the idea that different discourse modes place different demands on the writer in terms of purpose and audience” (Wolcott & Legg,1998, p 100) Secondly, holistic scoring is the process

of assigning a single score to each writing script through judging it against a scoring rubric This type of assessment is based on the Gestalt principle that the whole is worth more than the sum of its parts The writing script is not evaluated in terms of specific features related to development, content or mechanics Lastly, analytic scoring is based on analyzing writing into some basic elements such as content, development, and vocabulary so that students can receive feedback regarding the strengths as well as the weaknesses of their writing (Wolcott & Legg, 1998) The more detailed the analytic score by Cohen (1994) is presented below:

1) Content:

Content of writing covers clear main idea, detailed and substantive: all materials are relevant to the main idea The writer must exclude everything irrelevant to the main idea to reach an excellent level of content of writing

2) Organization

A writer is expected to demonstrate an understanding of how texts are structured as a whole piece of writing It includes understanding that each paragraph contains a topic sentence and that all other sentences in the paragraph related to those sentences Understanding of cohesion involves showing relationship between clauses and sentences by means of linking phrases, phrase and other performs 3) Vocabulary

In writing, it is a must for the writer to choose and use words appropriately in order to the writing will not ambiguous Absolutely, the choice of the words, phrases and idioms should be effective

4) Language use

It is one of the important component to consider the writer should concern to the rules of grammatical structure such as tenses, part of speech, subject verb agreement, sentence construction, etc

1.5 Journal

1.5.1 Definitions of journal

There are a large number of researchers who focus on journal and each researcher has different ideas in defining journal, but all of them agree that journal

is a place to express feeling and ideas of an individual

Spaventa (2000, p.168) defined journals as “notebooks of writers keep a record of ideas, opinions, and description of daily life that can help the writers to develop their creativity”

Tarigan (2008, p.37) explained that journal is one of the personal note that actually almost same with the diary, on the diary we are the talking points and so do

on the journal, but the difference is that on the journal we are give other people to read our journal while on the diary we usually keep our privacy

Lewis (2009) stated that Journal is one of the effective programs that can help the students to organize and inspire their own writing

From the statement above, it can be concluded that journal writing is the personal note used to express their self

1.5.2 Benefits of Journal writing

White and Arndt‟s (1991) state that there are some benefits of journal writing

in a classroom The journal writing supposes to be an effective way to make the students interested in writing The journal writing develops fluency of expression It also helps the students to communicate their ideas, because writing is not only about personal feeling but a dialogue in written language

As states by Harmer (2004, p.126) journal gives opportunities for freedom of expression, the impact of journal writing on writing ability in general, and the opportunity for the teacher and the students to enter into a new and different kind of dialogue Ngoh (2002) said that “journal writing provides students with good opportunities to improve their writing skills individually and good chances to record their thoughts and feelings” In line with this, Langan (2000) mentions that writing a journal will develop writing habit of thinking on paper and improve on the way learners find ideas in the process of journal writing Therefore, a journal can make writing become familiar as a part of their life

1.5.3 Overview of previous studies related to journal in teaching writing

Journals have been employed as the introspective tools across a wide range

of academic areas in language studies Therefore, a number of classroom-based studies focusing on journal writing have been conducted in both ESL and EFL academic contexts The following related studies have employed journal writing and have highlighted the benefit of journal writing on writing skill and ability improvement Journal writing offers insightful psychological, social, and cultural data which are relevant to language development as well as second language learning strategies and preferences (Nunan, 1992)

Looking back to history, journal writing was applied with different goals and objectives in diverse contexts and the findings are quite different

First, to concentrate on the importance of writing and recognize journal as a way to learn, Spack and Sadow (1983) employed student-teacher working journals

in a study to help enhance the ESL freshman composition college students‟ confidence in communicating in the second language Both the students and the teachers were asked to write the journal entries on any topics growing out of the writing class on looseleaf papers Some students‟ interesting journal entries in the corrected form were selected to share with the whole class and the teacher‟s journal entries were read by the students The teacher gave feedback on the ideas and did not grade or correct any grammatical errors in the students‟ journal entries The findings showed that the students-teacher working journals made the students recognize the importance of writing: “to explore, develop, focus, organize, and to share ideas with others” Additionally, this study made the best out of journal writing activity in the way that “the students can learn to write, and of writing as a way to learn”

Second, to exploit the benefits of buddy journals in terms of writing fluency and audience awareness and culture understanding, Bromley (1995) carried out the research of buddy journals which were written by the students from eight classrooms of four elementary schools and four middle schools for approximately 10-20 minutes during their language classes In buddy journal writing, the ESL students were paired with the native-English-speaking buddies so that they could learn and develop their writing from the native speaker buddies The results demonstrated that there was an interactive development among writing, reading and literacy in the target language Remarkably, buddy journal writing strengthened the students‟ writing fluency and audience awareness in the writing process Moreover,

it promoted collaborative learning in how to write as well as established relationships and cultural understanding and respect

Next, to investigate the relationship between L2 writing and identity construction in third language, Maguire and Graves (2001) used journal writing for

three eight-year-old Muslim girls learning English as their third language in English and French classrooms at a culturally diverse primary school in urban Montreal, Quebec, Canada Data were collected over 3 years from participant observations, interviews, and English journal entries The findings demonstrated a relationship between the children‟s L2 writing and their identity construction Moreover, the children showed a high degree of English writing proficiency which was beyond the children‟s in normal L2 classrooms as evident in their English journal entries That

is, “the children were able to express their opinions, give reasons, explain and joke, and adopt fictitious personae in writing in a third language” (p 588)

Regarding to improving students' writing skill through an extensive reading activity in a reading course, Herrero (2007) conducted a study using journals as a tool to 23 second-year Spanish native speaker students aging 18 – 24 at the University of Costa Rica The students‟ journal entries were the sources from which their trouble some linguistic aspects were identified for giving an explicit instruction, constructing the handout assignments as well as giving feedback by the researcher The findings illustrated that the students‟ writing skill improved via journal writing Apart from that, the students reported that they preferred feedback

on their journal entries to explicit instruction to help improve their writing skill Interestingly, grammatical features were found to be the primary difficulty the students could overcome through journal writing followed by punctuation, word choice, spelling and pronunciation respectively

Moreover, Lewis (2009) as the teacher who applied journal in his class stated that keeping a journal makes students get more practice to write, while by writing every day, the students gain fluency while getting a chance to practice important punctuation, spelling, and style skills in context It was proved that it‟s working when it‟s applied to Lewis class, and to prove it more the writer going to conduct the research with same way, but the difference is the purpose and the subject of the research

Recently, Tuan (2010) carried out the study to investigate the effects of journal writing on the students‟ writing skill in terms of fluency, accuracy and their writing in general Journal writing activity was used as a treatment in one class as

an experimental group, 44 second-year students at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Ho Chi Minh City Forty-one second-year students from another class were treated as a control group The findings demonstrated that the experimental group‟s writing skill under the aspect of fluency and accuracy as well

as their writing scores were greater than those of the control group More importantly, the experimental group showed high writing motivation since most of them were aware of the value of journal writing practice in helping them improve their writing skill

To sum up, the author of this thesis has identified a gap in the literature To the best of her knowledge, there was a limitation of research which focused on guided journal writing This stimulated her to conduct her thesis in this area In line with the aim to improve students' writing and to change their attitudes to writing, but total differences in methodology, instead of writing freely about what students want, in this study, the researcher applied journal writing with the concrete guidelines by teaching them directly Moreover, students' journals were checked and commented regularly The journal here was a book that students should be writing down into after they got topics with guided instructions

1.6 Recount texts

Recount is a kind of text which retells the action happened in the past According to Knap and Watkins (2005, p.223) recount is the simplest text type in the genre Formally recount is sequential text that does little more than sequence a series of events Recount almost has the same form as narrative because both recount and narrative have a function to retell the activity or event in the past The difference is that recount tells event for giving information to the readers while

narrative is not only giving information, but also giving a moral lesson by presenting a problematic experience and will be finished by a problem solving

1.6.1 Social functions of Recount texts

Social function also can be called as purpose Social function is the important part in writing genre Gerot and Wignell (1994, p.194) state that the social function of recount is to retell events for the purpose of informing or entertaining Moreover, Hayland (2002, p.99) states that the social purpose of recount is “tell what happened” It means that the social function of a recount is to retell past experience by retelling events in original sequence

1.6.2 Generic structures of Recount texts

According to Gerot and Wignell (1994, p.194), the generic structures of recount text are:

1 Orientation

The first part of recount text is known as orientation It provides the background information on a story about who, what, where, when, why, and how This first paragraph is like an introduction that sets the scene and supplies the necessary information in the story that is needed to fully understand the retelling The orientation paragraph, finally, can consist of one sentence, but will often consist

of at least two to three sentences

2 Events

In this part, the writer focuses on supplying details about the who, what, where, and when that make the events, characters, and settings in the story rich and complete time order Also, the writer sometimes can add personal comments or evaluative remarks about the events

3 Conclusion or re-orientation

The section is often used to complete the writing by rounding off the series

of events It refers back to some of the information in the orientation paragraph However, for writers who make it, they often write about their feelings or impressions of the experience as the conclusion

1.6.3 The language features of Recount texts

According to Hayland (2002, p.99) the grammatical features of a recount include:

1) Use of nouns and pronouns to identify people, animals, or things involved 2) Use of action verbs to refer to events

3) Use of past tense to locate events in relation to speaker‟s or writer‟s time

4) Use of conjunctions and time connectives to sequence the events

5) Use of adverbs and adverbial phrases to indicate place and time

6) Use of adjectives to describe nouns

1.7 Conceptual framework

Here, the researcher decided to adopt process approach in teaching journal writing to students because of its benefits in learning writing In the process-oriented approach, journal writing is among various strategies employed in the prewriting stage; such as, brainstorming, listing, clustering and freewriting Apart froma discursive practice in L1 and L2 classrooms, it is an increasingly important tool in both language learning and teacher training as well as a significant introspective tool in language studies both in language acquisition and development because it provides "insights into process of learning" (Nunan, 1992, p 123) Journal writing allows the writers to “discover, develop, and clarify” their ideas in their writing (Bean, 1996, p 97) This type of writing could facilitate learning, critical thinking development, class preparation, class discussion and better final writing products (Bean) Therefore, “journals are an important part of the writing process” (Maxwell, 1996, p 61) Most importantly, journal writing is appropriate

with middle-school-aged students since the students at this age feel at ease performing this kind of writing (Greenwood, 1989)

1.8 Summary

Theoretical background is quite essential for the study In this chapter, I first present various definitions of writing and review some approaches in teaching L2 writing Then, I provide some concepts concerning journal writing and recount text and highlight how writing may be assessed Finally, I report the studies investigating the effect of journal writing on L2 writing Now I have finished Chapter 1, I turn to Chapter 2 where I will present the methodology of my research

CHAPTER TWO : METHODOLOGY 2.1 Introduction

In the previous chapter, the literature on the research topic is briefly reviewed for the theoretical basis of the whole study Turning to the practical side, a qualitative research design is employed in this study with the clarification of data collection and analysis in order to maximize its validity and reliability This chapter displays research setting; the subjects, the instruments as well as the procedure of data collection and analysis are discussed in detail

2.2 Research setting

2.2.1 Description of school and facilities

The study was conducted at a secondary school in Yen Bai province School was founded in 1992 There are 21 classes in school with 7 of 10 grade, 7 of 11 grade and 7 classes of 12 grade Each class consists of 30 or 40 students The secondary school has been appreciated as one of the schools which has the effective quality in target education throughout the country There is a library with computers connected to the internet, some sorts of materials for reference like English books, magazines, newspapers in all training fields However, most of these materials are

in Vietnamese, not in English The language teachers are equipped with teaching facilities like radios, boards and a computer room However, the school has only 3 rooms equipped with the projectors, there is also one information technology room with more than 20 internet-connected computers, which are often available for students to get access at school-time

2.2.2 Description of the students

Most of the English students come from the ethnic mountainous area and their backgrounds are from agricultural families They often spend much time on earning money by doing physical work or cultivating instead of studying To be admitted to the school, the 9th grade students must pass a competitive entrance

examination organized by Yen Bai's Department of Education and Training Pass mark for entrance examination with the group of 2 subject Maths and Literature around recent 3 years is not high – 6 mark average in total Although English is one

of compulsory subjects for GCSE, English is considered to be unimportant; they do not study it thoroughly Moreover, the students are quite passive in learning They have a tendency of depending on the textbooks and the teachers for knowledge, and

do not have the habit of self-study However, they are eager to discover the new things and have good imagination, which is appropriate for teachers to adopt novelty

2.2.3 Description of English teachers

In this school, there are total seven teachers in Foreign group, they all graduated from English Department, College of Foreign Languages, Hanoi National University; four of teachers have got M.A degree, three of them have Bachelor's degree Based on CEFR, one out of seven is ranked at C1 level, the rest are at B2 They teach all skills and grammar also the supplementary program These teachers, whose ages ranged from mid-twenties to over forties The proportion of female teachers to male teacher is prominent, that is six females and one male All

of them have had at least 10 year experience in teaching English Most of the teachers all have had good knowledge, experience and they are all enthusiastic, sensitive in teaching profession

2.2.4 Description of textbook, curriculum, testing and assessment

The textbook using at school is Tieng Anh 11 by Vietnamese Publish House

of Education In the book, there are 16 units Each consists of 5 lessons: reading, speaking, listening, writing and language focus According to the syllabus, students have three periods of English each week At high school, a school year includes 2 terms; term 1 and term 2 In each term, students will be assessed with an oral test, two marks of fifteen minute test, two of fourty five minute test and final test These tests help teachers classify their students‟ proficiency Through the fourty five

minute test, they can adjust their teaching so the test scores in the final examination can be improved

2.3 Participants

This study was conducted with the participation of 36 students in grade 11

At the time of the study being carried out, these students had already started school year for 2 weeks The proportion of school boys to girls was 20/36 (the number of male students accounted for 57,6% of the student population) The first reason why the researcher chose class 11A1 as the subjects of the research by purpose concerning the quality of students in studying English and their homogenous background in studying All of the participants completed 7 years of mandatory English education (from 3th grade to 9thgrade), but some started to learn English in lower secondary school (from 6thgrade to 9th grade ) The second reason for selecting eleventh students, but the 10th or 12th grade was that the main content of writing lessons focuses on different types of writing, especially narrative type which requires students have broad vocabulary and the ability to develop ideas well, which students seem not good at and this type of text is close to recount text It gives students a better understanding of narrative and recount text, what the differences and similarities of two types

2.4 Research design

2.4.1 Research method

This study aims to survey problems students faced while learning writing, to find out how to apply journal writing and show its effects on students' attitudes and their performance Therefore, the researcher selected Action Research to apply for students in grade 11 Below, action research would be clarified specificly to explain for the selection of the methodology

2.4.2 Action research

Definitions: "Action research is first and foremost situational, being concerned with

the identification and solution of problems in a specific context The aim of action research is to improve the current state of affairs within the educational context in which the research is being carried out." ( Cohen and Mnion:1985)

Characteristics: McDonough (1997) stated as follows:

● It is participant-driven and reflective;

● It is collaborative;

● It leads to change and the improvement of practice not just knowledge in itself; and

● It is context-specific

Model: There are different models of action research, but it consists of four main

stages in general, namely Planning, Acting, Observing, and Reflecting

Action Research Model (Suharsimi, 2008:133)

Steps:

Concerning action research as activity research, Nunan argues that the seven steps

in the action research cycle are:

● Step1: Initiation - A problem triggers the idea of action research

● Step 2: Preliminary investigation - Baseline data are collected to help understand the nature of the problem

● Step 3: Hypotheses - A hypothesis is formulated after reviewing the initial data

● Step 4: Intervention - A number of strategies are devised and applied

● Step 5: Evaluation - An assessment is carried out to evaluate the intervention Some steps may be repeated

● Step 6: Dissemination - A report of the research is published Ideas emerged from the research are shared

● Step 7: Follow-up - Alternative solutions for the problem are continually investigated

These steps are not always completed in this sequence and we may loop back through some steps several times And in the next chapter, I will show my action research in details

2.5 Research Instruments

The instrument was a tool to collect the data or a device or manner that was used to get data in the study The main instruments used to obtain the information for the study were fieldnotes, observation checklists, semi structured interviews, and pre test

2.5.1 Observation checklist

The observation checklist was a list of things prepared by the researcher that would be going to look at when observing a class The researcher used observation checklists because they gave the researcher a structure and framework for an observation

To measure the students activeness, the researcher cooperated with Mrs Phan Thi Kim Phuong, an English teacher at high school as a collaborator She gave a checklist (√) in every students‟ activities during the teaching and learning process in the classroom The observation checklist was labeled in themes with a list of students' actions in class revealing their behaviour and writing performance Refer to Appendix 3

2.5.2 Fieldnote

The fieldnote was adapted from Qualitative Inquiry and research Design Choosing among Five Traditions which was written by John W Cressell (1997) Fieldnotes were used to record anything happened in the classroom, especially the students‟ behavior toward writing, the students‟ difficulty in writing and the students‟ weaknesses during the teaching learning process Fieldnotes consisted of

2 main parts: descriptive notes and reflective notes Descriptive notes in which researcher attempted to get accurately document factual data [e.g., date and time] and the settings, actions, behaviors, and conversations that she observed while reflective notes in which she recorded her thoughts, ideas, questions, and concerns

as she was conducting the observation Refer to Appendix 2

2.5.3 Semi structured interview

One on one interviews were conducted with 11 eleventh students on purpose after each classroom observation The researcher chose some students based on different level of their attitudes The diversity in their performance in writing was also of great concern to be interviewed

Interview guideline was carried out in Vietnamese in the form of an informal conversation between the researcher and students The interview was structured with a list of 9 structured questions and some non-structured questions There were

2 main parts: Lead in part aimed to get backgound information Information exploitation part was to check students' knowledge, to measure students' attitudes,

to discover their difficulties and their expections Each lasted 10 minutes with each student The interview protocol was adapted from Qualitative among Five Traditions which was written by John W Creswell (1997) Refer to Appendix 1

2.5.4 Pre -test and students' journals

Pre -test : The researcher used writing test as an instrument which was very

important to measure data In this case, the researcher measured their skill in writing recount text to discover the problems in their writing, so there was only one kind of tests used in the study - pre-test, which was carried out before the

researcher gave the treatment The writing tests were done in 30 minutes to retell yesterday activities about 100 - 150 words In assessing the students' writing, the researcher used scoring rubric proposed by Cohen (1994) which focused on five aspects of writing They were the content, the organization, the vocabulary, the language use, and the mechanics aspect

Students' journals: Each students wrote a journal about 150 words in every

meeting to reflect on activities in training procedures Students could use some suggestions that the researcher gave

2.6 Techniques of analyzing the data

Observation and interviews

The data were mainly qualitative data taken from the result of observation and interviews The aim was to observe and analyse the data involving students attitudes and their performance, the researcher would select all the information about these themes and rejected the redundancy or not related to After reading the data over several times to get a good feel for what was there, using a highlighter or underline anything that seems to make an impression, the data were rearranged and coded in a simple way or labeled to the main idea or theme that kept doing this until any different labels for the ideas in the data were founded Data could be illustrated

in tables or charts Additionally, the researcher and the collaborators shared their ideas, opinions, and comments about the way to have grouped them, then discussing the ones which were different of opinion and deciding how best to categorise them

It was important to avoid subjectivity in analyzing data and getting trustworthiness

Test and students' journals

To measure the students' writing and to know the success levels of the strategy, the researcher made a test The researcher asked the students to make recount texts in journal form The kind of the test was a written test The assessment was based on the criterion in terms of content, organization, vocabulary, language

use, mechanics, not range or score to find out the problems in their test, so it was seen as an observation more than scores ( Appendix 6 )

2.7 Time of the research

The research was conducted in the first semester in the academic year of 2017- 2018, so it took about 8 months to finish the study The observations were conducted in two phases The preliminary observation was conducted in April,

2017 while the teachers were doing the teaching practice The second phase of the observation was conducted in August, 2017 to get the up-to-date problems in the field Then, the actions were conducted twice a week from September to November 2017

2.8 Summary

This chapter provides the information on the setting, the subjects of the study and the data collection instrument and data analysis method In the next chapter, an effort will be made to find out the impact of the journal writing on students' attitudes and their performances based on the data collected through fieldnotes and interviews

CHAPTER THREE : RESEARCH FINDINGS

3.1 Introduction

This part of the thesis deals with the implemented research It presents the process, the results, and the interpretation of the findings of the research The research conducted in two cycles; cycle 1 and cycle 2 Each cycle consisted of planning, action & observation, and reflection Data were rearranged and coded in main themes, then illustrated in tables or charts

3.2 Identifying the problem

" The students were unenthusiastic to listen to the teacher's explanation and they seemed reluctant to answer every single question asked by the teacher When teacher called some They stood up with hesitation and avoided to look at the teacher and mostly looked down the table "

"During the process of teaching and learning, scarcely, students paid attention to the teacher's explanation and preferred to talk to the friends next to them and chatted about something that had no relation with the lesson."

( fieldnote - dated 4th September 2017.) Regarding to students' writing performance, they were likely to have difficulties in terms of developing ideas, organizing the text, and using correct vocabulary and grammar Some following data in fieldnote were depicted as follows:

" Students did not know how to start writing When teacher let them 20 minutes to write, most students spent at least 10 minutes without writing or wrote but erased

afterward They seemed quite difficult to write They turned around to ask their partners about vocabulary or how to write the task"

" Some students tended to translate word by word and they even used a translator

to help them in translating their works"

( fieldnote - dated 6th September 2017)

From the fieldnotes above, the results emerged some problems related to the students‟ writing ability that they were presented as follows:

(1) The students were not motivated in the teaching and learning writing process (2) The students could not develop their ideas into written texts

(3) The students had difficulties in using lexico-grammatical features and organization

(4) The students‟ involvement in the teaching and learning process was low

3.2.2 Interviews

Before training, interviews were conducted with 8 students by random to find out students' difficulties and their expectations The findings showed that four out of eight students agreed that they missed some knowledge of appropriate

vocabulary:„Em không gì để viết và không biết diễn tả suy nghĩ của mình ( I cannot come up with the words like how to express my thoughts).‟ (S1)

Most of them also had difficulties in grammar and syntax They made

mistakes in subject-verb agreement, pronouns, tenses, articles, prepositions and

basic sentence structures " khó nhất là dùng thì và giới từ hay mạo từ " („The major problem is with the uses of tenses and articles and preposition.)(S5)." em luôn gặp vấn đề trong cấu trúc câu" („I always have issues with sentence structure.)‟ (S 8) ." Khi em có ý trong đầu, em lại không biết viết thế nào" (when I have ideas, I donot know how to express them onto the page)

Additionally, ideas limitation affected learners‟ writing skill A student stated: " khi em bắt đầu viết, chẳng có gì xuất hiện trong đầu cả, em không biết phải làm gì" (when I started to write, all of ideas run out of my mind and I don't know what I should do)