Teaching essay writing to english language specializing student at le hong phong specialised secondary school, nam dinh city

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** BY : TRẦN THỊ HÀ TEACHING ESSAY WRITING TO ENGLISH Language specializing STUDENTS a

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

BY : TRẦN THỊ HÀ

TEACHING ESSAY WRITING TO ENGLISH Language specializing

STUDENTS at L£ Hång Phong specialised secondary school, Nam §ÞNH city ( nghiên cứu việc dạy viết luận cho học sinh chuyên Anh

trường Trung học Phổ Thông chuyên Lê Hồng Phong, Nam Định)

M.A Minor Thesis

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

BY : TRẦN THỊ HÀ

TEACHING ESSAY WRITING TO ENGLISH Language specializing

STUDENTS at L£ Hång Phong specialised secondary school, Nam §ÞNH city ( nghiên cứu việc dạy viết luận cho học sinh chuyên Anh

trường Trung học Phổ Thông chuyên Lê Hồng Phong, Nam Định)

M.A Minor Thesis

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgement

Abstract

List of tables, figures and appendices

Chapter One: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 State of the problem 2

1.3 Aims of the study 3

1.4 Research questions 3

1.5 Scope of the study 3

1.6 Method of the study 4

1.7 Design of the study 4

Chapter Two: Literature Review 2.1 An overview of writing 5

2.1.1 Academic writing and essay writing 6

2.1.2 Place of writing in foreign language programs 7

2.2 Major approaches to teaching writing 9

2.2.1 The product approach 9

2.2.2 The process approach 10

2.3 Essay writing as a form of Academic writing 12

2.4 Challenges of teaching and learning essay writing 13

2.5 Conclusions 14

Chapter Three: The Study

3.1 The context of the study 15

3.2 Methodology 16

3.2.1 Participants 16

3.2.2 Instruments 17

3.3 Data collection procedures 18

3.4 Data collection and data analysis 19

Chapter Four: Conclusions 4.1 Summary of the major findings and discussion 37

4.2 Implications 38

4.3 Recommendations and suggestions 38

4.4 Limitations of the study 40

4.5 Suggestions for further studies 41

REFERENCES 42

LISTS OF TABLES AND CHARTS

Table 1: The frequency of using classroom activities by teachers in writing lessons

Table 2 : The students’ perception of the activities used by teachers in terms of their usefulness

Table 3 : The teacher’ perceived value of classroom activities used in terms of their usefulness

Table 4: The students’ satisfaction of teachers’ classroom activities

Table 5: Teacher’s perceived value of students’ satisfaction of the classroom activities

Chart 1: The frequency of writing essay by students

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A ( A questionnaire completed by the students) APPENDIX B( A questionnaire completed by the teachers) APPENDIX C ( Questions for the interview)

APPENDIX D ( Observation classroom)

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

In terms of opportunities, nationally, it can be seen that, foreign language education policy and accompanying student attitudes and motivation have become crucial issues in the national development of Vietnam and in the personal advancement of individual Vietnamese over the last twenty years Social changes have resulted in foreign language changes, and thus, attitude and job changes This choice of English, in particular, has greatly influenced education, especially higher education, and has continued to leave its impact on the society Now English is introduced into the lower secondary curriculum from grade 3, and it is one of the national examinations that students have to pass for the general education Diploma

Foreign languages, especially English, began to be used widely in education and in daily-life activities As a matter of fact, the status of foreign languages, particularly English, was reconfirmed by an Order, signed by the Prime Minister (August 15, 1994), in which government officials would be required to study foreign languages, mainly and favorably English It is obviously seen that the objectives of new textbook provides adequate contribution to 4 language skills, but in fact, for many Vietnamese students presenting written work is a substantial challenge They have little experience of writing and may be very anxious about having to write essays marked by a tutor To the best of my knowledge, our English language specializing students are not very keen on essay writing tasks, their performance in writing test is unsatisfactory, and I would like to understand why the situation as it is That is the reason why I am going to conduct this research

1.2.State of the problem

Nurturing and training the talents is a burdensome and primary mission of the system of specialized schools through the nation In order to train the language specializing students for the nation, nurturing the excellent requires a special education that differentiates from one for the normal students Due to this crucial mission, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has been implementing the renovation of textbooks on English on a large scale since 2006 and “ Tieng Anh 10, 11, 12 nang cao” have been used

to teach language specializing pupils In addition, MOET does not intend to fix specific curricula used for language specializing students but suggest and constructs a frame of content and skills for the whole grade and for each of the classes basing on the above-mentioned syllabi This flexibility of the curriculum for the language specializing students provides teachers at language specializing schools in general and at Le Hong Phong specialized secondary school in particular with more chances to collect materials suitable for their teaching Besides, according to MOET’s regulations, from 2000 the annual national tests for language specializing students need to be designed consistently in structures which are coincident with the required teaching contents and writing essays is one of the compulsory parts in the test (in the writing part) This is a rather difficult task as

it contains exact measurements and the students have to present them objectively In addition, writing essay has been considered a difficult and boring subject for both foreign language teachers and students It also takes much time and energy to make progress in this skill Approaches to teaching writing have long been classified by many researchers and applied in many classrooms, modified by many teachers of writing Teaching essay writing

is one of these above approaches but to Vietnamese learners, teachers of writing are supposed to three key factors: Motivation, Rhetorical patterns and Coherence It is mainly mentioned that a teaching approach to essay writing for Vietnamese learners focuses on a rhetorical idea development in which teachers guide learners to be independent to expand the supporting ideas and use specific examples to make ideas persuasive

For the above mentioned reasons, the researcher would like to study essay writing procedure, teacher’s activities in writing lessons to find out students’ opinions on as well

as attitudes towards learning and writing essays Therefore, the intention in doing this research the researcher will help teachers of writing, students in some way find appropriate methods, techniques to write a better essay

1.3.Aims of the study

This study is aimed to:

(1) Examine kinds of approach of the teaching of essay writing used by teachers of writing at Le Hong Phong specialized secondary school

(2) Explore common activities used by teachers at Le Hong Phong specialized secondary school to develop students’ essay writing skill and students’ attitudes towards those activities

1.4 Research questions

The study was carried out in order to find out the answers to 3 research questions

(1) What are the common activities do teachers use to develop students’ essay writing skills?

(2) What are the students’ perceptions of the usefulness of those activities to their writing proficiency?

(3) To what extent do those activities satisfy the students’ expectations?

1.5 Scope of the study

The study is focused on only students from the 11th grade, an English language specializing class at Le Hong Phong specialized secondary school Because it is the first time they have officially been taught how to write an essay Yet, the study results cannot

be true to all Vietnamese students Thus, my suggestions for essay teaching and learning writing might work well only groups of language specializing students at secondary school

1.6 Method of the study

This study is conducted in the combination of quantitative and qualitative method Data were collected by means of survey questionnaires, classroom observation and interview The researcher believes that the combination of different methods to collect data could provide more reliable and valid information for analysis Questionnaires of small groups of English language specializing students and semi-structured interview are used to discover their perception of classroom activities used by the teacher in terms of their usefulness and their learning needs and expectations towards teachers Questionnaire and post-classroom observation interview with teachers of writing are to explore their common activities used in the way that help their students with essay writing skill as well as their perceived value of those activities

1.7 Design of the study

The research consists of four chapters The first chapter presents the rationale, the statement of the problem, the aims, research questions, the scope of the study, research methods as well as the design of the study The second chapter conceptualizes the framework through the discussion of issues and ideas on theories for academic writing, approaches to essay writing teaching, challenges of teaching and learning essay writing The third chapter presents the context of the study and explains the methodology used in the study including population information, instrumentation, data collection, data procedures, data analysis and findings The last chapter summarizes major findings and discussion, implications, limitations and provides recommendations for further study

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 An overview of writing

Writing is the expression of language in the form of letters, symbols, or words The primary purpose of writing is communication Good writing gets your ideas out of your head and into the reader's head without losing or distorting those ideas" (Leki 1976: 4); "Writing can be said to be the art of performing graphic symbols" (Byrne 1990: 1) or simply writing is like "making marks on a flat surface of some kind" However, writing is far more complicated process of transforming the material discovered by research inspiration, accident, trial, error or whatever into the message with a decision Writing is also a difficult activity for most people, both in the mother tongue and in a foreign language

From another view of writing, Murray (1978:29) and Perl (1979:43) defined writing as “a creative discovery procedure characterized by the dynamic interplay of

content and language: the use of language to explore beyond the known content.”

Moreover, writing is also defined as a social process by Candlin and Hyland (1999: 107) They stated that “Writing is therefore an engagement in a social process, where the production of texts reflects methodologies, arguments and rhetorical strategies

constructed to engage colleagues and persuade them of the claims that are made”

In language teaching, writing is defined as one of the two productive language skills including speaking and writing skill According to Ur (1996), “most people acquire the spoken language (at least their own mother tongue) intuitively, whereas, the written

form is in most cases deliberately taught and learned” (p.161) He added, “Writing

normally requires some form of instruction It is not a skill that is really picked up by exposure” (p11)

In short, writing is an art that writers want to communicate with certain groups of audience Essay writing is like academic writing but a special skill that does not spring naturally from an ability to speak a language Thus, essay writing is a skill in the process

of communication and related to other language skills on its own social role

2.1.1 Academic writing and essay writing

Academic writing according to Oshima and Hogue (1991:2) stated that “Academic writing, as the name implies, is the kind of writing that you are required to do in college or university It differs from the other kinds of writing (personal, literary, journalistic, business, etc.) In several ways Its differences can be explained in part by its special audience, tone, and purpose

To make the definition of academic writing clearer, Oshima and Hogue explain the mentioned differences in more detail According to them, in academic writing, the audience plays an important part, as they are the people who will read what have been written, and only when specifying the audience the writers can reach their goal of communicating clearly and effectively Beside the audience, the tone of writing is also a crucial factor Tone reveals the writer’s attitude towards the chosen subject by their choice

of words, grammatical structures and the length of sentences The tone of a piece of writing is determined more by its intended audience than its subject matter And the last difference is the purpose of writing In academic writing, the purpose will most often be to explain It may also be to persuade or to convince the audience of the correctness of the writer’s point of view on a particular issue And the organizational form and style chosen for writing will also be determined by the purpose of a piece of writing

Writing is thought made visible That means insights and ideas that occur to us when we encounter the raw material of the world-natural phenomena like the behavior of genes, or cultural phenomena, like texts, photographs and artifacts must be ordered in some

way so others can receive them and respond in turn This give and take is at the heart of the scholarly enterprise, and makes possible that vast conversation known as civilization Like all human ventures, the conventions of the academic essay are both logical and playful Essay writing is like academic writing but a special skill that does not spring naturally from ability to speaking a language An essay writer has a particular obligation to communicate information that is precise and correct as possible They may vary in expression from discipline to discipline, but any good essay should show us a mind developing a thesis, supporting that thesis with evidence, deftly anticipating objections or counter-arguments, and maintaining the momentum of discovery

2.1.2 Place of writing in foreign language classroom

Firstly, writing is not only an important form of communication in day-to-day life but also an essential skill for students preparing for university study At higher levels of education, it is a key aspect of academic literacy that aspiring scholars pursue as part of socialization in their disciplines Writing for academic purposes is a particularly challenging task for students studying English as a foreign language (EFL) The skills involved are highly complex, while at the same time students’ cultures have their own norms for structure and rhetoric which are not always compatible with the current conventions of academic English As Casanave (2002) points out, academic writing poses

a “clueless” challenge because the rules of the “game” are almost all implicit (p 19) Of these, textual competence (Bachman, 1990), or the ability to develop and organize ideas in

an academically persuasive manner according to “rules of cohesion and rhetorical organization” (p 88) constitutes the most formidable and crucial challenge From our personal experiences as classroom teachers in Vietnam, the author agrees with Hayashi’s (2005) observation that EFL students’ writings more often than not end up lacking a clear logical flow and unity, not to mention a persuasive linear argument

If learning how to produce writing that satisfies academic norms is the problem from a student’s perspective, from a teacher’s perspective this means the challenge is to prepare students with varying English proficiencies and from a non-English cultural and academic background to become flexible writers who can effectively tackle academic writing tasks from a variety of angles Because students are linguistically of mixed

abilities, a particular classroom writing task which is motivating and manageable to some can turn out to be daunting or impossible for others It is understandable that teachers of high school often complain that “writing is the most problematic skill to teach in such classes” (Hess, 2001, p 77)

It is obvious that writing is a difficult skill because it requires many characteristics which are not necessary for speaking such as formality, well- planned, accuracy and time

Secondly, the nature of writing causes many strategies for writers, According to Candlin and Hyland (1999:2), “every act of writing is thus linked in complex ways to a set

of communicative purposes which occur in a context of social, interpersonal and

occupational practice” Then they continue to indicate, “Each act of writing also constructs the reality that it describes, reproducing a particular mode of communication and

maintaining the social relationship which it implies” Therefore, writing is not only a

personal but also socio-cultural act of identity whereby writers both signal their membership in what maybe a range of communities of practices as well as express their own creative individuality

Last but not least, “writing helps our students learn”(Raimes,1983:3) According to her, writing can help students reinforce the grammatical structures, idioms and vocabulary that we have been teaching our students It also provides students a chance to be adventurous with the language to go beyond what they have just learned to say, to take risks And writing can make students become very involved with the new language, the effort to express ideas and the constant use of eyes, hand and brain is unique way to reinforce learning

In summary, teaching writing especially academic writing is necessary for students studying English as a foreign language (EFL) because it “normally requires some form of instruction” and “it is not a skill that is readily picked up by exposure” ( Tribble,1996:11)

2.2 Major approaches to teaching writing

There is no satisfactory answer to the question of how to teach writing efficiently There are various ways to teach writing but the most common are the product and the process approach And a distinction is often made between a product and a process approach to the teaching of writing

2.2.1 The product approach

“The product approach to writing usually involves the presentation of a model text, which is analyzed and then forms the basis of a task that leads to the writing of an exactly similar or a parallel text” ( Evan and St John, 1998: 116) To be more specific, this approach can be used to refer to the concentration on the features of the actual text- the end- product that writers have to produce that can be summarized in the following sequence:

Model text -> Comprehension / analysis/ manipulation -> new input -> Parallel text

(Robinson, 1991 cited in Evan and St John, 1998)

The product (or model text) approach sees writing as being primarily about linguistic knowledge Attention is given to the appropriate use of vocabulary, syntax and cohesive devices In EFL contexts, it is rooted in Behaviourist theory and requires the learner to manipulate fixed patterns which are learnt by imitation Proponents of the product approach see the composing process as being linear and consisting of four stages which is in line with the teaching structure of Present, Practice and Produce which emerged at around the same time These stages are:

Stage 1: Familiarization-this makes students aware of certain features of a particular text

Stages 2 and 3: Controlled and Guided writing- these stages aim at giving learners guided practice with increasing freedom to help them practice

Stage 4: Free writing-This is where the learners are finally given a free reign and can produce a piece of writing by imitating the sample text

This approach can be used successfully in teaching writing for beginners All learners can not write well as soon as they begin the course but can take progress step by step with imitation and repetition from the model texts or the teachers Moreover, teachers can impart the knowledge of writing theory including grammatical structures, word choices, cohesive device uses, how to vary the content, how to organize the essay

However, this approach can not avoid some shortcomings Students are passive and less creative All learners’ knowledge of writing skill is based on the teacher, textbook or model texts Using the approach often leads to a simplistic copying of the model text by only changing certain words from the original text to produce a new text, which prevents learners’ creativity and motivation from writing Next, mistakes are corrected during the writing, which to some extent discourages students to write more Most students are worried about mistakes that are considered common in writing for beginners

In brief, the product approach shows its strong points when provide the good base for beginners of writing to lead their writing practice However, if students owe their knowledge and skill of writing to the teacher and model text strictly, they will be very passive and often get shocked in the real official writing test where a new topic or a new kind of essay is introduced

2.2.2 The process approach

This method places emphasis on the cycle of writing, rather than a fixed linear approach such as the earlier Product approach It has much in common with communicative-task based instruction which is currently popular within communicative pedagogy Unlike the Product approach which is more interested in the written outcome, the Process approach focuses on the thinking processes that are involved with writing 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 Meanwhile, according to Oshima and Hogue (1991), the writing process embraces three steps: pre-writing, planning (outlining), writing, and revising drafts (review the draft (either by themselves, with their peers or their teacher)

The process approach itself helps organize the writer’s thoughts White and Arndt (1991, p.12) argue this is because there is a close link between writing and thinking

All these efforts in the process approach to writing see the act of writing from a very different perspective, focusing as much on the means whereby the completed text was created as on the end product itself In many instances the writer starts out with only the vaguest notion of this The ideas are then refined, developed and transformed as the writer writes and rewrites

Main features of the process approach

The process approach concerns itself with individual levels of fluency and expression It is a replacement of an approach that considered written language secondary and merely a mechanism for reinforcing spoken language The finished product is in focus, not the learner The process approach, in contrast, empowered its learners, thereby enabling them to make clearer decisions about the direction of their writing (Jordan 1997) Clenton (2003) states in the same vein "It is no longer required to offer a shining example

of the model; the teacher becomes a facilitator in providing formative feedback during the process of each student's composition Correspondingly, this approach encourages students

to assume greater responsibility for making their own improvements, as opposed to the miming of a pre-determined model."

This approach has some problem First, some learners are not proficient writers in their own language and struggle to put their thoughts on paper Many students said that they hardly ever wrote in their own language and had no prior experience this is particularly challenging for the teacher and students Peer teaching would help them notice successful techniques that other writers use Second, students are sometimes unable to

come up with suitable ideas related to the chosen topic This therefore depends a lot on the topics chosen The teacher must bear in mind the students various life experiences as well

as personality and interests Another problem is how to assess whether a process approach

is applicable in all settings where writing is taught According to Johns (1990:25), this approach focuses primarily on the writer as the originators of: “written text” in a context where “The process through which the writer goes to create and produce discourse is the most important component in the theory”

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

2.3 Essay writing as a form of Academic writing

Academic essays can be set in any subject we are studying and they require us to discuss an issue based on our knowledge of the topic A clear sense of argument is essential to all forms of academic writing, for writing is thought made visible Insights and ideas that occur to us when we encounter the raw material of the world-natural phenomena like the behavior of genes, or cultural phenomena, like texts, photographs and artifacts-must be ordered in some way so others can receive them and respond in turn Like all human ventures, the conventions of the academic essay are both logical and playful They may vary in expression from discipline to discipline, but any good essay should show us a mind developing a thesis, supporting that thesis with evidence, deftly anticipating objections or counter-arguments, and maintaining the momentum of discovery

Essays are formal entities, and the language we use should reflect that The style of

an academic essay should be appropriate and consistent This is very different from an informal piece of writing An essay has to have a purpose or motive; the mere existence of

an assignment or deadline is not sufficient When you write an essay or research paper,

you are never simply transferring information from one place to another, or showing that you have mastered a certain amount of material That would be incredibly boring-and besides, it would be adding to the glut of pointless utterance Instead, writers should be trying to make the best possible case for an original idea you have arrived at after a period

of research Depending upon the field, your research may involve reading and rereading a text, performing an experiment, or carefully observing an object or behavior

2.4 Challenges of teaching and learning essay writing

Writing is not only an important form of communication in day-to-day life but also

an essential skill for students preparing for university study Writing for academic purposes

is a particularly challenging task for students studying English as a foreign language (EFL) The skills involved are highly complex, while at the same time students’ cultures have their own norms for structure and rhetoric which are not always compatible with the current conventions of academic English Of these, textual competence (Bachman, 1990),

or the ability to develop and organize ideas in an academically persuasive manner according to “rules of cohesion and rhetorical organization” (p 88) constitutes the most formidable and crucial challenge From our personal experiences as classroom teachers in Vietnam, we agree with Hayashi’s (2005) observation that EFL students’ writings more often than not end up lacking a clear logical flow and unity, not to mention a persuasive linear argument

If learning how to produce writing that satisfies academic norms is the problem from a student’s perspective, from a teacher’s perspective this means the challenge is to prepare students with varying English proficiencies and from a non-English cultural and academic background to become flexible writers who can effectively tackle academic writing tasks from a variety of angles Because students are linguistically of mixed abilities, a particular classroom writing task which is motivating and manageable to some can turn out to be daunting or impossible for others Therefore, academic writing teachers

in EFL contexts must cope with such problem as how to make students get involved in writing tasks, how to encourage stronger students’ motivation and interest be sustained while opportunities for weaker students to complete tasks be guaranteed and how to help

students benefit most from their cooperation in the classroom so that all can make progress during the course

2.5 Conclusion

In summary, in this chapter, the author has reviewed issues, and aspects concerning the topic of the study Moreover, the knowledge of academic writing, essay writing, writing teaching approaches, challenges of teaching and learning essay writing in EFL context are also taken into consideration In the following chapter, the context of the study, the methodology, data collection procedures and data collection and data analysis will be proposed

CHAPTER THREE: THE STUDY

3.1 The context of the study

The study was conducted in Le Hong Phong specialized secondary school, a longtime established school in the system of specialized schools It was founded in 1920 and called Thanh Chung school It was officially called Le Hong Phong Specialized Secondary school in 1993 It has gained appreciable results which play a crucial role in the cause of education and training of Nam Dinh province in particular and of the nation in general With the total of 166 national and 24 international prizes ( from 1994 to 2009), Le Hong Phong specialized secondary school has been appreciated as one of the schools which has the most effective quality in target education through out the country The teachers all have good knowledge, experience and they are all enthusiastic, sensitive and creative The school equips language teachers with modern teaching facilities like OHPs, whiteboards and computers Likewise, each division has its own well-equipped room with various kinds of books, material, newspapers, magazines and computers connected to the Internet In addition, most of the classrooms have been equipped with modern teaching aids devices such as OHPs, white boards, projectors Moreover, there are also two informatics technology rooms with many internet-connected computers, which are often available for students to get access

According to Department of Upper School Education Regulations for Specialized Schools, each province in the country has the right to establish a specialized school in order to attract and train the talents for the nation Each year our school is responsible for forming 33 specializing classes with 11 specializing groups-mathematics, informatics, physics, chemistry, biology, literature, history, geography, English, Russian and French Le Hong Phong specialized school has the right to select students before other schools in province The perquisite conditions for these competitors are over the fairly good standard capacity and 8,0 for the language specializing subject result at the ninth grade All of them have to take three compulsory subjects-Maths, Literature, English and a specialized subject

in which the specialized mark will be doubled In the same way, those who take entrance examination for language specializing class have to take three compulsory subjects and a

specialized English subject With these requirements and conditions, Le Hong Phong specialized secondary school has good opportunities to select good students Therefore, the basic of English the language specializing students have is at a rather high level This creates conditions for the teachers to nurture and foster the talents

Moreover, according to our observations and to teachers’ opinions, another fundamental advantage of target training is the keen interest of English language specializing students in English Most of the English language specializing students are girls so they are very studious Besides, due to the fact that they have been familiarized with different foreign cultures, English language specializing students seem to be more active and more confident than others It is of great help for teaching and learning

3.2 Methodology

The methodology conducted in the research including the participants, instrumentation, data procedures, data collection and data analysis will be presented in the part

3.2.1 Participants

The subject of this study was drawn from two sources divided into two groups: The first group includes 30 eleventh English language specializing students at Le Hong Phong specialized secondary school in Nam Dinh The proportion of schools boys to girls was 3/30 (the number of male students accounted for 10% of the student population).They were supposed to be at an intermediate high level of proficiency in English These students have learnt English for at least 5 years All of them are very keen on learning English and are able to use English as a means of communication in the class with their teacher and classmates Those language specializing English students are now using secondary textbooks for students of social science and humanities disciple (Tieng Anh 10, 11, 12 nang cao) as the main source of materials

The reason for selecting eleventh English language specializing students but 10th or

12th grade was that it was not until the 11th grade that they were learnt how to write essay

lessons and at that time they had a chance to be selected and established the national combined group (including 11th and 12th grade students)

The second group is composed of six teachers of English teaching writing skills for English language specializing students at least for 2 years These teachers, whose ages ranged from mid-twenties to over fifties, were invited to join in this study The proportion

of female teachers to male teacher is prominent, that is, (one male, 5 females)

The reason for choosing these six teachers was that they had experience in teaching English language specializing students, especially teaching essay-writing skills

Instrument two: A questionnaire with 2 sections completed by teachers of English at

school where the study was conducted Refer to Appendix B

The first section contained the teachers’ general information, that is, their gender, age, and the number of years they had been teaching English and writing skill The other

section was about teachers’ frequency of classroom activities, their perceived value of those activities, challenges they face with in teaching essay writing and their solution

Instrument three: Semi- structured interview to students

A one-on one interview was conducted with 11 eleventh English language specializing students chosen at random after each classroom observation It 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 13 structured questions and some non-structured questions 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 C

Instrument four: Classroom observation

It was a non- participant observation in which the researcher watched, followed and noted down activities, which were performed in the real classroom settings The observation was carried out within 3 periods (total 135 minutes) in the eleventh English specialized class

The observation protocol was adapted from Qualitative Inquiry and research Design Choosing among Five Traditions which was written by John W Cressell (1997) (Refer to Appendix D)

3.3 Data collection procedures

In the first two weeks, the classroom performance by two teachers of eleventh English language specializing class was observed The required permissions needed to gain access to the classroom from the headmaster and the head of English group and the teachers were obtained in advance The observation was taken note down in detail and interpreted and then the findings and conclusions were drawn from them

On the next week, the questionnaire was handed to 30 eleventh English language specializing students They were asked to complete the questionnaire either in Vietnamese

or English within 15 -20 minutes The researcher asked the teacher for permission to have

a personal contact with the study population in order to explain the purpose, relevance and importance of the study, as well as to clarify any questions that the students had At the same time, the survey to the teachers was delivered to 6 teachers of English They had three days to complete it

At last, 10 students of 11th English language specializing class were chosen at random to participate in one-on-one interview It was conducted in a quiet room from distraction on the fifth period of the second and third Saturday of May Before the interview started, the researcher explained the nature of the research, the purpose of the interview and the amount of time to complete the conversation The researcher was ready

to answer any questions that the students had The interviewees were also informed that the data were to be recorded and how the data were to be used later on

The data were collected and then analyzed to survey the students’ perception of teacher’s classroom activities in terms of the usefulness of those activities and the extent to which those activities satisfy their expectations as well as compare the opinions of the two groups

3.4 Data analysis

All collected data were read through to obtain a sense of the overall information The observation notes were rewritten down carefully, the interview transcriptions were jotted down, the results were then shown in tables, figures and charts

So far, this part had presented in detail methodology, participants (population), instruments and procedure of collecting The following part will deal with the data analysis and findings on the obtained results The general information about 30 students and 6 teachers will be presented in the first place

The total number of the students chosen in the study was 30, of which 27 were females and 3 were male students They were 11th English language specializing students Most of them (about 93%) had been learning English for more than 5 years and only 2 (7%) had experience of less than 5 years in learning English Among the 6 teachers taking part in the study, there was only one male teacher Their age ranged from 27 to 54 Their

experience in teaching English language varied from 3 to 30 years During the school year 2009-2010, at the same time the study was being carried out, they were teaching English for specialized classes as well as teaching writing skill and essay writing skill for English language specializing students

Chart 1 below shows the frequency of writing essay by students

It can be shown from the chart that the students often wrote essays at least once or twice a week Some of them (10%) were very interested in practicing writing essays and had three or four essay writing paper a week

Research question 1: What are the common activities do teachers use to develop

students’ essay writing skills?

From the data collected from classroom observation and post observation interview with teachers and analyzed teacher questionnaires, it reveals that all of the teachers of writing often used pre-writing activities such as having students group brainstorm to generate ideas and make outlines, giving structures and vocabulary related to given topics, giving feedback, etc Among those activities, the majority of the teachers (making up 83%

in table1) often offered structures and vocabulary in a writing lesson The explanation for this could be that learners still felt unsure about how to use new structures and words in writing and they were heavily affected by university entrance examination Also, the same percentage of the population often asked students to work in pairs or group to make

outlines before starting writing tasks As making outlines will improve students’ writing skill for three reasons First of all, it will help them organize their ideas properly Moreover, an outline will ensure that students will not include any irrelevant ideas, that they will not leave out any important ideas and that their supporting sentences will be in a logical order Second, outlining will help them write more quickly It may take some practice at first, but once they become used to outlining their ideas before starting to write The actual writing becomes easier because they do not have to worry about what they are going to say, they have already have a well-organized plan to follow Finally, their grammar will improve because they will be able to concentrate on it not on thoughts

Table 1: The frequency of using classroom activities by teachers in writing lessons

Classroom activities very

often often sometimes rarely never

a Giving structures and

vocabulary related to given

topic

b Generating ideas through

c Asking students to work in

pair or group to make outline 17% 83%

d Giving and guiding how to

e Using a model essay and

f Using other aids (pictures,

g Writing your own thesis

g Writing topic for each

About half of the study population often gave and guided students how to use cohesive devices, asked students to write their own thesis statement and assigned the writing task in a limited time

According to the interviewed teachers after classroom observation, giving feedback and correction was time-consuming and challenging Because of limited time in the class, teachers only collected two or three students’ paper to give feedback and correction in front of the class Mainly, correcting common grammar errors, word choice and expression, the rest were for self-correcting and peer-correcting During this phase, students could exchange their first draft and pointed out changes, eg (better organization, paragraph division, sentence variety, word choice).They could also act as each other’s editor It is only fair that student writing is responded to suitably positive comments can help build students confidence and create good feelings for the next writing class They

also stated that their students still favored comments on the grammatical and lexical correctness of their work

Visual aids such as games, music, pictures, maps, reading text, ect could help to reduce the stress in the classroom ad create a better learning environment Yet, only 32 teachers (33%) offered visual aids and one third never did it for two reasons First, essay types mainly focus on making an argument, giving an explanation, starting a preference or agreeing or disagreeing, which did not need much illustration from pictures, maps, games and so on Moreover, because of the limited time, some teachers only provided some reading materials related to the topics for students to read at home and get the necessary information

Using model essays-and analyzing it only preferred by 33% of the teachers whereas there was a slightly high percentage of the sample rarely or never provided model essays (23%, 17% accordingly).The fact was that they only offered model essay and analyzing it when introducing a new type of essay in order that their students were familiar with the format essay, the language style and its organization

In short, most of the teachers stated that they often used various kinds of classroom activities to foster the students’ writing skill development Among them, that providing new structures and vocabulary in writing lesson, asking students to work in pairs or group

of four or five to brainstorming for general ideas, adding ideas and supporting ideas, organizing ideas which were generated and then developed an outline from a brainstorming list was more often used by the majority of the teachers However, a small number of teachers did not often provide a model essay as well as have the students write rough draft

in the classroom As the matter of the fact that they did not have much time and at the same time, according to the interviewed teachers, many of their students had no interest in writing drafts They preferred writing a complete essay writing paper as soon as having an outline guided by their teacher

Research question 2: What are the students’ perceptions of the usefulness of those

activities to their writing proficiency?

In order to investigate the students’ perception of teacher’s classroom activities in terms of their usefulness, questionnaires were handed to both thirty 11th English language specializing students and six teachers to obtain the necessary information

As can be shown from the table 2 that teacher provided students with new structures and vocabulary and got them to group brainstorm to generate ideas and make outlines was very useful for all the students It is obvious that most of the respondents, at some point, had difficulty finding ideas to write about Likewise, many students had excellent ideas but did not have sufficient vocabulary in English to express them in such cases, students simply used vocabulary incorrectly and became incomprehensible but more commonly, and students in this situation were likely to write in a simpler style than was suitable for English for academic purposes Thus, by brainstorming, asking questions, students will quickly overcome this difficulty And during prewriting activities, which the teachers moved around answer questions on structure, lexical items, the validity of an argument, the order of presentation of the information, etc was of great benefit to students

Table 2: The students’ perception of the activities used by teachers in terms of their usefulness

Classroom activities

very useful useful

don't know

not very useful

not useful at all

a Giving structures and

vocabulary related to given

c Asking students to work

in pair or group to make

outline

22 73% 8 27%

d Giving and guiding how

to use cohesive devices 8 27% 12 40% 7 33%

e Using a model essay and

f Using other aids

(pictures, maps, music,

According to the teacher’s perceived value of those activities, all of them agreed with their students on three useful above activities, namely, giving structures and vocabulary, asking students to work in pairs or group to generate ideas and make outlines

In addition, the majority of the teachers asserted that having students write his or her own thesis statement and topic for each paragraph was of great help whereas 20% of the students did not find writing his or her own thesis statement useful and writing topic for each paragraph was not useful at all, accounting for 17% of the respondents As they found

it very challenging to write their own thesis statement and topic for each paragraph without teacher’s help

Accidentally, the same percentage of the teachers agreed with their students that giving and guiding how to use cohesive devices and using a model essay and analyzing it was useful for students (67%, 83% respectively) Six teachers in the interview all confirmed that they always reminded their students of using transitional words to link up sentences or a paragraph with another, which would help the reader to understand the writing more easily Beside that, the reading of a model essay and analyzing it, so important in a product-oriented approach to writing, is not to subjugate the students’ ideas

to their organization, but to make students aware that there is a particular way to express their ideas In this way, students are given the form in order to enable them to adapt it to carry their own meaning

Also, the table 2 shows that the students found using other aids (pictures, maps, music, ect) not useful outdid those favored using other aids (12, making up 40%) in comparison with 10 (making up 33%) They stated that essay writing did not need help with other aids such as games, map, music except for reading materials for reference whereas more than half of the teachers ( 60% refer in table 3) claimed that using other aids such as reading texts were of great usefulness for students That was they provided students background knowledge of given topic, wide range of vocabulary, grammatical structures and meaningful expression and language style

Table 3: The teacher’ perceived value of classroom activities used in terms of their usefulness

Classroom activities

very useful useful

don't know

not very useful

c Asking students to work

in pair or group to make

outline

d Giving and guiding

how to use cohesive

devices

e Using a model essay

f Using other aids

(pictures, maps, music,