The effect of teachers’ self reflection on learners’ writing achievement at an english language center in hanoi

DECLARATION I, Lê Thị Nhàn, declare that the thesis entitled “The effect of teachers’ reflection on learners’ writing achievement at an English language center in Hanoi” reports the resu

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES &INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

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

LÊ THỊ NHÀN

THE EFFECT OF TEACHERS’ SELF-REFLECTION

ON LEARNERS’ WRITING ACHIEVEMENT AT AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CENTER IN HANOI

(VAI TRÒ CỦA CHIẾN LƯỢC TỰ PHẢN HỒI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN ĐỐI VỚI KẾT QUẢ THI VIẾT CỦA HỌC SINH TẠI MỘT

TRUNG TÂM ANH NGỮ TẠI HÀ NỘI )

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 140 111

Hanoi – 2014

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

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

LÊ THỊ NHÀN

THE EFFECT OF TEACHERS’ SELF-REFLECTION

ON LEARNERS’ WRITING ACHIEVEMENT AT AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CENTER IN HANOI

(VAI TRÒ CỦA CHIẾN LƯỢC TỰ PHẢN HỒI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN ĐỐI VỚI KẾT QUẢ THI VIẾT CỦA HỌC SINH TẠI MỘT

TRUNG TÂM ANH NGỮ TẠI HÀ NỘI )

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 140 111

Supervisor: Tô Thị Thu Hương, PhD

Hanoi - 2014

DECLARATION

I, Lê Thị Nhàn, declare that the thesis entitled “The effect of teachers’ reflection on learners’ writing achievement at an English language center in Hanoi” reports the result of the study conducted by myself The minor thesis is submitted to the Faculty of Post-graduate studies, ULIS, Hanoi for the Degree of Master in TESOL It has not been published anywhere

self-Hanoi, September 15th, 2014

Lê Thị Nhàn

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In the first place, I would like to send my sincere thankfulness to my supervisor – Ms To Thi Thu Huong for all her valuable guidance, helpful advices, recommendation, and encouragement during the time I tried to complete this minor thesis Without her, I would not have followed the right direction for the accomplishment of this research

Secondly, I would like to express my gratitude to all those who gave me the possibility to complete this thesis I want to thank Wider World Language Center for giving me permission to work with their students and to do the necessary research work in their office I have furthermore to thank all the students of Wider World Language Center for their stimulating participations and valuable hints

Thirdly, I would like to thank all the teachers of Post-Graduate Faculty for their valuable lectures which lay the foundation for my minor thesis

Last but not least, I would like to express my biggest love and thankfulness

to my family for their unconditional contributions during my thesis production It was my parents who gave me the will to continue this challenging work

ABSTRACT The concept of teachers’ self-reflection refers to the extent to which teachers contemplate and reflect on their teaching experience in the classroom in order to improve their teaching skills This study seeks to explore the effect of teacher’s self-reflection on the learners’ writing achievement at a language center The main objectives were to (1) examine whether teacher’s self-reflection have any effect on the students’ writing achievement and (2) to what extent this innovative teaching strategy have had an impact on students’ writing skills In order to reach these objectives, the action research was conducted on 15 EFL learners at Wider World language Center The effectiveness of the program was investigated through the comparison of students’ pre-test and post-test scores, and analysis of teacher’s diary The results of the study indicated that teacher’s self-reflection do have facilitating effect on students’ writing achievement The findings also revealed that the attitudes of students towards learning English writing were more positive On this basis, the study recommended some implications for teaching and directions for further research with reference to the context of teaching English writing at language centers in Vietnam

TABLE OF CONTENT

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENT iv

ABBREVIATIONS vii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES……… viii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale for the study 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

3 Research questions 2

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Significance of the research 3

6 Method of the study 4

7 Design of the research 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 An overview of teaching writing 6

1.1.1 Role of writing and teaching writing 6

1.1.2 Approaches to teaching writing 7

1.2 An overview of reflection 8

1.2.1 Definition of reflection 8

1.2.2 Importance of reflection 9

1.2.3 Models/frameworks of reflection 10

1.3 Related studies 12

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Rationale for action research design 15

2.2 Background of the study 16

2.2.1 Setting……… …… 16

2.2.2 Participants……… 16

2.2.3 The English program and the writing component……… 17

2.3 Data collection instruments 18

2.3.1 Writing tests……… 18

2.3.2 Teacher’s diary 19

2.3.3 Students’ journal 19

2.3.4 Students’ writing products and portfolios 19

2.4 Implementation of the action research 20

2.5 Data analysis procedure 23

CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 3.1 Findings 24

3.1.1 The results of students’ pre-tests and post-tests……… 24

3.1.2 The results of teacher’s diary……… 27

3.2 Discussion 33

3.2.1 Research question 1……… 33

3.2.2 Research question 2……… 34

3.3 Pedagogical implications 36

PART C: CONCLUSION 1 Summary of the study 38

2 Limitations of the study 39

3 Recommendations for further studies 40

REFERENCES 42 APPENDICES I Appendix 1: Checklist of writing tasks in Energy 1 I Appendix 2: Pre-test II Appendix 3: Post-test III Appendix 4: Teacher’s diary IV Appendix5: Students’ journal VI

Appendix 6: Checklist of grading rubric for writing test……….VIII Appendix 7: Students’ writing pre-test scores X Appendix8: Students’ writing post-test scores XI Appendix9: Students’ writing sample (before the intervention) ,.XII Appendix10: Students’ writing sample (after the intervention) XIV Appendix11: Teacher’s diary sample XVI Appendix12: Students’ journal sample XXII

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL English as a foreign language

TEFL Teaching English as a foreign language TESL Teaching English as a second language WWLC Wider World language center

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1 Comparison on central tendency in students’ pre-test and post-test 25 Table 2 Comparison on variance in students’ pre-test and post-test 26 Table 3 Comparison on standard deviation in students’ pre-test and post-test 26 Table 4 Students’ writing performance in the pre-test 28 Table 5 Students’ writing performance in the post-test 30 Figure 1 Comparison on distribution of students’ pre-test and post-test scores 24

PART A: INTRODUCTION This very first chapter of the thesis is to introduce the rationale for the study, the aim and objectives of the study as well as the research questions which the study was to carry out to find out the answers It also presents the scope of the study, the significance of the study, an overview of the methods employed to conduct the research as well as the design of the study

1 Rationale for the study

EFL teaching theories and methods have been explored for a long time Thanks to the development of psychology and pedagogy, many teaching methods have influenced EFL teaching, such as immersion, task-based, content-based, project-based, which could be classified into three major categories of language-centered, student-centered and learning- centered In the 21st century, EFL teaching methods began to be doubted

as some linguists held that there should not be the most effective method A trend of anti-method is spread which brought about the approaching of the post-method era Famous linguist Kumaravadivelu proposed the post method pedagogy with his macro strategies’ theory in the early 21st century, with corresponding EFL teaching theories and curriculum reform as a result

The post - method era in language teaching is characterized with a movement away from fixed methodological packages for teaching language toward a concern with teachers’ professional expertise, growth, wisdom, experience, learners’ needs, the context of teaching, and the political conditions of the environment in which teaching takes place (Prabhu, 1990; Kumaravadivelu, 2001; Richards, 2002).This is an indication of the importance of teachers’ professional development in recent years (Harmer, 2001, cited in Al-Hashmi, 2004) Also of importance is teachers’ ability to go beyond existing norms and taken for granted habits and their ability to practice innovative ideas One way for teachers to develop professionally is to use reflection as

an indispensable part of their practice (Calderhead & Gates, 1993)

A reflection professional development project involves supporting teachers to reflect

on aspects of their practice in order to understand it better and then to try out improvements One popular approach is action research, in which teachers select a focus for research that is of particular importance for them, such as an issue in teaching and learning that they have found to be problematic, or a new challenge that they are facing The teachers then reflect on the issue they have chosen, and gather information from various sources, develop some course of action to address it As they try out their planned action in practice, they observe the effects carefully, and then adjust, refine or otherwise change their innovation before trying it out again, and so on in a cycle of action, reflection and refinement Through this cycle of reflection and action, teachers move towards an improvement in their practice in a way that is relevant to their context and founded on careful reflection and discussion

The connection between reflection and development of teacher’s skills and student’s improvement is documented in international literature There is, however, no known local research in the context of Vietnamese English language centers examines this area This paper contributes to filling this research gap by reporting on a study which seeks to understand how teaching reflectively aid in improving students’ English writing achievement at Wider World Language Center (WWLC) in Hanoi

2 Aim and objective of the study

The aim of this study is finding the suitable method to improve the English writing achievement of students at WWLC Within this purpose, the central objective of this study is to examine the effectiveness of teacher’s self- reflection on improving the students’ English writing achievement as measured by the pre-test and post-test

3 Research questions

In order to achieve the research objective, the study was designed to find out the answers to the following questions:

1 Does teacher’s self-reflection have any effect on the English writing achievement of students at Wider World Language Center?

2 To what extend does the application of teacher’s self-reflection improve students’ English writing achievement at the center?

4 Scope of the study

The research was conducted on 15 students at WWLC Regarding its scope, the research was only aimed at justifying the effect of teacher’s self- reflection on the students’ English writing skill Other aspects of English learning would not be investigated due to the relevant constraints of a minor thesis

Moreover, this research involves with the relationship between teacher’s self- reflection and students’ English writing achievement in a small scale with the young students of a center in Hanoi The result of this research, therefore, can be generalized

in order to find the better pedagogical innovation in teaching at this center Although it

is conducted in a small scale, it might be considered as a part of a big picture about language teaching in post method era and can be a basis for further studies

5 Significance of the study

There is unknown quote that “if you always do what you always did, then you always get what you always got” This quote illustrates the necessity for practitioners in any environment to consider how best to refresh their practice, to get better at what they do,

to benefit from good practice that they may have seen in others, or to avoid aspects of their own practice that students or others have told them needs correction

This paper contributes as introducing the use of reflection as a practical means of improving the quality of teacher’s teaching and contributing to their future professional lives

Moreover, in the context of Vietnam the number of studies on the development of young learner teaching method is still limited; this study therefore contributes a small role in filling this gap especially in the context of an English language center

6 Methods of the study

The methodological approach employed in this study is an action research, with the use

of a number of data collection instruments, namely students’ English writing tests, teacher’s diary, students’ journal and students’ portfolios Action research has proved

to be the best choice for this study because the study was aimed at improving the students’ writing skill within a certain context The combination of different instruments used in this research would help to gain reliable data and help the researcher gain useful insights into the problems that the students were having

Data were collected by means of two sets of English writing tests in pre –, post – intervention stages and teacher’s diary The results of the pre-test and post-test helped

to identify the changes in the students’ English writing achievement before and after the treatment, i.e the use of self-reflection in teaching English writing Other sources

of data come from students’ writing portfolios, teacher’s diary and students’ journal after each lesson contributed to the investigation of any changes in students’ attitude after the intervention

7 Design of the study

The study is divided into three parts: the Introduction, the Development, and the Conclusion

Part A gives an overview of the study with the rationale for the research, the aim and objective, the research questions, and the significances of the study It also narrows the scope, presents the research methods and outlines the content of the study

Part B is the Development which is divided into 3 chapters:

Chapter I presents the literature review relevant to the study including theoretical background of writing and reflective teaching

Chapter II describes in details the research methods used in the study with the necessary components before supplying information about the procedures of collecting the data

Chapter III presents the results, discusses the findings of the collected data and provides some pedagogical implications

Part C is the conclusion, summarizes the key issues in the study, points out the limitations and provides some suggestions for further study

Summary

In this chapter, a brief overview of the study is presented The next chapter will review the literature that is relevant to the study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter gives an overview of relevant literature and researches that deal with teaching writing skill and reflection

1.1 An overview of teaching writing

1.1.1 Role of writing and teaching writing

As defined by Byrne (1988) writing is much more than the production of graphic symbols, just as speech is more than the production of sounds because the symbols have to be arranged, according to certain conventions, to form words, and words have

to be arranged to form sentences, then the sentences have been put in order and linked together to form a coherent whole

Writing is also defined as a social process by Candlin and Hyland (1999, p.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 teaching a language, writing is considered one of the four macro-language skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) that a learner is expected to master Writing

is foundational to success in academics, in the work place and in the global economy

In an increasingly demanding world of literacy, the importance of ensuring students’ proficiency in writing can never be overemphasized In light of this, teaching learners

to write well should be top priority of a worthwhile education system

Raimes (1983, p.3) thinks there is “….an additional and very important reason: writing helps our students learn.” She shows three ways in which teaching writing can help students in their learning:

- First, writing reinforces the grammatical structures, idioms and vocabulary that

we have been teaching our students

- Second, when our students write, they also have a chance to be adventurous with the language, to go beyond that they have just learned to say, to take risks

- Thirdly, when they write, they necessarily become very involved with the new language, the effort to express ideas and the constant use of eye, hand and brain

is a unique way to reinforce learning

Writing is a productive skill, so it is writing that provides students with a chance to put language into use 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 a better and more effective writer

With all the roles mentioned above, writing really becomes an integral part in almost every language syllabus from elementary to tertiary level

1.1.2 Approaches to teaching writing

Up to dates, there are several approaches to teaching writing in the classroom According to Raimes (1983, pp 237-260), there are 3 principal ways of approaching the task of teaching writing: focusing on form, focusing on the writer and focusing on the reader The first perspective can be found in traditional, text-based approach or product approach Teachers who adopt this approach often present authoritative text for students to imitate or adapt and they may see errors as something they have a professional obligation to correct and eliminate (Tribble, 1996) The second approach which is called “process approach” emerges in part as a reaction against the tradition of form- focus It particularly stresses on the writers as an independent producers of text The third approach called “genre approach” is considered to be more socially oriented with the assumption that if the reader cannot recognize the purpose of a text, communication cannot be successful

From the analysis and the comparison of the approaches, it is undeniable that each approach has its own strengths and weaknesses In the context of students at WWLC the teacher applied all three approaches to teach writing The product approach seem to

be a good choice because the target participants are students at the age of 10 and 11, they are the beginners at writing; therefore, they need the assistance of the teacher to guide them how to write a good piece of writing In addition, the reflection that the researcher used to intervene is an application of process approach where the researcher focused on the process to help students achieve good writing skills Furthermore, the genre approach is also used to help students be familiar with different type of writing tasks, to different audiences

1.2 An overview of reflection

1.2.1 Definition

When it comes to the notion of reflection, John Dewey is often considered to be the originator of this concept who defines this method as an ‘active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends ’(1933, p 9, cited in Jay and Johnson, 2002, p 74) From Dewey’s perspective, when teachers are confronted with some teaching situations, they act either in routine or reflective ways Teachers who act routinely accept the circumstances without questioning, however, the teachers who have a reflective stance rather than following habitual ways teach on the basis of reasoned principles The reflective teachers think about the problems in their own teaching practice and ponder how those problems are related to their educational and social contexts

According to Hoover (1994) reflection “is a carefully planned set of experiences that foster sensitivity to ways of looking at and talking about previously unarticulated beliefs concerning teaching” (p 84, cited in Farrell, 2001, p 36) Hoover seems to believe that reflection is a systematic practice that can be learned from the past experiences one has had (Farrell, 2001) Hoover’s understanding of reflection is very much similar to that of Gebhard who believes that “Reflection includes thoughtful persistent consideration of beliefs or practices” (Gebhard, 2005, p.4)

Boud, Keogh and Walker (1985, p.19) view reflection as ‘intellectual and affective abilities, in which individuals engage to explore their experiences in order to achieve new understandings and appreciations Teachers generally reflect on their teaching and students’ learning, how effective their instructional decisions are, approaches to teaching, improving practice and cognitive awareness of their reflective processes (McAlpine, Weston, Berhiaume & Fairbank, 2004)

From these above definitions of term, the researcher of this study recognized that a common feature of the reflection is the questioning of ‘self’, that is, one’s belief, values, assumptions, context and goals in relation to such actions, events, or decisions Therefore, the term “self-reflection” in this study would be referred to “reflection” which was based on the definition of Hubball, Collins and Pratt (2005) These authors defined reflection as “the thoughtful consideration and questioning of what we do, what works and what doesn’t, and what premises and rationales underlie our teaching and that of others” (p.60) Reflection begins with one’s willingness to question his/her practice, develops with observing students, identifying their needs and ends with action, i.e., in this context, adapting his/her teaching style to match students’ learning styles

1.2.2 Importance of reflection

There are many reasons for teachers to use reflection in their teaching At present context, classroom represents increasing diversity among students, a teacher therefore, has to accommodate and adjust to this greater range of differences in ethnicity, socioeconomic status, developmental levels, motivation to learn, and achievement Being responsive to this vast array of students’ needs requires teachers who are reflective Engaging in reflection helps teachers recognize behaviors and practices which impede their potential for tolerance and acceptance - the vital elements for meeting the needs of all students in a diverse society moving toward a global community

According to Farrell (2001), with reflection, teachers would recall, consider, and evaluate their teaching experiences as a means of improving future ones Elder and Paul (1994), and Halpern (1996) in addition, point out that reflective teachers would think critically, which involves the willingness to question, take risks in teaching, try out new strategies and ideas, seek alternatives, take control of teaching, use higher order thinking skills and reflect upon their own teaching processes which ultimately will lead to the enhancement of students’ learning

In addition, according to Markham (1999), teacher would use their intuition, initiative, values, and experience during teaching, and exercise judgment about the use of various teaching and research skills This process could improve their ability to react and respond—as they are teaching—to assess, revise, and implement approaches and activities on the spot More important, this could aid in encouraging teachers in their role as autonomous professionals, by encouraging them to take greater responsibilities for their own professional growth by deepening an awareness of their practice, set within their unique particular socio-political contexts

Moreover, students also stood to benefit from reflection Reflection encourages teachers to know about their learners and what elements of good practice will develop effective learning Teacher need to be able to adapt and adjust content and style to suit the need of students This will lead to creative and innovative approaches to classroom and school situations and problems, and this could eventuate into improved learning opportunities for students

1.2.3 Models/frameworks of reflection

As far as the models and frameworks of reflection are concerned, a variety of dominant models have been mentioned in the literature

Zeichner and Liston (1996, pp.45-46) proposed a model for reflection which includes

of the following five dimensions: a) rapid reflection which “is likely to be personal and private … in rapid reflection, teachers reflect immediately and automatically while

they are acting,” b) repair which “is still reflection-in-action, but here there is a quick pause for thought,” c) review which “is interpersonal and collegial, and can happen at any time during or after the teacher’s work day,” d) research in which “the teachers’ thinking and observation becomes more systematic and sharply focused around particular issues It could be regarded as a more systematic reflection-on-action over a period of time” and e) re-theorizing and research in which “reflection is more abstract and rigorous than in the other dimensions Here, while teachers critically examine their practical theories, they also consider these theories in light of public academic theories”

Another model of reflection is the one given by Van Manen (1991) In his model Van Manen looks at reflection as a three-dimensional phenomenon His reflection levels resemble Schon’s reflective in action which occurs when teacher interact with students

in class and reflective on action which occurs after the fact His reflection for action, or

‘anticipatory reflection,’ “allows a teacher to plan, decide a course of action, and anticipate future consequences of the actions”

Stanley (1998) presents a model including five levels In the first phase, ‘engaging with reflection,’ he talks about teachers’ awareness of reflection He believes that “When basic personal, professional, and contextual factors are stable and teachers are curious about learning the process of reflecting on their teaching, they can engage with reflection” (p 686) In the second phase called ‘thinking reflectively,’ he believes that reflection can be regarded as an ability that should be learned and mastered during the teaching process In this phase, called ‘using reflection,’ he assumes that “When teachers have understood what reflection is and how to think reflectively, they can use

it as a tool to find and explore the actions that are commensurate with their context In the next phase, i.e., ‘sustaining reflection,’ Stanley refers to different problems teachers confront while trying to practice reflection And finally in the fifth phase which is

‘practicing reflection,’ he refers to the practical aspects of reflective teaching as an indispensable part of teacher reflectivity

In 2002, Jay and Johnson proposed a typology for reflection which includes descriptive, comparative, and critical reflection Descriptive reflection refers to the identification, description and recognition of the problem to be reflected on Comparative reflection involves “thinking about the matter for reflection from a number of different frames or perspectives” (p 78) In this dimension a reflective teacher tries to know about others’ ideas and checks other alternatives which might have some discrepancies with his/her own points of view Critical reflection “involves teachers looking at all the different perspectives of a situation or problem and at all of the players involved: teachers, students, the school, and the community” (Farrell, 2004, p.22) In this dimension of reflection, “By taking in the broader context of schooling, reflective practitioners come to see themselves as agents of change, capable of understanding not only what is, but also working to create what should be” (Jay and Johnson, 2002, p 79)

1.3 Related studies

Recently, reflection has come to be regarded as an important teacher-related factor in the field of TEFL/TESL by many researchers A lot of studies have been carried out to investigate the impacts of reflection on teacher, students as well as other factors

McCollum (1997) investigated the effect of providing teachers with a framework for reflection during an early field experience on pre-service teachers’ practice Four pre-service teachers were instructed to use reflection based on Tsangaridou & O’sullivan’s (1994) Reflective Framework for Teaching The results of the study showed that pre-service teachers demonstrated the ability to consistently describe, justify, and critique meaningful events that occurred in the teaching/learning environment Moreover, the pre-service teachers found this experience a valuable one They believed that this early

field experience has set a framework and a guideline for their future professional development

Kang (2004) investigated in-service teachers' learning through reflection activities in

an in-service training program whose goal was to develop teachers' practice The findings revealed that reflection assisted teachers to take more control of their teaching actions, and to find justifications for their unintended actions The teachers participating in Kang’s study viewed reflection as a way to change their teaching practices

reflection-in-Minott (2009) discussed the relationship between understanding of lesson planning, implementation, and evaluation—from the perspective of selected teachers in the Islands—and their use of elements of reflection in these areas He stressed the requirement of both pre and in-service teacher education programs to prepare and enable teachers to develop their ability to adjust lesson planning, implementation, and evaluation according to school contextual factors which could be achieved via the application of reflection

Yesilbursa (2011) conducted a study to identify the characteristics of a group of Turkish pre-service English Language teachers’ reflective writing A mixed method approach was taken in the analysis of their written reflections on a video-recorded microteaching experience at the end of a campus-based methodology course The analyses revealed that most of the reflection was descriptive and focused on the self, search for reasons behind and alternatives to their practice, and referred to past and hypothetical future experiences This study contributes to the knowledge base on the reflective writing of non-native pre-service English Language teachers and emphasizes the importance of tapping into reflections early on in pre-service teacher education The idea that reflection may be at the center of learning endeavors is also not new According to Dewey, reflection is the “hallmark of intelligent action” (1933, p 17), enabling effective problem solving to take place and improving the effectiveness of

learning Reflection enables learners to see themselves as actors with different alternatives As one learns to anticipate chains of events, strategy corrections are made

in advance of overt action and become part of one's action plan (von Wright 1992) By providing a link between past and future action, reflection is thought to make possible the transfer of metacognitive knowledge to new situations

Ertmer& Newby (1996) believed that reflection serves as the link between metacognitive knowledge and self-regulation In an actual learning situation, reflection allows learners to consider plans made prior to engaging in a task, the assessments and adjustments made while they work, and the revisions made afterwards These two authors also agree with Simons (1993) who states that a learner's reflection on the process of learning can lead to changes in future processing and increased metacognitive knowledge about learning

Driscoll (1994) suggested that reflection may well be essential to cognitive strategy learning As a powerful link between thought and action, reflection can supply information about outcomes and the effectiveness of selected strategies, thus making it

possible for a learner to gain strategy knowledge from specific learning activities

Even though many educators agree that reflection is an important part of the learning process, there is little shared evidence of how exactly it might operate to facilitate learning (Grimmett 1988; Houston, Clift & Pugach1990) To adequately address this issue, it is necessary to clarify the relationships among reflection and a specific learning skill This study served as an evidence of the impacts of teachers’ reflection of their teaching on their young learners’ English writing skills

Summary

This chapter has discussed issues concerning writing: roles of writing, and approaches to teaching writing, the relevant literature about reflection from the definition, the framework of reflection and related studies to the application of reflection

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

In this part, the researcher provides a detailed description of the research methodology

In other words, the argument for the use of an action research, the context of the study, the participants, the instruments and the procedure of applying teacher’s self-reflection activities in improving students’ writing skills will be clearly illustrated

2.1 Rationale for action research design

As defined by Mills (2003, p.4), action research is

“any systematic inquiry conducted by teacher researchers to gather information about the ways that their particular school operates how they teach, and how well their students learn The information is gathered with the goals of gaining insight, developing reflective practice, effecting positive changes in the school environment and on educational practices in generals, and improving student outcomes.”

Tsui (1993) considers action research a very effective way of helping teachers to reflect

on their teaching and to come up with their own alternatives to improve their practice Action research in schools, colleges or universities solves everyday practical problems experienced by teachers, rather than the “theoretical problems” defined by non – teaching researchers It should be carried out by the teachers themselves or by someone they commission to carry out for them If the teacher was trained to conduct action research, he could solve his problems on his own or in collaboration with other teachers Moreover, action research is also for a teacher’s professional developments

He would become a better teacher because he knows how to find out and solve his problems in teaching on his own This also showed his dynamic, activeness and imagination in his teaching job

To carry out action research in a language classroom Tsui (1993) suggested 5 steps: Step 1: Identifying problems you wish to solve or an area you wish to improve

Step 2: Finding causes of the problem

Step 3: Designing strategies for improvement (plan for action) and writing a proposal for action research

Step 4: Trying out the strategies (action) and keeping a diary of what happened in the class

Step 5: Evaluating the try – out

The researcher, as a teacher, decided to choose action research as her methodological approach because action research is classroom-based research conducted by teachers in order to reflect upon and involve their teaching This meets the main purpose of her thesis, that is to gain understanding of the teaching and learning within her classroom and to use that knowledge to increase her teaching efficacy and improve students’ writing skills through reflection

2.2 Background of the study

2.2.1 Setting

The study was conducted in an English Centre in Hanoi The centre addresses children with age range from three to twelve years old Students are divided into classes according to their age and their English proficiency levels Students’ levels of proficiency are based on the Cambridge English framework for young learners, which consists of three levels: Starter, Mover and Flyer The center’s purpose is building a good English learning environment, emphasizing learning English at school and at home

2.2.2 Participants

The action research is carried out in a class of 15 students at the age from ten to eleven, corresponding to the grade 5 at their primary school Most of the young learners live in the district of Thanh Xuan, Ha Noi They have done the placement test, and at present, their English is at Flyer level for young learners Some of them have learnt English at

this center for some courses, whereas some are new to this center However, all of them have studied English at their school from grade 3 Although they may be good at grammar and other skills, many of them cannot write well

The participants of the research were selected on the basis of random sampling using a dice Among six classes that the researcher could access, the researcher numbered them from 1 to 6 then using a dice to choose the class to study With the method of random sampling, the research ensures the variety of the students’ background, which varies from one to another as the group was chosen by chance This also enables a wider range of application to other classes, which, to some extent, reduce the limitation of an action research

2.2.3 The English program and the writing component

The book Energy 1 by Longman Press is currently used in this center’s syllabus for teaching children at the level of Flyer The textbook consists of ten units Each unit includes eleven sections: Switch on, Grammar, Vocabulary, Communication skill, Energy check, Culture bite, Song, Project, Memory gym and Writing gym A semester

at the center lasted 15 weeks with 8 periods per week Two periods per week (accounting for 90 minutes) was devoted to the teaching of writing

The objectives of the English writing programs were stated that during the course students can produce their own writing about different topics For each topic, students, firstly, will be familiarized with writing tips which gives help with areas such as punctuation, text layout, then they were guided to prepare their writing plan, and finally students write their own text in full

Indeed, writing lessons make up 25 % of 120 periods of the English syllabus There are totally 10 units, so 10 writing lessons are designed with a view to making students familiar with real- life situations on text The required writing tasks in each unit are detailed in the Appendix1

For assessment, there are several ways of measuring writing achievement One way is through developing student portfolios Portfolios are collections of students’ work over

a period of time The collection is used to demonstrate growth in writing This method

is used in this study as a way of collecting and monitoring student works It is also treated as the tasks they had to complete to practice writing skills

A second procedure for measuring student writing achievement is through a descriptive writing rubric Loveland (2005) explained that a rubric is a two-dimensional matrix used to evaluate different facets of a piece of writing It leads to increased performance

by students because it provides them with specific criteria in which the assignment will

be graded Students do not have to guess or infer what the assessor wants; constructed rubrics increase inter-rater reliability through improving comparability among a number of assessors, an important factor to consider when using more subjective assessment tasks The rubric for this study would be shown in Appendix 6 2.3 Data collection instruments and procedures

The pre-test and post-test had the same form: each test consisted of a task sheet with the same topic of “school” Both tests required the students to write their responses in the form of descriptive essays of more than 100 words within the same limit of time

(30 minutes) Based on the same course book, both the pre - and post-test’s questions concerned the literary texts and matters that the students had already learned and prepared for beforehand, with no tested knowledge lying outside the taught and learned scope The two tests were also administered under strict supervision by the teacher of the class the pre-test and post-test were marked according to the same rating rubric (Appendix 6) which made the scoring results of the two tests consistent and reliable 2.3.2 Teacher’s diary

After each writing lesson, teacher wrote in a notebook about what happened She also described her own reactions and feelings and those she observed on the students and begin to pose questions about what she had observed The teacher’s diary of this study which were adapted from the suggestion of British Council article (“Reflective teaching,”n,d.) is presented in the Appendix 4

2.3.3 Students’ journals

Journal writing has always been referred to as a reflective tool that offers students to

reflect on their learning experience, describe their feelings and reactions to the class activities as well as to express their thoughts about the new way of learning For the purpose of this study, the students were asked to write their journals twice a week after their writing lesson basing on the optional prompts given by the teacher The journals were structured to focus on the issues related to the research questions These were supposed to give the researcher useful information about the students’ reflection on

their teaching activities implemented during their writing lessons No names were

required to be entered in the journals to ensure reliable qualitative data for this study and the students felt free to express their opinions and attitudes towards reflection

application

2.3.4 Students’ writing products and portfolios

These materials were vital in the collection of both quantitative and qualitative data The grades and scores on students’ writings and portfolios provided important hard

data to conduct the statistical analysis on the relationship between portfolio performance and post -test performance Apart from this, analyzing recurring patterns

of idea expression and development in the students’ writings enriched the study with insights into the students’ thinking and feeling processes, as well as their efforts and progresses in self -expression

2.4 Implementation of the action research

Step 1: Identifying the problem

While teaching at this center, the researcher realized that students had many problems with writing even those who are good at grammar and vocabulary For example they do not know how to link the sentences or how to use the suitable words

to express their ideas and so on

Step 2: Finding causes of the problem

To clarify the problems, the researcher had some informal talks in class with students about the reasons for ineffective learning of English writing skills, the activities they wished to do in the writing lessons, the topics to write about in their writing lessons to find out what teaching method is most likely to suit them Most of the students stated that they had not been taught how to write a paragraph before, therefore strategies such

as sentence linking or transition signals using were new to them Moreover, they also mentioned that their learning atmosphere was not fun, the teacher activities were not interesting, thus they did not actually want to participate in the lessons

Step 3: Designing strategies for improvement

To improve the students’ writing, the researcher planed the use of reflection with her students Based on the model given by Van Manen (1991), the model of this study consists of three phases: The first phase is the preparation for the event The next phase

is the event itself Following a focus on objective description of the event is phase three when teacher returns to the event and reviews it The event is now processed at a deeper level, and questions are asked about the experience

The first phase includes the following tasks that the teacher/researcher catered before actual teaching:

- Prepare lesson objectives, activities, materials and classroom management which can be the source for further reflection After the lesson, the teacher could look back at the objectives of the lesson and reflect whether she had achieved the goal of the lesson, or about what she has done in class, what problems might occur and so on

- Focused on students, their cultural and linguistic backgrounds by thinking and understandings, their interests, and their developmental readiness for particular tasks which include students’ learning strategies, their cognitive and learning styles, their preferences, their affective factors, and their abilities

The second phase was the time the teacher responded to what happened in class During the teaching of the lesson, unforeseen problems occurred, and students’ responses did not match what was expected The teacher immediately began to rethink her lesson plans The teacher, at this moment, perceived cues from students, pondered what they mean, and talked out loud or continuing with a demonstration The teacher responded by changing pace in a lesson, moving about the room, and interacting with students by a variety of approaches such as eye contact, a closer proximity, a touch on

a shoulder, or a predetermined nonverbal signal in an effort to redirect and refocus attention and learning

The third phase, after the lesson, the teacher made mental and written notes and critically think about whether or not intended outcomes were achieved and the level to which the outcomes were or were not achieved and possible reasons for these occurrences She critically thought about the degree to which her belief, values and assumptions about teaching affected the lesson implementation, then made a written note of these in the journal and use the information gained to impact future lessons

The next step was to devise a new action plan The teacher imagined the scene in the classroom again and wrote a new script—one with greater and more accurate awareness of the students’ existing knowledge, skills, and interests

Step 4: Trying out strategies and making notes on what happened in the class

The new strategies and changes were tried out in the next practice writing lesson The whole treatment lasted in 3 months with the procedure as following description:

Before the lesson, teacher carefully prepared lesson plan including lesson objectives, activities, materials, classroom management and anticipated problems Teacher, at this stage, focused on students’ interests, students’ learning strategies, their cognitive and learning styles, their preferences, their affective factors, and their abilities Some situations such as students were not familiar with the format of an email or they might focus much attention on decoration of the postcard rather than writing the message of the postcard was well-prepared before the lesson

During the teaching, the teacher organized the lesson as lesson plan In 15 weeks, students had 30 lessons to study writing with 2 lessons for each topic In the first lesson, students made familiar with and practiced the knowledge and skill to write a specific type of writing The plan of the writing would be drawn after that At home, students were required to write the draft of the writing For the next lesson, peer-check would happen at first and all the problems, for example, the appropriateness of vocabulary, sentence and paragraph structure and correctness of grammar, spelling and punctuation would be explained Students were then required to write the paragraph again, and handed in the products at the end of the lesson

After the lesson, the teacher made mental and written notes and critically thought about whether or not intended outcomes were achieved and the level to which the outcomes were or were not achieved and possible reasons for these occurrences For example, with the topic of writing an email, the teacher only stated the aim of the lesson but not

state the objectives to gain that aim; therefore, students did not know how to write an email and none of the students could write a cohesive and coherent paragraph The teacher, in this situation, designed more exercises to help students practicing the use of cohesive devices, prepared to organize individual writing activity in the form of a competition to make students feel more responsible for their writing and prepared to implement all these activities in the next lesson

Step 5: Evaluating the try -out

- The teacher analyzed the results of the post- writing test after the trying – out stage that illustrated the changes that had been made (which could include things that were improved or that got worse)

- Comments and conclusions were made

2.5 Data analysis procedure

Firstly, the quantitative data collected from the students’ scores on the pre-test and post-test were used to discover the change in students’ writing performance

Secondly, basing on the teacher’s diary, the students’ achievement and their attitudes were read carefully and categorized to focus on the issues related to the research questions: students’ writing skills development and their attitude towards their teacher’s reflection

Summary

The chapter has presented the setting in which the study was carried out The method and procedures of collecting data used in the study was also fully described In the next chapter, the major findings including the comparison of writing achievement measured

by the pre-test and post-test, the extent of improvement made by students after intervention would be taken into consideration to give appropriate suggestions for pedagogical implications

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter, the first part is a detailed description of the findings of the research including the pre-test, post

discussion of the data collected through the study

3.1 Findings

3.1.1 The results of the students’ pre

To investigate the effectiveness of teacher’s self reflection on students

achievement, a pre-test and a post

proficiency before and after the intervention

Frequency distribution

The following graphic chart gives an overall picture of

post-test scores achieved by 15 students

Figure 1: Comparison of pre

The graph displays clearly the different distributions of scores achieved by students before and after the intervention High scores gained by students in the post

Comparison of students' pre

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

st part is a detailed description of the findings of the research test, post-test and teacher’s diary Later on in the chapter is the discussion of the data collected through the study

3.1.1 The results of the students’ pre test and post test

the effectiveness of teacher’s self reflection on studentstest and a post-test were used to measure students' writing proficiency before and after the intervention The results were as follow:

The following graphic chart gives an overall picture of the distribution of pre test and test scores achieved by 15 students in the study

Figure 1: Comparison of pre-test and post-test score distributions

clearly the different distributions of scores achieved by students before and after the intervention High scores gained by students in the post

the effectiveness of teacher’s self reflection on students’ writing

test were used to measure students' writing

as follow:

distribution of pre test and

clearly the different distributions of scores achieved by students before and after the intervention High scores gained by students in the post- test much

test and post

Pre- test Post- test

outnumbered those in the pre- test Both minimum scores and maximum scores gained

in the post- test were higher than those in the pre test (The minimum score gained by post- test and pre- test were 5.5 and 3 respectively The maximum score obtained in the post- test and pre- test were 9.5 and 8.5 respectively)

Measures of central tendency

The following table shows that the means, modes and medians of scores in the post- test were about two points higher than those in the pre -test These results indicate that the performances of students in the post- test after intervention were obviously higher than in the pre- test

N = number of the scores

f = frequency with which

Measures of dispersion

The range is the difference between the highest and the lowest score The range of

the scores of the post- test was: 9.5 – 5.5 = 4 less than that of pre- test which is: 8.5 – 3

61.73 = 4.40 15-1

Table 2: Comparison on variance in students’ pre-test and post-test

The standard deviation (SD) gives information on the degree to which a set of scores

varies in relation to the mean

Table 3: Comparison on standard deviation in students’ pre-test and post-test

The standard deviation for the scores of the post-test is 1.38 which is much smaller than that of the pre- test which is 2.02 We can confirm that the single marks in the post-test are more tightly grouped around its mean than those in the pre-test In other words, a student’s post-test result varies less from the typical behavior of the whole class than his pre-test This evidence confirms that the post-test score is more homogeneous than the pre-test score

The statistics of the two tests above could lead us to a better insight into the proficiencies of the students before and after the intervention Obviously, the students’ scores in the post-test outperformed that in the pre-test with higher mean, higher mode and higher median

Thus, after fifteen weeks, an obvious improvement in writing proficiency was recognized regarding both central tendency and dispersion These results were reliable because the tests have parallel format/difficulty/discrimination levels and were marked using similar marking criteria, and students were examined by trained teachers of writing under official test conditions

3.1.2 The results of teacher’s diary

To answer the question to what extend the teacher’s self-reflection effect students’ English writing achievement, the researcher used teaching diary to take note all the occurrences of the teacher and students during the intervention time This is the result

of the diary

Firstly, the results of the pre-test indicating that students’ writing performances before intervention were thoroughly analyzed in terms of content, organization, grammar/ wording

Areas of testing Rating scale No of

students

Percentage

Content

Topic statement

2-1.6 Excellent- Very good 0 0

Supporting ideas

2-1.6 Excellent- Very good 0 0

1.5-1.1 Excellent- Very good 2 13.33

As can be seen from the table, in terms of content, the students’ level was very low

There was no student at the very good to excellent level when writing the topic

statement, supporting ideas and conclusion Whereas, the number of students who were

at the poor to fair level when writing the topic statement, supporting ideas and

conclusion were 26.67, 20, and 33.33%, respectively Similarly, in terms of organization, the students’ level was rather low The numbers of students who reached

the very good to excellent levels in terms of logical order were 3 and those of transitional signals were 2 Meanwhile the numbers of students who were at poor level

in these two sub-skills are 4 (26.67%) Regarding grammar and wording, the students

had better results, 7 students (46.66%) of the total students were at very good to

excellent levels and 8 students had average level which accounted for 53.33% of the

total students

In brief, although there was no student at the very poor level, the number of students who were at the poor to fair level was still high, and the number of students who reached the very good to excellent levels was very low This result indicated that

students had difficulties in generating ideas, getting appropriate organization and vocabulary for their writing

After recognizing the problems, the teacher/ researcher tried to help students to overcome their difficulties through reflection At the end of the course all students took the post-test The researcher collected and compared with the results of the pre-test to find out the improvement The following table shows the results of students’ writing performance in terms of content, organization, language in the post- test

Areas of testing Rating scale No of

students

Percentage

Content

Topic statement

2-1.6 Excellent- Very good 5 33.33

Supporting ideas

2-1.6 Excellent- Very good 5 33.33