the use and the effectiveness of using reading in teaching writing at vinhcuu high school

Considering the difficulties that learners may dealwith, many researchers suggested the use of reading as a teaching technique tosupport and enhance EFL students’ writing abilities AlOmr

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Năm học: 2019-2020

INTRODUCTION 1

1 Context of the solution 1

2 Reasons for choosing the topic 1

3 Study scope and study subjects 1

4 Objectives of the research 1

CONTENTS 2

I THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND REALITY 2

1 Theoretical background 2

2 Reality 2

II CONTENTS OF INVENTION 3

1 Implementation 3

2 Advantages and disadvantages 7

3 Evaluation 8

a) New points 8

b) Effects 8

c) Application and results 11

CONCLUSION 11

1 Experiences drawn from the process of applying the invention. Error! Bookmark not defined. 2 Recommendation for implementing and applying the invention intoreality.Error! Bookmark not defined. 3 Declaration Error! Bookmark not defined APPENDICES 1

REFERENCES 1

STT Từ viết tắt Nội dung viết tắt

1 TESOL Teaching English to Speakers of other Languages

1 Tên sáng kiến: The use and the effectiveness of using reading in teaching writing at Vinh Cuu high school

2 Lĩnh vực áp dụng sáng kiến: Giảng dạy Tiếng Anh

3 Tác giả:

- Họ và tên: Lê Thị Ngọc Thiện Nam (nữ): Nữ

- Trình độ chuyên môn: Cử nhân Anh Văn

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ra sáng kiến (%): 100%

THE USE AND THE EFECTIVENESS OF USING READING IN TEACHING WRITING AT VINH CUU HIGH SCHOOL

INTRODUCTION

1 Context of the solution

It is stated that writing is a necessary and crucial skill in language learning aswell as English learning (Ariyanti, 2016; Pham & Nguyen, 2014) However,among the four skills, writing is considered to be the most difficult one It is,therefore the writer investigates the use and the effectiveness of using reading inteaching writing 23 teachers were chosen randomly to take part in this research.The participants are graduated students who are learning the first stage of Master

of TESOL course at Ho Chi Minh City Open University Two questionnaires weredesigned to collect teachers’ opinions in order to answer two research questions.The findings revealed that although this technique is effective, there are still manyobstacles that were needed to be overcome

2 Reasons for choosing the topic

Writing skill is usually taught separately from other skills (speaking, readingand listening), which causes difficulties for EFL students in learning writing skills(Habibi, Salleh, & Singh, 2015) Considering the difficulties that learners may dealwith, many researchers suggested the use of reading as a teaching technique tosupport and enhance EFL students’ writing abilities (AlOmrani, 2014; Habibi etal., 2015; & Grabe & Zhang, 2013) This writing also aims at investigating theconnection between Reading and Writing, the effectiveness of integrating readingskills and writing skills on EFL learners, and the use and the effectiveness of thistechnique in Vinh Cuu classrooms

3 Study scope and study subjects

The area of this study is to investigate the connection between reading andwriting Basing on this, the study attempts to examine how to apply reading inteaching writing at Vinhcuu high school

4 Objectives of the research

The aim of this research is to investigate the use and the effectiveness oftaking advantage of reading in teaching writing in Vietnamese classrooms At thesame time, it also creates the environments for students to write confidently basing

on reading skills

I THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND

REALITY 1 Theoretical background

Eisterhold (1990, as cited in AlOmrani, 2014) interpreted the connectionbetween reading and writing by using three hypotheses, which are “directionalhypothesis, non-directional hypothesis, and bidirectional hypothesis” (Eisterhold,

1990, as cited in AlOmrani, 2014, p 102) Directional hypothesis claimed thatinformation/knowledge obtained from reading materials will be used in writing,which means that the use of reading is supporting writing (AlOmrani, 2014).Meanwhile, non-directional hypothesis means that information/knowledge learnedfrom writing can be used in reading and vice versa, which means reading is used toassist writing and vice versa (AlOmrani, 2014) Bidirectional hypothesis stated that

“reading and writing are both interactive and interdependent” (AlOmrani, 2014, p.103) This means that the change in students’ language proficiency may lead to thechange in their writing abilities or reading abilities, which can be understood that iftheir writing abilities develop, their reading abilities will develop and vice versa(AlOmrani, 2014)

Although the relationship between receptive skills and productive skills didnot state that students need to become good readers to be good writers, it didinterpret the reason for integrating reading skills and writing skills in teaching.Meanwhile, the hypotheses of Eisterhold (1990, as cited in AlOmrani, 2014)explained specifically the positive impact of reading and writing on each other.The researcher claimed that the proficiency in students’ writing skills have theinfluence on the proficiency in students’ reading skills and vice versa However,the connection between reading and writing in this technique can be interpreted bydirectional hypothesis, because this technique was made to teach writing skillswith reading as the main support of writing (AlOmrani, 2014)

The hypotheses of Eisterhold (1990, as cited in AlOmrani, 2014) explainedspecifically the positive impact of reading and writing on each other Theresearchers claimed that the proficiency in students’ writing skills have theinfluence on the proficiency in students’ reading skills and vice versa However,the connection between reading and writing in this technique can be interpreted bydirectional hypothesis, because this technique was made to teach writing skillswith reading as the main support of writing (AlOmrani, 2014) The use of reading

is suggested as an effective technique to improve EFL students’ writing skills(AlOmrani, 2014; Grabe & Zhang, 2013 & Habibi et al., 2015) Hence, in order to

be aware of the feasibility and effectiveness of the use of reading in teachingwriting, many researchers and teachers started to do more research on applying thistechnique in teaching writing as well as apply it in their classes

2 Reality

Grabe and Zhang (2013) almost all students have to face to many difficulties inlearning English writing skill such as “less exposure to English texts, and much

more limited vocabulary knowledge” (p 108) In addition, instead of payingattention to “the content and the organizations of ideas” (Rass), EFL students arerequired to focus on “choosing proper words, using correct grammatical patternsand checking spelling of words” (Tangpermpoon, 2008, as cited in Habibi et al.,

2015, p 1116) As a teacher at Vinh Cuu high school, the writer has noticed somecommon mistakes that many students have no real understanding of lexis of thelanguage and just apply the grammatical rules mechanically As a result, they runthe risk of producing grammatically correct but semantically inappropriate oranomalous sentences Some students tend to translate mechanically fromVietnamese into English and use inaccurate words They would like to write butthey feel that they do not have enough confidence and feel afraid of giving theirwriting work to their teachers or friends With the above mentioned situations, theresearcher conducts a study to investigate the use of reading as a teachingtechnique to support and enhance EFL students’ writing abilities

II CONTENTS OF INVENTION 1 Implementation

The writer has found out the connection between the two skills Reading andWriting The relation between reading and writing can be interpreted by therelationship between receptive skills and productive skills According to Golkovaand Hubackova (2014), listening and reading are passive skills, which areconsidered as receptive skills, because these 2 skills are used to receive and decodeaccurately information/knowledge in order to understand them (Bhatt & Lilian,2016) Meanwhile speaking and writing are active skills, which are considered asproductive skills (Golkova & Hubackova, 2014) because they are used to producelanguage (Masduqi, 2016) It is stated that “if a learning process lacks one of them[receptive skills and productive skills], the final outcome will not be completed”(Golkova & Hubackova, 2014, p 478) For example, students read grammaticalstructures, which means that they are absorbing theories and rules Thus, they needreading which is the practice to help them remember and use these grammaticalstructures effectively and fluently Hence, “both types of skills [productive andreceptive] are inseparable and one cannot exist without the other” (Golkova &Hubackova, 2014, p 478)

As mentioned above, the use of reading is an effective technique to teachwriting skills (AlOmrani, 2014; Grabe & Zhang, 2013 & Habibi et al., 2015).However, the use of this technique in Vietnam is still a question In order toexamine the use and the effectiveness of integrating English writing skills andEnglish reading skills Vietnamese classrooms, the writing is designed to answer 2following questions:

1 Do English teachers in Vietnam use reading to improve students’ writingskills?

2 Does the use of reading in teaching writing improve Vietnamese students’English writing skills?

Participants: The surveys were carried out at the two classes the writer hastaught: 11A2, 11A10 with eighty participants who are in the second term of theschool and 23 other teachers were chosen randomly to take part in this research.The participants are graduate students who are learning the first stage of Master ofTESOL course at Ho Chi Minh City Open University There are 5 teachers who areteaching at English language centers, while there are 13 teachers from state schools

in Ho Chi Minh city Another 5 teachers are teaching at private schools Inaddition, around 30% of them have over 5 years teaching experience

Data collection

Teachers were given questionnaires to elicit information on the respondents.Two questionnaires were designed to collect teachers’ opinions in order to answertwo research questions The first questionnaire includes 7 questions The first andsecond questions are used to ask teachers’ teaching experience and institution Thenext 5 questions are used to find out teachers’ acknowledgment of this techniqueand the use of it in their classes Meanwhile, the second questionnaire has 6questions, which is used to elicit the effectiveness of this technique by askingteachers who applied it

Findings and discussion

Research question 1: Do English teachers in Vietnam use reading to improvestudents’ writing skills?

The data of chart 1 was collected from the questionnaire 1 According to thechart, there were 5 teachers who confirmed that they did not know this technique,because of their old universities, TESOL training courses or the current Master ofTESOL did not teach them Hence, they could not apply this technique in theirclasses

On the other hand, regarding the chart 2, the rest of 23 teachers (18 teachers)know this technique Most of them (11 teachers) confirmed that their olduniversities, TESOL training courses and Master of TESOL taught them thistechnique Meanwhile, 5 of them know this technique through reading books orjournal articles of teaching writing This means that they have interest in teachingwriting The rest of them (2 teachers) know this technique because their colleaguesintroduced it to them However, there were 5 teachers did not use this technique toteach writing, even though they know it The reasons for this are shown in the chart3.

To conclude, there were 23 teachers, who were asked about integratingreading skills with writing skills However, just 18 teachers know this technique.Although there were 18 teachers who know this technique, just 13 teachers (around57%) applied the use of reading in teaching writing in order to improve theirstudents’ writing skills Therefore, it can be stated that there were a positivenumber of teachers paid attention to the use of reading in teaching writing andapplied this technique in their classes

Research question 2: Does the use of reading in teaching writing improveVietnamese students’ English writing skills?

In order to answer this question, 13 teachers, who used this technique, wereasked to answer questionnaire 2 in order to elicit their evaluation of this technique.Considering answers collected, 5 teachers stated that their students’ writing skillswere improved after using reading to support and enhance students’ writingabilities The chart 4 below displays these 5 teachers’ evaluation of advantages thatthis technique brought to their students

Regarding the chart 4, after applying this technique in their classes, all 5teachers believed that their students’ accuracy of using grammar and punctuationwas developed as well as their ability of arranging logically their writing’s ideas

In addition, 4 of them confirmed the development in their students’ writing content

as well as the improvement in writing’s coherence and cohesion of their students.Meanwhile, they realized that their students could not use complex grammarstructures fluently even after using this technique Considering these figures, it can

be claimed that the use of reading did have a positive impact on students’ writingskills, especially improving the use of grammar and punctuation and theorganization of writing’s ideas This is a basis of the development in writing’scontent and writing’s coherence and cohesion However, considering the fact thatstudents were not able to use complex grammatical structures, teachers need to paymore attention to students’ grammar

The rest of them (8 teachers) claimed that this technique is ineffective,because they had to cope with some obstacles

According to the chart 5, 6 teachers claimed that their students lacked readingcomprehension skill, while there are 5 teachers stated that the difficulty is studentsdid not know how to use information/knowledge obtained from assigned readingmaterials in their writing In addition, a half of them (4 teachers) pointed out thatthe fact that students did not read assigned reading materials was also an obstacle.Considering these figures, it can be stated that the lack of reading comprehensionskill was the main problem, which meant students might have limitedunderstanding of assigned reading materials; therefore, they could not obtain anyinformation or knowledge to support their writing Moreover, the lack of readingassigned reading materials could be the result of the lack of reading comprehensionskills as well as the difficulty level of assigned reading materials and students’attitudes and low-motivation Therefore, teachers need to improve their studentsreading comprehension skill as well as choose reading materials that can intereststudents and are not beyond their English level.

2 Advantages and disadvantages a) Advantages

The use of reading is supporting writing (AlOmrani, 2014) Meanwhile, directional hypothesis means that information/knowledge learned from writing can

non-be used in reading and vice versa, which means reading is used to assist writingand vice versa (AlOmrani, 2014) Bidirectional hypothesis stated that “reading andwriting are both interactive and interdependent” (AlOmrani, 2014, p 103) Thisalso means that the change in students’ language proficiency may lead the change

in their writing abilities or reading abilities, which can be understood that if theirwriting abilities develop, their reading abilities will develop and vice versa(AlOmrani, 2014)

It can be stated that the use of reading does have the positive effect onteaching writing Most of students’ writing skills were improved Their studentswere able to express their thoughts in English fluently, differentiate between the

topic sentence and the thesis sentence or had the improvement in organizingwriting’s ideas.

to improve students reading comprehension skill, these obstacles can be overcome.This will lead to the effectiveness of this technique

3 Evaluation a) New points

The rearcher has also found out some considerations for teachers when usingreading to improve EFL students’ writing skills AlOmrani (2014) stated thatbecause the reading materials are used “as a source for improving writing abilities”(p 102); therefore, the reading materials must relate with the writing assignments

In addition, it is claimed that EFL teachers also need to focus on improvingstudents’ reading skills (AlOmrani, 2014), because “if a learner has low level ofproficiency in reading skills this will lead to low level of competence, performanceand proficiency in writing skills as well” (Bhatt & Lilian, 2016, p 635) However,enhancing students’ writing skills is necessary, teachers should not pay moreattention to developing students’ reading skills than students’ writing skills(Morrow, 1997, as cited in AlOmrani, 2014, p 106), because the aim of integratingreading into writing instruction is using reading materials as resources to improveand assist students with their writing skills (AlOmrani, 2014)

b) Effects

As mentioned above, the use of reading is suggested as an effective technique

to improve EFL students’ writing skills (AlOmrani, 2014; Grabe & Zhang, 2013 &Habibi et al., 2015) Hence, in order to be aware of the feasibility and effectiveness

of the use of reading in teaching writing, the researcher began to do more research

on applying this technique in teaching writing as well as apply it in her classes.The result shows that almost all students make great progress in writing skill andthey feel more confident in writing period, which is obviously shown in chart 6

Chart 6: Students’ view about the benefits of using reading in learning writing