The use of pre writing activities to improve writing skills for 11th form students at tien du 3 high school, bac ninh an action research

----  ---NGUYEN THI LOI THE USE OF PRE-WRITING ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE WRITING SKILLS FOR 11 TH FORM STUDENTS AT TIEN DU 3 HIGH SCHOOL, BAC NINH – AN ACTION RESEARCH Sử DụNG MộT Số HOạ



-NGUYEN THI LOI

THE USE OF PRE-WRITING ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE WRITING SKILLS FOR 11 TH FORM STUDENTS AT TIEN DU 3 HIGH SCHOOL, BAC

NINH – AN ACTION RESEARCH

(Sử DụNG MộT Số HOạT Động tr-ớc khi viết nhằm phát triển kỹ năng viết cho học sinh lớp 11 tại tr-ờng thpt tiên du số 3 tỉnh bắc ninh – một nghiên cứu hành động)

MA MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH METHODOLOGY CODE: 60 14 10

HANOI, 2009

NGUYEN THI LOI

THE USE OF PRE-WRITING ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE WRITING SKILLS FOR 11 TH FORM STUDENTS AT TIEN DU 3 HIGH SCHOOL, BAC NINH –

HANOI, 2009

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration ……… i

Acknowledgements……… ii

Abstract……… iii

List of Tables and Charts……… iv

Table of contents……… v

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Statement of problems ……… 1

1.2 Aims and research questions of the study ……… 2

1.2.1 Aims of the study … ……… 2

1.2.2 Research questions of the study ……… 2

1.3 Methods of the study ……… 2

1.4 Significance of the study ….……… 3

1.5 Design of the study……… 3

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction ……… 4

2.2 Theoretical background of writing ……… 4

2.2.1 Definition of writing ……… 4

2.2.2 Types of writing … 5

2.2.3 Why do students need to write? ……… 5

2.2.4 Factors affecting written communication……… 7

2.2.5 Writing process ……… 7

2.2.6 The product of writing ……….… 8

2.3 Pre-writing stage and pre-writing activities … ……… 9

2.3.1 Pre-writing stage ……….……… 9

2.3.2 Some common pre-writing activities ……… 10

2.3.3 Benefits of pre-writing activities ……… 14

2.3.4 A warning about pre-writing activities ……… 15

CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research method ……….……… 16

3.2 Overview of action research ……… 16

3.3 Descriptions of the research ……… 16

3.3.1 Description of the participants of the study ……… 16

3.3.1.1 The students ……… 16

3.3.1.2 The teacher ……… 17

3.3.1.3 The rater ……… 17

3.3.1.4 The textbook ……… 17

3.3.2 Planning-identifying the current problems and the causes of the problem s 18 3.3.2.1 Pre-test instrument ……… 18

3.3.2.2 Questionnaire instrument ……… 18

3.3.3 Preliminary investigation ……… 19

3.3.4 Hypothesis ……… 19

3.3.5 Action, developing an action plan and conducting the experiment …… 19

3.3.6 Observation, collecting data and observing the effects of the action …… 22

3.3.7 Reflection, evaluating the action plan and the evaluated effects of the action 23 3.3.8 Data collection instruments and their procedures ……… 23

3.3.9 Summary ……… 23

CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 4.1: Data analysis procedures …….……… 25

4.2 The results of the pre-test and post-test ……… 26

4.3 The results of the students’ pre- and post-attitudinal survey ……… 27

4.3.1: The students’ attitude towards writing ……… 27

4.3.2 The problems that cause the difficulties in students’ writing ……… 28

4.3.3 The students’ preferences for participating in the pre-writing activities … 30 4.3.4 The students’ assessment of some pre-writing activities ……… 31 4.3.5 The role of pre-writing activities to the improvement of students’ writing 34

4.4 The students’ comments on the pre-writing activities implemented ………

4.5 Discussion ………

4.6 Concluding remarks ………

35 36 37 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION 5.1 Suggestions ………

5.2 Limitations of the study and recommendations for further research …………

5.3 Conclusion ………

39 40 41 REFERENCES APPENDICES Appendix 1: Schedule for writing lessons of the second term ……….

Appendix 2: Questionnaires for students before and after the action plan ………

Appendix 3: Tests ……….

Appendix 3.1 Pre-test ………

Appendix 3.2 Post-test ………

Appendix 4: Results of the Pre- and Post-tests ….…………

Appendix 5: Results of the Pre- and Post-study survey questionnaires …………

Appendix 6: Sample lesson plan for applying pre-writing activities in class ………

I III V V VI VII

VIII

X

Chapter 1: Introduction

1 1.Statement of problems.

It is undeniable that English is the international medium of communication in the fields

of science, technology, culture, education, economy, politic and so on It is also considered ameans to promote mutual understanding and cooperation between Vietnam and other countries

in the world Since Vietnam officially joined WTO, the importance of English has beenrecognized more and more widely For its role, English has been not only a compulsorysubject in almost all high schools in Vietnam but one of the three major subjects in the highschool final examination and in the entrance exam to some universities and colleges as well

Together with the development of English, there are many changes in the curriculumfor high school students In the past, the contents in the textbook mainly focused on grammar,reading and speaking Listening and writing in contexts were almost neglected Students couldpractice listening skill only by listening to their teachers They rarely had a chance to listen toforeigners or listen in situations Their writing skill was even worse Although they were verygood at doing exercises in structural forms, they could hardly write a topic in class Only whenthe new set of textbooks is used, students have more chances to learn writing skill

To students in the school where I am teaching, writing seems to be the most difficultskill Many of them see writing lessons as times of sighing, pencil – chewing, foot – shufflingagony Some students even state that “Oh, I’ve no ideas”, “My palms are sweating, my heart isbeating fast, and my mind is blocked”, “It’s not easy to get it started at all” Why is it that forlarge numbers of high school students, writing seems to be a great problem?

As a teacher, I have thought a lot about this question There are many things that onecan do to aid in the writing process such as using visual aids, using multi-media, etc Amongthe three stages of a writing lesson: pre-writing, while-writing and post-writing, I think pre-writing is considered the most important one It helps students to get starting to write easily It

is the key in the development of a “good” essay and the “evolution” of good writing skills

The above reason has encouraged me to investigate into different pre-writing activities

I would like to do something with the hope of improving writing skill for our students at Tien

Du 3 High School Therefore, the thesis title goes as “The Use of Pre-writing Activities to

Improve Writing Skills for 11 th form students at Tien Du 3 High School, Bac Ninh – An Action Research”.

Hopefully, the activities introduced in this study will be of some help for the authorand other teachers in writing lessons

1.2 Aims and research questions of the study.

1.2.1 Aims of the study

The purposes of this study are to investigate the causes of the difficulties which 11thform students at Tien Du 3 high school encounter in learning writing and to investigate theeffectiveness of some pre-writing activities employed with a view to improving students’writing

To achieve the above purposes, the study has to follow the steps below:

- To investigate the causes of the difficulties in writing lessons from classroom

observation and classroom interaction

- To devise some pre-writing activities and use them in writing lessons to solve the

problem

- To examine the effectiveness of these activities to decide whether they are helpful or not

1.2.2 Research questions of the study

This study explores the use of different pre-writing activities for 11th form students inTien Du 3 High School The weaknesses in writing skills of those students have encouragedthe researcher to investigate these activities in the light of the following questions:

1- What are the causes of difficulties in students’ writing?

2- How do the pre-writing activities affect 11 th form students in Tien Du 3 High School

in their writing?

1.3 Methods of the study.

The study was carried out using action research method The data were collected fromsurvey questionnaires, class observation and interviews with students Questionnaires aredesigned as a means to make the researcher’s evaluation more objective The questionnairesare given to eleventh form students of Tien Du 3 High School to find out their evaluation on

the pre-writing activities implemented as well as their comments and suggestions for theseactivities.

1.4 Significance of the study.

The study highlights the importance of pre-writing stage in the process of a writing lesson

It may also provide some useful ideas for teachers and help them implement the activities inthe pre-writing stage more effectively

Finally yet importantly, the author of the study hopes that the suggested pre-writing activitiescan help students improve their writing skill in class

1.5 Design of the study.

The study consists of five chapters: Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: LiteratureReview; Chapter 3: Methodology; Chater 4: Data Analysis; Chapter 5: Suggestion andconclusion

Chapter 1, the introduction, presents the background to the study and statement of theproblem, the aims, significance and design of the study It also expresses the author’s reasonsfor choosing the method to fulfill the study

Chapter two, Literature Review, presents the main concepts relevant to the researchtopic such as different points of views about writing, definition of pre-writing, the importance

of the pre-writing stage in a writing lesson, etc

Chapter three presents the methodology used in the study The researcher attempts toimprove students’ writing practice in classroom Therefore, the methodology employed in thisstudy is action research

Chapter 4 provides detailed results of the survey questionnaires and class observation.The students’ comments are also given in this chapter The comprehensive analysis on the datacollected is supplied in details in this part

The last chapter of this study, chapter 5, offers some major findings of using writing activities in class It also gives a “Conclusion” to the study, which emphasizes the keyissues in the study, points out the limitations and provides some suggestions for the furtherstudy

pre-Chapter 2: Literature review2.1 Introduction.

To provide a theoretical background to the study, this chapter is devoted to the review

of concepts most relevant to the thesis’s topic These are the theoretical background of writing,the stages of a writing lesson, and the factors affecting teaching and learning writing

2.2 Theoretical background of writing.

It is important to identify the skills involved in written communication to deviseeffective activities to teach writing To identify the skills we need to know what writingactually involves Hence the following parts review the different definitions of writing, theprocesses involved in writing and the factors that affect written communication

2.2.1 Definition of writing

What writing is and how it is developed has been a subject of discussion and debate forcenturies, from the time of Aristotle, Cicero, etc to present Through there are differentviewpoints, it is commonly agreed that writing is far from being a simple matter oftranscribing language into written symbols: it is a thinking process in its own right It demandsconscious intellectual effort, which usually has to be sustained over a considerable period oftime Given below are some of the views of various writers on the definition of writing

In “The world’s writing systems”, Daniels (1996, p3) defines writing as “A system of

more or less permanent marks used to represent an utterance in such a way that it can berecovered more or less exactly without the intervention of the utterer”

According to Donn Byrne, “Writing involves the encoding of a message of some kind:that is, we translate our thoughts into language” (1979:1)

It is obvious that when we write, we use graphic symbols: that is, letters or

combinations of letters which relate to the sounds we make when we speak On one level,writing can be said to be the act of forming these symbols: making marks on a flat surface ofsome kind But writing is clearly much more than the production of sounds The symbols have

to be arranged, according to certain conventions, to form words, and words have to bearranged to form sentences As a rule, however, we do not write just one sentence or even a

number of unrelated sentences We produce a sequence of sentences arranged in a particularorder and linked together in certain ways.

The page on http://web.mit.edu/writing/Writing_Process/writingprocess.html defineswriting as followed: “Writing is a process that involves at least four distinct steps: prewriting,drafting, revising, and editing It is known as a recursive process While you are revising, youmight have to return to the prewriting step to develop and expand your ideas”

The above quotation closely relates to the steps in a writing lesson That is, pre-writing, writing and post-writing It is the teacher’s duty to make the writing lessons more interestingand useful for students

while-2.2.2 Types of writing

There are different opinions about the types of writing Davies and Widdowson (1974),Rivers and Temperley (1978), and Pincas (1982) elaborated writing into six categories: (1)Personal writing is writing for oneself (diaries, journals, shopping lists, reminders for oneself,packing lists, addresses, recipes); (2) Study writing is also for oneself (making notes whilereading, taking notes from lecturers, making a card index, summaries, synopses, reviews,reports of experiments/ workshops/ visits, essays, bibliographies; (3) Public writing is as amember of the general public to organizations or institutions (letters of inquiry/ complaint/request, form-filling, applications for memberships); (4) Creative writing can include poems,stories, rhymes, drama, songs, autobiography; (5) Social writing is a category which includesletters, invitations, notes of condolence/ of thanks/ of congratulations, cablegrams, telephonemessages, instructions to friend/ family; (6) Institutional writing relates to professional roles(agendas, minutes, memoranda, reports, reviews, contracts, business letters, public notices,advertisements, posters, instructions, speeches, applications, curriculum vitae, specificationsand note-making

2.2.3 Why do students need to write?

Writing is one skill that students need to learn in class In the past, writing skill wasalmost neglected in language teaching in Vietnam Students could hardly be able to write aletter or an essay in English successfully Only from some years back to now, writing has beenpaid much attention to

Writing skill is not an easy one Writing in students’ mother tongue is difficult Andwriting in a foreign language is even much more difficult For many high school students,perhaps even the majority of them, writing is the skill in which they are least proficient, evenafter considerable practice.

Referring to the importance of writing, John M Lannon (1989) points out “Writing isnever done merely to demonstrate mechanical correctness; instead, the aim of any writing is toadvance a writer’s definite purpose and to serve a reader’s definite needs” He also states theimportance of writing in relation with reading, that is “making clear the link between readingand writing, and promoting active reading”

It is obvious that besides helping students to improve the composing skills essential inplanning, drafting, and revising, writing skill enables students to evaluate their own writing forits rhetorical effectiveness: worthwhile content, sensible organization, and readable style.Moreover, it offers students practice in discovering, shaping, and expressing their meaningsfor a variety of goals

Compared with speech, effective writing requires a number of things: a high degree oforganization of ideas and information; a high degree of accuracy so that there is no ambiguity

of meaning; the use of complex grammatical devices for focus and emphasis; and a carefulchoice of vocabulary, grammatical patterns, and sentence structures to create a style which isappropriate to the subject matter and the eventual readers

We can see that a good deal of writing in the English classroom in high schools isundertaken as an aid to learning, for example, to consolidate the learning of new structures orvocabulary or to help students remember new items of language Writing allows students tosee how they are progressing and to get feedback from the teacher, and it allows students tomonitor and diagnose problems Donn Byrne (1979) points out “Written work serves toprovide the learners with some tangible evidence that they are making progress in thelanguage It is not likely to be a true index of their attainment, but once again it satisfies apsychological need” and “Writing is often needed for formal and informal testing”

Generally speaking, on pedagogical grounds alone, writing is a skill worth developing

in a foreign language lesson In order to help students master this skill, the teachers have to

develop interesting and effective teaching methods into the writing lessons And studentsshould spend more time on learning this skill both at home and in class.

2.2.4 Factors affecting written communication

A number of factors have to be kept in mind to communicate effectively throughwriting The message we want to convey has less chances of being misunderstood if we havesome background information about the intended reader, and his previous knowledge ofwhatever is related to our message Some of the factors which play an important part in ourselection of what to convey, how to convey and how much to convey are as follows:

* The relationship between the writer and the reader whether it is at a formal or intimate level

* The purpose of the activity - whether the message is conveyed for giving information, seeking permission, soliciting advice and so on

* The previous knowledge of the reader – whether the message is new to him, partly known

or known from a different angle

* The type of message - whether it is simple, complex, involves technical expressions or not

* Intended response - whether the writer wants to please the reader, persuade him, threaten him or enrage him

The writer should keep all these factors in mind if he wants the reader to understand hismessage properly and react in the way he wants him/her to

Having analyzed the nature of writing, the problems involved in communicatingthrough writing, and the factors that affect written communication, it is necessary to undertake

a study on how to teach writing effectively

2.2.5 Writing process

There has been a considerable change and development in the teaching – learningprocess over the years Along with it the importance given to the various skills of language hasalso been changing The changes in the importance given to writing have affected the types oftopics used and the teaching and testing of writing in general

The writing process in class usually consists of the following stages: Pre-writing,while-writing and post-writing

In other situations, there are different opinions about the writing process However, themain steps in the writing process are as followed:

Drafting

Structuring

Focusing Re-viewing

Generating

ideas Evaluating

- pre-writing

- write a rough draft (your first try or second )

- revise (look for ways to improve your paper)

- edit (check for spelling and grammatical errors)

- publish

It is obvious that the process of writing is important to any writers That’s why RonWhite (1980) highlights its importance in the “Process writing”: “What is important for us asteachers of writing is to engage our students in that creative process; to excite them about howtheir texts are coming into being; to give them insights into how they operate as they creatework”

2.2.6 The product of writing

There are many things to be considered in the product of writing However, in this part, Iwould like to mention the list of the “skills” that students need to get to have the best finalproducts They are:

- Getting the grammar right

- Having a range of vocabulary

- Punctuating meaningfully

- Using the conventions of layout correctly, e.g in letters.

- Spelling accurately

- Using a range of sentence structures

- Linking ideas and information across sentences to develop a topic

- Developing and organizing the content clearly and convincingly

2.3 Pre-writing stage and pre-writing activities

Prewriting is one of the most important stages of the writing process, in addition torevision Unfortunately, most beginning (and some advanced) writers do not spend enoughtime on these activities, so writing is more difficult than it needs to be

In “The practice of writing”, Robert Scholes and Nancey R Comley (1989) highlightthe importance of prewriting: “Your most productive way of beginning almost any writingtask will be to collect your thoughts on paper without the pressure of structuring yourexpression into its final form”

2.3.1 Pre-writing stage

Writer’s block

Among the four main stages of the writing process: pre-writing, drafting, revising andediting, pre-writing, the first stage, fully reveals its importance in writing What is pre-writing?When and why do we need to do pre-writing?

Webster’s Dictionary defines pre-writing as, “The formulation and organization ofideas preparatory to writing”

(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prewritings)

“Prewriting is anything you do before you write a draft of your document It includesthinking, taking notes, talking to others, brainstorming, outlining, and gathering information(e.g., interviewing people, researching in the library, assessing data)”.

2.3.2 Some common pre-writing activities

Prewriting is nothing more than getting ready to write No person would leave onvacation without plans as to where to go No person would start to build a house without plans

as to what it will look like No person would start to cook a meal without an idea of whatwould be served Similarly, no person should attempt to write without a plan for what is to bewritten

Hereunder are some common pre-writing activities used at high-school:

Brainstorming is a widely used and effective way of getting ideas flowing The writercreates a “storm” of ideas, not passing judgment on any of them or censoring any idea thatcomes to mind These ideas may be ideas for actual content, or ideas for organizing thecontent In general, brainstorming involves thinking quickly and without inhibition so as toproduce as many ideas as possible in a given area or on a given topic or problem.Brainstorming can be carried out individually or among a group of people In classes,brainstorming is most frequently practiced as group activity Small groups can brainstormideas, with one person (or the instructor) recording ideas, or the class as a whole canbrainstorm The group may then select and order ideas from this brainstorming list to planindividually or collaboratively written texts

Brainstorming can be used to:

- Choose a topic

- Identify a reason or purpose for writing

- Find an appropriate form in which to write

- Develop a topic

- Work out a plot

- Develop the organization of ideas

* Listing and grouping

This method requires students to list all words or phrases related to topic Students donot stop until they have written a large quantity and completely run out of ideas They will not

be in a hurry to cross out the seemingly unimportant, repetitive, or even unrelated ones as soon

as they put them on the paper For example, students can first write such a topic as “Money” atthe top of their paper, and then, either in pairs or in small groups, list words or phrases asfollows:

(1) traveling (2) savings (3) bribery (4) studying abroad (5) prostitution (6) beautiful clothes(7) stealing (8) loan (9)payment

After listing all the items they can think of, students can begin to check the list, andtogether to decide to cross out the ones which do not fit, and the ones which are repetitive.After that, students can easily put the list into three subgroups such as:

* Rapid free writing

Rapid free writing, just like warming up before a game, flexes students’ writing

muscles (Raimes, 1996) This pre-writing technique simply requires students to write as much

as possible about a topic In this activity, individual students can generate as many ideas aspossible without worrying about spelling, punctuation, grammar, logic, organization oraccuracy, in order to develop fluency in writing Of course, these above-mentioned elements

of writing are important, but students’ concern about them can sometimes inhibit the free flow

of their ideas, so students are better leaving those things for later consideration In free writing,for example, students should first write the essay topic at the top of the paper to remindthemselves what the writing is about, and then begin to free-write on the topic within a givenperiod of time without stopping so that they can let one idea spark another idea in freeassociation What they write rapidly on the paper may be a word, a phrase or a sentence Inthis way, they will soon be surprised to find they have much to say instead of little

*Clustering.

Start with a central idea and relate words, phrases, or ideas to it This activity is used tofind a direction for thoughts

Example: The topic is writing about somebody’s daily life

Students can do the clustering activities as followed

Daily life

Meals Exercise

- Breakfast

Clustering works like brainstorming: ideas should be jotted down quickly, withoutcritique The writer begins with a single word closely associated with the topic that he/sheplaces at the center of the page Then he/she jots additional words and phrases around it on thepage Having lots of white space around short phrases and single words makes it easier for thewriter to make links between the ideas he/she generated, adding circles to group ideas andlines to connect ideas in various ways This activity may be much more pleasurable ifundertaken with a handful of felt-tip markers in various colors.

* Making wh-questions: Instead of staring at a blank sheet, students can quickly get

started by asking themselves a series of who, why, what, where, when and how questions about atopic and providing possible answers This process is particularly productive because it stimulatesactive thinking It reveals a wealth of details for enriching the paragraph The wh-

questions can help students see what they want to say and what they don’t want to say For example, students can ask themselves the following Wh-questions:

(1) “What” questions: What’s the problem? What’s my opinion? What’s the reason?(2) “Who” questions: Who was involved? Who did it? Who was affected?

(3) “Why” questions: Why did it happen? Why did I do it?

(4) “When” questions: When did it happen? When did I realize this?

(5) “How” questions: How did it happen? How can I change the situation?, etc

Topic: Money.

Students can develop ideas basing on the three main points: Enjoyment, Banking and Finance, Evil things.

A Enjoyment: (1) Traveling around the world; (2) Buying beautiful clothes; (3)

Studying abroad

B Banking & Finance: (1) Payment; (2) Loan; (3) Savings

C Evil things: (1) Bribery; (2) Stealing; (3) Prostitution

* Percolating : Thinking about your topic Deeply examining, with the mind, what

needs to be said

* Reading/Researching : Find information about the subject.

* Discussing: Talk to other people, with varying levels of knowledge on the topic,

about the piece

* In addition, ideas for writing can be generated from multimedia sources (printedmaterials, videos, films) as well as from direct interviews, talks, surveys and questionnaires.Students will be more motivated to write when given a variety of means for gathering informationduring pre-writing

2.3.3 Benefits of pre-writing activities

In general, the main benefits of pre-writing activities are:

Firstly, they can bring a lot of fun At this point, anything is possible A student may havemany ideas and the ideas can be freewheeling or even idiotic It does not matter He/she justkeeps brainstorming, playing with ideas, collecting resources and notes, doing all the otheractivities needed to finish this stage of the writing process At this point, the student’s writingmay go in many directions However, he/she needs to explore the ideas until he/she hit upon(find out) the ones that feel right

Secondly, a student can easily evaluate new ideas that come flooding into his/her mind

Thirdly, pre-writing activities allow the student to write the first draft more easily because he/she knows what he/she wants to write at each writing session

Next, pre-writing activities increase student’s self- confidence as a writer He/she will be able

to determine if the ideas have merit, and if he/she will be able to finish the topic and actuallywrite that topic

Finally yet importantly, by the end of the pre-writing process, the student will have a fulloutline of the topic With that outline, student will be able to see the whole project at a glance.When spreading the outline across the desk and examine the creation, the student will be able

to detect:

 Inadequate organization of the ideas

 Gaps in ideas and content

 Whether the student has one paragraph or more

 Whether the writing needs cutting down in size

In brief, the main benefits in carrying out pre-writing activities are: (1) They helpstudents stimulate thoughts for getting started and making writing easier; (2) They helpstudents remove the mental block and distraction that prevent ideas coming out; (3) They helpstudents write in a more motivating and stimulating way instead of pondering over an essaytopic alone; (4) They help create a cooperative and enjoyable atmosphere in the writing class

2.3.4 A warning about pre-writing activities

It is undeniable that pre-writing activities help students a lot when they start to write.However, besides the above benefits, there is also a warning when implementing theseactivities in class That is, both the teacher and students may become so fascinated by thisstage that they don’t actually move past it to create the first draft, and then on to revision Inother words, like research, writers have a tendency to spend too much time planning and neverget to implementation (drafting) Consequently, teachers may run out of time in writinglessons if they do not prepare carefully

Chapter 3: Methodology 3.1 Research method.

An action research was carried out in order to answer the two research questions of thisstudy:

1- What are the causes of difficulties in students’ writing?

2- How do the pre-writing activities affect 11 th form students in Tien Du 3 High School

in their writing?

In this action research, data were collected from two main data collection instruments:survey questionnaires and tests

3.2 Overview of action research.

Action research has been defined in a number of different ways Burns (1994) definesaction research as “the application of fact finding to practical problem solving in a socialsituation with a view to improving the quality of action within it, involving the collaborationand co-operation of researchers, practitioners and laymen” In the first chapter of the book

“Action research for Language Teachers, Wallace (1998) states that Action research is aprocess which collects data on your everyday practice and analyzes it in order to makedecision about what your future practice should be”

Usually, there are five main phases of action research: problem identification, plan ofaction, data collection, analysis of data and plan for future action Nunan (1992) also agreeswith the five steps above but he divides the action research process into smaller steps:Initiation, preliminary investigation, hypothesis, intervention, evaluation and dissemination

In this action research, Nunan’s six steps were adopted because his ideas cover allother researchers’ opinions The study was divided into 2 periods and included 8 final weeks

of the second semester The first period took place in 2 weeks (week 1 and week 2) and thesecond period took place in 6 weeks (from week 3 to week 8)

3.3 Descriptions of the research.

3.3.1 Description of the participants of the study

3.3.1.1 The students.

The research is carried out in class 11 A3 of Tien Du 3 High School The class size is

46 There are 21 males and 25 females Their ages are from 17 to 18 They are from differentcommunes of Tien Du district, Bac Ninh Province They have learnt English (E) 6, E7, E8, E9 andE10 They did not acquire the same level of English Especially in English writing tests, they oftengot low marks Some students even do not know how to get started to write This reason encouragedthe researcher to choose them as the objectives of the study

3.3.1.2 The teacher.

Also taking part in the study of this action research was the teacher of class 11A3- Tien

Du 3 High School It is obvious that the teacher plays a very important part in students’

writing Oxford (1990) has shown that the roles of the teachers are traditionally viewed as anauthority figure, instructor, director, manager, leader, evaluator, controller, and even thedoctor who must cure the ignorance of the students

Oxford (1990) also emphasizes the importance roles of the teacher as: “diagnostician”,

as “language learner”, as “learner trainer” and also a “coordinator” and a “coach” The status is

no longer based on hierarchical authority, but on the quality and importance of his/herrelationship with learners When the learners take more responsibility, more learning occurs,and both teacher and learners feel more successful

3.3.1.3 The rater.

In order to make the study more objective, the researcher has asked a teacher of Tien

Du 3 High School to code and rate the pre- and post-tests If the marks given by the rater arethe same as the marks given by the teacher of class 11A3, the marks will be accepted If thereare differences in marks between them, they will have to discuss and agree on which marks to

be accepted

3.3.1.4 Textbook.

The textbook “English 11” (Tiếng Anh 11) designed by the Ministry of Education wasused This new set of textbook was applied first in the school year 2007-2008 under theMinistry of Education and Training’s decision The book was complied following the themebased and task-based approaches It contains 16 units within 103 periods (34 weeks) in twoterms There are 3 periods of English per week Each teaching unit consists of five 45-minute

periods for normal class: Reading, speaking, listening, writing and language focus Like otherskills, writing skill covers one period Students often find it difficult to write a topic in classand they often got low marks for this skill.

3.3.2 Planning-identifying the current problems and the causes of the problems (week

1, 2)

During the teaching process, the researcher discovered that her students seemed to beweak at writing skills They did not know how to get started in writing essay topics or took alot of time for the writing To find out the problems that students had in learning writing

lessons and writing tests, the researcher raised the research question: “What are the causes of

difficulties in students’ writing?” To answer this question, Pre-test and Questionnaire

instruments were used to identify the problem

3.3.2.1 Pre-test instrument.

A writing test was used to collect data about the students’ language proficiency Thecontent of the test was designed basing on the topic given in the textbook (See appendix 3.1).The pre-test was done without any implementation of the pre-writing activities

3.3.2.2 Questionnaire instrument.

After the pre-test was finished, the pre-study questionnaire (see Appendix 2) was sent

to the students to get their information on the difficulties in writing, their preference forimplementing the pre-writing activities and their assessment of the pre-writing activitiesimplemented

The aims of the questions in the survey questionnaire are as followed:

Question 1 aims at finding out the students’ attitude toward writing skill

Question 2 aims at finding out the number of students who have troubles thinking about what

Question 6 is asked for the purpose of finding out the role of the pre-writing activities to theimprovement of students’ writing.

To ensure that the informants understood the questionnaires, the teacher explained allthe questions carefully and guided students when necessary

3.3.3 Preliminary investigation (Week 3,4)

To confirm the problem stated in phase 1, the researcher conducted the lessons of unit

11, 12 in usual way, without any treatments The researcher observed the class andinterviewed students to find out why they got stuck in their writing The interview questionsare as follows:

What do you think about the pre-writing activities available in your textbook?

Which pre-writing activities do you like most?

How would you like to participate in the pre-writing activities? (In pairs, in groups,individually)

The researcher took notes of their answers and marked their preference for how theywould like the pre-writing activities to be implemented in class, which activities they liked to

be implemented in the pre-writing stage, etc

3.3.4 Hypothesis.

After the data from the pre-tests and pre-study survey questionnaires had beencollected, the main reasons for the low marks and the difficulties in writing lessons werehypothesized as followed:

- The pre-writing activities in the textbook are not sufficient enough

- The students’ language competence and proficiency is low

3.3.5 Action, developing an action plan and conducting the experiment (Week 5, 6, 7,

8)

Based on the data collected and the reasons found out in the first phase, the researcheradded some pre-writing activities to the writing lessons to solve the problem The activitieswere carried out in the writing lessons of unit 13, 14, 15 in class 11A3, Tien Du 3 High School(Second semester).At first, the researcher reviewed the pre-writing activities provided in thetextbook and considered other activities which help make the writing easier The activities

most students preferred in the pre-writing stage were brainstorming, drawing, asking andanswering questions, listing, clustering, drawing (describing pictures) and rapid free-writing.Therefore, the researcher implemented these activities in unit 13, 14, 15 and 16 (week 5, 6, 7,8) depending on the content of each lesson.

In unit 13 (week 5 of the action research), the researcher applied the pre-writingactivity “asking and answering questions” First, students were asked to work in pairs tobrainstorm for the name of the collections they saw in the pictures Next, the teacher called therepresentatives of some pairs to write the answers on the board after about 5 minutes Inaddition, the researcher gave some wh-questions and asked students to work in groups torearrange them into logical order After that, the groups were required to write their answers

on a piece of paper and then exchanged their pieces of paper They would discuss andsupplement the ideas that their group or the other group did not have After that, the teachercollected the students’ answers to see if students had enough ideas to write or not The teacherthen suggested a list of ideas and asked students to select which ideas to answer the questions

In general, most students could do these tasks well They remembered the order of the ideasthat should be written in their papers in the while-writing stage

In the writing section of unit 14, the teacher designed 2 tasks in the pre-writing stagefor students to do before asking them to write on the paper The requirement of this unit is towrite a passage about “the class’s camping holiday” In task 1, the teacher asked students tobrainstorm for all the activities they often did when going camping This activity was held inthe whole class with the teacher directing And the teacher gave suggestions when necessary.This activity was carried out in 5 minutes to help students recall of their existing knowledgeand prepare the mood for the writing lesson In task 2 (page 158 in the textbook), students had

to match the activities listed in the textbook with the correct pictures They did this taskindividually After the teacher had given the answers for the matching task, students hadenough information for the writing such as the time the bus left school, when they got to thecamping site, when they put up the umbrella tent, what activities they did while they werethere (watching wildlife in the forest, cooking food over an open fire, swimming in the lake,playing games, fishing, etc), what time they left the campsite

In unit 15, the writing task was writing a biography Before doing task 1 in thetextbook, the teacher asked students to look at the picture of Neil Armstrong They would thenwork in pairs and talk about what they knew about this person for 5 minutes Then, one studentput the question and the other answered Students might ask and answer about his date of birth,place of birth, his career and his famous quote, etc The teacher noted down the informationand did not correct students’ information After the activity “asking and answering questions”,the teacher asked students to do task 1 in the textbook Students had to base on the informationgiven and selected the headings in the box (page 174-English 11) to fill in the blanks Whenstudents had finished task 1, the teacher asked them to write a biography of Neil Armstrongbasing on the information given in task 1 in the while-writing stage Because all the suggestedinformation in the textbook was put in the time order, so students could complete task 2 withnot many difficulties For the writing task, the teacher encouraged those students to write moreinformation rather in the textbook into the writing.

In the last writing lesson, unit 16, students had to write a topic which was ratherunfamiliar and difficult for them The topic is “basing on the notes made by a visitor to thePonaga Cham Towers in Nha Trang (page 184-English 11), write a report on the visit” Theteacher used two pre-writing activities: asking and answering questions and outlining in thepre-writing stage Firstly, the teacher asked the students whether any of them had seen thePonaga Cham Towers with their own eyes If students said “yes”, students recalled theinformation they remembered about this place If students said “no”, the teacher showed apicture of Ponaga Cham Towers and asked students to describe it The teacher asked Wh-questions to prompt when necessary (How many towers are there? Where is it located? Whenwas it built? etc) Next, the teacher showed the picture of the Ponaga Cham Towers and thenotes written by a visitor (page 184) The teacher explained the words or phrases whichstudents did not know Then students had to write an outline based on the notes given Thistask was done individually for about 7 minutes The teacher went around and gave suggestionsfor those who had difficulties fulfilling the task Next, the teacher collected the outlines, chosethe best written one and showed to the other students to comment After the above pre-writingactivities, students could confidently write the report in the while-writing stage

Above were the main pre-writing activities that I implemented in the pre-writing stage

of unit 13, 14, 15 and 16 (English 11) Throughout the writing lessons, I observed and madenotes as to see how the students were working and their reactions to the pre-writing activities.These observations were based on several guidelines: “What problems are the studentsencountering as they work with these pre-writing activities? Are they still having problemswith the content of the writing? Are there problems with individual, pair and group works?These observations and notes were useful in making sense of any fluctuations I found in theend-of-study surveys I was able to discern the source of problems that affected students’writing

At the end of each writing lesson, I had students share their comments on the writing activities implemented by the teacher I noted down all these comments Students werealso encouraged to send their written, individual comments to me, responding to the followingquestions: What problems did you encounter while you were doing your pre-writing activities?Did you learn from the other students when working in pairs or in groups? Do the pre-writingactivities implemented make it easier for you to write?

pre-Finally, to see whether the pre-writing activities had any positive impact on students’attitudes towards writing, I surveyed the students by asking the same questions that I hadasked in the beginning survey

3.3.6 Observation, collecting data and observing the effects of the action.

While the action plan was implemented, the researcher collected the data and practicedthe pre-writing activities in the classroom Data of the questionnaires collected in week 1, 2 ofthe action research was used to see which pre-writing activities were preferred most bystudents And then, the researcher implemented those activities and some other ones forstudents to see if there were any changes in their results The data was gathered after 8 weeks

of implementing the action plan; the students did a writing post-test to collect data on how thepre-writing activities implemented affect the quality of their writing Students were also asked

to answer the survey questionnaires distributed in the first week again The purpose of thisaction was to see if the students’ writing skill improved or not The analysis of these collecteddata was described in details in chapter 4

3.3.7 Reflection, evaluating the action plan and the evaluated effects of the action The

action research was evaluated basing on the collected results from the post-test

and the post-study attitudinal survey questionnaire The researcher compared the results of thepost-test and the post-study attitudinal survey questionnaire with the pre-test and the pre-studysurvey questionnaire From the findings of the action research and the students’ comments onthe activities implemented, the researcher drew out the conclusion whether those activitieshelped improving students’ writing ability or not Some recommendations were also givenafter the study

3.3.8 Data collection instruments and their procedures

The pre-test was done in March 2009 and the post-test was done in May, 2009 Theprocedures of collecting data were carried out as follows:

Firstly, the pre-test was used for students in class 11A3, Tien Du 3 High Schoolwithout any implementation of the pre-writing activities outside textbook to clarify the firststep of the action research: Planning-identifying the current problems The teacher based onthe result of the pre-test to identify whether the lack of pre-writing activities was the cause ofthe students’ writing difficulty This was also done to see if students’ writing result was betterafter some pre-writing activities had been implemented The topic of the pre-test was takenfrom Unit 13 (See appendix 1)

Secondly, to answer the second research question: “How do the pre-writing activities

affect 11 th form students in Tien Du 3 High School in their writing?, the researcher conducted

a post-test and a post-study attitudinal survey questionnaire after the pre-writing activities hadbeen implemented in class The results then were compared with the results of the first stage to seehow much changes students made

3.3.9 Summary

In this part the research method and its different data collection instruments wereintroduced The reasons for the method selection were also discussed The data procedures, theimplementation of the action plan were conducted in a strict order After the data from the pre-test and pre-study attitudinal survey questionnaire were collected, the causes of the students’difficulties in writing were sought Then one action plan of implementing some useful pre-

writing activities was developed during the last four units of the second term Basing on theanalysis of the results from the action plan implementation, the data collected from tests, theaction research was evaluated.

Chapter 4: Data analysis and discussion.

In this chapter, the researcher mainly focuses on the data analysis and some discussions

of the major findings of the study Data and comments collected during the progress of doingthe research will also be presented in this part

4.1 Data analysis procedure.

Data was analyzed by comparing students' responses on pre and post attitude surveys.Students were asked to respond to the same 6 questions at the beginning and at the end of thestudy

Data was also analyzed by comparing the results of the pre- and post-writing tests todetermine if there was a difference in quality which would suggest that students were able towrite in class better as a result of the pre-writing activities employed

Before evaluating the writing tests, each composition was photocopied and coded toreduce bias (Several students had a preference for using distinctively colored ink for writingassignments.) In order to reduce bias, a person not involved in the study who was alsounfamiliar with the students randomly affixed numbered labels to the writing tests and mixedthe pre and post-tests The labels were placed over students' names and were reinforced so thatthe names would not show through A list of names and corresponding numbers was preparedand placed in an envelope; it was not viewed by the researcher until after the writing tests wereread and rated

The researcher used different criteria to rate the writing tests In general, there are fivemain criteria to assess the students’ writing The first criterion is developing and organizingthe contents of the topic clearly and convincingly The second one is getting the grammarright The third one is using a range of vocabulary and sentence structures The next criterion

is using the conventions of layout correctly, e.g in writing a letter or writing a report Thefinal criterion is accuracy in spelling and meaningful punctuation

As an additional method of reducing bias in rating students' compositions, the initialratings were recorded, then the compositions were remixed A person who was not involved inthe study and was also unfamiliar with the students (in this study it was the same person who

coded the compositions) read and rated the compositions based on the criteria previously

described The researcher then compared the two sets of category placements If a composition

was assigned to the same category by both the teacher and the rater, then it was placed

permanently in that category All other compositions were reread, reevaluated by the teacher

and the rater based on the placement criteria, and discussed until agreement was reached

The final marks of both pre- and post-tests were then compared to determine whether

there were any changes to students’ writing results due to the application of different

pre-writing activities

4.2 The results of the students’ pre-test and post-test.

As stated in section 3.3.2.1, the aims of providing these tests are to examine the effects

of using pre-writing activities on students’ writing result The researcher wants to know

whether the pre-writing activities implemented help improving students’ writing or not

In this section, the results of the pre- and post-test were computed and analyzed using

SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Science), version 17.0 The significant level used for

this study is 05 if the probability value –P value (which is a number obtained from the

research results SPSS, version 17.0) is less than or equal to the significance level (P ≤ 05 and

T < -2)

The results of the pre- and post-test were compared using Pair-sample T-test in order to

determine whether there were any changes in students’ writing or not after developing the

action plan of adding more pre-writing activities into the writing lessons for 8 final weeks of

the second term Table 1 and chart 1 present the results of the pre- and post-test

Paired Samples Statistics

Tests Mean N Std Deviation Std Error Mean T PPre-test 5.6889 45 1.25811 18755 -6.797 000Post-test 6.6667 45 1.20605 17979

Table 1 The results of the pre-test and post-test

5.65.45.2Pre-Post

Chart 1 The results of the pre-test and post-test in mean

As can be seen in Table 4.1 and Chart 1, the results of the pre-test and post-test implied

that there was a clear improvement in students’ writing skill Table 4.1 indicates that there was

a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test result (T= -6.797 < -2; P = 000

<.05) The post-test mean increased by 0.9778 in comparison with the pre-test mean (Pre-test: Mean

= 5.6889 vs Post-test: Mean = 6.6667) We can see this increase clearly when the mean results of

the pre-test and post-test were displayed in chart (See Chart 1 above)

4.3 The result of the students’ pre- and post-study attitudinal survey.

A six item attitude survey questionnaire was administered to 46 students at the

beginning and at the end of the action research to assess the students’ attitudes 45 of the 46

members of the class responded to the pre- and post-study surveys, and 1 student did not return

the survey So the total number is 45.The survey was given to determine the problems

that cause the difficulties in students’ writing Students were also asked to express their likes

and dislikes toward writing skills and the pre-writing activities employed The students were

4.3.1 The students’ attitude towards writing.

To know the students’ attitude towards writing, the teacher asked students to respond

to the first question: “Do you like writing at school?”