Pleasure reading as a tool to improve efl learners writing proficiency

11 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI MAI LE PLEASURE READING AS A TOOL TO IMPROVE EFL LEARNERS’ WRITING PROFICIENCY Major: English Teaching Methodology Co

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

NGUYEN THI MAI LE

PLEASURE READING AS A TOOL TO IMPROVE EFF

LEARNERS’ WRITING PROFICIENCY

MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION

Vinh, 2017

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

NGUYEN THI MAI LE

PLEASURE READING AS A TOOL TO IMPROVE EFL LEARNERS’ WRITING PROFICIENCY

Major: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60140111

MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION

Supervisor: Dr Tran Thi Ngoc Yen

Vinh, 2017

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ABSTRACT

The objective of the present study is to investigate the impacts of pleasure reading on EFL learners’ writing proficiency To achieve the aim, an experiment that involved 24 students at a language centre was carried out Twelve of the participants were ascribed to the experimental group and the other twelve were assigned to the control group The data were collected within a four - week period via a pre-test and a post-test designed for comparable groups The experimental group was asked to read extensively besides following the same English course as the control group Both groups did a general English test and pre-test before the treatment and post-test after the treatment It was found that pleasure reading helped the students to improve fluency and accuracy in writing Based on the findings, implications for enhancing the effectiveness of teaching and learning the writing skill have been put forward teachers

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

ABSTRACT ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 3

1.2 Aims of the study 4

1.3 Research questions 4

1.4 Scope of the study 5

1.5 Organization of the thesis 5

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 The reading skill 6

2.1.1 Definitions of reading 6

2.1.2 Types of reading 8

2.1.2.1 According to manners of reading 9

2.1.2.2 According to purposes of reading 12

2.1.3 The roles of reading in learning 17

2.1.4 Reading motivation and reading interest 19

2.2 Reading for pleasure 20

2.2.1 Definition 20

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2.2.2 Benefits of pleasure reading 21

2.3 The writing skill 23

2.3.1 Definitions 23

2.3.2 Assessing writing ability 25

2.4 Fluency and accuracy in language performance 26

2.4.1 Fluency 27

2.4.2 Accuracy 27

2.4.3 Fluency vs accuracy 28

2.5 Teaching EFL writing 29

2.5.1 Approaches to teaching the writing skill 29

2.5.2 EFL learners’ difficulties in learning to write 33

2.5.3 Developing EFL writing proficiency 34

2.5.3.1 Factors affecting EFL writing proficiency 34

2.5.3.2 Methods and techniques to develop writing proficiency 37

2.6 Reading in writing proficiency development 40

2.6.1 Receptive vs productive in language learning 40

2.6.2 Connecting reading and writing 43

2.6.3 Benefits of pleasure reading for writing development 45

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CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 47

3.1 Research questions 47

3.2 Participants 47

3.2.1 The control group 48

3.2.2 The experimental group 48

3.3 Instruments 49

3.3.1 The general test 50

3.3.2 Pre - test 50

3.3.3 Post - test 50

3.4 Procedures 51

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 53

4.1 Results and findings 53

4.1.1 The general test results 53

4.1.2 Pre -test results 54

4.1.3 Post -test results 57

4.1.4 Comparison of pre-test and post-test result 60

4.1.5 Comparison of the experimental group and the control group 63

4.2 Discussions and summary 65

5.1 Pedagogical implications 66

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS 66

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5.2 Conclusions 66

5.3 Limitations of the study 66

5.4 Suggestions for study 67

REFERENCES 69

APPENDIX A 74

APPENDIX B 79

APPENDIX C 80

APPENDIX D 81

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

The English language has rapidly become the most popular foreign language in Vietnam, especially at schools, colleges and universities For learners of English, the English language surely brings about a better career prospect Frankly, writing

is among the most prominent skills that EFL learners need to learn as an essential component of their academic practice and later in their professional life Teaching and learning how to write successfully gets even more complicated and challenging for both language teachers and students when it comes to ESL/ EFL environments compared with teaching L1 writing For many Vietnamese students, presenting written work is a substantial challenge They may have little experience of writing after leaving schools, and may be very anxious about having to write essays They have a lot of mistakes about vocabulary, syntax, semantics, etc

Of the four skills, writing, in general, is considered the most difficult one for every student The four language skills (reading, speaking, listening and writing) are taught regularly at most of schools now, among which the writing skill is very important because it is a productive skill It is also because of the fact that besides speaking, people frequently have to communicate with each other via writing The ability to write in English for various purposes of communication is becoming increasingly more and more essential in our modern life Writing is known as an important skill for multifarious reasons in education and business

According to Brown (2004: 218), writing is a skill that is the exclusive domain of scribes and scholars in educational or religious institutions Writing is important as teaching speaking, reading, and listening because the learners can express their ideas, feeling, and experiences in certain place, time and situation in written form According to the Zemach and Rumisek (2005: 54), the teaching of writing is

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important because of the reasons: the first reason is writing reinforces the grammatical structure, idiom and vocabulary that teacher has been working within the class The second reason is when the student writes, she or he has a chance to

be adventurous with the language Finally, the student becomes involved with the language, with himself or herself and with his or her readers

However, most language learners realize the learning to write fluently and expressively are difficult It is because writing needs simultaneous control of number variables This argument is supported by Zemach and Islam (2004: 12), that there are some aspects included in writing such as control of content, rules of syntax, format sentence, grammar, punctuation, vocabulary, and spelling

Unfortunately, the students’ skills in writing are still far from what is being expected Many students cannot write grammatical sentences, spelling, punctuation, and limited vocabulary It makes the students fell bored and they do not interest in joining the lesson In fact, many students fail to reach the standard score for the midterm tests and final tests in a course

These problems are caused by some factors, such as: first, the implementation of teacher central learning Students have a little chance to express their opinion because the teacher only speaks all the time They get knowledge just from the teacher’s explanation The students focus all attention upon the teacher and discourage communication among students All that they have to do is just listen to their teacher and take notes for useful information The students only receive the knowledge from their teacher; they do not explore the knowledge themselves Second, students still lack of vocabularies which make them difficult to compose any writing text Third, the students have lack interest in English Therefore, many students consider it as the hardest subject to learn

Because of those problems, researchers have found many techniques and methods

for both learning and teaching writing skill Many previous research mentioned to how extensive reading affects writing skill They pointed out the connection between reading and writing This thesis explores the effects of pleasure reading on writing and examines two factors’ development in students’ writing ability: accuracy and fluency after a month reading their interesting texts

1.1 Rationale

With the phenomenal spread of English as global lingua franca, the need for a master of this language has heightened With four skills of English, writing has always been seen as an important skill in language acquisition In both English as a foreign language (EFL) and English as a second language (ESL) programs, the students’ development of writing skills is now emphasized However, many elementary EFL students often struggle with their writing accuracy and fluency

English has been run like blood through the veins of nations all over the world To have good communication skills in English is burning desire for most people Communicative competence in the target language is more demanded now than ever before The ever growing need for good communication skills in English has created a huge demand for English teaching around the world The worldwide demand for English has created an enormous demand for quality language teaching and language teaching materials and resources (Rechards, 2006, p5)

The worldwide increasing demand for good communication in English language has increased the responsibility of the English language teachers The application

of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has faced problems and resistance in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context (Ellis, 1996)

As a teacher of English with nearly 5 years of experience at an English centre, I see that my students are facing difficulties in writing skill about vocabulary, expressions and grammar Although they have learnt English since they were at grade 3, most of them are still unconfident in writing tests Despite their considerable knowledge of grammar, the students fail to use the language they have learnt to communicate in real-life situations or write an accurate sentence or paragraph It may be that most of them lack vocabulary, grammatical knowledge and structures The purpose of this study is to provide readings to an experimental group at an English centre so as to find out whether pleasure reading is effective in helping these EFL students develop their writing skill It was expected that the teachers in this centre will be able to use this method to help students improve their writing ability

All the aforementioned reasons urged the author to carry out the study entitled

“Pleasure reading as a tool to improve EFL learners’ writing proficiency”

Hopefully, the results will serve as a useful source of reference for those who are concerned teaching and learning English writing skill

1.2 Aims of the study

The aim of the study is to explore the effect of pleasure reading on EFL students’ writing accuracy and fluency

1.3 Research questions

This study was designed to answer the following two research questions:

1 Will pleasure reading enhance EFL learners’ writing fluency?

2 How does pleasure reading affect EFL learners’ writing accuracy?

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1.4 Scope of the Study

This research examined on the effects of pleasure reading on the EFL students’ writing ability However, it only focused on accuracy in grammar, punctuation, spelling and speed of students’ writing Due to the limitation of time, the study only involved twenty four students in two solutions 8 classes at an English centre

in Vinh city, Nghe An province

1.5 Organization of the thesis

The thesis includes five chapters as follows:

Chapter 1 is the introduction, which provides a brief introduction, rationale, the aims

of the study, the scope of the study and the research questions

Chapter 2 is the literature review, in which the previous studies about the writing skill and pleasure reading related to the thesis and some concepts as theoretical basis for the study will be discussed

Chapter 3 presents the experimental study, which describes the research methodology, participants, instruments, procedure for data analysis

Chapter 4 mentions to results of pre-test, post-test, general test, discussions after the results and last summary

Chapter 5 contains implications, conclusions, limitations of the research and some suggestions for further studies

This chapter focuses on the literature review and theoretical background of the study It presents a brief review of the literature on the topics that are generally related to the research in this thesis Previous studies on reading and writing skills will be mentioned

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

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2.1 The reading skill

2.1.1 Definitions of reading

So far, the term reading has been defined quite differently according to its various

aspects such as criteria, features and functions For many learners, reading is a very essential skill, particularly in English as a second language Concerning the role of reading, Carrell (1988, p.1) states that “Without solid reading proficiency, second language learners cannot perform at levels they must in order to succeed” Anderson (1999) also confirms that “The more exposure a student has to language through reading, the greater the possibilities that overall language proficiency will increase” Reading plays such a significant part in the success of second language learning and

it is essential to understand what reading really is However, the act of reading is neither completely understood nor easily described In a general term, reading is defined as “An active, fluent process which involves the reader and the reading material in building meaning” (Anderson, 1999, p.1)

According to Aebersold and Field (1997, p.15), “reading is what happens when people look at a text and assign meaning to the written symbol in that text The text and the reader are the two physical entities necessary for the reading process to start

It is, however, the interaction between the text and the reader that

constitutes actual meaning” These interactions, in their opinion, are the interactions between purpose and manner of reading and through reading strategies and schema Purpose determines how people read a text People may read the text

to understand it (reading for full comprehension), or simply to get the general idea (skimming), to find the part that contains the information they need (scanning) Readers also use some mental activities that are often referred to as reading strategies to construct meaning from a text In addition, readers base on their previous knowledge that they bring to the text to assist their reading comprehension This prior knowledge is known as schema Research in reading has shown that schema plays an important role in helping the reader to comprehend a text

Moreover, Rubin, J and Thompson (1994, p.91) offer another definition of reading:

“Reading is an active information-seeking process in which readers relate information in the text to what they already know” From this point of view, the reader’s knowledge of the language and knowledge of the world is of importance to their reading success Goodman (1971, p.135) states that reading is “a psycholinguistic process by which the reader- a language user, reconstructs, as best

as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display” For Goodman, this act of reconstruction is considered as cyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing and confirming

Additionally, Walker (1992, p.37) defined reading as an active, problem solving process that involves predicting or guessing what the author says, based on expectations about story events He believes that reading involves recalling an individual’s life experience and trying to understand what is written He also confirms that reading is comprehending and developing of human learning In other words, reading is more than just receiving meaning in a literal sense

From a cognitive attitude, Smith defines reading that “Reading is to understand author’s thought” (Smith, 1985, p.102) This means that the meaning of the text depends on the context in which appears The more the readers conceive the author’s thought, the more he is aware of the writer’s intention

Taking an interactive attitude, Nutall (1982:4) expresses “Reading means getting out of the text as nearly as possible the message the writer puts into it” He also emphasizes the interaction between texts and readers in the reading process In his opinion, “Text is full of meaning like a jug of water; the reader’s mind soaks it up like sponge”

To sum up, it can be said that there is a variety of perspective Therefore, no definitions can possible apprehend all the characters and opinions what reading is Each author defines reading in his own point of view In order to understand clearly about the nature of reading, it is necessary to take a closer look at the actual process that really takes place in the reader’s mind

2.1.2 Types of reading

One of the most important points to keep in mind when teaching and learning Reading skill is that there is a large number of reading types and readers have to base on one’s purpose for reading Both teachers and learners will never be good readers if they do not know how to adapt their reading skill to their aims when reading According to the reading process, it is essential to distinguish the reading activities depending on manners and purposes of reading

2.1.2.1 According to manners of reading

Reading, according to manner, is divided into reading aloud and silent reading Doff (1988, p.67) supposes that “reading aloud involves looking a text,

understanding it and also saying it” Although reading aloud is considered a way to convey necessary information to the others, it is unpopular activity outside classroom For the teachers, reading aloud is more of a speaking exercise of pronunciation

In fact, reading aloud proves itself to be advantageous for the learners because it helps them make the connection between sounds and spelling of letters and words and assists the teachers to check learners’ pronunciation It must be recognized that reading aloud is primarily an oral matter so that for those who teach and learn foreign languages, it is closer to “pronunciation” than it is to “comprehension” While it is perfectly proper to try to develop the skill of reading aloud, it clearly cannot be done using an unfamiliar text the content and language of which stretches the linguistic capabilities of the learners to the utmost Therefore, it must

be accepted that the usefulness of reading aloud is limited As Doff (1988, p.58) articulates that reading aloud is not a very useful technique for some following reasons Firstly, “reading aloud is not an activity we engage in very often outside the classroom” (Doff, 1988, p.67) Indeed, in the daily life, few people are required

to read aloud as a matter of daily routine, radio newscasters, clergymen, perhaps actors To the huge majority, its importance is minimal Secondly, the readers are often merely mouthing meaningless language because of lack of rehearsal and time

to comprehend what he has to read aloud It means that when reading aloud, the readers’ attention is focused on the pronunciation, not on the understanding of the text Furthermore, in the classroom, only the reading student is active at a time, others are either not listening at all or listening to bad model Finally, some students’ reading speed is very slow so it takes a lot of time in class

By whispering the word while reading, reading aloud slows the reader down and forces him to read every word so it can distract him from understanding the text

Moreover, several researchers claim that reading aloud has not only disadvantages but also advantages Anderson (1985) considers that “the singer most important activity for building knowledge for their eventual success in reading is reading aloud” Reading aloud to students, regardless of their reading competence, provides them with the comprehension that impression has meaning Learners can become familiar with the phrasing, expression, and flow of sentences in stories or text that are read aloud to them

Therefore, reading aloud can be applied for those who begin learning a foreign language to establish the connection between sound and spelling On the other hand, their main object of learning reading is farther than improving vocabulary, pronunciation of fluency Learners focus on understanding the text and doing comprehension exercises which cannot be completed perfectly by reading aloud because asking a student to read aloud means that he may lack concentration on the meaning He may read correctly but after that he will not be able to remember the main content he has already read It is difficult to read aloud and understand the text at the same time of reading Thus reading aloud might be a good way to practice pronunciation It might not correspond with larger purposes

Besides, silent reading is the activity we usually engage when we read books, newspapers, advertisements, etc Silent reading is widely used in both real life and classroom; silent reading is defined as “the simplest method of reading, frequently forgotten by language teachers It is the method we normally use with our native language, and on the whole the quickest and most efficient” (Lewis and Hill, 1985,

p.110)

It is obvious that by far the greatest amount of reading which is done in the world is

do not need to read all the words in the text, we can read at our own speed and if

we do not understand what we are reading, we can read ago or slow down for intensive reading Doff (1988, p.67) states that silent reading or reading for meaning “is the activity we normally engage in where we read books, newspapers, road sign, etc it involves looking at sentences and understanding the message they convey, in other words, making sense of a written text” According to Doff, we know that silent reading is of great help in developing reading skills Students do not have to pay attention to the exact pronunciation of words; they will spend most

of time on focusing on the main ideas of the text Therefore, they can cover the greatest possible amount of the text in the least time Furthermore, through silent reading, learners can control the time they read If they do not understand the sentence or an opinion, they can go back and read it again So silent reading is a very effective way of the reading comprehension process

For the teachers, silent reading is helpful for controlling the class In silent reading, students are in fact concentrating on the text, obtaining the meaning and extracting what they need Therefore, it is a useful technique in a reading skill applied to learners to develop reading lesson Silent reading is sometimes considered as recreational reading or independent reading as in silent reading something is read in

a relaxed mood and only a single individual remain concerned about it Reading silently improves students’ understanding because it helps them concentrate on what they are reading rather than the pronunciation of words When teachers encourage students to read silently, this means that students have opportunity to

develop the strategies they need for reading fast, and with better comprehension

In short, silent reading is the most useful and practical way to develop the students’ reading ability However, it is more beneficial when the teacher sometimes combines it with reading aloud to improve students’ pronunciation and intonation because reading aloud has its own advantages

2.1.2.2 According to purposes of reading

According to the purpose of reading, researchers categorize reading into skimming, scanning, intensive, and extensive

Skimming is a quick reading to get to know the general meaning of a passage, to know how the passage is organized, that is, the structure of the text and to get an idea of the intension of the writer Skimming is a tool in which the author’s sequence can be observed, unlike scanning in which some predetermined information is sought after

According to William (1984, p.96), skimming means glancing rapidly through a text by “merely dipping into it and sampling it at various points” to comprehend its general content He also emphasizes that the purpose of skimming is to briefly summarize what the text is about He believes that one of the reasons for practicing skimming is that it helps learner to acquire a study technique, to organize his thoughts and also to specify what information he can get from a book

Skimming is used to quickly gather the most important information, or “gist” Grellet, F (198, p.19) presents that “When skimming, we go through the reading

material quickly in order to get the gist of it, to know how it is organized, or to get

an idea of the tone or the intension of the writer, but not to find the answer to specific questions” Due to its nature, the key to skimming is to know where to find the main idea of different paragraphs and to be able to synthesize them by the way

of generalization

Hedge, T (2000, p.195) states that “skim receding is used to get a global impression of the content of a text An example would be previewing a long magazine article by reading rapidly, skipping large chunks of information, and focusing on headings and first lines of paragraphs”

Skimming can also help readers make decision about where to place their greatest focus when they have limited time for reading Skimming is a useful reading skill which is often applied for the first reading stage of reading teaching so that the students can have an over view of what they are reading

Skimming and scanning are two very different strategies for speed reading, they are each used for different purposes Scanning is another useful tool for speeding up your reading Readers concentrate on a specific fact or piece of information without reading everything

Scanning occurs when a reader look quickly through the text searching for a specific piece of information or to see if the text is suitable for a specific reading purpose Hedge, T (2000, p.195) points out that “scanning involves searching rapidly through a text to find a specific point of information For example, the relevant times on a timetable, items in a directory or key points in academic text” Scanning is the reading skill we use when we want to find the answer to a specific question Like skimming, scanning is an advantageous reading skill that may at

first strange to a learner who is used to reading everything in a foreign language with the same degree of attention Scanning is a quick reading, focusing on locating specific information It involves quick eyes movements, not necessarily linear in fashion, in which the eyes wander until the reader finds the piece of information is required, such as a name, date, symbol, formula or phrase, is required The reader knows what the item looks like and so, knows when he has located what he was searching for

Scanning is another useful skill to locate a specific item of information that we need William (1996, p.100) defines “scanning occurs when a reader goes through

a text very quickly in order to find a particular point of information” He explains that the purpose of scanning is to find the answers to particular questions, ignore unrelated information In contrast to skimming, scanning is far more limited since

it only means retrieving needed information This kind of reading is widely used in reading comprehension

Although these two reading techniques are important for quick and efficient reading, they should not be selected separately In order to understand a text effectively, the readers should not use these ways isolate They must know how to use suitable ways to achieve their reading purpose Davies, F (1995, p.137) asserts that “it is difficult to draw clear boundaries between the types of reading termed skimming and scanning; in real life, scanning inevitably involves some skimming

of large selections of texts, and skimming, reciprocally, must embrace some scanning”

Besides, intensive reading (IR) occurs when the learner is focused on language rather than text Intensive reading means reading every detail to certify everything

in the text Intensive reading involves a close study of texts and an examination of the features of foreign language at the various levels of word, sentence, paragraph and whole text

According to Nuttall (1996, p.38) defines that “intensive reading involves approaching the text under the guidance of a teacher or a task which forces the students focus on the text” Brown considers intensive reading as “a classroom- oriented activity in which students focus on the linguistic or semantic details of a passage” (Brown, 1999, p.297) In other word, Grellet, F (1981, p.4) also states that “intensive reading means reading short text to extract specific information This is an accuracy activity involving reading for detailed” The objective of IR is

to achieve a full understanding of the text, not only of what it means but also of how the meaning is produced Through IR, the reader must arrive at a profound and detailed understanding of logical arguments, purposes of the writer and his linguistic means to achieve his purposes In other words, IR is reading for accuracy which is essential to the students’ comprehension

Intensive reading has these following characteristics: Firstly, the reading materials may not be relevant to learners’ ability and interest as they are chosen by teachers not learners Secondly, in doing IR, the actual amount of time spent on reading is little as a lot of procedures such as listening to the teacher’s instruction, reading comprehension questions, discussing the content of the text Thirdly, reading speed

is usually slower than faster as learners have to stop at some moments during their reading in the classroom to look up new words in dictionary, ask the teachers for a definition or analyze the text by reading it word by word or sentence by sentence Finally, reading in intensive approach is not individual as learners are assumed to interact more with the teacher than with the text

According to Nuttall (1982, p.168), “the best way to improve your knowledge of a foreign language is to go and live among its speakers The next best way is to read extensively in it” ER is a language teaching procedure where learners are supposed

to read large quantities of material or long texts for global understanding, the principal goal being obtaining pleasure from the text The reading is individualized, what means that students choose books they want to read, they read it independently of the teacher and they are not required to do any tasks after reading Moreover, they are encouraged to stop reading whenever they consider the material not interesting or too difficult Extensive reading is used to obtain a general understanding of a subject and includes reading longer texts for pleasure, as well as business books Use ER skill to develop our general knowledge

Extensive reading is considered to be useful for students’ self learning Their reading habit and passion for reading are also formed through ER Students can

choose the topics they like and read for their own purpose for pleasure or entertainment However, it is more effective if students’ extensive reading is followed an instructional program with the help of the reading teacher In fact, most of ER is done silently and out of the classroom and it give the students opportunities to use their target language knowledge for their own purposes

In short, reading is necessary to every learner and undeniably an important skill in comparison with others In addition, it is notable that intensive and extensive reading should not be seen as in being opposition but need to be paid equal attention for the sake of students For foreign language learners, both intensive and extensive readings are of great importance as they act as a means to gain knowledge

2.1.3 The roles of reading in learning

Reading plays an inevitably important role in comprehending a text and using the foreign language appropriately and fluently “A person’s future opportunities for success and prosperity will be even more entwined with skill reading abilities It is therefore an important societal responsibility to offer every person the opportunity

to become a skilled reader, and in many cases, this means becoming a skilled L2 reader” (Grabe, 2009, p.6)

It is possible for us to claim that reading has a very important role to play in language learning as it can bring benefits to learners William (1984, p.13) suggests some advantages of reading to learners including: First, learners can have further practice in the language that they have learnt This means that learners will have many opportunities to gain further knowledge of the target language Second, learners can practice language in order to reuse it in other skills such as speaking

and writing Learners cannot understand anything if they cannot read Third, learners can learn how to get benefit from the texts to extract the information they need The more comprehension learners conceive the more major intelligence they receive

Reading has a large number of major benefits that help learners study language faster and more successfully Reading is one of the most essential skills for language learners When learners’ reading skill improves, their listening, speaking, and writing also advance There are some specific reasons why learners are encouraged to practice reading For instance:

The constant repetition of words and patterns in reading helps you leam and remember vocabulary and grammar structures Reading plays an important part in providing vocabulary and structure types Learners can understand the usage of structures better when they catch the meaning of sentences

Reading is something you can do your own Learners can spend much time on reading by themselves Language learners are able to practice reading skill whenever they want The skill does not extremely depend on others

2.1.4 Reading motivation and reading interest

Researchers and practitioners have become increasingly aware of the importance of reading motivation in explaining literacy behavior Cramer and Castle (1994) even suggested that attention to the affective aspects of reading, such as motivation, may help combat the increasing disaffection from reading

Indeed, motivation for learning is thought to be one of the most critical

determinants of the success and quality of any learning outcome (Mitchell, 1992), and it is therefore likely “that motivational processes are the foundation for coordinating cognitive goals and strategies in reading” (Guthrie and Wigfield,

2000, p.408) According to Baumann and Duffy (1997,p.6), “motivation to read and reading ability are synergistic, mutually reinforcing phenomena” Many teachers also acknowledge that a lack of motivation causes many of the problems they face in teaching

Motivation to read is also thought to mediate the so-called “Matthew effect” (Stanovich, 1986), which refers to the circular relationship between practice and achievement that was described earlier Better readers tend to read more because they are motivated to read, which leads to improved vocabulary and better skills

As a result, the gap between good and poor readers grows over time The same circular relationship holds for other areas in literacy, including writing and speaking/ listening skills

Reading motivation is defined as “the individual’s personal goals, values and beliefs with regard to the topics, processes, and outcomes of reading (Guthrie and Wigfield, 2000, p.3) According to Guthrie and Wigfield (2000), reading motivation is a multifaceted construct that includes reading goals, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, self-efficacy and social motivation for reading

Two related aspects of reading motivation are reading attitude and reading interest Although these three terms are frequently used interchangeably, the constructs that underlie each are different (Mazzoni, Gambrell and Korkeamaki, 1999):

- Reading attitudes refer to the feelings and beliefs an individual has with respect to reading

- Reading interest relates to people’s preferences for genres, topics, taks or contexts

- Reading motivation, as outlined above, refers to the internal states that make people read

Research has repeatedly shown that motivation to read decreases with age, especially if pupils’ attitudes towards reading become less positive (McKenna, Ellsworth and Kear, 1995)

2.2 Reading for pleasure

2.2.1 Definition

Reading for pleasure is also referred to as independent reading, voluntary reading, leisure reading, or recreational reading It is defined by the National Library Trust (UK) as: “Reading we do of our own free will, anticipating the satisfaction we will

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As Clark and Rumbold (2006) note, the terms “reading for pleasure”, “reading for enjoyment” and their derivates are used interchangeably Reading for pleasure is also frequently referred to, especially in the US, as independent reading (Cullinan, 2000), voluntary reading (Krashen, 2004), leisure reading (Greaney, 1980), recreational reading (Manzo and Manzo, 1995) or lucid reading (Nell, 1988, all cited in Clark and Rumbold, 2006)

Reading for pleasure has been defined by the National Trust as “reading that we do

of our own free will, anticipating the satisfaction that we will get from the act of reading It also refers to reading that have begun at someone else’s request we continue because we are interested in it” (Clark and Rumbold, National Literacy Trust, 2006)

The process of reading for pleasure has also been described as a form of play that

“allows us to experience other worlds and roles in our imagination” (Nell, 1988 - cited in Clark and Rumbold, 2006), and a creative activity or active process (Holden, 2004; Pullman, 2004 - cited in Clark and Rumbold, 2006)

2.2.2 Benefits of pleasure reading

Becoming a lifetime reader is predicated on developing a love of reading (Sanacore, 2002) Although reading for pleasure has not been a research priority,

studies are accumulating that emphasize the importance of reading for pleasure for both educational as well as personal development These studies show that promoting reading can have a major impact on children / young people and adults and their future

The above relationships hold first and second language acquisition, and for children and adults (Krashen, 2004) Correlation studies have also consistently shown that those who read more are better readers Indeed, reading amount and reading achievement increases, which in turn increases reading amount (Cunningham and Stanovich, 1998) According to Pressley (2000, p.56), “the frequent admonition for children to “Read, read, read” makes sense in that extensive reading promotes fluency, vocabulary, and background knowledge”

Events focusing on reading for pleasure can also promote or enhance social skills in children (Allan, Ellis and Pearson, 2005) It has also been shown to combat feelings

of loneliness in adults (Rane-Szostak and Herth, 1995) Overall, when individual read for pleasure frequently, “they experience the value of reading as efferent and aesthetic processes Thus, they are more likely to read with a sense of purpose, which further supports their developing reading habit” (Sanacore, 2002, p68)

International research strongly suggests frequent reading for enjoyment correlates with increases in reading achievement (Clark, 2011, Clark & Rumbold, 2006, Clark & Douglas 2011): “When children read for pleasure, when they get “hooked

on books”, they acquire, involuntarily and without conscious effort, nearly all of the so-called “language skills” many people are so concerned about: they will become adequate readers, acquire a large vocabulary, develop a good writing style, and become good (but not necessarily perfect) spellers Although free vocabulary

reading alone will not ensure attainment of the highest levels of literacy, it will at least ensure an acceptable level Without it, I suspect that children simply do not have a chance.” (Linguist Stephen D Krashen, 1993, p.85)

2.3 The writing skill

Writing, together with its teaching in both first and second language contexts, is currently the subject of a considerable amount of research and other educational endeavor Papers on aspects of writing can be found in almost any issue of applied linguistics or educational journals, and there are currently a number of journals devoted to the subject

This is, however, fairly recent development, with writing and its teaching only emerging as a tool as a choler discipline in the 1970s (Nystrand, Green, & Wiemelt 1993; Raimes 1991) Before that time writing was seldom seen as something to be taught for its own sake and in the second language classroom, it was most often used as a way of demonstrating mastery of the structures studied in class or for dictation

2.3.1 Definitions

In language teaching, writing is considered one of the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) that a learner often have difficulties in learning, so it is expected to master Writing has been defined in many ways, which show different viewpoints of the authors

According to “Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary” (1989), writing is to “make letters or other symbols on a surface (usually paper), especially with a pen or pencil”

Writing for Cristal (1995, p.257) is a way of communicating which uses a system

of visual marks made on some kind of surface’’

Byrne (1988, p.1) considers writing as the act of forming graphic symbol only such

as letters or combination of letters

While Tribble (1996, p.3) states that writing as language skill involving not just a graphic representation of speech, but the development and presentation of though

in a structured way

Besides, Sokolik (2003, p.88) defined writing as a physical and mental activity It means that writing requires writers to commit words or ideas and to convent ideas, think about how to express them, and organize them into statements and paragraphs She also considers writing is a process and product, and writing aims at expressing and impressing The writers have to generate ideas, organize, draft, edit, read, re-read to produce a product-a paragraph, an essay or a report and writers try

to express their ideas, feeling to impress their readers in certain ways Writing involves many different aspects

Greenall (1984) suggests that group writing means a kind of cooperation among members of the class, who are divided into convenient -sized groups for the purpose of completing a writing task

While according to Roger, Phillips and Walters (1995, p 113), writing involves seven aspects They are handwriting, spelling, punctuation, sentence construction, organizing a text and paragraphing, text cohesion and style All aspects are carefully considered by any writers

2.3.2 Assessing writing ability

Assessment is a popular and sometimes misunderstood term in current educational practice On the other hand, assessment is an ongoing process that encompasses a much wider domain Whenever a student responds to q question, offers a comment,

or tries out a new word or structure, the teacher subconsciously makes an assessment of the student’s performance (Brown, 2004, p.4) Assessment is very important in teaching activity English teacher needs to assess what they have inculcated to their students so that they will know to what extent the previously formulated instructional objective have been achieved by the students in writing descriptive paragraph

According to Coffin (2003, p.75) as a starting point to devising an assessment strategy, it is useful to identify the purposes for which you need to assess students’ writing Purposes for assessing students’ writing may include: to provide evidence

of students’ knowledge and understanding of a particular course of study, to provide evidence of students’ acquisition of subject-specific skills, or the ability to apply knowledge and understanding, to indicate how effectively students can express their knowledge and understanding in writing, to help students learn, or consolidate their learning, to provide feedback to students on their work, to motivate students to carry out certain activities, to provide a diagnostic assessment

of a student’s writing, to help you evaluate your own teaching and to help students evaluate their own learning

Marzano (2006, p.3) adds many conclusions that provide insights into effective classroom assessment, such as: feedback from classroom assessments should give students a clear picture of their progress on learning goals and how they might be improve, feedback on classroom assessments should encourage students to improve, classroom assessment should be formative in nature, formative classroom

assessments should be frequent

Rudner and Schafer (2002, p.6) state in their book that measurement of student performance may seem objective with such practices as machine scoring and multiple choice test items, but even these approaches are based on professional assumptions and values Whether that judgment occurs in constructing test questions, scoring essays, creating rubrics, grading participation, combining scores,

or interpreting standardized test scores, the essence of the process is making professional interpretations and decision

In summary, teachers design assessment and evaluation procedure aimed at assessing the content of the curriculum and critical thinking They use the result of assessment to inform their teaching and enhance student learning process according

2.4.2 Accuracy

Accuracy is the most easily defined of the triad since there is more agreement in the goal, which is matching the target language Housen and Kuiken (2009) define accuracy simply as “error-free” speech But there is still ambiguity and debate First, researchers have generally ignored the notion of adequacy in accomplishing a task for the more quantities accuracy (Pallotti, 2009)

Secondly, it is unclear from which dialect the accuracy standards should come Further, assessing accuracy longitudinally may be complicated as learners attempt new lexical items and grammatical forms

As such, Norris and Ortega (2003) caution that accuracy of specific forms may not develop linearly but rather curvilearly This complication of accuracy of specific forms would make gauging development more difficult since it might be unclear which parts of the data represent Despite such complications, researchers often measure the accuracy of the language performance of learners

Accuracy of the performance can be measured by self-repair attempts or a function

of errors produced Self-repair has been measured as a percentage of self-repairs or

as a ratio of self-repairs to errors (Michel, Kuiken, & Vedder, 2007) It is unclear how a lower score or a higher score of self-repairs reflects accuracy in the language produced Self-correction does not really measure accuracy of the language produced; it is more accurately labeled a measure of the speaker’s orientation toward accuracy (Ellis & Barkhuizen, 2005, p 149-150) Given that accuracy is better measured as a function of errors produced, accuracy can be measured specifically (e.g accuracy of verb forms) or generally (e.g overall number of errors

or error-free units)

2.4.3 Fluency vs accuracy

Taken as a given that students’ needs should always dictate what you teach them, the question of whether it is more important to work on accuracy or fluency in the language classroom remains

Many teachers believe that fluency is a goal worth striving towards only with students who are at a fairly advanced level Other teachers, strong in the belief that the learning of a language is about communication, feel that fluency should be the main goal in their teaching and that it should be practiced right from the start

More traditional teachers tend to give accuracy greater importance; more liberal teachers tend towards fluency

Often a rigid educational system where tests and exams are the focus, will have students (and their traditional teachers) believe that language accuracy is what matters most, and giving the “correct” answers often becomes an obsession Students who have been taught this way can complete any grammar gap-fill you care to give them, but will struggle to order a coffee in a real English speaking situation

On the other hand, a more communicative approach will produce students who can

converse at length on almost any subject but could well make horrendous spelling and grammatical mistakes in their writing

In the end, however, it really boils down to the the needs of the student

2.5 Teaching EFL writing

2.5.1 Approaches to teaching the writing skill

Teaching writing has seen numerous approaches and methods crossing its way since the early eighties The focus has shifted from sentence structure and grammar drills to usage and text organization Its understanding and use are largely valued in every discipline, each of which requires a specific method of teaching Teachers first, students then, have become aware of the fact that writing takes particular conventional forms in different contexts Consequently, a great number of approaches and methods of teaching have come out Although none of these approaches can be considered as ideal, they immediate consequence is that today there are several approaches which are competing in writing classrooms and in course books

The first is the control-to-free method In the 1950s and 1960s, when the lingual approach prevailed, writing was taught only to reinforce speech It was believed that the mastery of grammatical rules could lead to that of the foreign language, especially in its spoken form This belief encouraged the teaching of grammar in the time allocated to writing It was in such circumstances that the method known as controlled-to-free emerged It consists essentially in providing the students with pieces of writing such as sentences or paragraphs, and asking them to make some grammatical or lexical changes such as using the present tense instead of the past, or the plural instead of the singular etc to change phrases into clauses or vice versa This type of exercise makes the learners write frequently and gives them the opportunity to produce their own writings without mistakes because

their productions are strictly controlled Only after having improved this first type

of highly controlled- writing can the students move to free compositions in which they express their own ideas

Perhaps, one of the most outstanding attributes of the controlled-t-free method is that it emphasizes accuracy rather than fluency As it focuses on the structural aspect of the language and neglects its communicative aspect A Raimes (1983) wrote: “This approach stresses three features: grammar, syntax, and mechanics” (p.76)

The second is the free-writing approach This approach is essentially based on the belief that when we write freely and frequently, we improve our ability in that language skill Free writing means that the students write without teacher’s interference, and are encouraged to emphasize content and fluency first Once the ideas are expressed on paper, the teacher intervenes to provide some assistance to improve grammatical accuracy

For Peyton (1996), “Learners write for a period of time in class on a topic of interest to them This writing can take many forms, including quick writings, which are time-limited, done individually, and not always shared, and dialogue journals, written to a teacher, a classmate or another partner who then responds” On the other hand such writings “may be kept in a notebook From these pieces, themes may emerge that can act as a facilitator for more extensive writing that is discussed, revised, edited, and published.” (p 16-32)

When free-writing is unfocused, it becomes a personal activity which consists in