Sử dụng tập hồ sơ để cải thiện kĩ năng viết cho học sinh lớp 10 nghiên cứu hành động tại một trường phổ thông ở hà đông​

DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIPI, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled "Using writing portfolios to improve grade 10 th students’writing skill- An

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF

POST- GRADUATE STUDIES 

NGUYỄN VÂN NGUYỆT

STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILL- AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT

IN A HIGH SCHOOL IN HADONG DISTRICT

(SỬ DỤNG TẬP HỒ SƠ ĐỂ CẢI THIỆN KĨ NĂNG VIẾT CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10- NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG TẠI MỘT TRƯỜNG PHỔ THÔNG Ở HÀ

ĐÔNG )

MA MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8045041.01

Hanoi – 2020

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF

POST- GRADUATE STUDIES 

NGUYỄN VÂN NGUYỆT

STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILL- AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT

IN A HIGH SCHOOL IN HA DONG DISTRICT

(SỬ DỤNG TẬP HỒ SƠ ĐỂ CẢI THIỆN KĨ NĂNG VIẾT CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10- NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG TẠI MỘT TRƯỜNG PHỔ THÔNG Ở HÀ

ĐÔNG )

MA MINOR THESIS

Field: EnglishTeaching Methodology

Supervisor: Dr Vũ Thị Thanh Nhã

Hanoi – 2020

DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report

entitled "Using writing portfolios to improve grade 10 th students’writing skill- An action research project in a high school in Ha Dong disstrict" submitted in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts at Post- graduateStudies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam NationalUniversity of Hanoi I confirm that I cited all references in the study Except wherethe reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without dueacknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Next, I wish to take this opportunity to express my special thanks to alllectures and the staff of Department of Post- Graduate Studies at University ofLanguages and International Studies, Hanoi, for their inspiring lectures andsuggestions for the topic of my study My appreciation and gratitude are alsoextended for the teachers and students from class 10 D1 at Tran Hung Dao HighSchool in Ha Dong for their active participation in my research.

Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, my husband and mychildren for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work

This research investigates the problems in teaching and learning writing skill

at a high school in Ha Dong district and the implementation of writing portfolios toimprove students’ writing skill It aims to find out how teachers can use writingportfolios to improve grade 10th students’ writing skill and students’ attitudestowards the implementation of writing portfolios in class Three cycles of actionresearch was conducted with a class of thirty six students, and the data werecollected using questionnaires, teaching diaries, students’ portfolios and interviews.The findings indicated students lacked time for practising the skill, had poorbackground knowledge including lexical- grammar and idea limitations, and lowmotivation The application of writing portfolios has helped students improve theirwriting performance in task achievement, coherence and cohesion, lexical resourceand grammatical range and accuracy At the end of the project, most of theparticipants expressed a strong consensus that writing portfolios not only hadpositive impacts on their writing skills but also created a positive attitude towardsthe subject English

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS viii

LIST OF TABLES ix

LIST OF FIGURES x

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

1 3 Scope of the study 2

1.4 Significance of the study 2

1.5 Methods of the study 3

1.6 Organization of the thesis 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2 1 Writing skills 5

2.1.1 Definitions of writing 5

2.1.2 Approaches to teaching writing 6

2.1.3 Genres of writing 7

2.1.3.1 Definition of genre 7

2.1.3.2 Common types of writing genres in the new textbooks 7

2.2 Teaching writing 8

2.2.1 Improving students’ ability in writing 8

2.2.2 The role of teachers in teaching writing 9

2.3 Assessing writing 10

2.3.1 Types of writing assessment 10

2.3.2 Type of scoring for students’ writing assignments 11

2.4 Using portfolios in writing class 12

2.4.1 Definitions of portfolio 12

2.4.2 Types of portfolio 13

2.4.3 The implementation of portfolio assessment in teaching writing 14

2.4.4 Portfolio assessment procedure 15

2.4.5 Related studies on writing portfolio 16

2.5 Summary 18

CHAPTER 3 : RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 19

3.1 Research setting 19

3.1.1 The research site 19

3.1.2 Description of textbook, curriculum, testing and assessment 19

3.2 Participants 20

3.3 Research design 20

3.3.1 Research method 20

3.3.2 Action research 21

3.3.3 Research procedure 22

3.3.3.2 Planning (week 2) 23

3.3.3.3 Acting and Observing the Actions (week 3- week 17) 23

3.3.3.4 Reflection 27

3.4 Data collection instruments 28

3.4.1 Pre- test and a collection of students’ writing assignments 28

3.4.2 Pre- treatment and post- treatment questionnaire 28

3.4.3 Teaching diaries 29

3.4.4 Semi- structured interviews 30

3.5 Data analysis 30

3.6 Summary of the chapter 31

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 32

4.1 Research question 1: 32

4.1.1 Identifying the field problems: conducting a test and pre-treatment questionnaire 32

4.1.2 Determining actions to overcome the problems 41

4.1.3 Acting and observing the actions 41

4.1.3.1 Summary of Cycle 1 41

4.1.3.2 Summary of Cycle 2 42

4.1.3.3 Summary of Cycle 3 43

4.1.4 Reflection 44

4.1.4.1 Findings of cycle 1 44

4.1.4.2 Findings of cycle 2 49

4.1.4.3 Findings of cycle 3 53

4.1.4.4 Summary of the findings of three cycles 56

4.2 Research question 2: 60

4.2.1 Students’ opinions about the benefits of writing portfolios on their writing skills in general and impacts of writing portfolios based on four criteria in particular 60

4.2.2 Students’ opinions about the advantages of scoring rubric and teacher’s feedback on their writing assignments 62

4.2.3 Students’ opinions about the clarity of teacher’s instructions during the project 63

4.2.4 Students’ attitudes towards the implementation of writing portfolios in the next semester .65

4.3 Discussions 67

4.4 Summary 68

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 69

5.1 Recapitulation 69

5.1.1 Research question 1: 69

5.1.2 Research question 2: 70

5 2 Implications 71

5.3 Limitations of the study 71

5.4 Suggestions for further studies 71

REFERENCES 73 APPENDICES

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AR: Action Research

%: Percentage

MA: Master of Arts

GCSE: General Certificate of Secondary EducationVNU: Vietnam National University

MOET: the Minister of Education and Training

CEFR: Common European Framework for Reference

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Schedure for the requirement tasks in the coursebook 24

Table 2 Students’ responses in the pre- treatment questionnaire 36

Table 3 Field problems that were feasible to solve 39

Table 4 Student achievements for writing task 1 ……… 46

Table 5 Student achievements for writing task 2 50

Table 6 Student achievements for writing task 3 51

Table 7 Student achievements for writing task 4 54

Table 8 Student achievements for writing task 5 54 Table 9 The summary of changes of the teaching and learning process 58

future 65

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

Tran Hung Dao High School is a small school located in the suburb of HaNoi Compared with students from other schools in Ha dong, students in my schoolhave the lowest grades in the entrance exam not only in English but in othersubjects due to several reasons such as poor background knowledge and lowmotivation in learning At school, students have a tendency to focus in somesubjects like Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Liturature etc Most of them do notpay much time and effort to learn English and they always consider English is adifficult subject therefore they feel stressed to attend English lessons Like otherschools, under the plan of implementing Pilot English curriculum for VietnameseUpper Secondary Schools with a serie of three new English textbooks (Tiếng Anh

10, Tiếng Anh 11, Tiếng Anh 12), students in all classes in Tran Hung Dao highschool are being taught and learnt English with this set of curriculum The maingoals of the new English textbooks are to help students improve their languageability and the communicative competence through four skills (listening, speaking,reading and writing) so that after finishing upper- secondary school, students willachieve level three of the Vietnamese Language Competence Framework(equipvalent to B1 in the Common European Framework of Reference forLanguages) Among the four basic skills, writing is considered one of the mostdifficult skills for my students because of students’ low level competence, lack ofvocabulary and ideas in organising and expanding the tasks and especially due tothe time constraint for practising the skill not only in class but also at home To be

an English teacher in this school, I really concern about why my students can notlearn writing skills efficiently While searching for a possible solution, I regconizethat the innovations in English language teaching has led to the change in themethod of teaching writing from the traditional way of the end product-orientedapproach to the process of creating writing (Tabatabaei & Assefi, 2012) Therefore,

a writing portfolio has been commonly used as an effective tool for improving and

assessing students’writing skills I also believe that this method would give students

a great chance to be more active learners For those aforementioned reasons, I

decided to carry out the research : “Using writing portfolios to improve grade 10th students’ writing skill- An action research project in a high school in Ha Dong district”.

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

This research was carried out with an aim to find out how the teacher canapply writing portfolios to improve students’ writing skills and discover theeffectiveness of the application of writing portfolios on students’ writingperformance in four assessment criteria namely task achievement, coherence andcohesion, lexical resource and grammatical range and accuracy In addition, thestudy also investigated students’ attitudes towards the use of writing portfolios inclass With the given aims and objectives, the study aimed to answer two researchquestions:

1 To what extent can writing portfolios help to improve students’ writing skill?

2 What are students’ attitudes towards the implementation of writing portfolios to improve their writing skill?

1 3 Scope of the study

The research aims to investigate the effectiveness of writing portfolios onstudents’ writing skill Due to the time constraints, the researcher only focuses onthe impacts of writing portfolios on grade 10th students’ writing performance anddiscover their opinions towards writing portfolios Hence, teaching of other skills orother grades would be beyond the scope

1.4 Significance of the study

The study is designed with the hope to examine the impact of applyingwriting portfolios to lessen the difficulty students encounter in learning writingskills Furthermore, the researcher also expects to show an example of how writing

portfolios can be adopted in a Vietnamese high school context Additionally, therehave never been any studies on the impacts of using writing portfolios in Tran HungDao high school before, therefore, the results of the study may become a suggestionfor the leading staffs in this school to accept portfolios in school official curricula inthe future.

1.5 Methods of the study

Action research was adopted in this study by the researcher and also theteacher, therefore, writing portfolios would be applied directly into the class wherethe researcher was teaching Also, both qualitative and quantitative data collectionare applied in this study In terms of quanlitative method, interviews with studentsare used to gather students’opinions about the use of writing portfolios in class Thedata analysis from teaching diaries would help to understand more the students’improvement in writing skill Regarding of quantitative method, questionnaires andstudents’ writing assignments are employed Both the methods are triangulated toget the validity and reliability of the research, therefore, the results from students’submitted portfolios would be compared with the data collected in the interviewsand questionnaires

1.6 Organization of the thesis

The study is divided into three parts:

Chapter 1, INTRODUCTION, presents the rationale for the study, the aims andobjectives, the research questions, the scope, the methods, the significance, and thedesign of the study

Chapter 2, LITERATURE REVIEW, provides an overview of the theoreticalbackground and the previous researches related to the study

Chapter 3, RESEARCH METHODOLOGY, restates the research questions anddescribes the setting, the participants, and the research methods of the study

Chapter 4, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS, displays a detailed discription of dataanalysis Besides, the chapter also presents some discussion and interpretations ofthe findings of the study, and then gives suggestions for the teachers and thestudents and other researchers.

CHAPTER 5, CONCLUSION, briefly summarizes the study, the recommendationsare proposed and makes some suggestions for further studies

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides a theoretical framework for writing and using portfolios in teaching writing It will look at the overview of writing skills, teaching writing, assessing writing, and using writing portfolios.

2 1 Writing skills

2.1.1 Definitions of writing

In language teaching, reading and listening are seen as receptive skillswhereas speaking and writing skill are productive skills for the reason that learnershave to produce their own piece of writing or speech act Among those skills,writing is often considered as one of the most challenging skills even for nativespeakers In terms of writing skill, there are numerous definitions related to this In

the first place, writing is considered as “an act of forming graphic symbols” (Byrne, 1979, p.1) On the other hand, Clark (2003) saw writing as “an act of communication between writer and audience” (2007, p.10) Moreover, writing can

be seen as a complicated process by some researchers like Lannon (1989) and

Candlin and Hyland (1999) Lannon (1989, p.9) states that “writing is a process of transforming the material discovered by research inspiration, accidents, trial and error, or whatever a message with a definite meaning… writing is a process of deliberate decision” Candlin and Hyland saw it as “ a social process where the

production of texts reflects methodology, arguments, and rhetorical strategiesconstructed to engage colleagues and persuade them of the claims that are made”( p 107)

Moreover, writing is also assumed as language taught skill Oshima andHogue (1991) argued that it requires learners’study and practice to develop that

skill Tribble (1996, p.3) defines writing “a language skill which is difficult to acquire” and “writing normally requires some forms of instructions” ( p.11).

In short, writing itself can be implied as an act, a social process or a skillwhich requires a lot of time for practising and in the writing process, learners shouldcollaborate with the teacher as well as other learners to better their languageoutcome Moreover, the teacher should be ready to assist students to develop theirability and to master this skill.

2.1.2 Approaches to teaching writing

Appeared in the 1960s, a product approach is “a traditional approach in whichstudents are encouraged to mimic a model text, usually is presented and analyzed at anearly stage” (Gabrielatos, 2002, p.5) Teachers who follow the product approachusually provide students a text to imitate, collect their final products and give themback for further revision with the mistakes corrected already by teachers or marked to

be corrected by students In other words, a product approach focuses on the finalproduct but not the writing process or the learners themselves

Later in the 1980s, there was a change from product approach to processapproach which puts more emphasis on the writing process rather than the finalproduct itself According to Oshima and Hogue (1997), the process of writingconsists of four major steps which are prewriting, planning, writing and revisingdrafts, and writing the final product In the first step, writers are expected togenerate ideas for the topic Then, in the next planning step, they will organize andoutline their ideas In the last steps, the writers are asked to write and revise severaldrafts until they produce the final piece of writing Oshima and Hogue (1997)believe that the writer should revise and rewrite their writing for several timesbefore coming to the final product as there is no perfect writing at the first time

Similar to their view, Harmer (2004) states that the writing process has fourmain stages to produce a good writing, which are planning, drafting, editing andfinal version

Furthermore, Tribble (1996) also shares the same idea and looks at writing as

a process consisting of a number of steps in which the writer is “an independentproducer of texts” (Tribble, 1996, p 37)

To sump up, the process approach emphasizes the writing process consisting

of numerous stages and in general, students who follow this approach are looked at

as independent producers and are provided a great chance of showing theircreativity in writing

2.1.3 Genres of writing

2.1.3.1 Definition of genre

“Genre” is a term that comes from the French language, meaning “kind” or

“type” In terms of the language and linguistics, there are many definitions for thisterm Martin (1999) states that genre is a communication activity having andorienting goal Then, Swales (1990) simply defines genre is a communication event

in which the members have a set of communication goal In English teaching, agenre is a text type (spoken or written) that has a distinctive form and content andwhich is socio- culturally recognizable It is said to be essential for students tounderstand the forms and norms of genres because this could be the vital path tounderstand the ways of thinking and ways of doing in the fields they are entering Inaddition, it is said that the writing genre usually defines the organization of thecontent as well as its purpose

In short, a “genre” makes use of unique features that will differentiate it fromother genres or types of writing It is up to you as the writer to ensure that youclearly understand the formal and type of writing that is expected in your particularsituation

2.1.3.2 Common types of writing genres in the new textbooks

Based on the purpose of writing, students’ writings can be divided into fourkinds namely narrative writing (telling what happens), descriptive writing

(describing people, places, things, moments, and theories), expository (informing orsharing knowledge) and persuasive writing (convincing or persuading) Sharing thesame view, O’ Malley and Pierce propose that there are three kinds of students’writings namely informative writing, expressive/ narrative writing and persuasivewriting (O’ Malley & Pierce, 1996, pp 137- 138).

Referring to the types of writing in English 10 new textbook, Thuy TrangNguyen (2018) stated that although there seems to have numerous types of writinggenres, actually there are two main types which are classified based on forms andparagraph writing in this textbook In the first type (often known as guided writing),students are usually provided with different model writings and input to explore theforms, language and structures before creating quite similar products In the latterform, after learning the form and structures of the model text, students are oftenrequired to produce a piece of writing in the form of a paragraph of various genretypes about several topics The new English textbook Volume 1 for grade 10thstudents includes five units of different topics and two reviews after 2 or 3 units.Totally, there consist of two formal letters (Unit 2 and Unit 4), a narrative paragraphand an informative one (Unit 1 and Unit 5) and a biography (Unit 3) In the writinglesson, students will learn to produce a narrative writing or an expository writing ofabout 130- 150 words about different kind of topics

In brief, despite the different kinds of the requirement task, the main purpose

of the writing part is to teach students know how to produce a good paragraph inEnglish The reseacher also hopes creating a writing portfolio would give studentsmore chances to practise their writing skill under the light of writing processapproach

2.2 Teaching writing

2.2.1 Improving students’ ability in writing

Writing, along with other skills like reading, listening and speaking, hasalways formed part of the syllabus in teaching English Improving students’ ability

in writing requires a complicated intellectual undertaking both from the teacher andthe learners as it consists of a process such as prewriting, writing, revising, editingand publishing According to Heaton, J.B (1975, p.138), if there is students’improvement in writing ability, it can be showed by some indicators as follow:

a Students are able to write correct sentences

b Students are able to manipulate sentences and use language efficiently

c Students are able to use correctly those conventions perculiar to the writtenlanguage

d Students have ability to write in an appropriate manner for a particular purposewith a particular audience in their mind together with an ability to select, organize,and order relevant information

2.2.2 The role of teachers in teaching writing

In teaching writing, there are roles of teachers which can help studentsproduce good writings In the classroom the teacher has to be a responder to thestudents’ writing (Brown, 2001) Brown says that, as a facilitator, a teacher has togive guidance to the students while they are writing but they can not force thestudents to follow their thoughts to be applied on their writing In addition, Harmer(2001) emphasized several additional roles of teachers and assumed that a teacheracts as motivator, resource and feedback provider

Breen and Candlin (1980) in Nunan (1998, p.87) also shared the same viewand suggested that in teaching learning process, teachers can play numerous roles.They can act as facilitator, participant, observer and learner In my research, theteacher’s role is to instruct students, facilitate and evaluate students’ achievement inwriting skill

2.3 Assessing writing

2.3.1 Types of writing assessment

Assessment is regarded as a process of collecting, synthesizing andinterpreting information in order to make decisions on students’ performance.According to Hyland (2003, p.211) assessment is used to collect information on alearner’s language ability or achievement In teaching and learning language,especially in writing skills, teachers can apply some kinds of assessment includingthe traditional and the alternative assessment to measure students’ progress orachievement While traditional assessment requires students to select a possibleanswer from a list of different options, which means learners’ products are rated atsentence level only, alternative assessment requires learners to perform, produce or

do something at text level In other words, the characteristics of the traditionalassessment is the emphasis on the correct answers as well as the final productswhereas the second one emphasizes both process and product and is used tomeasure students’ability over time Portfolio, performance, self- evaluation, journalsand cooperative learning are some types of alternative assessment

Furthermore, Yancey (1999) divided writing assessment into three types:indirect assessment (testing), direct assessment, and portfolio assessment In terms

of indirect assessment, test takers are required to answer multiple choice questionsabout grammar, usage, and punctuation Although that kind of assessment haswidely been used because it is easy to administer, less costly, and reliable, it stilllacks validity as it is not measuring what it is supposed to measure Regarding to thesecond type of assessment, direct assessment is the writing where students arerequired to write on a certain topic for a specified length of time The last type ofassessment that is mentioned is portfolio assessment which includes samples ofstudents’ products produced over a period of time

In brief, among different types of alternative assessment, portfolios areconsidered a better tool for student learning (Yang, 2003) He also claimed thatportfolio has become a popular trend of alternative assessment in recent years.

2.3.2 Type of scoring for students’ writing assignments

Generally, teachers can score students’ writing products based on three mainkinds of assessments: primary trait scoring, holistic assessment, and analyticassessment

In terms of primary trait scoring, Wolcott and Legg (1998, p.100) definedthat “Primary trait scoring is based on the idea that different discourse modes placedifferent demands on the writer in terms of purpose and audience”

Regarding to holistic scoring, Terry (1989, p.49) stated that “Since, in holisticscoring, the entire written text is evaluated as a whole, it is important to establish thespecific criteria upon which the evaluation is to be based prior to undertaking theevaluation This does not mean establishing a catalogue of precise individual errors thatmight appear, but rather deciding what impact the errors that are present have on theoverall tone, structure, and comprehensibility of the writing sample” In other words,holistic scoring is the process of assigning a single score to each writing script throughjudging it against a scoring rubric and the writing script is not evaluated in terms ofspecific features related to development, content or mechanics

The last type of scoring method is analytical based on analyzing writing intosome basic elements such as content, development, and vocabulary so that studentscan receive feedback regarding the strengths as well as the weaknesses of theirwriting (Wolcott & Legg, 1998)

Generally, holistic scoring is applied to assess students’ writing assignmentswith one single score by judging the whole text The purpose of this method is toassess the learner’s overall proficiency Hyland (2003) supposes that this methodconcentrates on what writer can do rather than identifying the learner’s deficencies

Although this kind of method is simple and easy to use with larger class, it isclaimed to be undervalue the process in which learners plan their writing Besides,primary trait scoring is used to assess a particular aspect of writing, or a specificlinguistic form, it also allows teachers and learners to focus more on their feedbackand comment specifically Regarding to the last type of scoring method, Weigle(2002) defines analytical scoring method as a way to evaluate students’ writingproducts based on some specific aspects of writing such as content, organization,vocabulary, language use and mechanics The idea lie in the fact that writing quality

is not judged as a holistic unified scale but as a combination of specific distinctfeatures As this scoring method is believed to be more effective in diagnosinglearner writing performance than holistic and primary trait scoring, it will beutilized in this study

2.4 Using portfolios in writing class

2.4.1 Definitions of portfolio

The concept of portfolio development was adopted from the field of fine artswhere portfolios are used to display illustrative samples of an artist's work (Moya &O’Malley, 1994) There are various definitions for portfolios For example, aportfolio may appear as simply a collection of work that has been compiled over aperiod of time (Johnson, 2010, p.5) Hamp- Lyons (1991) shares the same view as

he stated that a portfolio is a collection of texts that the writer has produced over adefined period of time Paulson, Paulson and Meyer (1991, p.60) defined portfolio

as “a purposeful collection of student work that exhibits the student’s effort,progress, and achievements in one or more areas The collection must includestudent participation in selecting contents, the criteria for selection, the criteria forjudging merit and evidence of student self- reflection”

In brief, a portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work that exhibitstudents’ efforts, progress and achievement in one or more areas Portfolios provide

a way of assessing students’ writing skills that is quite different from the traditional

methods To be more specific, traditional achievements tests offer outcome in a unitthat can be counted whereas portfolio assessment offer the teachers chances toobserve students in a broader context; taking risks, promoting creativity, andlearning to make judgements about their own performance It is a portfolio whenstudents are taking part in as participants, not the object of assessment This studyaims at using portfolio assessment in teaching and assessing students’ writing, so the

researcher is in favor of Weigle’s definition “A portfolio is a collection of writing texts written for different purposes over a period of time” (Weigle, 2002, p.198)

2.4.2 Types of portfolio

A portfolio is the collection of students’ works, including examples of theirfirst drafts or the last ones,therefore, they tend to mean different things to differentpeople and by no means standardized to suit every student’s need In fact, the types

of portfolios are varied depending on their purposes and collected items covered in

it Consequently, many researchers offer different classifications of portfolios.According to Mandell and Michelson (1990), portfolios are classified into threetypes including Showcase, Cumulative and Process Specifically, showcaseportfolios are designed to display a student’s best product In other words, this kind

of portfolio contains student’s best work determined through a student- teachercollaborative selection and it is also named as “achievement portfolio” (Trotman,

2004, p.64) Regarding to cumulative portfolios, learners can place all work relevant

to each objective into their portfolio The last type of portfolio is process portfolio inwhich students can place pre/ post- samples of work for each objective Venn (2000)classifies portfolios into two types: Product portfolio which is used to documentaccomplishment and Process portfolio which documents the stages of learning andprovides a progressive record of student’s growth In general, teachers prefer to useprocess portfolios because they are ideal for documenting the stages that students gothrough as they learn and progress (Venn, 2000, p.533)

To sump it up, different types of portfolio serve different purposes and ateacher can select a proper type to apply in his class to serve his aim.

2.4.3 The implementation of portfolio assessment in teaching writing

In using portfolios as a tool for assessing students’ learning development,there are some major steps that have to be done by the teacher Birgin and Baki(2007) suggest three steps in developing portfolio assessment These includedetermining (1) the purpose of the portfolio, (2) the evidence including in portfolio,and (3) the assessment criteria The first step in developing portfolio is determiningthe purpose of the portfolio It is the most vital step of portfolio preparation becausethe purpose of portfolio will affect the process of creating the portfolio as well asthe evidence that should be in it Afterward, the next step is determining theevidence that should be collected, who will collect the evidence, how often it will becollected, and how it will be assessed The last step is determining the criteria ofeach item in portfolio It is very important to determine the assessment criteria as itallows the students to maximise their works In other words, the learners willattempt to have a high quality work Therefore, a rubric should be used in order todetermine the criteria

In line with the steps above, Brown (2004) proposes another portfolioassessment model including seven steps: (1) deciding the purpose of the portfolio(2) considering the evedence including in the portfolio (3) communicating theassessment criteria (4) determining the time for portfolio development ( 5)determining regular schedules to review and conferencing (6) deciding a place tokeep the portfolio (7) giving positive washback and final assessment

Besides, Venn (2000, p.540) provides a model which included three steps.First, the teacher and the learners need to identify the portfolio contents, which aresamples of student work, teacher observations and conference records Second, theteacher should develop evaluation procedures for keeping track of the portfoliocontents and for grading the portfolio Third, the teacher needs a plan for holding

portfolio conferences, which are formal and informal meetings in which studentscan review their work and discuss their progress.

In short, there are several steps that should be done by the teacher whenapplying portfolio assessment In the first place, the teachers have to specify thegoal for portfolio The purpose of the portfolio must be in line with an intergratedgoal of the school curriculum The second step is the teacher should consider thecontent of the portfolio Then they have to consider the assessment criteria and tellthe students about the criteria The next step is that the teacher can determineschedures for reviewing After that, the teachers need to think about where to keepthe portfolio items Finally, after students finish their portfolio, the teachers have toscore their works

2.4.4 Portfolio assessment procedure

It is believed that the selection and implementation of portfolio can bediversified as Gottlied (2000) stated that this process carries a lot of freedom Aportfolio, for instance, may be influenced by the variety of educational context,diversity of population, and variety in teaching approaches In this study, the modelutilized was based on classroom portfolio model whereby the purpose was forlearning rather than for assessing

Figure 1 Procedure in applying portfolio

Students write up first draft

Students submit first draft

Teacher provides feedback and studentsdiscuss with tablemates or classmates

Students reflect and revise draft

Students write up and submit final draft

Teacher reflects upon final draft

2.4.5 Related studies on writing portfolio

Regarding to the use of portfolio assessment to improve students’ writingskills, many researchers have conducted studies on portfolios They found thatportfolios were an effective authentic assessment for teaching-learning languages aswell as an effective way to improve writing skills

In the article namely “The Impact of Portfolios on Enhancing Writing Skills

in ESP Classes”, Ucar and Yazici (2016) conducted a research with the aim ofexploring the effect of portfolios on improving ESP students’ writing skills andparticularly on some subskills of writing like organization, vocabulary, focus,conventions and elaboration as well as investigating students’ attitudes towardsportfolios Data were collected through Pre- test and Post- test and an attitudequestionaire with 52 Turkish undergraduate learners at the University of Sinop andthen analyzed quantitatively An Independent samples t- test and a Paired Samples t-test were applied to draw a conclusion about the given problems The resultsindicated that portfolios had a statistically significant impact on promoting writingperformance of ESP learners under portfolio assessment technique and there werestatistically significant differences between two groups in terms of 4 subskillsincluding focus, elaboration, vocabulary and organization except for conventions.Based on the data analysis, the authors also stated that students show positiveattitudes towards the use of writing portfolios in ESP classes

Nezakatgoo (2011) carried out a quasi- experimental research on 40university students of E.C.O College of Insurance to investigate the effect ofwriting and assessing portfolios on students’ writing final examination scores Datawere collected through pre- test in the form of Comprehensive English languageTest and post- test and then analyzed through SPSS 16 statistically computerprogram with the Levene statistic of One- way ANOVA and the Paired- sample T-test techniques The results of the study indicated that the experimental group underportfolio assessment technique had a significant improvement in writing and gainedhigher scores in final examination when compared to those whose were taught withtraditional evaluation system.

Furthermore, Sabrina (2012) conducted action research with the purpose ofimproving her students’ writing skills by using portfolio assessment Her researchwas conducted for two months with 31 students of grade VIII of SMP N 14Yogyakarta as the sample The result was that the portfolio assessment improvedfive aspects of the students’ writing viz.: content, organisation, vocabulary, languageuse, and mechanics In addition to this, the findings of the study showed that thestudents’ motivation improved It was because of the implementation of portfoliointegrated the writing as a process not as a product The students were given ampletime to complete their writing perfectly

In Viet nam, in a research carried out in 2010, Thi Huyen Trang Nguyen(2010) implemented portfolio assessment as pedagogy in her writing class Thisquasi- experimental research aimed at using portfolios to improve the tenthgraders’s writing skills at Dien Chau 4 High School The study was conducted over

17 weeks semester and thirty- five students’ portfolios were analysed The resultsshow that students may benefit from increased power in creating and assessing theirportfolios

Based on these previous studies, it can be concluded that the implementation

of portfolio assessment has many effects on students’ writing skills and also brings

about a positive change in students’ opinion towards writing skill However, thereexists lack of study about the use of writing portfolios to improve high schoolstudents’ writing skill in Viet nam Specifically, there was not any study on thistopic carried at the context of my school before Therefore, the researcher decided toconduct this study to fill this gap.

2.5 Summary

In conclusion, chapter 2 covers the theoretical background for the study.Initially, the theoretical issues of writing skills, teaching writing and assessingwriting are mentioned The next section provide theorical background of usingportfolios in writing class in which the overview of portfolio, types of portfolio, thesteps of portfolio assessment implementation, portfolio assessment procedure andrelated studies on using writing portfolio are also reported

CHAPTER 3 : RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

In the previous chapter, the literature on the research topic is briefly reviewed for the theoretical basis of the whole study This chapter describes the methodology of this study It displays the research setting: the subjects, the instruments as well as the procedure of data collection and analysis are discussed in detail.

3.1 Research setting

3.1.1 The research site

The study was conducted at a high school in Ha Dong district The schoolwas founded in 1985, and it has 39 classes with 75 teachers and 1700 students.There are 11 teachers in the Foreign Group, who are well- trained and qualifiedteachers Most of students come from the areas nearby the school and they arechildren of farmers or workers To be admitted to school, students have to pass acompetitive entrance examination organized by Ha Noi’s Department of Educationand Training Among the four public schools in Ha dong, students of our schoolhave the lowest score in the entrance exam Although English is one of compulsorysubjects for GCSE, they tend to ignore the subject and just focus on some other oneslike Maths, Physics and Chemistry They have a very low motivation for learningEnglish and most of them are quite passive in learning the subject They have atendency of depending on the textbooks and the teachers for knowledge, and do nothave the habit of self-study However, they are eager to learn new things and it isfavourable for the researcher to adopt writing portfolios in class

3.1.2 Description of textbook, curriculum, testing and assessment

The textbook that the 10th grade students use is the first of a three- level Englishlanguage set of textbooks for Vietnamese upper secondary school written by Mr HoangVan Van and his colleagues This textbook follows the systematic, clynical and theme-based curriculum approved by MOET on 23rd November 2012 and is divided into 2Volumes which includes 10 units and 4 reviews Each unit is separated into 8 sections

as Getting started, Language, Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing, Communication andCulture and Looking back & Project In semester one, there are 5 units which means thatthere are 5 writing lessons of 45 minutes for nearly two weeks In total, after a 19 weeksemester, students will have approximately 4 hours of learning writing, which is notenough for students to practice writing skill Moreover, during the semester, students arerequired to take two 15 minute tests and two 45- minute tests which focus on testing theirvocabulary and grammar revision These tests seem to neglect the writing composition,which makes the situation worse.Therefore, this urges the researcher to conduct a program

to improve the case and motivate students’ writing performance

3.2 Participants

The participants were 36 non- majored Vietnamese grade 10th students of English

at Tran Hung Dao high school in Ha dong The participants consisting of 23 females and 13males were chosen since they were the researcher’s students at that time At the time ofconducting the study, they are starting their first semester at high school and all of themhad been learning English for at least 8 years Most of the students have low marks inEnglish in the entrance exam and they suppose that along with listening, writing skill ishard to master Although they have difficulties in learning writing skill, none of them hasever tried any approach to improve their writing skill

The researcher also invited one female teacher in her English languagedepartment to cooperate with her during the project The researcher and this teacherwill judge students’writing assignment individually and then compare the results tocome to the final conclusion in order to avoid bias or subjectivity

3.3 Research design

3.3.1 Research method

This study aims to explore the problems students encounter when learning writing,finding out how to apply writing portfolios in a high school class and explore its effect onstudents’ writing performance, therefore, Action Research was applied by the

teacher Below, action research is clarified specifically to explain for the selection

of the methodology

3.3.2 Action research

Definition: According to Burns (2009, p.2) action research (AR) is “ related to the

ideas of „ reflective practice‟ and „ the teacher as researcher‟ AR involves taking

a self- reflective, critical, and systematic approach to exploring your own teaching contexts”.

Model: There are different models of action research, but in general it consists of

four main stages, namely Planning, Acting, Observing, and Reflecting

Action research model based on Kemmis and Mc Taggart (1988)

Steps: Kemmis and Mc Taggart (1988) propose Action Research involving four

broad phases in a cycle of research: Planning, Action, Observation and Reflection

1 Planning: identifying a problem or issue and developing a plan of action in order to bring about improvements in a specific area of the researchcontext.

2 Action: The plan is a carefully considered one which involves somedeliberate interventions into the teaching situation that the teacher puts intoaction over an agreed period of time

3 Observation: This phase involves the teacher in observingsystematically the effects of the action and documenting the context, actionsand opinions of those involved It is the data collection phase where theresearcher uses different tools to collect information

4 Reflection: At this point, the teacher reflects on, evaluate anddescribe the effects of the action in order to make sense of what hashappened and to understand the issue more clearly He may decide to dofurther cycles of AR to improve the situation even more

(Adapted from Kemmis & Mc Taggart, 1988, p.11- 14)

In this study, action research was chosen because it is conducted with a view

of a teacher rather than a researcher, therefore, real solutions and evaluations areadopted Moreover, action research was applied in more than one circle so it can berevised, re-planned, and re- done to improve the process

more specific, the action research procedure is presented as follow

3.3.3.1 Identifying the field problems (week 1)

The researcher identified the problem by doing observation in the teachingwriting process for several years Then I conducted a pre- test and handed out a pre-treatment questionnaire to find out the field problems and their causes First, withthe aim of observing the process of students’ writing and measuring student’s writingability before giving the treatment, I asked students to write a paragraph of about 120-

150 words about themselves at the first meeting in August 20th 2019 Students’ writing

products from pre- test were scored based on 4 assessment criteria in the markingrubric Afterward, a pre- treatment questionnaire consisting of 8 items was delivered

to the students (see Appendix 3) The pre- treatment questionnaire helps to find outthe causes of students’ aformentioned problems and also to provide fundamentalknowledge about the participants which then helps teacher design a suitableportfolio project for them

3.3.3.2 Planning (week 2)

After formulating the field problems, I worked with the collaborator to plansome actions to solve the problems that were identified in the previous step.Detailed lesson plans were developed and several writing activities were alsoprepared

3.3.3.3 Acting and Observing the Actions (week 3- week 17)

The researcher implemented the actions that had been planned in the previousstage First, the teacher introduced students the portfolio assessment, delivered asample of portfolio and instructed them to create their own writing portfolios Theparticipants was given a guideline for creating writing portfolios (see Appendix 1).After that, I provided them a scoring rubric which was translated into Vietnamese

so that all students could understand all criterion thoroughly and know how theirwriting assignments would be assessed (see Appendix 2A & 2B) Students wereasked to read the scoring rubric carefully and asked for clarification if needed Inthis study, portfolios were integrated into the writing lesson in class, therefore, Iconducted every writing lesson with these main steps: Firstly, I let students dosome simple games or do some activities to introduce the writing topic Secondly,students were required to read a model text provided in the textbook and did somepractise tasks in pairs or groups Through this stage, students could get words,phrases or structures related to the writing topic and those items could later be used

in their writing After that, students had 20 minutes to write the first draftindividually All of students had to hand in their writing papers for receiving

comment or feedback at the end of every lesson They were made sure to bereceived the first version back within two or three days Afterwards, they had toproduce the second version at home based on the teacher’s comments and/ orpeer’s feedback All of students’ writings including both the first and the secondversions will be collected for grading within seven days after the publication of thefirst version Students’ scores had to be returned before they write the next writinglesson The table below illustrates the schedure for the requirement tasks.

Table 1 Schedure for the requirement tasks in the coursebook

24

Then, the planned actions were done in three cycles Cycle 1 consists ofthree meetings which were on 22nd of August, 29th of August and 3rd of September,

2019 Cycle 2 was carried out in four meetings in the afternoon class and severalother meetings in the extra classes in the morning from 16th of September to 16th

of October, 2019 Cycle 3 included six meetings which were carried out from 4th ofNovember to 3rd of December, 2019 The classroom action research covered threecycles which were reported as follow

3.3.3.2.1 Report of cycle 1

The first topic for Unit 1 was taken to apply portfolio assessment In the writinglesson, students took chances to write about how the family members in their family sharethe household chores In order to let them revise the topic vocabularies and also practisebuilding a correct sentence from the given cues, I provide the two worksheets (refer toAppendix 6 A & 6 B) Students were allowed to practise the tasks in the two worksheets

in two first writing lessons of this cycle Then , in the third meeting in class, I askedstudents to read the model sample in the textbook, elicit the vocabulary and analyse thestructures utilize to write about the topic “sharing housework in the family” Thenstudents took 20 minutes to write the first draft At the end of the lesson, they collected alltheir writing papers for teacher’ comments In this cycle, I only gave written feedback onstudents’ first drafts and there was not any mark given for it However, students’ seconddraft were scored in 4 assessment criteria ( see Appendix 2A

& 2 B) At the end of cycle 1, the collaborator and I had discussions about theimplementation of the actions to draw some reflections We analysed the data gainedfrom teaching diaries and students’ writing products to evaluate students’ writing

performance Afterwards, we made some recommendations for cycle 2 based on the problems found in this cycle

3.3.3.2.2 Report of cycle 2

Students had to write two topics for this cycle and the topics were taken fromUnit 2 and Unit 3 In Unit 2, students have to write a letter asking for what food or

drink they should eat in some special occasions while in Unit 3, students are asked towrite a paragraph about someone’s biography Firstl, I planned some activities toreinforce students’ grammar and vocabulary before writing the topic To be morespecific, in Unit 2, I asked students to collect a list of words and phrases used to writeabout the topic Food and Health and they were allowed to look for the words in theprevious lessons or in the internet In Unit 3, they were asked to find out a text aboutthe biography of one of the most famous artists that they like and note down thevocabulary and structures that were used to describe a person’s biography from thetext Also, I conducted two reviewing lessons on 19th September and 10th October,

2019 and students had to bring their works to class for discussion In those lessons,students took time to discuss the neccesary vocabulary and important structures thatwould be useful for the upcoming writing topic They were given ample time topractise making sentences with those words or structures Otherwise, in thesupplementary classes in the morning, I taught them some basic English grammarelements such as the function of word (noun, verb, adjective, preposition….),

different types of sentences (simple, compound, complex), and some basic Englishtenses In the writing lesson in class, I let them read the sample letter in Unit 2 orsample biography about Van Cao in Unit 3 and ask them to discuss the form andstructure of request- for- help letter and the form of a biography thoroughly Then, Ihighlighted some vocabularies or verb tense that could be used to write the topic ofUnit 2 and 3 After that, students took about 20 minutes to write the first draft Whilethe students were doing the writing, I went round to check and give guided questions

to help them if necessary Similar to the previous cycle, at the end of the writinglesson, the first draft would be submitted for receiving comment After getting theteacher’s comment, studens had to rewrite their assignments and submitted forgrading In this cycle, I decided to use correction codes to mark students’ errors A list

of symbols was delivered to the students and I explained the correction codescarefully to make sure that all of them understand the symbols and know how tocorrect them (see Appendix 7) When reading students’ writings, I would give the

symbol that indicates students’ mistakes on top of the error words Then, students had

to correct their mistakes based on the teacher’s indirect feedback By doing that, theresearcher wished that students would be more aware of their errors and the researchercould also see how many students could correct the mistakes themselves

3.3.3.2.3 Report of cycle 3

The topic for Unit 4 and Unit 5 were taken to apply portfolio assessment In Unit

4, students will write a formal letter to apply for a volunteer job and in Unit 5, studentswrite about the benefits of some modern devices At the first meeting on 4th November,

2019, I taught students some techniques that could be used to generate and organiseideas such as listing, free writing or clustering and also guided them how to apply thesetechniques Then, students practised these techniques to collect vocabularies and gatherideas for some sample writing topics such as “the music show you like best” or

“healthy food” on 11th November, 2019 On 12th November, 2019 and 3rd December,

2019, students learnt two writing lessons In the pre- writing stage, I revised them theaforementioned techniques and required students to use these techniques to generateideas for the topics “doing volunteer work” and “benefits of modern devices” Studentstook turns to exchange their answers with the whole class Afterwards, students tooktime to write the first draft in class On 14th November and 4th December, 2019, Iconducted two reviewing sessions At the reviewing sessions, students were asked toreview their first draft to find out the mistakes that they may make in terms of wordchoice, spelling mistakes, missing or using wrong prepositions, verb- tense mistakesand so on… The students discussed the errors that they made and gave suggestions

on how to correct them During the sessions, I went round to observe students’ workand give supports to the weaker students when needed