Challenges faced by teachers and 10th graders in teaching and learning english writing skills at a high school in hanoi

The presented study aims at identifying teachers’ and students’ difficulties in teaching and learning English writing skills at a high school in Hanoi.. From my personal experience as a

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

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

QUÁCH THỊ HẢI HẠNH

IN TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH WRITING SKILLS AT A

HIGH SCHOOL IN HANOI

(Những thách thức đối với giáo viên và học sinh lớp 10 trong việc dạy và

học kỹ năng viết tiếng Anh tại một trường THPT ở Hà Nội)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English teaching methodology Code: 8140231.01

Hanoi – 2020

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

QUÁCH THỊ HẢI HẠNH

IN TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH WRITING SKILLS AT A

HIGH SCHOOL IN HANOI

(Những thách thức đối với giáo viên và học sinh lớp 10 trong việc dạy và

học kỹ năng viết tiếng Anh tại một trường THPT ở Hà Nội)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 8140231.01

Supervisor : Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa PhD

Hanoi – 2020

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the thesis entitled “Challenges faced by teachers and

entirely own work and effort in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master’s degree at the Faculty of Post - Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi The material in this research has not been submitted to any other universities or institutions wholly and partially

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my

criticism, wholehearted guidance and kind support that she gave me while I was carrying out this research Undoubtedly, this thesis would hardly be accomplished without her assistance

I also specially thank many teachers and staff of the Faculty of Postgraduate studies, University of Languages and International Studies, for their valuable knowledge and guidance and assistance during my time of study at the Faculty

I am also grateful to my colleagues as well as my students at a high school in Hanoi, who have helped me a lot in my data collection to fulfill this paper

Last but not least, my heartfelt thank was sent to my family for their support and strong encouragement to me throughout the study

ABSTRACT

English writing skill can be seen as the most challenging among four language skills When teaching and learning writing skills, most teachers and students are confronted with a wide range of obstacles The presented study aims at identifying teachers’ and students’ difficulties in teaching and learning English writing skills at a high school in Hanoi Data of the research was gathered by means

of two major research tools a questionnaire for teacher and interviews for both

low motivation in learning writing, poor writing ideas, lack of frequent practice and the teachers' teaching methods were seen as the most prevalent problematic factors having huge impact on and learning writings of the students Especially, time distribution and ignorance about writing skills by both teachers and students were also reported as predominant elements by the respondents Based on the major findings, a couple of suggestions and recommendations are proposed to improve the quality of teaching and learning English writing skills at the high school

LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES

Pie chart 4.1: Interest in learning writing skills 25

Bar chart 4.2.: Benefits of learning English writing skills 26

Table 4.1: Challenges when learning English writing skills 28

Table 4.2: Expectations and suggestions 30

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF TABLES v

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale of the study 1

1.2 Objectives of the study 3

1.3 Research questions 3

1.4 Scope of the study 3

1.5 Significance of the study 3

1.6 Methods of the study 4

1.7 Organization of the study 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Writing skills 5

2.1.1 Definition 5

2.1.2 The importance of writing 6

2.1.3 Approaches to second language writing instruction 7

2.2 Challenges in teaching and learning writing skills 9

2.2.1 Problems faced by students in learning writing skills 9

2.2.2 Problems faced by teachers in teaching writing skills 10

2.3 Strategies for improving the writing skills 12

2.4 Previous studies 13

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 16

3.1 Context of the study 16

3.1.1 The high school in Hanoi 16

3.1.2 English language training in the high school 17

3.2 Subjects of the study 18

3.3 Survey research design 19

3.3.1 Research methods 19

3.3.2 Data collection instruments 19

3.3.3 Procedure of the study 21

3.4 The data analysis 22

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 24

4.1 Findings 24

4.1.1 Findings from the students’ questionnaire survey and interview 24

4.1.2 Findings from the teachers’ interview 34

4.2 Discussion 37

4.2.1 Discussion of the students’ questionnaire survey and interview results 37

4.2.2 Discussion of the teachers’ interview results 40

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 42

5.1 Recapitulation 42

5.2 Implications 43

5.3 Limitations of the study 44

5.4 Suggestions for further study 45

REFERENCES 46 APPENDICES I

Appendix 1: Bảng câu hỏi khảo sát dành cho học sinh lớp 10 I

Appendix 4: Câu hỏi phỏng vấn dành cho học sinh X Appendix 5: Interview questions for the students and their answers X Appendix 6: Câu hỏi phỏng vấn dành cho giáo viên XIII Appendix 7: Interview questions for the teachers and their answers XIII

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents the background of the study and the statement of the problem, the objectives of the study, the research questions, the scope of the study, the significance of the study, the method of the study and the structure of the study

1.1 Rationale of the study

Among four language skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing), writing is the one that a language learner expects to master Hyland (2003) argues that writing is an activity that must be learned so that students can effectively communicate their ideas in writing It is therefore imperative that teachers help students develop writing skill that allow them to express themselves properly and effectively in L2 writing Sokolik (2003) states that writing is a mixture of process and product This process provides a collection of ideas or a stage of people who talk when they make up a piece of writing, while the final product is considered a piece of writing Writing also brings learners the chance to find solutions to deliver their ideas in foreign language (Setiawan et al, 2014)

Foreign language training requires sharing out four fundamental skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing, which is a complicated process When teaching these skills, teachers frequently circulate a certain teaching sequence: beginning with listening, speaking, reading, and then writing (Hedge, 2000) Also, Hedge (2000) reports that learners dedicate 45% of their energies to listening, 30%

to speaking, 16% to reading, and 9% to writing There is no doubt that writing skill

is put at the end of the chain because it seems to be highly complex and difficult to master even for native people As stated by Grabe and Kaplan (1996, p.87),

“probably half of the world’s population does not know how to write adequately and effectively" It was agreed that "it is easier to learn to speak than to write no matter if it is a first or second language”(Nunan, 1989, p.12) Tangpermpoon (2008) assumes that compared to other language skills such as listening , speaking and reading, writing is the most difficult skill to acquire as it needs writers to have a lot

of lexical and syntactic information, as well as organizational concepts in L2 to produce a successful written text

However, unlike other skills, writing in English is not practiced outside the class, so what is learned inside the class is practiced inside and has little opportunity

to be enhanced outside Moreover, writing is frequently seen as an element of teaching and learning both grammar and syntax, which consequently underestimates the nature and significance of writing, and its acts of growth Therefore, the enhancement of this skill captures significant attention to learn and teach from the very beginning stage of language training Both native and nonnative learners, see writing as a remarkable difficulty, but it is much more challenging for learners of English as a second language (Hyland, 2003) These obstacles mainly occur from incompetence in syntax, coherence, idea expansion, content selection, sentence subject, rhetorical conventions, mechanics and organization, the absence of vocabulary, and the improper use of vocabulary

From my personal experience as a teacher at a high school in Hanoi, where English writing skill is regarded as one of the most difficult language skills, students seem bored and unexcited to participate the writing lessons In those lectures, they often learn to camouflage their lack of reading and writing skills, so it

is often difficult for teachers to identify their weaknesses until the graders hand in papers or take exams In fact, many learners have believed that “English” as well as

“writing” is only about dictation and grammar For these learners, writing is an inevitable failure Even a big number of students are confident that they will not be able to acquire good writing skills, because they cannot recognize good writing with correct spelling, grammar, and so on They seem not alert of the importance of writing skills during their learning phase Moreover, their English exams often mostly requires their grammatical range and lexical resource, but not much writing

Despite such issues which cause teachers and students a lot of difficulties, little research has been done on the challenges faced by teachers and students in teaching and learning English writing skills at a high school in Hanoi, especially the

teachers and 10th graders The reasons above bring the author a choice to do

teaching and learning English writing skills at a high school in Hanoi" with an

expectation to pinpoint difficulties in teaching and learning English writing skills so

as to propose a number of possible suggestions to facilitate and better English writing skills for the students

1.2 Objectives of the study

graders in teaching and learning English writing skills at a high school in Hanoi Based on the findings, a number of feasible solutions were recommended in order to enhance the quality of English language writing skills at the high school

1.3 Research questions

The research was conducted at a high school in Hanoi to find out the answers

for two following questions:

1 What are challenges in teaching English writing skills to 10 th graders as perceived by the teachers at a high school in Hanoi?

2 What are challenges in learning English writing skills as perceived by the

10 th graders?

1.4 Scope of the study

The research goes insight the challenges in teaching and learning English

Hanoi in the academic year of 2019-2020 The result of the study was used as the basis for suggestions to eliminate the obstacles and to enhance the writing skills of

1.5 Significance of the study

The study was designed in the hope to develop insight into the reality of teaching and learning English writing skills to point out factors affecting teachers

Furthermore, the study was also expected to facilitate the English language writing

skills in this high school As a result, it will encourage both teachers and students to

be more active in writing lessons, and especially facilitate the teachers to draw their

writing lessons Consequently, the lesson will become more attractive, beneficial and exciting with the active and enthusiastic participations of both teachers and their students

1.6 Methods of the study

Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were employed to get reliable results for the study The data were collected from a survey questionnaire and interviews to investigate the problematic factors that are considered as hindrances

on the effectiveness of teaching and learning English writing skills at a high school

in Hanoi Based on those, implications for better quality of teaching and learning

grade at a high school in Hanoi are also proposed

1.7 Organization of the study

The thesis consists of five main parts:

Chapter 1: Introduction: presents the background of the study and the

statement of the problem, the aims and the objectives of the study, the research questions, the scope of the study, the significance of the study, the method of the study and the structure of the study

Chapter 2: Literature reviews: reviews the writing skills; challenges in

teaching and learning writing skills; strategies for improving students’ writing skills and an overview about the previous studies

Chapter 3: Methodology: provides a brief introduction about the setting of

the study and the methodology applied in the study

Chapter 4: Findings and discussion: demonstrates the findings of the study and

discussions of the findings

Chapter 5: Conclusion and recommendations: summarizes what have been

addressed in the study; points out the limitations and suggestions for further study

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter has introduced the theoretical background about writing skills, challenges faced by teacher and students when teaching and learning writing skills, strategies for improving students’ writing skills and previous studies Among these, the researcher has detailed the first, the second and the third sections with an aim to clarify and highlight the significances of writings, approaches and techniques for teaching and learning writing skills

2.1 Writing skills

2.1.1 Definition

It is said that it is challenging to give out an appropriate definition of writing because different groups of people with their different needs and purposes for writing take on different definitions

According to Tribble (1996), writing is a difficult-to-acquire language skill which involves certain types of training The roles of writing are to document things, complete tasks, develop arguments and bring ideas together He also reports that writing “is not a skill that is readily picked up by exposure” but “normally requires some forms of instruction” (Tribble, 1996, p.11) Ur (1996) endorses Tribble when saying that most people intuitively develop the spoken language (at least their own mother tongue), while the written form is in most cases intentionally taught and master Harris (1993) assumes that writing is a process that takes place over a period of time, particularly if we consider the often prolonged period of thought that precedes the development an initial draft Byrne (1988) considers writing “the act of forming” “graphic symbols: that is, letters or combinations of letters” He also adds that writing is “a sequence of sentences arranged in a particular order and linked

together in certain ways” (Byrne, 1988, p.1) Wingersky (1999) argues that writing is

a process of making communication with others in which the writer delivers his ideas and thoughts in written forms to readers It is a process of thinking in which the writer discovers, organizes, and communicates his or her thoughts to the reader As stated

by Farbrain and Whinch (1996), moreover, it is about conveying meaning by using words that have been chosen and put together in written or printed form Additionally, Boughey (1997) refers to the criteria of writing in social communication when he claims that writing is a process that requires writers to explore, challenge, and make associations for themselves between propositions

All things considered, writing is a difficult but productive skill which gives students opportunities to simultaneously expose their language skills and practice communicative skills Therefore, it is necessary that writing skill need to be taught and learned carefully

2.1.2 The importance of writing

Mc Arthur, et al (2008) indicate that writing provides an importance mean

to personal self-expression because it prioritizes language teaching and learning that leads to the fact that teachers have raised more importance of writing skill for the past few years so as to enhance their students' language level It is evident that social relationships which exist thanks to the individuals’ creation via discourse, are not only discourse Hyland (2003) states that writing is one of the key approaches which is used to create a coherent social relationship through interacting with others As indicated by Alexander (2008), strong writing skills may improve the students' opportunities for success, because if their writing is not good, the readers might misunderstand and misinterpret

In the school environment, Bello (1997, p.83) considers writing a powerful language ability which plays an important role in fostering language acquisition as learners experiment with terms, phrases, and large chunks of writing in order to effectively express their ideas and to strengthen the grammar and vocabulary they learn in class He also claims that "one of major failing in the traditional curriculum could be attributed to lack of attention given to writing, which is an important avenue for thinking." Bello (1997, p.83-85)

As aforementioned statements, writing is one of the ways to convey thoughts

or ideas to the others It is also the skill in studying English which requires the

students' great effort Good writing skill can facilitate the students to absorb other skills in English better and more effectively and through writing, the learners can enrich lexical resource and consolidate grammatical structures which closely serve reading and speaking purposes

2.1.3 Approaches to second language writing instruction

Writing as a product

The product approach to writing focuses on the finished products of the writing work rather than the process As stated by Nunan (1989), the product approach to writing focuses on the end result of the act of composition, that is the letter, essay story and so on The writing teacher who uses the product approach will be concerned to see that the end product is readable, grammatically correct and obeys discourse conventions relating to main points, supporting details and so on

Getnet (1994) shares a view that the product approach is an orientation whose primary focus is the end result of what students produce Formal accuracy and correctness in grammar, spelling, use of vocabulary, convention of layout etc are given the utmost priority The product approach of writing is an accuracy-oriented approach that focuses on the control of mistakes in order to eliminate them from written works (Byrne, 1988) Suggestions by Hedge (1988) include a couple

of points which students should bear in their mind in the product approach of writing as the followings:

a Getting the grammar right

b Having a range of vocabulary

c Punctuating meaningfully

d Using the conventions of layout correctly

e Spelling accuracy

f Using a range of sentence structures

g Linking ideas and information across sentences to develop a topic

h Developing and organizing the content clearly and convincingly

Writing as a process

The process approach to writing focuses on the composing process of writing instead of on the written final products Encouraging students to have a sense of purpose and audience, while writing about a certain topic, is the major task of teachers who teach in line with the process approach Hedge (1988) states that good writers appear to go through certain processes which lead to successful pieces of written work She has proposed the following steps that good writers follow in the process approach of writing

a The writers start with an overall plan in their head

b They think about what they want to say and who are they writing for

c They then draft out sections of the writing and as they work on them, they constantly reviewing, revising and editing their work

The genre approach to writing

Genres are ways by which a text can be seen as belonging to specific domains Dean (2008) argues that genre relates to spoken and written contexts for language use in which our perceptions of the kinds of discourse occurring are influenced by our knowledge of conventions that are in place for that kind of discourse, that is, genre conventions The fundamental foundation of genre is that

“we don’t just write, we write something to achieve some purpose: it is a way of getting something done” (Hyland, 2003, p.18) Martin (1992) defines genre as a goal focused because they focus on achieving specific purposes These moves and stages within a genre are communicated and unique to different cultures This is to help readers of that culture to relate and understand the message communicated in writing

Reader-oriented approach to writing

Reader-oriented writing is considered as social communication between the writer and reader Language, in this case, is viewed as a social process as Meyer et

al (1991) claims that language occurs in an individual’s life through an ongoing exchange of meanings with significant others This description concentrates on the writer’s immediate setting, and how it has influence on the writer and as a result,

writing The means of communication is purposeful and according to its purpose, writing is composed in a particular way that it is familiar to the targeted reader The reader expects in what s/he will read about and the writer has to meet their requirements Besides, the meaning between the writer and reader is negotiated through a discourse that is familiar to both sides In this approach, the teachers may give models of different genres applied in a specific theme to familiarize their students with how the text follows its rhetorical moves The main objective of this approach is to communicate clearly with the reader, and this is ultimately achieved through the vision that writing is a social act

Free writing approach

According to Hyland (2003), the focus in the free-writing approach is on the

writer Writing here is viewed as “a creative act of discovery”, and of “sharing personal meanings” This approach is also called “expressivism” Under the concept

of personal expression, free writing teaching approach allows the student to explore their own ideas and find their own voices The free writing approach relies on quantity rather than quality (Raimes, 1983).This approach stresses mainly on the student because the topics and ideas originate from the students, when the teacher has the role to provide guidance and facilitation for the students to find their opinions and self-expression Error correction is kept to a minimum The teachers encourage their students to write freely on any topic for a short duration because it is expected that the learners will step by step write more fluently (Raimes, 1983) The teacher’s role is to comment on the content in the class and not correct them It is an indirect approach to teaching as grammatical forms and genres are not taught to the learners

2.2 Challenges in teaching and learning writing skills

2.2.1 Problems faced by students in learning writing skills

According to Hyland (2002), students face a lot of writing difficulties at various levels of their learning Such problems can in general be categorized into linguistic, psychological, cognitive, and pedagogical groups They address the conceptual components of English; since an incorrect structure complicates the

text’s context and interpretation, which a reader deciphers by requiring a mental procedure (Quintero, 2008)

Likewise, Rico (2014) suggests that an incoherent text does not convey ideas that cause learners to lose faith, even though they have mastered syntactic, lexical, grammatical control over the composition of text The loss of confidence among students is also due to a teaching approach that is not in conformity with the students’ learning styles and cultural contexts (Ahmad et al., 2013) In addition, social media, contradictory input, lack of analytical and evaluative approach for learners and large and unmanageable class sizes can have a negative effect on the systemic and communicative performance of the students’ texts (Pineteh, 2013)

The social factors affecting second language writing, according to Myles (2002), include motivation and attitudes Research focusing on motivation and attitude indicates that, unlike those with negative attitudes, learners with optimistic attitudes and encouragement for writing for academic purposes achieve progress (McGroarty, 1996) Butt and Rasul (2012) state that inadequate time for writing, inappropriate teaching aids, overcrowded classes, conventional pedagogy and poor academic backgrounds for students are some of the factors affecting the writing skills of the students Similarly, obsolete textbooks that fail to attract an audience either encourage the value of writing skills or provide opportunities (Heider, 2012)

Kalikokha, C (2008) assumes that collecting ample and valid information, paraphrasing of summarizing information, and using an acceptable academic writing style, is very difficult for most students This is triggered by delayed essay writing training, broad classes, L1 transition, and lack of communication between students and teachers about the positive measures needed to resolve these issues

It is clear that second language learners face various challenges in learning writing skills as mentioned above This study investigated whether the same challenges face students in learning writing skills at a high school in Hanoi and suggest intervention measures to mitigate the problem

2.2.2 Problems faced by teachers in teaching writing skills

Teaching writing seems to be the difficult part for teachers Teaching English

at high school level is naturally much more different from teaching in other levels The challenges may somehow make the teachers’ teaching ineffective The following can be seen as the hindrances confronted by teachers

Nowadays, teachers seem to have a hard time in motivating the students to write This derives from the fact that the students are not interested in learning writing (Asep, 2014) Undoubtedly, the young has the perception that they can do whatever they please as their parents have given them much freedom When students feel reluctant in learning, it is a sign of lack of motivation (Abrar, 2016)

Another obstacle in teaching English writing skills at the high school is that pupils have different levels of English language In fact, in many high schools, students with different levels are placed in the same class which can result in challenges for teachers to make provision for all the students at the same time (Asep, 2014) Moreover, different levels of writing ability require teachers to apply different approaches As a result, the teachers feel challenging to plan their lessons and prepare appropriate activities for the students

Another hindrance is from student’s parental indifference Lack of parents’ support make teachers having a hard time to help the students Students who feel lack of warmth and affection from their parents will draw them back from succeeding in their learning process (Gündoğmuş, 2018) This is due to little guidance, motivation and support from their parents

Besides, lack of professional experience is another challenge faced by the teachers (Gündoğmuş, 2018) Having lack of professional experience might lead to stress and tension to teach high school students especially among novice teachers The multiple roles of teacher are also a challenge Teachers’ experience depends on the level of their previous experience and training It takes time for the novice teachers to adapt themselves with their students very well Teachers can only prepare appropriate activities if they know well about their students’ proficiency level, and interests Not only that, longer time is needed for teachers to prepare new

teaching materials, appropriate lesson plans, suitable activities, and provide comments or reflections

Finally, Anyiendah (2017) argues that lack of students’ interest is another challenge Students feel lack of interest in writing because they need to know many aspects in order to produce a good piece of work The students need to know punctuations, grammar, vocabulary, spelling and sentence structure in order to write

a good piece of writing

2.3 Strategies for improving the writing skills

The writing skill of students can be enhanced by encouraging their interest, motivation and enjoyment in learning, through technology (Graham & Perin, 2007) Likewise, certain metacognitive, cognitive, and socio - affective approaches may also

be used to allow student to know the writing process and to practice it (O’Malley & Chamot,1990) Hedge (2005) claims that good writing goes beyond creating simple and accurate sentences, because learners need to be guided in the most effective and

innovative way to write and communicate their thoughts Furthermore, teachers

should adapt their pedagogical methods and develop activities that could inspire and empower students by allowing them the abilities to select topics of interest to each other (Quintero, 2008) It will probably reshape their writing habits through prolonged practice, and physical and cognitive skills that offer the writer power over the presentation of linguistic and domain specific information (Kellogg & Raulerson, 2007) In addition, language and content teachers may find it easy to track their students from a specific perspectives (Nik, et al., 2010) To encourage their expressive ability, teachers may use techniques to get feedback from students to be put down on a piece of paper Perhaps notably, attitudes towards writing and discussing the problems need to be improved In addition, immediate and critical feedback on their performance is required to increase their confidence (Haider, 2012) Kroll (2003) indicates that assessment is an important part of the instructional process in determining student’s progress because it provides guidance for revision, feedback to both the students and teachers that they can use to improve their training quality of writing skills Also, according to Kroll (2003), feedback on

ESL students’ written assignments is necessary to boost learner’s ability in any L2 writing course Thus, the goal of feedback is to teach skills that will assist the students to better their writing proficiency to the point where they recognize what is expected of them as writers He further observes that learners should be encouraged

to analyze and evaluate feedback themselves in order for it to be more effective As identified by Williams (2005), there are two common categories of feedback that teachers give on their students’ writings namely: feedback on form and content Through the observation, he reveals that the most prevalent methods of feedback on form include all teachers' correction of surface errors, teacher's markings that indicates the place and type of error but without correction, and underlining to indicate the presence of errors

2.4 Previous studies

There have been various researchers worldwide working on the aspect of diagnosing the challenges confronted by teachers and students when teaching and learning English writing skills A variety of research studies inside and outside Vietnam have been conducted to find out difficulties in teaching and learning English writing skills so as to figure out the problems

Hidayati (2018), in his study clarifies challenges faced by teachers when teaching writing to English as a foreign language (EFL) in Indonesia, states that there are internal and external factors leading to the challenges that the teachers face when teaching writing skill The internal factors include the learners’ abilities, native language intervention, learners’ enthusiasm and reading habits while the external factors include the state of the class, the teaching aids, and the time available for writing Moreover, Almubark (2016) pinpoints the higher number of students in each class, the lack of motivation among the students, the topics in the text books, lack of vocabulary, mother tongue interference as problematic factors that hinder lecturers from teaching and students from learning English writing skill Likewise, Dwivedi and Chakravarthy (2015) in their study share that teachers' roles, students' preparation, teacher and student involvement, working in group… are hindrances from bettering teaching and learning English writing skill As a result, all

researchers have pinpointed challenges in their studies and then propose solutions so as

to enhance teaching and learning quality of the English writing skill

In Vietnam, the concern about how to effectively teach and learn English writing skill has been taken shaped for years Huy, N T (2015) - a lecturer of Dong Thap University, in a study about problems affecting learning writing skill of grade

11 students at Thong Linh high school, introduces the writing and types of writing, highlights the importance of writing and concurrently pinpointed challenges when teaching and learning writing skill, especially problems hindering graders from bettering learning writing skill He clarifies the factors and concludes that learners' attitudes towards writing skill, lack of vocabulary and ideas, the correction limitation of students’ written works, the lack of material sources to improve their writing skill and the shortage of time for learning writing skill were the most

writing skill As a result, he suggests solutions to limit the difficulties when teaching and learning writing skill so as to better the quality of English language outcomes in general and writing skill in particular In addition, Thuy, N H H (2009), in her study conducted with the aim to clarify problems faced by teachers when teaching EFL writing in Vietnam, explores three main areas of problem: (i) How to raise students’ awareness of why they should write in English, (ii) How to teach students to write in English and (iii) How to assess students’ writing skill The author also concludes that the issues of teaching EFL writing can be solved thank to various strategies such as psycholinguistics, second language acquisition, syntax, sociolinguistics, and pragmatics, and that the solutions can help improve the students’ English writing skill in particular and communicate competence in general Khang, N D, Van, P T T & Nguyet, L T A (2011) in a study about the effectiveness of activities for teaching EFL writing in a context of Vietnam is with a purpose of clarifying the factors affecting the teaching and learning EFL writing Among the elements, the authors pinpoint the effectiveness of activities as one of the major problematic hindrances on quality of teaching and learning English writing skill

In fact, various studies about writing skills have been conducted worldwide and in Vietnam Significantly, all the scholars share a same view that there are several types of writing and writing is a really important and challenging skill to teach and learn Also, they have clarified a vast of problematic issues confronted by teachers and learners when teaching and learning writing skills, and accordingly they have proposed a number of suggestions to address the problems However, as a teacher of English in a high school in Hanoi, the researcher finds that four main English language skills have been taught and learnt equally, but the outcomes in general and writing skill in particular have not met the demand as expectation for various challenges Additionally, in spite of the growing concerns of teachers and researchers about difficulties faced by teachers and pupils when teaching and learning English writing skills, the number of studies on the field remains modest This gives rise to my study to partly contribute to the body of research on the importance of writing skill and also the hindrances confronted by teachers and students so as to suggest possible solutions to enhance the quality of teaching and

a high school in Hanoi

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, the main issues relating to methodology was carefully discussed First, an elaboration of the research context was presented, particularly, the English learning and teaching contexts at a high school in Hanoi Second, some important matters of methodology such as research tools, participants, and data analysis were also thoroughly mentioned Among these, the researcher paid close attention on the research instruments with detailed description of the survey questionnaire, the interviews and the data analysis process which laid foundations for the research findings and discussion in the next chapter

3.1 Context of the study

3.1.1 The high school in Hanoi

The high school which was chosen to be studied has been acknowledged as one of the first “high school students training cradle” in former Ha Tay province since November 1959 with the purpose of teaching and providing basic knowledge

of foundation sciences for adults in districts of Ba Vi, Phuc Tho, Son Tay and

neighboring areas

In 1994, the school was allowed to recruit and train specialized majors with 4 original classes: Mathematics, Physics, Linguistics and English In 2008, at the time Hanoi was expanded geographically, the school became one of four educational institutions at high school level the Hanoi Department of Education and Training with the task of training specialized major students

From the school year 2017 - 2018, the school was moved to a new campus with a clean and beautiful campus of over 4 hectares The school now has a modern well-equipped facility for teaching and developing the comprehensive capacity of the students

The scale of this high school has been growing ever since The organizational scale of the school is always maintained steadily in accordance with the National educational setting standard with 45 classes with the average of 35 students per class

The school is staffed with 6 main sections including Math, Physics - Informatics - Engineering, Chemistry - Biology, Literature, History - Geography - Moral education, Foreign language studies - Physical training - National defence training

the total number of 520 students classified into different majored classes namely math, literature, chemistry, biology, physics, information technology, geography, history, French and English

Today the high school has become a reliable educational training institution to recruit students of the town and neighboring districts, and made great contributions

to discovering, fostering and training talents for the cause of construction, industrialization and modernization at the local and national level

3.1.2 English language training in the high school

As a result of the school's general training objectives and students' duties after graduation abovementioned, English is always appraised one of the most important subjects at this high school The ultimate outcome of English course is students' linguistic competence, communicative competence, and more important, their communicative performance which serve students' purposes or absorbing or reading documents written in English, and plus bring the students numerous opportunities to study abroad in future time That is to say, at the end of the general education program, students with the ability to communicate reach Level 3 of the 6-level Foreign Language Proficiency Framework for Vietnam, creating a foundation for students to use English in learning, forming lifelong learning habits to become global citizens in the integration period

comprises two semesters The first one covers 5 units and lasts 57 periods Later, the 54 periods for the second phase covers 5 units The English training program in this high school is taught with the aims of providing students with a range of vocabulary and basic grammatical items, or in other words basic competence, and developing learners' four language skills At the end of the phases, every student is

expected to be confident in communicating with others and sharing ideas about their daily lives, their work, their families, their hobbies, their future plans, etc in the target language More specifically, the students will be competent in their English language skills equivalent to the standard of output of A2 level Thus, the teachers are required to improve their knowledge to approach the teaching of the new pilot English textbook program

Considering the course book, Tiếng Anh 10 (Volume 1+2) by the Ministry of Education and Training (2014) is used at the school The book is chosen because it

is expected to help to achieve the objectives of the school curriculum It consists of

10 units providing a comprehensive language teaching and learning Grammar and vocabulary are taught and explained thoroughly, and all four language skills are developed systematically and similarly These text books are expected to facilitate the students to gain training goals of the school because language knowledge and skills are equally instructed with meticulous explanations and developed systematically

Writing is not treated as an independent subject in the English curriculum at this high school, yet it is taught as an integrated skill in the procedure of language skill development in this textbook Following the theme-based organization in Tiếng Anh 10 (Volume 1+2), the procedure in which writing topics are first discussed through different language activities and skills before graders are required

to practise writing with the aim at consolidating language knowledge provided in

skill is expected to gain improvement in terms of coherence and cohesion, vocabulary, grammar and accuracy in general, especially they are able to effectively write familiar topics such as their friends, families, their holiday, their hobbies, etc

3.2 Subjects of the study

The research was conducted with the participation of teachers and students at a

number of 210 students aged from 15 to 16 from five non-gifted English classes

These 10th grade students are at different levels and background of English, and all

of them have to learn English as a compulsory subject in the training curriculum

teachers of English who teach the respondents Their age ranges from 27 to 50 and their teaching experience varies from 5 to 20 years Among them, two got the Master’s degree in English teaching methodology from the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi

3.3 Survey research design

3.3.1 Research methods

students in teaching and learning English writing skills at a high school in Hanoi In order to get reliable results for the study, both qualitative and quantitative methods were applied to collect the data

3.3.2 Data collection instruments

The first data collection instrument employed was a survey questionnaire for the students The questionnaire was written in Vietnamese for students to be able to understand and then translated into English

English were randomly chosen for the interviews

To gain in-depth and rich data, the instruments would be employed with a combination of survey questionnaire and interviews, which would be discussed in detail below

3.3.2.1.Questionnaire

Questionnaire is a tool in gathering information about the aspect of teaching and learning such as beliefs, attitudes, motivation, preferences, etc among a large number of respondents within a relatively short time Hence, this instrument was

chosen to be utilized in this study

and attitudes towards English language writing skills

The instrument used to collect data from the students was Likert - scale survey questionnaires Some open-ended questions were also provided so that the respondents could have opportunities to express their own opinions about the items raised in the questionnaires

composed of five parts: interests, benefits, challenges and expectations and suggestions Each item was rated on a five-point Likert scale: 1 (strongly agree), 2(agree), 3 (unsure), 4 (disagree) and 5 (strongly disagree)

3.3.2.2 Interview

A structured interview was a qualitative method of inquiry that combines a pre-determined set of questions or topics which prompted discussion with the opportunity for the interviewer to explore particular themes or further responses Respondents were not limited to a set of pre-determined answers, yet they were allowed to discuss and raise issues involving the investigation theme Therefore, using semi-structured interviews was not only an insight of the research theme to be explored but it also gave the researcher a great deal of flexibility and allowed a degree of freedom in getting information from interviewees The ideas above worked

as the rationale for the choice of semi-structured interviews in this study

Two designs of interviews which were used in this research paper were described as follows

Structured interview designed for teachers

The interview was conducted with the aim of primarily investigating the reality of teaching English writing at a high school in Hanoi, students’ level of English writing proficiency and the challenges they coped with when teaching writing skills

The interview included 6 open-ended questions, and data withdrawn from the interviews would facilitate the researcher to find out possible difficulties that they may face when teaching English writing

The interviewees were five teachers of English at a high school in Hanoi

with at least five-year teaching experience The researcher contacted the chosen teachers of English and set up an appointment for the interview In order to get reliable information, the content and purpose of the interview were not informed beforehand

Structured interview designed for 10 th graders

The interview including 5 open-ended questions plus sub-questions for discussion was conducted in Vietnamese so that the students could understand the content of the questions and answer them clearly It was also fulfilled after the employment of teachers' interview to gain in-depth information for the study

The interviewees were five students chosen randomly from 210 participants The interviews were used to enrich the questionnaire data in order to supplement the validity of the information obtained from the questionnaires and clarify the

3.3.3 Procedure of the study

3.3.3.1 Procedure of questionnaires

After considering the research questions and the literature review, particularly previous studies about hindrances faced by teachers and pupils when teaching and learning English writing skill, the researcher embarked on designing question items for the investigation The questions were carefully constructed in a logical and scientific way to achieve the most relevant, valid and reliable results The survey questionnaires was written in Vietnamese (Appendix 1) and then translated into English (Appendix 2)

To exclude any question items that would be vague or ambiguous to participants, the author consulted the supervisor and some lecturers at a high school

in Hanoi about the draft survey questionnaire before building the final version based

on comments and suggestions from the consultants

Administering the questionnaire

After the questionnaire was finalized, the researcher contacted the school leaders, administrators and teachers in charge for permission to conduct the data

gathering process Then, the researcher had a brief meeting with the student respondents from five non-major English classes to arrange the most convenient time before carefully explaining the format and the way they would complete the questions More importantly, the researcher raised questions to clear any possible misunderstandings and ambiguities of the learners about questions in the list The instruction was given out in the clearest and most comprehensible way Finally, time was set for completion

3.3.3.2 Procedures for interviews

The interview questions were constructed after the questionnaire analysis had finished The questions were developed from the findings of the survey

After building questions for interviews, the researcher negotiated in advance with the lecturers for the most convenience of time and location as well as comfort for them

3.4 The data analysis

Data would be collected and dissected to find out the common problems Then, based on the research results, the researcher would suggest a couple of effective solutions and recommendations

First of all, the collected data from the questionnaire respondents were analyzed and classified according to specific questions of the study Therefore, the answers given to these questions helped the researcher find out the answers to the main research questions that had to do with challenges blocking the effectiveness of teaching and learning writing skills at a high school in Hanoi

Secondly, the descriptive statistic method was used to process the information taken from the questionnaires The following step was that the researcher dissected the data and presented them in statistics according to each question made in the survey Then, the received statistics were put in tables to illustrate and explain better the results of the study

The questionnaire results collected from 10th graders in the tables were shown

in terms of numbers and percentages with 5 rating scale level based on five - point Likert scale including (1) Strongly agree, (2) Agree, (3) Unsure, (4) Disagree, (5) Strongly disagree

The qualitative analysis was conducted with interview data The data collected from the respondents would be processed and discussed thoroughly to find out extra challenges confronted by teachers and students when teaching and learning writing skills These findings provided more evidence and helped the researcher to finalize the study

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This study was conducted with the aim at examining the difficulties

English language writing skills at a school in Hanoi The questionnaire surveys and interviews targeted to collect data related to finding out the challenges and suggesting feasible solutions to limit hindrances and enhance the quality of teaching and learning English language writing skills at a school in Hanoi The results

in the sequence according to four components: interest in learning English writing skills, benefits of learning English writing skills, challenges when learning English writing skills, expectations and suggestions Also, the interview results for these participants would be clarified As mentioned in Chapter 3, the results gathered from questionnaire survey and interviews were answers for the research questions

of this study

4.1 Findings

4.1.1 Findings from the students’ questionnaire survey and interview

4.1.1.1 Findings from the students’ questionnaire survey

Interest in learning English writing skills

Pie chart 4.1 reports the numbers and percentages of students' ideas about their interest in learning writing skills

Strongly Disagree

Unsure

Disa gree

Strongly Disa gree

Pie chart 4.1: Interest in learning writing skills

As can be seen from the pie charts, the options of "(strongly) disagree" see the highest percentage, followed by the option of "unsure", while the "(strongly) agree" take the lowest proportion as the respondents were asked about whether they liked writing skill most among four language skills Specifically, the table reveals the figure for informants' idea about item 1 “I like writing skill most among four language skill” made up 64, 65 and 51 for the selection of "(strongly) agree",

"unsure" and "(strongly) disagree" in line with 31.4%, 30.9% and 38.5% respectively For item 2 “I am excited to participate in writing lessons”, additionally,

35, 64 and 111 in equivalence to 16.6%, 30.4% and 52.8% of respondents were for

"(strongly) agree", "unsure" and "(strongly) disagree" in sequence When being asked whether the topics and contents of writing in item 3 were often interesting and real-

life like, up to 130 accounting for 61.8% of respondents (strongly) agreed with this statement, 63 informants making up 30.0% had no idea and only 17 participants taking for 8.1% had a (strong) disagreement Furthermore, in item 4, only 23 informants equivalent to 10.9% had a (strong) approval that they were much satisfied with their writing competence and performance, while 110 taking 52.3% of others(strongly) disagreed with this statement It was worth noticing that the participants having uncertainty or disagreement with the item were 77 equivalent to 36.6%

Generally, the table reveals a moderate proportion of informants making report that they were fond of writing skills most among four language skills and they were also eager to take part in writing lessons This was because most of respondents stated that the topics and contents of writing were often interesting and real-life like However, it was noticeable that the percentages of participants having uncertainty or disagreement about their attitude towards writing skills, their eagerness for participation in writing lessons and their comments on the themes and contents of writing in the textbook still remained quite high Significantly, a rather

their writing competence and performance, especially 110 (accounting for 52.3%)

of them stated “(strongly) disagree" As a result, this concern should be catalogued

as an issue to be addressed

Benefits of learning English writing skills

values they received when learning English writing skills The specific figures of the result were clarified in Bar chart 4.2

Bar chart 4.2.: Benefits of learning English writing skills

Item 5 Item 6 Item 7

Bar chart 4.2.: Benefits of learning English writing skills

As specified in the bar chart, most students stated that they had obtained various values from learning writing skills Specifically, up to 160 (76.2%) of the respondents (strongly) approved that the writing skills facilitated them to have correct and effective use of the language knowledge, while only 15.2% and 8.7% of the informants expressing uncertainty or strong disapproval respectively Additionally,

149 informants (71%) (strongly) approved that learning writing skills gave them deeper understanding of the English language was, whereas the figure for the selection of the options “unsure” and “(strongly disagree)” was 21.0% and 8.1% The table also clarifies that136 respondents (64.9%) (strongly) agreed that good writing skill helped them to learn other language skills better, whereas the number of participants selecting “unsure” and “(strongly disagree)” was24.8% and 10.5%

learning English writing skills The better and more efficient use of the language knowledge, greater responsibility for writings and the facilitation to better other language skills learning would be good examples of learning English language writing skills as stated by the respondents On the contrary, there still remains a number of informants having doubt or disapproval of the values brought by writing skills, thus this can be listed as one of the obstacles confronted by 10th graders when learning English writing skills which should be solved so as to better quality of learning English in general and writing skills in particular

Challenges when learning English writing skills

Along with the interest and values of learning English, the participants were also asked to report their ideas about challenges they had when learning English writing skill Table 4.3 details the results

Table 4.1: Challenges when learning English writing skills