Using writing portfolios to improve grade 10th students’ writing skill an action research project in a high school in hadong district

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

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

Code: 8045041.01

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- graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University of Hanoi I confirm that I cited all references in the study Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Next, I wish to take this opportunity to express my special thanks to all lectures and the staff of Department of Post- Graduate Studies at University of Languages and International Studies, Hanoi, for their inspiring lectures and suggestions for the topic of my study My appreciation and gratitude are also extended for the teachers and students from class 10 D1 at Tran Hung Dao High School in Ha Dong for their active participation in my research

Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, my husband and my children 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 to improve students’ writing skill It aims to find out how teachers can use writing portfolios to improve grade 10th students’ writing skill and students’ attitudes towards the implementation of writing portfolios in class Three cycles of action research was conducted with a class of thirty six students, and the data were collected using questionnaires, teaching diaries, students’ portfolios and interviews The findings indicated students lacked time for practising the skill, had poor background knowledge including lexical- grammar and idea limitations, and low motivation The application of writing portfolios has helped students improve their writing performance in task achievement, coherence and cohesion, lexical resource and grammatical range and accuracy At the end of the project, most of the participants expressed a strong consensus that writing portfolios not only had positive impacts on their writing skills but also created a positive attitude towards the 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 pre- 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 Education

VNU: 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

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Procedure in applying portfolio 15 Figure 2 Students’ perception of their writing skill improvement after applying portfolios 61 Figure 3 Students’ opinions about the improved criteria 61 Figure 4 Students’ opinions about the clarity of the teacher’s

instructions 63 Figure 5 Students’ opinions about keeping writing portfolios in the

future 65

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

Tran Hung Dao High School is a small school located in the suburb of Ha Noi Compared with students from other schools in Ha dong, students in my school have the lowest grades in the entrance exam not only in English but in other subjects due to several reasons such as poor background knowledge and low motivation in learning At school, students have a tendency to focus in some subjects like Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Liturature etc Most of them do not pay much time and effort to learn English and they always consider English is a difficult subject therefore they feel stressed to attend English lessons Like other schools, under the plan of implementing Pilot English curriculum for Vietnamese Upper 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 high school are being taught and learnt English with this set of curriculum The main goals of the new English textbooks are to help students improve their language ability and the communicative competence through four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) so that after finishing upper- secondary school, students will achieve level three of the Vietnamese Language Competence Framework (equipvalent to B1 in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) Among the four basic skills, writing is considered one of the most difficult skills for my students because of students’ low level competence, lack of vocabulary and ideas in organising and expanding the tasks and especially due to the 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 not learn writing skills efficiently While searching for a possible solution, I regconize that the innovations in English language teaching has led to the change in the method of teaching writing from the traditional way of the end product-oriented approach 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 can apply writing portfolios to improve students’ writing skills and discover the effectiveness of the application of writing portfolios on students’ writing performance in four assessment criteria namely task achievement, coherence and cohesion, lexical resource and grammatical range and accuracy In addition, the study also investigated students’ attitudes towards the use of writing portfolios in class With the given aims and objectives, the study aimed to answer two research questions:

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 on students’ writing skill Due to the time constraints, the researcher only focuses on the impacts of writing portfolios on grade 10th students’ writing performance and discover their opinions towards writing portfolios Hence, teaching of other skills or other grades would be beyond the scope

1.4 Significance of the study

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

portfolios can be adopted in a Vietnamese high school context Additionally, there have never been any studies on the impacts of using writing portfolios in Tran Hung Dao high school before, therefore, the results of the study may become a suggestion for the leading staffs in this school to accept portfolios in school official curricula in the future

1.5 Methods of the study

Action research was adopted in this study by the researcher and also the teacher, therefore, writing portfolios would be applied directly into the class where the researcher was teaching Also, both qualitative and quantitative data collection are applied in this study In terms of quanlitative method, interviews with students are used to gather students’opinions about the use of writing portfolios in class The data analysis from teaching diaries would help to understand more the students’ improvement in writing skill Regarding of quantitative method, questionnaires and students’ writing assignments are employed Both the methods are triangulated to get the validity and reliability of the research, therefore, the results from students’ submitted portfolios would be compared with the data collected in the interviews and 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 and objectives, the research questions, the scope, the methods, the significance, and the design of the study

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

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

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

CHAPTER 5, CONCLUSION, briefly summarizes the study, the recommendations are 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 skills whereas speaking and writing skill are productive skills for the reason that learners have 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 native speakers 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 strategies

constructed to engage colleagues and persuade them of the claims that are made” ( p

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

2.1.2 Approaches to teaching writing

Appeared in the 1960s, a product approach is “a traditional approach in which students are encouraged to mimic a model text, usually is presented and analyzed at an early stage” (Gabrielatos, 2002, p.5) Teachers who follow the product approach usually provide students a text to imitate, collect their final products and give them back 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 final product but not the writing process or the learners themselves

Later in the 1980s, there was a change from product approach to process approach which puts more emphasis on the writing process rather than the final product itself According to Oshima and Hogue (1997), the process of writing consists of four major steps which are prewriting, planning, writing and revising drafts, and writing the final product In the first step, writers are expected to generate ideas for the topic Then, in the next planning step, they will organize and outline their ideas In the last steps, the writers are asked to write and revise several drafts until they produce the final piece of writing Oshima and Hogue (1997) believe that the writer should revise and rewrite their writing for several times before 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 four main stages to produce a good writing, which are planning, drafting, editing and final 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 independent producer 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 their creativity 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 this term Martin (1999) states that genre is a communication activity having and orienting goal Then, Swales (1990) simply defines genre is a communication event

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

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

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 four kinds namely narrative writing (telling what happens), descriptive writing

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

Referring to the types of writing in English 10 new textbook, Thuy Trang Nguyen (2018) stated that although there seems to have numerous types of writing genres, actually there are two main types which are classified based on forms and paragraph 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 the forms, language and structures before creating quite similar products In the latter form, after learning the form and structures of the model text, students are often required to produce a piece of writing in the form of a paragraph of various genre types 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 paragraph and an informative one (Unit 1 and Unit 5) and a biography (Unit 3) In the writing lesson, students will learn to produce a narrative writing or an expository writing of about 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 in English The reseacher also hopes creating a writing portfolio would give students more chances to practise their writing skill under the light of writing process approach

2.2 Teaching writing

2.2.1 Improving students’ ability in writing

Writing, along with other skills like reading, listening and speaking, has

in writing requires a complicated intellectual undertaking both from the teacher and the learners as it consists of a process such as prewriting, writing, revising, editing and 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 written language

d Students have ability to write in an appropriate manner for a particular purpose with 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 students produce good writings In the classroom the teacher has to be a responder to the students’ writing (Brown, 2001) Brown says that, as a facilitator, a teacher has to give guidance to the students while they are writing but they can not force the students to follow their thoughts to be applied on their writing In addition, Harmer (2001) emphasized several additional roles of teachers and assumed that a teacher acts as motivator, resource and feedback provider

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

2.3 Assessing writing

2.3.1 Types of writing assessment

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

do something at text level In other words, the characteristics of the traditional assessment is the emphasis on the correct answers as well as the final products whereas the second one emphasizes both process and product and is used to measure students’ability over time Portfolio, performance, self- evaluation, journals and 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 questions about grammar, usage, and punctuation Although that kind of assessment has widely been used because it is easy to administer, less costly, and reliable, it still lacks validity as it is not measuring what it is supposed to measure Regarding to the second type of assessment, direct assessment is the writing where students are required to write on a certain topic for a specified length of time The last type of assessment that is mentioned is portfolio assessment which includes samples of students’ products produced over a period of time

In brief, among different types of alternative assessment, portfolios are considered a better tool for student learning (Yang, 2003) He also claimed that portfolio 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 main kinds of assessments: primary trait scoring, holistic assessment, and analytic assessment

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

Regarding to holistic scoring, Terry (1989, p.49) stated that “Since, in holistic scoring, the entire written text is evaluated as a whole, it is important to establish the specific criteria upon which the evaluation is to be based prior to undertaking the evaluation This does not mean establishing a catalogue of precise individual errors that might appear, but rather deciding what impact the errors that are present have on the overall 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 through judging it against a scoring rubric and the writing script is not evaluated in terms of specific features related to development, content or mechanics

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

Generally, holistic scoring is applied to assess students’ writing assignments with one single score by judging the whole text The purpose of this method is to assess the learner’s overall proficiency Hyland (2003) supposes that this method concentrates 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 is claimed 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 specific linguistic form, it also allows teachers and learners to focus more on their feedback and comment specifically Regarding to the last type of scoring method, Weigle (2002) defines analytical scoring method as a way to evaluate students’ writing products 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 distinct features As this scoring method is believed to be more effective in diagnosing learner writing performance than holistic and primary trait scoring, it will be utilized 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 arts where portfolios are used to display illustrative samples of an artist's work (Moya & O’Malley, 1994) There are various definitions for portfolios For example, a portfolio may appear as simply a collection of work that has been compiled over a period 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 a defined 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 include student participation in selecting contents, the criteria for selection, the criteria for judging merit and evidence of student self- reflection”

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

methods To be more specific, traditional achievements tests offer outcome in a unit that can be counted whereas portfolio assessment offer the teachers chances to observe students in a broader context; taking risks, promoting creativity, and learning to make judgements about their own performance It is a portfolio when students are taking part in as participants, not the object of assessment This study aims 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 their first drafts or the last ones,therefore, they tend to mean different things to different people 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 three types including Showcase, Cumulative and Process Specifically, showcase portfolios 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- teacher collaborative 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

in which students can place pre/ post- samples of work for each objective Venn (2000) classifies portfolios into two types: Product portfolio which is used to document accomplishment and Process portfolio which documents the stages of learning and provides a progressive record of student’s growth In general, teachers prefer to use process portfolios because they are ideal for documenting the stages that students go through as they learn and progress (Venn, 2000, p.533)

To sump it up, different types of portfolio serve different purposes and a teacher 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 include determining (1) the purpose of the portfolio, (2) the evidence including in portfolio, and (3) the assessment criteria The first step in developing portfolio is determining the purpose of the portfolio It is the most vital step of portfolio preparation because the purpose of portfolio will affect the process of creating the portfolio as well as the evidence that should be in it Afterward, the next step is determining the evidence that should be collected, who will collect the evidence, how often it will

be collected, and how it will be assessed The last step is determining the criteria of each item in portfolio It is very important to determine the assessment criteria as it allows the students to maximise their works In other words, the learners will attempt to have a high quality work Therefore, a rubric should be used in order to determine the criteria

In line with the steps above, Brown (2004) proposes another portfolio assessment model including seven steps: (1) deciding the purpose of the portfolio (2) considering the evedence including in the portfolio (3) communicating the assessment criteria (4) determining the time for portfolio development ( 5) determining regular schedules to review and conferencing (6) deciding a place to keep 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 are samples of student work, teacher observations and conference records Second, the teacher should develop evaluation procedures for keeping track of the portfolio

portfolio conferences, which are formal and informal meetings in which students can review their work and discuss their progress

In short, there are several steps that should be done by the teacher when applying portfolio assessment In the first place, the teachers have to specify the goal for portfolio The purpose of the portfolio must be in line with an intergrated goal of the school curriculum The second step is the teacher should consider the content of the portfolio Then they have to consider the assessment criteria and tell the students about the criteria The next step is that the teacher can determine schedures for reviewing After that, the teachers need to think about where to keep the portfolio items Finally, after students finish their portfolio, the teachers have to score their works

2.4.4 Portfolio assessment procedure

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

Figure 1 Procedure in applying portfolio

Students write up first draft

Students submit first draft

Teacher provides feedback and students discuss 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’ writing skills, many researchers have conducted studies on portfolios They found that portfolios were an effective authentic assessment for teaching-learning languages as well 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 of exploring the effect of portfolios on improving ESP students’ writing skills and particularly on some subskills of writing like organization, vocabulary, focus, conventions and elaboration as well as investigating students’ attitudes towards portfolios Data were collected through Pre- test and Post- test and an attitude questionaire with 52 Turkish undergraduate learners at the University of Sinop and then analyzed quantitatively An Independent samples t- test and a Paired Samples t- test were applied to draw a conclusion about the given problems The results indicated that portfolios had a statistically significant impact on promoting writing performance of ESP learners under portfolio assessment technique and there were statistically significant differences between two groups in terms of 4 subskills including focus, elaboration, vocabulary and organization except for conventions Based on the data analysis, the authors also stated that students show positive attitudes towards the use of writing portfolios in ESP classes

Nezakatgoo (2011) carried out a quasi- experimental research on 40 university students of E.C.O College of Insurance to investigate the effect of writing and assessing portfolios on students’ writing final examination scores Data were collected through pre- test in the form of Comprehensive English language Test and post- test and then analyzed through SPSS 16 statistically computer program 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 under portfolio assessment technique had a significant improvement in writing and gained higher scores in final examination when compared to those whose were taught with traditional evaluation system

Furthermore, Sabrina (2012) conducted action research with the purpose of improving her students’ writing skills by using portfolio assessment Her research was conducted for two months with 31 students of grade VIII of SMP N 14 Yogyakarta as the sample The result was that the portfolio assessment improved five aspects of the students’ writing viz.: content, organisation, vocabulary, language use, and mechanics In addition to this, the findings of the study showed that the students’ motivation improved It was because of the implementation of portfolio integrated the writing as a process not as a product The students were given ample time 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 This quasi- experimental research aimed at using portfolios to improve the tenth graders’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 results show that students may benefit from increased power in creating and assessing their portfolios

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, there exists lack of study about the use of writing portfolios to improve high school students’ writing skill in Viet nam Specifically, there was not any study on this topic carried at the context of my school before Therefore, the researcher decided

to conduct 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 assessing writing are mentioned The next section provide theorical background of using portfolios in writing class in which the overview of portfolio, types of portfolio, the steps of portfolio assessment implementation, portfolio assessment procedure and related 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 school was 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 qualified teachers Most of students come from the areas nearby the school and they are children of farmers or workers To be admitted to school, students have to pass a competitive entrance examination organized by Ha Noi’s Department of Education and Training Among the four public schools in Ha dong, students of our school have the lowest score in the entrance exam Although English is one of compulsory subjects for GCSE, they tend to ignore the subject and just focus on some other ones like Maths, Physics and Chemistry They have a very low motivation for learning English and most of them are quite passive in learning the subject They have a tendency of depending on the textbooks and the teachers for knowledge, and

do not have the habit of self-study However, they are eager to learn new things and

it is favourable 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 English language set of textbooks for Vietnamese upper secondary school written by Mr Hoang Van 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 2 Volumes which includes 10 units and 4 reviews Each unit is separated into 8 sections

as Getting started, Language, Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing, Communication and Culture and Looking back & Project In semester one, there are 5 units which means that there are 5 writing lessons of 45 minutes for nearly two weeks In total, after a 19 week semester, students will have approximately 4 hours of learning writing, which is not enough for students to practice writing skill Moreover, during the semester, students are required to take two 15 minute tests and two 45- minute tests which focus on testing their vocabulary 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 13 males were chosen since they were the researcher’s students at that time

At the time of conducting the study, they are starting their first semester at high school and all of them had been learning English for at least 8 years Most of the students have low marks in English in the entrance exam and they suppose that along with listening, writing skill is hard to master Although they have difficulties in learning writing skill, none of them has ever tried any approach to improve their writing skill

The researcher also invited one female teacher in her English language department to cooperate with her during the project The researcher and this teacher will judge students’writing assignment individually and then compare the results to come 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

on students’ 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 research context

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

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

4 Reflection: At this point, the teacher reflects on, evaluate and describe the effects of the action in order to make sense of what has happened and to understand the issue more clearly He may decide to do further 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 are adopted Moreover, action research was applied in more than one circle so it can be revised, re-planned, and re- done to improve the process

3.3.3.1 Identifying the field problems (week 1)

The researcher identified the problem by doing observation in the teaching writing 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, with the aim of observing the process of students’ writing and measuring student’s writing ability before giving the treatment, I asked students to write a paragraph of about 120-

th

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

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

3.3.3.2 Planning (week 2)

After formulating the field problems, I worked with the collaborator to plan some actions to solve the problems that were identified in the previous step Detailed lesson plans were developed and several writing activities were also prepared

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

The researcher implemented the actions that had been planned in the previous stage First, the teacher introduced students the portfolio assessment, delivered a sample of portfolio and instructed them to create their own writing portfolios The participants 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 their writing assignments would be assessed (see Appendix 2A & 2B) Students were asked to read the scoring rubric carefully and asked for clarification if needed In this study, portfolios were integrated into the writing lesson in class, therefore, I conducted every writing lesson with these main steps: Firstly, I let students do some 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 some practise 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 draft individually 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 be received the first version back within two or three days Afterwards, they had to produce the second version at home based on the teacher’s comments and/ or peer’s feedback All of students’ writings including both the first and the second versions will be collected for grading within seven days after the publication of the first version Students’ scores had to be returned before they write the next writing lesson The table below illustrates the schedure for the requirement tasks

Table 1 Schedure for the requirement tasks in the coursebook

Writing

assignment

Week of the year

Task

Unit 1: Writing about household chores Students are required to write a paragraph about how people in their family share the housework

Unit 2: Writing about what to eat and not to eat Students are required to write a short letter to reply a request- for- help letter that was written by his/her own

or classmates

Unit 3: Writing a biography Students are required to write a biography about one of the most famous artists in Vietnam or in the world

Then, the planned actions were done in three cycles Cycle 1 consists of three 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 several other 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 of November to 3rd of December, 2019 The classroom action research covered three cycles 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 writing lesson, students took chances to write about how the family members in their family share the household chores In order to let them revise the topic vocabularies and also practise building a correct sentence from the given cues, I provide the two worksheets (refer to Appendix 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 asked students to read the model sample in the textbook, elicit the vocabulary and analyse the structures utilize to write about the topic “sharing housework in the family” Then students took 20 minutes to write the first draft At the end of the lesson, they collected all their writing papers for teacher’ comments In this cycle, I only gave written feedback on students’ first drafts and there was not any mark given for it However, students’ second draft were scored in 4 assessment criteria ( see Appendix 2A

& 2 B) At the end of cycle 1, the collaborator and I had discussions about the implementation of the actions to draw some reflections We analysed the data gained from 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 from Unit 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 to write a paragraph about someone’s biography Firstl, I planned some activities to reinforce students’ grammar and vocabulary before writing the topic To be more specific, in Unit 2, I asked students to collect a list of words and phrases used to write about the topic Food and Health and they were allowed to look for the words in the previous lessons or in the internet In Unit 3, they were asked to find out a text about the biography of one of the most famous artists that they like and note down the vocabulary and structures that were used to describe a person’s biography from the text 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 that would be useful for the upcoming writing topic They were given ample time to practise making sentences with those words or structures Otherwise, in the supplementary classes in the morning, I taught them some basic English grammar elements such as the function of word (noun, verb, adjective, preposition….), different types of sentences (simple, compound, complex), and some basic English tenses In the writing lesson in class, I let them read the sample letter in Unit 2 or sample biography about Van Cao in Unit 3 and ask them to discuss the form and structure of request- for- help letter and the form of a biography thoroughly Then, I highlighted some vocabularies or verb tense that could be used to write the topic of Unit 2 and 3 After that, students took about 20 minutes to write the first draft While the 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 writing lesson, the first draft would be submitted for receiving comment After getting the teacher’s comment, studens had to rewrite their assignments and submitted for grading 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 codes carefully to make sure that all of them understand the symbols and know how to correct 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, the researcher wished that students would be more aware of their errors and the researcher could 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, students write 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 organise ideas such as listing, free writing or clustering and also guided them how to apply these techniques Then, students practised these techniques to collect vocabularies and gather ideas 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 the aforementioned techniques and required students to use these techniques to generate ideas for the topics “doing volunteer work” and “benefits of modern devices” Students took turns to exchange their answers with the whole class Afterwards, students took time to write the first draft in class On 14th November and 4th December, 2019, I conducted two reviewing sessions At the reviewing sessions, students were asked to review their first draft to find out the mistakes that they may make in terms of word choice, spelling mistakes, missing or using wrong prepositions, verb- tense mistakes and 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’ work and give supports to the weaker students when needed

3.4 Data collection instruments

In order to get a collection of sufficient, reliable and valid data for the research, a combination of quantitative and qualitative method was employed including pre- test, pre- treatment and post- treatment questionnaire, teaching diaries written by the researcher after each writing lesson, a collection of students’ writing products and semi- structured interviews which were conducted at the end

of the project The following part discusses each data collection instrument used in this research in detail

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

The researcher used writing test as an important instrument to gain the data for the preliminary-condition of the study In this case, the researcher would like to observe the process when students did the writing and explore their writing performance, therefore, there was only one kind of test- pre- test which was conducted before the treatment In order to assess students’ ability, the researcher utilized a self- made marking rubric created by her and her collaborator which focuses on the four aspects of writing namely task- achievement, coherence and cohesion, lexical resource and grammatical range and accuracy

A collection of students’ writing assignments

Students’ writing assignments are important data to assess students’ progress in writing To measure their progress, the researcher rated students’ writing products from the first writing assignment to the last one Specifically, at the end of each cycle, the teacher would score the participants’ final writings in four assessment criteria The result of students’ writing products would allow the researcher to reveal the improvement that the students could gain during the project

3.4.2 Pre- treatment and post- treatment questionnaire

In this study, there are two kinds of questionnaire utilized by the researcher The pre- treatment questionnaire was carried out in the second week of the project