An investigation into writing strategies of 11th grade students at huu lung upper secondary school lang son

Oxford’s theory 1990 and Petric Czarl’s writing strategy questionnaire 2003 were used to formulate students’ writing strategies.. The findings of this study revealed that twelve writing

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

LÊ THỊ HỒNG VINH

GRADE STUDENTS AT HUU LUNG UPPER SECONDARY

SCHOOL, LANG SON

(Nghiên cứu về chiến lược học viết tiếng Anh của học sinh lớp 11

trường Trung Học Phổ Thông Hữu Lũng- Lạng Sơn)

MA MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.0111

Hanoi, 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

LÊ THỊ HỒNG VINH

GRADE STUDENTS AT HUU LUNG UPPER SECONDARY

SCHOOL, LANG SON

(Nghiên cứu về chiến lược học viết tiếng Anh của học sinh lớp 11

trường Trung Học Phổ Thông Hữu Lũng- Lạng Sơn)

MA MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.0111

Supervisor: Trần Thị Thu Hiền, Ph.D

Hanoi, 2014

DECLARATION

I hereby certify the thesis entitled “An Investigation into writing strategies of 11 th

grade students at Huu Lung Upper Secondary School, Lang Son” is my own

study in the fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts at

University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University,

Hanoi

Hanoi, September 2014 Signature

Le Thi Hong Vinh

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

On the completion of this thesis, I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude and deep gratitude to my supervisor, Tran Thi Thu Hien, PhD, who gave me benefits of her wisdom and her expert knowledge in teaching methods as well as her constant encouragement from the beginning stage of working out the research proposal to the final stage of writing up the thesis for her Without her valuable suggestions, careful and detailed critical comments, this thesis would not have been fulfilled

My sincere thanks also go to all my grade-11 students and teachers at Huu Lung Upper Secondary School for their assistance during the process of data collection Also, my appreciation goes to my family and friends for their support whose encouragement and assistance are of extreme importance during the course of my writing

ABSTRACT The present study aimed at exploring writing strategies employed by the eleventh graders at Huu Lung Upper Secondary School (HLUSS) Participants were eighty eleventh graders identified as successful and unsuccessful writers The data for the study was gathered utilizing questionnaire and interview Oxford’s theory (1990) and Petric Czarl’s writing strategy questionnaire (2003) were used to formulate students’ writing strategies The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and SPSS 16.0 software

The findings of this study revealed that twelve writing strategies were used at the highest degree by eleventh graders at HLUSS in which while-writing ones were most frequently employed Despite no variation in the frequency of the overall writing strategy use between two parties of writers, several differences were found

in the use of individual items Some implications and suggestions for learning and

teaching writing strategies were offered to enhance students’ writing performance

Mean and standard deviation of overall writing strategy between successful and unsuccessful students Mean and standard deviation of writing strategy at different

stages

between successful and unsuccessful students

Mean and standard deviation of prewriting strategies used by successful and unsuccessful students Mean and standard

deviation of while-writing strategies used by

successful and unsuccessful students Mean and standard

deviation of revising strategies used by unsuccessful and

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL: English as a foreign language

ESL: English as a second language

HLUSS: Huu Lung Upper Secondary School

LLSs: language learning strategies

SD: Standard deviations

SPSS: Statistical Package for the Social Science

WSQ: Writing Strategy Questionnaire

TABLE OF CONTENT

Declaration i

Acknowledgements……… ii

Abstract ……… iii

List of table ……… … iv

List of abbreviations……… v

Table content ……….vi

PART A: Introduction……… 1

1 Rationale……….…… 1

2 Aims of the study ……… 2

3 Research question….……… 2

4 Method of the study…… ……….… 2

5 Scope of the study……….3

6 Significance of the study ………3

7 Organizations of the study ……… 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT ……… 5

Chapter 1 Literature Review.… ……… 5

1.1 Learning language strategies ……….5

1.1.1 Definition of learning language strategies……… 5

1.1.2 Classification of learning language strategies……… 6

1.2 Writing strategies……… 9

1.2.1 Definition of writing strategy……… 9

1.2.2 Writing strategy questionnaire………9

1.3 Writing approaches……… 10

1.3.1 Product approach……… 11

1.3.2 Process approach……… 12

1.4 Previous studies ……… 13

1.4.1 Previous studies on language learning strategies………13

1.4.2 Previous studies on writing strategies………14

1.5.Summary………16

Chapter 2 Methods………18

2.1 Setting of the study……… 18

2.2 Participants………19

2.2.1 Students……… 19

2.2.2 Teachers……….19

2.3 Instruments ……… 19

2.3.1.Questionnaire……….………19

2.3.2 Interview……… 20

2.4 Data collection procedure ……… 21

2.4.1 Questionnaire……….21

2.4.2 Interview………22

2.5 Data analysis……….22

2.6 Summary……… 23

Chapter 3: Results and Discussion………24

3.1.Results ………24

3.1.1.Questionnaire……… 24

3.1.1.1.Writing strategies most frequently used by 11th HL students……24

3.1.1.2 Differences in writing strategy use based on proficiency level…26 3.1.2 Interview……… 31

3.2 Findings and discussions……… 32

3 3 Chapter summary ……… 34

PART C: Conclusion……… 35

1 Recapitulation ……… ……… 35

2 Implications……… 35

3 Limitations of the study and suggestion further studies……… 37

REFERENCES……… 39 Appendix 1 ……….I

Appendix 2 ……….III Appendix 3 ……… V Appendix 4 ……… XIV

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

The crucial role of writing cannot be denied in the language learning process According to Harmer (2007:112), this productive skill is a practical tool to give learners chances for language utilization they have been studying Paradoxically, writing is an extremely difficult skill and poses great challenges for many second or

foreign language learners to truly grasp Because writing is “not an innate skill or

potential aptitude, but as a developmental capacity” (Grabe and Kaplan, 1996:151),

and a highly complicated process requiring writers to uncover thoughts and ideas, making them concrete and individual (Matsuda, 2003; Westwood, 2004) or a process in which an initial idea in writing task needs refining and expanding by learners (Shaughnessy,1977: 234)

However, in approaching writing tasks such as writing a paragraph, a description, a narrative or a letter, students at Huu Lung Upper Secondary School (HLUSS), especially many eleventh graders seem to be more prone to finding solutions to grammar and vocabulary problems, imitating or copying fixed organizational patterns passively and unsuitably rather than analyzing or developing ideas As a result, they fail to attain writing skills which lead to the burnout and low marks in writing

There goes an old Chinese proverb that “Teachers open doors, but you must enter

by yourself” When applied to the language teaching and learning, this proverb

probably means that teachers should provide their learners with good opportunities

to acquire knowledge and the learners should know how to take the initiative to apply that knowledge to their own case to be able to be more successful Nevertheless, most of the learners little apply and sometimes ignore appropriate writing strategies when they take guidance from their teachers As Wenden and Rubin (1987) found out that some learners were more successful than others since they used learning strategies more effectively Furthermore, Oxford (1990:1) claims

that the application of the appropriate learning strategies can lead to improved proficiency and greater self-confidence This suggests that arousing learners’ awareness of strategy use in learning can improve the learners’ result

Writing strategies have been identified by various researchers in both second and foreign language contexts ( Petric & Czarl 2003; Pham Thu Hien, 2004; Chen ,

2011, Maarof & Murat, 2013) Yet, there has not been any practical strategy study conducted to uncover and clarify what strategies HLUSS students actually use in writing

For all the reasons above, the researcher would like to investigate the use of writing strategies of 11th grade students at HLUSS with the hope to reformulate the writing strategies used by the group, namely “successful writers”, then, apply them to train

“unsuccessful writers” to help improve their writing skill

2 Aims of the study

Research hopes to find ways to help students learn to write in English better Specifically, it aimed to find out what writing strategies are used most frequently by the eleventh graders at HLUSS in their writing tasks in English and to determine whether there were any differences in writing strategies used between successful and unsuccessful students

3 Research questions

The current study attempts to address the following research questions:

1 What writing strategies are most frequently used by eleventh graders

at Huu Lung Upper Secondary School?

2 Are there any differences in the use of writing strategies between successful and unsuccessful students?

4 Method of the study

To achieve the objectives of the research, the study was conducted by using questionnaire and interview The questionnaire was used as the major instrument of data collection and interview was employed to confirm more reliable data from the survey questionnaire In addition, SPSS software was employed to analyze the data collected from the survey

5 Scope of the study

Concerning the scope of the study, the following issues should be taken into consideration First, the study relates to writing strategies used by the eleventh graders at HLUSS, Lang Son Province Second, writing strategies are studied in various writing tasks such as writing a paragraph, a description, a narrative or a letter

6 Significance of the study

The current study is significant for several following reasons First, it makes a significant contribution to investigate the writing strategy use of eleventhgraders at HLUSS Second, it clarifies how writing strategies are applied Finally, many important implications are discussed not only to arouse learners’ awareness of the use of writing tactics and help learners use their writing strategies as effective language learning tools but also to help teachers make sense of their students’ strategy use and share strategies with other learners or ponder their teachers’ future teaching direction in writing

7 Organization of the study

This thesis consists of three parts, namely introduction, development and conclusion

Part A is introduction which provides an overview of the study including the rationale, the aims, methods, the scope, the significance and the design of the study

Part B, Development, has three distinguishable chapters

Chapter 1, Literature Review, reviews theoretical background on which the whole

study is based concluding terminological definitions and taxonomies of language learning strategies, writing strategy and approaches to teaching writing

Chapter 2, Methodology, briefly presents the methodological framework of the

study It covers features of the participants, setting of the study, instruments and data collection procedure

Chapter 3, findings and discussion, presents findings and discusses the findings,

which gives comprehensive answers to the two research questions

Part C, Conclusion, summarizes significant findings, suggest implications for

writing strategy instructions at HLUSS, addresses notable limitations, and puts forward practical suggestions for future research

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter discusses the theory and research into the five areas that form the underpinnings for this study The first section begins with an overview of theoretical issues on terminological definitions and classification systems of language learning strategies The second section puts forward writing strategies, and writing strategy questionnaire The third section provides writing approaches in teaching writing The fourth section concludes a review of previous studies on LLSs and writing strategies Finally, the main points are summarized at the end of this chapter

1.1 Language learning strategies

This section puts forward relevant issues of language learning strategies (LLSs) in terms of definition and classification

1.1.1 Definition of language learning strategies

There are various definitions on language learning strategies given by various researchers and scholars, but this thesis only focuses on definitions by Rubin (1975), Tarone (1983), and Oxford (1990)

Learning strategies are, as Rubin (1975:43) defined, “the techniques or devices

which a learner may use to acquire knowledge”

Tarone (1983) defines a learning strategy as an effort to “develop linguistic and

sociolinguistic competence in the target language - to incorporate these into one's interlanguage competence" (cited in O'Malley and Chamot, 1990:47)

Language learning strategies are, as Oxford (1990:8) defined , “specific actions

taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more directed, more effective, and more transferable to new situations”

self-These strategies seem to share the same characteristics: LLSs are “what students do

to assist their learning” (Bremner, 1999:8).Obviously, researchers use these

different terms to depict strategies and to explain for their own targets (Bremner, 1999:8)

Griffiths (2004:2) states that Rubin is one of the pioneers in the realm of doing research of learning strategies, Rubin’s definition, hence, is too broad to cover

In Tarone’s definition, although it may contribute to the language learning process

to a certain extent, learner autonomy, cultural understanding, or other aspects of language learning are not underlined (Lan, 2005:16)

Compared with other definitions, Oxford’s is considered to be one of the most comprehensive ones (Lan, 2005:15) Furthermore, her definition adds affective factor used for other purposes like making learners more enjoyable which is not reflected in other definitions (Alhaisoni, 2012:116)

For the purpose of the study, Oxford’s definition acts as a guideline for the present research because of its clearness, concrete and easy comprehension

1.1.2 Classification of language learning strategies

There are several different viewpoints on the classifications of LLSs in the field of second and foreign language learning To seek a suitable classification of LLSs for this study, the most common classifications of LLSs proposed by Naiman et al., (1978), Rubin (1981), and Oxford (1990) are presented in this study

First, Naiman et al., (1978) presented a classification including five major strategies such as (i) an active task approach, (ii) realization of language as a system, (iii) realization of language as a means of communication and interaction, (iv) management of affective demands, and (v) monitoring of second language performance He emphasizes on distinctive learning strategies of good language

learners with expectation of transferring the strategies used by the good language learners to the poor ones However, Gass & Selinker (2008:443) point that, “…

studies which do not include poor learners cannot be used to say that poor learners

do the same thing that so-called good learners do” This classification, thus, is

irrelevant to the current study aiming at exploring the LLSs use in writing of both

“successful” and ‘unsuccessful” writers

Rubin (1981) classifies LLSs into two broad categories with eight sets such as (i) clarification/verification, (ii) monitoring, (iii) memorization, (iv) guessing/inductive reasoning, (v) deductive reasoning, and (vi) practice A distinctive point in the classification proposed by Rubin is its direct influence to learning (O’Malley and

Chamot, 1990: 3) Additionally, it makes “a sketch of important strategies” utilized

by successful language learners (Lan , 2005) : 21) Her category, however, makes

up of certain limitations As pointed by Gass & Selinker (2008:443) above, the model only basing on her observations of the good language learners does not correlate to the study which tend to explore both successful learners and unsuccessful ones

A common limitation in the classification by both Rubin and Naiman et al is that the theoretical foundation of second language acquisition or cognition is ignored which results in difficulty to identify the foundation for learning (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990: 7)

Although the taxonomies above yield some first insights for language learning strategies, the visible weaknesses of the classification emerge which seem to be unsuitable for the current study The study, thus, needs to work out more appropriate classification This is followed by another specific classification introduced by Oxford (1990)

Taxonomy proposed by Oxford (1990:37) divides the language learning strategies into two major classes, direct and indirect with 62 question items Each class is

composed of three groups: memory, cognitive and compensation under the direct class; metacognitive, affective, and social under the indirect one

The first classification is direct strategies that directly refer to the purpose of language Its three subcategories are memory strategies for language learners to store and retrieve new information needed for communication; cognitive strategies for learners to make out and produce new language by numerous different means easier and compensation strategies for assisting learners to get over their knowledge limitations in language use

The second taxonomy of strategy class is indirect learning strategies that “supports

and manages language learning without directly involving the target language”

with three groups: metacognitive strategies, affective strategies and social strategies (Oxford, 1990:135) First, metacognitive strategies are actions which provide a way for learners to cooperate their own learning process Second, affective strategies are actions that assist learners regulate their motivation, attitude, as well as significantly

influence their learning success or failure The third ones, social strategies “help

students learn through interaction with each other” Oxford (1990) emphasizes that

indirect strategies are useful and able to apply for the development of all language skills

By and large, compared with other categories, Oxford (1990) brings about an exclusive taxonomy (Ghee et al, 2010:51) and her classification is appreciated to be the most comprehensive one of learning strategies to date (Ellis, 1994:539) Particularly, Oxford (1990) hints two additional kinds of strategies in detail such as compensatory strategies, memory strategies that are not included in previous categories and depicts social and affective strategies as distinct This new point is

said to be “part of language learner self-regulation” (Oxford, 2003:112)

Moreover, in view of Oxford (1990:37), she asserts that the six strategy categories support mutually for the purpose of assisting learners to get more achievement in

their own learning and these strategies with 62 question items can be applied to 4 language skills with some changes for appropriateness of each

Basing on Oxford’s classification of LLSs, some suggestions for modifications were offered to be more suitable to explore learners’ writing strategies The next section will present the issues related to writing strategies

1.2 Writing strategies

This section represents writing strategies including definitions and the writing strategy questionnaire

1.2.1 Definition

Writing strategies are defined by Petric and Czarl (2003:189) as “actions or

behaviours consciously carried out by writers in order to make their writing more efficient” Another definition by Lei (2008:220) of writing strategies is “mediated actions which are consciously taken to facilitate writers’ practices in communities”

According to Petric and Czarl (2003:190), the definition of writing strategies concentrates on students’ perceptions of the writing strategy use, which may not be the same as the actual strategies applied

In analyzing writing strategies, linguists proposed some different writing strategy questionnaires From different perspectives, different writing strategy questionnaires can be used or adapted Writing strategy questionnaire will be presented in the next section

1.2.2 Writing strategy questionnaire

Basing on Oxford’s format of Strategy Inventory for Language Learning, Petric and Czarl (2003) made some suggestions for changes of questionnaires so that it can be appropriate for investigation into writing strategies The authors divided it into three subcategories: (i) planning strategies (8 items), (ii) while-writing strategies (14

items), and (iii) revising strategies (16 items) (see Appendix 3) They emphasized that this division was introduced for the sake of clarity According to Jackson (2006: 154) these items had a strong reliability

To construct its reliability and validity, the authors conducted studies with different groups of members of the target population, i.e., advanced non-native speakers of English, in academic environments

To establish the reliability of data collection instruments applicable to questionnaires, Petric and Czarl (2003) undertook a study among English majors at

a Hungarian university by using the test–retest as the main reliability check method proposed by many researchers (e.g Seliger and Shohamy, 1989; Alderson and Banerjee, 1996; Hatch and Lazaraton, 1991) According to Petric and Czarl (2003:191), this method has been proved to be stable over time and relatively feasible to be applied in regular school settings

To build its validity, the authors applied the think- aloud protocol termed by Converse and Presser (1986) and interview by Alderson and Banerjee (1996) The results revealed that relevant types of validity are considered to be content, construct and response validity Moreover, validation using triangulation of

different data sources provides “not only information on the validity of the

instrument but also valuable insights into the construct itself.” (Petric and Czarl

2003:191)

From all the reasons above, the present research bases on definition of LLSs, some theories of proposed by Oxford (1990) and writing strategy questionnaire by Petric and Czarl (2003) which act as the key direction to its investigation because of their clearness, concreteness and validity The following section will discuss writing approaches

1.3 Writing approaches

There are a number of different approaches toward teaching writing emerging over the years, each of which has its distinctive focuses leading to the use of different strategies to help ESL/ EFL learners fulfill their writing tasks To some extent, the approach to teaching writing affects the investigation into writing strategies In this study, two approaches will be presented, namely product approach and process one for the purpose to identify the one that is better in teaching writing

1.3.1 Product approach

This approach is, as Nunan (1991: 86) states, “consistent with sentence - level

structuralist linguistics and bottom – up process” According to Pincas (1982: 22),

the product approach includes four stages: familiarization, controlled writing, guided writing and free writing The purpose of familiarization stage is to arouse learners’ awareness of certain features of a particular text In the controlled and guided writing sections, the learners’ practice in skills aims at increasing freedom

until they are ready for the free writing section, when they “use the writing skill as

part of a genuine activity such as a letter, story or essay”

This approach has some merits As stated by Nunan (1991: 87), the focus on usage, structure, or correct form would result in the improvement of writing Moreover, Likewise, Rodrigues (1985) and Howowitz (1986) (cited in Nunan 1991: 87) advocate that overall goal of the product approach to teaching writing is to develop the learner’s ability to the creation of grammatically accurate texts that will be encountered in academic or personal setting

Nevertheless, the limitations of the product-oriented approach to the teaching writing have been pointed out by other researchers First, it mainly focuses on the end result of learning process in which learners attempt to imitate, copy and transform fixed organizational models of correct language at the level of the sentences provided by the teachers or textbook to facilitate the meaning of the sentences (Nunan, 1991:86-87) Thus, it is said that less attention is paid to purpose,

communication, audience, or the process of composition ( Zamel ,1982:195) ,

there is “ no freedom to make mistakes” (Pincas,1982:91) or “little or no

opportunity for learners adding any thoughts or ideas of their own” (Raimes 1983:

10) Also, Hamer (1991: 257) and Nunan (1990:8) add that the product approach primarily concerns the aim of a task and the end product And it is supposed to be more suitable to some kinds of text such as formal letters or postcards (Steele, 2005)

1.3.2 Process approach

Later, the emergence of the process approach in teaching writing has drawn attention to various language researchers According to Zamel (1982: 196), the process approach makes up of the act of writing, pre - writing and re-writing and is said to beneficial to students with the various classroom activities Raims (1983:10)

depicts that in the process approach, “students do not write on a given topic in a

restricted time and hand in the composition rather, they explore a topic through writing” Nunan (1991: 87) points out that thanks to this approach, learners can

work together as a way of increasing motivation and developing positive attitudes toward writing Supporting these views, While and Arndt (1991: 11) suggest a process writing model involving six recursive procedures

In this model, the first writers’ task is drafting to brainstorm ideas Followed this is structuring by ordering information, experimenting with arrangements, etc Next step is reviewing in which writes check context, connections, assess impact and edit The fourth stage, focusing, makes sure that the writer is getting the message across she wants to get across The fifth one, generating, writers have to generate ideas Finally, the writing needs evaluating

Although, the process – oriented approach is said to take time to brainstorm ideas (Hammer, 2001: 258), it is believed to promote the development of skilled language and the responsibility and control of learning is shifted from teacher to students

(Nunan, 1991: 86-87) In other words, the teachers in the process-oriented writing classes serve as facilitators who enable the learners to develop effective composing strategies Though there are views of strength of the composing process revealed by process oriented studies, most writing classes are still based on mechanistic, product- oriented exercises (Zamel, 1987: 701) This suggests that writing classes may combine these two approaches However, the research into the process of composition makes contribution to raise implications for the methodology of teaching writing in a second or foreign language

1.4 Previous studies This section will put forward an overview of previous studies in terms LLSs and writing strategies in accordance with subject selection, data collection methods and findings with the purpose of seeking the most suitable method for collecting data then comparing the results of the study with those has been presented in this section

1.4.1 Studies on language learning strategies

Alhaisoni (2012) conducted a significant research on the identification of the type and frequency of the English language learning strategies of 701 male and female Saudi EFL students at the University of Ha’il The Oxford Strategies Inventory of Language Learning was used with some modifications The findings indicated that highly proficient students used all six categories more than low-proficiency students The result revealed that the students utilized LLSs with low to medium frequency They preferred to use cognitive and metacognitive strategies the most, used affective strategies and memory strategies the least

Ismail and Khatib (2013) explored the patterns of language learning strategies (LLS) used by 190 students in the Foundation Program of the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) It also investigated the effects of language proficiency level and gender on the use of these strategies The Oxford’s (1990) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning was used for collecting the data The results indicated that

these learners were overall medium strategy users They utilized Metacognitive strategies the most frequently used among the six strategies Followed this was social strategies, compensation strategies, affective strategies, cognitive strategies and memory strategies respectively

1.4.2 Studies on writing strategies

Pham Thu Hien (2004) investigated LLSs of Vietnamese EFL groups, namely

“effective” and “ineffective” writers in writing classes at a university in Vietnam Classroom observation, interview and questionnaire were served as data collection instruments, and then data was analyzed by SPSS The result showed that the subjects utilized all of the direct and indirect strategies that were proposed by Oxford (1990) Concretely, the effective writers used some strategies at higher degree than the ineffective ones while they did writing tasks

Chen (2011) conducted a present study aimed at investigating writing strategies used by 135 Chinese non-English majors at Dezhou University The questionnaire proposed by Petric and Czarl, (2003) and interview were major means of collecting date The findings showed that in spite of using strategies in all stages of writing, students tended to utilize more writing strategies in while-writing strategies compared to pre-writing strategies and revising strategies; and writing strategies as

a whole have certain predictive power for writing achievements

Another study undertaken by Maarof & Murat (2013) explored the writing strategy use between two groups of high-intermediate and low proficiency ESL upper secondary school students in Malaysia to determine any significant differences in strategy use between them The number of participant was 50 Data gathered by the Writing Strategy Questionnaire by Petric & Czarl (2003) revealed that the while-writing strategies were most frequently used by ESL students while the revising strategies more were least used

All the students displayed approximately similar frequency use of strategies but differed only in the type of strategies used

In summary, on the basis of a discussion on the previous studies, some comments

on subject selection, data collection method and results are given as follows:

In the first place, some generalizations can be made First, the subjects chosen for these studies are learners from different colleges studied by Pham Thu Hien (2004) Alhaisoni (2012), Ismail and Khatib 2013 and Chen (2011) and high students in Malaysian by Maarof & Murat (2013) These students learn English as a second or foreign language Second, most previous studies, the subjects are divided into groups for comparison, namely successful learners and unsuccessful learners, highly proficient and low proficiency students

Second, in terms of methods, the classroom observation, interview and questionnaire were adapted to investigate strategies Nevertheless, no single research method is perfect (Cohen and Scott, 1996) and how they are used depends

on the main purpose of the study (Robson, 2002:161)

Concretely, in the previous study by Pham Thi Thu Hien (2004), the observational

method failed to yield much strategy data Because one of its key demerits is “its

inability to produce description of internal and mental strategies such as reasoning

or self – talk” or nothing about the mental operations learners use is revealed

(Cohen, 1998: 32) Additionally, little opportunity for learners to exercise behaviors

is produced (Ellis, 1994:532) Another weakness is that researchers probably collect

data only from the students who are more verbal and this may “limit the data to

only a subset of language learners- namely, the outspoken or extroverted” (Cohen,

1998:33) Thus, the observational method as stated is irrelevant to the current study Regarding interview, Cohen, et al., (2007:349) asserts that interview is a flexible tool for data collection, allowing multi-sensory channels to be used: verbal, non-

verbal, spoken and heard Additionally, interviews allow interviewers to “seek

clarification in limited ways and to disambiguate questions if necessary and they normally yield a better response rate” (McDoNough & McDoNough, 2003:183)

However, interview is “somewhat prone to subjectivity and bias on the part of the

interviewer” (Cohen et al , 2007:352)

In regard to questionnaire, as can be seen from the previous studies, researchers widely used questionnaire proposed by Oxford (2003) to explore learners’ LLSs and Petric & Czarl’s (2003) to investigate learners’ writing strategies Although it is sometimes unsuitable for probing deeply into an issue (Dornyie, 2003), questionnaire is a relatively popular instrument of the data collection (Nunan, 1992:143) Cohen (1998: 29) and Dornyie (2003:9) claim that questionnaires can be administered to a large group of people which helps one collect a huge amount of information with little time Furthermore, by using questionnaire, researcher’s time, effort and financial resources may be reduced (Dornyie, 2003: 9)

After carefully considering the major demerits of a variety of data collection methods in strategy studies and especially, the strengths of questionnaire, the researcher has decided to choose questionnaire as the main data collection method for the purpose of the current study The reasons for its popularity are that it had been adopted by various researchers In addition, interview is employed to confirm more reliable data from the survey questionnaire

1.5 Summary

This chapter has addressed a review of the literature related to the focus of this study First, language learning strategies have been defined in various ways, yet Oxford’s definitions will be chosen for the purpose of the study Second, some classifications of learning strategies have been clearly presented and discussed Nevertheless, Oxford’s taxonomy and Petric and Czarl’s writing strategy questionnaire will be adopted to investigate the writing strategies employed by

eleventh graders at HLUSS, and interview is used to clarify and supplement statistical results from the survey questionnaire Fourth, the writing process theory

is used to analyze and discuss the findings of the investigation Finally, some previous studies have been briefly reviewed with an attempt to seek the most appropriate methods for collecting data in the present research and to help the researcher to compare and contrast her research results with those in the literature review The next chapter will put forward methodology

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

This chapter consists four parts: the setting of the study, participants and instruments of the study as well as the data collection procedure

2.1 Setting of the study

The study was conducted at a public educational institution, Huu Lung Upper Secondary School, Lang Son In the school year 2013-2014, the school consisted of ten eleventh - grade classes with four hundred students encompassing two natural science oriented classes, two classes specializing in English and the others belonging to the group of social science majors

In terms of the official learning material, “Tieng Anh 11” compiled by Hoang Van Van et, al has been selected for eleventh graders This document is composed of sixteen units, each of which consists of five parts: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing and Language focus In the writing section, students are exposed to some tasks such as letters, descriptive writing and narrative writing

Regarding learners, although most students are aware of the importance of English,

a small number of students are motivated, make efforts to learn well and seem to pay attention to their own learning strategies While many others are only interested

in subjects they are supposed to perform in the entrance university examinations and all in all they are little aware of the strategy use in learning process

In terms of teaching staff, all of teachers are from College of Pedagogy, many of whom have a great deal of teaching experience , are enthusiastic, active and full of inspiration for teaching Nevertheless, in teaching writing, they are familiar with the Grammar-Translation teaching method without paying much attention to teaching writing strategies

2.2 Participants

2.2.1 Students

The number of eleventh graders was 405 They were between 16 and 17 years old

By the time of the study, all of them had learned English as a foreign language formally for four years in lower secondary schools and a year and a half in upper secondary school

Eighty participants were randomly selected for the study on the basis of the following criteria Firstly, basing on the result of the previous semester, the students with 7.0 upward were identified for “successful” group and those who got 5.0 downwards were classified as “unsuccessful” one respectively (see Appendix 1, 2) Secondly, all of the participants were willing to take part in the study Lastly, they have been somewhat accustomed to the teaching and studying methods, the conditions and the teaching environment at upper secondary school This makes convenient for the author to get their consent to participate in the research

2.2.2 Teachers

Four teachers aged from 24 to 40 were invited to join this study All the teachers are females, three of whom have many years of experience in teaching English writing; one is novice and lacks teaching experience The reason for choosing these teachers

is that they are all currently teaching 11th English at HLUSS

2.3 Instruments for data collection

Questionnaire and interview were chosen to collect data in the study

2.3.1 Questionnaire

Questionnaire was adopted as a major source of data in the current research for several reasons, one of which is that questionnaire encourages great honesty (Cohen

et al., 2007: 351) Another reason is that the data themselves “are more amendable

to quantification than discursive data like free form field notes, the transcripts of oral language” (Nunnan, 1992: 143) The others lied in its popularity in writing

strategy studies and its strengths over other data collection techniques which were discussed elaborately in 1.4.2

The questionnaires are composed of two sections: A background questionnaire and Writing Strategy Questionnaire proposed by Petric & Czarl, (2003) which were translated into Vietnamese for the purpose of making them easier for the subjects to answer According to Dornyei and Taguchi (2010: 49), translated questionnaires

have been widely practiced with the belief that “the quality of the obtained data will

increase if the questionnaire is presented in the respondents’ own mother tongue”

In the first section, the background questionnaire designed to obtain additional information about the participants included five questions basing on the Oxford’s suggestions (see Appendix 3 section 1)

The second section was designed on the basis of WSQ adapted from Petric & Czarl (2003) to uncover information about students’ writing strategy use during their writing process (see Appendix 3 section 2) The questionnaire is divided in to three parts following the structure of the writing process, i.e.; before writing, while writing and revising and includes a list of thirty-eight specific items for writing, each of which presents an assertion about the use of a writing strategy and was

given on a five-point Likert scale ranging “never or almost never true of me”,

“Usually not true”, “Somewhat true”, “usually true” and “always, or almost always

true of me.”

2.3.2 Interview

Interview was used to confirm the information collected from the questionnaire and identified to be relevant to the current study due to the following reasons: First,

interview has been widely used in survey research to seek data on stages and processes of language acquisition (Nunan, 1992:149) Second, interviews allow researchers to “investigate phenomena that are not directly observable” (Mackey and Gass, 2005:173) Other reasons adopted in this study were discussed in 1.4.2

A semi - structured interview in English was carried out with four teachers who were teaching “Tieng Anh 11” at HLUSS In semi - structured interview, interviewer can change the order of the question because of its flexibility (Nunan ,1992: 148) and follow up interviewers’ response more extensively (McDoNough and McDoNough, 2003:184 ).There were three interview questions which focused

on asking the frequency of teaching strategies and different strategies used to teach students at different levels (see Appendix 4) The length of each interview depended largely on the subjects’ talkativeness

2.4 Data collection procedure

2.4.1 Questionnaire

First, after students had completed the first-term of the academic year 2014, the questionnaire was directly delivered to 80 eleventh graders in a hall at HLUSS for nearly two hours This process was divided into three sections: Briefing, Writing strategy questionnaire and Background questionnaire

In the first section, Briefing, the researcher stated the purpose of the study in five minutes

In the second section, the subjects were required to write a paragraph about 100-

120 words on the topic “writing about a friend “ , which was designed to provide

the subjects with opportunities to use writing strategies in writing process and to help researcher collect accurate data on writing strategies The participants were divided into groups of five to discuss the topic, list vocabulary and structures and generate the ideas in 15 minutes Next, the researcher observed the subjects’

activities and gave suggestions when asked Having completed the discussion, the subjects were asked to complete their writing tasks in 20 minutes, exchange their writing papers with their peers’ in 10 minutes and hand them in later These activities aimed at providing the subjects with chances to use numerous writing strategies Finally, subjects spent thirty minutes fulfilling the writing strategy questionnaire

In the last stage, to obtain the students’ background, the investigator distributed the background questionnaire to the subjects and required them accomplish within five minutes Then the researcher collected their answers

2.4.2 Interview

Two weeks after analyzing data from the writing strategies questionnaire, interviews were conducted between the researcher and four teachers in English The interviews took place in a quiet room on the fourth floor Before starting the interview, the researcher explained the nature of the research and the purpose of the interview The interviewees were also informed that the data were recorded and transcribed for the study

2.5 Data analysis

All the data gathered from the WSQ were put into a computer and analyzed through the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) 16.0 to measure and uncover the similarities and differences in the use of writing strategies by two groups: successful and unsuccessful writers Specifically, descriptive statistics including frequencies, the means and standard deviations (SD) in the form of tables were calculated to show the students’ use of writing strategies

The frequencies of using writing strategies of the two groups “successful’ and

“unsuccessful” writers (see 2.2.1.for detail) were calculated by counting the number

of responses to the questionnaire items based on 5-point scale: always used (scored

4.5-5), usually used (scored 3.5-4.4), sometimes used (2.5-3.4), generally not used (1.5-2.4) and never used (0.0- 1.4).And three scales for stating the degree of learning strategy use were figured out in term of high use (3.5-5.0), medium use (2.4-3.4) and low use (1.0-2.4 ) proposed by Oxford (1990:300)

2.6 Summary

This chapter provided detailed descriptions of the methodology employed in this study First, the setting of the study is presented Second, the subjects were specifically depicted Third, questionnaire proposed by Petric & Czarl (2003) on the basis of Oxford’s theory was adopted to explore students’ writing strategy use and the rationale for choosing this method was given Besides, interview was used to clarify information from survey questionnaire Finally, the procedures of data collection were described The results from analyzing the students’ questionnaire and interview and discussion will be reported in the next section

CHAPTER 3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION This chapter reports the results which are resulted from the analysis of the questionnaires and interview Then, the researcher will provide discussion on the basis of processed results

3.1 Results

This part will put forward the results of the questionnaire and interview to answer the research questions

3.1.1 Questionnaire

3.1.1.1 Writing strategies most frequently used by 11 th HLUSS students

Table 1 presents the overall writing strategies used at three writing stages As can be seen from the table, while-writing strategies (M =3.54) had the highest frequency, followed by those at the prewriting stage (M =2.90) and revising stage (M = 2.77) According to Oxford’s (1990) division of language learning strategy use, (High usage is from 3.5 to 5.0; Medium usage is from 2.5 to 3.4; and Low usage is from 1.0 to 2.4) Therefore, it can be understood that the overall use of writing strategies

by students in English writing is at the medium level

Table 1 Writing strategy use in each stage by students in the writing class

While-writing 3.54 1.112 High

Revising 2.77 1.196 Medium Overall writing strategies 3.07 1.183 Medium