Nghiên cứu hiệu quả của phương pháp luyện viết theo quy trình chuẩn bị cho thi ielts

Considering the great emphasis on writing at oversea universities, the kind of writing training Vietnamese students receive prior to their studies and the solutions to their problems in

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONALSTUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

LƯU TÚ OANH

M.A Minor Thesis

Field : English methodology

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONALSTUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

LƯU TÚ OANH

M.A Minor Thesis

Field : English methodology

Content

Acknowledgement

PART 1: INTRODUCTION………

1.1 Rationale ………

1.2 Aims and scope of the study………

1.2.1 Objectives of the study………

1.2.2 Research questions………

1.2.3 Scope of the study………

1.3 Significance………

1.4 Methods of the study………

PART 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Academic writing………

2.1.1 What is writing?

2.1.2 What is an academic essay?

2.1.3 What are the main types of academic essays?

2.2 Challenges of learners………

2.2.1 Problems of the EFL learners………

2.2.2 Major problems of Academic writing instruction in Vietnam context 2.2.2.1 Heavy emphasis on grammatical form………

2.2.2.2 Overemphasis on the final product………

2.2.2.3 Lack of genre-specific writing across the curriculum………

2.2.2.4 The need for more diverse types of feedback………

2.3 Writing in preparation classes for IELTS………

2.3.1 Academic Writing………

2.3.1.1 IELS Academic writing – task 1 ………

2.3.1.2 IELTS Academic writing – task 2………

2.3.2 Problems of IELTS writing learners in Vietnam context………

2.4 Approaches to teaching writing………

2.4.1 The Product Approach………

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2.4.1.1 Definitions of the product approach………

2.4.1.2 Limitations of product approach………

2.4.2 The process approach………

2.4.2.1 Definitions of the process approach………

2.4.2.2 Strengths of the process approach………

2.4.2.3 Weaknesses of the process approach………

2.4.3 Differences between the product and process approach…………

PART 3: THE STUDY………

3.1 The Course………

3.2 Participants………

3.3 Methodology………

3.3.1 Reasons for choosing an experimental research strategy………

3.3.2 The procedure………

3.3.2.1 The first instrument………

3.3.2.1.1 Instrument………

3.3.2.1.2 Treatment………

3.3.2.1.3 Data Collection………

3.3 2.1.4 Findings………

3.3.2.2 The second instrument………

3.3.2.2.1 Instrument………

3.3.2.2.2 Findings………

3.3.3 Discussion………

PART 4 CONCLUSION………

4.1 Summary of the main findings………

4.2 Implications for Academic Writing Instruction………

4.3 Limitations of the study………

4.4 Suggestions for further studies………

4.5 Reference………

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 3 1: The arrangement of research time

Diagram 3.1 The procedure of process oriented approach

Table 3 2: Content: (Total score=2)

Table 3 3: Students‟ Pre-and Post-test Scores for the Content (%)

Table 3 4: Organization: (Total score=2)

Table 3 5: Students‟ Pre-and Post-test Scores for the Organization (%)

Table 3 6: Lexical resource: (Total score=2.5)

Table 3 7: Table 3: Students‟ Pre-and Post-test Scores for the Lexical

resource (%)

Table 3 8: Language use: (Total score=2.5)

Table 3 9: Students‟ Pre-and Post-test Scores for the Language use (%)

Table 3.10: Students‟ Questionnaire

PART1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

The increasing number of Vietnamese students pursuing their academic training in English-speaking countries gives rise to the need to prepare the prospective students to go through the gate-keeper of the pre-departure examination, which is either TOEFL or IELTS In higher education in English speaking countries, in particular, many university courses evaluate students through some form of written text (e.g., essay exams, short-answer essays, research papers…) Competence in academic writing is very critical to both the success at the exam and that of the students‟ future study Understandably, students who plan to pursue higher education abroad are supposed to demonstrate their ability to write well for academic purposes Considering the great emphasis on writing at oversea universities, the kind of writing training Vietnamese students receive prior to their studies and the solutions to their problems in English academic writing need to be examined To investigate these issues could contribute to the improvement of writing instruction for Vietnamese EFL students who plan to study in academic programs in English speaking countries

Therefore, an appropriate score achieved by students in IELTS officially defined on http://www.IELTS.org as the International English Language Testing System is one of the fundamental requirements for abroad university entry IELTS, the results of which are used

by three international organizations, British Council, Idp, and University of Cambridge, to assess your language skills when people want to study, work or live in an English-speaking country, exactly tests their ability to communicate in English It is estimated that more than 700,000 people use the test to access opportunities in careers, study and migration every year IELTS are administered in over 500 centres globally four times a month Examinees can optionally choose from two types of IELTS test: Academic or General Training, depending on whether they want to study, work or migrate Both modules are made up of four parts – Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking IELTS results are graded on the

unique IELTS 9-band scale The test covers the full range of ability from non-user to expert user Candidates are not limited in how many times they can sit the test

However, IELTS, which is increasingly important in Vietnam as mentioned above,

is a great challenge for Vietnamese test-takers and test-trainers for a variety of reasons The main reason is their lack of the required proficiency due to factors such as (a) a lack of

qualified language teachers; (b) extremely large classes, with poor teacher-to-student ratios; (c) teaching methods which focus on grammar, vocabulary, and linguistic phenomena; and (e) lack of suitable, authentic teaching materials

For academic writing skills only, non major Vietnamese students of English have been done a number of grammar exercises, but they have not learned how to write an academic paragraph or essay Because the dominant teaching methods in Vietnam are grammar-centred, the development of students‟ academic writing skills is either ignored or superficially emphasized Yet, in order to obtain high test scores in IELTS, along with continued concerns about grammar and vocabulary at sentence levels, Vietnamese students, especially, encountered various problems in recognizing and managing conventional differences between Vietnamese and English academic writing, such as the lack of knowledge about expected structure, style, organization and use of language

The motivation behind this study is that I, as a teacher, wish to find ways to help the students develop their academic writing more effectively so that they can achieve higher scores for the writing component in the IELTS I believe that a high score on the IELTS is

so critical to most of the test-takers if they do not want to be disadvantaged in the competition for scholarship or for enrolment opportunity in foreign higher education institutions

The instructional strategy that I experimented with is the application of a oriented approach to writing I believed that this approach would enhance the students‟ overall writing proficiency because it is revealed that instruction in process strategies

process-promoted the students‟ awareness of conceptual writing strategies and willingness to apply practical writing strategies to compose the writings which are perfectly constructed, academically styled, well organized, and correctly language used Furthermore, the effects

of the process oriented writing instruction may be sustainable over a period of time without further instruction The success of this teaching approach that has been documented in the literature suggests that this approach to writing teaching may help the students improve their writing performance in their IELTS This assumption motivates the researcher to conduct this study

1.2 Aims and scope of the study

1.2.1 Objectives of the study

This study is aimed at experimenting a process-oriented approach to academic writing in the context of an IELTS preparation course to a small group of Vietnamese adult learners (N=20) Thus, the objectives of the study include:

a) To test the effectiveness of the process-oriented approach on the students‟ overall competence in academic writing;

b) To find out on which sub-skills of the academic writing skills the oriented approach is most effective

process-c) The findings of this study will have significant pedagogical implications for Academic writing curriculum planners, and teachers Furthermore, it is expected that this study will shed light on the feasibility of incorporating process oriented writing instruction into IELTS academic writing preparation course

1.2.2 Research questions:

This study aims to investigate the following research questions:

(1) How does the process approach help the students progress in their writing

profiency in terms of the content, organization, lexical resource, and language

use as reflected in their writings?

(2) In which area(s) of the content, organisation, lexical resource, and language

use do the students show least improvement with the process approach?

(3) How do the students self-evaluate their progress in their writing proficiency with the process approach?

1.3 Scope of the study

The study is confined to the testing of the effectiveness of the process-oriented approach to the development of the academic writing skills of a small group of students who were studying for the IELTS It is, therefore, a quasi-experimental study in nature Thus, there is no intention of generalizing the findings

3 Methods of the study

Since the aim of the study is to test the effectiveness of the process-oriented approach to academic writing, two methods were used First, a quasi-experimental design was implemented over a period of 15 hours of classroom instruction Second, a questionnaire was administered to the students by the end of the course in order to find out how the students perceived of the usefulness of the teaching approach under investigation

PART2 LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Academic writing

1.1 What is writing?

To begin with, it is normally stated that writing is an expression of ideas - the conveying of message to readers, so the ideas themselves should arguably be seen as the most important aspect of it What is more, writing can take many forms, including anything from a shopping list, acting as an aide-memoire, through letters, both formal and informal,

to academic texts like this essay Each type of writing displays a variety of features which

“can be observed within the sentence at the level of grammar, and beyond the sentence at the level of text structure.” (Nunan, 1999, p 275) Therefore, each type of writing requires more or less skill, and the more complex the writing, the more essential writing skills are Attention should also be paid to formal aspects: neat hand writing, correct spelling and punctuation, as well as acceptable grammar and careful selection of vocabulary (Penny 1996)

Writing is a productive skill which, Nunan (1999) also suggests, shares some functional characteristics with spoken discourse but also displays unique elements which are not common to both Harmer (2004), on the other hand, views that the type of writing determines how similar spoken and written discourse are Halliday (1985) cited in Nunan (1999 p 275) outlines 3 main purposes for writing, namely “action” (including public signs, product labels, etc), “information” (including newspapers and magazines etc) and

“entertainment” (including comic strips, novels, newspaper features etc) So it appears that writing has many facets

1.2 What is an academic essay?

As mentioned above, among many kinds of writing, this paper thoroughly works out and discuss academic assays which are usually identified as writings requiring no outside research (though they sometimes may) In academics, Maryanna Smith (2010) considers academic writing as a major assignment in which one is supposed to possess the

necessary academic writing skills She adds that there are various academic writings such

as term papers academic writing, dissertation academic writing and essay academic writing and academic paper writing Johnathan Ginsburg (2011) reassures that “once within the academic milieu, no matter what the program of study, students will be asked to write an essay In the hard sciences, where understanding of the lessons is often more hands on and displayed through experiments and experiment documentation, there is likely less demand for essays, but in the arts, humanities and social sciences, essays are a key component of most classes All students are expected to be able to express themselves through academic writing such as essays and research papers.”, and that “The purpose of an essay can be to show understanding of a concept, to share ones personal views and beliefs, to convince others of a specific belief, or to review or comment on a given topic Essays typically focus

on one main point and follow a consistent succession of parts, from the introduction of the main idea to commentary or defence of the idea, closing with a summary of the main ideas presented thought the work.”

Although Maryanna Smith (2010) comes to conclusion “Often, students are assigned academic writing that is hard to complete effectively.”, many others optimistically come up with solutions to the students‟ problems According to Adam Kissel from website Ezinemark.com, students need to create a logical, compelling argument with detailed supporting evidence a specific topic to write a successful academic essay because academic essays need a specific topic, writing style, and essay structure In other words, it

is essential for students to learn how to pick the correct thesis, support their argument, quote their sources wisely, and choose their own words for maximum effect Moreover, students will find it easier to write a good essay with some simple organizational and planning skills Johnathan Ginsburg (2011), in addition, points out that it is vitally, in writing essays, important to prepare for not only the subject and main idea but also the objective and style of the essay which should be decided upon before the writing begins; whether it is to be informative or descriptive, persuasive or a narrative because that these fundamentals are not fully formed before the writing begins will be much more obstacle not

only for writers, but for the readers to understand In Miller (2011) maintains that to write

a good academic essay writing it‟s important that the student begins by familiarizing himself with the topic, and then brainstorm on the topic selected and seek insights of your own

Generally, class essay assignments are used to ask students to discuss in some depth a topic relevant to the course content While analysis is the basis of most essays, other goals can be included, such as speculation, evaluation, etc Essays require the ability to establish and maintain a focus on a topic Most topics are too broad for a writer to cover completely:

it is up to the individual writer to narrow the focus Typically, an essay is organized by introducing your topic, explaining and supporting the focus, and then drawing some relevant conclusions from your discussion and analysis Because in an essay you have sufficient time and room to explore your ideas thoroughly, be sure to develop them adequately by balancing your more general assertions with specific evidence; this coverage might include textual evidence by way of quotations or paraphrases As a rule, do not simply rely on generalizations to express your ideas Also, because an essay tends to involve abstract concepts, it is always a good idea to make sure that those concepts are defined, so that both you and the reader share an impression of what you mean by an idea Defining a concept does not necessarily mean quoting from a dictionary; rather, simply be sure that in some way you have adequately conveyed your meaning of abstract terms The essay format can often provide the basis for other types of writing Many other types of writing are based on analysis, as an essay generally is, and many also often rely on its overall organizational scheme

For our purposes, we can use a definition by Dorothy E Zemach and Lisa A Rumisek (2003) to identify an academic essay as a group of paragraphs written about single topic and central main ideas which must have a defined structure – an introduction, a body and a conclusion

- The introduction: is the first paragraph of an essay It explains the topic with general

ideas It also has a thesis statement This is a sentence that gives the main idea It usually comes at or near the end of the paragraph

- The main body: These are the paragraphs that explain and support the thesis

statement and come between the introduction and the conclusion There must be one or more paragraphs in the main body of an essay

- The conclusion: this is the last paragraph of an essay It summarizes or restates the

thesis and the supporting idea of the essay

To sum up, there are different kinds of writings involved in academic essays These include many different kinds of essays, research papers etc and involve different kinds of academic writing skills

1.3 What are the main types of academic essays?

Looking at the intent of the academic essay, it can also be defined into three main types

by such an above university:

Narrative essays – you have an interesting story close to your heart and you want to

share it You want other to gain from what you learnt during an interesting day out, in a picnic or fishing You want to talk about how certain event shaped your life If so, narrative essay is the right choice for you You decide your purpose and then share your experience

in an organized fashion

Descriptive essays – basically, descriptive essays are the mirror image of your physical

senses You give a clear verbal portrait of a place, person or object of your choice Here you need to ensure that the readers get the same emotion, ideas and perception about the things as you do

Persuasive essays – persuasive essays require you to creatively position your ideas into

the readers‟ mind You break their set notions about certain things by appealing to their

emotions, interests and values Thus, here you use solid reasoning that is well supported by facts and evidences

Definition essays- definition essay involves writing plain facts about certain things You

delve into the meaning and give clear ideas about things to the readers For example, you explain about internet, PCs, or certain abstract ideas like love, hatred, and happiness Essentially you present facts, examples, and comparisons to affect understanding

Compare and contrast essays – You establish some basis and then go on to highlight

the similarities or the differences between two (or several) objects Thus, it demands you to think critically about the objects and be keen about what you see, feel, hear and then portray the same

Cause and effect essays – cause and effect means building the relationship between

why things happen and what consequences they have It tries to identify the unknown, „the cause‟, from what is known, „the consequence‟ or vice versa

Argumentative essays – Here you deal with the ideas that can be argued, defended and

even questioned Your main aim is to break the readers‟ set notion and replace them with yours Thus it requires that you present strong arguments supported by solid reasoning and evidences

Critical essays – here you give critical interpretations of a piece of art, music, movie, or

literary work You evaluate the works, judge them, appreciate them or reveal mistakes in them

2 Challenges of learners

2.1 Problems of the EFL learners

Fundamentally, writing is a skill, like reading, which has to be taught in L1 schools and,

as Nunan (1999, p 271) points out, producing coherent written discourse is an effort for many English mother-tongue speakers He acknowledges that “for second language learners the challenges are enormous.” White and Arndt (1991, p 3) agree, arguing that

“proficiency in language does not, in itself, make writing easier.” They add that “people writing in their native language, though they may have a more extensive stock of language

resources to call upon, frequently confront exactly the same kinds of writing problems as people writing in a foreign or second language.” Therefore, if writing coherently and clearly is a skill native-speakers find difficult, many L2 users, who have less control of English and its conventions of register and collocation, will inevitably find it a chore that takes time and considerable effort

Certain problems that English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers and students in China face in teaching and learning writing have also been noted by Yan that acquiring the writing skill seems to be more laborious, halting, less productive, and demanding than acquiring the other three skills (Zheng 1999) In fact, Nunan (1999, 271) regards it as an enormous challenge to produce “a coherent, fluent, extended piece of writing” in one‟s second language This is magnified by the fact that the rhetorical conventions of English texts - the structure, style, and organization - often differ from the conventions in other languages It requires effort to recognize and manage the differences (Leki, 1991) Guo Yan finds that in many countries, education systems concentrates on writing for taking tests, and that many students aim to practice writing is to pass examinations or to gain a good grade

in the class rather than producing a product and achieve a grade from the teacher which possibly makes students not interested in writing, which becomes decontextualised and artificial, giving students no real sense of purpose or perspective of a target audience However, he assures that it is necessary to find ways to improve the teaching of this skill to benefit all writing tasks and prepare students for the writing they will have to do after they graduate in spite of those persisting problems

The same issues that make second language learning generally difficult also apply to learning to write in a foreign language As Brown (1987, p 82) points out:

“It is clear from learning theory that a person will use whatever previous experience

he or she has had with language in order to facilitate the second language learning process The native language is an obvious set of prior experiences Sometimes the language is negatively transferred, and we say then that negative interference has occurred.”

Grossmann (2009 p.5) finds that this negative interference in writing in his work situation, where German is the L1, manifests itself, in my experience, partly with the formulaic language, which is relatively easy to teach and help students improve, and partly with collocation, word order, word choice and word use, where improvement is more difficult to achieve Brown (1987, p 82) also identifies the problem of overgeneralization which “occurs as the second language learner acts within the target language, generalising a particular rule or item in the second language – irrespective of the native language – beyond legitimate bounds.” This is also evident in written work as these over-generalisations are part of the student‟s inter-language

He, consequently, comes to a conclusion why so many students have problems writing? Firstly the difficulties faced by learners are partly linguistic and partly due to a lack of skills to write The latter arise because many students do not write in their L1 so lack the confidence and experience needed to write in an L2 As a result, adult students, in his experience, avoid writing, compounding the problem Secondly, previous learning experience plays an important role in student‟s view of what they can or cannot do, and these preconceptions often prevent them from experimenting and taking risks with language, instead resorting to translation from their L1, because it feels safer The linguistic problems arise partly because, as Nunan (1999) points out, written discourse is generally not just a matter of writing down what we would say He (1999, p 277) adds that

“linguistically, written language tends to consist of clauses that are complex internally ” and many students do not have the resources to produce more complex language Moreover, each type of writing requires students to master new vocabulary, format and register conventions and this means that ability to write in one genre does not mean proficiency in another All these factors affect student motivation, which without a doubt, plays an important role in their success

2.2 Major problems of academic writing instruction in Vietnam context

The major problems of writing instruction for Vietnamese university students are found

by Vietnamese teachers of English helping non-major Vietnamese students preparing for English proficiency tests such as TOEIC, TOEFL, and IELTS for a long time : 1 Heavy emphasis on grammatical form 2 Overemphasis on the final product 3 Lack of genre-specific writing across the curriculum 4 The need for more diverse types of feedback

2.2.1 Heavy emphasis on grammatical form

Much of teaching writing in Vietnam still concentrates heavily on traditional dominated approach that is mainly concerned with knowledge about the structure of language, and writing development as the result of the imitation of input, in the form of texts provided by the teacher (Pincas, 1982b; Badger and White, 2000) In this approach, the writing reinforces or tests the accurate application of grammatical rules Controlled composition tasks provide the text and ask the student to manipulate linguistic forms within that text (Raimes, 1991) In other words, Vietnamese writing classes emphasizes using the grammar correctly, using a range of vocabulary and sentence structures, punctuating meaningfully, and spelling accurately Also the issue is teachers often find difficulties in adapting a new method successfully in their classroom because students need for grammar instruction, and so they continue to place linguistic accuracy at the forefront of their instruction

form-Most students have been taught grammatical features separate from the context and failed to find a close relationship between grammatical form and function; therefore, their knowledge of grammar was not carried over to their ability to write In addition, even if the students have developed a large vocabulary, which can be enough to express when writing, their vocabulary cannot be applied into real communication

2.2.2 Overemphasis on the final product

Another issue is that Vietnamese students believe writing is a linear process, in which they follow fixed steps, such as Pre-write, Write, and Re-write However, in fact, it is claimed that writing is a recursive process (Shaughnessy, 1977; Flower & Hayes, 1981; Zamel, 1983, and Hedge, 1988), which allows students to go back and forth while writing

in order to support or modify the initial ideas Vietnamese students spent relatively little time in editing and revising; thus, they show little flexibility in changing their original ideas They also are lack of competence in composing is partially because of emphasis on the final product, and their insufficient knowledge on writing strategies Due to emphasis

on the final product, the interaction between a teacher and students or between students themselves does not exist

2.2.3 Lack of genre-specific writing across the curriculum

Vietnamese students enrolled in writing classes have a variety of majors, and various reasons for attending the class, such as further academic studying and improved job opportunity Therefore, writing classes might need to help students understand the social functions or actions of genres and the contexts in which these genres are used (Bazerman, 1988; Freedman & Medway, 1994) Thus, classroom instruction that addresses multiple genres would support students' needs in their various academic and workplace As part of this instructional change, university writing teachers might consider initiating students into the academic discourse community (Bizzell, 1982), and teach the discourse conventions of school and workplace genres as a tool for empowering students with linguistic resources for social success (Kress, 1993; Martin, 1993b)

2.2.4 The need for more diverse types of feedback

Vietnamese students are traditionally accustomed to being given specific instructions from teachers, and to receive authoritative feedback from the teachers Thus, students write for the teacher, not for themselves, and as a result, teachers are the only audience for whom students gain experience writing for One result of this is that writing teachers are often overwhelmed by the task of giving a feedback and correcting students' writing Due to the fact that students are passive in the classroom, they naturally feel uncomfortable with

cooperative interaction that requires them to take an active role Consequently, the led assessment, which is prevalent in Vietnam, makes writing meaningless and unproductive

teacher-3 Writing in preparation classes for IELTS

Brown (2001) argues that writing in the EFL classroom is less varied than for L1 users Moreover, writing needs vary depending on level of L2 and reasons for learning English, which usually affects the way teaching is approached Students having to write academic essays will need to learn the formulaic language as well the levels of formality used when writing English to various professional readers, whereas learners wanting to chat on-line to make friends may prefer more conversational or informal writing practice Actually, Raimes ( (1993) cited in Nunan, 1999, p 273) identifies two kinds of writing in the EFL classroom, namely “writing for learning”, which includes pre-writing, drafting, revisions and editing, and “writing for display” such as examination writing which this paper explores display academic essay - writing for IELTS Therefore, in display writing, understanding the requirements of the tasks for IELTS is crucial to success This skill is best practiced working with others, but the solitary nature and time constraints of IELTS writing examinations means that students have to be able to undergo the generating ideas and planning quickly and alone In addition, formulaic written language has to be mastered Students who can use natural language as it is used by the native speaker will perform better than those whose linguistic resources are translations from their L1 However, working together with other students to adapt the formulaic language to meet the needs of a particular question is likely to be met with more success than just copying input in its entirety

3.1 IELTS Academic Writing

IELTS Academic writing , more specifically, measures your ability to write in clear,

formal English, as is generally demanded in an academic context Candidates are assessed according to the following criteria:

 Task Response (Content) - how accurately to address the task

 Coherence and Cohesion (Organisation) - how organized the writing is

 Lexical Resource - the range of the candidate‟s vocabulary

 Grammatical Range and Accuracy (Use of language) - the correctness of the candidate‟s

grammar

Examinees have an hour to complete two writing tasks and must complete both tasks to get a score During the time they need to organize their ideas, write accurately, and use rich vocabulary It is recommended that the candidate divide their time in this way:

 Task 1 – 150 words – 20 minutes

 Task 2 – 250 words – 40 minutes

3.1.1 IELS Academic writing – task 1

In the first task, candidates must write a report based on pictorial information This means they may need to describe a graph, chart, or diagram It may be a bar chart, pie chart, line graph, or some other graphic representation Candidates might also be asked to describe the process illustrated by the diagram This involves describing the data accurately, pointing out trends and relevant information, and using appropriate vocabulary

To understand how best to answer this type of task, read through the model answers provided in IELTS guidebooks Examiners will score examinees‟ answer based on their ability to group relevant information, link ideas in complex sentences, and use appropriate vocabulary to describe trends This is not as difficult as it sounds By reading through several sample answers, they can extract the vocabulary they need and also learn a variety

of sentence structures, to present their information in a formal, academic manner For the highest marks, also pay close attention to their spelling and copy given words and phrases correctly

3.1.2 IELTS Academic writing – task 2

In this task, candidates need to write an academic style essay on the single topic given They have no choices here – they must write only about the one topic – so prepare

themselves with hstrategies to write a well-organized essay on a variety of subject areas Candidates may need to offer a solution to a problem, express an opinion or comment on ideas or arguments presented

Candidates‟ essay should be about four or five paragraphs in length, with an introduction, body and conclusion It should not be a list of bullet points, but a properly organized essay, written in full sentences They need to state your thesis, provide evidence

or reasons to support your argument and write a strong conclusion Use topic sentences to clearly identify the main theme in each paragraph They could use the guide below to structure their essay:

Paragraph 1 Introduction Restate the topic, indicate your position

Paragraph 2 Body Main idea, supporting idea, examples

Paragraph 3 Body Main idea, supporting idea, examples

Paragraph 4 conclusion Summarize ideas, restate position

3.2 Problems of IELTS writing learners in Vietnam context

As far as I am aware, Vietnamese learners have faced with enormous challenges in preparing for IELTS writing tests due to subjective and objective obstacles First, that they only study in limited English class in which writing at sentence levels focusing on forms is applied by Vietnamese teachers makes them become less control of English and its conventions of register and collocation Second, they do not have chance to experience the rhetorical conventions of English text – the structure, style, and organization – which is totally different from those in Vietnamese In some cases, if Vietnamese learners who are put in specialized classes have to learn writing for tests, they have to try their best to pass or gain good marks in the exams rather than enjoying learning writing As a result, learners do not pay attention to acquire more skills to improve their writings

4 Approaches to teaching writing

4.1 The Product Approach

4.1.1 Definitions of the product approach

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) For example, in a typical product approach-oriented classroom, students are supplied with a standard sample of text and they are expected to follow the standard to construct a new piece of writing Product Approach Model comprises of four stages (Steele, 2004):

* Stage one: Students study model texts and then the features of the genre are

highlighted For example, if studying a formal letter, students‟ attention may be drawn to the importance of paragraphing and the language used to make formal requests If a student reads a story, the focus may be on the techniques used to make the story interesting, and students focus on where and how the writer employs these techniques

* Stage two: This stage consists of controlled practice of the highlighted features,

usually in isolation So if students are studying a formal letter, they may be asked to practise the language used to make formal requests, for example, practising the „I would be grateful if you would ‟ structure

* Stage three: This is the most important stage where the ideas are organized Those

who favour this approach believe that the organization of ideas is more important than the ideas themselves and as important as the control of language

* Stage four: This is the end product of the learning process Students choose from the

choice of comparable writing tasks To show what they can be as fluent and competent users of the language, students individually use the skills, structures and vocabulary they have been taught to produce the product

Similarly, Badger and White (2000, p 153) point to Pincas (1982b) for “one of the most explicit descriptions of product approaches.” They cite her view that writing is

“primarily about linguistic knowledge, with attention focused on the appropriate use of vocabulary, syntax and cohesive devices.” Pincas identifies four stages to writing: familiarisation; controlled writing; guided writing and free writing ( (Pincas, 1982a), cited

in Badger and White, 2000, p 153) This approach is, as Nunan (1999, p 272) points out,

“consistent with sentence level structuralist linguistics and bottom-up processing.” The role

of the teacher is provider of model language and guided exercises and corrector of errors when the final „perfect‟ product is created With the product approach, teachers focus on what a final piece of writing will look like and measure it against criteria of “vocabulary use, grammatical use, and mechanical considerations such as spelling and punctuation,” as well as content and organization (Brown 1994, 320) The normal procedure is to assign a piece of writing, collect it, and then return it for further revision with the errors either corrected or marked for the student to do the corrections (Raimes 1983)

In other words, according to the study of Richards（1985), a product - oriented approach to the teaching of English writing generally involves some of the following features: Learners are assumed to have specific product - related writing needs: e.g how to write essays, reports, and business letters These can best addressed by teaching learners to recognize the different kinds of rhetorical patterns used in particular kinds of writing, e.g differences between descriptive, narrative, expository and persuasive writing These rhetorical patterns and compositions based on them serve as models for different kinds of writing The mechanics of writing are also taught; hand writing, capitalization, punctuation and spelling Correct sentence structure is an essential component of writing; grammatical skills receive a considerable emphasis Errors in writing are avoided by providing learners with models to follow or by guiding and controlling what learners write to prevent the m from making errors (p.330) Since this kind of training puts a heavy premium on various written grammar exercises, involving simple grammatical substitutions or sentence transformations in tense or number, the product - focused approach has many limitations It

concentrates on ends rather than on means By focusing on the structure of writing, rather than how writers write, it fails to address the processes writers make use of in producing different kinds of writing” Richards 1985: 332)

Consequently, the product-oriented approach to the teaching of writing, in particular,

emphasizes mechanical aspects of writing, such as focusing on grammatical and syntactical structures and imitating models which is, clearly, on providing practice in

producing different kinds of texts or products, while avoiding errors This is what really happens in EFL classrooms, where training in composition begins at the sentence level Before receiving sufficient instruction in basic paragraph structure, topic sentences, supporting statements, and conclusions, students are required to be able to write correct sentences

4.1.2 Limitations of product approach

The product approach is primarily concerned with "correctness" and form of the

final product Moreover, this approach fails to recognize that people write for an audience and for a purpose and that ideas are created and formulated during the process of writing

This approach has received much criticism because it ignores the actual processes used by students, or any writers, to produce a piece of writing Instead, it focuses on imitation and churning out a perfect product, even though very few people can create a perfect product on the first draft Another criticism is that this approach requires constant error correction, and that affects students‟ motivation and self-esteem The product approach does not effectively prepare students for the real world or teach them to be the best writers Nevertheless, the product approach still has some credibility because at some point there will be a final draft

that requires attention to grammar, spelling, and punctuation

4.2 The process approach

4.2.1 Definitions of the process approach

To meet the demand of changing the way of teaching writing to make it more interesting, the process approach gradually replaces the product approach in the mid-1970s

Essentially, the process approach, as its name suggests, focuses on the process one goes through when writing including generating ideas, deciding which ideas are relevant to the message and then using the language available to communicate that message in a process that evolves as it develops The process approach actually consists of four stages in writing: (1) prewriting, (2) composing/drafting, (3) revising, and (4) editing (Tribble 1996) These

stages are described as a recursive, or nonlinear process, and they can interact with each

other throughout the writing process For example, many writers return to prewriting activities during some stage of the revision process to develop a new idea or refine a viewpoint The process approach emphasizes revision, and also feedback from others, so students may produce many drafts with much crossing out of sentences and moving around

of paragraphs The correction of spelling and punctuation is not of central importance at the early stages An important element of the process approach is the meaningfulness it brings

to learners, who make a personal connection to the topic and come to understand the processes they follow when writing about it

According to Badger and White (2000), the process approach has been criticized because it views the process as the same for all writers, regardless of what is being written and who is doing the writing, and because it gives insufficient importance to the purpose and social context of the piece of writing Nevertheless, the process approach is widely accepted and utilized because it allows students to understand the steps involved in writing, and it recognizes that what learners bring to the writing classroom contributes to the development of the writing skill (Badger and White 2000)

Another definition of the process approach by Kroll (2001) is that the “process approach” serves today as an umbrella term for many types of writing courses … What the term captures is the fact that student writers engage in their writing tasks through a cyclical approach rather than a single-shot approach They are not expected to produce and submit complete and polished responses to their writing assignments without going through stages

of drafting and receiving feedback on their drafts, be it from peers and/or from the teacher, followed by revision of their evolving texts Hence, a process approach tends to focus more

on varied classroom activities which promote the development of language use: brainstorming, group discussion and rewriting The Process Approach Model includes eight stages (Steele, 2004):

Stage one (Brainstorming): This is generating ideas by brainstorming and discussion Stage two (Planning/Structuring): Students exchange ideas into note form and judge

quality and usefulness of the ideas

Stage three (Mind mapping): Students organize ideas into a mind map, spidergram, or

linear form This stage helps to make the hierarchical relationship of ideas which helps students with the structure of their texts

Stage four (Writing the first draft): Students write the first draft This is done in the

class frequently in pairs or groups

Stage five (Peer feedback): Drafts are exchanged, so that students become the readers

of each others work By responding as readers students develop awareness of the fact that a writer is producing something to be read by someone else and thus they can improve their own drafts

Stage six (Editing): Drafts are returned and improvements are made based upon peer

feedback

Stage seven (Final draft): A final draft is written

Stage eight (Evaluation and teachers’ feedback): Students‟ writings are evaluated and

teachers provide a feedback on it

This starts with group brainstorming exercises, general discussions, and group planning activities to decide on the content of the piece of writing or to generate ideas and activate

the schemata, which is the background experience or world knowledge a person possesses

that allows a writer to relate personal experiences to the topic and discover everything he or she has to say Since many student writers do not possess the strategies to recall, trigger, and activate these stored experiences while writing, the role of the teacher in strategy training is paramount The result will be improved student writing because the connection with the topic and processes gives students something interesting to write about and the tools to do it Then, peer correction and group evaluation are also encouraged to let students play the teachers‟ roles to know how their writings will be evaluated Throughout the whole

process, the teacher, instead of being cast merely in the role of linguistic judge, now becomes a reader, responding to what the students have written; the students, rather than merely providing evidence of mastery of linguistic forms, proffer experiences, ideas, attitudes and feelings to be shared with the reader (White & Arndt, 1991, p 2)

Cruey (2010) also concludes that writing has become an increasingly important part of the curriculum in public schools at almost every grade level It isn't about penmanship or instruction in cursive techniques, and that while writing is at least as much art as it is skill, disciplined use of the five-step writing process can take the mystery out of it and help ensure acceptable results As instructed in his article, he takes great concerns with the following five steps:

Step 1: Pre-writing: Where Good Ideas Come From

Pre-writing is the first step in the five-step writing process Especially in the early grades, the key to getting well organized compositions from your students is teaching them good pre-writing skills Pre-writing is the planning stage of the writing process It should result in some sort of a product – an outline, a timeline (if the students is writing a narrative composition), or perhaps a graphic organizer that conveys the relationship between ideas in

an essay Ideally, students should be able to talk about their pre-writing product and explain

it to a teacher

Pre-writing can be a social experience Particularly when everyone in the class is responding to the same writing prompt, there is no reason for student not to work in pairs or

in small brainstorming groups Depending on the writing prompt, teachers can allow groups

of students to develop a shared product Peer tutoring is also an effective strategy to use in helping your students develop pre-writing skills

In the early stages of writing instruction it is essential that students create a product

as part of the pre-writing work, and the teacher should assess that product (and give feedback on it) before students are allowed to write a draft It is up to the teacher to convince students that pre-writing is a non-negotiable part of writing

Step 2: Drafting: Putting Thoughts to Pixels

Drafting is the second step of the five-step writing process It is the point in time when students turn their ideas into sentences and paragraphs Some major hurdles exist when it comes to getting students to develop an acceptable draft The most immediate concern in the instructional process is that students have to be convinced to stick with their pre-writing product If their outline says they're going to have four paragraphs, their draft has to have four paragraphs If their outline says that the third paragraph is going to be about their pet cat, then the third paragraph of their draft has to be about their pet cat Students have to understand that the decisions they make during pre-writing shape their draft

Especially in the elementary grade, another major hurdle in the drafting process is getting students to produce text on a computer screen at a sufficient pace The roll of keyboard skills will vary from state to state If your students are going to have their writing skills assess on a keyboard, you need to have them practicing their writing on a keyboard as early as possible and as much as possible

For reasons that seem puzzling, some state writing assessments require students to create a paper-and-pencil draft and then enter a final version of their composition on a keyboard The bottom line is that you need to teach your students writing skills, but you also need to prepare them for the manner in which your state administers the writing assessment Don't fool yourself into thinking that you can teaching writing with pencil and paper and that your students will then pass the state writing assessment on a keyboard because, well, you taught them how to write

A final hurdle in the drafting process has more to do with teachers than with students Teachers are often too concerned with grammar and spelling in a drafting Resist the urge to focus on mechanics Drafting is about putting ideas on paper, or thoughts to pixels on a computer screen Mechanics get dealt with later in the five-step writing process

Step 3 and 4: Revising and Editing

Students often have difficulty with the distinction between revising and editing Revising is the third step in the writing process Editing is the fourth step

When students revise their work, they focus on whether their composition conveys their ideas effectively This is the time to decide that paragraphs two and three need to switch places, This is when students realize that their description of their favorite beach lacks sufficient adjectives and needs much more detail, or that their discussion of how great Grandma's cooking is lacks examples Revising is the process of fixing the ideas and organization in an essay

Editing is the more mundane task of proofreading a composition This is where students ask themselves if all their sentences are complete sentences They look for spelling errors, make sure their subjects and verbs agree, find and fix comma splices, etc Students tend to resist making changes to a draft One blogger refers tongue-in-cheek to this problem

as Pontius Pilate syndrome, after the quote in John 19:22: "What I have written, I have written." In order to succeed at writing, students have to be convinced that a draft is not a completed work

Step 5: Publishing

The fifth step in the five-step writing process is publishing It's a fancy word, but in context it basically means that students turn their work in – or perhaps hit the "submit" button

4.2.2 Strengths of the process approach

Compared with the product - oriented approach, process - oriented pedagogy encourages students to understand writing as an activity comprised of a series of interrelated steps and strategies It acknowledges the importance of students‟ personal experiences and voices, and seeks to find appropriate ways for students to inform academic writing Moreover, the process-oriented approach emphasizes that writing itself is a developmental process that creates self-discovery and meaning While the mechanical aspects of writing are important, they should not interfere with the composing process This

composing process requires much revision and rewriting The teacher intervenes and guides students during the composing process but initially does not emphasize "correctness" and the final product; the emphasizes on "correctness" and the final product comes only toward the very end of the writing process (and, often, a major concern with "correctness" is put off until towards the middle or even end of the writing course) As a result, instead of worrying about form, students concentrate on conveying a written 5message Hence the product of writing will improve with the discovery involved in composing When using the process approach students can also develop skills, such as drafting and editing texts, which are required when writing Raimes (1993) maintains “a shortcoming of the debate around these issues is that process and product have been seen as either/or rather than both/and entities.” (Nunan, 1999, p 273) Badger and White (2000, p 157) agree, saying that “the conflict between the approaches is misguided, and damaging to classroom practice.” What Raimes and Badger and White both suggest is that approaches are not mutually exclusive and I believe the approach, or combination of approaches, chosen by a teacher should be based on the learners‟ goals, level and needs, and the time constraints imposed by exam or learning deadlines

4.2.3 Weaknesses of the process approach

Badger & White (2000, p 156) argue that the process approach evolved out of dissatisfaction with more traditional product approaches, which view the end product as their focus, with the supporters of the former rejecting the latter as old fashioned and ineffective The process approach, however, is also not perfect It requires a significant investment of class time to be successful In addition, it was developed to meet the needs of the native classroom, where learners, who were already verbally fluent, needed to address the issue of the writing process and as a result, it neglects the linguistic element of written language A recent adaptation within this approach, which aims to address this weakness, is the introduction of a reformulation stage where the teacher provides assistance in reformulating the language without losing the writer‟s original meaning This may take the form of a letter to the writer asking for clarification or explaining vocabulary they have used An example of this is provided by White and Arndt (1991, pp 8-9) However, it too

requires an additional investment of a teacher‟s time as every student is likely to have his own unique mix of problems and therefore each piece of writing must be replied to individually for this stage to lead to improvement However, the process approach has been criticized by many researchers

4.3 Differences between the product and process approach

Process driven approaches are similar to task based learning in that students are given considerable freedom within the task They are not curved by the preventive teaching of lexical or grammatical items However process approaches do not repudiate all interest in the product The aim is to achieve the best product possible What differentiate a process focused approach from the product centred one that the outcome of writing, the product, is not preconceived

Table 2 1: Product and process writing: A comparison (Steele 2004 p 1)

text as a resource for comparison imitate model text

ideas as starting point organization of ideas are more important

than ideas themselves

more global, focused on purpose, theme,

text type i.e reader is emphasized

features highlighted including controlled practice of those features

emphasis on creative process emphasis on product

Generally, the distinction can be summed up in this way: the process writing represents

a shift in emphasis in teaching writing from the product of writing activities (the finished text) to ways in which text can be developed: from concern with questions such as „what

have you written?‟, „what grade is it worth?‟ to „how will you write it?‟, „how can it be improved?‟ Although recently the respective boards of S.S.C or H.S.C have introduced the Communicative approach for teaching English, the English teachers are not properly trained in the new approach The teachers are still more prone to practice the old Grammar Translation (GT) method They are more guided by the controlled writing format, which hinders them in trying new approaches(s) to writing instruction Teachers‟ feedback is based on grammatical and lexical errors instead of meaning-oriented exploration In spite of the introduced new approach or sometimes on individual‟s choice of approach, the influence of alternative Western approaches to the teaching of writing, most of the Bangladeshi English teachers at college or university level still follow the product approach

in the writing classes The prominent influence of the product-based approach on over all teaching English can not be underestimated or negated fully Under the influence of product approach, the writing task is seen as decontextualized format; it ignores context and audience, and highlights the learner‟s final piece of work instead of how is produced, so the importance of process approach too needs to get underlined in this regard

PART 3: THE STUDY

This part describes the study It, first, introduces the course, the participants, and the treatment Then the methodology and the findings of the study will be presented Finally, the findings will be discussed with reference to the literature on the process oriented approach to academic writing

3.1 The Course

During the study – a period of the process-oriented writing applied course, not only a well organized syllabus and a standard IELTS material published by Longman will be used and thorough instructions and interesting writing class activities based on process-oriented approach such as steps to generate, organize, revise, and peer editing, group evaluation, and conference of each essay will be gradually and clearly utilized to the focus group The course was, basically, designed to help students starting at band 5 to 5.5 to achieve IELTS

writing band 6.5 after ten writing lessons for six weeks Each of the lessons lasts for an two

hours and divided into three separate phases During the course, learners were given five

IELTS-task1 writing, and three-task2 writing lessons which were consisted of eight much concerned topics to draw students‟ attention and interests in the class Those topics were step by step used to teach how to write two tasks in IELTS academic writing tests as listed below:

* Topic 1: Travelling – passenger railway journeys, Great Britain

* Topic 2: Media - CD player, Mobile phone, Home computer, and Internet access

* Topic 3: Entertainment – clubs and their facilities

* Topic 4: Places – shopping center

* Topic 5: Process – pencil making

* Topic 6: Eating habits and lifestyles

* Topic 7: Traffic problem and solutions

* Topic 8: Stress at present and in the past

Meanwhile, the students were led through the five stages of writing: brainstorming, organizing ideas, drafting, revising and editing with the various strategies, which are needed for each kind of writing IELTS tasks, described in details as followed:

3.1.1 Lesson 1,2,3,4,5: Writing task 1 – graph, chart, and process description

3.1.1.1 Aims:

 To develop students‟ abilities to analyze task question

 To develop students‟ abilities to discuss, generate, organize information and then use it to plan their writing

 To develop students‟ abilities to revise, redraft and improve their writing

3.1.1.2 Introduction:

During this lesson, students will go through the process of analyzing the task to deeply understanding the task requirements, which can help them develop ideas and collect and organize information They will then use the information to create the first draft They will then focus on some key areas of good writing such as content, organization, lexical resource and language use, and then try to redraft their writing with these in mind

3.1.1.3 Procedure:

Step 1: Pre writing

* Understanding the information: Generally, task 1 required students to write description

of line graph, bar and pie chart, and process The information should accurately be interpreted at the beginning of the writing process, which can help students avoid getting off the subject Based on the type of the task 1, relevant questions were, particularly, given

by teachers to help students understand the information from the graphs, charts and processes given in five lessons… Then, appropriate answers are cooperatively discussed

by students in pairs, groups and class with the instructor‟s helps to avoid misunderstanding the task requirements

E.g: Questions to analyse Line graphs

(1) What is the title of the graph? Or what does the graph show?

(2) What does the vertical axis represent?

(3) What does the horizontal axis represent?

(4) What are keys of the graph?

(5) What is the timescale?

(6) What is the overall view?

* Identifying the main topic:

In this stage, students discussed in pairs, groups, or whole class to identify all of the main (general) and specific features to help students avoid content errors

* Selecting and organizing the information

Group planning would probably have helped the learner group his ideas more logically into clearer paragraphs in the logical organization as following:

(1) Introductory paragraph: includes all of the information which are listed in the

understanding information phase such as diagram title, timescale (e.g shown in horizontal exis), keys, measurement unit (e.g shown in vertical axis), and overall view

(2) Body: - first main feature

Specific information

- second main feature Specific information

…

(3) Conclusion: summarize all the main features as mentioned above

* Using the writing language for the right information

With further linguistic input in the form of linking expressions and discourse markers and how and when to use them, there is more guarantee that the writing produced would be any more cohesive Therefore, teachers will help students facilitate their writing

by provide them some useful language used for each type of the writing in task 1 as in two examples below: