APPLYING SOME INNOVATIVE TECHNIQUES IN TEACHING ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY WRITING FOR THE TWELFTH GRADERS AT NHU THANH HIGH SCHOOL

THE SOLUTION OF APPLYING COLLABORATIVE WRITING AND DIRECT INSTRUCTION WRITING TECHQUIQUES AND THEIR IMPACT ON DEVELOPING THE STUDENTS’ ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING SKILL...6 CHAPTER 2: PRACTICA

INNOVATION IN TEACHING

APPLYING SOME INNOVATIVE TECHNIQUES IN TEACHING ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY WRITING FOR THE TWELFTH GRADERS AT NHU THANH

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1

I RATIONALE OF THE STUDY 1

II AIMS OF THE STUDY 2

III RESEARCH QUESTIONS 2

IV METHODS OF THE STUDY 2

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT 2

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 2

I OVERVIEW OF WRITING SKILL 2

II THE ARGUMENTIVE ESSAY 3

1 What is the argumentative essay and its struture? 3

2 What is the collaborative writing technique in teaching argumentative essay writing? 4

3 What is the direct instruction writing technique ? 4

III THE DIFFICULTIES OF WRITING ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAYS 5

IV THE IMPORTANCE ELEMENTS OF A GOOD ARGUMENTAIVE ESSAY 5

V THE SOLUTION OF APPLYING COLLABORATIVE WRITING AND DIRECT INSTRUCTION WRITING TECHQUIQUES AND THEIR IMPACT ON DEVELOPING THE STUDENTS’ ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING SKILL 6

CHAPTER 2: PRACTICAL SITUATIONS 7

I METHODS OF THE STUDY 7

II THE REALITY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING SKILL AT NHU THANH HIGH SCHOOL 7 CHAPTER 3: RECOMMENDATIONS TO HELP THE STUDENTS TO IMPROVE THEIR ARGUMENTATIVE EASSY WRITING SKILL 8

I RECOMMENDATIONS 8

II PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS 8

CHAPTER 4: RESULT 17

PART THREE: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION 17

I CONCLUSION 17

II REFLECTIONS 17

REFERENCES 19

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

I RATIONALE OF THE STUDY

Studying English nowadays has become an essential demand foreveryone Learning English is important It is simple as English is one of themost popular international languages and it is most not only all over the worldbut also in all aspects of society Therefore, learning and mastering it wouldgreatly give advantages to the person concerned Although many Vietnamesestudents get excellent certain qualifications, their ability of communicating inEnglish is limited As a result, they must give up their dream jobs There is nodoubt about that English is the optimum standard for applicants into foreign andstate- owned companies On account of the above demands, English iscompulsory not only at school but also in examinations at certain stages of theschool education system According to the national curriculum, English is builtwith the aim of communicating Creating the ability of communication inEnglish for students is the most important target in the process of teaching

As teachers, I think we’d all agree that communication is important In fact,it’s a necessary component of education, livelihood, and basic functionality in oursociety It’s also fairly obvious that there are two main ways to communicate,although more obscure forms exist Basically, we talk and we write That’s how

we let other people know what’s going on, and it’s an important skill to have Justabout every student can talk, but how many Vietnamese students can truly writewell? Writing is also important because it’s used extensively in higher educationand in the workplace If students don’t know how to express themselves inwriting, they won’t be able to communicate well with friends, teachers,professors, employers, peers, or just about anyone else

Much of professional communication is done in writing: proposals,memos, reports, applications, preliminary interviews, e-mails, and more are part

of the daily life of a college student or successful graduate Even if studentsmanage to learn the material in their college classes without knowing how towrite well, they won’t be able to express their knowledge to the people who aremaking the big decisions Potential employers won’t know whether or not headknowledge can be applied to everyday demands unless it’s through a spokeninterview Even the majority of certifications and licensures require basicwriting skills to obtain The inability to write makes for a stillborn career

Argumentative writing has been confirmed by researchers to be the hardest

model in writing This genre of writing is important for students to express their ownpoints of view in academically appropriate forms and strategies Unfortunately,students often encounter difficulties in the use of complex syntactic patterns andappropriate elements in composing argumentative writing Consequently, by means ofthe drawbacks in language teaching methods of the past, particularly in theargumentative writing skill, a number of research studies have sought to investigateand demonstrate how argumentative writing can be improved by using effectivemethods to gauge the weaknesses of students’ writing ability After for a long time, Ihave taken consideration into various solutions in teaching argumetative essaywriting for my students, I have found it is extremely important that students must

make sense a good step – step plan for this type of writing In addition, they must have a combination between the collaborative writing technique and the direct instruction writing technique in teaching argumentative essay has improved my

students’writing skill a lot

Therefore, I decide the research with the title “ Applying some innovative techniques in teaching argumentative essay writing for the twelfth graders at Nhu Thanh High school ”.

II AIMS OF THE STUDY

On the basis of surveying students’ ability of writing argumentativeessays in English at Nhu Thanh High School, I have given feasible measuresincluding innovating methods of teaching writing skill

The aims of this research are as follows:

1 Whether or not a step – step plan for writing argumentative essays is

nessesary

2 Whether or not the collaborative writing technique is really effective

3 Whether or not students who have high creativity have better writingability than those who have low creativity

4.Whether or not there is interaction between teaching techniques andstudents‘ creativity in teaching writing

In addition, whether or not the direct instruction writing technique through givingfifteen- sentence/ phrase modals improves the argumentative

writing skill and have positive impact on writing process among students andcan develop their argumentative writing skill

III RESEARCH QUESTIONS

This study aims at finding answer to the following research question:

How can innovative teachniques help the students at Nhu Thanh High Schoolimprove their argumentative writing skill ?

The question has been addressed to one group of the eleventh graders that

I have been teaching in Nhu Thanh High School with the aim to examine howinnovative solutions affect the process of argumentative writing here

IV METHODS OF THE STUDY

- The method of collecting and analyzing materials for the research:research for materials concerning about the subject, analyze and get certainknowledge from previous researches, finally give the foundation to the research

- The method of talking to students: through talking to students, I have got

to know real situation of students’ writing learning in language classes at NhuThanh High School

- The method of surveying through answer sheets

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

I OVERVIEW OF WRITING SKILL

What is writing?

"Writing" is the process of using symbols (letters of the alphabet,punctuation and spaces) to communicate thoughts and ideas in a readable form Towrite clearly it is essential to understand the basic system of a language In Englishthis includes knowledge of grammar, punctuation and sentence structure.Vocabulary is also necessary, as is correct spelling and formatting A writer maywrite for personal enjoyment or use, or for an audience of one person or more Theaudience may be known (targeted) or unknown Taking notes for study purposes is

an example of writing for one's self Blogging publicly is an example of writing for

an unknown audience A letter to a friend is an example of writing for a targetedaudience As with speaking, it is important to consider your audience whenwriting There are many different styles of writing, from informal to formal Some of the difficulties associated with the teaching of writing in foreignlanguage classes come from the nature of writing itself Writing is an artificialactivity in a way that speech is not; while every normal human being on thisplanet learns, eventually, to talk and to listen, far fewer people become literate,able to write Writing is learned, while speaking is acquired as part of growing up

In schools, writing is taught partly as a vital part of literacy program, butalso in order to show that work is being done Writing is often associated,particularly in weaker students’ minds, with “chores” or even with discipline(the traditional writing lesson is quite quiet, so the teacher is easily able to keepcontrol) This “homework syndrome” can lead to students making less and lessprogress because they are poorly motivated, perform badly, receive low grades,and end up disliking writing more and more

II THE ARGUMENTIVE ESSAY

1 What is the argumentative essay and its struture?

It is a genre of writing that requires the student to investigate a topic;collect, generate, and evaluate evidence; and establish a position on the topic in

a concise manner

Argumentative essay assignments generally call for extensive research ofliterature or previously published material Argumentative assignments may alsorequire empirical research where the student collects data through interviews,surveys, observations, or experiments Detailed research allows the student tolearn about the topic and to understand different points of view regarding thetopic so that she/he may choose a position and support it with the evidencecollected during research Regardless of the amount or type of researchinvolved, argumentative essays must establish a clear thesis and follow soundreasoning

The argumentative essay is the most common type of writing assignmentthat students will encounter throughout their exams While there are differentvariations of the argument essay, the overall foundation is always the same: thewriter is tasked with investigating an issue, taking a stand on the issue, andfinding and incorporating a multitude of evidence in a logical manner to supportthe overall claim.

The structure of paper's outline is the same as the structure of their entireessay The difference is that they include the entire information in the body textwhile students only name the arguments in their outline An English essayoutline is worth their time as it figures as their plan during the whole writingprocess.There are three basic sections of any argumentative essay studentsshould follow:

2 What is the collaborative writing technique in teaching argumentative essay writing?

In the collaborative writing technique, the teacher asks students to work

in pairs or triads to write a formal paper together Each person will contribute ateach stage of the writing process of argumentative essays: brainstormning ideas,

gathering and organizing information, drafting, revising and editing the writing.

In this way, my students will produce better work than they work alone.Collaborative writing will improve their document quality by pooling thestrengths of group members At the same time, individual weaknesses are caught

by the group and revised Ultimately, collaboration can be a form of motivationfor students as they become excited about working in a group as well as theprospect of learning from other students

3 What is the direct instruction writing technique ?

The Direct instruction has one very basic rule: no translation is allowed.Teaching learning process is focus on explanation of grammar rules inclassroom teaching, teachers must encourage direct and spontaneous use of theforeign language in the classroom Learners would then be able to induce rules

of grammar All teaching is done in the target language

The teacher with writing technique will give students suggested sentensemodals or vocabulary relating to the argumentative writing topic That helpsstudents not to spend too much time looking for sentence modals or topicvocabulary They will only focus on brainstorming, organizing ideas, makingthe outline

III THE DIFFICULTIES OF WRITING ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAYS

Writing an argumentative essay can be easy in many aspects becausestudents are given the opportunity to take a personal stance on a topic This can

be a more entertaining essay to write, but we must remember that althoughstudents’ main idea may be opinion based, it is important that students’ paper isstill research based Here are some common problems students may experiencewhile writing an argumentative essay:

Finding Support

Once students have selected a topic or argument that students would like

to prove through their essay, it is crucial to locate reputable support TheInternet is full of opinion-based articles, but these are not what students willwant to use to develop they argument Arguments or opinions must besupported with factual data or research in order to be credible They can alsoquote an authority on the topic

Contradictory Arguments

Another common problem to be weary of when writing an argumentativeessay is contradictory arguments Make sure to thoroughly read their sources Aquote or idea from a source can easily be taken out of context, changing themeaning of said quote all together Students want to be sure to maintain theircredibility on the topic, and honestly make their argument

Avoid Personal Opinion

When writing your argumentative essay you must be sure to keep a neutraltone on the topic There is a difference between making a compelling argument,and bombarding your readers with overly emotional personal opinion With

strong facts and reliable sources you will find that harsh or passionate language

is unnecessary to prove your point

Consider Your Audience

Your audience quite frequently influences the way you approach yourtopic The means to convince an audience of college professors will surely bedifferent from adolescent readers

IV THE IMPORTANCE ELEMENTS OF A GOOD ARGUMENTAIVE ESSAY.

Most people do not require special skills to prove their point of view whenproviding arguments on various day-to-day issues All of us sometimes arguewhy the movie we have watched is so impressive or why we should get apromotion This means that we argue not only in the academic field, but also inour everyday lives That is why writing an argumentative essay does not requireany additional skills and most students can deal with the assignment withmuch success However, it is also important to structure an argumentative essay

in a correct way For this reason, before writing an essay, you need to find outwhat elements should be included in your argumentative essay You also need tosupport your viewpoint by providing an explanation of your ideas and specificexamples Let us discuss the fundamental elements of argumentative essays

* Organization and focus When writing an argumentative essay, you need to prove the main viewpoint by providing enough evidence and well-

grounded arguments

* Description and analysis: Description and analysis are two more

elements of an argumentative essay that should be included in your paper if you want it to be consistent and relevant

* Evidence Evidence can be provided in different way You should

support your ideas with certain examples and make the readers accept your point

of view by providing well-grounded evidence in favor of your position

* Answering a counterargument If you add a counterargument in your

essay, it will make it clear for the readers that you fully understand the material you are discussing in your paper

V THE SOLUTION OF APPLYING A STEP – STEP PLAN, COLLABORATIVE WRITING AND DIRECT INSTRUCTION WRITING TECHQUIQUES AND THEIR IMPACT ON DEVELOPING THE STUDENTS’ ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING SKILL.

Collaborative Writing technique makes the learning more effective,attractive,

meaningful, and successful Collaborative Writing also can improve students‘ criticalthinking The collaborative writing technique is a way to foster reflective thinking,especially if the learners are engaged in the act of explaining and defending theirideas to their peers In the process of co-authoring, learners consider not onlygrammatical accuracy and lexis but also discourse Furthermore, and depending onthe kind of group/pair dynamics formed, collaborative writing may encourage apooling of knowledge about language Collaborative Writing technique has manyadvantages as a functional unit of collaborative learning Active participation in thecollaborative process is essential for learning to occur By working collaborativelywith their friends, the students will try to analyze their friends‘ work in writing They

can correct the mistakes made by their friends In Collaborative Writing, the studentsare relying on peers for learning It means that students work together to teach oneanother, and they alternate between the roles of student and teacher This techniquecombines elements of both motivational and cognitive approaches to collaboration.The technique also promotes cognitiveprocessing by using a structured approach toteaching and learning within a tutoring context This technique also promotes activeprocessing of material using activities that are strongly linked to achievement.

In addition, using the direct instruction writing technique through giving

sentence/ phrase modals fifteen by the teacher makes students’writing mucheasier and they feel more confident to start their writing The benefits of thissolution are that the essay is not only logic, but the students also think and writemore quickly and easily

CHAPTER 2: PRACTICAL SITUATIONS

I METHODS OF THE STUDY

The research is done qualitatively in the context of one group of thirtystudents at Nhu Thanh High School In this survey, I have used the surveyquestionnaire for students This survey is designed to collect information for thestudy on “An investigation into the Reality of teaching and learning Englishargumentative writing skill at Nhu Thanh High School

II THE REALITY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING SKILL AT NHU THANH HIGH SCHOOL

The whole procedure of teaching and learning is implemented similarly toall students of the class after all of them give consent to be part of the research.However, due to the limit of the study, I only focus to collect information fromthe learning engagement of two classes 12B1(46 students), 12B2( 44 students)and 12B5(43 students) ( total: 133 students) during this process as the data foranalysis Below is the survey of the practical situation of learning argumentativeeassay writing skill at Nhu Thanh High School, the academic year : 2020-2021Table 1: Frequencies of argumentative writing difficulties faced by students

Difficulties faced by students Number of students have difficulty

Brainstorming the topic, organizing ideas and

of the complex sentences, and express their ideas

Brainstorming, orgainizing ideas, making the outline and understandingthe argumentative writing structure and grammar ones were also considereddifficult for students because students pointed out that the structure ofargumentative writing posed the main barrier for them to produce a good piece

of argumentative essay In relation to the difficulties of solid evidence, theystated that providing solid evidence was one of the most difficult aspects forthem to convince the audience to believe in what they wrote With reference tothe difficulties of time constraints in argumentative writing, students faced thedifficulties in this aspect One of students stated: “Another problem is thelimitation of the time I cannot write a good piece of writing because I feelhectic I need more time to write because of the limited time I cannot think ofstrong evidence to write” They admitted that it was difficult to write a well-organized argumentative essay For example, the following students pointed outthat “I don’t know how to organize the idea of argumentative writing essay I donot know that I have to write the Introduction or I have to control the idea Ihave to write supporting detail 1,2,3 and then I have to write the conclusion Iwrite down what I can think of without controlling the idea” With the reference

to the difficulties of fulfilling task demand and understanding the questions,students considered this task demand difficult Students stated that writing thethesis statement was difficult for them to write in order to convince the audience

CHAPTER 3: RECOMMENDATIONS TO HELP THE STUDENTS

TO IMPROVE THEIR ARGUMENTATIVE EASSY WRITING SKILL.

I RECOMMENDATIONS

According to the data analysis from the survey, The aim of this study was

to identify the argumentative writing difficulties that students encountered whenthey compose argumentative essays It is noted that teachers have realized thatthere is a critical need to accord greater attention to the improvement of writingteaching for students The way to improve writing instruction is to developinsights into the diagnostic evaluation of writing This type of evaluationprovides valuable data about students‟ weaknesses in argumentative writing

Therefore, I have used a step – step plan, the collaborative writing technique and the direct instruction writing technique in teaching argumentative essay in teaching argumentative essay writing skill for my students.

II PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS

A A step-step plan for teaching argumentative essay

I strongly believe students should be shown how to move past those kinds ofstructures into a style of writing that’s more natural and fitting to the task andaudience, but I also think they should start with something that’s pretty clearlyorganized

So here’s how I teach argumentative essay writing

STEP 1: WATCH HOW IT’S DONE

One of the most effective ways to improve student writing is to showthem mentor texts, examples of excellent writing within the genre studentsare about to attempt themselves Ideally, this writing would come from realpublications and not be fabricated by me in order to embody the form I’mlooking for I would have students read these texts, compare them, and findplaces where the authors used evidence to back up their assertions I would askstudents which author they feel did the best job of influencing the reader, andwhat suggestions they would make to improve the writing I would also ask them

to notice things like stories, facts and statistics, and other things the authors use

to develop their ideas Later, as students work on their own pieces, I would likelyreturn to these pieces to show students how to execute certain writing moves

STEP 2: INFORMAL ARGUMENT, FREESTYLE

Although many students might need more practice in writing aneffective argument, many of them are excellent at arguing in person To helpthem make this connection, I would have them do some informal debate on easy,

high-interest topics An activity like This or That (one of the classroom

icebreakers I talked about last year) would be perfect here: I read a statement

like “Women have the same opportunities in life as men.” Students who agreewith the statement move to one side of the room, and those who disagree move tothe other side Then they take turns explaining why they are standing in thatposition This ultimately looks a little bit like a debate, as students from eitherside tend to defend their position to those on the other side This activity is sosimple, it gets them out of their seats, and for a unit on argument, it’s an easyway to get them thinking about how the art of argument is something theypractice all the time

STEP 3: INFORMAL ARGUMENT, NOT SO FREESTYLE

Once students have argued without the support of any kind of research or text, Iwould set up a second debate; this time with more structure and more time toresearch ahead of time I would pose a different question, supply students with afew articles that would provide ammunition for either side, then givek,.them time to read the articles and find the evidence they need

Next, we’d have a Philosophical Chairs debate (learn about this in

my discussion strategies post), which is very similar to “This or That,” except

students use textual evidence to back up their points, and there are a few morerules Here they are still doing verbal argument, but the experience should makethem more likely to appreciate the value of evidence when trying to persuade

Before leaving this step, I would have students transfer their thoughtsfrom the discussion they just had into something that looks like the openingparagraph of a written argument: A statement of their point of view, plus three

reasons to support that point of view This lays the groundwork for what’s tocome.

STEP 4: INTRODUCTION OF THE PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT

Next I would show students their major assignment, the performanceassessment that they will work on for the next few weeks What does this looklike? It’s generally a written prompt that describes the task, plus the rubric I willuse to score their final product

Anytime I give students a major writing assignment, I let them see these

documents very early on In my experience, I’ve found that students appreciatehaving a clear picture of what’s expected of them when beginning a writingassignment At this time, I also show them a model of a piece of writing thatmeets the requirements of the assignment Unlike the mentor texts we read onday 1, this sample would be something teacher-created (or an excellent studentmodel from a previous year) to fit the parameters of the assignment

STEP 5: BUILDING THE BASE

Before letting students loose to start working on their essays, I make sure theyhave a solid plan for writing I would devote at least one more class period tohaving students consider their topic for the essay, drafting a thesis statement,and planning the main points of their essay in a graphic organizer

I would also begin writing my own essay on a different topic Thishas been my number one strategy for teaching students how to become betterwriters Using a document camera or overhead projector, I start from scratch,thinking out loud and scribbling down my thoughts as they come Whenstudents see how messy the process can be, it becomes less intimidating forthem They begin to understand how to take the thoughts that are stirring around

in your head and turn them into something that makes sense in writing

For some students, this early stage might take a few more days, andthat’s fine: I would rather spend more time getting it right at the pre-writingstage than have a student go off willy-nilly, draft a full essay, then realize theyneed to start over Meanwhile, students who have their plans in order will beallowed to move on to the next step

STEP 6: WRITER’S WORKSHOP

The next seven to ten days would be spent in writer’s workshop,where I would start class with a mini-lesson about a particular aspect of craft Iwould show them how to choose credible, relevant evidence, how to skillfullyweave evidence into an argument, how to consider the needs of an audience, and