The experience on using group writing to improve writing skills for 10th class at ba đình high school

THANH HOA PROVINCE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING BA ĐÌNH HIGH SCHOOL EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE THE EXPERIENCE ON USING GROUP WRITING TO IMPROVE WRITING SKILLS FOR 10TH CLASS AT BA D

THANH HOA PROVINCE DEPARTMENT OF

EDUCATION AND TRAINING

BA ĐÌNH HIGH SCHOOL

EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE

THE EXPERIENCE ON USING GROUP

WRITING TO IMPROVE WRITING SKILLS FOR 10TH CLASS AT BA DINH HIGH SCHOOL

Implementer: Nguyễn Thị Lan Anh Job title: Teacher

School: Ba Đình high school – Nga Sơn Experience initiative: English

THANH HOÁ 2021

TABLE OF CONTENTS

2 1 Rationale of the Study 1

5 4 Scope and Significance of the Study 2

8 I The Process Approach 4

9 II Group writing in foreign languages teaching 5

10 1 Definition of Group writing 5

11 2 Advantages of using group writing in improving writing skills

for high school students

5

12 3 Disadvantages of using group writing in improving writing

skills for high school students

6

13 4 How to organize group work 7

14 5 Using group writing in the classroom 9

15 III Setting of the study 9

16 1 Description of the teaching and learning English at Ba Đình

20 5 Some suitable activities for group writing 13

23 2 Limitations of the and suggestions for further study 18

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the Study

To get good results in teaching process is the expectation of all teachers.However, the ways to achieve it are not always easy This requires the teachers

to have not only good qualities, deep knowledge about their subjects but alsosuitable methods to adapt in teaching

In fact, in the late 20th century linguists, teachers and learners havewitnessed the “birth” of a popular way in teaching foreign language, the so-

called “Communicative Language Teaching” The approach focuses most on

improving four basic skills for learners: Listening, Speaking, Reading andWriting Equally important to others, writing skill has been currently paid muchattention to because writing is regarded as highly significant in civilizedsocieties Through writing human beings transmit their needs, desires, problems,and thoughts as well as histories, cultures, social evolutions, advancement intechnologies, etc…Writing is a means of connecting the past, the present and thefuture It can transcend space and time giving it the qualities of being eternal andinternational

Realizing that fact, teachers should do more researches to improve writingskill for learners, especially the high school students Traditionally, teachersoften let students work individually or in pairs This led to both good and badconsequences The good one is that the student is more independent to expresshis ideas and knowledge However, it is no doubt that his writing contains a lot

of errors, thus the result is unpleasing

To meet the demand of learners of English, teachers of English inVietnam have beentrying to find out the most suitable and effective method ofteaching English They alwaystry to catch up with the world's latest frameworks

of English Language Teaching.Therefore, as in other countries, teachers ofEnglish in Vietnam are now usingCommunicative Language Teaching Approach

to teach English to learners of all levels.They hope that by using this teachingmethod, they can help their learners improve theirEnglish and use it effectivelyand fluently in communication

The effort of this thesis is trying to encourage teachers in creating newmethods in teaching writing skill for learners and to help students to learnwriting subject more effectively Having students work in groups not only

makes them more involved in learning but also give them opportunities topractise foreign language There are many reasons for choosing the study but the

above reasons are the main ones that encourage us to choose the thesis: “The

experience on using group writing to improve writing skills for 10 th class at Ba Đình high school”.

2 Aims of the Study

The study is aimed at:

- Investigating the situation of teaching and learning writing to the 10th

class at Ba Đình high school

- Investigating the effectiveness and difficulties of using group work inteaching writing to the 10th class at Ba Đình high school

- Providing some suggestions and implications for the improvement ofwriting teaching at Ba Đình high school by using group writing

4 Scope and Significance of the Study

The study is divided into three main parts The contents covered in each part are

- Part III is the conclusion of the study

5 Method of the Study

The action research employs both quantitative method and qualitativemethod to analyze the collected data During speaking lessons on the basis of

CL principles, classroom observation is made to note down the students’

attitude, participation and cooperation in groups, discussion and even conflicts,

…The students are also interviewed to clarify their answers in the questionnairespreviously done by themselves The collected information, thus, is more reliableand straightforward

PART II: CONTENT I.The Process Approach

Unlike the product approach, the process approach focuses on thinkingand writingprocesses The product approach sees the language learners ascreators of language, decisionmakers of the message and content (Brown 1994:320) It is argued by Nunan (1991 : 87) thatwhile the product-oriented approachaims at developing the leamer's writing skill mainly atsentence-level, theprocess-oriented approach aims at language at discourse-level

In the view of Hedge (1990), the process contains a lot of stages whichcan be illustrated asfollows: "being motivated to write - getting ideas together -planning and outlining – makingnotes - making a first draft - revising.replanning redrafting - editing and getting ready forpublication ", Meanwhile,according to Oshima and Hogue (1991), the writing processembraces essentiallythree steps: pre-writing, planning (outlining), writing, and revising drafts

Each step involves certain kinds of task that the writers have to fulfill inorder to construct agood piece of work

* Pre-writing

Pre-writing is any classroom activity that encourages the learners to write

It stimulates thoughtsfor getting started It may include understanding thepurpose of writing, discovering the topic,thinking about the audience, gatheringinformation or inventing possible content Once thepossible content for writinghas been explored, the writers will feel more confident to moveforward to thenext stage

* Planning

In this stage, the learners organize the ideas they have generated Themost efficient way to dothis is to make an outline - a plan in which the learnerswrite down the main points and subpointsin the intended order

* Drafting

Once sufficient ideas have been gathered and plan already drawn, the firstattempt at writing -drafting can proceed quickly At this stage, the writers arefocqsed on the fluency of writing andare not preoccupied with grammaticalaccuracy or the neatness of the draft

* Responding

Responding to student writing has a central role to play in the successfulimplementation ofprocess writing It is a kind of oral or written intervention byteachers or peers or other possiblereaders after the writers have finished drafting.This activity is intended to provide the studentsuseful information to improvetheir writing.

* Revising

Revising is done on the basis of the feedback given in the respondingstage The studentsreexamine what was written to see how effectively they havecommunicated their meanings tothe readers Revising is not just checking forlanguage errors; it is done to improve the globalcontent and the organization ofideas so that the writer's intention is made clearer to the readers

* Editing

At editing stage, the students are engaged in tidying up their texts as theyprepare the final draftfor evaluation by the teachers Editing is vital as it is notdone for its own sake but as a part ofthe process of making communication asclear and unambiguous as possible to the reader

II Group writing in foreign languages teaching

1 Definition of Group writing.

In 1991, Nunan states that group writing is a term referring to the way theteacher divides the students into groups to accomplish a writing task together

Greenall (1984) suggests that group writing means a kind of cooperationamong members of the class, who are divided into convenient –sized groups forthe purpose of completing a writing task

2 Advantages of using group writing in improving writing skills for high school students.

There are several good reasons for getting students to work in groups thatwere presented by Fries (1945:49)

* Students are more involved

In a whole-class activity, some students often take part in the activitymuch and they work really hard while others pay less or no attention to thewriting task The teacher cannot monitor all the students at the same time Tosolve this problem, it is necessary for the teacher to divide class into smallgroups Working in groups encourages students to be more involved and toconcentrate on the task Since all members have to make equal contribution tothe work of groups, there is no time and no chance for lazy students to relax.Group writing also enables the students to invest much on the task Generally,group writing promotes students’ responsibility and autonomy.

* Students help each other

When the students work individually or in pairs, many problems willarise They may make mistakes because of using wrong grammatical structures,spelling or unsuitable word choices However, they can not realize bythemselves Writing skill requires much accuracy in these factors One of themost appropriate solutions to these problems is using group writing The reasonfor this is that members of the group can show mistakes and provide each otherwith corrective feedbacks Therefore, all students will learn from each other’smistakes Another reason is that idea and knowledge using to do each writingtask seems to flow best when they are exchanged Students in small groups havemore opportunities to share or fulfill their opinions of the given writing topics ortasks

* The teacher has more time to satisfy students’ requirements

In classroom the teacher often acts as an instructor- controller andcorrector However, while all members are working in their groups, it frees theteacher from her usual roles and she now freely goes around the class, observingthe performance of individual students, giving help when needed What’s more,the teacher can also become a member in any group to help activity go smoothly

in cases it gets into difficulty

3 Disadvantages of using group writing in improving writing skills for high school students.

Besides advantages of group writing, Fries also stated three problemsarising when students work in groups as follows

* Students tend to use their mother tongue

It is due to the fact that while all students are writing in small groups,some students often have difficulty expressing their ideas; they are unable orunwilling to do activities in English or their groups get stuck Others are notunder the observation of the teacher As a result, they will lapse into their nativelanguage easily.

The teacher should quickly realize this problem and try to find solutions

as soon as possible Students have to be explained and clearly understood thatgroup writing time enables them to practice using the target languageeffectively

* Students are easy to make noise

It is unavoidable that students in groups will make noise easily becausethey have chance to express their opinions for the writing task freely Inaddition, when students are not under teacher’s eyes, they may chat together andnot concentrate on the task This causes lost of noise Good noise only appears

in circumstances when some students try to talk more loudly than others to showtheir ability and knowledge or to draw the teacher’s notice

* The teacher is difficult to control all groups at once

Working in groups requires all members to pay attention to the task.Nevertheless, when the teacher is explaining for some groups or devoting a littlemore time to slower students, the teacher can not know exactly what othergroups are doing Some students will be out of order What should the teacher

do with a group that finishes the task early or with students who will not takepart in activities in English? These cases prevent the teacher much fromcontrolling the whole class Monitoring the class to work in groups successfully

is not easy for the teacher

4 How to organize group work

Random groups can be set up by seating arrangement, serial numbelsgiven by theschool, counting off, using playing cards, giving out numbered

pieces of paper, distributingcards with different categories on them and lettingstudents group themselves according tothe category Random grouping issuitable for competitive review activities that do not take a longtime It can helpnarrow the gap between the fast and slow students in the class.

b Student- selected grouping

Student-selected grouping is probably the most preferred option bylearners Students often cluster with good friends Students are more likely toparticipate in activitiesif they feel they are among friends When engaging ingroup work, learners feel morecomfortable taking risks, making mistakes, andenjoying themselves However, this runs the risk that groups will socialize toomuch and creates a situation where an "outsider" who joins this group may feelleft out Also, it is possible that strongerlearners would assume the share of workfor weaker ones

c Teacher- formed grouping

Teacher- formed grouping is acknowledged by most teachers as requiringthe mostamount of careful planning When forming groups teachers take intoaccount students'prior achievements, level of preparation, work habits, learningpreferences and so forth

Teacher- selected groups usually aim to achieve a heterogeneous mix.Such a mixpromotes peer tutoring, helps to break down barriers among differenttype's of students, andencourages on- task behavior

4.2 Group size

Size affects various aspects of group behavior and group functioning insome ways.The group size depends on the task type, the time available, and howskillful the groupmembers are.How big should groups be?The smaller the group,the more each member does and the less chance there is thatsomeone will be leftout

If time is short, smallergroups can usually do an activity morequickly.Smaller groups also require few group management skills Thus, whenstartingwith cooperative learning, groups of two or three may be best On theother hand, thesmaller the groups, the more groups there are, so the teacher hasmore monitoring to do,and the less practical it is to have groups reporting back

10 the class

Four-member group is suggested by Honeyfield (1991), I-lung, (2004),Ngoh (1991) Four members in a group might lead to more interesting and

challenging tasks, with a widerange of opinions being expressed, and morenegotiation required for the group members toreach agreement Six should bethe maximum number of participants in most small groups(Honeyfield, 1991; I-lung, 2004).

5 Using group writing in the classroom

Writing is seen as a process that comprises 3 stages: pre writing, while writing and post - writing

-5.1 Group work in Pre - writing stage

Prewriting activities are necessary for students because it helps studentsprepare ideas, materials and helps them explore many things on the given topic

In this stage students are often asked to brainstorm, outline, debate andinterview, it requires students take part in either oral or written activities Bydoing this, students can develop linguistic skills Group work in this stage is aneffective way to assist students in generating, sharing and focusing ideas,planning the content and organizing the text

5.2 Group work in While - writing stage

It is common that students often perform this stage individually.However, group work can be useful in which each member is responsible for acertain part in the writing pieces

5.3.Group work in Post - writing stage

This stage involves the procedures of giving feedbacks for the writtenversion Feedbacks may be given by peers which can be done in groups or byteacher Peer correction is very important because it could help students developtheir critical ability and understand how other readers respond to their writing

III Setting of the study

1 Description of the teaching and learning English at Ba Đình high school.

2 Description of English textbook 10 and writing lessons

The textbook 10 was compiled following the communicative approach in

whichcommunicative competence is emphasized The formation anddevelopment ofcommunicative skills are the most important objectives inteaching and learning.Therefore, the structure of each unit focuses on four skills:reading, speaking, listeningand writing Language knowledge such as phonetics,vocabulary and grammar areconsidered the means and condition to form andimprove communicative ability