Discourse competence in teaching writing skill to grade 10 students

The scope of this document is, therefore, within the writing lessons in 16 units of textbook English 10.Namely, the document has three parts: - A brief review of discourse competence.. -

THANH HOA EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEPARTMENT

HOANG HOA 2 HIGH SCHOOL

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION……… 2

PART I DISCOURSE COMPETENCE: DEFINITIONS AND IMPORTANT ISSUES 4 1 Discourse competence……… 4

2 Cohesion and Coherence 4

3 Text……… 5

4 Genre……… 5

PART II WRITING SKILL IN ENGLISH 10 TEXTBOOK 6 1 Course requirements……… 6

2 Suggested preparations……… 7

2.1 Unit 1 Writing a narrative……… 8

2.2 Unit 2: Filling in a form……… 8

2.3 Unit 3 Writing about people's background……… 9

2.4 Unit 4 Writing a letter of complaint……… 9

2.5 Unit 5 Writing a set of instructions……… 11

2.6 Unit 6 Writing a confirmation letter……… 11

2.7 Unit 7 Writing about advantages and disadvantages of the mass media………

12 2.8 Unit 8 Writing an informal letter: giving directions 12 2.9 Unit 9 Describing information from a table……… 13

2.10 Unit 10 Writing a letter of invitation……… 13

2.11 Unit 11 Witing a letter of acceptance or refusal……… 14

2.12 Unit 12 Writing a profile……… 15

2.13 Unit 13 Describing a film ( Model Lesson Plan)………… 15

2.14 Unit 14 Writing an announcement……… 15

2.15 Unit 16 Describing a chart……… 15

PART III A MODEL LESSON PLAN 17

III.1 Writing lesson plan: UNIT 13 FILMS AND CINEMA 17

III.2 The results of the lesson plan 20

INTRODUCTION

Since 2006 the new set of English textbooks has been used on the national scale.The aim of the teaching and learning of English in secondary schools inVietnam is to enable students to use English as a means of communication atbasic level in listening, speaking, reading, and writing

Among the four skills, productive skills speaking and writing, especiallywriting are regarded as the most difficult It is easily understood because toproduce a perfect piece of writing, even in their mother tongue, learners meetwith a number of challenges: ideas, word use, genre, register, format, spelling,etc Such difficulties or problems in writing could be solved if the writerowns a good textual or discourse competence Therefore, discourse competence

is closely connected with writing lessons, and teaching writing is equivalent todeveloping discourse competence in learners The problem is: Can teachersdevelop such a competence in learners? The answer to this question involvestwo abilities in the teacher: the first is the teacher himself must own suchdiscourse competence, the second is the teacher must know how to build suchcompetence in his students

Being a teacher of English at a secondary school I am aware that teachingand learning how to write is of great importance and bears a numerouschallenges to both teachers and learners Meanwhile, I am convinced that everyteacher should create the aforementioned abilities for himself so as to improvehis writing lessons During the school year 2020-2021 I have been trying todeal with this challenge in teaching writing I assume that this problem inteaching writing is not merely my own concern In fact, many teachers fromother schools in the province have come up against many difficulties in theirwriting lessons: What is the outline of a profile? What language should be used

in this type of letter? Who can help me with the model writing to thedescription of this chart? It seems clearly that it is advisable for every teacher ofEnglish to search for and have necessary materials to teach writing effectively

Given the aforesaid reasons I am writing this document to share myteaching experience in teaching writing with those who have the same concern

as mine The document discusses and deals with the matters of discoursecompetence and how to teach writing more effectively In the boundary of theschool year 2020 -2021, I only focus on writing lessons in textbook English 10.Speaking lessons in the textbooks 10,11,12 and writing lessons in textbooks11,12 will be dealt with in the coming school years The scope of this document

is, therefore, within the writing lessons in 16 units of textbook English 10.Namely, the document has three parts:

- A brief review of discourse competence This part can be seen as theory as itdeals with all the theoretical matters mentioned in the document

- A detailed examination of writing lessons in textbook English 10 andsuggested preparation for the 16 writing lessons in the textbook

- A model lesson plan and a detailed description of the result of two writinglessons conducted at classes 10B5 and 10B7 (experimental class), Hoang HoaTwo High Secondary School

PART I DISCOURSE COMPETENCE: DEFINITIONS AND

IMPORTANT ISSUES

1 Discourse competence

Textual or discourse competence is an aspect of communicativecompetence which describes the ability to produce unified written or spokendiscourse that shows coherence and cohesion and which conforms to the norms

of different genres (e.g a business letter, a scientific essay etc.) Apart from theability to produce sentences which are grammatically correct and appropriate tothe situation in which they are being used, learners must also be able to producediscourse in which successive sentences are linked through rules of discourse ordiscourse competence (Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching andApplied Linguistics, p.113)

From the definition we can see that discourse competence involves thefollowing matters:

- coherence

- cohesion

- norms of genres

- grammatically correct sentences

- discourse markers or discourse linkers

- rules of discourse

All these matters will appear in each piece of writing whether it is short orlong provided that it serves a communicative purpose Thus, in each writinglesson, the teacher must cover all these issues and help his students to producesuch texts that do not miss any requirements Except for coherence and cohesionwhich are defined the same in every case, the other terms can only be defined in

a particular situation and in a specific lesson

2 Cohesion and Coherence

Cohesion is formal links which exist between sentences, the relationshipsthat cause texts to cohere or stick together “ A text has texture and this is whatdistinguishes it from something that is not a text” (Halliday, MA K & Hasan,

R (1976) Cohesion in English, London: Longman)

Coherence is the familiar and expected relationships in experience which

we use to connect the meaning of utterances, even when those connections arenot explicitly made It is content links, that is semantic or rhetorical relationshipsthat underline texts Coherence is built upon semantic ties in discourse and canobtain on the basic of relevance, the common shared knowledge betweenparticipants in a speech event, and how discourse is structured

3 Text

“Text is a piece of naturally occurring spoken, written, or signeddiscourse identified for purposes of analysis It is often a language unit with a

definable communicative function, such as a conversation, a poster.”(Crystal,1992, 72).

“Text is a stretch of language interpreted formally, without context.” (Cook,

1989, 156)

- The duty of students is to produce texts to serve particular communicativepurposes set in the textbook Therefore , the teacher in charge has to helpstudents to create texts in accordance with the norms identified by therequirements of the particular lessons

4 Genre

In discourse analysis, genre is a particular class of speech events whichare considered by the speech community as being of the same type Examples ofgenres are: prayers, sermons, conversations, songs, speeches, poems, letters, andnovels They have particular and distinctive characteristics

PART II WRITING SKILL IN ENGLISH 10 TEXTBOOK

1 Course requirements

At grade 10, students are expected to use English to write a text of

100-120 words in length on a particular topic or to serve a communicative function

basing on either a model writing or suggestions Examining textbook English

10, we can see that it requires students to produce 16 pieces of writing asfollows:

Unit1 Writing a narrative (Narrative and the past simple, Stages of a

narrative)

- Students are expected to understand the content and the language (the pastsimple tense), the outline of the model narrative

- Students will be able to write a narrative about a hotel fire using prompts

Unit1 Writing a narrative - Students are expected to understand and fill in a

form with such essetial information about themselves as name, age,occupation,nationality, etc

Unit 3 Writing about people's background

- Students are expected to write about a person's background basing on acurriculum vitae

Unit 4 Writing a letter of complaint

- Students are expected to understand the basic outline of a letter of complaint

- Students are expected to write a letter of complaint

Unit 5 Writing a set of instructions (Sequence connectors, Imperative verbs

Unit 6 Writing a confirmation letter

- Students are expected to write a confirmation letter using cues

Unit 7 Writing about advantages and disadvantages of the mass media

- Students will be able to understand the content and the language used to talkabout advantages and disadvantages of television

- Students will be able to write short sentences about advantages anddisadvantages of the mass media

- Students will be able to write a paragraph on advantages and disadvantages of

a type of the mass media

Unit 8 Writing an informal letter: giving directions

- Students are expected to write an informal letter giving directions to a friend

Unit 9 Describing information from a table

- Students will be able to interpret information given in a table and convey theinformation in a paragraph

Unit 10 Writing a letter of invitation

- Students are expected to write an informal letter of invitation basing onsuggested situation.

Unit 11 Witing a letter of acceptance or refusal

- Students are expected to understand the outline of a letter of acceptance orrefusal

- Students will be able to write a letter of acceptance or refusal

Unit 12 Writing a profile

- Students are expected to write about biography of a famous musician

Unit 13 Describing a film

- Students are expected to write about basic content of a film basing onsuggestions

Unit 14 Writing an announcement

- Students are expected to write a short announcement about an event related tosport

Unit 16 Describing a chart

-Students are expected to describe a simple chart

2 Suggested preparations

The textbook designs many tasks with the aim of helping studentsproduce a final product However, teacher has to prepare more materials fortheir students And this is here the teacher's discourse competence acts Theteacher should have the following:

- A perfect model product for each type of writing

- A detailed outline of each type of writing

- Ideas, vocabulary, grammar needed for that particular piece of writing

- Genre, register, style for that particular piece of writing

- Anticipation of matters and questions raised by students

- Clear stages for a particular writing lesson

During the school year of 2020-2021 I have prepared neccessary materials foreach writing lesson The preparations are based on the course requirements, thesuggestions of the textbook and the document on standard knowledge and skillspublished by the MOET Namely:

2.1 Unit 1 Writing a narrative

a Definition and outline:

-Narration is story writing When you write a narrative paragraph or essay, youwrite about events in the order that they happened In other words, you use timeorder to organize your sentences.

-An outline of a narration would be like this:

+ Introduction: Introducing the experience

+ Body: background, events in sequence

+ Conclusion: author's opinion, evaluation of the experience

b Language: the past simple tense, the past continuous, time connectors

c Time order words and phrases:

Words: first, then, next, finally, afterward, meanwhile, etc

Phrases: at first, at exactly 4:00 p.m, after that, after a while, a few minutes later,etc

Then, just as we thought we had only minutes to live, the fire brigade arrived.Firemen fought their way into the room and soon everyone was safely out of thebuilding Luckily, nobody was seriously hurt It was the most frighteningexperience of my life

2.2 Unit 2: Filling in a form

a Definition: An official document containing questions and spaces for

answers

Forms do not usually ask questions, but they ask for information Thay also askyou to do certain things such as write in capital letters, block capitals, sign,delete, put a tick or a cross in a box, etc

b Delete where not applicable: We use a slash to delete the information which

is not applicable to you in a form

c Sample form:

THE OAK TREE SCHOOL OF ENGLISH ENROLMENT FORM

PLEASE WRITE IN CAPITAL LETTERS

First name: QUE

Date of birth: JUNE 12, 1978

Nationality: VIETNAMESE

Language(s): VIETNAMESE, ENGLISH

Address in your country: HOANG HOA, THANH HOA CITY

Occupation: TEACHER

Reason for learning English: Business/Pleasure/Exams/Others

(If others, please specify)

How many hours a day do you want to stay at the school? 5 HOURS

What date do you want to start? JUNE 1, 2021

Delete where not applicable

2.3 Unit 3 Writing about people's background

a Definitions:

- Background is the details of a person's family, education, experience, etc

- Curriculum vitae (CV): a written record of your education and the jobs youhave done, that you send when you are applying for a job

b Language in CV: School attended (name of the school you went to) Exam

passed (name of the exam that you passed) Date from (from what date) Date to(to what date)

c Language in background: the past simple tense and the simple present tense

- Structures: work as a , pass exams in , go to/attend school

d Sample background:

Mr Brown was born on November 12, 1969 (12th November 1969) in Boston

He went to Kensington High School and passed exams in English, French andMathematics He worked in a travel agency from June 1991 to December 1998.And from 1999 to 2002, he worked as a hotel telephonist He likes music anddancing

2.4 Unit 4 Writing a letter of complaint

a Definition:

A formal letter of complaint is written to complaint about a problem which hasarisen (e.g faulty merchendise, rude staff, inaccurate information, etc) It shouldexplain the reasons for the complaint and usually includes asuggestion/request/demand concerning what should be done (e.g refund,compensation, etc)

b Language:

Mild or strong language can be used depending on the writer's feelings and theseriouness of the complaint, but abusive language must never be used

e.g Mild Complaint: I am writing to complaint about a factual error inyesterday's newspaper.

Strong Complaint: I am writing to express my strong dispproval concerning theoffensive behaviour of an employee at your company

c Outline

- Introduction: Paragraph 1: state reason(s) for writing

- Main body: Paragraph(s)2(-3): state complaint(s) with justification

Paragraph(s) 3-(4-5): suggest what should be done

English for Today Center

731 Van Xuan Street

Hanoi-Vietnam

22nd February, 2021Dear Sir,

I am writing to complaint about the poor quality of the service at your center.Everyrhing seems to be worse than what you say in the advertisement

First of all, you say all the teachers at the centre are native speakers, but in factall of them are Vietnamese You also say that there are no more than 20 students

in a class but my class has over 30 students Next, you say we can have booksand cassette tapes free of charge, but in fact, we had to pay for them To makethe matter worse, none of the classrooms are air-conditioned Finally, what Ihate most about your centre is the time Classes not only start late but also finishearly

To solve the problem, I require you to give me a refund Enclosed is a copy ofthe receipt

I look forward to hearing from you and to getting a quick resolution of thisproblem Please contact me at the above address or by phone at (037) 3961465.Yours faithfully,

Le Thi Que

2.5 Unit 5 Writing a set of instructions (Sequence connectors, Imperative

verbs form)

a Definition:

A detailed information on how to do or use something

b Language used in writing instructions

Sequence connectors: first, then, next, until, after that

Imperative verbs form: lift, press, wait

c Sample set of instructions on how to use a TV remote control

If you want to operate a TV with a remote control, you must make sure that thecord is plugged in and the main is turned on

To turn on the TV, press the POWER button

To select a programme, press the PROGRAMME button

To watch VTV1, press button number 1

To watch VTV2, press button number 2

To watch VTV3, press button number 3

To watch VTV4, press button number 4

To adjust the volume, press the VOLUME button up or down

If you do not want to hear the sound, press the MUTE button

To turn off the TV, press the POWER button again

2.6 Unit 6 Writing a confirmation letter

a Definition

A confirmation letter is correspondence that is sent to confirm an oralagreement It can be business or personally ralated It can also confirm areservation, a response to an invitation, receipt of a various iterms or services ormeeting and conference arrangements

+ State the confirmation (Certainly, I will help you )

+ State the convenience (Luckily, I'm having a day off on Sunday, so I'm free inthe afternoon)

+ Confirm time and place (I'll be waiting fou you at at )

- Closing (Love, )

c Language: informal, future tenses

d Sample writing

Dear Lan,

I'm glad to hear that you are having a birthday party on Saturday evening

Certainly, I'll help you to buy two bunches of bananas, three kilos of oranges,ten mangoes and bring them to your house at 7:00p.m on Saturday evening