Nâng cao kỹ năng viết tiếng anh cho học sinh lớp 11 trường THPT hoàng văn thụ năm học 2018 2019 dựa vào các phương pháp dạy học theo đề án

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES TRINH THU HUYEN “ENHANCING GRADE 11 STUDENTS’ ENGLISH WRITING SKILL TEACHING TECHNIQUES FOR PROJECT-BASED LEAENING AT HOANG VAN THU S

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

TRINH THU HUYEN

“ENHANCING GRADE 11 STUDENTS’ ENGLISH WRITING SKILL TEACHING TECHNIQUES FOR PROJECT-BASED LEAENING AT

HOANG VAN THU SCHOOL, SCHOOL YEAR 2018-2019

(NĂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG VIẾT TIẾNG ANH CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 11 – TRƯỜNG THPT HOÀNG VĂN THỤ NĂM HỌC 2018-2019 DỰA

VÀO CÁC PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC THEO ĐỀ ÁN)

M.A THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201

THAI NGUYEN – 2019

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

TRINH THU HUYEN

“ENHANCING GRADE 11 STUDENTS’ ENGLISH WRITING SKILL TEACHING TECHNIQUES FOR PROJECT-BASED LEAENING AT

HOANG VAN THU SCHOOL, SCHOOL YEAR 2018-2019

(NĂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG VIẾT TIẾNG ANH CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 11 – TRƯỜNG THPT HOÀNG VĂN THỤ NĂM HỌC 2018-2019 DỰA

VÀO CÁC PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC THEO ĐỀ ÁN)

THE CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT

I hereby declare that this graduation project is based on my own original work except for quotations and citation that have been duly acknowledged I also declare that it has not been previously submitted for any other courses/degrees at Thai Nguyen University or other institutions

Thái Nguyên, ngày tháng năm 2019

Trịnh Thu Huyền

Supervisor

Dr Cao Duy Trinh

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was the result of my hard work with the great support of many people I want to express my hearty gratitude and appreciation to my supervisor – PhD Cao Duy Trinh, who has devotedly taught me a lot and helped me widen my knowledge Without his instruction and guidance, I could not have completed my thesis.

I would like to give a big thanks to all of my colleagues who have helped and supported me a lot during the time I did this thesis They were a big contribution to complete observation sheet and other tests also

Last but not least, I cannot look over my family who were my biggest motivation and inspiration to take part in this master course Without them, I cannot finish the thesis so well

ABSTRACT

Writing, in any language, is a fundamental skill of communication At the same time, it is one of the main channels to transmit culture from generation to generation Like speaking, you always have several ways to express the same idea, from writing a simple note in a piece of paper to composing a literary work which demands a good command of the language Accordingly, the purpose of this research is to investigate the effectiveness of the project-based teaching techniques to enhance the students’ English writing skills at Grade 11, Hoang Van Thu high school It was found then that the various actions and the use of project-based learning technique could improve students’ writing abilities, particularly in the hortatory exposition text Hence, the research also made some recommendations and suggestions for applying the project-based methods to improve English writing skill of the students.The research is carried out based on a descriptive quantitative study

TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION Error! Bookmark not defined

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 4

ABSTRACT 5

PART A: INTRODUCTION 8

1 Research topic area 8

2 The study context 8

3 Focus of the study 9

4 Significance of the study 10

5 Structure of the study 10

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 12

CHAPTER 1: LITERATUREREVIEW 12

1.1 Definition of writing 12

1.2 The teaching of English writing 13

1.3 The project – based learning 14

1.3.1 Definition of the project-based learning 14

1.3.2 The Steps of Conducting Project-Based 16

1.4 Relevant studies 18

1.5 Conceptual framework 18

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 21

2.1 Methodology choice 21

2.2 Field site and participants 21

2.3 Data collection method 22

2.4 Data analysis 23

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 25

3.1 Research implementation 25

3.1.1 Conducting the writing test 25

3.1.2 Applying project-based learning into the writing lessons 28

3.2 Research results and findings 35

3.2.1 Results and findings on applying PBL 35

3.2.2 Results and findings on testing and surveying 38

3.3 Discussion 42

PART 3: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS 44

1 Summary of the key findings 44

2 Pedagogical implication of the study 46

3 Limitation of the study 47

REFERENCES 49

APPENDIXES 50

APPENDIX 1: PRE-QUESTIONNAIRE 50

APPENDIX 2: POST-QUESTIONNAIRE 53

APPENDIX 3: PRE-TEST 57 APPENDIX 4: POST-TEST Error! Bookmark not defined APPENDIX 5: THE LESSONS PRACTICED WITH CLA Error! Bookmark

not defined

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Among the four English learning skills namely speaking, listening, reading and writing, there are many reasons for writing to be the last acquired domain of learning English, one being that a more detailed and analyzed knowledge of a language is needed to write than to understand (Bialystok & Bryan, 1985) In addition to this, it is challenging for students to write English like a native due to their various knowledge background In oral communication, they can understand the partner through gestures and appearance However, in writing they may fail to express their ideas clearly because of the limitation in vocabulary To become a writing expert, it is necessary for students to spend much timepracticing more and more However, these opportunities seem to be rare with them

Besides, Kasper &Petrello (1998) also added that teachers’ responses tend to be negative because they were too familiar with the expectation of failures, which resulted in their students’ difficulties in writing English The issue can be explained by two main causes First, students often think of writing as a translating activity when being asked to write about a specific topic (Fu-Lan, 2006) Second, they tend to focus more on mistakes in spelling and grammar than writing the contents (Elias et al., 2005) These factors prevent the students’ writing from coming to the success as a real English native writer Hence, regarding the students’ difficulties in English writing, the study investigates the application of project-based teaching techniques in enhancing their English writing skills

2 The study context

Writing is essentially required for communication to connect people, regardless of time and spaces Although the importance of mastering skill is clear, in fact, students’ writing skill is far from perfection However, as

previously stated, writing is the most difficult language skill for the students, which is evident in their scores and their classroom performances Living in a text-oriented society, all students need to be proficient writers, but achieving this goal is particularly daunting students who are learning English as their second language Due to this universal area of weakness for Vietnam students, this research project has been designed to discover and implement effective strategies that will improve the English writing skills of grade 11thstudents through the project-based teaching techniques at Hoang Van Thu high school in the school year 2018 - 2019

3 Focus of the study

Writing can be considered as the most difficult skill to be mastered by the second language learners due to the problems occurring in the process of teaching and learning English skills in classroom Throughout the researching, the use of project-based learning was able to improve the students’ writing skill at grade 11, Hoang Van Thu high school, school year 2018-2019 In specific, the research aims to fulfillthe following objectives:

 To investigate the situation of grade 11th students’ English writing skillsat Hoang Van Thu high school in the school year 2018-2019;

 To identify the effectiveness of the project-based teaching techniques at Hoang Van Thuhigh school in the school year 2018-2019;

 To propose the recommendation and suggestion for enhancing the students’ English writing skills at Grade 11, Hoang Van Thu high school

In order to achieve the above objectives, this study needs to answer the following research question:

What are the problems with theEnglish writing skills for the grade 11thstudents at Hoang Van Thu high school in the school year 2018-2019?

4 Significance of the study

The study means to contribute to the innovation of teaching the writing skills to the students in 11th grade at Hoang Van Thu high school in particular and Vietnam public schools in general It is also expected that the research findings in this study can help the English teachers as well as the administrators at the high schools in evaluating the effectiveness of teaching English writing through project-based teaching techniques for the students’ writing skill improvement It is hoped that this paper will serve as a useful source of reference for other researchers and English teachers whose studies are related to the same topic

However ,the quality of students are not equal, limited time ,lack of decription skill

5 Structure of the study

In this part, the findings of the research will be presented and then will

be discussed

Part 3: Conclusions and implications

In this part, the researcher will summarize the findings of the research After that, the limitation of the research as well as the suggestion for further research will also be included

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATUREREVIEW 1.1 Definition of writing

Generally, language is divided into two major groups of skills, receptive skills and productive skills Receptive skills are skills needed to perceive and understand the language Receptive skills consist of reading and listening Meanwhile, writing and speaking belong to the productive skill of the language, productive skills are skills which enable students to produce language by themselves (Harmer, 2007) On the other hand, productive skills are required for learners to be able to build communication through the language

Writing is a productive skill of the English language which needs to be mastered by the English language learners because writing is a means of communication and is considered as the indicator of communication competence of the target language A good writing skill represents learners’ ability in communicating through English Written language is used to communicate with others who are removed in time and space (Nunan, 1999)

Furthermore, Harmer (2004) states that writing is the only skill which enables learner to produce a real product, in which the product is touchable, readable, as well as keepable for a long period of time Written language can

be re-read again in accordance with what the readers need According to Nunan (1999), people also need permanent records which could be referred to over and over again Furthermore, written language tends to be more exact and precise rather than spoken language Therefore, it will not cause any confusion, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation to the readers

Other than that, writing can be defined a learning process which involves critical thinking to convey one’s ideas and thoughts It is also an action or a

process of discovering and organizing ideas into a paper as well as reshaping and revising It is something which can be learnt through Oates (2000) claims that writing is a unique way of learning since writing is integrative, requiring the active participation of both the right and left hemispheres of the brain, resulting in the production of meaning

Therefore, it can be concluded that writing is a productive of a language which requires critical thinking process and is used as a means of communication to aspire someone’s thoughts English learners can learn writing in order to be able to be a good writer as well as convey and express their ideas as it is a learning process

1.2 The teaching of English writing

It is very prominent for students to be taught about writing skill Teaching writing to students is significant because it can reinforce students’ language acquisition, support students’ language and learning development, and help students to master the basic skills of language (Harmer, 1998)

According to Nunan (1999), there are two basic approaches underlying the teaching of writing They are product-oriented approach and process-oriented approach The very first approach, that is product-oriented approaches, concerns on the result or the final product of students’ writing, the coherent, and the error-free text Meanwhile, the process-oriented approach focuses on the steps involved in drafting and redrafting a piece of work

The teaching of writing for many years concerns more on the writing product than the writing process, in which this is called as product approach (Harmer, 2007) As cited from Brown (2001), a half century ago, the teaching

of writing is emphasized more on the final product, such as the essay, the report, the story, and what that product should be like However, the teacher needs to pay attention more on the writing process as students will not only

concern about what text they can produce but also how to construct a writing text Students will have to focus on both the process of making the text and the final product of their writing

Regarding with this issue, Harmer (2007) proposes some strategies which can be considered by teachers in dealing with the teaching of writing:

 The way the teacher gets students to plan: Before starting to write, the teacher may support students to think about what they want to write The teacher can help students in building their knowledge before they start writing

 The way the teacher encourages students to draft, reflect, and revise: The teacher can involve students to collaborative writing activity as it allows students to draft, reflect, and revise This way enables students to respond to other students’ writing

 The way the teacher responds to students’ writing: At this point, the teacher can help students by giving suggestions to students’ draft Teacher’s suggestion can be very useful to make some betterment in students’ writing Other than the teacher’s feedback, peer response is one alternative to give some suggestions to students’ writing

1.3 The project – based learning

1.3.1 Definition of the project-based learning

Project-based learning is a learning method which is not new in the field

of English as a Second Language and is thought to be relevant with the teaching and learning of English in the 21st century Poonpon (2011) states that project-based learning is suitable with the English teaching and learning need as project-based learning is an instructional approach that contextualizes learning by presenting learners with problems to solve or product to develop Furthermore, Solomon (2003) emphasizes that project-based learning focuses

on learning through student-centered, interdisciplinary, and integrated activities in real world situations

In project-based learning, students are responsible fully for their own learning They work collaboratively to solve problems Project-based learning concerns on the learning activity based on real world problems and challenges that require students to work as a team through meaningful activities and result in a final product, Simpson (2011) Stoller (2002) adds that project work is a part of cooperative learning It allows students to work on their own, in a small group, or as a whole-class Throughout the process, the students share their ideas, resources, and expertise

Project based learning helps students to inquire Students drive their own learning through inquiry, as well as work collaboratively to create projects that reflect their knowledge (Bell, 2010) Moreover, project-based learning fosters students to critical thinking It causes students to get engaged in critical thinking in order to construct their own meaning by applying what they learn (Krauss and Boss, 2013)

In addition, according to Phillips et al (1999), project-based learning consists of recognizable units of work with a beginning, middle, and end which are linked to form a tangible final-product in which the students can gain a real sense of achievement Project-based learning is an individual or group activity which is done within the determined time line, resulting in a product, presentation, or performance

Based on the theories defined by the experts above, it can be inferred that project-based learning is a teaching technique in which students are given

a problem or challenge as means of gaining new knowledge or skills based learning is a student-center approach as it requires students to be an active learner and gives them a chance to explore knowledge and skills through the given project It engages students to critical thinking and also

Project-enables students to work cooperatively with others The term of technique is used throughout this thesis because technique is the specific activities manifested in the teaching and learning process in the classroom to realize the learning objective (Brown, 2001)

1.3.2 The steps of conducting project-based learning

Project-based learning has a procedure to follow in order to help the teacher to develop the project as well as to guide students with the project that they take The procedure consists of the phases on how to implement project-based learning and functions as the foundation to carry out the project-based learning process in the classroom There are different steps in developing the project-based learning which are proposed by the researchers, education practitioners and higher institutions, such as Stoller (2002) and Krauss and Boss (2013)

Nevertheless, the steps of project development proposed by The George Lucas Educational Foundation seem to be the most effective and appropriate procedure to be implemented in this research For that reason, the researcher decided to employ this procedure in conducting her research The procedures are explained as follows:

 To start with the essential questions:

At this phase, the teacher starts the teaching and learning process by giving students essential questions The questions need to be the ones which engage the students and relevant to the goals that the students must achieve during the project development The questions must be in relation to the knowledge that the students must construct and the topic must fit to their proficiency level It ought to be related with students’ daily life

 To design a plan for the project:

The design of a plan for the project involves not only the teacher but also the students In designing the plan for the project, the teacher gives students

chance to participate by sharing their ideas on the projects which they are about to work on in order to make the project meet with the students’ interest, capability, and expectation The design of plan for the project includes the explanation about the rules of the project development, the selection of the materials, the activities leading to the project accomplishment, and the tools needed for the project

 To create a schedule:

At this stage, the teacher and students discuss about the time allocation

of working on the project The teacher and students make an agreement /about the deadline of the project development in which the students must submit their end product

 To monitor the students and the progress of the project:

Monitoring students’ progress on the project is the most crucial stage of project development It is very prominent since the success of project accomplishment is determined by how good the students do their project Moreover, it is at this stage in which the teacher is required to play the role as

a monitor The teacher is responsible to facilitate the learning process, to guide the students during the project development, to help students when they find difficulties, and to ensure that the student is involved in the project

 To assess the outcome:

After the students turn in their end product, the teacher conducts assessment to measure the students’ achievement It can be product-oriented

or process-oriented The teacher also provides students with feedback at this phase Assessing the outcome helps teacher in designing instruction to teach more effectively

 To evaluate the experience:

This is the last stage of project development where the teacher and students reflect on the project they have done At this stage, the teacher needs

to make sure that the students are able to find answers of essential question The teacher and students share their experience of conducting the project and discuss about the projects, what needs change and improvement for the following project, as well as share ideas on the new projects

1.4 Relevant studies

There are several studies related to project-based learning to improve students’ writing skills One of the researchers who conducted the research about project-based learning and writing is Bell (2010) The research investigated the implementation of project-based learning in teaching writing through collaborative classroom action research The subjects of his research were junior high school students The study was conducted because he found out that the students’ writing ability was far from being satisfactory, particularly in writing descriptive text Based on the research, it is found that project-based learning could effectively improve students’ writing skill

The other relevant research study about the implementation of based learning is a study conducted by KornwipaPonpoon (2011) The researcher conducted the research in an English course at a Thai university in

project-2009 to find out about students’ opinions towards the implementation of project-based learning in English language class and how project-based learning could enhance their four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) The findings show that by using an interdisciplinary-based project, most students thought that the interdisciplinary-based project should

be retained in the English course because it was appropriate and useful for them Furthermore, it is stated that through the use of the project-based learning, students’ English skills were successfully enhanced

1.5 Conceptual framework

Writing is one of English productive skills which should be mastered by the English language learners Students’ achievement in learning English can

be seen from their mastery of English productive skills, especially the writing performance Hence, it is very important for students to master writing skill Although writing skill has undoubtedly-significant role, students’ writing skill is still far from being satisfactory Most students still find it hard to find ideas to start their writing Other than that, students often fail to choose the appropriate vocabulary for their writing Furthermore, it is also confusing for students to organize the ideas and details for their writing In addition, students’ grammar mastery can be said as low since most of them cannot use the right form of grammar Some cannot differentiate when to use present tense or past tense

This situation gets even worse because students have bad attitude towards learning They are not motivated to learn further about English Therefore, to overcome this situation, the use of teaching technique which can prompt students to writing is needed One of the teaching techniques which can be used to improve students’ writing skill is project-based learning technique Project based learning technique is good to improve students’ writing skill due to some reasons

Project-based learning technique is very useful in engaging students to writing activities The projects given by teachers help prompting students to start and gather ideas for their writing Project-based learning generates students’ interest to the projects or challenges the students should fulfil Based on projects that they work on, students can find ideas to contribute in their writing product

Moreover, the projects can make students interested and motivated towards writing Project-based learning technique is a way of learning in which it requires students to actively participated and involved in the teaching and learning process Through the given projects, students are stimulated to writing

Furthermore, project-based learning is beneficial to help students understand the subject better Project-based learning requires students to experiment and explore with the projects It helps students to be an active and creative learner as well as supports students to be a critical thinker

To conclude, writing is an important skill which needs to be mastered by students Since the students have not met the requirements needed for a good writing, using project-based learning as a way to improve students’ writing might be very helpful Project-based learning helps engaging students 40 to writing activities, motivating students, making students to understand the subject well, and training students to be critical, creative and active thinkers

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Methodology choice

The research is carried out based on a descriptive quantitative study The descriptive study aimed to describe the data and characteristic about what is being studied The quantitative method, including a writing comprehension test, a brief report about the participants’ background as well as a questionnaire, is used The writing test was deployed to measure the participants’ English writing ability to clarify them in terms of the strategies that they used The brief report of the participants’ background information aims to find out the participants’ prior experience with writing course and their learning attitude toward writing classes In addition to that, the questionnaire is adapted to investigate the situation of teaching English writing, and the impacts of project-based teaching techniques on the students’ English writing skills After data collection, Statistics Package for the Social Science (SPSS) will be used to compute the data analyses of the study

2.2 Field site and participants

This study is about how to improve writing skill for students in grade 11

of Hoang Van Thu high school, dealing with vocabulary, grammar and writing organization Thus, the study does not investigate the speaking, reading or listening skills The main reason for choosing the school as field site is that it is where I was working and therefore, I could understand about it and conduct my research easily In addition to this, it was more convenient for

me in gathering data during the research process

The survey was conducted with a group of 80 students in grade 11, including class 11A1 (35 students) and class 11A2 (45 students) The students under survey have learned English for three semesters (4 hours for English learning per week) The tests were carried out in October, 2018 The subjects are chosen for the following reasons: at the time of survey they are learning

English writing with project-based teaching methods and have just started the first semesters in their high school, studying and practicing writing through these methods Therefore, to some extent, they have been already aware of the techniques in learning English writing However, their responses are mainly based on the experiences that they accumulated through the lessons they have the teachers applied project-based teaching techniques on writing lessons in class 11A1, while they still maintained the traditional teaching method in class 11A2 After that, the author conducted survey with students in each of class, then compared the results between two classes Based on that, the author could draw the findings on the situations of teaching English writing in grade 11 at Hoang Van Thu High School, along with the effects of applying project-based methods in teaching English writing among these students

In my experience I group ss into small group according to their ability on purpose To make sure that working effectively I point the leader who is the biggest responsibility good leader skill,good knowledge to lead the group acess all group member Some time I choose randomly

2.3 Data collection method

As stated in above, quantitative data was collected for conducting the research, with the purpose to investigate the situation of teaching English writing for 11th students at Hoang Van Thu high school, as well as assess the effectiveness of project-based teaching methods with the improvement of 11thstudents’ English writing skill Quantitative data collection methods rely on random sampling and structured data collection instruments that fit diverse experiences into predetermined response categories They produce results that are easy to summarize, compare, and generalize Quantitative research is concerned with testing hypotheses derived from theory and/or being able to estimate the size of a phenomenon of interest Depending on the research question, participants may be randomly assigned to different treatments If

this is not feasible, the researcher might collect data on participant and situational characteristics in order to statistically control for their influence on the dependent, or outcome, variable If the intent is to generalize from the research participants to a larger population, the researcher would employ probability sampling to select participants

In this study, questionnaires were used, which often make use of checklist and rating scales These devices help simplify and quantify people's behaviors and attitudes A checklist is a list of behaviors, characteristics, or other entities the researcher is looking for Either the researcher or survey participant simply checks whether each item on the list is observed, present or true or vice versa A rating scale is more useful when a behavior needs to be evaluated on a continuum, which is also known as Likert scales

2.4Data analysis

After data collection, the author will conduct analyze these data through the software on PC to draw the results and findings on the research problem There is no question that business, education, and all fields of science have come to rely heavily on the computer This dependence has become so great that it is no longer possible to understand social and health science research without substantial knowledge of statistics and without at least some rudimentary understanding of statistical software In this study the author chooses to work with SPSS, or the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences SPSS was chosen because of its popularity within both academic and business circles, making it the most widely used package of its type SPSS is also a versatile package that allows many different types of analyses, data transformations, and forms of output - in short, it will more than adequately serve our purposes The SPSS software package is continually being updated and improved, and so with each major revision comes a new version of that

package Thus, in order to use this text for data analysis, the author has to access to the SPSS for Windows 14.0 software package

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 Research implementation

3.1.1 Conducting the writing test

First of all, it is necessary for the researchers to investigate the situation

of English writing skills of the 11th grade students in Hoang Van Thu high school Accordingly, a 30-minute writing test was conducted in October, 2018 among the students in class 11A1 and 11A2 Specifically, the main contents

of this test would cover knowledge of the writing lessons taught in the first three weeks of the school year 2018-2019 Another writing test with the same contents would be also conducted after finishing the project to identify the improvement of these students after learning English writing with PBL It consists of two exercises: rewriting the sentences and a passage on a given topic, which are presented in the followings:

Hoang Van Thu High

Question 1: Rewrite the sentences, using the words given in brackets

(Viếtlạicâu, sửdụngcáctừchosẵntrongngoặc.)

1 They set out of the car (The police watched)

2 They allowed him to write a letter to his wife (They let)

3 They talked in the next room (I heard)

4 The customs officer told him to open the briefcase (The customs officer made)

5 The cat jumped through the window (The boy saw)

6 Maybe the company will ask him to pay some extra money (Do you think the company will make)

7 The animal moved towards me I felt it (I felt)

8 She wants to go for a picnic (Do you think her parents will let)

ANSWER KEYS:

1 The police watched them set out of the car

2 They let him write a letter to his wife

3 I heard them talk in the next room

4 The customs officer made him open the briefcase

5 The boy saw the cat jump through the window

6 Do you think the company will make him pay some extra money?

7 I felt the animal move towards me

8 Do you think her parents will let her go for a picnic?

The Republic of Indonesia

a Area and Population: Indonesia is comprised of about 17,508 islands It covers a land area of 1,904,569 km2 With a population of over 237 million people, Indonesia is the world's fourth most populous country The capital city is Jakarta and the official language is Indonesian

b Economy: The country has the largest economy in Southeast Asia Tourism plays a big role in its economy In 2013 the tourist sector contributed about US$9 billion Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, China, and Japan were in the top five countries with visitors to Indonesia

c Sports: Sports in Indonesia are generally male-orientated The most popular sports are badminton and football Traditional sports include SepakTakraw and Pencak Silat

d Culture: Indonesia is a widely diverse nation with over 300 ethnic groups Indonesia is influenced by Chinese, European, Indian and Malay cultures The influence of Western culture is mainly seen in science, technology, and modern entertainment

e Tourist attractions: Indonesia is famous for its islands and beautiful views The beaches of Bali and Lombok, and the wonderful islands of Java, Sumatra, and Kalimantan are popular destinations Besides that, there are many tourist attractions such as museums, monuments, and gardens in the capital city

TIME ALLOCATION: 30 MINUTES

During the exam, students mustn’t use any materials or textbooks and the supervisors have no explaination The two researcher’s colleagues, who are also the current English teachers in 11th grade of Hoang Van Thu school, would be responsible for supervising examinees in class 11A1 and 11A2, and

collected the students’ paper after finishing the test Along with the author, they would also mark the scores and recorded the test result in the researcher’s observation sheets Based on these results, the author can evaluate the current writing level of 11th students in Hoang Van Thu high school and draw the findings on the traditional teaching method which is currently applied

3.1.2 Applying project-based learning into the writing lessons

After finding out the current situation of English writing level among

11th students, the researcher and her supporters would design the writing lessons with the application of project – based learning methods As mentioned in above, class 11A1 was selected for the PBL method, while class 11A2 would still be teach with the traditional approach During the lessons, the researcher acted the English teacher in class 11A1 and she was accompanied by her colleague as the collaborator who became the observers Before the English lesson, the researcher gave the observer an observation checklist Accordingly, in these lessons, while the researcher implemented the action, the observer would take notes in the back of the classroom to observe the teaching and learning process In specific, PLB was applied in three English lessons, which are detailed in the followings:

3.1.2.1 The first lesson

The class was begun by saying greeting Then, the researcher checked the students‟ attendance in which students responded that everyone was present Before entering the main material on that day, the researcher explained to the students about the lesson topic

Phase 1: To start with essential questions

The lesson started with the researcher showing some pictures about people and environments She asked the students what the pictures were

about Some students kept silence, while the others answered quietly She asked one of them by taking turns to tell their opinion about the picture It was followed by asking whether the actions in the pictures should or should not be done by the people The researcher occasionally asked why such things should not be done and asked the students to share their opinions on how to solve the problems This was the introduction to give the students background knowledge After that, the students were given a list of situations and advices

in which the students were required to match the situation with the suitable advices which was in relation to whether something should or should not be done by people Then, the students were asked to read aloud their answers

Phase 2: To design the plan for the project

In this stage, the researcher told students that they were about to do a project work The researcher and the students made an agreement on what kind of project work to do and when to submit the project work The project work was about making a poster related to global warming Then, the researcher gave an example of the project to the students The researcher provided the students with the tools needed for the project, such as the papers with the picture of global warming and some markers The students were required to work together in a group of four As the drawing of global warming had been given to them, the students needed to put some notes and decorate it to make a poster The time schedule for this project is total 30 minutes, including 10 minutes for making the poster

Along with the poster, the students were asked to make an outline of hortatory exposition text based on the project that they did Still, the students ought to do the writing within the group so that they could share information and help one another with the writing The researcher told them that they could use their electronic dictionary to help them write However, they were not allowed to translate all the sentences at one because it would not help