Students’ perceptions of teachers’ instructional strategies a case of toefl essay writing preparation course

LISTS OF TABLES AND CHARTS Table 1: Learners by age, gender and job Table 2: Learners’ experience in learning English Table 3: Learners’ use of English Table 4: The frequency of using

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ HÒA

STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF TEACHERS’ INTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES – A CASE OF TOEFL

ESSAY WRITING PREPARATION COURSE

( SỰ NHẬN THỨC CỦA SINH VIÊN VỚI PHƯƠNG PHÁP LUYỆN THI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN – NGHIÊN CỨU DẠY VIẾT LUẬN LUYỆN THI TOEFL)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10

HANOI – 2012

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgement

Abstract

List of tables, figures and appendices

Chapter One: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 State of the problem 2

1.3 Aims of the study 3

1.4 Research questions 3

1.5 Scope of the study 4

1.6 Method of the study 4

1.7 Design of the study 4

Chapter Two: Literature Review 2.1 An overview of writing 6

2.1.1 Academic writing and essay writing 7

2.1.2 Place of writing in TOEFL 8

2.2 Major instructional strategy approaches to teaching writing 9

2.2.1 The product approach 10

2.2.2 The process approach 11

2.3 Challenges of teaching and learning TOEFL essay writing 13

2.4 Summary 14

Chapter Three: The Study 3.1 The context of the study 15

3.2 Methodology 16

3.2.1 Participants 16

3.2.2 Instruments 17

3.3 Data collection procedures 18

3.4 Data collection and data analysis 19

Chapter Four: Conclusions 4.1 Summary of the major findings and discussion 36

4.2 Implications 37

4.3 Recommendations and suggestions 38

4.4 Limitations of the study 39

4.5 Suggestions for further studies 39

REFERENCES 40

APPENDICES I

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

1 EFC: English First Certificate

2 ETS: English Test Systems

3 USA: United States of America

4 GRE: Graduate Record Examinations

5 IELTS: International English Language Test Systems

6 SAT: Scholastic Aptitude Test

7 TOEFL: Test of English as Foreign Language

8 TWE: Test of Written English

LISTS OF TABLES AND CHARTS

Table 1: Learners by age, gender and job

Table 2: Learners’ experience in learning English

Table 3: Learners’ use of English

Table 4: The frequency of using instructional strategies by teachers in writing

lessons

Table 5 : The students’ perception of the instructional strategies used by teachers in

terms of their usefulness

Table 6 : The teacher’ perceived value of instructional strategies used in terms of

their usefulness

Table 7: The students’ satisfaction of teachers’ instructional strategies

Chart 1: The frequency of writing TOEFL essay by students

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

In the process of globalization, English plays an important role in enhancing economy, politics, culture and international relations between many countries Therefore, there is a great demand for teaching and learning English in the world as well as in Vietnam In terms of opportunities, nationally, it can be seen that foreign language education policy and accompanying student attitudes and motivation have become crucial issues in the national development of Vietnam and in the personal advancement of individual Vietnamese over the last twenty years Social changes have resulted in foreign language changes, and thus, attitude and job changes When the need for studying abroad has been increasing, the burning question that all interested people have in mind is what demanded to meet this need Owned and administered by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), taken by approximately 600,000 students a year, influences access to or exclusion from colleges and universities in North America

As a matter of fact, in recent years TOEFL has become one of the most popular high-stakes tests which is necessary for getting permission or scholarship to oversea study Therefore, it affects not only what and how English language teachers teach but also what and how students learn (e.g Johnson, Jordan, & Poehner, 2005; Alderson & Wall, 1993) Many learners throughout the world take TOEFL tests annually and experience TWE-Test of Written English included in a TOEFL test Many Vietnamese undergraduate and post-graduated students want to study abroad

or work for foreign companies, so they first need TOEFL report that has been lately introduced to Vietnam TWE is one of the first requirements in any TOEFL test to

be claimed the most difficult and the least interesting part As a result, writing is always the worst skill that is to claim though it is important to write an essay and is the first requirement to apply for a job or a scholarship

Among four skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), there is no doubt that writing provides students chances to express themselves correctly and communicatively To the best of my knowledge, when Equest teachers at my teaching place, Equest, an English center in Ha noi are always interested in teaching writing, especially writing essay and strive to find the best way to help students achieve the highest score in the TOEFL test, their students’ performance in writing test is unsatisfactory, and I would like to understand why the situation as it is That

is the reason why I am going to conduct this research

1.2 State of the problem

English has become popular in learning and teaching over the last decades We have experienced its popularity in many fields of our social life It has become the key for us to integrate into the world, the effective communicative tool to foster the international relations It is not deniable that there have been a lot of positive changes in language teaching in Vietnam and partially thanks to the requirements of international measurements of English using skills, TOEFL, teachers have been helping students improve their English with four skills- speaking, reading, listening and writing Teachers have also been looking for and trying various methods and techniques in teaching English in order to find out the effective ones to help English learners become better In the four skills, writing essay has been considered a difficult and boring subject for both foreign language teachers and students It also takes much time and energy to make progress in this skill Approaches to teaching writing have long been classified by many researchers and applied in many classrooms, modified by many teachers of writing Teaching essay writing is one of these above approaches but to Vietnamese learners, teachers of writing are supposed to three key factors: Motivation, Rhetorical patterns and Coherence It is mainly mentioned that a teaching approach to essay writing for Vietnamese learners focuses on a rhetorical idea development in which teachers guide learners to be

independent to expand the supporting ideas and use specific examples to make ideas persuasive

For the above reasons mentioned reasons, the researcher would like to study TOEFL essay such writing procedure, teacher’s activities in writing lessons to find out students’ opinions on as well as attitudes towards learning and writing TOEFL essays Therefore, the intention in doing this research the researcher will help teachers and students in TOEFL essay courses in some way find appropriate instructional strategies to write a better essay

1.3.Aims of the study

This study is aimed to:

(1) Examine kinds of instructional strategy approach of the teaching of essay writing in TOEFL test used by teachers of writing at EQUEST center

(2) Explore common instructional strategies used by teachers at Equest center to develop students’ essay TOEFL writing skill and students’ attitudes towards those activities

1.5 Scope of the study

The study is focused on only students from the 60 TOEFL score at EQUEST center Because almost all of them have not officially been taught how to write an academic TOEFL essay Yet, the study results cannot be true to all Vietnamese students Thus, my suggestions for essay teaching and learning writing might work well only groups of students at Equest center

1.6 Method of the study

This study is conducted in the combination of quantitative and qualitative method

Data were collected by means of survey questionnaires, and classroom observation The researcher believes that the combination of different methods to collect data could provide more reliable and valid information for analysis Questionnaires of small groups of TOEFL learning students are used to discover their perception of classroom activities used by the teacher in terms of their usefulness and their learning needs and expectations towards teachers Questionnaire and interview with teachers of writing are to explore their common activities used in the way that help their students with TOEFL essay writing skill as well as their perceived value of those activities

1.7 Design of the study

The research consists of four chapters The first chapter presents the rationale, the statement of the problem, the aims, research questions, the scope of the study, research methods as well as the design of the study The second chapter conceptualizes the framework through the discussion of issues and ideas on theories for academic writing, approaches to essay writing teaching, challenges of teaching and learning essay writing The third chapter presents the context of the study and

explains the methodology used in the study including population information, instrumentation, data collection, data procedures, data analysis and findings The last chapter summarizes major findings and discussion, implications, limitations and provides recommendations for further study

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 An overview of writing

Writing is the expression of language in the form of letters, symbols, or words The primary purpose of writing is communication: “Good writing gets your ideas out of your head into the reader's head without losing or distorting those ideas" (Leki 1976:4); "Writing can be said to be the art of performing graphic symbols" (Byrne 1990: 1) or simply writing is like "making marks on a flat surface

of some kind" However, writing is far more complicated process of transforming the material discovered by research inspiration, accident, trial, error or whatever into the message with a decision Writing is also a difficult activity for most people, both in the mother tongue and in a foreign language

From another view of writing, Murray (1978:29) and Perl (1979:43) defined writing as “a creative discovery procedure characterized by the dynamic interplay of content and language: the use of language to explore beyond the

known content.”

Moreover, writing is also defined as a social process by Candlin and Hyland (1999:107) They stated that “Writing is therefore an engagement in a social process, where the production of texts reflects methodologies, arguments and rhetorical strategies constructed to engage colleagues and persuade them of the

claims that are made”

In language teaching, writing is defined as one of the two productive language skills including speaking and writing skill According to Ur (1996),

“most people acquire the spoken language (at least their own mother tongue) intuitively, whereas, the written form is in most cases deliberately taught and

learned” (p.161) He added, “Writing normally requires some form of instruction

It is not a skill that is really picked up by exposure” (p11)

In short, writing is an art that writers want to communicate with certain

groups of audience Essay writing is like academic writing but a special skill that does not spring naturally from an ability to speak a language Thus, essay writing is

a skill in the process of communication and related to other language skills on its own social role

2.1.1 Academic writing and essay writing

Academic writing according to Oshima and Hogue (1991:2) stated that

“Academic writing, as the name implies, is the kind of writing that you are required

to do in college or university It differs from the other kinds of writing (personal, literary, journalistic, business, etc.) In several ways Its differences can be explained

in part by its special audience, tone, and purpose

To make the definition of academic writing clearer, Oshima and Hogue explain the mentioned differences in more detail According to them, in academic writing, the audience plays an important part, as they are the people who will read what have been written, and only when specifying the audience the writers can reach their goal of communicating clearly and effectively Beside the audience, the tone of writing is also a crucial factor Tone reveals the writer’s attitude towards the chosen subject by their choice of words, grammatical structures and the length of sentences The tone of a piece of writing is determined more by its intended audience than its subject matter And the last difference is the purpose of writing In academic writing, the purpose will most often be to explain It may also be to persuade or to convince the audience of the correctness of the writer’s point of view

on a particular issue And the organizational form and style chosen for writing will also be determined by the purpose of a piece of writing

Writing is thought made visible That means insights and ideas that occur to

us when we encounter the raw material of the world-natural phenomena like the behavior of genes, or cultural phenomena, like texts, photographs and artifacts must

be ordered in some way so others can receive them and respond in turn This give

and take is at the heart of the scholarly enterprise, and makes possible that vast conversation known as civilization Like all human ventures, the conventions of the academic essay are both logical and playful Essay writing is like academic writing but a special skill that does not spring naturally from ability to speaking a language

An essay writer has a particular obligation to communicate information that is precise and correct as possible They may vary in expression from discipline to discipline, but any good essay should show us a mind developing a thesis, supporting that thesis with evidence, deftly anticipating objections or counter-arguments, and maintaining the momentum of discovery

2.1.2 The role of writing in TOEFL

Firstly, writing is not only an important form of communication in day life but also an essential skill for students preparing for university study At higher levels of education, it is a key aspect of academic literacy that aspiring scholars pursue as part of socialization in their disciplines Writing for academic purposes, TOEFL writing as an example, is a particularly challenging task for students studying English as a foreign language (EFL) to achieve high score in TOEFL The skills involved are highly complex, while at the same time students’ cultures have their own norms for structure and rhetoric which are not always compatible with the current conventions of academic English As Casanave (2002) points out, academic writing poses a “clueless” challenge because the rules of the

day-to-“game” are almost all implicit (p 19) Of these, textual competence (Bachman, 1990), or the ability to develop and organize ideas in an academically persuasive manner according to “rules of cohesion and rhetorical organization” (p 88) constitutes the most formidable and crucial challenge From our personal experiences as classroom teachers in Vietnam, the author agrees with Hayashi’s (2005) observation that EFL students’ writings more often than not end up lacking a clear logical flow and unity, not to mention a persuasive linear argument

If learning how to produce writing that satisfies academic norms, TOEFL criteria is the problem from a student’s perspective, from a teacher’s perspective this means the challenge is to prepare students with varying English proficiencies and from a non-English cultural and academic background to become flexible writers who can effectively tackle academic writing tasks from a variety of angles Because students are linguistically of mixed abilities, a particular classroom writing task which is motivating and manageable to some can turn out to be daunting or impossible for others It is understandable that teachers of TOEFL classes often complain that “writing is the most problematic skill to teach in such classes” (Hess,

2001, p 77)

In summary, teaching academic writing especially TOEFL writing is necessary for students studying English as a foreign language (EFL) to achieve high score in TOEFL certificate because it “normally requires some form of instruction” and “it is not a skill that is readily picked up by exposure” ( Tribble,1996:11)

2.2 Major instructional strategy approaches to teaching writing

Attempts to teaching writing- since the time when student were merely given

a topic of some kind and asked to produce a composition without further help-have usually focused on some particular problematical aspect of the writing situation Byrne (1990) identified four principle ways of approaching the task, namely: focus

on accuracy; focus on fluency; focus on the text and focus on purpose Raimes (1993) considered three approaches to the teaching of writing: focus on form; focus

on the writer and focus on the readers From these perspectives, there have been three main classroom methodologies: the text-based or traditional approach and the process approach respectively

Although some writing schemes and programs have tended to rely largely or exclusively on one or other of these approaches, in practice most teachers and text book writers have drawn on more than one and have combined and modified them

to suit their purpose In recent years, classroom teaching method has been heavily

influenced by the communicative approach, with its emphasis on task-oriented activities that involves the exchange of information and the free use of language without undue concern for mistakes

2.2.1 The product approach

“The product approach to writing usually involves the presentation of a model text,

which is analyzed and then forms the basis of a task that leads to the writing of an exactly similar or a parallel text” ( Evan and St John, 1998: 116) To be more specific, this approach can be used to refer to the concentration on the features of the actual text- the end- product that writers have to produce that can be summarized in the following sequence:

Model text -> Comprehension / analysis/ manipulation -> new input -> Parallel text

(Robinson, 1991 cited in Evan and St John, 1998)

The product (or model text) approach sees writing as being primarily about linguistic knowledge Attention is given to the appropriate use of vocabulary, syntax and cohesive devices In EFL contexts, it is rooted in Behaviourist theory and requires the learner to manipulate fixed patterns which are learnt by imitation Proponents of the product approach see the composing process as being linear and consisting of four stages which is in line with the teaching structure of Present, Practice and Produce which emerged at around the same time These stages are:

Stage 1: Familiarization-this makes students aware of certain features of a particular text

Stages 2 and 3: Controlled and Guided writing- these stages aim at giving learners guided practice with increasing freedom to help them practice

Stage 4: Free writing-This is where the learners are finally given a free reign and can produce a piece of writing by imitating the sample text

This approach can be used successfully in teaching writing for beginners All learners can not write well as soon as they begin the course but can take progress

step by step with imitation and repetition from the model texts or the teachers Moreover, teachers can impart the knowledge of writing theory including grammatical structures, word choices, cohesive device uses, how to vary the content, how to organize the essay

However, this approach can not avoid some shortcomings Students are passive and less creative All learners’ knowledge of writing skill is based on the teacher, textbook or model texts Using the approach often leads to a simplistic copying of the model text by only changing certain words from the original text to produce a new text, which prevents learners’ creativity and motivation from writing Next, mistakes are corrected during the writing, which to some extent discourages students to write more Most students are worried about mistakes that are considered common in writing for beginners

In brief, the product approach shows its strong points when provide the good base for beginners of writing to lead their writing practice However, if students owe their knowledge and skill of writing to the teacher and model text strictly, they will be very passive and often get shocked in the real official writing test where a new topic or a new kind of essay is introduced

2.2.2 The process approach

This method places emphasis on the cycle of writing, rather than a fixed linear approach such as the earlier Product approach It has much in common with communicative-task based instruction which is currently popular within communicative pedagogy Unlike the Product approach which is more interested in the written outcome, the Process approach focuses on the thinking processes that are involved with writing

According to Flower (1985) , thinking stage helps students to identify the rhetorical problem, plan a solution or series of solutions to the problem and finally conclude appropriately This stage can follow the sequence below:

Generate ideas -> select ideas -> Group ideas - -> Order ideas

In the view of Hedge( 1990), the process contains a lot of stages which can be illustrated as follows: “ being motivated to write- getting ideas together- planning and outlining- making notes- making a first draft- revising, replanning, redrafting- editing and getting ready for publication Meanwhile, according to Oshima and Hogue (1991), the writing process embraces three steps: pre-writing, planning (outlining), writing, and revising drafts (review the draft (either by themselves, with their peers or their teacher)

The process approach itself helps organize the writer’s thoughts White and Arndt (1991, p.12) argue this is because there is a close link between writing and thinking

All these efforts in the process approach to writing see the act of writing from a very different perspective, focusing as much on the means whereby the completed text was created as on the end product itself In many instances the writer starts out with only the vaguest notion of this The ideas are then refined, developed and transformed as the writer writes and rewrites

The process approach concerns itself with individual levels of fluency and expression It is a replacement of an approach that considered written language secondary and merely a mechanism for reinforcing spoken language The finished product is in focus, not the learner The process approach, in contrast, empowered its learners, thereby enabling them to make clearer decisions about the direction of their writing (Jordan 1997) Clenton (2003) states in the same vein "It is no longer required to offer a shining example of the model; the teacher becomes a facilitator

in providing formative feedback during the process of each student's composition Correspondingly, this approach encourages students to assume greater responsibility for making their own improvements, as opposed to the miming of a pre-determined model."

In short, the process approach encourages student’s activity and motivation

in writing It is a learner-centered approach that stimulates students to play an active role and the teacher works as an observer However, beginners of writing skill need

help and guidance from the teacher This procedure is good for class practice but students are still encouraged to write on their own and get feedback from their teacher for mistake corrections

2.3 Challenges in applying major instructional strategy approaches in teaching TOEFL essay writing

Firstly, the product approach still has some strong points that can be applied

in teaching TOEFL essay writing This means teacher’s guidance and knowledge of writing theory is the good base for beginners of writing to lead their writing practice However, if learners owe their knowledge and skill of writing to the teacher and textbook strictly, they will be very passive and often get shocked in the real official writing test where a new topic or a new kind of essay is introduced TWE does not require a variety of topics or patterns of essay organization but test takers must have the skill of solving the writing task under the pressure of time Within 30 minutes for an essay of about 250 words, they have to plan for the outline, write the essay and revise the writing Their first draft will be the last one so they must be well skilled at writing independently

However, the limitation of this approach outweighs the strong points when this way is applied in TWE situation First, students cannot choose whatever they want to write in whatever technique they are interested in The reason is that TOEFL writing task is narrowed in some major fields of topic and kinds of essay Student may like or be good at some certain topic or kind of essay that rarely appears in TWE Therefore, they will waste their time learning not-TOEFL specific things Second, discussion and cooperation in the class encourages learners’ motivation but without much of the teacher’s guidance of writing theory (including grammar points, word choices, cohesive devices, patterns of essay organization and

so on), it will be a waste of time if their discussion is off the focus Last, TWE score

is given for each individual’s product, last version But in the process approach, students are evaluated on the basis of their total writing process - their cooperative

paper Learners can work well in their group; yet, they are supposed to work on their own for their complete version They need to practice carefully for their test which they have to write on their own and marked for each individual

The process approach encourages students’ creativity and motivation in writing It is a learner-centered approach that stimulates students to play an active role and the teacher works as an observer However, beginners of writing still need help and guidance from the teacher, especially TOEFL learners who come from various background in ages, jobs and majors and they, of course, are not at the same level of language command This procedure is good for class practice but students are still encouraged to write on their own and get feedback from their teacher for mistake corrections

2.4 Summary

In summary, in this chapter, the author has reviewed issues, and aspects concerning the topic of the study Moreover, the knowledge of writing, essay writing patterns, writing teaching approaches, challenges of teaching and learning TOEFL essay writing are also taken into consideration In the following chapter, the context of the study, the methodology, data collection procedures, data collection, and data analysis will be proposed

CHAPTER THREE: THE STUDY

3.1 The context of the study

The study was conducted an English center in Hanoi named Equest, a longtime established English center in Hanoi It was founded in 2003 It has gained appreciable results that play a crucial role in helping students achieve satisfactory score in some kinds of international English test such as TOEFL, IELTS, SAT, GRE,etc The teachers all have good knowledge, experience and they are all enthusiastic, sensitive and creative The center equips classrooms with modern teaching facilities like computers, projectors, and whiteboards Likewise, library is well-equipped with various kinds of books, material, newspapers, magazines and computers connected to the Internet Moreover, there are also two informatics technology rooms with many internet-connected computers, which are often available for students to get access

Each year our English center creates thousands of golden chances for students to make their dream of studying abroad come true However, the perquisite conditions for being trained in Equest is that all students have to take the placement test to find the suitable classes With these requirements and conditions, our center has good opportunities to let students study in the right classes Therefore, the students’ level is guaranteed to be nearly the same in each class This creates conditions for the teachers to nurture and foster the talents

Moreover, according to our observations and to teachers’ opinions, another fundamental advantage of target training is the keen interest of English language Equest students in English Most of the English language studying students are very studious Besides, due to the fact that they have been familiarized with different foreign cultures, English language studying students seem to be more active and more confident than others It is of great help for teaching and learning

The second group is composed of six teachers of English teaching TOEFL writing skills at Equest at least for two years These teachers, whose ages ranged from twenty – five to forty, were invited to join in this study The proportion of female teachers to male teacher is prominent, that is, (one male, five females)

The reason for choosing these six teachers was that they had experience in teaching TOEFL for students, especially teaching TOEFL essay-writing skills

3.2.2 Instruments

Four main instruments were used to obtain the information for the study will

be mentioned as follows:

Instrument one: A survey questionnaire completed by 50 TOEFL students

The questionnaire was designed with two main parts Part one was about the students’ general information which included the students’ gender, age, the number

of years they had been learning English, the frequency of writing an essay in the class, and the reasons to take part in the course Part two including 6 questions, 3

of which were closed and the rest were open-ended questions designed to explore the students’ perception of teacher’s classroom activities in terms of the usefulness

of those activities and the extent to which those classroom activities satisfy the students’ expectation The questionnaire was adapted from Research Methodology

by Kanji Kumar (1996) It was conducted in English However, the students were advised to use either Vietnamese or English to give their answers to open-ended questions Refer to Appendix A

Instrument two: A questionnaire with two sections completed by teachers of

English at school where the study was conducted Refer to Appendix B

The first section contained the teachers’ general information, that is, their gender, age, and the number of years they had been teaching English and writing skill The other section was about teachers’ frequency of classroom activities, their perceived value of those activities, challenges they face with in teaching essay writing and their solution

Instrument three: Semi- structured interview to students

A one-on one interview was conducted with TOEFL students chosen at random after each classroom observation It was carried out in Vietnamese in the form of an informal conversation between the researcher and students The

interview was structured with a list of 13 structured questions and some structured questions Each lasted 10 minutes with each student The interview protocol was adapted from Qualitative among Five Traditions which was written by John W Creswell (1997) Refer to Appendix C

non-Instrument four: Classroom observation

It was a non- participant observation in which the researcher watched, followed and noted down activities, which were performed in the real classroom settings The observation was carried out within 3 lessons (total 6 hours) in TOEFL class

The observation protocol was adapted from Qualitative Inquiry and research Design Choosing among Five Traditions which was written by John W Cressell (1997) (Refer to Appendix D)

3.3 Data collection procedures

In the first two weeks, the classroom performance by two teachers of TOEFL class was observed The required permissions needed to gain access to the classroom from the Academic manager and the teachers were obtained in advance The observation was taken note down in detail and interpreted and then the findings and conclusions were drawn from them

On the next week, the questionnaire was handed to 50 TOEFL students They were asked to complete the questionnaire either in Vietnamese or English within 15 -20 minutes The researcher asked the teacher for permission to have a personal contact with the study population in order to explain the purpose, relevance and importance of the study, as well as to clarify any questions that the students had At the same time, the survey to the teachers was delivered to 6 teachers of English They had three days to complete it

The data were collected and then analyzed to survey the students’ perception

of teacher’s classroom activities in terms of the usefulness of those activities and the extent to which those activities satisfy their expectations as well as compare the opinions of the two groups

3.4 Data analysis

All collected data were read through to obtain a sense of the overall information The observation notes were rewritten down carefully, the interview transcriptions were jotted down, the results were then shown in tables, figures and charts

So far, this part had presented in detail methodology, participants (population), instruments and procedure of collecting The following part will deal with the data analysis and findings on the obtained results The general information about 50 students and 6 teachers will be presented in the first place

Part 1 was designed to achieve the general information

From the table 1, it can be clearly seen that the total number of the learners selected in the study was 50 for the questionnaire, of which 23 were female and 27 were male The majority was at the age of from 18 to 22, at which students had just finished their secondary school and began to enter a university That is also the reason why 50% of the objects are students The second group of subjects works in offices (38%) The third group of learners (12%) was those who failed the entrance exam took TOEFL examination to study abroad

Table 1: Learners by age, gender and job

Age

Gender

Total number Jobs Male Female Student Official/

Table 2 below shows the learners’ experience in English learning The number

of years they have spent learning English ranged from 2 to 10 years About 40% (20 learners) had been learning English for 3 or 4 years and 22% (11 students) had spent

7 to 8 years learning English Only three students had experienced 2 years in learning English The number of learners had spent 5, 6 years is the same that of those who having spent more than 9 years (14%)

Table 2: Learners’ experience in learning English in years

Years 1-2 3-4 5-6 7-8 >9

No of learners 3 20 9 11 7

Percentage 6% 40% 18% 22% 14%

It can be shown from the chart 1 that the students often wrote essays at least once or twice a week Some of them (10%) were very interested in practicing writing essays and had three or four essay writing paper a week

Table 3 shows that most students had been learning and using English at school 66% (33 learners) Some of them graduated from universities and used English at work but not very often (24%) 10% of the subjects used English for pleasure According to Chart 1, only 3 learners (6%) spoke English frequently at work or both at work and in study while 4 learners rarely used English both at work

or study Most of the learners sometimes used English (72%) and 14% often spoke English The reason for this may be that the learners used their mother tongue in daily conversation and only used English at class time or at work

Table 3: Learners’ purpose of English use

Work Study Pleasure

Research question 1: What are the common instructional strategies do

teachers use to develop students’ TOEFL essay writing skills?

From the data collected from classroom observation and analyzed teacher questionnaires, it can be said that all of the teachers of writing often used pre-writing activities such as helping students find key words in the task, having students brainstorm in groups to generate ideas and make outlines, giving structures and vocabulary related to given topics, giving feedback, etc Among those activities, the majority of the teachers (making up 83% in table 4) often ask and help students

to fine the key words or phrases to fulfill the task Also, the same percentage of the population often offered structures and vocabulary in a writing lesson The explanation for this could be that learners still felt unsure about how to use new structures and words in writing and they were heavily affected by speaking expressions Moreover, 67 % of teachers often asked students to work in pairs or group to make outlines before starting writing tasks as making outlines will improve students’ writing skill for three reasons First, it will help them organize their ideas properly Moreover, an outline will ensure that students will not include any irrelevant ideas, that they will not leave out any important ideas and that their supporting sentences will be in a logical order Second, outlining will help them write more quickly It may take some practice at first, but once they become familiar with outlining their ideas before starting to write The actual writing becomes easier because they do not have to worry about what they are going to say, they have already have a well-organized plan to follow Finally, their grammar will improve because they will be able to concentrate on it not on thoughts

Table 4: The frequency of using instructional strategies used by teachers in writing lessons

Instructional strategies very

often often sometimes rarely never

a Finding the key words to

identify the task 83% 17%

e Using other aids (pictures,

maps, music, reading texts) 33% 33% 33%

f Giving and guiding how to

use cohesive devices 50% 50%

g Teaching writing

paragraph before the essay 67% 33%

h Writing an essay in the

l Giving correction/ scores

for the essay 17% 50% 33%

m Giving peer - check 17% 33% 23% 17%

As is well known, understanding the task is the key to fulfill the requirement

of TOEFL essay writing, so students were very often asked to find out the key words Moreover, getting started can be difficult; therefore, students often divided into groups to work cooperatively and write down all the ideas that come to their mind then make the outline in connecting with the given topic in note form or random order

About a half of the population often gave and guided students to use cohesive devices and assigned the writing task in a limited time

According to the interviewed teachers after classroom observation, giving feedback and correction was time-consuming and challenging Because of limited time in the class, teachers only collected two or three students’ paper to give feedback and correction in front of the class Mainly, correcting common grammar errors, word choice and expression, the rest were for self-correcting and peer-correcting During this phase, students could exchange their first draft and pointed out changes, eg (better organization, paragraph division, sentence variety, word choice).They could also act as each other’s editor It is only fair that student writing

is responded to suitably positive comments can help build students confidence and create good feelings for the next writing class They also stated that their students still favored comments on the grammatical and lexical correctness of their work

Using model essays-and analyzing it only was preferred by 33% of the teachers whereas there was a slightly high percentage of the sample rarely or never provided model essays (23%, 17% accordingly) The fact was that they only offered model essay and analyzing it when introducing a new type of TOEFL essay in order that their students were familiar with the format essay, the language style and its organization

Visual aids such as games, music, pictures, maps, reading text, ect could help to reduce the stress in the classroom ad create a better learning environment Yet, only two teachers (33%) offered visual aids and one third never did it for two

reasons First, TOEFL essay types mainly focus on making an argument, giving an explanation, starting a preference or agreeing or disagreeing, which did not need much illustration from pictures, maps, games and so on Moreover, because of the limited time, some teachers only provided some reading materials related to the topics for students to read at home and get the necessary information

In short, most of the teachers stated that they often used various kinds of classroom activities to foster the students’ writing skill development Among them, that helping guiding students to find the key words in the task, providing new structures and vocabulary in writing lesson, asking students to work in pairs or group of four or five to brainstorming for general ideas, adding ideas and supporting ideas, organizing ideas which were generated and then developed an outline from a brainstorming list were more often used by the majority of the teachers However, a small number of teachers did not often provide a model essay as well as have the students peer check in the classroom As the matter of the fact that they did not have much time and at the same time, according to the interviewed teachers, many of their students had no interest in giving correction for their classmates They preferred writing a complete essay writing paper as soon as having valuable feedback from their teacher

Research question 2: What are the students’ perceptions of the usefulness of

those instructional strategies?

In order to investigate the students’ perception of teacher’s instructional strategies in terms of their usefulness, questionnaires were handed to both 50 TOEFL students at Equest and six teachers to obtain the necessary information

As can be shown from the table 5 that teacher guided students to find the key words, gave students correction, feedback and score, provided students with new structures and vocabulary was very useful for all the students It is obvious that most of the respondents, at some point, had difficulty finding ideas to write an essay Likewise, many students had excellent ideas but did not have sufficient

vocabulary in English to express them in such cases, students simply used vocabulary incorrectly and became incomprehensible but more commonly, and students in this situation were likely to write in a simpler style than was suitable for English for academic purposes Thus, by receiving useful vocabulary and structures, students will quickly overcome this difficulty Moreover, during post – writing process, which the teachers collect students writing to give comment on structure, lexical items, the validity of an argument, the order of presentation of the information, etc was of great benefit to students

Table 5: The students’ perception of the instructional strategies used by teachers in terms of their usefulness

Instructional

strategies

very useful useful

don't know

not very useful

not useful at all

e Using other aids:

pictures, maps, etc 10 20% 8 16% 5 10% 25 50% 2 4%

in pairs or group to generate ideas to make outlines, and giving correction, feedback and score In addition, the majority of the teachers asserted that teaching how to write paragraphs before the whole essay was of great help whereas 20% of the students found this instructional strategy not very useful; and learning how to write paragraph before the whole essay was not recognized or not used by their teachers,