The use of post writing activities in improving grade 10 students english writing skills a case study at gia binh 2 high school bacninh

ABSTRACT This study is conducted in an attempt to investigate the post- writing activities used in writing lessons of grade 10 students at Gia Binh 2 High School, their frequency, their

ABSTRACT

This study is conducted in an attempt to investigate the post- writing activities used in writing lessons of grade 10 students at Gia Binh 2 High School, their frequency, their performances and their advantages and disadvantages as perceived by teachers and students as well From those, the researcher wish to find out the most effective activity helping grade 10 learners improve their writing ability In order to achieve the aims of the study and obtain reliable information for the study, interviews among teachers, survey questionnaire among students and document analysis of the students’ writing papers are applied The findings of the study reveal that both teachers and students at GB2HS have a rather positive attitude towards post writing activities and their importance in improving learners’ writing proficiency Among all, teacher’s feedback, group’s feedback and peer’s feedback are the activities used to revise 10thform students’ papers at GB2HS, in which teacher’s comment play the crucial role and mostly applied However, there are numerous problems preventing those activities from working efficiently in the study context Some implications are then drawn up based on the findings for the betterment of the teaching and learning post writing stage at GB2HS With careful and detailed investigations, it is hoped that this study will be a useful source of reference for teachers, students and those who concern about feedback activities in improving writing skill

TABBLE OF CONTENT

PART A- INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Research questions 3

5 Methodology 3

6 Outline of the study 4

PART B- DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Theoretical background to English writing teaching 5

1.1.1 Overview of writing 5

1.1.2 Overview of writing teaching 6

1.1.2.1 Why do we teach writing? 6

1.1.2.2 Theoretical approaches to writing teaching 7

1.1.2.2.1 Controlled- composition approach 8

1.1.2.2.2 Current- traditional rhetoric approach 8

1.1.2.2.3 The process approach 9

1.1.2.2.4 The stages in the writing process 10

1.2 Overviews of Teachers and Peers’ Feedbacks in Teaching and Learning Writing12 1.2.1 What is feedback? 12

1.2.2 Teachers’ Giving Feedback in Teaching Writing 13

1.2.3 Peers’ Feedback/ Response in Learning Writing 15

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 17

2.1 The context 17

2.2 The participants 17

2.2.1 The students 17

2.2.2 The teachers 18

2.3 The writing syllabus of grade 10 students 18

2.4 Description of data collection instruments 18

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDING 20

3.1 Data analysis of teachers’ performances, attitudes and evaluations 20

3.1.1 Teacher participants’ demography information and teaching experience 20

3.1.2 Teachers’ perception of teaching English writing as a process 20

3.1.3 Teacher participants’ representation of stages in writing teaching 21

3.1.4 Teacher participants’ representations in Post writing stage 22

3.1.5 Teachers’ evaluation on the effectiveness of post writing activities 23

3.1.5.1 Frequency and procedure of using Post- writing activities 23

3.1.5.2 Teachers’ evaluation on the importance and effectiveness of Post writing activities 24

3.1.5.3 Teachers’ evaluation on the students’ improvement 25

3.2 Data analysis of students’ performances, attitudes and evaluations 26

3.2.1 Student participants’ learning experience 26

3.2.2 Students’ perception of importance of Post- writing activities 27

3.2.3 Students’ evaluation on the effectiveness of post- writing activities used 28

3.2.4 Students’ evaluations on their improvement in writing skill 31

3.2.4.1 Students’ perception on factors that affect writing proficiency 31

3.2.4.2 Students’ self- assessment on their improvement in writing skill 32

3.2.5 Students’ presentation of errors in writing papers and their improvement in writing skill 33

3.2.5.1 Teacher’s Giving Feedback 33

3.2.5.2 Pair correction 35

3.2.5.3 Group correction 36

PART C- CONCLUSION 39

1 Conclusions 39

2 Implications 40

3 Limitations of the study 41

4 Recommendations 42

5 Suggestions for further study 43

REFERENCES 44 APPENDICES

Appendix A: Writing Syllabus for Grade 10 Students I Appendix B: Researcher’s Observations from Class Hours Attended III Appendix C: Checklists and Error Codes XIV Appendix D: Interview Questions and Survey Questionnaire XVI

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CLT Communicative Language Teaching

TESOL Teaching English to Speakers of Foreign Language MOET Ministry of education and training

GB2HS Gia Binh 2 High School

LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES

Chart 1: Teachers' frequency of using post writing activities

Chart 2: Students' experience of learning English

Chart 3: Student participants’ experience of learning English in process

Chart 4: Students’ frequency of participating in post writing activities

Chart 5: Students’ perception of the importance of Post writing activities

Chart 6: The post-writing activities used by respondents

Chart 7: Respondents’ evaluation on the most effective activities to students’ writing

Chart 8: Respondents’ evaluation on the effectiveness of post-writing activities

Chart 9:Students’ perception on the factors affecting writing proficiency

Chart 10: Respondents’ evaluation on their improvement in writing

Table 1: Student participants’ presentation of errors in writing before and after teachers’ giving feedback

Table 2: Students’ writing error presentation of errors before and after peer correction

Table 3: Students’ writing error presentation of errors before and after group correction

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

As the development of the world; English has, of course, become the official language of human beings and learning English is compulsory in every corner of the earth Learning this language effectively means the learners are sufficiently proficient in all its sub- aspects namely reading, speaking, listening and writing skills Among these skills, teaching how to write English well has been noticed as early as since English was taught English language teaching methods, in general, and English language writing skill methods, in particular, have changed over time It's considered the process-oriented pedagogy approach which has permeated the English language teaching and English writing teaching as well over the past twenty years one

of the most effective

The process-oriented approach requires teaching writing regularly with numerous stages namely Pre- Writing, Writing and Post- Writing; in addition, each stage can also contain several sub- stages with different techniques to appropriate writing teaching and learning Among those stages, it is very clear that we can not control how and what exactly the learners are writing since writing skill as known is a productive skill- each writer with his/ her own imagination and knowledge can bear different products With the role as an instructor, teachers can only intervene in Pre- writing stage to provide the learners with available vocabulary or suggested ideas and they will start writing more smoothly or in Post- writing stage to help them edit and improve the writing

Since process- oriented approach gained its popularity; each of English skills has been treated the same or taught both separated and integrated with one another Especially, thank to the MOET’s policy of textbooks change at high schools in Vietnam in school year 2006- 2007, English skills in general and writing skill in particular have been really taught in process with Pre- writing, writing and Post- writing stages; of which the third one seems worth- asking What are really happening in this stage? Is it really helping learners acquire the skill?

To edit a language product, numerous ways have been introduced including peer reviews, teacher-student conferences, and audio-taped commentary and so on However, with written ones in real situations of Vietnam, it seems that handwritten corrections with teachers or peers are the most applicable Gia Binh 2 High School in Bacninh is one like other high schools in

Vietnam applying teaching English writing skill in a process as follow the textbook “Tiếng

Anh 10, 11, 12” issued by the MOET since at first; therefore, teaching writing skill, in general,

and post writing stage, in particular tend to be worth researching

Last but not least, research on teaching writing skill in general and dealing with students’ written pieces of work in particular in Vietnam has been so rare and books about these are also quite limited Being one of the teachers who are in charge of, the researcher feels really concerned in investigating the effectiveness of the Post- writing activities applied in her context, Gia Binh 2 high school in improving grade 10 students’ writing skill

2 Aims of the study

This study is intended to measure the effectiveness of Post- writing activities in teaching English language writing skill for the grade 10 students at Gia Binh 2 High School, Bacninh The study desires to obtain the main following aims:

(1) to investigate which Post- writing activities are being used in writing lessons of grade 10 students at Gia Binh 2 High School, Bacninh, their frequency and their relations

(2) to investigate the teachers and students’ performances in these activities, their attitudes towards each activity and find out the advantages and disadvantages of each Post- writing activity in writing lessons of grade 10 students at Gia Binh 2 High School, Bacninh (3) to compare among these activities and evaluate the effectiveness of each and draw out which one is the most beneficial

3 Scope of the study

This study is hoped to carry out within the following scopes:

(1) Being a productive skill and processed in stages; teaching writing is such a broad topic that can not be wholly discussed within the framework of this paper Only one specific and commonly-practiced stage of teaching the skill will be central to the discussion: teaching Post- writing stage

(2) Every EFL composition class needs feedback in order to revise their papers successfully However, the study’s context, Gia Binh 2 High School with more than 2000 is so large area Therefore, this study will deal with only 89 student participants among the starters- two groups of grade 10 students in school Together with these two groups are four teacher participants who are in charge of teaching English for 10 graders in this school (3) Writing skill needs practicing frequently and, of course, will take much time Nothing done

in process can get the result over night Therefore, this research will be carried out nearly

during the academic year 2010- 2011 along with using the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” The

result hopes to come to an end in the last of the academic year to propose recommendations to improve the next academic year’s teaching of writing

These points are made clear to the participants in the process of conducting this study so that

the study can be more feasible and its results more applicable into the real classrooms As a result, the result of the study will be recommended to apply in teaching writing skill for the grade 10 students at Gia Binh 2 High School, Bacninh and may be for the others, the grade 11 and 12 ones in this school

(2) A survey questionnaire is piloted among grade 10 students at Gia Binh 2 High School to discover their performance in the post- writing activities and their attitudes to these activities Questionnaire data collection and analysis is also hoped to reveal the learners’ own assessment of each activity

(3) Students’ papers will be collected and analyzed to measure each post writing activity’ s interventions on students’ writing and their improvement in the writing proficiency

(4) Researcher’s observation and assessment on the post writing activities are also an important source to gain the aims of the study

6 Outline of the study

This study consists of three parts: introduction, development and conclusion

The introduction presents the background, aims, research questions, scopes as well as the approaches and outline of the study

The development comprises three chapters:

Chapter I reviews the literature on the writing teaching and handwritten corrections in teaching and learning writing as well

Chapter II describes the research methods used in the process of doing the thesis It consists of the justification of data collection instruments, the description of data collection instruments, the procedure to collect data The subject of the study is also mentioned in this chapter

Chapter III presents the results and discussion on the data collected by means of survey questionnaire among student respondents, interview responding among teacher participants and student writing analysis Researcher’s observations are also revealed here

The conclusion offers some suggestions for further improvements in feedbacks on students writing and provides future directions for further research which are not touched upon in the

limit of this thesis

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter reviews important issues in the theories of teaching writing in general and conducting post- writing activities in particular Two main features will be taken into consideration, namely, theoretical background to the teaching writing and theoretical background to feedback: teachers’ feedback and peers’ feedback They are also the foundation

on which the questionnaires for the teachers and students are set up

1.1 Theoretical background to English writing teaching

1.1.1 Overview of writing

Writing is one of the four skills taught when mastering any languages In English language teaching, writing skill is nominated a productive skill with numerous definitions surrounding

it Basically, it is seen as an “act of forming graphic symbols” (Byrne, 1991, p 1) It means

writing anything is really simple, we use letters or combinations of letters according to certain conventions to form words, words are combined to make sentence, and then sentences are put

with each other to “produce a sequence of sentences arranged in a particular order and linked

together in certain ways” In the other word, writing, in Byrne’s view, is reflected from the

lowest level- letters to the higher and higher levels of performance- words, sentences and

discourses and as strategies to obtain a final product or actions of “making marks on the flat

surface of some kinds”

Other views consider it as a more complex process which are “profound, or funny, or

provocative, or highly persuasive” (Veit, Gould & Clifford, 2001) and involves a number of

separate sub- skills “from the basics of handwriting and spelling to the subtler nuances of tone

and organization.” as a social process, “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.”

(Candlin and Hyland, 1999, p 107)

Cognitive view sees writing as decision - making process (Flower & Hayes, 1981) When writing something, whether an email message, a letter, or an essay, the writer is engaged in making decisions one by one He or she has to decide what to begin the text with, whether to include or leave out an idea that comes to mind, whether to begin a new paragraph or continue the same one, what information to place in the beginning of a sentence, and so on Successful writing is the result of making the right decisions most of the time during the act of composing and revising If writing is a mental activity of skillful decision-making, learning to write is

defined as “learning to make decisions appropriate for the situation (the purpose of the text,

the writer’s objective, the reader’s purpose in reading the text, the circumstances in which the writing and reading take place) and learning to recognize where inappropriate decision have

been made, so that they can be put right before the text arrives at the reader’s desk”,

Renandya & Richard (2002, p.1)

Murray (1978, p 29) and Perl (1979, p 43) also raises their opinions of 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.” As follow this view, language becomes the

great instrument to create and reflect the background knowledge or experience we have already gained in the social life In brief, all the views gradually considered writing more

complicated as an art that need creativity and effort

Consequently, writing is not a simple one to master Ur (1996) said “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) In addition, writing, from the language

teachers' view point, is also "a language skill which is difficult to acquire" (Tribble, 1996, p.3)

It is “a process that occurs over a period of time, particularly if we take into account the

sometimes extended period of thinking that precedes creating an initial draft” (Ferris, 1993, p

10) Tribble also stresses that writing “normally requires some forms of instruction” and that

“it is not a skill that is readily picked up by exposure” (1996, p.11) Learners have to spend

time getting the sufficient proficiency of skill Lannon JM (1989) shares some points about it,

he sees it “a process of transforming the material you discover by inspiration, research,

accident, trial and error, or whatever into a message with a define meaning In short, writing

is a process of deliberate decision” (p 9)

1.1.2 Overview of writing teaching

1.1.2.1 Why do we teach writing?

Byrne (1991, pp: 4-5) indicates the nature of writing, being a difficult skill in a language

acquisition, through three aspects of, namely, psychological, linguistic and cognitive He sees

writing process as one which is different from speech making process Writing must be carried out in one’s own merely not basing on others’ responses or feedbacks with fixed linguistic rules and writers’ awareness of structures used, text organization and the readership Or as

insightfully claimed by Richards and Renandya (2002, p.303), “there is no doubt that writing

is the most difficult skill for L 2 learners to master The difficulty lies not only in generating and organizing ideas, but also in translating these into readable text” However, writing is

essential to teach due to its dynamics This is a skill that not only is tested in every internationally valid language examination, but also a skill that learners should possess and demonstrate in academic context Writing includes numerous considerations and choices to be

made regarding “higher level skills”, such as content, structure and organization, and "lower

level skills", such as spelling, punctuation and choice of appropriate vocabulary items and

grammatical structures, Richards and Renandya (2002)

Ronald White (1981) also finds that writing is essential for its usages as a “high face value”

device Mostly used to satisfy a psychological need, all people would like to write rather than

to talk to inform, especially the sensible matters Or in educational aspect, a variety of activities that interest to the lesson is often conducted by writing activities Moreover, not only

in warming- up but writing is also a reliable test device reflecting students’ progress Almost

of the tests are mainly carried out in writing papers

Ur (1996) views writing’s importance “as a means”, “as an end” and “as both means and

end” As a means, writing can reflect its role in engaging aspects of language for we often use

writing to take note new vocabulary, write down the answers for reading and listening tasks or copy out grammar rules, etc As an end, writing activities are often done variously at different level and requires different performances; therefore, each level can be seen as a minor process

with its own specific aims Finally, in some writing activities, a mixture of “purposeful and

original writing and learning or practice of some other skill or content” is often revealed, so

writing can be seen as both a means and an end

Raimes (1983) states that the students can acquire the language better due to writing for the three reasons as follow First, writing helps enhancing their grammar, vocabulary and idioms Language learners can have their own ways to memorize the vocabulary but all must capture any words or phrases once or more times by writing Second, writing gives them a chance to try the language learnt With writing, learners can reflect the language proficiency and also their background knowledge they have in their own as quoted from Murray (1978, p 29) and Perl (1979, p 43) above Last, writing can help motivating learners to learn new language Every language is complicated with numerous features and when writing, all learners tend to express themselves, so by finding appropriate vocabulary items and structures to write they can discover new language items to learn

Curry, M.J & Hewings, A et al (2003) also share the above points of view That we teach

writing for it is “as assessment; as an aid to critical thinking, understanding and memory; to

extend students’ learning beyond lectures and other formal meeting; to improve students’ communication skills; and to train students as future professionals in particular disciplines”

In short, writing is worth teaching and learning carefully since none of us is sure about the future whether we do not need to write anything If it is not immediately profitable at present,

it will have value in itself as part of the long-term education process and "teach skills that help

learners improve the language proficiency to the point where they are cognizant of what is expected of them as writers" (Williams, 2003, p.1)

1.1.2.2 Theoretical approaches to writing teaching

With the importance of teaching writing, in the 20th century, human beings witnessed numerous approaches such as Audio- lingualism, Suggestopedia and Silent Way in the first

half (Richards & Renandya, 2002) and in the second half as Communicative Approaches Language towards the end of the 1960s was no longer seen solely in terms of structures, but as something more complex including a number of notions and functions that have to be acquired Hymes, (1968, p.278) first introduces the notion of communicative competence,

“there are rules of use without which the rules of grammar would be useless” He means that

language study should move away from strict grammatical and syntactic structures, as

“competence for use is part of the same developmental matrix as competence for grammar”

(1968, p 279)

Approaches were raised, achieved the dominance and then faded but they never disappear

Raimes (1983, pp: 6-11) indicates: “There is no one way to teach writing, but many ways” and

she presents the six most typical, namely, (i) The Controlled-to-Free Approach which mainly emphasizes accuracy of grammar, syntax and mechanics, (ii) The Free-Writing Approach which puts the focus on fluency, ideas and audience, (iii) The Paragraph-Pattern Approach which deals with text organization and the language’s culture of organizing texts, (iv) The Grammar-Syntax-Organization Approach which combines the need to organize well and using right grammar and syntax, (v) The Communicative Approach which concentrates on the purpose and the audience of the writing (who and why?), (vi) The Process Approach which stresses more on the written product through steps with multiple- drafts

Nunan (1991) also discusses the two typical writing teaching approaches are product- oriented and process- oriented The product- oriented stresses on the end work which is desired to be similar to a sample, whereas the process approach emphasizes thinking and writing procedure

at discourse-level with various steps and multiple drafts (pp 86-87)

Up to now, despite being named differently, the approaches developed and more or less influential to the writing teaching

1.1.2.2.1 Controlled- composition approach

This approach regards language as speech and learning as habit formation It means that writing is seen as a secondary/supporting concern or reinforcement for oral habits only

Writing is considered: “the handmaid of the other skills, …, which must not take precedence as

a major skill to be developed,” Rivers (1968, p 241) or “as a service activity rather than as an end in itself,” Rivers (1968, p 258) Writing, then is imitating or manipulating of the learnt

structures in speech It does not care for the quality of ideas or expressions but formal linguistic accuracy, so this approach lacks audience and purpose In this approach, teachers tend to focus on form and role as editors or proofreaders

1.1.2.2.2 Current- traditional rhetoric approach

This approach then appears with the increasing awareness of the students’ needs in producing extended written discourse Controlled composition is not enough but writing needs more than

making correct grammatical sentences The approach is the combination of the basic principles

of Young’s current- traditional paradigm (1978) with Kaplan’s theory of contrastive rhetoric (1967) Young emphasizes on the form of the composed product while Kaplan defines rhetoric

as “the method of organizing syntactic units into larger patterns” (p 15) and he finds it necessary to “provide the students with a form within which he may operate” (p 20) In the

other word, writing should have logical construction and arrangement of discourse forms, in which paragraphs have to consist of topic, supporting and concluding sentences linked by transitions and larger essays must be developed with introduction, body and conclusion Seemingly, this approach is still to focus on form The approach, as a result, still lacks of

audience and purpose It just encourages students to “see form as a mold into which content is

somehow poured” White (1990, p.6), and results in “mindless copies of a particular organizational plan or style” and “stultifying and inhibiting writers rather than empowering them or liberating them” Escholz (1980, p.24)

1.1.2.2.3 The process approach

Richard (1985) sees communicative language teaching (CLT) that emerged in the 1970s as a major breakthrough in language teaching and marks the moving away from the traditional

notion of methods to integrating the notion of communicative competence “CLT was an

attempt to operationalize the concept of communicative competence and to apply it across all levels of language program design, from theory, to syllabus design, to teaching techniques”,

Richards (2002, p 22) Teaching writing in process is mainly focus-on-forms and includes a lot of different stages The content, the ideas, and the needs to communicate would determine

the form Raimes (1992) states that “composing means expressing ideas, conveying meaning

Composing means thinking” (p 261); in addition, Zamel (1983) expresses writing as a

“complex, recursive, and creative process whereby the writers discover and reformulate their

ideas as they attempt to approximate meaning” (p 165) The process emphasizes on the

content or meaning first or what message the writing conveys Learners need to pay more

attention to what to convey through the writing work Final products are just “secondary,

derivative concern, whose form is a function of its content and purpose” (Silva, 1988, p 16)

In addition, Cohen, (2001) interprets Hymes’ model of communicative competence as a model consisting of four different components, grammatical, discourse, sociolinguistic and strategic competence Grammatical competence refers to the choice of lexis and grammatical and syntactic patterns, whereas discourse competence refers to the ability to sequence stretches of written discourse in such a way that the text is cohesive and coherent Sociolinguistic competence is concerned with the knowledge of sociolinguistic norms of a language, so that a text is culturally appropriate Strategic competence is the ability to employ strategies in order

to make up for any communication breakdowns In relation to teaching writing, so that writing acts as communicative role, form is not of great importance as content, meaning and intention However, the focus on content with exclusion of form has also faced disagreement by the

academic community For example, Silva (1990) argued “student writing must falls within the

range of acceptable writing behaviors dictated by the academic community” (p.17) Yet, the

approach still seems to be the most preferable As developed through time, the approach is to include both form and content- focused features with the stress mainly on meaning This approach enables

“learners to write their way into more precise, interpretive texts, while at the same time fostering greater attention to forms of the writing, to reflection on what is involved in the creation of a text and to adapting writing style to the audience and context of writing” Reid (1993, p 30)

In this approach, “teachers are encouraged not to impose their views, give models, or suggest

response to topics beforehand” (Candlin & Hall, 2002, p 23) Learners are enhanced to

brainstorm and outline their overflow of first thinking Then, “the idea behind it is not really to

dissociate writing entirely from the written product and to merely load students through the various stages of the writing process” (Seow, 2002: 315 - 316) Therefore, process means

through various stages

1.1.2.2.4 The stages in the writing process

Since development of this approach, there have been many views on the number of stages in

writing Hedge (1990) describes it including “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” Or Oshima and Hogue

(1991) draw out a process with three stages: pre- writing, planning (outlining) and writing and

revising drafts Ron White and Valerie Arndt (1990) divide the writing process into:

And another one, Reid (1993) raises the process comprising five main stages: prewriting,

planning, drafting, revising and editing in addition to three others initiated by the teachers: responding, evaluating and post- writing Or Gardner and Johnson (1997) describe the stages

of the writing process consist of eight steps namely: “Prewriting→Rough Draft → Reread →

Share with a Peer Revisor → Revise → Editing → Final Draft → Publishing” These steps are

collaborative and continual

Different linguists give different views, yet the process always cover numerous stages Of the mentioned above, this study will pick one by Oshima and Hogue (1991) in detailed analysis

Drafting

Generating

Pre- writing

Pre- writing is not only seen as an initiating stage of the process, but it is also clearly a crucial

part of the writing process Learners can be either guided or unguided This means they can use

questions or brainstorm to start Questions which are often composed in advance by the instructors can also be used as a means to prompt ideas Penaflorida (2002) suggests that teachers should be careful when assigning a writing task They should neither encourage their learners to solely imitate model compositions thus this impede their imagination, nor ask them

to write a task without any preparatory exercises Pre- writing exercises are very essential to remain the process

Planning/ Outlining

Conveying a message through writing is essentially a matter of selecting information- both factual and linguistic- and arranging, or more precisely, planning to structure it This entails various organizational processes of grouping ideas together and deciding upon how to sequence them into paragraph(s)

Writing

In this stage, writers make the transition from the writer-based writing of the earlier generating and theme-identifying phases to the reader-based writing which constitutes the final product which is aimed at the audience and the purpose Fundamental to the approach to writing which are presented here are the processes of revision and rewriting what have been prepared in Pre- writing

idea-Revising drafts

Revising is very time-consuming This stage is described as changing particular words in a sentence or scanning a text for misspelled words or grammatical errors and significantly altering a piece of writing, content and organization- an idea needs to be developed more thoroughly, another omitted Or, rearranging paragraphs will provide clarity and support for the argument, strengthening the paper as a whole In the other words, revising means paying attention to the purpose, the audience, the form, the grouping of ideas, the coherence and cohesion of the writing on the basis of the response given by the teacher and their peers At this stage, it is believed that the teachers and students should jointly work on the criteria by which writing is to be judged as students have a right to know, and the teachers have an obligation to tell them, what the criteria are by which their work is being evaluated In writing,

it is suggested drafts not draft, it means writers should advocate running through the

‘draft-revise-rewrite’ circle at least one, twice through the circle is recommended, or more if needed until both teacher and students have a product that is as good as they can

All the interventions after the first draft can be called post- writing activities that aim to cure and improve the writing Intervention may consist of assessing students’ draft which can be

done either by peers or /and teacher, and responding to the text as a reader rather than simply

as a marker There are three kinds of responding The first is a personal and individual response by the teacher to the student writer; the second is a public respond by the teacher to the work of one student as a whole class activity and the third involves students responding to each other’s work/ peer review

In summary, the overview of teaching writing with the emphasis on the process approach and the detailed descriptions of stages constituting the process, it is implicated that post- writing stage including teachers and peers’ responding to the students’ writing is an integral part of the teaching and learning process

1.2 Overviews of Teachers and Peers’ Feedbacks in Teaching and Learning Writing

From the above theories, we all see that learning a language skill as writing is always complicated It needs much time and effort because writings always contain errors Hubbard

(1989, p.144) said that “the pupil does not learn by making mistakes but by having correct

responses properly reinforced” Students’ errors are seen as a sign of failure but also a sign of

progress, so they should be treated as soon as they appear Process-oriented approach in teaching writing requires students to write as many drafts as needed and also frequently revise

to correct and improve their writing Among all, teachers and peers’ written feedbacks are the most popular and applicable ones in Vietnamese high schools

1.2.1 What is feedback?

Chaudron, (1988, p.133) defines “feedback as contrasted with the narrower notion of

“correction”, is therefore an evitable constituent of classroom interaction…, the provision of feedback is a major means by which to inform learners of their accuracy of both their formal target language production and their classroom behavior and knowledge” Another, Keh

(1990, p 294) shares that feedback is “input from a reader to a writer with the effect of

providing information for revision" Readers here can include all teachers and friends or

anyone who proof- read one’s writing These readers’ contributions are to help edit and revise pieces of writing In fact, feedback is regarded as an effective way to reflect on students’ writing The reflection should be preliminary and intermediate as Seow (2002) claims,

“feedback is regarded teacher’s quick initial reaction to the students’ drafts” Adding to this point of view, Renandya and Richards (2003) state that: “for students who write only one draft,

which is then graded by the teacher, feedback on what is wrong in the composition comes too late" In the other word, feedback should be provided in the “process of writing” rather than in

the “single act of producing a text” Obviously, cooperation between teachers and students is

very much necessary for the successful implementation of feedback for giving feedback is a quite effort and time- consuming process

Lewis (2002) insightfully claims that giving feedback is aimed at the five purposes of as follows: (i) Feedback provides information for teachers and students about students’ language proficiency and progress and teachers’ teaching as well (ii) Feedback, as a pedagogical tool, provides students with advice about learning (iii) Feedback supplies students with meaningful and individual language input (iv) Feedback is a form of motivation that enables learners to evaluate their progress, understand their level of competence, and maintain their effort in striving to reach realistic goals (Riviere, 2000) (v) Feedback can lead students towards autonomy, by which they can find their own mistakes as in many cases

Penaflorida (2002, p.346) stresses the importance of feedback as “an integral feature of

student writing, in as much as it enables students to identify their own strengths and weaknesses", which, in the case of the later, will make students know how to go about improving themselves and becoming more effective writers”, unlike marks or grades, which

tend to compare one student with another The comments can also give direct information about language, by stating a rule or by giving example

1.2.2 Teachers’ Giving Feedback in Teaching Writing

Giving feedback is very important in teaching, as the provision of feedback proceeds from the demands and expectations of teaching and learning process Penaflorida (2002) highlights that there is a close connection between teaching and providing feedback; thus teachers’ giving feedback is something needs doing in teaching writing According to Raimes (1983), responding to students’ writing is an excessive part in teaching writing procedure and teachers’ responding is to help the students knowing what to do next with their writing products Teachers can provide students with more than simple descriptions of their language use Comments can also be made on the students’ learning processes Also, feedback as an ongoing form of assessment gives teachers information about individual and collective class progress and, indirectly, is a form of evaluation on their own teaching

Giving feedback can be single-draft approached It means the teacher sets a topic and students are asked to write The teacher then returns the compositions with a grade and errors marked in red And then the students quickly switch to a new type of composition lesson and repeat this process Sommers (1982) sees this process of response as too general, incentive, confusing, arbitrary, and idiosyncratic It only cracks the surface of the student’s writing, but does not

“directly address the writers' main problems, which are more related to the way in which they

accomplish a given writing task"(Chenoweth, 1987, p.25) Sharing the points, Keth (1989)

criticizes that one - shot commentary provides little information for the students to improve their papers in terms of coherence or content, either in the short or long term Therefore, this

approach proves to be ineffective to the student revision

As a result, the multiple draft approach is essential In “process writing" classes, students may

write several drafts using the feedback offered by teachers or peers In fact, the process approach to teaching writing not only leads students to write multiple drafts, but also encourages teacher to respond to student writing as a process This process enables students to practice through several revision cycles and gives them more chances to develop and present their ideas, to improve both the form and content of their compositions effectively

In addition, “The major question confronting any theory of responding to student writing is

where we should focus our attention”: grammatical errors or content, Griffin (1982, p 299)

Danna Ferris and John Hedgcock (1998) and Ann Fathman and Elizabeth Whalley (1996) concludes that feedback needs to focus more on content than on form Nevertheless, the authors add response on content in this stage is not the one that student writers expect from their teachers but the teacher’s comments on forms For that reason, they conclude the comments should be both on content and grammar but with the focus on the former This point

of view is shared by Fathman and Whalley (1996) that “Student can improve their writing in

situation where content and form feedback are given simultaneously”, and "grammar and content feedback can be improve at the same time without over-bundling the students” So as

teacher’s feedback can allow the student to revise and be capable of transferring the change to other pieces of writing, Reid’s (1993)

Lillis, T.M & Swann, J (2003) confirms that giving feedback on students’ writing is a

“central pedagogic practice in higher education” and it should follow QAA (the Quality

Assurance Agency)- academic standards and the quality of teaching and learning in higher education so that the feedback does not look like an evaluation sheet As a result, to get students reinforced to learn and get improvement, we must notice:

 the timeliness of feedback

 specifying the nature and extent of feedback that students can expect in relation to particular types and units of assessment, and whether this is to be accompanied by the return of assessed work

 the effective use of comments on returned work, including relating feedback to assessment criteria, in order

to help students identify areas for improvement as well as commending them for evident achievement

 the role of oral feedback, either on a group or individual basis as a means of supplementing written feedback

 when feedback may not be appropriate

(pp 102- 103)

Teachers’ feedback can be formative or summative or both as well Formative feedback is a kind written in the margin or between sentence lines of the student’s paper to refer to the teacher’s immediate correction/intervention in discrete parts of the student’s draft By contrast, summative feedback at the end of the paper is normally an overview of more consideration in

an essay (Reid, 1993) In addition, giving feedback must also be several of forms: question,

statement, imperative, and exclamation and include both negative and positive comments from teachers as “students have better attitudes towards writing if they receive positive feedback”

(Kroll, 1990, p.62) Yet, Ferris (1997) reveals that “few of the positive comments led to any

changes in the revision, nor were they apparently intended to” She finds that critical

comments are worth giving for it is of great help in improving the learners’ writing Another

well supported is Joy M Reid (1993) and M Smith (1991), they claim that “As they write,

receive response and revise, students should be able to feel good about what they have done well and realize that they can improve on what they have not done effectively”

1.2.3 Peers’ Feedback/ Response in Learning Writing

Hansen and Liu (2005) states that “Peer response can be defined as the use of learners as

sources of information, and interacts for each other in such a way that learners assume roles and responsibilities normally taken on by teachers in commenting and critiquing each other’s performances in both written and oral formats” (p.1) Learners are not able to aware of all

their own errors in writings; but with the help from teachers and peers, this can be done more

effectively Peer means “a person who is the same age or who has the same social status as

you” (Oxford Advanced learner’s Dictionary), so peers here aim at the classmates or the

partner sitting next to a student in class As a result, peer responses mean pair- working or

group working as in Brown (1974, p.73) “a generic term covering multiplicity of techniques in

which two or more students are assigned a task that involves collaboration and self- initiated language”

In fact, all learners have errors in their learning process Errors are failure but dealing with the

errors shows progress Ferris (2003, p.127) states that “evidence that learners do take seriously

and thus utilize it in order to enhance their writing ability” Finding and correcting those errors

are very important but teachers only sometimes are not enough As a result, peers become the alternative source For some extent, we all can see the good points of peer working:

-When two students work together on correcting each other’s work, the discussion helps each other to learn from his or her own errors Two heads are better than one

-We all have difficulty in seeing our own mistakes, even if a teacher has given us a signal as to what sort

of a mistake it is Cooperation helps develop an ability to see out own mistakes

Edge (1989, p 53)

In writing skill, peer working help students “exchange information in an open- ended, real life

context to fulfill personal goals”- Savova and Donato (1991)

Another, Chaudron (1984, pp 2-3) states:

-Teacher’s time may be saved by eliminating certain editing tasks, thus freeing them for more helpful instruction and guidance;

-Peers’ feedback is more at the learner’s level of development or interest, thus perceives as more informative than the superior or older teacher’s feedback, despite the assumption that the teacher “know more”;

-Since multiple peers may be used, learners gain a sense of a wider audience than simply the one teacher;

-Learners’ attitudes toward writing can be enhanced by the more socially supportive peers;

-Learners also learn more about writing and revision by having to read each other’s drafts critically

From the above, we can see that students should have more opportunities to work together and learn from each other; even it can help to create authentic audience or readership Emma

Pathare in her article “Encourage peer response” claimed that “Likes, dislikes, opinions,

dream, goals, creative thoughts… all these can be expressed in writing tasks, and through reading each other’s work, students can build stronger relationship” However, some students

may sometimes feel confused that they begin to make unnecessary corrections and comments;

or some other can doubt about the quality and accuracy of corrections and comments Thus,

teachers must help student become questioning readers themselves, “because, ultimately, we

believe that becoming such a reader will help them to evaluate what they have written and develop control over their writing” (Sommers, 1982, p 148)

Ideas raised by Pathara (2005) that teachers should notice when arranging peer working since the learners are not all at a high proficiency enough to comment on others’ work smoothly Also, he adds some criteria as follow:

-Clear and achievable task

-Non-competitive and non- threatening

-Positive and constructive feedback

-Fun and motivation

This guidance should be paid some attention by writing teachers before having learners do any peer working including composition peer checking

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents the research methods used in the process of doing the thesis It consists

of the justification and description of data collection instruments, and the procedure to collect data The subject of the study is also mentioned in this chapter

2.1 The context

Gia Binh 2 High School founded in 1996 and located in Gia Binh Town of Gia Binh district, Bacninh province is a very spacious and well- constructed with classrooms, laboratories, a library, a multi-purpose gym and playgrounds in an area of more than one hectare The 42 standard classrooms are very well- equipped with three sets of laptops, projectors and screens removable Like other high schools in Vietnam, Gia Binh 2 High School includes students of three grades 10, 11 and 12 and study 12 subjects as follow the Schedules and Syllabus enacted

by the MOET of Vietnam English is one of those subjects Teaching English has been changed a lot in Gia Binh 2 in recent years together with the adaptation of new textbooks in school year 2006- 2007

2.2.1 The students

The 89 participant students, including 25 male and 67 female aged 14 to 16, all started learning English at lower- secondary school Now, they are 10th graders and follow the Syllabus and textbooks promulgated by MOET of Vietnam It means that they are having three forty-five-

minute periods or class hours of English study a week; and following the textbook “Tiếng Anh

10” with a writing lesson per five class hours

Despite having learnt English for at least four years, they are still revealing as beginners in English language and English writing as well There are discrepancies between their language proficiency, which will some what, affect their writing ability Two- thirds of them have performed at low proficiency in entrance exam All the 89 students will take part in class contacts observed by the researcher and in answering the survey questionnaire; however, about

7 to 10 voluntary students’ writing papers will be collected for regular corrections in each post writing feedback conducted by teachers or peers

2.2.2 The teachers

The four teachers taking part in the study are in charge of teaching English in grade 10 classes

in Gia Binh 2 High School All of them are tenured and hold a B.A in English; among them, one holds an M.A in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Foreign Language) and another is doing a master in TESOL One aged 33 has taught English for over 10 years while the 3 others aged 28 to 30 have five- year experience All of the four are familiar with teaching writing lessons in process and aware of the essentiality post- writing activities bring in They are all willing to conduct the writing lessons in process and be observed by the researcher to investigate the learners’ improvement and attitudes

2.3 The writing syllabus of grade 10 students

Covered within sixteen skill- specified units, writing syllabus for 10th graders is designed as theme- based Sixteen units of the textbook get students to write in sixteen different topics aiming at developing learners’ writing skills of authentic writing documents such as various types of letters: invitation, complaint, confirmation, acceptance or refusal, or instructions, narratives, profiles, form filling, chart and table descriptions and so on These topics engage learners in such authentic contexts which they feel necessary some time in life Further

descriptions of the topics and their specific aims are presented at Appendix A

2.4 Description of data collection instruments

This study uses three main instruments together with the researcher’s own observation to obtain adequate data for the study The instruments include document analysis, questionnaire and interviews Data gathered is both qualitative and quantitative

First, an interview (Interview 1) including six questions is carried out among the teacher participants to get their personal information: age, sex, job status, teaching experience and their opinions in teaching English writing as a process (Questions 1, 2, 3) Their methods and techniques of teaching writing and post writing activities they used as well are also revealed through this interview (Questions 4, 5, 6)

Then, the researcher takes part in teacher participants’ writing lessons to observe and describe what they do in post- writing stage This helps investigating what the teachers have actually done in post- writing stage Students’ performance and their attitudes towards these activities are also captured and reflected on the result analysis of the study

After each lesson participated, about 7- 10 writing papers are collected and analyzed Comments on the students’ first and second drafts are interpreted What students show in two first drafts are synthesized quantitatively in numbers of errors and then compared to each other

to measure the progress of students

A follow-up interview with another six open- ended questions (Interview 2) is conducted among teachers after the writing lessons are observed and students’ writings are collected and analyzed after each technique used (Question 1) This interview aims at getting teachers’ own evaluations, the first views (Question 2) and the later ones (Question 6) on the techniques used

in post- writing stage The focus of the evaluation is mainly fallen on the technique’s performance, advantages and disadvantages (Questions 3, 4) In addition, teachers’ view on students’ interests are also discussed (Question 5) Consequently, recommendations are raised based on the effectiveness of each Also, it might reveal some other issues that the research has not touched upon

Finally, a questionnaire is designed to survey 89 students in two classes to confirm what they did in post- writing stage In addition, what they think of those post- writing activities and their own assessments on these activities are also questioned to find out the most effective activity

of commenting on students’ writing In addition, their expectations from teachers and peers’ feedback in writing are desired to reveal as well to get further information for the study There are 10 items both close and open- ended in this questionnaire In detailed, Questions 1 and 2 are to get students’ personal information and their learning experience of English language and English writing skill Question 3 examines how often the post-writing activities occur in writing lessons The three next questions (4, 5 and 6) search out the post- writing activities the students receive, their attitudes towards them and their most preferred activity Follow- up question is both close and open- ended to get the students’ own evaluations of each activity they experience and their progress in the skill Then, Question 8 gives the students a chance to self- evaluate their improvement thanks to post- writing activities Finally, Question 9 and 10 are designed to get students’ expectations and recommendations in teaching and learning writing skill

The purpose of Questionnaire is to investigate what they really think of their doings in writing lessons, what their preferred activities are, and what problems they are having On this basis, the researcher will propose some relevant suggestions to improve the currently used methods for the students’ benefit

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDING

Chapter 4 plays a very important part in the study It serves two functions: giving a presentation on the data collected by means of survey questionnaire among student respondents, interview responding among teacher participants, researcher’s observations and

student writing analysis; making interpretation based on the data

3.1 Data analysis of teachers’ performances, attitudes and evaluations

3.1.1 Teacher participants’ demography information and teaching experience

Among the four teachers participating in the present study, there is only one male teacher aged

33 and, granted, the most experienced in teaching English He first spent 6 years teaching English for upper- secondary students in Dien Bien and then has been teaching English at Gia Binh 2 High School for 4 years The other three are female, one is 30 years old and two left are 28; all these three female teachers have been teaching English at Gia Binh 2 for 5 years These four teachers are tenured at Gia Binh 2 High School and all graduated from College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University and holding a B.A in English Now, one female aged

28 holds an M.A in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Foreign Language) and the other female aged 28 is doing a master in TESOL

These four teachers are in charge of teaching English for 10th graders at Gia Binh 2 high school and all of them have taught 10th form since they started; this means their experience in teaching for 10th form students varied from 5 to 10 years At Gia Binh 2, there are 12 classes of

10th grade, so each teacher is responsible for 3 classes Each of class has from 42 to 49 students with three class hours of English per week That means each teacher has about 1.5 class hours

of writing teaching each week and deals with about 63- 70 students’ papers per week This amount of work is quite overloaded, even time and energy consuming as well

3.1.2 Teachers’ perception of teaching English writing as a process

When being asked what they think of teaching English writing skill in general and teaching English writing skill as a process in particular, all the teacher participants share the same point that writing is not an easy language skill to teach and learn In addition, the students do not pay much concern to this skill and their proficiency in writing is low Therefore, writing lessons are always boring and unexpected

Teaching writing skill in process requires teachers and learners to cooperate in numerous stages with large numbers of drafts This process takes much time, energy and participants’ effort At Gia Binh 2 High School, according to researcher’s observation from 10th grade teachers’ performances in class and analyzing their lesson plans, this process is conducted insufficiently Students’ drafts are often collected to edit once only Even many students lack

of teachers’ supports to self- edit their products at home as they do not pay attention or do not understand teachers’ editing guidance due to their low proficiency or big classes

In brief, writing teaching and learning at Gia Binh 2 School is not favorable and of great satisfaction An increasing number of problems seem to prevent the process of teaching and learning writing skill from being well- performed

3.1.3 Teacher participants’ representation of stages in writing teaching

The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has been implementing the renovation of textbooks on English on a large scale since 2006; and writing, as a result, becomes the compulsory part in English syllabus The new textbook for 10th graders is “Tiếng Anh 10”

which is clearly composed under the light of Communicative Approaches, each Reading, Speaking, Listening and Writing skill is acquired to teach in separated lessons with numerous stages namely Pre, While and Post Being asked about the method of processing a writing skill lesson, all the four teacher participants declare that they have been trying their best to make their class the most communicative in way, which means teachers must generate the class activities to develop learners’ four skills of reading, speaking, listening and writing The lesson

is always including stages with various activities and tasks Writing lessons often comprise stages namely Pre- writing, Writing and Post writing However, the stages in writing lessons

seem to be tasks which are not simple to perform Teacher 1 shares “I always face with the

problems of getting my students to participate in I know I have to motivate them as the skill is very difficult and boring, but it seems that I do not understand my students enough to know what they really want and what can enhance their learning.” Whereas, teacher 2 finds

providing writing lesson with numerous stages absolutely a challenge for her, especially in big and mixed ability classes It always takes much of her time to undertake the two first stages She tries to explain her students all the things clearly and provide them with all the vocabulary and grammatical structures they ask for about the topic so that they are well- prepared to write Moreover, she has to give her low proficiency students much time to write

Teacher 3 finds stages in writing teaching and learning not difficult to undertake but she still lacks time for students are too crowded and not good at the skill as she expects Large- sized classes sometimes prevent her from offering editing activities but she always tries her best so that her students have products after writing lessons Having some similar problems, teacher 4

says “The two first stages are not my problem but the last one.” She is a well- organized

teacher when giving instrumental suggestions, writing time and other support In contrast, helping students revise the papers really take her great consideration, even an excess of time

and energy “I know that my students all like to be commented on their writing products, so I

often spend excessive time on Post- writing stage.”

As seen, all the four teacher participants divide their writing lessons into quite clear stages with specified aims However, conducting those stages still causes them many obstacles;

mostly in the last stage namely post writing stage which will be discussed more detailed as follow

3.1.4 Teacher participants’ representations in Post writing stage

Post writing comprises any classroom activities that can be used by the teachers and the learners in teaching and learning writing to revise the finished written drafts Successful writers understand that revising is an integral part of the writing process It is so important that most authors spend the majority of their time revising their texts Writing is an intellectually challenging, and draining activity, but revising the writing so that they are persuasive, cogent, and form a solid argument is the real work of writing As you review what you have written, you will undoubtedly see holes in your logic The revision can include a wide range from big

issues such as Audience, Organization, Content, Support, and Concision to technical issues such as Usage, Word choice, Transitions and Mechanics, or the more detailed mechanics and presentations like Spelling, Punctuation, Format, Typographical errors and Textual

inconsistencies As a result, revising and editing the written products is really a hard job

This is not only time taking but also needs an appropriate reader to carry out The four teacher participants in the present study all weigh up this stage and pay much attention to this stage All the four state that they have tried to get post writing activities done regularly by teachers or peers during all writing lessons of the syllabus Moreover, they all claim that this can not be done individually by writers Writers can only edit their papers after getting sufficient suggestions from readership They view self- correction as a sub- activity not main instrument

in dealing with writing papers in class Self- assessment immediately after writing something can not result in any effect That should be done at home after someone else’s intervention According to teachers 1, 3 and 4, revising and editing written products must be taken in consideration directly in face- to- face classes They show that the teachers need balance the time so that they can have enough time to conduct this stage as early and directly as the papers written Another point of view, teacher 2 shares that he must get his students really ready to write first Then, we can have students to check their work at home in pairs or groups if no time for revising is left

In addition, all the four agree that their students are not competent enough to do much of the correction so they always have to consider the topics to decide which activity, peer correction, group correction or teacher’s correction is the best Among those, all the four declare that teacher’s feedback are dominant about three- fourths of the lessons while the others are used as the alternatives and sometimes as the motivating and supporting activities for teachers are too tired and overloaded by students’ writings They admit that this occupies much of their time

but it can be seen the best “It is a substantial challenge for our students to realize their own

and even their partners’ mistakes thus their limited knowledge” says teacher 2 Sharing the

same opinion, teacher 1 with his teaching experience confirms that he tries large numbers of strategies to take advantages of students’ ability in pair and group work but that does not succeed due to the learners’ limitation of knowledge and their tricks in class They make use of the time working in pairs and groups to chat or do the other things Teachers 3 and 4 also think that their students who are proficient enough to conduct the correction in their class are so rare that they should be the undertakers These two teachers believe that all their students prefer the feedback from the teachers to their partners’

3.1.5 Teachers’ evaluation on the effectiveness of post writing activities

3.1.5.1 Frequency and procedure of using Post- writing activities

As discussed above, of all the Post writing activities, according to teacher participants’ views, teachers’ critic is the major while the others are insubstantial In order to discover the real figures, the researcher attended and synthesized writing classes and finds that all classes at Gia Binh 2 are over- sized with mixed- ability students and poor quality facilities for language teaching; therefore, activities designed are quite limited Totally, there are 96 writing class hours synthesized during the eight unit duration of the study (approximate six months), in which the researcher has attended 8 class hours of writing teaching, one per each unit of units

from 4 to 11 of “Tieng Anh 10” conducted by the four teacher participants, two lessons each

teacher equally For the other class hours, which perform the same content but in other classes

by these 4 teacher participants, the researcher collects all the lesson plans from the participants

to review and synthesize After the duration of teaching these units, she finds out activities used in Post writing stage of those class hours as presented in chart 1

As seen from the chart, teachers’ giving feedback on students’ written products is the dominant Of the 96 writing lessons, there are up to 65 class hours (68%) using teachers’ responses to review the writing while the three left namely group- work editing, pair- work editing and self- editing account for 32% Students in tenth grade are asked to do the writing correction individually once only (1%) Group working is used with the frequency of 7 times (approximate 7%) Pair- work discussion ranks the third with 23 lessons (about 24%) With

Chart 1: Teachers' frequency of using post writing activities

these figures, we can see that teachers tend to work much In addition, as known a productive skill, it can take the teachers a lot of time and energy to undertake the stage

Being asked to describe more detailed the procedure they conduct the post writing activities, four teacher participants are all very helpful and eager to invite the researcher to take part in their writing lessons and review their lesson plans as well In seen in lesson plans, (samples in

Appendix B) the teacher participants are quite well- organized in planning revising activities

They arrange the pairs and groups carefully and plan the error codes for their students (see

Appendix C) Furthermore, they plan to manage the pair- work and group- work or the whole

class very flexibly during the duration of finding and correcting the mistakes in papers In addition, as revealed in interview, teacher 1 emphasizes the advantages of engaging students in activities of pairs or groups but there are too big classes so combining pairs and groups must

be done carefully to force students to really work Another view, teachers 3 and 4 ask their students, even in pairs or groups, to scan word for word to review with the changes of particular words in a sentence or misspelled words and grammatical errors and so on to involve them in Whereas, teacher 2 finds oversized classes limit activities in pairs and groups She considers herself as the main instructor who helps students to process their writing To edit their papers, the learners must know all their mistakes that just the teacher can show She is often the feedback provider or all the time she goes around in class to support students if they work in pairs or groups

In short, all the four teacher participants present their agreements of numerous stages in teaching writing, post writing stage’s role and their own techniques in dealing with this stage However, their teaching seems to be teacher- centered orientation and their real performances

in class do not result in outputs as expected

3.1.5.2 Teachers’ evaluation on the importance and effectiveness of Post writing activities

All the activities applied in Post writing stage are aimed at getting the students’ written products revised and their skill improved but those activities are defined as the variables There are no cues to prove that students’ writing skill is completely improved only due to those activities Actually, there are numerous other factors affecting it To investigate the teacher participants’ opinions in factors helping students improve writing skill, the researcher asks them to answer an interview question to measure the importance of post writing activities in improving learners’ writing proficiency, all the four participants agree that post writing activities among in- class factors play a crucial role Their measurement ranks from 70- 90% (teacher 1: 80-90%, teacher 2: 85- 90%, teacher 3: 70- 80%, and teacher 4: 75- 80%)

In this research, all the teacher participants agree that post writing activities play an important role in improving students’ writing proficiency, so finding out which activity is the most helpful contributes a lot to teaching and learning To evaluate the effectiveness of these

activities, the four teacher participants all weigh up their manifestations in lessons and the students’ proficiency in writing at the end of the academic year Teacher 1 states that each activity has its own advantages and disadvantages but it depends on the situations when and which activity is the most appropriate due to teacher’s preference and his pedagogical experience He highly appreciates both working with friends and with teachers though obtaining feedbacks from teachers can consume his time and energy and pair or group revising

can cause disorder and his students’ certain difficulties “Only showing learners their errors

helps them learn from their own failure and develop their proficiency and independence”;

whereas, teacher 2 overweighs the dominant effectiveness of teachers’ giving response In her point of view, this activity can bring students most improvement due to its direct and highly accurate treatments In contrast, the others just kill the time and cause disorders in class as she

still has to redo the corrections afterward “Responding to an overload of students’ papers can

take my time and energy but I think I must effort to avoid the matters of disordered classes”

Teacher 3 sees different activities as different choices to enhance the learning and teaching atmosphere Working in pairs, groups, or with the whole all are alternatives to encourage learners to contribute to each other Students can learn from the others’ mistakes and also

develop their communicative and interactive skill “I appreciate all of those activities but I

also admit the dominance of teacher’s feedback using in my writing lessons since pair or group working does not seem to work well in my contexts” Sharing the same point of view,

teacher 4 declares “Our students are too low proficient so engaging them in some kinds of

activities like pair or group working in writing revising seems not to work effectively.” She

admits those kinds give her students a chance to communicate but there are very few corrections they can support their partners in writing Sometimes, with the big classes, pair or group working may give the students opportunities to do other things or chat with each other Therefore, she also uses her feedback as the main instruments

As seen, all the four teacher participants overweigh the benefits teachers’ critic brings in They see the others as the alternatives and just little help their students revise writings or even as the encouraging activity to develop the other competence not writing

3.1.5.3 Teachers’ evaluation on the students’ improvement

Post writing activities applied for the last purpose is to develop writing skill The fact that how much the learners’ writing skill can improve depends upon many factors, in which revising is

an essential To revise, however, is to significantly alter a piece of writing that all the teacher participants share the points that it is performed best by the teachers (as presented above) So,

is their learners’ writing really improved as they expect?

Teacher 1 reveals his dissatisfaction, “I think that all the activities are beneficial but whether

they work or not depending on the context I always try using any strategies to involve my

learners in those activities but that does not work as I expect.” He feels that he has to force

students to work They are not motivated In contrast, teacher 2 is not surprised that her

students’ writing proficiency is not improved much “My students are low proficient in English

in general, not only writing As we know, writing is a very difficult skill to all foreign learners

so gaining less improvement in writing skill at my classes is not so surprising to me However,

I still have to admit some improvement in writing skill thanks to the correction activities”

Teacher 3 also expresses her uncontentedness In post writing activities, she often involves students in correcting or revising the writing papers The students’ mistakes should be shown

so that they can practice writing better and better She tries all the time to show them the major errors in their papers together with fundamental principles in writing to help them develop the smooth flow of writing But, the improvement is not as expectable as she hopes Having the

same situation, teacher 4 states that “My students’ writing skill is improved but not much I can

see that the only few treatments given to their writing mistakes really works Those are fundamental and easy to correct ones Besides, some others seem to exist My students still repeat them I think that I have to reconsider this.”

In summary, among editing activities the teacher participants use to revise their learners’ written products with the overweight of teachers’ comments which they find it fit the best their case and also improve the most their learners’ writing proficiency In contrast, the skill is not achievable as they expect

3.2 Data analysis of students’ performances, attitudes and evaluations

Eighty- nine student participants are randomly selected among 567 grade 10 learners of Gia Binh 2 High School to answer a questionnaire including 10 both multiple choice and open- ended questions Their answers and opinions are all revealed as follow:

3.2.1 Student participants’ learning experience

Being tenth graders, student participants of the present study work with the textbook “Tiếng

Anh 10” which is composed for learners who have at least 4 years of studying English

However, there are 7 of 89 student participants (about 8%) having less than 4 years of learning this language Of them, two start at grade 10, one starts at grade 7 and 4 others are at grade 9 Holding the required years of experience in studying English are only 4 learners accounting for about 5% while the left have more than the minimum, about 5 or 6 years as they start learning the language in the primary This group accounts for the biggest number: about 87% (78 students) as seen in chart 2

About experience in learning English in process of Communicative Approaches, 89 student participants also show a quite big difference There are 14 of them (16%) having familiarized with it for 1 year Holding the same percentage are learners with 3 or 4 years (from grade 7, 8

or 9) The learners with 5 year experience (from grade 6) are 8 accounting for approximately 9% The biggest number is 53 students (59%) who have experienced the approach for more than 5 years as required

In general, most of learners are holding more than required experience years in learning English Therefore, we can conclude from the above figures that the textbook and the subject syllabus are at achievable level to the student participants at Gia Binh 2 High School

3.2.2 Students’ perception of importance of Post- writing activities

Teaching and learning writing skill in process means the lesson must consist of numerous stages, in which post- writing is a very crucial one As the teacher participants declare above, all writing lessons for 10th graders at Gia Binh 2 High School include this stage However, it is very surprised that the student participants’ frequency of taking part in the stage is quite various Fifty students (56%) show that they occasionally do that while about a half of that number (24 students) accounting for approximately 27% do that more often There are 14 participants (16%) declaring that they never participate in such a kind of activity And only one left expresses his unsure opinion

Chart 2: Students' experience of learning English

Chart 3: Student participants’ experience of learning English in process

On being asked about the perception of the importance of Post- writing activities in writing teaching and learning, about nearly a half (48%) of the respondents agree that Post- writing activities are helpful and of great interest to students’ writing However, about one third (38%)

of them consider them as very boring despite admitting their essentiality Only 3% held a contradict opinion They stated that those activities are not of great assistance to students’ writings They are not only uninteresting but also the redundant According to the left (11%), they do not share any agreements with the three groups above but they also give no their own ideas

3.2.3 Students’ evaluation on the effectiveness of post- writing activities used

The respondents are then required to answer two questions to clarify the activities they use in post writing stage and which activity they find the most helpful to students’ writing Their answers are illustrated in charts 6 and 7

Self correction, as revealed, is rarely used as a post writing activity in class but often as an at home to rewrite papers having commented by friends or teachers, yet in chart 6, we can see only 7 students over 89 respondents state that they have ever self- edited their writing That means most of them do not rewrite after their friends and teachers comment on their papers as expect

Chart 4: Students’ frequency of participating in post writing activities

27%

56%

always sometimes never other

Chart 5: Students’ perception of the importance of Post writing activities

In class activities include peer correction, group review and teacher’s response Of three, teacher’s correction ranks first with the number of users is 83 (92%) Coming the second is group work with 69.7% (62 students) A bit smaller number is the students who have ever corrected their writing papers in pairs (53 students)

16

67

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Students

self correction peer

correction

group correction

teacher's correction

Chart 7: Respondents’ evaluation on the most effective activity

to students’ writing

When being asked to express their opinions about the most beneficial activity/ activities, student participants, in chart 7, show quite obvious views The greatest number is the students who find teacher’s comment is the most helpful (67 students accounting for 75.3%) Critics receiving from friend readers in activities of group working, pair working or self- editing are not highly appreciated They are overweighed by 16, 9 and 3 students respectively Therefore, the respondents are asked to give further evaluation on the advantage of each post-writing activity Their responses and explanations are performed as follow

There is only one student who states that self- correction on writing is effective and of great interests (14.3% of 7 student respondents who use self correction in revising writing papers) while there are 2 others (28.6%) who partly agree with that only one They think that self- correction is helpful but boring The first one see self correction as a chance for her to review what she learnt, thus she will improve faster; in addition, the two later state their reasons that self revising is very essential as we ourselves can do it regularly and at any time and revising helps us realize our own mistakes and thus improve our competence of writing and even reading and vocabulary but working alone makes them unmotivated More than a half of those

7 students (57.1%) see self revision as ineffective Some of them explain that what we write are the things we feel the most satisfied so we can not find out any mistakes in such papers by

self correction, and even others state the reason is that they become lazy correcting their own papers if no one works with them

1 4

24 9 18 2

32 10 16 4

49

24 3 7

3 0 0

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

Students

self correction

peer correction

group correction

teacher correction

other

Chart 8: Respondents’ evaluation on the effectiveness of post-writing activities

other ineffective effective and boring effective and interesting

Of the 53 student participants who give an evaluation on peer correction, 9 students say that thanks to peer correction and suggestion, they could revise their writings effectively and interestingly Peer correction gives them a chance to read and learn from other writer and also makes them relaxed and encouraged Meanwhile, about 34% of those 53 respondents state that they could not benefit from their peer feedback as some of their peers do not cooperate or are not sufficiently competent to help revising the papers by giving feedback which contradicted the writers’ ideas or unreliable comments Even, some peers truthfully declare that they often take the advantages of working in pairs to chat or do others Then, about 17% find beneficial from peer comment but do not prefer it as it takes time and energy They feel upset because of being unable sometimes to find all their partner’s mistakes and vice versa; even sometimes they defines wrong mistakes The six left (about 3.7%) raise their own opinions that pair working is both helpful and not A student states learners’ low proficiency sometimes leads to lack of understanding or even misunderstanding between the commentators and the comment receivers but revising papers between peers make him more confident with what he writes Another adds that some teachers do not rely on students’ comments, so learners are not motivated to engage in that activity and he does not know whether it is helpful or not

Group working seems more preferable than pair working on student discussions since we can see there are 62 respondents commenting on this activity and 51.6% of those respondents consider group’s feedback as helpful and of great interests Some of them state that thanks to observing some different written feedbacks received from their friends, they could learn many things: new knowledge, new language, new ideas to edit their own writing and the ways to give comments more effectively There is only a percentage of 16.1% who find it beneficial but uninteresting As same as pair work, they blame group- working dislike on reliability of comments from learners and disorder as working in group The number of respondents who do