Improving first students writing at the university of social sciences and humanities an action research

This helped the researcher com e to an assum ption that if students were provided w ith m ore controlled writing exercises to practice the language, their g ram m a r m istakes w ould be

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT

OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE

OF MASTER IN TESOL

TBUH6 H M

<g§) THÖN6 TIN THtfVifN NN-VH NIIÖC NGOAl

T4TV ww

Hanoi

M arch - 2009

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI UNIVERSITY

NGUYEN BICH THUY

IMPROVING FIRST YEAR STUDENTS’ WRITING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES:

AN ACTION RESEARCH

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT

OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE

OF MASTER IN TESOL

SUPERVISOR: NGUYEN THAI HA, MED.

Hanoi March-2009

M y sincere thanks go to Dr Vu V an Dai - the Dean o f Post G rad u ate Studies o f Hanoi University, all the enthusiastic lecturers and the w h o le s ta ff at Hanoi

U niversity for all their efforts w ithin their authority to help m e during my M.A course

Furtherm ore, I am very thankful to the learners o f class K 5 2 -T L at USSH for their w illingness to participate in the study W ithout their help, this project could not have been so successful

I am also in debt to m y friends, m y classm ates as well as colleagues for their useful co m m en ts and criticism

Last, I w ould like to express m y deepest gratitude to m y b elo v ed people, my parents, and m y husband, w h o have constantly inspired and encouraged me to com plete this study

a b s t r a c t;

This p ap e r reports on an action research project that aim ed to address the problem o f stu d en ts’ low writing quality in m y own classroom Following seven-action research steps set out by Som ekh in McBride & Sckotak (1989), a plan w as put into action with the participation o f 30 first year non-English-

m ajor students o f class K 52-T L at USSH

Before the experim ent, the stu dents’ writing papers w ere collected and analyzed to find out w h at aspect in the writing that lowered their writing quality, and at the sam e tim e, the writing sections o f the existing material were analyzed to investigate the causes o f the problem The results o f the data analysis show ed that the aspect that lowered the students’ writing quality was the inaccuracy o f g ram m a r and the reason for this was the lack o f controlled writing practice This helped the researcher com e to an assum ption that if students were provided w ith m ore controlled writing exercises to practice the language, their g ram m a r m istakes w ould be limited and their writing quality was expected to im prove as a result

Based on the initial results the researcher created a plan o f action in which controlled w riting practice w as inserted into each writing lesson The action plan w as im plem ented for six weeks Then data were collected from multiple sources, including questionnaire and tests The findings from the study revealed that the stu d e n ts’ writing quality im proved with reduced gram m ar errors Furtherm ore, the evaluation o f action research also indicated that students liked the activities o f controlled writing practice that they participated in each writing lesson The results o f this study support the conclusion that controlled writing practice has positive effect on students’ writing quality Based on the findings o f the study, so m e discussion and limitations were m ade along with reco m m end ed suggestions for further study

AR: Action Research

EFL: English as Foreign Language

ESL: English as Second Language

ELT: English Language Teaching

ESP: English for Special Purpose

GE: General English

USSFL University o f Social Sciences and Humanities

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Table 1: The result o f students’ first writing papers

Table 2: The result o f students’ second writing papers

Table 3: Types o f gram m ar errors in students’ first and second writing papers

Table 4: Frequency o f gram m ar errors in pre-test and post-test

Table 5: A com parison o f the results between pre-test and post-test

Table 6: Students’ opinion o f the interest level o f the activities

Table 7: Students’ opinion o f the usefulness o f the activities

Table 8: Students’ opinion o f the motivation level o f the activities

Diagram 1: Producing a good piece o f writing

Figure 1: Action Research Cycle

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

T A B L E S O F C O N T E N T

A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S I

A B S T R A C T II

L I S T O F A B B R E V I A T I O N S I l l

L I S T O F T A B L E S A N D F I G U R E S I V

C H A P T E R 1: I N T R O D U C T I O N 1

1.1 B a c k g r o u n d t o t h e s t u d y 1

1.1.1 Teaching and learning G E 1

1.1.2 Teaching and learning materials 4

1.1.3 Assessm ent 6

1.2 A i m o f t h e s t u d y 7

1.3 R e s e a r c h Q u e s t i o n s 7

1.4 S c o p e a n d S i g n i f i c a n c e o f t h e s t u d y 7

1.5 O u t l i n e o f t h e r e s t o f t h e t h e s i s 8

C H A P T E R 2 : L I T E R A T U R E R E V I E W 9

2 1 T e a c h i n g w r i t i n g i n a f o r e i g n l a n g u a g e 9

2.1.1 Approaches to teaching writing 9

2.1.2 Product Approach 12

2.1.3 What makes a good piece o f writing 14

2 2 C o n t r o l l e d W r i t i n g P r a c t i c e 16

2.2.1 Roles o f Controlled Writing P ractice 16

2.2.2 Types o f Controlled Writing 18

C H A P T E R 3 : M E T H O D O L O G Y 2 6 3 1 A c t i o n R e s e a r c h 2 6 3 2 P r o c e d u r e o f a n a c t i o n r e s e a r c h 2 7 Identifying a problem 27 Collecting data 2 7

Planning action 28

Implementing action steps 28

Collecting data to monitor change 29

Analysis and evaluation 29

3.3. S u b j e c t s 29

3.4. D a t a C o l l e c t i o n I n s t r u m e n t s 30

3.4.1 Document analysis 30

3.4.2 Test 31

3.4.3 Follow-up questionnaire 32

3.5. E r r o r c o d e 33

C H A P T E R 4: D A T A A N A L Y S IS A N D D I S C U S S I O N 36

4.1. I n i t i a l r e s u l t s 36

4.1.1 Aanalysis o f the students ’ writing pa p ers 36

4.1.2 Analysis o f the textbook writing sections 40

4.2. F i n d i n g s 41

4.3. P l a n o f a c t i o n 42

4.3.1 Planning 42

4.3.2 Procedure o f action plan 43

4.4. E v a l u a t i o n o f a c t i o n p l a n 43

4.4.1 Data collected from pre-test and post-test 43

4.4.2 Data collected from questionnaire 46

C H A P T E R 5: M A J O R F IN D IN G S A N D C O N C L U S I O N 50

5.1. E f f e c t s o f t h e a c t i o n p l a n 50

5.1.1 Successes 50

5.1.2 P roblem s 51

5.1.3 Suggestions fo r further cycles o f stu d y 52

5.2. R e c o m m e n d a t i o n s 53

5.3. C o n c l u s i o n 53

R E F E R E N C E S 56

C H A P T E R 1: IN T R O D U C T IO N

This chapter describes the background to the study, states the aims o f the study and research questions, its significance and scope, and presents the outline o f the rest o f the thesis

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

At University o f Social Sciences and Humanities (USSH), English learning is divided into 2 stages At the first stage, the students have 220 class periods o f General English (GE) The aim o f the English language training program at this stage is to provide students with basic knowledge o f English including Structures, Vocabukuy and fo u r skills: listening, speaking, reading and

Elementary and Pre-intermediate, which are in the multi-level New Headway series by Liz and John Soars, as the text books to teach English to non- English

m ajored students at this stage o f the English training program (the teaching material will be more described in 1.1.2) At the second stage, the students study 90 class periods o f either an ESP course or a further course o f English in the third academic year At this stage, students from different faculties use different materials and o f course, take different exam papers but at the same time The aim o f the course is to help students have a chance to make assess to structures, vocabulaiy and subject contents associated with their major subject.

In the following subparts, teaching and learning G E at USSH will be presented, followed by the description o f the teaching and learning material Assessment will be introduced in the last part

1.1.1 T eaching and learning GE

GE program lasts three semesters In the first term o f the first year (the study was carried in this term), students at USSH have 15 weeks o f learning English,

o f which the 7th week is for mid-term test and the last week is for students to study by themselves This means that the real time for students to study in the classroom is 13 weeks for the first 12 units in N ew Headway- elementary That

is, on average, students have to com plete one unit a week in seven class hours

A writing lesson usually falls in the last two periods

In term o f teaching procedures, the teacher usually depends heavily on the textbook In fact, she follows the procedure or sequence o f w ork provided in the materials In a writing lesson, the activities are usually implemented as follows:

• Students are required to com plete activities provided in the writing section to develop some kind o f writing skill For example, in order to develop the skill o f writing formal or informal letters, students have to read a model letter and study its organization Alternatively, as to develop the skill o f using cohesive devices, students are required to do exercises o f completing, com bining or reproducing On the other hand,

aiming at getting students familiarized with the skill o f description, the

teacher requires students to read a model text, which is available in the textbook

• Students are expected to write their writing papers individually in class basing on the model and hand them afterward The teacher gets the papers, grades them, and then hands them back to students in the following lesson

In order to understand more clearly the activities implemented in each writing lesson, I would like to take the writing section o f unit 5 as an example (A ppendix 1) The aims o f the writing section o f unit 5 are to develop the skill

o f using cohesive devices and writing a description o f a house Besides, students have a chance to revise the structure There is/are and prepositions o f place through writing Students practice the skill o f using cohesive devices by

skill o f writing description, students are required to read a model text and then skip to writing a similar one.

C om paring with the teaching procedures o f a writing lesson introduced by Pincas (1 982a) (see more details in 2.1.2 in Chapter 2), the researcher finds that there is a missing element in the procedures im plem ented in her own classroom Obviously, after familiarizing to some writing skill and do some exercises to practice the skill, students move quickly into free writing with no

or little practice o f language between This may lead to the low quality in students’ writing papers

In fact, although gram m ar is introduced in gram m ar section and revised in skills w o rk section in student’s book, followed by a lot o f grammatical exercises in w orkbook (see m ore in 1.1.2), m y students still get problems with

g ram m ar in their writing M any g ram m ar errors in such areas as verb forms, subject-verb agreem ent, articles, etc are found in students’ writing papers

M eanw hile, the assessment criteria o f the writing test aim at assessing students’ accurate and fluent gram m ar know ledge (see m ore in 1.1.3) This leads to a bad result in stu d en ts’ writing papers

Discussing the factors that cause students’ errors in writing and affect their writing proficiency, H ector (1991) claims that there are four m ain reasons:

(1) the teacher or the materials have not presented the point

clearly enough, (2) there has not yet been appropriate practice o f

the point, mechanical and meaningful, (3) the students have not

m ad e the effort necessary to m aster it, even though they had

adequate opportunity to do so, or (4) the students have ventured

into linguistically still-to-be ‘charted’ territory

A m o ng the four above causes, only the second cause m ight be taken into consideration The reason for this is all the teachers o f English in the Division

o f F oreign languages were recruited to teach in the university and all o f them graduated from one o f the formal training universities o f foreign languages and met the D ep artm e n t’s needs M oreover, the textbook has m any advantages and

meets the aim o f the English language-training program at GE stage (see more

in 1.1.2) In addition, almost all students are aware o f the importance o f studying English and using English for their future work Besides, the material

is appropriate to their level o f English Therefore, the possible explanation for the students’ gram matical errors in their w'riting might be the lack o f practice o f the language

Dykstra (1977), Ross (1968), and Paulson (1972) argued for the virtues o f controlled writing: (1) controlled writing allowed students to practice and habituate correct structures and thereby learn to ‘w'rite’ on their own; (2) controlled writing will permit busy teachers to give daily assignments o f writing exercises - even in large classes and at the same time insure that the students’ w ork will be substantially correct and in acceptable form with acceptable usage (cited in Nguyen, 2006)

All the above argum ent leads the researcher to a hypothesis that more controlled writing practice might im prove students’ writing quality in term o f gram m ar accuracy

1.1.2 T eachin g and learning materials

As m entioned above, N ew H eadw ay- Elem entary and Pre-intermediate written

by Liz and John Soars are currently used to teach English to non-English majored students at GE Both student’s book and w orkbook are compulsory They are chosen because they are appropriate to the aim o f the training program Each textbook presents and revises the basic structures o f English and develops them through a variety o f different contexts Emphasis is also placed

on consolidating and enlarging the students’ knowledge o f vocabulary and gram mar, and on developing their ability o f com m unicating effectively There

is thorough treatm ent o f reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills

Each unit in stu d e n t’s book consists o f five parts The first part, Starter, is designed to be a w a n n e r to the lesson and its aim is to focus students on the

topic or key language point o f the unit The second part, Grammar, introduces the main gram m ar points and provides students with a chance to practice in a context through pair or group work In the third part, Vocabulary, a range o f vocabulary on com m on topics is introduced followed by some exercises or illustrated pictures so that students can acquire easily Skill work is the fourth pail, in w hich all four skills are integrated and developed in context, for example, Listening and Speaking; Listening and Writing; Reading and

English in real lives

The w orkbook is an important com ponent o f the course It revises the grammatical input o f the student’s book through countless gram m ar exercises Besides, the workbook contains the writing syllabus, which is used as material

to teach writing at USSH

During the first term o f the first year there are eleven writing sections introduced in the workbook (Appendix 1) The types o f writing introduced in the writing sections include writing formal and informal letters, writing a postcard, describing a place, a person, and a holiday. The aims o f the writing sections are as follows

• To develop some writing skills such as presenting ideas (description), using linking devices, formality

• To reinforce the language focuses which have been introduced in other sections o f the text book, including pronouns, present sim ple tense, there is/are, modal verb ‘c a n ’, past simple tense, comparatives/superlatives, etc

The follow-up types o f exercises to practice skills are jo inin g or completing sentences with linking words, com pleting a paragraph or a text with linking words, jo in in g part-sentences with linking words, studying the organization o f

a model letter, using a model text to follow However, there are no types o f exercises for practicing gram m ar points.

1.1.3 A ssessm ent

At U SSH , formal assessment and evaluation are made for all four-language skills during each term Students take a m id-term test o f four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing (the reading and writing skills are included in the written test), and one final written test, including three sections: Grammar and Vocabulary; Reading; and Writing The writing section m akes up 20% o f the total mark o f the final written test The writing tasks tested in the writing section consist o f two parts: Sentence Building (students are required tocom plete a sentence with the given words or rewrite a sentence which has the same m eaning as the provided one) and Composition Writing with the content taken from or similar to what is learned in the course book such as writing letters, stories, postcards, a paragraph (description), etc M oreover, during the first h a lf o f the term, students have to hand in 2 writing papers as the condition for taking the mid-term test and another 3 during the second h a lf (Appendix 1)

as the condition for taking the final test In short, what is tested in the writing section reflects what has been learnt in the program This m eans in order to achieve a high result in the writing test, students have to learn the textbook well

In term o f criteria for the assessment o f the writing test (Appendix 2) conducted

by the Division o f Foreign Languages, accuracy o f gram m ar is put at the first place The reason for this is that students’ English level at this stage is elementary Raimes (1983) argues that ‘a great deal o f writing that goes on in ESL lessons, especially in an elementary-level class, is sentence writing Students repeat or complete given sentences to reinforce the structure, gram m ar, and vocabulary they have learnt’ Teachers, therefore, focus more on gram m ar accuracy than on fluency or organization In other words, the assessm ent criteria show that through the writing lessons, students are expected

to write to learn rather than to learn to write. That implies that product approach to writing (more described in 2.1.1 & 2.1.2) is currently applied in our teaching context.

1.2 AIM OF THE STUDY

This research aimed at improving gram m ar accuracy in students’ w'riting To achieve this aim, the research had to

1 identify the causes to students' gram m ar inaccuracy in their writing

2 suggest the solution to the problem on the basis o f the identified causes

3 trial out the suggestions

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

To achieve the objectives m entioned above, answers to the following questions were sought:

1 What are the causes to the problems9

2 W hat are the solutions to the problems?

3 Do the suggested solutions help im prove gram m ar accuracy in students' writing?

1.4 SCOPE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The first limitation is that although the aim o f the study w;as to improve gram m ar accuracy in writing o f the non-English-m ajor students at University

o f Social Sciences and Humanities, the participants o f the study were only restricted to the students o f class K52-TL A nother factor that also reduces the validity o f the study is that the study only focused on how to help students reduce g ram m ar errors in their writing Thus, the other targets w ould be out o f question

The action research was carried out with the hope that my students would produce better writings thanks to m ore controlled writing practice Ir so, the researcher expects that controlled writing practice can be applied in teaching and learning English in other classes at USSH.

1.5 OUTLINE OF THE REST OF THE THESIS

Chapter 2, Literature Review, introduces three approaches to teaching writing and then presents a b rie f overview o f different authors’ opinions on criteria that make a good writing Also, it will point out the roles o f controlled writing practice in the writing classroom The types o f controlled writing will be introduced in the last section o f this chapter

Chapter 3, M ethodology, presents the research method, the detailed description

o f the subjects and the data collection instruments Error code will be the last section

Chapter 4, Data analysis and Discussion, analyzes the initial data to form the hypothesis o f the study An action plan is worked out and implemented to check the assumption The post data is then collected and analyzed to make an evaluation o f the effects o f the action plan

Chapter 5, M ajor findings and Conclusions, presents the effects o f the action plan and then draws conclusions and gives some recom m endations from the study

C H A P T E R 2: L IT E R A T U R E R E V IE W

There are two main issues that will be discussed in this chapter: general ideas

o f teaching writing and controlled writing practice in teaching writing In the first section, approaches to teaching writing will be discussed; in addition, what

m akes a good writing will be mentioned The roles o f controlled writing practice and types o f controlled writing will be presented in the second section

2.1 TEACHING WRITING IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

2.1.1 A pproaches to teaching writing

This section introduces the features, the weaknesses and strengths o f three approaches that are currently popular in English writing teaching field, i.e., the product approach, the process approach and the genre approach

Product approach

Traditional approaches to the teaching o f writing focus on the product: in other words, the production o f neat, gram m atically correct pieces o f writing (Mahon 1992) O n e o f the most explicit descriptions o f product approaches is provided

by Pincas (1982a) She sees writing as being primarily about linguistic know ledge, with attention focused on the appropriate use o f vocabulary, syntax, and cohesive devices (Pincas 1982b)

A ccordin g to this approach, the teaching o f writing focuses on “one-shot correct writing for the purpose o f language practice” (Cheung 1999) and a

“on e-sh ot effort by the teacher to evaluate the students’ attem pts” (Pennington and C h eu n g 1995: 20) The em phasis is on grammatical correctness and adh eren ce to given models or guidelines (W hite 1988) However, imitating

m odels inhibits writers rather than liberating them There is little or no opportunity for the students to add any thoughts or ideas o f their own (Raimes 1983) T he inevitable consequence is that little attention is paid to the ideas and

m ean ing o f student writing, what it com m unicates to the reader, the purpose

and the audience (Raimes 1983: 75) O ver-em phasis on accuracy and form can lead to serious “ writing blocks” (Halsted 1975: 82) and “sterile" and“ unim aginative” pieces o f work (Mahon 1992).

However, we can not deny the advantages o f the product approach, for this traditional approach recognizes the need for students to be given linguistic knowledge about texts, so students will have a clear idea about the organization

o f a particular text (Raimes 1983) And w h a t’s more, the product approach understands that imitation is one way in which people learn It has contributed greatly to the developm ent o f students’ vocabulary and structure and under some circum stances it is m ore useful for practical teaching and it does suit the teaching situations at USSH In fact, our university is applying this approach to our writing lessons M ore details about this approach will be described in 2.1.2

Leki (1991) states that the process approach is an approach to teaching writing that places m ore em phasis on the stages o f the writing process than on the final product In the process approach, the steps or stages are illustrated and practiced from the generation o f ideas and com pilation o f information through

a series o f activities for planning, gathering information, drafting, revising, and editing (Cam pbell 1998: 11) This sequence o f activities typically occurs in

four stages: “prewriting, composing/drafting, revising, and editing” (Tribble 1996).

Many educators are positive towards the process approach and think that the students will benefit greatly from this approach (Raimes 1983, Stewart and Cheung 1989, White and Arndt 1991, Ho 2006, Xu 2005, Li 2006) However, the disadvantage o f the process approach is that it often regards all writing as being produced by the same set o f processes; that it gives insufficient importance to the kind o f texts writers produce and why such texts are produced; and that it offers learners insufficient input, particularly in terms o f linguistic knowledge (Badger & W hite 2000) As for our university students, they have no special writing courses W riting has been considered as subsidiary

to the other language skills (speaking, listening, and reading) Meanwhile, the process approach requires a long-time training Therefore, it is not suitable for our present teaching plan On the other hand, there are m ore than thirty students in one class at U SSH and the teacher cannot give guidance to every student Therefore, our university finds it unsuitable to apply this approach to our w riting classes

Genre Approach

Since the m id-1980s, considerable attention has been paid to the genre approach to teaching writing In terms o f writing in a second language, The

genre approach as “a framework for language instruction” (Byram 2004: 234) based on examples o f a particular genre The genre fram ew ork supports students’ writing with generalized, systematic guiding principles about how to produce m eaningful passages

The positive sides o f the genre approach are that it acknowledges that writing takes place in a social situation and is a reflection o f a particular purpose, and it understands that learning can happen consciously through imitation and analysis (B adger and White 2000) Genre approaches focus m ore on the reader,

and on the conventions that a piece o f writing needs to follow in order to be successfully accepted by its readership (M uncie 2002).

However, an argument has been raised at times that teaching students' genres would degenerate into teaching arbitrary m odels and textual organization with little connection to a student's learning purposes (Freedm an 1983, cited in Kim 2005) Sometimes, m isunderstanding o f the m eaning o f "explicit" teaching caused this argument to arise This means that, according to Gibbons (2002), students are encouraged to reflect on how language is used for a range o f purposes and with a range o f audiences, and that teacher's focus explicitly on these aspects o f language A nother limitation o f genre approaches that has been addressed is about students' role in this approach As Badger and White (2000) point out, the negative aspect o f genre approaches is that they undervalue skills needed to produce a text, and see learners as largely passive

W hat is more, in practical teaching, teachers cannot provide students with all sorts o f genres in the classroom Therefore, the genre approach also has its limitations in the teaching o f writing and it is not applicable to our teaching context

2.1.2 Product A pproach

H aving introduced the features as well as the w eaknesses and strengths o f this approach in the previous section, the writer goes on to describe the teaching procedures im plem ented in a typical product-oriented class Steele (2004) introduced a model for this approach, w hich is outlined below:

Stage 1: Model texts are read, and then features o f the genre are highlighted For exam ple, i f studying a formal letter, students' attention m ay be drawn to the

im portance o f paragraphing and the language used to m ake formal requests If studying a story, the focus may be on the techniques used to make the story interesting, and students focus on where and how the writer employs these techniques

Stage 2: This consists o f controlled practice o f the highlighted features, usually

in isolation So if students are studying a formal letter, they m ay be asked to practice the language used to make formal requests, practicing the i would be grateful if you w ould .’ structure

Stage 3: Organization o f ideas This stage is very important Those who favor this approach believe that the organization o f ideas is more important than the ideas them selves and as important as the control o f language

Stage 4: The result o f the learning process Students choose from a choice o f com parable writing tasks Individually, they use the skills, structures and vocabulary they have been taught to produce the product: to show what they can do as fluent and com petent users o f the language

A ccording to Pincas (1982a), learning to write following this approach has three stages: familiarization, controlled/guided exercises, and free writing, which is the sam e as a structure lesson The activities m ight be as follows

• Teachers w ould introduce a writing skill or a variety o f writing and the

language needed for the writing Teacher could use guides provided by a textbook, talk about them, m aybe invite a little class discussion, and then explain how students are going to write a com position based on them

• T hen the students would be provided some controlled exercises, and then guided exercises in order to practice the skill and the language introduced in the previous stage

• Finally, students would be ordered to write individually either in class or after class and turn their writing into the teacher for marking The teacher marks the composition with corrections or correction symbols, som etim es with added comments, focusing on form instead o f content

Com paring the procedures implemented in my classroom (see 1.1.1) with the procedures described above, the writer finds that the way she is teaching in her class is product-oriented However, there seems to be lack o f controlled practice for the language in her implemented activities This may be the reason why her students made m any g ram m ar errors in their writing papers.

2.1.3 W h at makes a good piece o f writing

Up to now, there have been a lot o f ideas about how to get good pieces o f writing Hedge (1989) argues that there are several considerations that account for effective writing, namely:

• a high degree o f organization in the developm ent o f ideas and information

• a high degree o f accuracy so that there is no ambiguity o f meaning

• the use o f com plex grammatical devices for focus and emphasis

• and a careful choice vocabulary and grammatical patterns, and sentence structures to create a style which is appropriate to the subject matter and the eventual readers

Brown (2001) also introduces some sim ilar aspects that the writer must pay attention to in order to have a good piece o f writing Compositions were supposed to

(a) meet certain standards o f prescribed English rhetorical, (b)

reflect accurate gram m ar, and (c) be organized in conformity

w ith what the audience w ould consider to be conventional A

good deal o f attention was placed on “m odel” compositions that

students w ould em ulate and on how well a student’s final product

m easured up against a list o f criteria that include content,

organization, vocabulary use, gram matical use, mechanical

consideration such as spelling and punctuation

(Brown, p 335)

Thus, both Hedge and Brown mention the aspect o f gram m ar in producing a good piece o f writing Obviously, gram m ar accuracy plays a very important role in the quality o f a writing paper.

A ccording to Gabrielatos (2002), elements o f good writing were considered into two aspects: product and process In product aspect, the author emphasized the im portance o f elements such as accuracy and appropriateness o f gram m ar and syntax usage in writing

Raimes (1983) introduces a diagram showing what writers have to deal with as they produce a piece o f writing (Diagram 1)

Clear, fluent, and effective com m unication o f

C on ten t

Relevance, clarity, originality, logic, etc.

W ord choice

vocabulary, idiom, tone

P urpose

the reason for writing

T h e w riter’s process

Getting ideas, getting started, writing drafts revising

Diagram 1: Producing a good piece o f writing

A ccording to the diagram, a good piece o f writing must contain m any factors, including syntax, gram m ar, mechanics, organization, word choice, purpose, audience, the w riter’s process, and content However, it is impossible for all these elem ents to be practiced and improved at the same time for a short period Basing on the features o f the training program at U SSH and students’

English level (described in C h a p tc 1), as well as the criteria o f grading a writing paper (Appendix 2), the researcher only focus on the elem ent o f

gram m ar o f the diagram This m eans that special em phasis is placed on

syntactic accuracy rather than fluency or originality Moreover, Raime« (1983) argues that ‘a great deal o f writing that goes on in ESL lessons, especially in an elementary-level class, is sentence writing Students repeat or com plete given sentences to reinforce the structure, grammar, and vocabulary they have learnt’ She adds ‘only after reaching a high intermediate or advanced level o f proficiency are students allowed to try some free compositions, in which they express their own ideas’

In conclusion, in order to reach a piece o f good writing, it requires a lot o f different elements However, it is know n that one o f the earliest and popular approaches to writing is the approach that focuses on syntactic accuracy,

product approach (see 2.1.1) According to this approach, special em phasis is placed on syntactic mistakes in students’ written work Those w'ho follow this approach stress the importance o f control in order to eliminate mistakes from written work Therefore, in this paper, the writer w ould like to investigate

w hether using controlled writing practice (more described in the following section) could reduce gram m ar errors in the students’ writing papers

2.2 CONTROLLED WRITING PRACTICE

2.2.1 Roles o f C ontrolled W riting Practice

The term o f controlled writing is defined by Raimes (1983: 95) as all the writing the students do for which a great deal o f the content and/or form is supplied It is opposite o f free writing, where students generate, organize, and express their own ideas, in their ow n sentences In controlled tasks, m ore is given to the students: an outline to complete, a paragraph to manipulate, a model to follow, or a passage to continue She also states some benefits o f controlled writing as follows

• Reinforce grammar, vocabulary, and syntax in context

• Allow students to concentrate on one or two writing problems at a time

• Easier to grade than free writing

• Less-time consuming, so m ore can be assigned

• Easier for beginning writers to score highly, even 100%

• Tend to prom ote confidence in students that they can m aster specific writing skill

• A ppropriate as individual, small group, or class work

• Can easily be used to spark small group or class discussion

Controlled writing is not ju s t general “writing practice” Its greatest value com es from the fact that it provides practice in a specific feature o f the written language or the process o f writing (Raim es 1983: 96)

Birdas provides some principles for using controlled exercises in class as follows

• Focus on form and accuracy

• Often used to teach a g ram m a r structure or language function in conjunction with sem i-controlled and com m unicative exercises

• Controlled practice provides exercises that limit the students’ attention

to the target structure or function so that it can be accurately produced

• Exercises m ust be m eaningful and realistic (not isolated, unconnected practice sentences); provide realistic/unifying context

• M ake sure that exercise is not simply a mechanical transformation

w here the students could provide the correct answ er without considering the meaning o f the w hole sentence

• Provide for pair or group practice w herever possible

• During pair/group work, walk around the classroom and check students’

w ork and help if needed (make sure to provide enough practice exchanges so that you can have time to w alk around to everyone)

However, while controlled writing tasks give students the opportunity to produce a great deal o f almost error-free writing and to focus their attention on troublesom e grammatical and syntactic features, they provide only reinforcem ent and not a total writing program As soon as the students develop their writing skills enough to be writing their own sentences instead o f just following a pattern or transforming given sentences, then they are ready to write a sequence o f sentences This sequence comprises free writing (Raimes 1983: 115)

sentences They write the given passage down, making a few specified changes, usually o f a grammatical or structural nature There are some kinds o f exercises as follows:

1 Teacher gives students a passage and asks them to make a change For exam ple, in order to practice the verb tenses o f present and past simple, teacher asks students to change a given passage beginning with “ Every day, Alan gets

up a t ” into a new one beginning with “ Last week, Alan got u p ” O f course, in some controlled compositions, the making o f one change necessitates other linguistic changes The student has to be aware o f these and has to make the necessary connections Look at the following example:

“ It’s m orning in the park A young man is walking with his dog Every day he buys a new spaper at the newsstand The news dealer greets him The m an takes his new spaper to a nearby bench He sits by h im self and reads His dog runs in the trees”

Rewrite the passage, but change A young man to Tw o young men in

sentence 2

In this exercise, students have to be alert to much more than simply changing

m an to men throughout They have to deal with verb forms; noun plurals;

pronouns; possessive adjectives; reflexive pronouns; and determiners In addition, while they are writing the com pleted paragraph, they have to pay attention to indentation, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling Therefore, even though the task is controlled, the students have to do a lot o f thinking

2 T e acher gives students a passage and asks them to fill in vocabulary words

T he advantage o f this exercise is that the coherence that the text demands must influence the choice o f words throughout the text as in the following example:

“ I went to a (1) to by (2) presents for m y (3) I have two (4), William and Water, and two (5), Joyce and Joan There are a lot o f (6) on the shelves and I began by choosing (7) for both the boys I know that both

o f them like (8) The girls are younger After looking at several (9) 1 finally bought them both (10)”

(6) children’s books, toys

(7) books, model cars

(8) autom obiles, adventure stories

(9) picture books, toys for girls

(10) dolls, books o f nursery rhymes

3 T eacher can provide a structural skeleton outline so that students can construct a parallel paragraph using new information

4 For advanced-level students, they can be asked to supply synonyms for specific words, to change post-nom inal adjectival phrases into adjectives, or to change the focus o f a passage by switching it from positive to negative or vice- versa

Material for controlled com positions is available not only in specialized textbooks, but also in the short reading passages found in m ost ESL texts, and

o f course in the writing o f students themselves A student’s com position once revised and corrected for gram mar, can then be used by the sam e student or by the w hole class as a text to change

Question and Answer

The type o f controlled composition that uses a question and answer format allows students a little m ore freedom in structuring sentences They are not given the actual text that they will write; rather, they are given a series o f questions, the answers to which form the text Carefully constructed questions will produce a coherence text Look at the follow ing examples:

1 The students write a paragraph by answ ering the given q- estions in com pleted sentences The questions can ask about information that is given in notes or a list or even in a picture sequence

2 Students read or listen to a passage two or three times Then, without further reference to the passage, they write a com position based on a given set o f questions about the material they have ju st studied Such tasks provide an excellent opportunity for teachers to tie language study in with the study o f other school subjects

Guided composition

G uided com position is an extension o f controlled composition It is less controlled than the above exam ples o f controlled composition in which it gives students some but not all o f the content and form o f the sentences they will use Their finished products will thus be similar but not exactly alike Students are given a first sentence, a last sentence, an outline to fill out, a series o f questions

to respond to, or information to include in their piece o f writing Some exam ples can be seen as follows:

1 Students are given a picture to discuss and any new vocabulary words or idioms are written on the board Then the students are given some guidelines fur writing

2 A picture sequence provides excellent material for a guide composition The picture provides the subject matter, and class discussion will provide

vocabulary and grammatical features needed to write about the sequence If

h alf o f the class is given one set o f pictures and the other h alf another, then the task can be simply to describe the events to each other Or the last picture o f the sequence can be omitted, and students then finish the story by using their imagination

3 A sim ple outline can be the basis for in-class discussion that then leads to writing

4 Students are given the first and the last sentence o f a paragraph and then free

to co m p o se their ow n sentences to com plete the paragraph using their imagination

Sentence combining

Sentence com bining is the com bining o f “base” or kernel” sentences into one longer co m p o un d or complex sentence As a technique to help students with their w riting, it has been o f interest to teachers for the last ten years According

to Raim es (1983), sentence com bining is a very good way o f introducing new language structures without going into complicated explanations and

em ploying specialized terminology While it does not give students the opportunity to formulate ideas and com m unicate something meaningful to a reader, it does provide plenty o f practice with the syntactic structures that are

m ore c o m m o n in writing than in speech, and gives students the chance to use the gram m atical know ledge they have to m ake choices about structures

The student w ho is asked to com bine sentences is given his content His decision is not one o f what to say but o f how to say it Various degrees o f control determ ine the am ount o f freedom the writer exercises in choosing structure to use Som e examples are provided as follows:

1 Students are given pairs o f simple sentences, taken from a textbook paragraph or from the students’ ow n writing, to com bine into one sentence within the context o f the paragraph This activity is suitable for small groups as

students can pool their resources and between them discover as many options

as possible In these two sentences:

• She did not see the beginning o f the play

• The train was late

The students could discover these possibilities for combination:

• Since/As/Because the train was late, s h e

• She d id n ’t see the beginning o f the play because/as/since the train waslate

• The train was late, so sh e

• With the train being so late, s h e

Then they choose w hich version fits best into the larger context o f the paragraph W ith an elementary-level class, a cue can be supplied:

• She d id n ’t see the beginning o f the play

• The train was late, (because)

The students then have to decide where to use the joining word, how to arrangethe sentences around it, and how to punctuate the new sentence

2 The teacher can concentrate on the production o f a new text by asking students to com bine groups o f sentences so that the finished series o f sentences

m akes up a paragraph

3 A t high intermediate and advanced levels, students can be given a reading passage containing com plex sentences that they then break down into kernel sentences for other students to combine This provides excellent practice in analyzing sentence structure and discovering how sentences are assembled in English

Parallel writing

Parallel writing is the freest kind o f controlled writing Instead o f making changes in a given passage or writing according to an outline or given sentences, students read and study a passage and then write their own on a sim ilar theme, using as a guide the vocabulary, sentence structure, cohesive device, and organization o f the model passage The followings are such examples:

1 The students read or listen to a textbook dialogue a few times Then they write down what they heard or read, though now not in dialogue but as a narrative

2 The students listen to a series o f short descriptions o f people In front o f them they have a table with some information missing, which they have to fill

in from the information given in the description Then they write a description

o f each person, using the given and collected information

3 The students are first given a letter, a dialogue, or a story to read and then given an outline o f a different set o f information and write a passage that is parallel to the one they have ju st read

4 The students read a short passage and then rewrite it with different but given subject matter For exam ple, students read the description o f Calcutta then write a sim ilar description o f N ew York given necessary information

5 Far m ore freedom to use the imagination, students are provided with a reading passage and then asked to write from the point o f view o f another person

W ith the above description o f types o f controlled writing exercises, it is obvious that controlled writing is not only practice activities but also remedial work In fact, through this type o f practice, students can avoid making errors in

their writing This is also the reason why the researcher has chosen to use controlled writing practice to m inim ize g ram m ar errors in the students’ writing.

Arguing how to fit controlled writing exercises into the writing lesson, Raimes (1983) says that teachers should assign the types o f controlled writing with their focus and purpose in mind: not “ I think I will assign a controlled composition today,” but “ My students need practice with (subject-verb agreement, adjective phrases, synonyms, etc.) so I’ll assign a controlled composition for them to discuss in class She adds controlled writing can fit into a com position curriculum at any level o f student ability in these two places:

1 before free writing, when students practice a gram matical point or syntactic structure within a text and not ju s t as a sentence exercise And, at the same time, use that text as a source o f vocabulary, ideas, idioms, and organization to help them in planning their own piece o f writing

2 after free writing, when we see that what problem s our students are having and assign a controlled task to give them practice with the problem areas

In this writing, basing on the analysis o f s tu d en ts’ writing papers (see chapter 4) about the error types that students usually m ade, the researcher designed the suitable types o f controlled writing exercises to fit into each writing lesson with

a hope that her students would m inim ize the g ram m ar errors in their writing For exam ple, one o f the most com m on error types that the students used to make was Plural Nouns, so the teacher designed a controlled com position for them to practice by giving a passage and asking them to m ake a change

3.1 ACTION RESEARCH

A ction research (AR) was chosen as the research method for m y study because

o f the follow ing reasons

First, A R is very focused on small-group professional practice (W allace 1998) Second, it is feasible because the research is done by the practitioner (the teacher) in his/her ow n practical context and situation (Glanz 1991) Third, although it is done in reasonable time, A R brings im m ediate benefits to teaching practice In addition, Glanz (1991) states that A R directly affects a

te ach e r’s practice and em pow ers him to renew his classrooms and promote instructional im provem ent Finally, all the stages o f a research are implemented

in a strict order, w hich allows educators to systematically address to topics and issues that affect teaching and learning in the classroom (Glanz 1991)

The aim o f A R is to identify ‘p roblem atic’ situation or issues that participants consider with investigating and to undertake practical interventions in order to bring about inform ed changes in practice (Cohen and M anion 1994) AR can help to identify problem s, solve the problems, and evaluate the solutions, which

is exactly w hat the researcher w anted to do

In this paper, the model o f an A R consists o f the cycle o f activities

d em onstrated in Figure 1 adapted from S om ekh in Me Bride & Sckotak (1989)

as below

Figure 1: Action Research Cycle

(Som ekh in Me Bride & Sckostak, 1989)

The description o f how I went through the above steps in m y classroom research will be presented in the next section

3.2 PROCEDURE OF AN ACTION RESEARCH

My action research consisted o f seven steps, which is described as follows:

Identifying a problem

After teaching group K 52-TL for 7 w eeks as presented in 1.1.1 in the Introduction, the researcher realized that all the students handed in their writing papers on tim e but they got low marks because o f their low writing quality

Collecting data

In this step, I collected and analyzed students’ writing papers to know more about the identified problem In addition, the existing material was analyzed to find out the causes leading to that problem

Analyzing data/ generating hypotheses

W hat I found out from the analysis o f students’ writing papers was that students had made numerous gram matical errors in their papers The common

g ram m a r error types were also identified from the analysis (more details in Chapter 4)

In addition, after the writing sections in the textbook were analyzed, the cause

o f m any gram m ar mistakes found in students’ writing was that there were not enough controlled writing exercises for students to practice the language Theoretically, one o f the things a teacher can do to help students to reduce the

g ram m a r errors in their writing is designing and conducting some controlled writing exercises and then insert them into each writing lesson

The findings from the analysis o f the writing papers and the writing sections helped the researcher come to the following assumption: I f students were

p ro vid ed with more controlled writing exercises to practice the language,

their gram m ar m istakes would be lim ited and their writing quality was expected to improve as a result.

Planning action

As the stu dents’ problem in writing was gram m ar inaccuracy, an action plan

w as developed aiming at reducing gram matical errors so that students could have better writing M ore controlled writing practice revealed as the most suitable treatm ent for changes desired The action plan included 6 lesson plans

w hich were designed basing on the last 6 writing sections (Appendix 1) More details will be presented in 4.3

Im p lem en tin g action steps

The action plan was im plem ented for six weeks from w eek nine to week fourteen in the second h a lf o f the first semester Students had three English classes a week with three, two, two class-hours respectively, o f which the

writing lesson fell on the la^t one The subjects were the students o f class K.52-

TL at University o f Social Sciences and Humanities The teacher was the researcher o f the sludy During six weeks o f action plan implementation, the students had to complete six writing sections in the textbook Basing on the

g ram m ar error types identified from the analysis o f students’ writing papers in the first haft o f the semester (see 4.2) and on the language focuses, which

w ould be learnt in the second half, the researcher would design some types o f controlled writing exercises and fit them into each writing lesson

C ollecting data to m onitor change

A fter the action time, a writing post-test relating to some certain grammatical points was done by students and then analyzed and com pared with the pre-test

to find out w hether the students’ writing quality was im proved or not after

m ore controlled writing exercises had been practiced This would be the baseline to help the researcher to evaluate the suggested solution in the plan action Besides, a questionnaire which was provided and collected after each writing lesson was analyzed to investigate the students’ opinions o f the activities implemented The analysis o f the collected data was described in details in Chapter 4

A nalysis and evaluation

The A R was evaluated based on the analysis o f the post-data From the findings

o f the A R evaluation, some recom m endations were made

3.3 SUBJECTS

The subjects in m y study were 30 first year non-English majors students o f class K 52- TL They were in the first semester o f the school year 2007-2008 at

USSH All o f them were adults aged from 18 to 22, o f which 90% are female and 10% are male They were at elem entary level when the study conducted 1

3.4 DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENTS

The data collection instruments used in this research are: docum ent analysis, test, and follow-up questionnaire Detailed information about the instruments is provided below

3.4.1 D ocum ent analysis

T he docum ents analyzed in the study w ere students’ writing papers o f the first

h a lf o f the sem ester and the writing section o f the textbook

T he stu dents’ writing papers w ere collected and analyzed in order to know

m ore about the identified problem (see 3.2) With the aim at investigating the causes that led to that problem, 1 analyzed the writing section o f the textbook

The analysis o f the students’ writing papers, which based on the departm ent’s

assessm ent criteria (see Appendix 2), helped the researcher to investigate the

aspects that lowered the stu dents’ writing quality Besides, the gram m ar error types that students com m only m ade w o u ld be classified This helped the researcher to decide which types o f controlled writing exercises were designed and provided in each writing lesson

The w riting sections o f the textbook w ere analyzed to collect information about the objectives o f the writing tasks, the input provided (gram m ar and vocabulary), the writing skills developed, kinds o f tasks and exercises included, and the teaching procedures The analysis w ould help the researcher find out

At the start of the school year, students do a placement test of English According to the result of the placement test, the first year students are divided into two level groups: group level A: elementary: group level B: pre-inter Students study in their English classes based on their placement tests’ result

In fact, class K52- TL is one of the elementary level classes Therefore, almost all students in class K52- TL have the same level of English.