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English is spoken as the first language by nearly 400 million people and as the second language by 1.6 million people. As its popularity, our education system attaches special importance to teaching and learning English in many school levels from primary to university or higher education one. A plenty of programs and methods were introduced aiming at raising Vietnamese’s English skills. Along with the globalization trend, English has been considered as a compulsory subject in the curriculum of all state schools. In order to keep pace with the development of society, the need for good communication is put in one of the top demand for English language including writing skill. It is undeniable that writing skill plays a significant role in daily communication and educational process. In spite of its importance, writing has long been the neglected skill in second language for many years as writing is placed poor fourth. Writing skill is a component of language skill with important role in human life. Through writing activity, an individual can express his idea and thought to achieve purpose and objective. For that reason, writing skill is the language skill considered as most difficult to master compared with other skills. Pouring idea and thought into writing should consider the grammar rule corresponding to the correct spelling. However, while this activity is a part of language ability aspect, writing skill gets inadequate particular attention. Through writing, an individual can tell about idea, feeling, event, and object to others. For that reason, this ability should be taught appropriately in elementary school. But the reality proves that writing teaching is earned out incorrectly.
1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This thesis could not have completed without the help, encouragement and support of a number of people who all deserve my sincere gratitude and appreciation First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor – Ms Vu Thi Quynh Dung for the valuable guidance and encouragement She greatly inspired me to work on this paper My graduation paper cannot come to end without her effort to read it again and again to find out the problems and support me in all stages of the research and writing this study I am also very grateful to some English teacher at Chan Mong high school, Phu Tho province, who have been willing to answer my questions and have given me valuable advice and suggestions on the research “Mind Mapping Applications in pre–writing stage to enhance students’ writings unity and coherence at Chan Mong high school” and on the completion of my research I owe sincere and earnest thankfulness to all the students of the classes 10A1 of Chan Mong high school, who have been the enthusiastic participants in my action research They provided me valuable information by completing the conveying as well as doing the test Without them, my action research could not been completed and successful In the end, I would like to show my big gratitude to my family and friends, who have constantly inspired and courage me to overcome difficulties to complete this study Finally, a special word of thanks goes to my readers for their interest and comments on this study Thanks for all! ABSTRACT Based on the assumption that the more teachers know about brain science, the better prepared they will be to make instructional decisions Mind Map is a powerful tool for assisting any form of writing Language is an important device and a very beneficial means for human being to communicate with other people Writing is one of the language skills that will never be left in education The study identifies appropriate mind map techniques to enhance the students’ writing ability It reviews and examines the traditional techniques used in teaching writing learners and identifies appropriate mind map techniques along with an application procedure to enhance the writing skill This study objective is to test the feasibility of using mind map in prewriting stage for grade 10 students at Chan Mong high school The researcher carried out the experiment by teaching English and gives two tests for students The experiment phase continued for weeks The participants of this study were 40 students at class 10A1 Prior to experiment, participants of class 10A1 were given a pre-test in order to ensure comparability of their essay writing Having introduced the mind mapping technique to members of class 10A1 (40 students) and finished the experiment period, a post-test was administered to measure the effect of the intervention for students The data were gathered through pre-test and post-test The comparison between the pre and post test scores reveals a significant difference in writing essay The results indicated that the students, who were taught through mind maps, improved unity and coherence; content paragraph structure and length in writing The results manifested that the mind map is effective to use in teaching pre-writing stage in class 10 of Chan Mong high school TABLE OF CONTENTS LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES List of Figures Figures Figure 1.1 Network Tree Figure 1.2 Event chain Figure 1.3 Cycle Concept Map Figure 1.4 Spider Concept Map Figure 3.1 The results of entry exam in grade 10A1 English subject Figure 3.2 The percentage of score levels according to pre-test results Figure 3.3 The percentage of score levels according to post- test results Figure 3.4 The percentage of score levels according to pre-test and post-test results Pages 26 26 27 27 43 51 52 54 List of Tables Tables Table 2.1 Category descriptions for the assessment of coherence and unity Table 3.1 Checklist of Writing Tasks in current Textbook “English 10” Table 3.2 The result of classroom observation Table 3.3 Number of tests in score levels according to pre-test results Table 3.4 Number of tests in score levels according to post-test results Table 3.5 Number of tests in score levels according to pre-test and post-test results Pages 37 45 46 50 52 53 PART 1: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study English is spoken as the first language by nearly 400 million people and as the second language by 1.6 million people As its popularity, our education system attaches special importance to teaching and learning English in many school levels from primary to university or higher education one A plenty of programs and methods were introduced aiming at raising Vietnamese’s English skills Along with the globalization trend, English has been considered as a compulsory subject in the curriculum of all state schools In order to keep pace with the development of society, the need for good communication is put in one of the top demand for English language including writing skill It is undeniable that writing skill plays a significant role in daily communication and educational process In spite of its importance, writing has long been the neglected skill in second language for many years as writing is placed poor fourth Writing skill is a component of language skill with important role in human life Through writing activity, an individual can express his idea and thought to achieve purpose and objective For that reason, writing skill is the language skill considered as most difficult to master compared with other skills Pouring idea and thought into writing should consider the grammar rule corresponding to the correct spelling However, while this activity is a part of language ability aspect, writing skill gets inadequate particular attention Through writing, an individual can tell about idea, feeling, event, and object to others For that reason, this ability should be taught appropriately in elementary school But the reality proves that writing teaching is earned out incorrectly Writing learning aims to create the students with adequate writing skill The objective of research was basically affected by many factors such as learning method, teachers’ teaching ability, student condition, learning circumstance, learning material, learning motivation, learning interest, and learning media or aid Effective communication in learning process will affect the students’ success in achieving adequate outcome Teacher can serve effectively as a communication expert in the classroom Thanks to the innovation of ways in teaching English, English lessons are taught with four skills (speaking, reading, listening, writing) in one unit Moreover, there exist three stages Pre – While – Post teaching in one lesson This really helps students improve their skills beside the grammar exercises to pass the exams Pre-writing stages are very important in teaching writing and it also has significant effects on the students’ writing performance Pre-writing activities are supposed to the foremost phrase to start for a successful writing task Moreover, pre-writing stage could considerably solve the problem of ideas stuck and raise the students’ interest in learning writing If students not prepare well enough they can’t write well, they can’t even write anything in their notebooks Paragraph unity is the most important characteristic of a good paragraph Students often got difficulties in stating idea or organizing ideas and connecting the sentences when they wrote Their writing result often did not have clear meaning or it could not be understood For example, they discussed more than one topic in a single paragraph and the students could not use the appropriate pronouns or transition signals in the paragraph Therefore, the condition automatically made the readers confused with the paragraph and they would not get the information from the paragraph because it did not have unity and the supporting details did not support the topic anymore and it was caused of inappropriate words in connecting the sentences in the paragraph Further, paragraphs should also be coherent Coherence demands that the ideas or sentences presented in a paragraph should flow smoothly from one to the other Paragraphs should not only be well-developed and unified but also coherent In this lesson you will learn about paragraph unity and coherence without which a paragraph cannot be called a complete composition Mind mapping is the easiest way to develop information in a human mind and take information from out of brain It is a creative and an effective way that map our ideas Maps are easier to follow than the long tardy note taking or listing techniques where ideas are kept in a top down sequence and it becomes difficult to make connection of the last idea to the first in the list Mind maps can work as tool to facilitate the learners to plan ideas in the pre-writing process Learners can be provided with examples to prepare a step vise pattern in hierarchy that would help them retain ideas till the whole of the essay is written Mind-mapping techniques are good to be applied in the pre-writing stage to explore ideas and generate thoughts on the topic for writing Mind-maps allow gathering concepts in relation to the main theme The concepts gathered this way are coherent without the linear or inflexible structure of outlines, clustering or listing ideas The use of mind map can present information using images, symbols, key words, codes and color to the level one wishes to This type of organization of ideas can capture the spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, and visual intelligences of some learners As the content resembles that’s found on a topic outline, the structure of the mind map is nonlinear and lends itself to personalization by the student Students in general and Chan Mong high school students in particular have difficulty writing to create unity and coherence in their writing So, this the reason why I decided to choose the title for my thesis: “Mind mapping applications in pre-writing stage to enhance students’ writings unity and coherence at Chan Mong high school” as the title of my thesis Research Purpose and Aims The aims of study consist of: - Exploring the current situation of pre-writing stage in writing lesson for grade 10 students at Chan Mong high school - Designing and applying activities with mind-mapping techniques in prewriting stage for grade 10 students at Chan Mong high school - Assessing the effectiveness of mind map techniques in pre-writing stage to create unity and coherence for grade 10 students at Chan Mong high school Research Questions There are three research questions, based on the focused objectives of the study accordingly They are: What are the different techniques used by the teachers of Chan Mong high school in pre-writing stage? How should mind mapping be applied effectively in pre-writing stage to enhance student writings' unity and coherence? Is there any relationship between mind-mapping in pre-writing stage and the unity and coherence of student's writings? Significance of the study 4.1 Scientific significance Conducting this study firstly helps the researcher obtaining a comprehensive understanding about using Mind Map in studying and teaching in general and in a pre-writing stage in particular 4.2 Practical significance This research is carried out with the hope that it can apply mind map in pre-writing stages of grade 10th students at Chan Mong high school, Phu Tho province In addition, the research also help the teachers of English use mind map in writing lessons of their students more effectively, which may make writing lessons more meaningful and interesting, help students improve and enhance unity and coherence in writing skill Related Studies In this part, previous researches about using mind map in pre-writing stage to create unity and coherence in writing lesson in Vietnam and overseas will be presented 5.1 In the world Al Jarf (2009) in “Enhancing Freshman Students’ writing skills with mind mapping soft-ware” investigated the compelling distinction among the group of students who used the software of Mind Mapping while writing and the ones who did not The researcher stated that the software of Mind Mapping could be used to help students in brainstorming, development of new ideas, making correlations among various concepts and supporting details as students face problems in propagating ideas in EFL and writing paragraphs with topic sentences and supporting details This study was performed by considering freshman students as a sample of research, who were divided into two groups, i.e., experimental and control The results of post-test showed that the members of the experimental group had higher gains in their final writing Students in the experimental group wrote on the posttest showed more relevant details and better organized and connected ideas than paragraphs written by the control groups Most of the students in the experimental students drew mind maps by hand for the topic they had to write about to help them visualize and organize ideas Al Naqbi’s (2011) in “The use of Mind Mapping to develop writing skills in UAE Schools” carried a survey to evaluate the effectiveness of mind map at the pre-writing brainstorming stage under exam condition Actually, her primary purpose was not to aim to the high results of the students, yet she aimed to help students in planning and organizing ideas in writing She noticed that during the exam students performed differently due to the limited time when they addressed the writing test at school and thus she believes mind mapping strategy could assist students to eliminate difficulties in writing As a result, after conducting the research, she found that students’ thinking and cognitive skills were developed and students became better in organizing ideas, activating their background knowledge This proved that mind map has a powerful effect on students in the pre-writing stage and it was worth teaching this technique to EFL students in classes Riswanto and Putra (2012) in “The use of mind mapping strategy in the teaching of writing at SMAN Bengkulu, Indonesia” conducted research in Indonesia on the appropriateness of the mind mapping strategy while providing training in writing The design of pretest-posttest disparate groups was used by the researchers As the study was carried out in the town of Bengkulu, 234 students of the first year of SMAN3 were the population of the study during the academic year of 2011/2012 A total of 66 students were selected as a sample and divided into two groups The writing test was conducted in order to collect data, and t-test was used as the tool for analysis of the data Results showed a compelling distinction was present in the writing accomplishment of the students taught with the use of the strategy of mind mapping Hence, it is evident from this study that writing achievement of students can be enhanced through the application of the mind mapping strategy 5.2 In Vietnam The writer also did try to review on the literature of the research problem from the resources in the university library Dang Thanh Diem ( 2011) researched about “Using mind maps and diagrams to teach vocabulary for first year mainstream students, faculty of English language teacher education” with the study aims at figuring out whether the techniques work to teach vocabulary at Division I The study began with the literature review on vocabulary teaching and the application of mind maps and diagrams in teaching vocabulary Then the paper-based questionnaires were delivered to students to explore the situation of the research problem After that, the true-experimental method was applied in data collection procedures to fulfill the second aim of the research The findings of the study indicated that mind maps and diagrams were applicable and effective to teach vocabulary at Division I Therefore, the techniques were suggested to be exploited more in the context of teaching vocabulary for first year students Do Thi Van Trang (2016) researched about “Using mind map to improve vocabulary knowledge for the first year English language teaching education students of FLF at HPU2”with the study aims at investigating the common ways of learning vocabulary' and their difficulties in studying vocabulary; introducing the mind- map technique to the first year English Language Teaching Education at HPU2 as well First, to learn about the current ways of learning vocabulary, the survey questionnaire was conducted with 48 students of K41 English Language Teaching Education Second, a pre-test and post-test were done to appreciate the quality of vocabulary studying among these students before and after the treatment during five weeks of the second semester of the 2015-2016 academic school year Last, the classroom observation also was used to find whether students like the technique Based on the results of these methods, the difficulties of students in learning vocabulary have been found out as well as Mind Map technique was introduced received positive responds from students Nguyen Thi Thu Huong (2013) researched about “Enhancing the efficiency of the presentation through the use of mind mapping for K8 major English students in Hung Vuong University” with the study aims at researching and valuating the use of Mind Mapping in enhancing the efficiency of a presentation They use pretest and posttest to survey the current situation then point out the effective of using mind map in presentation for students The result is quite satisfactory because the number of students getting low reduces considerably The marks of posttest are improved It makes the study more successful These above researches study about using mind map in teaching such as: using mind-map in teaching writing skill written by Jarf (2009), Al Naqbi’s (2011) and Riswanto & Putra (2012) and using mind-map to enhancing the efficiency of the presentation written by Nguyen Thi Thu Huong (2013) and using mind map to teach vocabulary written by Dang Thanh Diem (2011) and Do Thi Van Trang (2016) Besides, the previous studies have also provided valuable information indicating that use mind map to help students improve skills such as writing, presentation and learning vocabulary Moreover, those studies investigated the effectiveness of applying mind map in teaching and developing skills above The researchers find out some new methods which are useful for teaching English at high school However, there have no researches about using mind map in pre-writing stage to create unity and coherence for grade 10 students Moreover, this is the first time the study on mind mapping applications in pre-writing stage to enhance students’ writings unity and coherence in writing lessons of grade 10th students at Chan Mong high school, Phu Tho province is carried out in Hung Vuong APPENDIX PRE – TEST AND POST – TEST Topic 1: Write a short paragraph (about 100 - 120 words) about the life story about famous person you know from music Topic 2: Write a short paragraph (about 100 - 120 words) about a film you have seen APPENDIX LESSON PLAN OF UNIT 12: MUSIC Date of planning: 18th March, 2018 Class: 10A1 Teacher: Nguyen To Giang Period: 79 UNIT 12: MUSIC Part 4: WRITING (Writing a profile) (English 10: 129) I Objectives: Knowledge: By the end of the lesson, students will be able to: - Improve their writing skill - Write a profile based on provided prompts - Gain more knowledge about the life story of some composers Skills: Write a profile of someone Attitude: Students are interested in the lesson and have the positive attitude to the knowledge they have learnt II Teaching aids: Textbook, reference book, blackboard, poster, chalk III Method: Communicative approach IV Anticipated problem: Students may have difficulties with irregular verbs when writing using past simple V Procedure: Class organization: Class 10A1 Date of teaching 20th March, 2018 Attendance 40/40 Checking homework: New lesson: With this lesson, the author applied mind map for pre – writing stage Stage/ Time Prewriting (10m) Teacher’s activities - After teaching new words and structure, the teacher will move the topic in lesson - Ask student to read aloud the requirement of this task in textbook page 129 “Write about the life story of Van Cao.” - Before doing this task, teacher asks students to know about the mind map - Introduces some information about mind map, then lead to the task - Give for students the mind maps which express the main points of Van Cao - Ask students write about the life story of Van Cao based on the sample mind map of teacher - Divide class into groups, give poster for each groups to continue design the mind map based on the sample mind map - After 10 minutes, call on one group goes to the board to stick the poster Based on the poster, write the topic ( Appendix 7) - Check the student’s answers then give feedback Consolidation Teacher summarize the main contents of the lesson Students’ activities - Listen direction to the - To the task - Design the mind map base on the sample mind map Homework Write a short paragraph (about 100-120 words) about the life story of famous person (note: applying mind map in pre-writing stage) (Appendix 8) VI Comment: Good points: Bad points: APPENDIX LESSON PLAN OF UNIT 13: FILM AND CINEMA Date of planning: 24th March 2018 Class: 10A1 Teacher: Nguyen To Giang Period: 84 UNIT 13: FILM AND CINEMA Part 4: WRITING (Writing a film) (English 10: 138) I Objectives: Knowledge: By the end of the lesson, students will be able to: - Write a description of a film - Know some vocabularies to describe a film - Know some information about the “Titanic” & the “Tom & Jerry” Skills: - Reading: Read the description of the film Titanic and then answer the question - Writing: write about a film they have seen Attitude: Students are interested in the lesson and have the positive attitude to the knowledge they have learnt II Teaching aids: Textbook, reference book, blackboard, poster, chalk III Method: Communicative approach IV Anticipated problem: Students may find it difficult to write about the content of the film V Procedure: Class organization: Class 10A1 Date of teaching 26th March 2018 Attendance 40/40 Checking homework: T checks sts homework New lesson: With this lesson, the author applied mind map for pre – writing stage Stage/ Time Prewriting (10m) Teacher’s activities - Ask students to find out main points of this lesson then give the questions which relate to the films and cinema in minutes - Design a mind map with topic and main ideas - Give poster for each group - Ask students to work in groups in 10 Students’ activities - Read quickly and find information to compare with their partners minutes to this task - Call on student of group goes to the board - Work in small to express their own ideas based on their mind groups of or map - Check the answer then give the sample mind map - Design the mind map base on the sample mind map - Ask students continue to work in groups design mind map to develop the questions of the topic Students can base on the teacher’s mind map to develop the ideas or continue their mind map - After minutes, call on students goes to the board to stick the poster then write about the topic in their way (Can see in appendix 9) - Give feedback Consolidation Teacher summarize the main contents of the lesson Homework Write a short paragraph (about 100 - 120 words) about a film you like best (note: applying mind map in pre-writing stage) (Appendix 10) VI Comment: Good points: Bad points: APPENDIX THE RESULT OF PRE – TEST AND POST – TEST Students of the first topic 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 Result (score) Pre-test Post-test (a) (b) 6,5 7,5 4.5 6,5 3,5 4,5 6,5 4,5 5,5 6,5 4,5 2,5 7,5 8 3,5 4,5 8,5 6,5 7,5 6,5 7,5 2,5 7,5 4,5 8,5 7,5 6,5 4,5 7,5 5,5 8,5 8,5 8,5 6,5 7,5 6,5 Students of the second topic 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 Result (score) Pre-test’ Post-test’ (c) (d) 4.5 6 4,5 7,5 6 4,5 3,5 5,5 6 7,5 4.5 3,75 8,5 6,5 5,5 3,5 8 5,5 8,5 8 5,5 3,5 8.5 8 4,5 8,5 3,5 5,5 37 38 39 40 2,75 3,5 3,5 37 38 39 40 3 4,5 3,75 3,75 APPENDIX 11 STUDENTS WRITINGS (21a) (11a) (39a) (23a) (3a) (3b) (7b) (12b) (33b) (25b) (2c) (19c) (13c) (13d) (27d) (34d) (12d) (2d) ... study on mind mapping applications in pre-writing stage to enhance students’ writings unity and coherence in writing lessons of grade 10th students at Chan Mong high school, Phu Tho province is... writing lesson for grade 10 students at Chan Mong high school - Designing and applying activities with mind- mapping techniques in prewriting stage for grade 10 students at Chan Mong high school. .. The best mind mapping is colorful and uses much pictures and symbols; usually like an art Mind mapping (or concept mapping) involves writing down a central idea and thinking up new and related ideas