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1 Chapter 1: Introduction This very first chapter of the thesis is to introduce the rationale for the study, the aims and objectives of the study as well as the research questions which the study was to carry out to find out the answers It also presents the scope of the study, an overview of the methods employed to conduct the research as well as the design of the study 1.1 Rationale Needless to say, English has played a remarkable role in almost every aspect of life In Viet Nam, it is regarded as one of the most important subjects at all level of education Working as a teacher of English, I am particularly interested in teaching writing skill Therefore, I am concerned with approaches and methods which can help to enhance the learners’ writing proficiency as well as facilitate their learning English as a second language As I observed, learners, especially students at high school, are often afraid of writing which, as claimed by them, makes them anxious and unconfident when dealing with Moreover, the teaching and learning writing skill in many schools mostly involves the using of the textbooks, many of which have, so far, been opened to considerable debate To make the matter worse, writing, which has been considered one of the most difficult skills among reading, speaking, listening and writing, is not paid sufficient attention as it deserves The ideas of investigating deeply into the case intrigued me when I accidentally had a chance to attend a seminar on process approach at Dong Da high school, which was carried out to help teachers’ understanding of the process approach and suggest on how to apply it with the new textbook “English 10” Although the process approach has had a widespread influence on the teaching of writing throughout the English speaking world, its beneficial impact on learners in Viet Nam context is still questionable In other words, whether teachers and students in Viet Nam have any difficulties with the applicability of such an approach in teaching and learning writing? If so, what are the main constraints in applying the approach with the available new textbook “English 10”? The thought motivated me to conduct a study to gain better understanding of the main constraints, if there are any, in applying process approach in particular a context of Viet Nam 1.2 Objectives of the Study First, the research concentrates on investigating the current situation of teaching writing skill at Dong Da high school with grade 10, non-major students Secondly, the thesis will make an attempt to find out the main constraints in applying process approach to the teaching and learning of writing skill in the given context Finally, the study is aimed at suggesting some feasible solutions to help teachers and students at the school improve the quality of teaching and learning writing skill 1.3 Research Questions and Research Methods In order to achieve the research objectives, the study was designed to find out the answers to the following questions: What are the teachers’ methods and strategies in teaching writing skill? What would be done to improve the teaching of writing skill? A combination of methods was chosen to achieve the research aim and objectives, including qualitative research and survey research An extensive review of literature is made first to examine approaches in teaching writing skill, critically focusing on relevant literature on the process approach in teaching the writing skill Besides, survey questionnaires were delivered to both the samples of teachers and students to obtain their teaching and learning methods and strategies of writing skill Semi- structure interviews for both selected teachers and students in the samples are followed to clarify participants’ ideas 1.4 Scope of the Study Because of the time constraint, the study was conducted on the teachers and students of grade 10 with the new textbook “English 10” at Dong Da high school only Especially, the study deals with the current situations of English teaching at Dong Da high school, focusing on the teachers’ methods and strategies in teaching writing in order to find out the constraints remained in applying the process approach so that some feasible solutions would be drown 1.5 Design of the Study The study is divided into chapters: Chapter presents an overview of the study including the rationale, the objectives, the scope, the research questions and research methods as well as the design of the whole study Chapter reviews the literature relevant to the study Chapter is a detailed description of current situation of teaching and learning writing skill of the grade 10 students with the textbook “English 10” at Dong Da School In this chapter, the textbook “English 10” is introduced first, followed by the discussion of the teachers’ methods and strategies in teaching writing skill as well as students’ methods and strategies in learning the skill Chapter 4, which is the most important part of the study, presents data collection methods and significant findings It, then, draws out suggestions for feasible application of the process approach in teaching and learning writing skill in a given setting Chapter 5, the last chapter of the thesis, includes a brief review of the study and some pedagogical implications It also points out the limitations of the study 1.6 Summary In this chapter, a brief overview of the study is presented The next chapter will review the literature that is relevant to the study Chapter 2: Literature Review This chapter gives an overview of relevant literature and researches that deal with approaches in teaching writing skill 2.1 Approaches in Teaching Writing Nowadays, the teaching of writing has long been a central element in all educational system and there are many, often conflicting, views of teaching writing (Tribble, 1996:37) As trends in the teaching of writing have coincided with those of other skills, especially listening and speaking (Brown, 2000: 334), teachers who are willing to adopt new approaches as well as new methods on how to teach fluency not just accuracy Additionally, authentic texts and context in the classroom are used creatively shifting the focus on the language itself to the focus on the purposes of linguistic communication Up to dates, there are several ways to approach writing in the classroom It should be said at the beginning that there is not necessarily any 'right' or 'best' way to teach writing skill The best practice in any situation will depend on the type of student, the text type being studied, the school system and many other factors (Steele, 2007: 43) Different ways in approaching the tasks inform major movement in the teaching of writing (Raimes, 1983: 23760) According to Raimes, there are principal ways of approaching the task: focusing on form, focusing on the writer and focusing on the reader The first perspective can be found in traditional, text-based approach Teachers who adopt this approach often present authoritative text for students to imitate or adapt and they may see errors as something they have a professional obligation to correct and eliminate (Tribble, 1996: 37) The second approach which is called “process approach” emerges in part as a reaction against the tradition of formfocus It particularly stresses on the writers as an independent producers of text The third approach called “genre approach” is considered to be more socially oriented with the assumption that if the reader cannot recognize the purpose of a text, communication can not be successful 2.1.1 Product Approach For a long time, product approach has been claimed to dominate much of the teaching of English as second language in general and the teaching of writing in particular According to Brown (1994: 320), this approach greatly focuses on the linguistic knowledge such as the appropriate use of vocabulary, syntax, and cohesive devices In product approaches, there are stages in teaching and learning writing: familiarization, controlled writing, guided writing, and free writing Such an approach places the focus on how to enable students to produce similar texts Robinson (1991, cited in Chinh, 2007:12) claims that the product approach to writing usually involves the presentation of a model text which is analyzed and the basis of a task that leads to the writing of an exactly similar text And according to Robinson (1991), product approach can be summarized in the following figure: Model text comprehension/analysis/ manipulation PARALLEL TEXT NEW INPUT Figure 1: Model of Product Approach Although there have been some modern approaches in teaching writing, advantages of the product approach can not be denied since this approach stresses the need for learners to have linguistic knowledge about texts In addition, it is a fact that imitation is one way of learning The approach, therefore, has contributed considerably to the developments of learners’ linguistic knowledge and it is very useful in practical teaching However, the traditional product approach is also claimed to be totally teacher-centered and product-focused One of the most prominent weaknesses of the product approach is that the process skills of learners are given a relatively small role or even undervalued 2.1.2 Process Approach During the seventies of the 20th century, while the product approach received a lot of criticism, many teachers at the forefront of the development of the process approach have proposed methodologies emphasizing the creatively and unpredictability of writing (Tribble, 1996:37) In the process approach, the teaching of writing has begun to move away from a concentration on the written product to an emphasis on the process of writing All writers make decisions on how to begin and how to organize the task Therefore, they not write on a given topic in a restricted time and hand in the composition for the teacher to correct The role of teachers, therefore, is as education facilitators As described in Zamel (1983: 147) and Raimes (1985: 231), in the process approach, the process of writing is seen as a recursive and complex process In other words, although there are identifiable stages in the process of writing, writers can still revisit any of these stages many times before a text is completed PREWRITING COMPOSING/ DRAFTING REVISING EDITING PUBLISHING Figure 2: Model of process approach Since it lays the emphasis on the writers’ writing process, the process approach has been widely accepted The focus on the writer inherent in the development of process approach has brought a range of benefits to teachers and students (Tribble, 1996: 40) According to Graham Stanley (2007:16), although there are many ways of approaching process writing, it can be broken down into three stages: • Pre-writing The teacher needs to be stimulate students' creativity, to get them thinking how to approach a writing topic In this stage, the most important thing is the flow of ideas, and it is not always necessary that students actually produce much (if any) written work If they do, then the teacher can contribute with advice on how to improve their initial ideas • Focusing ideas During this stage, students write without much attention to the accuracy of their work or the organization The most important feature is meaning Here, the teacher (or other students) should concentrate on the content of the writing He or she can raise the questions “Is it coherent? Is there anything missing? Anything extra?” • Evaluating, structuring and editing now the writing is adapted to a readership Students should focus more on form and on producing a finished piece of work The teacher can help with error correction and give organizational advice Obviously, the process approach has made great improvement in practical teaching in comparison with the product approach A teacher who adopts the approach will try to respect the learners’ cultural background and avoid the imposition of ideas or language behavior The teaching and learning materials which make use of these approaches typically attempt to encourage creativity in very practical ways However, writing is a complex process and can lead to learner frustration As with speaking, it is necessary to provide a supportive environment for the students and be patient This approach also states that more time be spent on writing in class, but not all classroom time is spent actually writing Students may also react negatively to reworking the same material, but as long as the activities are varied and the objectives clear, then they will usually accept doing so In the long term, teachers and students will start to recognize the value of a process writing approach as their written work improves (Stanley, 2007: 9) 2.1.3 Genre Approach According to Lin (2002: 18), the teaching and learning around text genres has become increasingly influential in mainstream ELT in countries However, their influence in EFL in East Asian countries still appears limited A genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes These purposes are recognizes by the experts members of the parent discourse community and there by constitute the rationales for the genre (Swales, 1990: 58) Genre-based approaches begin with the whole text as the unit in focus rather than the sentence (Derewianka, 2003a: 120-22) In addition, genre-based approaches are concerned with the social macro-purposes of language, and not just the semantic micro-functions of individual words and sentences The genres in focus are generally defined according to the broad social purposes of communication Finally, the focus on whole texts implies recognition that there is a higher level of order and patterning in language than just the sentence grammar Genre-based approaches emphasize that this higher order must be attended to for effective language use: "all texts conform to certain conventions, and that if a student is to be successful in joining a particular English-language discourse community, the student will need to be able to produce texts which fulfill the expectations of its readers in regards to grammar, organization, and context" (Kim & Kim, 2005, citing Lin, 2002: 11) Genre-based teaching helps students participate effectively not only in the school curriculum but also in the broader community This approach holds the view that learning language is a social activity and the process of learning language is a series of “scaffolded developmental steps” that address different aspects of language Dudley- Evans (1997) identifies three stages in genre approach to writing First of all, a model of a particular genre is introduced and analyzed, students then carry out exercises which manipulate relevant language forms and finally, students create texts To write in a particular genre, students must be aware of the formal patterns that shape a text Genre analysis, therefore, can provide the vocabulary and concepts to explicitly teach the text structures teachers would like their students to produce The approach also offers students a relatively fixed discourse model that they can use for reference, thus students will gain confidence in producing texts that serve their intended purposes According to Tribble (1996:60), it is necessary to extend the model of writing in process approach so as to show how contents, context, process and language knowledge interrelate with each other and can be realized in practical classroom procedures Teacher research into genre PREWRITING Select genre for classroom study writing Collect corpus data Student research into genre REVISING EDITING PUBLISHING Figure 3: Model of genre approach However, the genre approach, as to negative side, is claimed to be prescriptive rather than descriptive, therefore, adopting such an approach will lead to the lack of creativity in the learners In addition to this, students may feel this teaching approach is rather boring and their final products sometimes may be found stereotyped 2.2 Process Approach versus Other Approaches 2.2.1 Process Approach versus Product Approach Up to dates, the conclusion can be made by Raimes (1983: 96) is that, in the process approach, students not have to write on a given topic in a restricted time and hand in the composition for the teacher to correct In other words, in the process approach the focus of 10 teaching and learning is placed on the process of writing rather than the final product In product approach, the process skills and the knowledge that students bring to the classroom are undervalued while in process approach, there is a great emphasis on activities such as collaborative group work and peer evaluation As a result, product-based approaches see writing as mainly concerned with knowledge about the structure of language and writing development as mainly the result of the imitation of input in the form of texts provided by the teachers By contrast, in process approach, students can explore a topic through writing, showing the teachers and each other drafts and using what they write to read over, think about and move them onto new ideas (Raimes, 1983:96) However, according to Brown (1994:337) the current emphasis on process writing must of course be seen in the perspective of a balance between process and product Brown points out that after all, the final product is the ultimate goal and it is the reason that we go through the process of prewriting, drafting, revising and editing In short, process is the means to the end not the end 2.2.2 Process Approach versus Genre Approach Despite the fact that the process approach has made a great improvement in practical teaching in comparison with the product approach, the process approach also came under attack from various genre theorists One of its limitations claimed is that it does not address the needs of learners who have to write for readers unknown to them Another limitation pointed out by Martin is that the approach doesn’t take into account the vast differences between speaking and writing (1985, cited in Anh, 2001) However, limitations of the genre approach are also recognized by many theorists First of all, the genre approach may prove to be textcentered approach rather than a student – centered one (Chinh, 2007: 12) Another weakness of the approach arises from the fact that, in practical teaching, it is unable for teachers to teach all the genres to the students in the classroom In spite of the tension between the two trends, many theorists (Bam forth 1993: 97; Candery 1997, cited in Tribble 1996: 61) claimed that there is a relation between them It is 17 In this study, we will have a chance to explore teachers and students’ attitudes of the textbook “English 10” The research findings are hoped to be used as one of the effective feedback channels of the applicability of process approach in a specific context with the new textbook “English 10” 3.2 Teachers’ Methods and Strategies in Teaching Writing 80% of the teachers of English at Dong Da high school obtained Bachelors of Arts and 20 % are Masters Their methods and strategies in teaching writing are quite different from one another Some teachers who are young and active are willing to adopt new approaches and explore new methods in teaching while some teachers prefer traditional methods in teaching writing skill As a result, for those teachers teaching writing means giving sample, getting the class to write about a given topic and collecting the writing for marking The learning of writing skill, therefore, is not interesting to students and the teaching and learning are not as effective as expected On the whole, the teaching of the skill just involves the use of the textbook and teachers rarely look for additional material from other sources 3.3 Students’ Language Proficiency, learning methods and strategies of writing skill Non- major students at grade 10 in Dong Da high school are mostly from Ha Noi A small number are from the suburb areas but they have lived in Ha Noi for several years and “become” permanent residents in the city All of them have been learning English at secondary school, using “seven - year text books” However, the students come from different families therefore their language proficiency ranges greatly partly due to conditions to learn English, and many other factors affecting their L2 acquisition such as attitudes, motivation …In addition, though they may be good at grammar and other skills, many of them can not write well at high school This is mainly because their written English is lower than expected Finally, at lower levels of education, students are rarely given a chance to obtain feedback 18 from peers and their teachers Their writing process is seldom paid as much attention as it deserved 3.4 Summary The chapter has presented the description of the text book, the teachers and learners’ profile and their methods and strategies in teaching and learning writing skill On the whole, the teaching and writing at non- major class is not as effective and interesting as expected Due to a lot of reasons, the teaching of writing skill stays at using the text book Consequently, the students face with many difficulties in learning the skill The next chapter will address the data collection methods and findings of the study 19 Chapter 4: Data Collection Methods and Findings In this chapter, the first part is a detailed description of the methods used in the study It also addresses the justification of the choice of data collection instruments: questionnaire survey and interviews as well as the participants of the study Later on in the chapter are the findings of the research and the discussion of the data collected through the study 4.1 The Research Questions In order to achieve the above-mentioned aim and objectives, the study was designed to find out the answers to the following questions: What are the teachers’ methods and strategies in teaching writing skill? What would be done to improve the teaching of writing skill? 4.2 Research Methods 4.2.1 The Subjects The sample included groups of grade 10 students who were studying English as foreign language at Dong Da high school The participants were selected firstly on the basis of randomly sampling 10 classes of grade 10 students were numbered form to 10 and odd numbers were selected In fact, there are gifted classes in English but they were selected by other researchers Therefore, the researcher of this thesis unselected them to avoid causing too much inconvenience to those students There are 10 teachers of English at the school and all of them were selected as the subjects of the study 4.2.2 Data Collection Instruments The study was attempted to investigate into the reality of teaching and learning writing skill at grade 10 in Dong Da high school so as to find out whether process approach is applicable in given settings 20 As the complexity of the issue is obvious, it is necessary to use a combination of both qualitative and action research According to Grillham (2000: 9), the great strength of qualitative methods is that they can “illuminate issue and turn up possible explanation: essentially a search for meaning” It is also stated in Gay (1996: 38) that qualitative research can obtain a more complete picture of the educational process and in-depth understanding of the phenomenon under the study Therefore, a variety of data collection tools was used, including survey questionnaires for both teachers and students and semi-structured interviews with the purposes of clarifying the participants’ opinions 4.2.2.1 Survey Questionnaires Survey questionnaire is used in this research because it is stated in Grillham (2000: 7) that questionnaire is a good choice for many researches as it has many prospects such as low cost in time and money, easy to get information from a lot of people very quickly, less pressure for an immediate response and more convenience for respondents…However, to avoid the negative features of questionnaires, written questionnaires for both teachers and students are designed so carefully so as to avoid misunderstanding and inconvenience to the respondents Survey questionnaires for teachers The survey questionnaires for teachers consist of parts In the first part, there are questions that aim to gain better understanding about personal information of the participants In the second part, there are 12 questions in which, two are open- ended questions with tables, one yes-no question and multiple-choice questions (see Appendix for details) The questions are attempted to explore the teachers’ methods and strategies in teaching writing skill, their judgments of the textbook “English 10” as well as the applicability of process approach in their real teaching The questionnaires for teachers were given to 10 teachers during the breaks of the lessons and collected by the researchers The number of collected surveys was 10 and all were used for analysis Survey questionnaire for students 21 The survey questionnaire for students consists of parts; the first part is to get general information about the respondents The second part includes questions in which there are yes-no questions, two open- ended questions with tables and multiple choice questions (see Appendix for details) The questions are designed to investigate the learning strategies and methods of students in learning writing skill Besides, the questions are also aimed at exploring students’ judgment on writing tasks and topics in the course book “English 10” as well as the effectiveness of their teachers’ methods in teaching writing skill The questionnaires for students were translated into Vietnamese so as to avoid misunderstanding The questionnaires were delivered to 250 students at Dong Da high school at the beginning of the class time so that they can complete it during the breaks and then, were collected by the monitors of the classes With 250 survey questionnaire for students, the number of collected surveys was 227 The number of surveys used for analysis is 200 The data gained from the two surveys is reported in 4.4 4.2.2.2 Semi- Structured Interview A semi-structured interview method was chosen in this research because it enables the researcher to gain deep insight and understanding of the current situation of teaching and learning writing skill at Dong Da high school Grillham (2000: 10) claims that the overpoweringly positive feature of the interview is the richness and vividness of the material it turns up Additionally, a semi-structure interview offers the interviewer a great deal of flexibility while it also leaves the interviewee a degree of power and control over the course of interview (Dowsett, 1986:53) A semi-structure interview brought about a great deal of rich and reliable data because of its semi- familiarity The semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 teachers and 20 students after the analysis of the two survey questionnaires’ data was completed so that the researcher could clarify unclear issues from the survey and seek for further information There are 10 teachers in the school and all of them were interviewed The teachers were interviewed individually in 22 English In classes selected for the survey, the researcher randomly selected 20 students (4 students in each class) The interviews questions for students were translated into Vietnamese so as to avoid misunderstanding and the students could find it easy to express their ideas The students were interviewed in group All of the interviews were conducted outside the school so that the interviewees could feel comfortable to give their opinions 4.3 Findings and Discussion 4.3.1 The Surveys In this part, research data will be analyzed in detail Since the questionnaires designed for both teachers and students focus on the three main issues: the comments of teachers and students on the textbook “English 10”, teachers ‘and students’ teaching and learning methods and strategies and teachers’ judgments on the applicability of the process approach in teaching writing skill, the analysis will concentrate on these issues 4.3.1.1 Findings and Discussion about Writing Tasks and Topics in the Textbook “ English 10” What you think about the writing topics and exercises in the textbook “English 10”? (Question for students and question for teachers) Comments Teachers Students (%) (%) Effective 100 78 Not effective 0 Interesting 100 66 Not interesting 10 34 Varied 100 87 Not varied 0 Relevant 100 81 Irrelevant 17 Easy 10 19 Difficult 20 36 Table 1: Comments of the T and S on the topics and exercises in the textbook According to the result shown in the table, the majority of the subjects indicated that the topics and exercises in the textbook were interesting and relevant in helping students 23 develop their writing skill All of the teachers (100%) believed that writing topics and exercises in the textbook are interesting, relevant and varied However, 20% of them think that the topics are quite difficult despite the fact that they are interesting enough such as describing the chart/ table or giving instruction As for students, most of them supposed that the topics in the book are varied, effective and relevant 36% and 34% of the students say that the topics are difficult and uninteresting respectively No one thinks that the exercises and topics are not varied and not effective This can be interpreted that the textbook is highly appreciated What you think about the writing tasks in the textbook “English 10” in term of helping students to develop writing skill? (Question for students and for teachers) Types of tasks Greatly effective T(%) S (%) Quite effective T(%) S (%) effective T(%) S (%) Not effective T(%) S Don’t know T(%) S Writing a narrative Writing about people 50 30 60 65 20 50 13 15 20 20 27 18 10 (%) 0 (%) 0 background Writing a letter of complaint Writing a set of instruction Writing a letter of confirmation Writing about advantages and 30 40 40 10 30 52 42 15 50 40 40 20 30 34 44 15 10 20 20 50 35 14 14 25 10 0 30 0 18 0 10 0 27 media Writing an informal letter of 40 60 50 31 10 0 0 giving direction Describing information from a 30 46 20 12 40 25 10 17 0 table Writing a letter of invitation Writing a letter of acceptance 30 40 50 57 30 50 15 29 40 10 35 10 0 0 0 40 40 20 40 30 68 52 10 46 23 40 20 50 30 30 20 25 15 28 35 20 50 10 30 40 12 14 20 26 15 0 20 0 0 25 12 0 10 0 0 30 13 disadvantages of the mass or refusal Writing a profile Describing a film Writing an announcement Describing a city Describing chart Other types you use in the lesson (please specify…… Table 2: Comments of T and S on the writing tasks in the textbook 24 According to the result shown in Table 2, there are various views on the effectiveness of the writing tasks in the textbook, ranging from greatly effective, quite effective, not effective and don’t know At the first place, the majority of the teachers and students think that the following tasks are effective and relevant: Writing about people’s background Writing a letter of invitation Writing a letter of acceptance or refusal Describing a film Describing a city It is suggestable that students seem to favor the tasks that familiar with their real lives and they can use them right after the lesson into their daily life However, they also add that they expect the teachers to use more teaching aids such as film, pictures etc in writing lessons Contrary to our expectation, some tasks that receive most support from the teachers such as writing about advantages and disadvantages of the mass media and describing chart/table turn out to be least preferable to students Students might find them confused and difficult in expressing and organizing ideas as well as choosing appropriate vocabulary Furthermore, students have different ideas on the following tasks: Writing a narrative Writing a letter of complaint Writing a letter of confirmation Writing a formal letter of giving direction In sum, the result of the first section of the questionnaire has revealed that most of the teachers and students seem to appreciate the textbook “English 10” The next sub-section will investigate their preference of methods and strategies in teaching and learning writing skill 4.3.1.2 Findings and Discussions about Teachers’ and Learners’ Methods and Strategies in Teaching and Learning Writing Skill Teachers’ Methods and Strategies in Teaching Writing Skill How often you apply those techniques in teaching writing skill for your students (question for teachers) 25 The question is designed to find out the frequency use of these following techniques by the teachers Activities Give and analyze samples Show students how to construct a Always 0 Usually 30 40 Sometimes 60 50 Rarely 10 10 Never 0 sentence Show students how to construct a 30 60 10 paragraph Present vocabulary in topic Leave time for students to 0 60 80 30 20 10 0 brainstorming Help students to make a simple 20 60 20 outline Ask students to discuss to 50 20 20 10 develop ideas Show students how to express 80 10 10 0 their ideas Ask students to write in a limited 70 10 10 10 time Encourage students to correct 80 10 10 0 many drafts Encourage peer-correction Teacher corrects a typical 40 60 20 20 20 10 10 10 10 composition Use other teaching aids (radio, 10 30 60 pictures, films… ) Give the task only and ask 40 20 10 mistakes themselves and write 30 students to write then collect the writing for marking Table 3: The frequency of use of writing techniques in writing lessons According to the data presented in Table 3, the following techniques are frequently used by the teachers: * Ask students to correct mistakes themselves and write many drafts (90%) * Teachers correct typical compositions (80) * Leave time for students to brainstorm (80%) * Show students how to express their ideas (80%) * Ask students to write in limited time (80%) * Ask students to discuss to develop ideas (70) * Present vocabulary in topics (60%) 26 Some teachers add that they know there are some other techniques more relevant to the tasks but because of the limited time in class they could not apply them It is noticeable that the teachers who use other teaching aids in writing lesson account for the small amount It can be interpreted that the writing lessons in non major classes may not be devoted as much as they deserved Surprisingly, as for students, their opinions about the above techniques used by their teachers are quite varied Activities Greatly Quite Effective effective effective Give and analyze samples Show students how to (%) 40 20 (%) 30 50 (%) 30 30 construct a sentence Show students how to 30 25 construct a paragraph Present vocabulary in topic Leave time for students to 40 brainstorming Help students to make a Not very Ineffective Not applied 0 (%) 0 (%) 0 45 0 42 22 18 45 28 0 45 25 12 15 simple outline Ask students to discuss to 56 19 15 develop ideas Show students how to 30 47 23 0 express their ideas Ask students to write in a 15 30 24 16 15 limited time Encourage students to 50 28 12 10 0 drafts Encourage peer-correction Teacher corrects a typical 14 40 46 25 20 16 10 15 10 0 composition Use other teaching aids 63 20 12 92 (radio, pictures, films… ) Give the task only and ask 0 10 90 87 effective (%) correct mistakes themselves and write many students to write then 27 collect the writing for marking Other activities 0 0 0 …………… Table 4: Comments of students on the techniques used by teachers It is clear from Table that most of the students believe that the techniques used by the teachers are appropriate However, 72% of the students want their teachers to help them make outlines while the majority of the teachers think that it is not necessary In addition, although most of the teachers rarely use other teaching aids such as films, songs or pictures in the writing lessons, 88% of the students insist that such techniques would work It is noticeable that the majority of both teachers and students agree that it is ineffective if the teachers give the tasks only and ask students to write then collect the writing for marking The survey asked the teachers to list these activities in order of priority when they apply the process approach in teaching writing for their students, ranking in order of priority 1, 2, 3, and 4: warm-up, prewriting, while writing, post writing (Question for teachers) Activities While writing Order of priority Pre writing Post writing Warm up (T %) 70 30 0 (T %) 30 30 40 (T %) 30 60 10 (T %) 10 90 Table 5: Teachers’ priority to activities in teaching writing The majority of teachers (70%) give high priority to while writing whereas some (30%) believe that pre writing stage is more important None of the teachers give the highest priority to post writing and warm up activities and 90% of them think that warm up stage is less important than the other stages in teaching writing skill 28 The use of text book and extra material by the teachers when designing a writing lesson (Question for teachers) Most of the teachers (69%) admit that they follow completely the book to design a writing lesson The minority of 20% say that they often use the book but still find other extra material according to the lessons No one designs new activities and tasks without using the textbook It can be interpreted that the book has almost fitted to the need of teachers in planning a writing lesson The survey ask the teachers whether they change writing techniques from class to class (Question 12 for teachers) Most of the teachers (60%) think that different techniques should be used with different classes as learning styles and language levels vary from class to class But some of them (25%) argue that they rarely change their techniques in teaching writing since, according to them, their techniques are still appropriate to different classes Students’ Methods and Strategies in Learning Writing Skill Which is the most difficult in learning writing? Please rank in order of difficulty: 1, 2, 3, 4… (Question for students) Lack of Using sentence Ways of The form Recognizing and vocabulary and paragraph organization (%) correcting (%) Rank How to express ideas Difficulties ( %) connectors (%) mistakes ( %) 34 26 12 11 28 14 19 16 17 22 32 12 10 13 34 15 11 13 11 15 16 Table 6: Rank of students’ difficulties in learning writing skill (%) 10 12 11 22 20 25 11 18 38 20 As seen in Table 6, all of the elements could cause troubles for students but the following elements seem to be the most difficult to students when they learn writing skill: * How to express ideas (62% rank it at the first and second place) * Lack of vocabulary (40% rank it at the first and second place) * Using sentences and paragraph connectors (31% rank it at the first and second place) 29 11 % of the students put ways of organization at the first place in the list of difficulties 22% think the forms are the most challenging The minority of students (7%) believes that recognizing and correcting mistakes is the most difficult What did you when you encounter difficulties in learning wiring? (Question for students) Contrary to our expectation, most of the students try to sort out their problems in learning writing without the help of their teachers While only 32% of the students ask their teachers for help, 57% of them ask their friends and find information from various sources including books, internet, newspapers and magazines… 12% of the students decide to ignore the kinds of exercises that they don’t understand How you learn writing at home? (Question for students) It is unsurprising that learning methods and strategies vary greatly among students 12% of the students don’t learn writing at home while 35% of them just look at the writing lesson again In contrast, 36% use samples and imitate The numbers of students who rewrite the corrected writing and repeat the steps in the class with different topics are 30% and 27% respectively The number of students who find exercise from other sources for practice is 38% It can be explained that students not take it serious to invest much time in learning English In addition, students at high school have a lot of homework so they can hardly have time to concentrate on any single subjects that are not their majors 4.3.1.3 Teachers’ Opinions about the Applicability of Process Approach in Teaching Writing for Students with the Textbook “ English 10” What you think of the applicability of the process approach in teaching writing skill for your students with the textbook “English 10”? (Question for teachers) As stated previously in the thesis, the last aims of the questionnaire is to find out the teachers’ judgments on the applicability of the process approach in teaching writing in given context It is interesting that 80% of the teachers are optimistic about the possibility in 30 applying the process approach 10% of the teachers think that it is impossible and another 10% of them say that it is doubtful whether such an approach is applicable What you think are the main constraints in the application of the process approach in teaching writing skill for your students (question for teachers) Constraints Teachers lack knowledge of process approach Large classes Students with mixed abilities and multi-levels Students at very low level of written English In cooperated attitude of students The text book “English 10” is inappropriate to apply Agreement (%) 80 70 60 40 20 the process approach Table 7: Constraints in applying process approach in teaching writing It can be seen from Table that there are main constraints in applying the process approach in teaching writing for grade 10 students: * Teachers lack knowledge of process approach (80%) * Large classes (70%) * Students with mixed abilities and multi-levels (60%) Just 20% of the teachers claim in-cooperative attitude of the students the main constraints And none of them says that the textbook is in appropriate in applying the process approach What, you think, should be done to deal with the constraints in applying process approach? (Questions 8, 9, 10 and 11 for teachers) To improve the teachers “ knowledge of process writing and avoid misunderstanding in application of the approach: The majority of the teachers (from 70% to 80%) agree that the following solutions can help to sort out the problems originating from teachers’ lack of knowledge about process approach: • organize seminars or forum about process approach (70%) • Encourage teachers and students to look for materials about process approach from various sources (80%) 31 They add that it would be more effective if competitions are hold among teachers to test their understanding about the process approach If so, they may have great encouragement in seeking for information about the approach in various sources and from their colleagues To deal with large classes: • Enhance the skill of group work or pair work (80%) • Divide the class into groups and give priority to the “weak group” (60%) • Accumulate students’ mistakes for the ease of feedback and correction (50%) To deal with low motivation for learning and writing: • suggest interesting topics for writing (60%) • organize various writing competitions (50%) • Use other teaching aids: songs, games, films … (50%) Some of the teachers admit that some of the students are anxious in the writing lessons and it is necessary to build up a habit of writing among students to help them advance their writing skill To deal with learners’ inappropriate ways of learning • Share teachers’ experience in learning writing (70%) • Encourage students to share their experiences (60%) • Introduce students with different learning styles, strategies for referencing (70%) 4.3.2 Semi-Structured Interview As mentioned previously in Chapter 4, the aim of the interview is to clarify doubtful information and less convincing data collected in the survey Especially with question in the survey questionnaire for students, the researcher sometimes obtained no answer from the respondents Therefore, the interview is conducted in such a way that the interviewer and the interviewees can feel at ease to express freely what they think about the current situations of teaching and learning writing skill at Dong Da high school as well as the applicability of the process approach in such a context Interviews for Teachers ... previously in the thesis, the last aims of the questionnaire is to find out the teachers’ judgments on the applicability of the process approach in teaching writing in given context It is interesting... text is completed PREWRITING COMPOSING/ DRAFTING REVISING EDITING PUBLISHING Figure 2: Model of process approach Since it lays the emphasis on the writers’ writing process, the process approach. .. of English teaching at Dong Da high school, focusing on the teachers’ methods and strategies in teaching writing in order to find out the constraints remained in applying the process approach