PART 1: INTRODUCTION
1. RATIONALE
Nowadays English has become an international language because it is widely
used in many parts of the world. In the tendency of integration of the global economy
English is one of the effective communicative tools for everybody. The role of English is
considered to be very important in the fields of economics, politics, science, culture and
education. Especially, Vietnam’s official membership of WTO on 7
th
November 2006
opened a new door for integrating into the world economy, and more and more people
want to learn English for communicating with foreign partners, tourism, study tours, etc.
Since the Communicative Language Teaching was applied widely, groupwork has
had its actual and important roles in helping students to practice their four language skills
(speaking, listening, reading and writing) in integration.
When teaching writing essays to the third-year Major English College students at
Hong Duc University I found out that in practice writing lessons very few students took
part in groupwork actively. I saw that students sat in groups saying nothing or very little
mainly in their mother tongue or having private talks. When they were encouraged to
work in groups they reluctantly spoke.
I decided to carry out the action research to find out the causes of students'
inactive participation in groupwork. Based on the results of this action research, some
changes and improvements could be applied in my lessons, and some appropriate
strategies needed to be designed to enable all group members to discuss actively in
groups. I hoped the results of my study would be shared with any colleagues who had the
same problem or anyone who was interested in this study.
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2. METHODOLOGY

2.1. Participants
The subjects of my research were 36 third-year major English college students in
Class K12A (Academic Course: 2005-2008) of Foreign Language Department at Hong


This study was carried out in an English class with 36 3
rd
year college students in the
Foreign Language Department at Hong Duc University in Thanh Hoa province. The
research focused on the problem of “inactiveness” in group discussion in pre-writing
stage of essay-writing practice lessons.
4. Design of the study
My research consists of three main parts with: Introduction, Development and
Conclusion. Part 1: Introduction presents the rationale, the method of study, the scope of
the study, the subject of the study, the significance of the study and the design of the
study.
Part 2: Development consists of Section A ‘ Literature Review’ and Section B
‘Action Research Procedure’. In Section A, there are three chapters with different
focuses. Chapter One focuses on action research: its definition, three reasons to use it,
and ways to carry out it. Chapter Two introduces the concepts of writing, academic
writing, writing essays, types of essays, the process of writing essays. It also discusses the
teaching of writing and the teaching of writing essays, some approaches to teaching
writing. The last chapter (Chapter Three) focuses on groupwork in teaching foreign
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languages in general and in teaching writing essays; some advantages and problems of
groupwork. Section B namely “Action Research Procedure” describes the procedure of
my action research with the following main steps: defining the problem, observing class,
conducting a survey using questionnaires, collecting data and analyzing data, and giving
out conclusions from findings.
Part 3: Conclusion is the last part which offered a summary and suggestions for
solving the problem of inactiveness of groupwork in teaching writing essays and some
implications for the teachers who uses groupwork in teaching writing essays.
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PART 2: DEVELOPMENT

of solving problems, bringing about social change or practical action, in comparison with
research which seeks to discover scientific principles or develop general laws and
theories”.
In teacher education, it is “ … teacher-initiated classroom research which seeks to
increase the teacher’s understanding of classroom teaching and learning and to bring
about improvements in classroom practices.”.
In brief, action research is a kind of scientific study which is often carried out by a
teacher or an educator in order to solve a practical problem in a classroom. As it was
named, it focuses mainly on the actions of both students and teachers. So, it can solve the
problems which are related to all actions and activities in a classroom. The problems
which are solved by action research are often practical and useful for teachers.
2. Why does a teacher need action research?

Action research in schools, colleges or universities solves everyday practical
problems experienced by teachers, rather than the ‘theoretical problems’ defined by non-
teaching researchers. It should be carried out by the teachers themselves or by someone
they commission to carry out for them.
Action research in education focuses on the three related stages of action:
“1. Initiating action, such as, adopting a text, choosing an alternative assessment
strategy.
2. Monitoring and adjusting, such as, seeing how a pilot project is proceeding, assessing
the early progress of new programme, improving a current practice.
3. Evaluating action, such as, preparing a final report on a completed project”
(Sagor, 1992)
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If the teacher was trained to conduct action research he could solve his problems on
his own or in collaboration with other teachers. Anders (1988), Curtis (1988) and Tsui
(1993) gave three reasons why a teacher needed action research:
- to solve own problems in a scientific process and improve own practice
- to adapt theory (findings of conventional research) to practice (own problems)

their learners and themselves said and did in class, and then, based on these observations,
identified positive ways to bring about this change.
In my opinion, observing the class and making notes are feasible for a teacher to
implement his/her action research where cassette recorders or camcorders are not
available.
A necessary component of action research is collaboration among different
people. They are teachers, their colleagues and students, who should be willing to talk
with each other about the problems and find out the solutions together, as well as help
each other in implementing classroom-centered action research projects. It also needs the
collaborative efforts of students who participate in the action research project. Students’
collaboration plays an important role in the success of the action research project.
4. Summary
Action research is a kind of scientific study carried out by a teacher which solves
the practical problems in a classroom. The teacher needs action research to adapt theory
(findings of conventional research) to practice (his/her own problems). Action research
consists of three stages:
1. Pre-Improvement: Firstly, the teacher identifies the problem in his teaching job in
class. He/she observes by himself/herself or asks somebody to observe or has his/her
lessons video-taped in class to get data to prove the problem. He/she also proves the
problem by conducting a survey to get information from his/her students. Secondly, the
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teacher tries to find out the causes of the problem from professional books or journals,
colleagues and students.
2. Try-Out: The teacher designs the strategies for improvement and tries them out in
some following lessons. Next, a lesson is observed or video-taped to get data to illustrate
the changes and improvements.
3. Post-Improvement: The teacher reflects on the reasons for the changes and
improvements. To ensure the success of the applied strategies in action research a survey
is necessary to get the evaluation from students. From the results of the action research
some conclusions and comments will be made.

universities. “Academic writing, as the name implies, is kind of writing that you are
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required to do in college or university. It differs from other kinds of writing (personal,
literary, journalistic, business, etc) ways. Its differences can be explained in part by its
special audience, tone, and purpose” (Oshima and Hogue, 1991). In more details, Oshima
and Hogue gave some clear explanations to some terms in their definition of academic
writing. “Audience” meant the people who would read what the author had written.
Knowing audience helped the writer reach his/her goal of communicating clearly and
effectively. In academic writing, the audience was primarily his/her professors, teachers.
“Tone” revealed writer’s attitude towards his/her subject by his /her choice of words,
grammatical structures, and even the length of his or her sentences. The tone of a piece of
writing was determined more by its intended audience than its subject matter. Academic
writing was always formal in tone. No matter what kind of writing the writer did, he/she
should have a special and clear purpose. In academic writing, the author’s purpose would
most often be too explained. It might also be to persuade or to convince his/her audience
of the correctness of his/her point of view on a particular issue. The purpose of a piece of
writing determined the organizational form and style chosen for it.
3. APPROACHES TO TEACHING WRITING
Nowadays there are many different approaches to teaching writing. In this part
only four main approaches to teaching writing were mentioned.
According to Byrne (1988) there were four approaches to teaching writing with
different focuses: Controlled-to-Free Approach, Free-Writing Approach, Paragraph-
Pattern Approach and Communicative Approach.
3.1. Controlled-to-Free Approach
According to this approach mistakes shown up in written work was regarded as a
major problem. The teacher assumed that students made mistakes because they wrote
what they wanted freely. This approach stressed the importance of control in teaching
writing skills to students in early stages. Students were taught how to write and combine
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various sentence types and manipulation exercises were used to give students the

they wrote to read over, think about, and moved them on to a new ones. Teachers could
give their feedbacks on the content of what students have written in their drafts. The
writing process became a process of discovery. That was the discovery of new ideas and
new language forms to express those ideas.
To sum up, we may have two main types of approaches according to two above -
mentioned authors: Product Approach (consists of four approaches given by Byrne
(1988). This approach is so-called because it focuses on the product of the writing
process) and Process Approach by Raimes (1983) focuses on the process of the writing
activity.
4. WHAT IS WRITING ESSAY?
4.1. The definition of an essay
An essay, also called composition, is ‘a longer piece of writing, particularly one that
is written by a student as part of a course of study or by a writer writing for publication
which expresses the writer’s viewpoint on a topic’ (Richards and Platts, 1992); ‘The
essay is a group of paragraphs about one subject’ (Fawcett and Sandberg, 1992 ) or in
other words ‘An essay is a group of paragraphs that develops one central idea’ by
Smalley and Ruetten (1986). Oshima and Hogue (1991) gave a similar definition of an
essay: ‘An essay is a piece of writing several paragraphs long instead of just one or two.
It is written about one topic, just as a paragraph’.
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4.2. Language requirements for learning to write an essay
According to Fawcett & Sandberg (1992), Smalley & Ruetten (1986) and Oshima
& Hogue (1991) essay writing was for intermediate and advanced students of English as
a second language. The reason was that ‘Essays should not be given early in the language
learning. It is far better to follow the logical sequence: that is, get sentences right first,
then work on short paragraphs, and only later write essays’ (Barry, 1997).
An essay is also used to assess an English learners’ writing ability in some
international testing systems such as IELTS and TOEFL. As stated by Sharpe (2001)
writing essays is an opportunity for a student to demonstrate his/her ability to write in
English. This includes the ability to generate and organize ideas, to support those ideas

Comparison or Contrast, Classification and Persuasive. In Illustration essays the writer
used specific examples to support a thesis or to prove a statement. Narrative essays
required the writer to retell a meaningful incident, an event or personal experience. The
writer had to describe something such as a place, a product, a piece of equipment or cells
under a microscope, etc in a Descriptive essay. Describing a process or steps in the
procedure of doing something was the aim of a Process essay. In Definition essays
students had to define a scientific term such as Disk Operating System in computer
studies or DNA in biology etc. When writing a Comparison or Contrast essay, students
might be asked to compare to find the similarities and differences between two things or
two people. They could also use some criteria to contrast two things or two people to
discover which features this person or a thing had but the other one did not have.
Differing from the above-mentioned types of essays, Classification essays required the
writer to use some criteria to classify some things or people or divide them into groups
under some standards. In a Persuasive essay the writer had to take a stand on an issue
and tried to convince others to agree with him or her. In the Persuasive essay the writer
was often asked a question like this “Do you agree or disagree?” He had to choose to
agree or disagree with the given topic.
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Differing from Fawcett and Sandberg, Smalley and Ruetten (1986) gave out only
5 types of essays with different names: Example Essay, Comparison and Contrast Essay,
Classification Essay, Process Analysis Essay, Cause-and-Effect Analysis Essay and
Argumentative Essay. Among those, a Cause-and-Effect essay was not mentioned by
Fawcett and Sandberg. In Cause-and-Effect essay the writer identified the causes of a
phenomenon, a problem or something or predicts its good or bad effects. However, in
some cases the writer did both of these actions.
These five types of essays given by Smalley and Ruetten (1986) are the most
common types of essays which were taught to ESL students as the authors stated in their
book. They are also chosen to teach to Major English students in Hong Duc University,
Thanh Hoa because of their suitability for ESL students.


The essay writer should try to jot down any ideas that develop the thesis
statement, including main ideas, specific details, and examples, all jumbled together.
Only after creating a long list do they go back over it, drop any ideas that do not support
the thesis statement, and then plan paragraphs.
2. Write topic sentences and then plan paragraphs
Sometimes a writer can compose his/her topic sentences directly from the thesis
statement without extensive jotting first if the thesis statement itself shows how the body
will be divided or organized. Such a thesis statement makes the work of planning
paragraphs easy because the writer has already broken down the subject into supporting
ideas or parts. The order of paragraphs should logically follow the order in the thesis
statement, discussing first the problem and then the solution.
Step 3: Ordering and linking paragraphs in the essay
1. Ordering paragraphs
An essay should have coherence. That is, the paragraphs in an essay should be
arranged in a clear, logical order and should follow one another like links in a chain. In
order to keep the paragraphs in the essay in a logical order the writer has to use his/her
common sense and plan ahead. He/she should not order his paragraphs randomly.
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Types of order such as time order, space order, and order of climax can
sometimes be used to arrange paragraphs within an essay. Essays about subjects that can
be broken into stages or steps, which each step discussed in one paragraph, should be
arranged according to time. Space order is used occasionally in descriptive essays. A
writer who wants to save the most important or convincing paragraph for last would use
order of climax.
2. Linking paragraphs
There are four ways to links paragraphs:
- Repeat key words or ideas from the thesis statement.
- Refer to words or ideas from the preceding paragraph.
- Use transitional expressions.
- Use transitional sentences.

Writing
paragraphs Writing essays Writing essays
(continued)
Details
+ Sentence
structures and
sentence
components
+ Types of
sentences
+ Sentence
building
+ Writing notes
and memos
+ Writing
personal letters
+ Writing
telegrams,
personal ads
and
instructions
+ Writing
reports on
incidents and
events
+ Form-filling
+ How to write
a paragraph
+ Writing
paragraph

In Hong Duc University, essay writing is taught to the college and university students
in last two terms of their academic course because in Term 4 and Term 5 of the
Course students are at the levels of intermediate and advanced of English
Teaching writing essays in class in the early stages often consists of two steps:
Step 1: Students are taught how to write an essay
Step 2: Students write essays in practice lessons in class with the help from the teacher.
Writing in class is ‘especially helpful in the early stages because you (the teacher
or trainer) are available for intermediate consultation. Also, you can work your way
around the room checking to make sure that everyone is on the right track’ (Oshima and
Hogue, 1991)
When students know how to write an essay the teacher can ask them to write an
essay of their own in practice lessons in class. The teacher may apply the 8 steps in a
two-period lesson (90 minutes) as follows:
Step 1. The teacher chooses a suitable topic for each type of essay and writes on the
board
Step 2. Students brainstorm the topic (3-5 minutes)
Step 3. Students discuss the topic in groups to exchange their ideas on the topic (7-10
minutes).
Step 4. Students write their short essays (under 300 words) individually (45 minutes).
Step 5. Students exchange their essays for peer’s correction (10 minutes)
Step 6. Students get their essays back from their peers and read their peer’s comments
and discuss about the mistakes and comments given by their peers. (5 minutes)
Step 7. Students get consultation from the teacher if necessary (10 minutes or more)
Step 8. The teacher collects students’ papers for correcting and/or marking at home (rest
of time)
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In Step 1 in early stages the teacher should choose an interesting, easy and simple
topic and make sure that all of his/her students understand and have enough knowledge
about the topic. In Step 7 students may disagree with their peer’s comments and
corrections so they can ask the teacher for help. Step 8 requires the teacher a lot of time

countries.
At Hong Duc University writing essays is taught in Term 4 and Term 5 of the
6–Term Training Course for Junior English teachers. Firstly, students are taught how to
write essays, types of essays, process of writing an essay and then they write their own
essays in practice lesson in class through 8 steps.
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. CHAPTER 3: GROUPWORK
1.1. GROUPWORK
1.1.1. What is groupwork?
Groupwork in its most common meaning is a joint activity of more than two
people to do the same task or duty. In language teaching, groupwork is “a learning
activity which involves a small group of learners working together. The group may work
on a single task or on different parts of a larger task. Tasks for group members are often
selected by the members of the group” (Richards, J.C.; Platt, J., H. 1992).
1.1.2. Groupwork in language teaching
When the Communicative Language Teaching Approach was applied widely in
many countries in teaching foreign languages, groupwork became very important and
necessary in developing language skills for learners. Groupwork was used in teaching
four language skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing), not just in speaking skill.
According to Gower (1995) groupwork had a place in most types of lessons so every
opportunity should be taken for students to talk to each other in groups such as when
asking about unknown words, comparing their answers to tasks, correcting each other’s
work as well as information gap activities, discussions and games; etc.
1.1.3. Groupwork in teaching writing
When teaching writing a teacher can exploit groupwork whenever he/she wants
his/her students to practice speaking skill. ‘… groupwork can involve brainstorming,
writing and editing’ (Oshima and Huge, 1991). Students can brainstorming a topic in
groups; write their writing assignments in groups or edit their writing assignments in
groups. Teaching writing essays in class in three stages (pre-writing, while-writing and
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- Encouraging rapport between students.
- Enabling students to invest much more of themselves in the lesson
- Providing a change in pace.
- Adding variety to a lesson.
On the other hand, groupwork also had some disadvantages for a foreign language
teacher. Michael J. Wallace (1998) pointed out some aspects of groupwork that might
bother a language teacher:
- composition of group
- personality clashes within groups
- use of mother tongue in groups
- dynamic of group (how the individuals within a groupwork together?)
- issue of group leadership
- effectiveness of group work
- selection of the best materials for groupwork ( or topics for discussion)
- effect of different tasks on groupwork.
Like any kind of praxis, groupwork can lose its meaning if it is handled in an
automatic and unthinking way:
- The topic is boring or out of students' knowledge to discuss.
- The levels of students are not the same and this leads to the unequal participation in
group work, that is, only good students discuss actively.
- Some language problems prevent students from groupwork such as: inability to
express their own ideas because of poor vocabulary related to the topic, poor grammar
knowledge, bad pronunciation,
- Some personal problems such as: shyness (some students do not want to speak in
front of others because they are afraid of making mistakes and other students may laugh
at him or her), health problems (illnesses, tiredness, stress) , and bad relationship with
other group member (conflicts, quarrels).
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