ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
On the completion of this work, first of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to all
those who gave me the possibility and encouragement without which my research would be
far from finished .
I would like to acknowledge with great gratitude the precious advice, enlightening
guidance and especially invaluable critical feedback which I have received from my
supervisor, Dr. Hà Cẩm Tâm.
I would also like to send my sincere thanks to the principal, the teachers of English groups
at Ly Thuong Kiet high school , who have helped me in providing the teaching materials,
giving me chance to attend their lessons, willing to take part in the interviews and making
constructive and insightful comments for this study.
My special thanks also go to Mrs. Lê Thu Hà, the librarian at the Resource center, who
introduced and lent me a numerous of interesting books and valuable materials for my
thesis.
Last but not least, I would like to express my heart-felt thanks to my beloved people, my
parents, my husband whose support and continual encouragement have been indispensable
for the fulfillment of this challenging work.
Hanoi, September, 2013
Lê Thị Thái
ABSTRACT
i
In an attempt to investigate teachers’ problems in teaching writing skills to 11graders at a
high school in Bac Giang, the study was aimed at finding out: (1) the problems the
teachers might encounter in the teaching process of the skills; (2) factors causing their
difficulties.
The study has been conducted in the form of a survey research, with the subjects were 6
English teachers . The classroom observation was the main instruments employed for the
data collection. These teachers were also invited to join interviews. The research reveals
that teachers’ time management and teaching methods should really be taken into
consideration. Besides, the data from the study confirm the fact that the students’ laziness
and negative attitudes towards writing lessons all made it difficult for the teachers in

1.1.3.2. Stages in teaching writing…………………………………………… 9
1.1.3.2.1. Pre- writing 10
Brainstorming 10
Planning 10
Debating 10
iii
Interviewing 11
1.1.3.2.2. While- writing 11
1.1.3.2.3. Post- writing 11
1.1.4. Principles for teaching writing 11
1.1.5. Review of previous studies on teaching writing 14
CHAPTER 2. THE STUDY 18
2.1. Research question 18
2.2. Research design 18
2.2.1. Participants 18
2.2.2. Data collection instruments 19
2.2.3. Data collection procedures 22
2.3. Data analysis and discussion 22
2.3.1. Classroom observation 22
2.3.2. Interviews 29
2.3.3. Teachers’ difficulties in teaching writing to the 11
th
grade students 34
PART C.CONCLUSION 37
1. Major findings 37
2. Implications 37
3. Suggestions for further study 39
REFERENCE 40
APPENDIX I
APPENDIX1 I

For all the above-mentioned reasons, I would like to devote my time researching the topic
in my thesis: “ A study on teacher’s difficulties in teaching writing skill to the 11
th
grade at
a school in Bac Giang”. I hope that my work can help teachers of English have a better
look on teaching writing skills and consult some recommendations in order to improve the
quality of teaching and learning writing skills at my school and elsewhere.
2. Aims of the study
This research is designed to have an insight into the English writing lessons for the 11
th
form students at a high school in Bac Giang province for continual improvement. Within
this purpose, the specific objectives of the study are:
• To identify the teachers’ major difficulties in teaching writing skills
• To examine the causes of their difficulties
3. Scope of the study
The study is mainly focus on the difficulties that teachers confronted in teaching writing
skills to 11 grade students in the classroom setting at a high school. The study of
difficulties of other skills thus would be beyond of the scope. The study involves the
participants of 6 teachers of English and 270 students in 11
th
forms. The findings and
suggested implications most appropriately applied to English teachers at a high school, the
teachers will be able to find ways to improve their process of teaching English.
4. Methods of the study
The study was designed to use a combination of a variety of methods to achieve its objectives.
Firstly, classroom observation with 270 students from 6 classes was carried out to investigate
the reality of the teachers’ difficulties confronting in their teaching writing skills. In addition to
classroom observation, informal interviews with the informants of 6 English teachers were
also employed. The purpose of the survey is to collect data about the teachers’ difficulties in
teaching writing to the 11

(iii) Writing also provides variety in classroom activities, serving as a break
from oral work, and increases the amount of language contact through work
that can be set out of class.
(iv) Writing is often needed for formal and informal testing.
Teaching and learning writing is of great importance in classroom, White (1981, p.1) states
that learners expose their success in examination through their ability to write. Moreover,
writing has high “face validity” because it is tangible so parents and learners can see what
has been done.
In second language learning, the teaching of writing also aims at correctness of form over
function. According to Nunan (2003:89), “writing was used to show that students had
mastered a particular grammatical rule, rather than had a good idea about the subject
matter. In fact, correct spelling, grammar, and overall organization were the most important
evidence of second language proficiency. A student’s ability to form and write the future
4
perfect tense correctly was seen as evidence of a student’s ability to write, and moreover,
of the student’s overall English ability”.
In CLT, besides communication is the purposes of the teaching of writing, writing
supports students to learn. Raimes (1983:3) assumes that the grammatical rules, idioms and
vocabulary will be reinforces through practising writing, in addition, students will get the
chance to go beyond what they have just learnt to say, they are aware of using new
language, show their effort to express ideas, therefore, their language learning is
improving.
With all the roles mentioned above, writing is no double an integral part in almost every
language programs from elementary to tertiary level.
1.1.2. Approaches to teaching writing
There have been several approaches of teaching ESL/EFL writing, they all have advantages
and disadvantages. Ann Raimes (1983,pp.5-10) refers to six approaches to teaching
writing: (i) The Control-to-Free Approach, (ii) The Free-Writing Approach, (iii) The
Paragraph-Pattern Approach, (iv) The Grammar-Syntax-Organization Approach, (v) The
Communitive Approach, (vi) The Process Approach.

organizational plan based on chronology, sequence words like first, second, next, then,
etc. The teachers review and teach these vocabulary and structures in the preparatory stages
and in short, this approach is the connection between the purpose and the form of the
writing.
1.1.2.5. The Communicative Approach
This approach emphasizes the communicative role of writing, students have to focus on the
purpose of a piece of writing (Why am I writing this?) and the audience for it (Who will
read it?). They are also encouraged to write through real life situation and to make the
6
writers do their best, the audience is not only the teachers but the students also become the
readers for each other. They can respond, rewrite, summarize and make comments.
Sometimes, to provide student with a text in which appropriate content, language and level
of formality are selected, teachers specify readers outside the classroom.
1.1.2.6. The Process Approach
The Process Approach emerges when there has a movement in teaching writing from the
concentration on the written product to an emphasis on the process of writing. Student
writers are encouraged to give out their communication of ideas, feelings and experiences.
They not only focus on purpose and audience but also concern how to begin and how to
organize a piece of writing. Writing is a process, so students need to realize what first put
down on paper is not necessarily their product but just a beginning of the first ideas, draft
then revise what has been written after a peer feedback and write other drafts before the
final version is produced.
Writing activities of this approach is paid on a cycle from the generation of ideas and the
collection of data to the “publication” of a finished text:
PRE- WRITING
(Specify the task/ planning and outlining/ collecting data/ making notes)
COMPOSING
REVISING
(Reorganizing/ shifting emphasis/ focusing information and style for your
readership)

sentences. Many approaches attempt to phase out or at least reduce the amount of control,
either by forcing the learners to exercise some sort of meaningful choice or by allowing
them to contribute to the text in some way.
Students do the writing tasks under the guidance of teachers, they cannot use language to
communicate freely with the readers because this is not a communicative writing type.
Two main exercises teachers can give students are answering the questions to form a
8
paragraph or making paragraph using given words.
(iii) Free Writing teaching
Students write about any topics by using language to express their ideas, there is no need to
give them the outline or given words. However, the teachers have to conduct three stages
such as: Pre-writing; While-writing and Post-writing if they wish their students to obtain
necessary skills in writing.
1.1.3.2. Stages in teaching writing
According to Brown (1994), there are two main stages in writing teaching: Pre-writing and
While-writing. These stages are a combination of different approaches, especially the
communicative approach and the process approach.
According to Hoang Van Van (2006), there are three stages in teaching writing skill: Pre-
writing, While-writing and Post-writing.
1.1.3.2.1. Pre-writing
In this stage, teachers have to do some following tasks:
+ Exploiting model text by asking students to read the text in order to analyze type
of text to find out vocabulary, structures and tenses which are used to support the purposes
of the writing.
+ Providing necessary words and structures relating to topic by using open-guided
techniques to remind what students have learned and teach how to use what words or
structures they haven’t known.
+ Conducting brainstorming activity in groups or whole class which helps students
to exchange, share their ideas among them. The purpose of this activity is to provide
students something to write.

because it creates a relaxed atmosphere when students write the record of interviews. It
also makes writing more enjoyable and interesting.
1.1.3.2.2. While-writing
Hedge (1988) considers the while-writing stage as “composing”, after specifying the task,
10
planning and outlining, collecting data, students begin to compose; White and Arnt (1991)
sees it as “drafting”- the first version . Tribble (1996: p.14) takes during while-writing
stage as “writers are in dynamic interaction with” (1) “the idea for their writing” (2) “their
probable readers’ expectations”, and (3) “ the model of the genre they are currently
composing”
After having outline for the task, students start writing individually or in pairs and groups.
1.1.3.2.3. Post-writing
Revising and editing after composing is an integral part of the writing process (Hedge,
1988). There are two main post-writing activities: the first are self-revision and self-editing
(Harmer, 2003), the second is rewriting based on the feedback or comment from the
teachers or their peers (Harmer,2004).
In this stage, teachers can get feedback from students’ writing by collecting their works,
however, teachers should help students find mistakes and correct by themselves and should
not focus much on students’ error.
1.1.4. Principles for teaching writing
Any teachers teaching English in general and teaching writing skill in particular have to
consider principles while giving a lesson. According to Nunan D (2003), there are four
principles for teaching writing. First, teachers should understand their students’ reasons for
writing because when the teacher’s goals do not match the students’, which will cause the
great dissatisfaction. Second, teachers should provide opportunities for students to write
since writing is in part a physical activities and it requires lots of practice to improve.
Third, teachers have to make feedback helpful and meaningful, this means that teachers
should be cautious about the tone of their comments and make sure they understand the
vocabulary or symbols. Last, teachers should show how students’ writings will be
evaluated.

This approach encourages students’ communication of ideas, feelings and experiences. It
also focuses more on purpose, theme, text type, the reader is emphasized, thus, writers not
only concern about purpose and audience but also have to make decision on how to begin
and how to organize a piece of writing. Writing is the process, student are given time to set
12
out ideas, make plan, write a first draft, revise what has been written after a peer feedback.
Brown (1994, pp. 335 – 336) points out some features of Process Approach as follow:
(1) focus on the process of writing that leads to the final written product
(2) help students understand their own composing process
(3) help them to build repertoires of strategies for prewriting, drafting, and
rewriting
(4) give students time to write and rewrite
(5) place central importance on the process of revision
(6) let students discover what they want to say as they write
(7) give students feedback throughout the composing process as they attempt
to bring their expression closer to attention
(8) encourage feedback from both the instructor and peers
(9) include individual conferences between teacher and students during the
process of composition.
When teaching, teachers normally use techniques drawn from other approaches as those
techniques are useful in the context of the class. The writing lessons in new English 11
textbook were combined both Product Approach and Process Approach. This Combined
Product Process Approach is found to be more popular, appropriate and effective. The
outline suggestions for a writing lesson of this approach may be :
Stage 1: Teacher gives a model
Stage 2: The model is exploited through its typical features, language and structures
are used
Stage 3: Students produce an outline after working to find out the ideas for the
writing topic
Stage 4: Students write the first draft individually/in pairs/in groups. The model is

writing practice. In addition, the brainstorming technique encourages students’ active
involvement in the classroom activity and offers the opportunity for students not only to
interact with each other but also to share others’ opinion, as a result, students can cultivate
14
their linguistic and communicative competence and develop their ability to express
themselves in English. Finally, the brainstorming strategy makes students aware of their
intellectual strengths and limitations as it can keep students mentally alert, put them to
learn from each other, overcome weakness and think about how to improve their writing
ability in future practice.
Like brainstorming activity in the first stage of writing lessons, feedback is also essential to
the writing process and is of great importance in the third stage – post-writing, and a large
quantity of research has been carried out to investigate the effects of feedback, especially
teacher feedback which is helpful to students in improving their composition. However,
traditional way in which teachers make comments on the students’ drafts is not effective in
improving students’ writing. Paul Rollinson has taken this problem into consideration.
According to the author, teachers should choose to use peer feedback in the ESL writing
classroom because peer readers can provide useful feedback and revise effectively on the
basis of comments. It also “fosters a myriad of communicative behaviors” (Villamil and de
Guerrero 1996). Peer response operates on a more informal level than teacher response,
this may encourage or motivate writers and the writer receiving comments from peers
retains the right to reject comments. However, using peer feed back which gets time
constraints as the peer response itself is a lengthy one due to reading a draft, making notes
etc. will consume a significant amount of time. With the same concern, Wang Xiang finds
that the technique of self-monitoring, by giving students control over the feedback they
receive, enables teachers to provide effective feedback. The results show that students can
be trained to use self-monitoring in their writing, which is an effective way for students to
improve the organization of their compositions and is especially helpful to higher-
proficiency learners as students annotate their texts with any doubts they have during the
writing process so that the teacher can give feedback not only on the finished draft but also
on the queries which emerged during the writing process. In addition, it encourages

improving the teaching and learning writing.
16
CHAPTER TWO: THE STUDY
This chapter discusses the design of the study line with its research questions. Research
design consisting of participants, data collection instruments with classroom observation
form and interview questionnaire is also included. Research design also touches with data
collection procedures which introduce how the data collection has been carried out. The
data are analyzed and discussed thoroughly from classroom observation and the questions
for interview in order to find out the difficulties teachers encounter in teaching writing skill
to support research questions.
Both quantitative and qualitative methods are employed to carry out the study. With the
aims of increasing validity and reliability of the data collected, the teachers’ lessons are
observed to help researcher have real insight into the current situation of teaching writing
skill. Informal interviews with teachers are also conducted to confirm the data collection.
2.1. Research question
What are teacher’s difficulties in teaching writing skill to the 11
th
grade? And why?
17
2.2. Research design
2.2.1. Participants
This study was conducted at a school where English is compulsory subject. The school has
been founded for 11 years and in school year 2013-2014, there are eight 11
th
grade classes.
The participants chosen for the study are 270 students from six eleven-forms groups
(11A1, A2, A3, A4, A6 A8). Most of 11
th
grade students at aged from 16 to 17, both male
and female, have learnt English at least 6 or 7 years but in different levels, some students

Classroom observation form
Date:
Class attended:
Length of period:
Writing topic:
Objectives of the lesson:
Procedures of
the lesson
Teacher’s activities Students’ activities Time
Warming-up
Pre-writing
stage
19
While-writing
stage
Post-writing
stage
(i) Interviews
The interviews were conducted right after the lessons were attended. The questions were
designed based on what was observed in the lessons. The aims of the interviews were to
confirm what was found through teachers’ activities. Because teachers used various
techniques among them in the writing lessons and so the questions for each teacher were
different. Here is the list of the questions
List of the questions
Question 1: Do you think eliciting is a good technique to revise necessary words for the
writing topic? And do you conduct the techniques properly?
Question 2: Did you provide enough vocabulary and structures for students to write?
Question 3: Do you know the reason why many students were not engaged in the lesson?
Question 4: Do you think time was well-divided among stages in your lesson?
Question 5: Do you find your students having difficulties in writing? And what are the