VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
********************* LÊ THỊ YẾN
USING WRITING PROCESS-ORIENTED APPROACH TO IMPVOVE 12
th

GRADERS’ WRITING SKILL AT QUẢNG XƯƠNG 1 HIGH SCHOOL

ÁP DỤNG ĐƢỜNG HƢỚNG VIẾT NHƢ MỘT QUÁ TRÌNH ĐỂ NÂNG CAO
KĨ NĂNG VIẾT CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 12 TRƢỜNG THPT QUẢNG XƢƠNG 1 M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60140111

Hanoi, 2014 i
DECLARATION

I hereby certify that I am the sole author of this study. This study is
submitted in partial fulfillment for the Degree of Master of Arts at the
University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National
University, Hanoi and that this thesis has not been submitted elsewhere in any
other form for the fulfillment of any other degree or qualification.

Hanoi, August 2014
Signature Lê Thị Yến
graders‘ writing skill in English classrooms at Quảng Xƣơng 1 secondary school.
The study investigates students‘ participation in process writing, their improvement
in writing ability, together with useful implications to the teaching of writing skill at
secondary schools. Twenty students of 12
th
grade class participated in the study.
The findings show that the implementation of process writing in teaching writing
can improve students‘ writing quality. Students made many errors in the first drafts.
Nonetheless, after receiving the teacher‘s feedback and rewriting the drafts, students
made significant improvements in their writing. The study concludes by
recommendations of using process writing in teaching composition at high schools.


Subject and verb do not agree
9
W.O.
The words in this sentence are in the wrong order
10
W.f.
Wrong word form
11
S.
Subject needed
12
V.
Verb needed
13
Pl.
Plural
14
U.W.
Unnecessary word
15
W.Conj.
Wrong conjunction
16
W.P.
Wrong punctuation
1.2.5. Providing feedback to students‘ writing 15
1.2.6. Evaluation of student writing 20
1.3. Summary 21
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 22
2.1. Research setting 22
2.1.1. An overview of research site 22 vi
2.1.2. The teachers and the students 22
2.1.3. Learning materials 23
2.2. Participants 23
2.3. Data collection instrument. 24
2.4. Procedures of data collection 24
2.5. Procedures of data analysis 25
CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS 26
3.1. Findings of the study 26
3.1.1. Overall improvement of students‘ writing 26
3.1.2. Number of the errors in content and organization aspects 29
3.1.3. Number of the errors in vocabulary and language use aspect 29
3.1.4. Number of mechanical errors 31
3.2. The results 31
3.2.1. Students‘ writing achievement in content and organization aspect 31
3.2.2. Students‘ writing achievement in vocabulary and language use aspect 32
3.2.3. Students‘ writing achievement in mechanical aspect 33
3.3. Discussions 33
3.4. Summary 38
PART C: CONCLUSIONS 39
1. Recapitulation of major findings 39
2. Conclusions 40

progressively master, and even enjoy writing. Although this idea is not new in
theory, how to apply it in practice is not easy. Being a teacher of English at a
secondary school, I see the reality of teaching writing skill in my setting. I have,
therefore, decided to conduct a study on this area to improve the teaching practice in
my school.
The study deals with the use of writing process to improve 12
th
graders‘
writing skill at Quảng Xƣơng 1 high school. It focuses on the students‘ revising and
editing the drafts after they receive feedback from the teacher and the changes made
to each paper between the first and final drafts. The text type was descriptive.

2
2. Objectives of the Study
The objectives of the study are:
- To investigate the impact of process writing on 12
th
graders‘ composition skill.
- To find out effective methods of teaching English writing skill to 12
th
graders.
3. Research Questions
In order to meet the objectives set forth, the study focuses on the following
research questions:
1. To what extent does writing process help to improve the 12
th
graders‘ writing

research. It presents the rationale for the research, defines the objectives, research
questions, methods, significance, scope and organization of the study.
Part B: Development
Chapter 1: Theoretical background discusses previous related research
and presents the theoretical background for the study. It deals with the writing skill,
writing process and feedback on students‘ writing. This part also provides
description, summary, and critical evaluation of each work quoted.
Chapter 2: Methodology presents the detailed procedure of the study: the
methodology, population selection, data collection and analysis.
Chapter 3: Data analysis and discussion deals with the major findings
drawn out from the research. It includes further discussion of the themes that arise
from the data analysis and a response to the research questions based on the
literature and the study.
Part C: Conclusions
Main points and contents of the study will be concluded based on the results
of the study. The implications of the study and the recommendation for further
research will be presented.


experiment groups, which receive teacher feedback). In terms of grammar, Young
and Cameron‘s (2005) research revealed that the group which received no feedback 5
also had some improvements in the use of past tense and the definite article. It is
therefore evident that process writing can, to some extent, help students self-edit
their rewrites.
In related studies, a heated debate of corrective feedback was raised by
Truscott (1996), who claims that feedback on forms should be abandoned since it
does more harm than good (as cited in Ferris, 2004). This view, however, is
challenged by many subsequent publications. Lyster, Lightbown and Spada (1999)
refer to different studies to point out Truscott‘s weaknesses in his reasoning.
Nevertheless, teacher mid-draft feedback as mentioned above is criticized by
Muncie (2000), who claims that if the teacher gives mid-draft feedback, it hinders
students‘ creativeness since they tend to strictly follow what the teacher suggests.
She argues that such feedback does not have long-term benefits. In order to avoid
what she calls ―overshadowing role of evaluator‖, she recommends using peer mid-
draft feedback so that the writer has total choice over which recommendations to
use. To support her claim, she administered a questionnaire to 29 upper-
intermediate students at a Japanese university so as to elicit students‘ attitude to
types of feedback. She suggests that the teacher should give final-draft feedback and
students should write a summary with the title ―How I can improve future
compositions‖. This summary will keep reminding them to refer back to the
directions while writing the next compositions.
Ashwell (2000) conducted a study with 50 Japanese students. They were
asked to write a 500-word composition with two drafts before the final version.
Four different patterns of teacher feedback were given: (1) content-focused
feedback on draft 1, then form-focused feedback on draft 2, (2) the reverse direction
(3) both types given simultaneously, and (4) no feedback at all. The form feedback

in many ways, which show different viewpoints of the authors. According to
―Oxford Advanced Learner‘s Dictionary‖ (1989), writing is to ―make letters or
other symbols on a surface (usually paper), especially with a pen or pencil‖.
Writing, for Crystal (1995: 257), is ‗‗… a way of communicating which uses a
system of visual marks made on some kind of surface’’. Hedge (2000:302) contends
that writing is ―a complex process which is neither easy nor spontaneous for many
second language learners”. This proposition concurs with Ur‘s point of view
(1996: 161) ―Most people acquire the spoken language (at least their own mother 7
tongue) intuitively, whereas the written form is in most cases deliberately taught
and learned‖.
Writing has a number of functions. It is used to facilitate communication as letters,
newspapers, advertisements; each of them carries out a specific purpose. According
to Nunan (1991: 84), writing serves four main functions. Firstly, it is used primarily
for action such as the public signs on roads and stations, product labels and
instructions on food or tools, recipes, maps, bills, etc. Secondly, it is for social
contact as letters, postcards, greeting cards and personal correspondence. Thirdly,
writing provides the readers with information as newspapers and magazines, non-
fiction books (textbooks, public notices, guidebooks, etc). Finally, written language
entertains the readers with comic strips, fiction books, poetry and drama.
In educational settings, teaching and learning writing also play an important
role in developing students‘ compositional ability. White (1981) indicates a number
of reasons why writing occupies a place in the language syllabus. The first reason is
that writing is the commonest way of examining students‘ performance in English.
Consequently, students‘ writing ability is a key to examination success. Second, in
the eyes of both parents and students, writing helps them see what has been done
and what has been achieved during the process of learning. Furthermore, in
classroom, writing may be used as one technique to help the lesson interesting. In

1. Writing strategies involves teaching students strategies for planning,
revising, and editing their compositions.
2. Summarization involves explicitly and systematically teaching students
how to summarize texts.
3. Collaborative writing uses instructional arrangements in which adolescents
work together to plan, draft, revise, and edit their compositions
4. Specific product goals is a method in which students are assigned specific,
reachable goals for their writing.
5. Word processing uses computers and word-processors as instructional
supports for writing assignments.
6. Sentence combining involves teaching students to construct more
complex, sophisticated sentences.
7. Prewriting engages students in activities designed to help them generate or
organize ideas for their composition. 9
8. Inquiry activities engage students in analyzing immediate, concrete data to
help them develop ideas and content for a particular writing task.
9. The process writing approach interweaves a number of writing
instructional activities in a workshop environment that stresses extended writing
opportunities, writing for authentic audiences, personalized instruction, and cycles
of writing
10. Study of models provides students with opportunities to read, analyze,
and emulate models of good writing.
11. Writing for content learning uses writing as a tool for learning content material.
1.2.3. Approaches to teaching writing
Various methods of teaching composition have been employed in language
teaching. They can be categorized into two major approaches, namely the process
and the product approach.

individually or in groups. Finally, the learners would edit or proof-read the text. In
process approaches, the teacher primarily facilitates the learners‘ writing, and
providing input or stimulus is considered to be less important. Like babies and
young children who develop, rather than learn, their mother tongue, second
language learners develop, rather than consciously learn, writing skills. Teachers
draw out the learners‘ potential. Process approaches have a somewhat monolithic
view of writing. The process of writing is seen as the same regardless of what is
being written and who is writing. So while the amount of pre-writing in producing a
postcard to a friend and in writing an academic essay are different (Tribble 1996:
104), this is not reflected in much process teaching.
1.2.3.3. Process approach versus product approach
There are certain differences between the two approaches to teaching
composition. The product approach pays much attention to the study of the model
text provided by the teacher. The result of the learning process depends on the final
product. The process approach, in contrast, focuses on the writing process rather
than the final product. It argues that the final draft of the writer is the result of many
stages. In the process approach, students have time to write and rewrite the
composition before handing the final. In the process of composing the writing, they
can change, rearrange, add or delete any word or sentence that make their thoughts
more clearly, more effectively and in a more interesting way. 11
The main differences between two approaches are outlined by Steele (2007)
in the table below:
Table 2.1: Comparison of Process approach and Product Approach
Process writing
Product writing
 text as a resource for comparison
 ideas as starting point
12

Figure 2.1: Stages in Writing Process (Hyland, 2003)
1.2.4.1. Prewriting
In this stage, students involve the activities such as reading, brainstorming,
mind mapping, discussing, fast writing, questioning, interviewing, which encourage
them to generate ideas before they write their sentences in the first draft. Then,
students try to order their data and arrange them according to their priorities that
mean which idea is going to be the first, which is the second, and so on.
The prewriting stage is divided into three steps. The first step is to put the
ideas into subsists according to the main idea and eliminate all the irrelevant ones.
The second step relies on putting a topic sentence to each of the subsists made in the
first step and the topic sentence must reflect the whole subsist, that is when the
reader reads the topic sentence, he can infer what is coming. The last step in the first
stage is to order the submists according to what the writer thinks is appropriate to be
the first, second and so on.
1.2.4.2. Drafting
Drafting is to start writing according to the ideas planned before. The result of
brainstorming session provides a plan of description of topic. Oshima and Hogue
(2002; 28) call this stage as writing and revising drafts. They argue that no piece of
writing is perfect the first time and the writer has to write and revise several drafts
until he/she produces the final draft. In the first step, the composition might be written 13
without considering to grammar, punctuation, or spelling and no importance to the
structure. Students may add new information in the drafting stage; there is no matter
to hesitate because the focus is on ideas, purpose, coherence and relevance, unity,

punctuation. This checking is specific as following: (Oshima and Hogue, ibid.).
 Check over each sentence for correctness and completeness: no fragments
and no choppy or run-on sentences.
 Check over each sentence for a subject and a verb, subject- verb
agreement, correct tenses, etc.
 Check the mechanics:punctuation, spelling, capitalization, tying errors,…
 Change vocabulary words as necessary.
In this stage, the students review a draft to check errors based on the
feedback from himself or herself and teacher or peers. The writers need to make
changes to another draft before having someone else read it and offer further
feedback and suggestions. Thus, drafting and revising could theoretically be
completed and repeated indefinitely.
1.2.4.4. Editing
Editing is important step because it helps moving from the stage of revising
where there are many incomplete ideas, incorrect spelling and unstructured
sentences to the stage of correcting all the final draft. Once revisions are made and
changes to major traits of a writing project are complete, editing must take place as
―a diamond is polished after being shaped‖. Whereas revisions are easily guided by
any peer reviewer, editing changes may require the assistance of someone who is
knowledgeable about grammar. This is where the role of teacher in giving direct
and indirect feedback will be applied.
According to Trimbur (1999: 680), the reason that the writers must learn to edit
their work is not simply to avoid grammatical errors, misspellings, and poor style as if
writing were a matter of abiding by the law. There are two further reasons for editing
that are important to understand. The first reason is that the correctness of writing
influences readers. The sentence errors, punctuation mistakes, misspelling words, and
stylistic lapses can distract readers and undermine a writer‘s credibility. The second
reason is that sentences are basic units of meaning that express the relationship among
ideas. Writers edit their work not just to make sure the grammatical correctness of
sentences but also to clarify what they are trying to say. For these reasons, editing

distract teachers‘ attention from the equally important aspects of content and
organization.
Feedback on writing is most valuable to students‘ writing development when 16
students can use the feedback to revise and edit their writing. Based on the given
feedback, students can improve their writings, besides they will learn how to
evaluate their self. Consequently, this helps them feel more confident on their
performance.
1.2.5.2. Strategies for providing corrective feedback
There are six strategies for providing corrective feedback (adapted from Rod Ellis,
2007).
- Direct corrective feedback
With the direct corrective feedback, the teacher provides the student with the
correct form of the errors. This can use the form of crossing out an unnecessary
word, phrase, or morpheme, inserting a missing word, or writing the correct form
above or near to the wrong form. The following example illustrates the direct
correction.
a a the
A dog stole ^ bone from ^ butcher. He escaped with having ^ bone. When
over a a saw a
the dog was going through^ bridge over the river he found ^dog in the river.
Example 1 (from Ellis, 2007: 99)
- Indirect corrective feedback
Indirect corrective feedback involves indicating the location of the error but
without providing the correct form. This can take the form of underlining or circling
the errors, using cursors to show omissions in the student‘s text or placing a cross in
the margin next to the line containing the error. This strategy guides students to
learn by providing problem solving and encouraging them to self-correct their

(3)—you need ‗the‘ before the noun when the person or thing has been mentioned
previously.
(4)—you need ‗over‘ when you go across the surface of something; you use ‗through‘
when you go inside something (e.g. ‗go through the forest‘).
Example 5 (from Ellis, 2007: 102)

Correction codes/symbols seem to be the most popular way to deal with
learners' written work. They involve placing little symbols beside the problem that
there is in the piece and letting the student try to work out what the correct version
might be. The useful correction codes are shown in the table below.