VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI
University of languages and international studies
Department of post- graduate studies

***************

PHẠM THUÝ TRINH

THE REALITY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH WRITING SKILL AT
TRAN NGUYEN HAN HIGH SCHOOL IN HAI PHONG AND
RECOMMENDATIONS

(Thực trạng của việc dạy và học kỹ năng viết
tại trường THPT Trần Nguyên Hãn - Hải Phòng và một số giải pháp) M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Field: English Teaching Methodology HANOI-2009
Code:
60. 14. 10
Cohort:
Supervisor
MA 15
Khoa Anh Viet, M.A.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENT

DECLARATION i
ACKNOWLWDGEMENTS ii
ABTRACT iii
TABLE OF CONTENT iv

1.4.6.1.4. Interviewing 10
1.4.6.1.5. While- writing 10
1.4.6.1.6. Post- writing 10
1.5. Writing in the communicative classes 11
1.5.1. Purpose 11
1.5.2. Audience 12
1.5.2.1. The importance of audience in writing 12
1.5.2.2. Audience diversity in writing class 12
1.5.2.3. Readership 13
1.5.4. Forms 14
1.5.5. Responding to students’ writing 14
1.5.5.1.Written comments 15
1.5.5.2. Talking about the paper 15
1.5.5.3. Students’ responses to student writing (peer feedback, peer correction, or peer
review) 15
1.6. Summary 15

CHAPTER 2. METHODOLOGY 17

2.1.The context at Tran Nguyen Han high school 17
2.1.1. The teachers 17
2.1.2. The students 17
2.2.The new “ Tieng Anh 11” textbook 17
2.2.1. Grade 11 writing objectives 17
2.2.2. Writing lessons 17
2.3. Research questions 18
2.4. The participants 18
2.5. Instruments 19
2.6. Summary 18
vii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
I. LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Checklist of writing tasks in English 11 textbook 18
Table 2: Teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards appropriate time for teaching and learning
English writing skill 21
Table 3: Teachers’ opinions on the writing lessons 22
Table 4: Difficulties encountered by the teachers 23
Table 5: Teachers’ expectation for better teaching and learning situations 25
Table 6: Difficulties encountered by the students……………… 26
Table 7: Students’ personal views of causes of difficulties 27
Table 8: Students’ expectations for better teaching and learning situations 31

II. LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: The importance of writing as perceived by 11
th
form students 20
Figure 2: The importance of writing as perceived by the teachers 20
Figure 3: Teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards students’ writing competence 21
Figure 4 : Teachers’ pre-writing techniques 28
Figure 5: Work arrangement in the while- writing stage 29
Figure 6: Teacher’s activities during the while- writing stage 29
Figure 7: The main source of feedback on students’ writing 30
In Tran Nguyen Han high school, teaching writing skills is really a big challenge. For
the teachers, they used to teach the old textbooks in which writing has no place.
Therefore, they have no experiences in teaching theme-based writing. Another problem
is the students’ low level of English proficiency. That’s why they find it difficult to
write. Moreover, lack of motivation also faces the students. They often get bored and
indifferent in the writing lessons. In my opinion, the current problem must be worked
out and appropriate teaching techniques should be made. Up to present, a few
researches have been carried out on the teaching of writing for students in Hai Phong.
Most of the researchers have studied others problems concerning teaching other skills
in Hai Phong.

As a teacher of English, who is aware of the fact and wishes to contribute some
suggestions for possible improvements in the teaching and learning of writing skill, I

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decided to do the research entitled “ The reality of teaching and learning English writing
skill at Tran Nguyen Han high school in Hai Phong and recommendations.”

2. Aims of the study
The main purpose of this study is to research the current reality of teaching and learning
writing skill to 11
th
form students at Tran Nguyen Han high school on the basic of finding
out the difficulties experienced by the teachers and the students. Furthermore, some
suggestions are made to stimulate the students and some recommendations are made to
improve teaching methodology for the teachers at Tran Nguyen Han high school.

3. The significance of the study
Pedagogically, the findings and comments of the study are believed to be relevant to

Chapter 2 discusses the methodology of the study, i.e. describes the study context,
participants, and instruments. Besides, the introduction of the new “Tieng Anh 11”
textbook is elaborated.
Chapter3 is about the data analysis and findings. It describes how collected data is
analyzed and presented.
Chapter 4 provides recommendations for better teaching and learning English writing skill.

Part C is the conclusion which summarizes the thesis and offers some suggestions for
further research. Besides, the limitations of the thesis are also pointed out. 4

PART B. DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1. Literature Review

1.2. Writing versus Speaking
Both writing and speaking are productive skills. However, according to some researchers,
writing is different from speaking in terms of three criteria, i.e. linguistics, creating process
and interaction.
In terms of linguistics, Ur (1996) distinguished writing from speaking based on “its
explicitness, density and standard language” (p. 160). He asserted that the distance
between the reader and the writer deprived the writer of speech-related advantages like the
real context, paralinguistic feature etc. The writing content, thus, was expected to be more
explicitly, densely and universally comprehensibly presented than that of speech.

In terms of producing process, these two productive skills are also different. Raimes (1983)
found out that while “speaking is usually spontaneous and unplanned,” writing process is
“recursive, planned” and “time consuming” (p. 5). Harmer (2004) concluded that writing
process with “its recursiveness and multiple drafting” , (p. 8) is more complex than
speaking process.

In terms of interaction, according to Ur (1996), due to the “detachment” of space and time
in writing, the writer tend to be cut short of “immediate feedback and interaction” with
“known” audience, which are supposedly available to the speaker (p. 161). Harmer (2004)
also point out the two features of face-to-face interaction which writing is devoid of, i.e.
immediate verbal or non-verbal reactions and frequent role swapping between the
addresser and the addressee (p. 8). Consequently, the writers tend to encounter common
difficulties in defining audience (Brown, 1994, p. 326) and receiving feedback from
readers (White, 1981).

To conclude, regarding the three criteria investigated in previous studies, i.e. linguistic
feature, producing process and interaction, writing and speaking, by nature, are two
different stories. This sheds more light on the characteristics of writing.

6

given sentence-level exercise or controlled compositions to imitate, copy and manipulate.
Students therefore make few mistakes. Only at advanced level are students allowed to try
some free compositions, in which they can express their own ideas.

7

In short, this approach stress upon three features: grammar, syntax and mechanics and on
accuracy rather than fluency. Thus, students are likely to have good grammatical
competence and low communication skills.

1.4.2 The Free-Writing Approach
Unlike the Controlled Approach, this approach emphasizes content and fluency. Students
are often given the topics and write with little correction from teacher. Teachers may begin
their classes by asking students to write freely on any topic without worrying about
grammar and spelling. Frequent practice helps them write fluently with confidence.
Teacher does not correct these short pieces of free writing. They simply read them and may
comment on the ideas the writer expressed. Moreover, the emphasis in this approach is on
audience, content and fluency. However, concern for accuracy and form is seen as of little
importance in this approach. This shortcoming has very likely negative effect on learner’s
grammar competence in writing.

1.4.3. The Paragraph-Pattern Approach
The Paragraph-Pattern approach stresses on organization. They copy paragraphs and
imitate model passages. They put scrambles sentences into paragraph order. They identify
general and specific statements and choose to invent an appropriate topic sentence or insert
or delete sentences. This approach is based on the principle that in different cultures people
construct and organize communication with each other in different ways. Therefore,
students should invest time in learning to organize their ideas well in the target language.

1.4.4 The Grammar- Syntax-Organization Approach

advice to your friend.
 Your dearest friend and your pen pal are both attending a summer camp in London
next month, and you want them to meet each other. Write to your pen pal, describing
your friend in detail so that he or she can recognize your friend when they are there.

Providing a reason and an audience for students may well provide motivation for them to
write. Therefore, this approach should be exploited to teach writing to secondary students
as it can vary the situation and context of students’ writing.

1.4.6. The Process Approach
The teaching of writing has recently moved away from a concentration on the written product to
an emphasis on the process of writing, which leads to the emergence of Process Approach.
Process Approach to writing came to play in the 1970s. This approach encourages students’
communication of ideas, feelings, and experiences. It is more global and focuses on purpose,

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theme, text type, i.e. 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 a process, so students are given time to set out ideas, make plan, write a first
draft, revise what has been written after a peer feedback, then they can edit their writing or
write other drafts before the final version is produced.
There are different points of views on the number of stages comprising the writing process.
According to Oshima and Hogue (1991), writing process has four stages: pre-writing, planning,
writing and revising draft and writing the final copy to hand in. Tribble (1996) identified four
stages in writing process: pre-writing, drafting, revising and editing. The author of this study
takes the views that are close to the ways Tribble , Oshima and Houge defined writing process-
that is, the writing process comprises three stages: pre- writing, while- writing, and post- writing.

1.4.6.1. Pre-writing

their writings (Coffin et al., 2003). Planning is an orientation for students to have logical
sets of ideas that would be later employed in their pieces of writing.

1.4.6.1.3. Debating
This is an activity in which groups students orally present two sides of an argument. Oral
debates provide the opportunity to develop some writing skills such as planning, selecting,
marshalling, and organizing ideas. Debating helps students make judgments about the
relevance and logicality of their ideas and make wise choice of which ideas to be used to
compose a text.

1.4.6.1.4. Interviewing

In this activity, students are asked to interview other group members for writing ideas.
When the students write the record of an interview, they convey to other genuine
information transmitted to them by other students. The interview is an useful technique
because it creates a relaxed atmosphere in which students have chance to get to know each
other and writing could be more enjoyable and interesting to students.

1.4.6.2. While-writing
The writer starts the while-writing stage as “composing” (Hedge, 1988), “drafting” (White
and Arnt, 1991).

According to Tribble (1996), during while-writing stage “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” (p. 14) .

Besides individual work in this stage, group work and pair work can be used.

Some consider the purpose of the text as its communicative function. Therefore, texts can
be grouped, for example, according to whether they are intended to entertain, inform,
instruct, persuade, explain, argue a case, present argument, and so on.
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Feist thinks that defining your purpose helps you choose the information you need before start
writing: “…what you say about topic largely depends upon your purpose for writing” (1996, p. 24).
He also states that one’s specific purpose is likely to fall into one of five categories:
 To explain something: you might write a paragraph to explain why certain dresses
are in fashion this spring.
 To persuade your reader to do or think something: you might write a paragraph to
persuade your customers to purchase new dresses in a fashion line.
 To compare two things: you might compare this spring’s fashion with last spring’s fashion.
 To describe something: you might simply want to describe what this spring’s
fashion look like.
 To give your opinion about something: you might write about why you like or
dislike this spring’s fashion.

Other authors believe that most good writing fulfills one of the four purposes: i. to express
oneself, ii. to inform, iii. to persuade, iv. to entertain (Troyka & Nudelmen, 1994, p. 22).
They state that once writers have a specific purpose for a piece of writing, it will help them
to select the most appropriate ideas for their topics and to determine the most effective way
to express those ideas to the reader.

Thus, before any piece of writing is produced, the first and foremost question to be raised
is “Why am I writing this?” The answer to this question will help the writer in deciding the
contents as well as the form of the product.

(iii) Wider audience (known)
Expert to known laymen
Child to peer group
Group member to working group (known audience which may include teacher)
(iv) Unknown audience
Writer to his readers (or his public)
(v) Additional categories
Virtual named audience
No discernible audience

1.5.2.3. Readership
When writers set about a task, what they need to know is the nature of their readership.
There are, obviously, many writing tasks for which there is a clear and unambiguous reader
or readership. A personal letter is written to an individual known to the writer, an office
memo is written to a known group of colleagues or an individual. Sometimes, the reader is
not known personally but by reason of his or her status – the head of a complaints
department of a company, for instance. In real world, there are many writing tasks for
which the writer can have only a very generalized sense of the readership.

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In order for communication to be successful, writers need to know as much as possible about a
target audience. Harris (1993, p. 23) thinks that four factors need to be taken into account:
- The formality or informality of the relationship between reader and writer.
- The expertise of the readership – what degree of prior knowledge and
understanding can be assumed?
- Cultural assumption – how far is it likely that the readers will share a common
cultural background with each other and with the writer?
- Attitudinal assumptions – are the readers likely to hold attitudes in common with
the writer or does the writer have to explain and justify his or her attitudes?

1.5.5. Responding to students’ writing
Responding to student’s writing, if limited to only teacher’s correcting students’ mistakes,
loses a lot of its communicative nature. To make this step more meaningful and
communicative, Raims (1983) introduced three useful techniques as follows:
1.5.5.1. Written comments
Comments on students’ papers that take a form of a paraphrase of the ideas expressed, praise,
questions, or suggestions are more productive than an end comment like “Only fair”, “Good”,
or “Need more word”. Instead of filling students’ papers with all the red marks of correction,
teachers should communicate with students through the writing in order to improve them.
1.5.5.2. Talking about the paper
One of the best ways to help a student revise a paper is to discuss it with the student, in
person. One-to-one conferences are extremely time-consuming and, in some teaching
situations, just not practical. Often, however, a conference of just a few minutes can be so
productive that some teachers hold very conferences before and after and even during class
while other students are writing or working together in groups. The virtue of the individual
conference, however short it is, is that a real discussion takes place.

1.5.5.3. Students’ responses to student writing (peer feedback, peer correction, or
peer review)
To reduce teachers’ work load, students should be given the chance to give feedback to
their peers. In this way, they exchange papers and give written comments or even
individual talk to one another about the writings as the teacher does. Through this
procedure, students learn a lot from each other and at the same time to get to know each
other better. Ur stated “Peer correction can be a time-saving and useful technique; also,
critical reading for style, content and language accuracy is a valuable exercise in itself.
This can be a substitute for first-draft reading. Student can work together on their first
drafts, giving each other feedback on content, language, and organization, they then rewrite
and give in the final version to the teacher” (1996, pp. 171-172).
The 11
th
form students at Tran Nguyen Han high school are seventeen years old. Although
they have been learning English for four years at lower-secondary schools, their English
knowledge is still limited. Besides, they have no clear determination on English learning goal.

2.2. The new “ Tieng Anh 11” textbook.
The new “ Tieng Anh 11” textbook composed by Van, H. V et al., (2006) has been in use
since 2006 as the official textbook to learn general English at grade 11.The textbook
consists of 16 units in terms of 16 topics. There are five parts in each unit represented
through 5 lessons: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing, and Language Focus
respectively. The book adopts two new approaches: learner–centered and communicative,
aiming at students’ better use of English “as a tool of communication at basic level in
terms of listening, speaking, reading and writing” (Van, H.V et al., 2006, p. 33).

2.2.1. Grade 11 writing objectives
The aim of the course is to equip students with English writing skill for basic
communication. For grade 11 students, the objective is to develop students’ abilities to
provide 100 - 130 word paragraphs on familiar topics.

2.2.2. Writing lessons
In the textbook, reading, speaking and listening lesson are divided into three parts: pre-
task, while-task, post-task. In contrast, 30% of the writing units consist of one topic and
some prompts.

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In order to realize the course objective, the writing section focuses on daily and popular
topics. The required competences and objectives of the writing lesson in each unit are
detailed in the following table:

15. Space Conquest
Writing a biography
16. The Wonders of the world
Writing a report on a man- made place
Table 1: Checklist of writing tasks in English 11 textbook
2.3. Research questions
The thesis is designed to seek answers to the following questions:
- What is the present situation of teaching and learning English writing skill at Tran Nguyen
Han high school?
- What difficulties do the teachers and the 11
th
form students encounter in teaching and
learning writing?
- What are the suggested ways to effectively improve the current situation of teaching and
learning writing at this school?

2.4. The participants
The study was conducted with the participation of 100 students and 10 teachers. These
students were selected at random from 100 students of 5 classes 11A
1
, 11A
2,
11A
3,
11A
4,
11A
5
.