THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HẬU LỘC 3 UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL
---------o0o---------

THE RESEARCH
SOME SUGGESTIONS OF HOW TO MAKE WRITING ACTIVITIES
EFFECTIVELY IN WRITING LESSONS AT UPPER SECONDARY
SCHOOL

Writer :
VŨ THỊ KIM TUYẾN
Position :
A teacher of English
Field :
Enghlish
Academic year :
2016 - 2017

THANH HOA 2017

1


A . TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page 2
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
Page 3
A. Reasons for choosing the research
Page 3
B. Aims of the research
Page 3

PART FOUR : CONCLUSIONS AND PROPOSALS

Page 17,18

B . REFERENCE BOOKS
Page 19
1. Byrne, D. (1988). Teaching Writing Skills. Longman
2. Practical handbook of language teaching (David Cross)
3. A course in language teaching - Practical and Theory (Penny Ur)
Cambrige university press
4. Giao trinh giao hoc phap (Khoa ngôn ngữ và văn hóa Anh - Mĩ - Úc – Trường
đại học quốc gia Hà Nội)
5.Phương pháp dạy tiếng Anh Trung học phổ thông (Nguyễn Hạnh Dung)

2


PART ONE:

INTRODUCTION

A. REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE RESEARCH
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 7th 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.

problem or anyone who is interested in this study
3


C. SCOPE, OBJECT AND RESEARCHING METHOD
- Scope : This study was carried out in two English classes with 84 students in
11th grade at Hau Loc 3 upper secondary School .The research focused on how to
make writing activities effectively the student’ writing performances in writing
lessons.
- Object: This subject is concerned with ways of making writing activities
effectively in writing lessons .
- Researching method: Reading reference books , discussing with other
teachers, applying in teaching, observing and drawing out experiences.
PART TWO: CONTENTS
1. What is writing?
In teaching a language, writing is considered one of the four language skills
(speaking, listening, reading and writing) that a learner is expected to master.
Writing is the process in which the writer expresses his thoughts or ideas in the
form of handwriting. “Writing is communicating. Good writing gets your ideas
out of your head and into the reader’s head without losing or distorting those
ideas” (Leki, 1976). To understand thoroughly the nature of writing, some more
academic definitions of writing should be studied.
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, in Davies’s point of view, involved two kinds of skills.
The first ones were low – level skills such as handwriting or typing, spelling,
constructing grammatical sentences, organizing and sequencing, structuring,
drafting, and editing. Byrne (1988) gave a long and complex definition which
might be summarized as follows: writing is the act of forming graphic symbols
(letters or combinations of letters) which were arranged to form sentences, and

Editing
↓
Final draft
3. What students need to do in order to write
When we ask our students to write something in an English language class , we
need to be sure that they :
→ Know the aim - why they are writing
→ Know the audience - who they are writing to
→ Know the genrer - what type of text they are writing
→ Have enough time for
∙ thinking about the topic
∙ brainstorming ideas
∙ planning ahead carefully
∙ drafting as many times as they can
→ Have constant feedback from teachers as well as their partners during the
writing process.
4. Teaching writing - difficulties and possible solutions
Difficulties
• There are too many students in a class , so it’s difficult to make sure who is
on- task and who is off - task
• Most classes are mixed ability
• Teachers feel guilty because they are unable to correct all mistakes for
students or to work throuth all their written work .
• Marking and correcting is time - consuming .
• If a teacher follows the whole writng process it take more time than the 45
minutes allocated for each lesson .
• Some teachers don’t feel confident about their own English and shy away
from designing writing tasks or getting students to write more than just
grammatical exercises .
5

and guidance and can help with a lack of vocabulary .
•

5. Developing writing skills - problems students face
Problemms
Students
• Don’t have enough vocabulary or structures to express ideas .
• Tend to use spoken english when writing
• Have limited background knowledge .
• Tend to translate ideas from mother tongue in to English
• Write one draft only .
• Misure or use wrongly different writing styles .
• Tend to express ideas in long sentences and long paragraphs .
• Are not aware of different kinds of writing , thus making them unable to
write in real life.
• Feel bored when doing written work.
• Experience a lack of support and motivation .
Advice

6



The pre-writing stage is very important as students
can help each other with ideas and vocabulary . In this stage , the teacher
should also provide students with necessary vocabulary and strutures to express
ideas around the writng topic . Models should also be set at this stage for
students to follow .

Select topics carefully and give students writing tasks

Here are some practical ideas for writing that you can try in your classes.
Problem letters
• Set the scene by showing students a page from either an English or
Vietnamese magazine that has a “ problem page” . Elicit the idea of
problem letters are replies giving advice .
• In advance prepare some problem letters on a flip chart paper .
• Ask students in pairs to choose one of the problems and write a short note
giving advice .
1. It’s my girlfriend’s birthday next week and I want to surprise her with a
special present or a special evening somewhere . What should I do ?
2. My best friend wants to borrow some money to help buy a motorbike . I have
the money , and she says she’ll pay me back next soon . But I’m worried that it’s
not a good idea to lend money to friends . What should I do ?
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3. I’ve become very spotty lately and I feel really depressed and embarrassed . I
don’t want to go out as I think everyone is staring at my face .What should I do
*Get students to swap advice notes and to read each others and guess which
problem the advice is for . Is it good advice or not ? Follow up with a brief class
discussion .
 APPLYING THE RESEARCH IN TEACHING
Such as Famous people
o Prepare some notes about a famous person . Try and choose someone that
the students will like
Eg. A footballer , pop star , actor etc . you can very easily find information
and facts about famous people on the internet . Put your notes into 4
paragraphs :
1 personal information , 2 appearance and character, 3 interest , 4 personal
opinion.

practical and realistic ideas .
Benefits
1. Process writing can help focus on what students write rather than how they
write it . paying attention to what students write can lead to an improvementbin
their writing .
2. Process writing is a move away from students writing to test their language
towards the communication of ideas , feelings and experiences .
3. Process writing can help integrade different skills students not only write but
read each other’s writing , and exchange ideas with their partners.
4. Process writing provides students with constant feedback between drafts .
This is more useful to students than doing it when they finish their writing .
5. Process writing helps change the roles of teachers and learners . Teachers
move away from being a marker to a reader who responds to the content of
students’ it, which helps develop their writing ability.
Drawbacks and solutions
1. Writing is a complicated process , which may cause frustration among
students . Therefore , teachers should set up a supportive environment and be
patient . 2. Process writing requires more class time than product writing .
Therefore , teachers should organize lessons well and manage enough time for
students to experience
different stages of writing by fitting the stages of writing around one lesson .
Eg, In one lesson , ideas are generateond and students write their first draft and
in the following lesson , students adit and redraft .
3. Students may find working again and again on their writing boring , and
refuse to do so . Therefore teachers need to introduce a variety of activities for
each stage and set clear objective for class activities .
9. Applying process writing to the Vietnamese context - some solutions
1. Combine both process and product writing
Both approaches help students in to different ways . Process writing can help
students overcome their writing problems such as lack of ideas , ineffective

activities in English 10
• Demonstrate how process writing can be used in combination with
product writing
Example lesson 1
*Guessing game : select a map and give it to the students ( teachers may choose
the map in the same unit ) .
Divide students in to groups of four or five . One student tells directions to a
place that the others in the groups have to guess . Students take turns to give
directions .
E.g : It’s on Bright street . It’s opposite a shoe shop
* Folowing from the games , elicit different ways of giving instructions
If necessary , teach $ give mini- drills to such structures as Turn left / right , take
the first / second turning on the left / right , keep on , etc...., and stuctures with
adverbial clauses of time beginning with When......$ until.....
e.g : when you come to the shop , turn right , or Keep on until you come to the
museum.
* Set the context .
Tell students that a friend has decided to come to their place for a holiday . write
him/ her a letter giving directions to their house .
*Elicit what they are going to include in such a letter .

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Guess students to agree that a letter like this should have to paragraphs : the
first one contains the reason why the letter is written , and the second one
contains the directions .
* Elicit how to write first paragrph .
Write suggestions at the side of the board .
* Elicit how to write directions by asking them to choose a place on the map and

information if necessary .
* Collect and redistribute the letters students read and compare what they have
written . They can give comments .
*Teachers can collect completed letters for marking
11 . Correcting written work
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Why is correction important ?
Mistakes and errors are important parts of the learning process as no one learns
and succeeds without making a mistake. Mistakes should be seen as possitive
steps towards learning , and correction is an intergal part of the lesson . through
a possitive approach to correction , students are more able to understand ,
remember and learn from mistakes . These folowings look at ways of correcting
students’ work and provide guidelines for a more positive approach to
correction .
Ways of reacting / responding to written work
When giving back written work to students , we can use a number of devices to
help them focus on their mistakes and write more successfully in the future .
Harmer (2001 ) observed that one way of considering feedback is to think of it
as ‘ responding ’ to the students’ work rather than assessing or evaluating what
they have written . This approach focuses on the actual content of the written
text rather than just focusing on the language. Remember, when we
communicate through writing the message or content is just as important as the
level of accuracy .
So what should the teachers do when we respond .
• Say how the text appears to us and how successful we think it has been .
• Our comments should be helpful but not censorious.
• Write comments in the margin of the students’ work or on a separate piece
of paper . If time is available this can be done in the form of a letter

teacher should ,however, train students with correction symbols / codes
or a marking scale .
• Use stick for “ good point ” . It really encourages students to write .
• A nice idea is to use errors from anumber of different students’ writing to
devise an exercise , quiz or game .
Symbol
Sp
W.O.
T
C
WF
S/P
ˆ
[ ]
?M
NA
P
//
GR:
Voc:
V
Agr
!
()


A correction code
Meaning
Incorrect spelling
Wrong word order

mistakes
- Checking and giving feedback

Answer :
Jack Friedhamm was born in New York on October 25, 1965. He began
school at the age of six and continued until he was 18 years old. He then went to
New York University to learn Medicine. He decided on Medicine because he
liked biology when he was at school. While he was at University, he met his
wife Cindy. Cindy was a beautiful woman with long black hair. They went out
for years before they decided to get married. Jack began to work as a doctor as
soon as he had graduated from Medical School. They have had two children
named Jackie and Peter, and have lived in Queens for the past two years. Jack is
very interested in painting and likes to paint portraits of his son Peter.
13: APPLYING THE RESEARCH IN TEACHING
1. Topic for writing essay:
“Write about one of the competitions for secondary school students on TV”
2. Time allowance: 45 minutes
3. Classroom observation description
Time/
Teachers’ activities
Students’ activities
Comments
Activity
1. Warm – Teacher asked some “Yes”
This period is
up (3’)
questions such as “Do
considered to be
you often watch game
successful. After

students discovered
the name of the game
show was “Road to
Olympia” at the
second picture and
the winner is group 1
in the class. The class
is excited with a big
applause for the
winner.

well as
conducting the
two try – out
lessons, teacher
- Teacher showed some
has withdrawn
big pictures of the
some reasons for
famous game show
the success of
“Road to Olympia” and
the period
asked students to play
1. Pre – activity
the game “What is
is interesting
this?”. There are five big
2. Visual aids are
pictures, all are copied

g toward
had the chance to talk on?”
teachers’
about the show before “ VTV3”
instructions.
writing it.
S: How long does it
- Students can discuss in last?
3. While – groups and choose one S: 2 hours
writing
competition to write S: How many parts
activity
about
are there in the
(20’)
- Teacher asked students show?
to
make
sentences S: four parts
basing
on
the S: How many
suggestions
in
the competitors are
textbook and practice in there?
pairs.
S: four
................
- Teacher asked the - Students write the

students need her help,
the teacher will help
them to correct the
mistakes
5.Homewo - Read your passage
rk
again, make it perfect
(2’)
and retell it in the next
period.

the textbook. Some
of them write short
passage. However,
some write very well
– done ones

- Students do the
peer correction

- Write
notebook

on

the

Bellows are some more comments about the improvement of the students in post
– improvement stage:
Pre – improvement

16


theirs were full of grammar
mistakes and words usages
Notes: This may take longer
time to improve the
situation but the teacher
should pay much attention
to this because it is the goal
in teaching a productive
skill
Less creative
Some students in the class
did not know what to do
with their writings so they
copy the whole sample letter
in the text book ignoring the
requirements of the writing
tasks

expressions

but for the whole passage they
were acceptable because both
the teacher and her students
need more time to perfect
these mistakes

Ss’

At the school of 2016- 2017
Don’t apply in10A1 ,10A2
At the school of 2016- 2017 in the
first semester

excellent good average Weak
0%
10 % 30%
45%

Bad
15%

5%

17%

55%

10%

13%

0%

5%

30%

48%

In the end , I also owe my sincere thanks to all my colleagues who will
be willing to give me invaluable advice and suggestions on the research how to
make writing activities effectively in writing lessons .
B. PROPOSALS
1. To the teachers : Choosing techniques is the day – to – day business of every
writing teacher. writing activities play very important roles in writing lessons
because if the teacher conducts these activities successfully, the classroom
atmosphere will change and also the students’ writing performance will be much
better. Therefore, the teacher should make sure that the above things are done
perfectly.
The roles of English teachers in writing lessons consist of a list in details of
activities prepared with useful language knowledge, good time management for
each activity, effective visual aids usages and clear instructions giving. What is
more, sometimes the writing topics in the textbook are boring, the teacher
should try to make them easier to attract students’ attention. One more thing is
that the teacher should know how to motivate the students by changing the
activities day by day or take care of the quiet students in the class.
2. To the classroom facilities
In Vietnam, it is normal that there are 40 to 50 students in a language classroom
at high school. This makes the teachers meet many difficulties in conducting a
language lesson. However, the situation can not be changed in a short period of
time so the teacher should get over all these difficulties by making sure that the
classroom facilities are comfortable enough before the lessons start
Thank you for your attentions to my study .
THE HEADMASTER’S CONFIRMATION

Thanh Hoa , May 20th , 2017
UNDERTAKING NOT TO COPY

Vũ Thị Kim Tuyến