PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
I. RATIONALE OF THE STUDY
Today learning English is very important because it is the only language
that truly links the whole world together. English may not be the most spoken
language in the world, but it is the official language in a large number of
countries. It is estimated that the number of people in the world that use in
English to communicate on a regular basis is 2 billion. English is the dominant
business language and it has become almost a necessity for people to use
English if they are to enter a global workforce, research from all over the world
shows that cross-border business communication is most often conducted in
English. Its importance in the global market place therefore cannot be
understated, learning English really can change people’s life. Many of the
world’s top films, books and music are published and produced in English.
Therefore by learning English you will have access to a great wealth of
entertainment and will be able to have a greater cultural understanding. Most of
the content produced on the internet (50%) is in English. So knowing English
will allow people to access an incredible amount of information which may not
be otherwise available!
In fact, many Vietnamese students who have good professional knowledge,
but can’t use English well don’t get good jobs or if they could get a job they
even couldn’t have success. So, English is the first and the most important
standard for workers who want to work not only at foreign companies but also
at national ones.
Writing which is one of the four skills of learning English can be one of the
most enjoyable and satisfying activities for teachers and students to do together
in a classroom, especially in a foreign language classroom. But writing skill
which includes language, private knowledge and skill, emotion and the
interaction of personal opinion is difficult and challenging to learn and develop
for many students in the world in general and in Vietnam in particular. In
Vietnam, there are many teachers of English who even believe that teaching
writing skill to learners is more complex than teaching other communicative

IV. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This study aim to teach writing skill in a systematic way, because it is
experience for teaching as well as for practice. The study investigates using
techniques to help teachers present their writing lessons in describing charts
more clearly and help students practice more successfully so that they can
improve their writing skill.
V. METHODS OF THE STUDY
In this study, I use some research tools to collect and analyze the needed data:
-Recording is used to record the process and the result of using the techniques.
-The second tool used in this study is interviews with students at the end of the
research to study whether using the techniques in English writing lessons of
describing charts is really suitable and comprehensible for them or not.
2


PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
I. OVERVIEW OF WRITING SKILL INCLUDING DESCRIBING
CHARTS
Lannon (1989) claims that writing is a process delivering meaningful
messages and including its own specific goal. This process requires students to
work hard instead of regarding it as an uncomplicated act (Byrne, 1988).
However, in language teaching and learning process, Tribble (1996, p.3) defines
writing as a language skill that involves “not just a graphic representation of
speech, but the development and presentation of thoughts in a structured way”.
This means writers need to arrange their ideas logically and systematically.
Describing charts is a special kind of writing. Here students have to work on
numbers and charts in bar, pie or line shapes. They have to use their own words
to express the trend, the difference or the changes of the items in the charts in
the ways to give the readers a clear imagination and comprehension of the

describing charts is difficult, there are linguistic, psychological and cognitive
problems involved, making teaching it and learning it a considerable challenge.
It is also important to remember that many people never write anything of any
length in their daily lives, or anything using paper and a pen, or without using a
spellchecker. But this is often what we ask them to do in English.
CHAPTER 2: PRACTICAL SITUATIONS
I. METHODS OF THE STUDY
The research is done qualitatively in the context of two English classes 11A3
and 12C6 of the school year 2018-2019 at Nhu Thanh High School). In this
survey, I use the survey questionnaire for students. This survey is designed to
collect information for the study on “An investigation into the Reality of
teaching and learning English writing skill at Nhu Thanh High School.
II. THE REALITY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH WRITING
SKILL AT NHU THANH HIGH SCHOOL
The whole procedure of teaching and learning is implemented similarly to all
students of the class after all of them give consent to be part of the research.
However, due to the limit of the study, I only focus to collect information from
the learning engagement of two classes 11A3 and 12C6 of the school year 20182019 at Nhu Thanh High School) during this process as the data for analysis.
Below is the survey of the practical situation of learning English writing skill on
describing charts at Nhu Thanh High School.

4


Survey no.1
Practical Situation of learning English writing Skill at Nhu Thanh High
School.

Questions for
students

D

Description
10%

discussion Argument
20%
25%

Describing
charts
45%

Kinds of
chart
12%

Analyzing
the chart
16%

Using
language
suitably
25%

Really
interesting
3%


Really
boring
49%

From the survey number 1, we can see that writing about charts is often done
silently at Nhu Thanh High School, this may not make it attractive to learners as
a classroom activity. The students often see describing grraphs as hard work,
boring, unrewarding. Moreover, students are poorly motivated so they dislike
being involved in writing activities about charts.
In addition to this, one problem in the writing classes is that some teachers feel
difficult to present clear steps to help students feel more motivated and easier to
5


do the task. Therefore, both teachers and students don’t feel willing to engage in
writing lesson about graphs.
CHAPTER 3:
TECHNIQUES TO IMPROVE THE STUDENTS’ ENGISH WRITING
SKILL IN DESCRIBING CHARTS
I. RECOMMENDATIONS
According to the data analysis from the survey, it can be personally concluded
that the most important feature that makes my students to engage more in the
lesson is the kind of assessment which forces them to learn although the
meaningfulness of tasks also more or less affect the level of engagement
the most meaningful tasks to my students are tasks that can help them to pass
the tests at the end of the semester not tasks that give them reasons to
communicate as I expected. For them, the most motivating task is also easy and
clear enough. But all the writing lessons about charts are complex and
challenging and not for the final tests or exams so the sudents all think
themseves it isn’t necessary to learn describing charts.


1.3.

Describe the most important changes and numbers. Remember to include
relevant comparison.

2. Illustrating how to carry out the three above steps.
2.1.

How to reword the introduction:

2.1.1: Giving some examples:
Eg 1: The chart shows information about visitors to Australia, 2000-2008.
 The graph illustrates/provides information/data about how many
people visited/ the number of people who visited Australia over an
eight-year period between 2000 and 2008.
Eg 2: The graph shows data about the annual earnings of three bakeries in
London, 2000-2010
 The graph highlights data about the amount of money which was earned /
how much money was earned by three bakeries in London from 2000 to 2010.
2.1.2: Giving some topics then asking the students to practise:
Write the introduction in two ways using how much/howmany, the number
of/the amount of
1. Unemployment rates, India and Brazil, 1995-2000
2. DVD sales, UK and USA, 2005-2008
3. Chocolate production, Colombia, 1997-2000
4. Gas production in Russia , 2003-2008
5. Employment rates in the public sector, UK, 2006-2010
2.2.


- Use a variety of comparison structures and expression structures to describe
the charts.
3: Languages to describe changes or differences:
3.1: Verbs:
Verbs

Increase

Big increase

Decrease
9


Inprove, increase,
rise, grow, go up

Rocket, shoot up,
jump, soar, surge,
double

Fall, decline,
decrease, drop, go
down

Ex: Asks the students to put a suitable verb in each blank based on the two
charts above:
The income of Burnies’ Buns …….between 2006 and 2008.
The amount of money earned by Robbies’ Bakery …..between 2008 and 2010.
Earnings of Lovely Loaves ….between 2004 and 2005.

Comparative

-

Superlative

-

X is not as + adj + as + Y

-

X is nowhere near as + adj + as + Y (big difference)

-

X is not nearly as + adj + as + Y

-

X is almost as + adj + as + Y (small difference)

-

X is not quite as + adj + as + Y
10


-


→The number of DVDs (which were) sold in the UK shot up…
Giving some more sentences and asking them to vary them:
. Chocolate production in Colombia saw a significant fall.
. There was a steady growth in average incomes in Europe between 1998 and
2004.
. The amount of chocolate I ate before my IETLS exam rose dramatically.
3.8:Linking phrases:
-

As regards

-

Regarding

-

If we look at

-

As for
11


-

With respect to

-

- Use BY to describe how much sth increases or decreases
- Use BETWEEN … AND…to describe the range of fluctuation
Ex: As regards Robbies’ Bakery, income started at $55,000 in 2000 and
remained stable this figure until 2005. At this point, there was a sharp rise to
$70,000. Between 2007 and 2008, the figure went up around by $30,000 from
$70,000 to nearly $100,000. Finally, income grew gradually and peaked at
$105,000 in 2010. If we look at Lovely Loaves, earnings fluctuated between
$80,000 and $90,000 in the first five years. And then there was a sharp fall to
$40,000 in 2008. Finally, the figure levelled off at $40,000 and finished the
same figure.
3.10: Express numbers:
50%- a half of/ one in two/ one out of two/ one out of every two.
25%- a quarter of/ one in four/ one out of four/ one out of every four.
75%- a thirds of/ three in four/ three out of four/ three out of every four.
12


10%- one tenths of/ one in ten/ one out of ten/one out of every ten.
40%- ……
33.3%.........
20%..........
64%.........
32%..........
3.11:Ranking
list/ one/ place
-

In first/second/last………….was X

-


-

This was followed by X

4. Practice:
decribe the following chart in about 80 words.
Giving a full example of writing:

13


Suggested answer:
The chart presents why people from other countries go to New Zealand.
Overall, the majority of visitors go for pleasure, not for work.
The largest percentage, 47 percent, go there on holiday. Twenty nine
percent visit New Zealand in order to see friends and family. Thirteen percent
go there on business, and just over a tenth visit for other reasons.
III. SOME PRACTICAL EXAMPLES OF APPLYING THE ABOVE
TECHNIQUES IN THE WRITING LESSON OF DESCRIBING CHARTS
AT NHU THANH HIGH SCHOOL.
Example 1: Unit 7- English 11
Applied lesson:

Applying the techniques for the pre-writing stage.

Unit 7- English 11
(write about a friend)
With the whole class,
brainstorm

take responsibility to
writing
an
overview( focusing on
the main trends or
differences).
And
some others write the
The eleventh graders (11 A3, school year: 2018details( look at and
describe the detaills of 2019) were discussing describing the chart.
the charts.
After that, ask the
groups to collect the
three different parts
from the members to
make a full writing.
Ask

some

of

the
15


leaders
or
representatives of the
groups to report their

the right and left of the
word.
And then select the
right
structures
to
express the ideas.
I ask students to work in
groups of six or seven:
some are responsible to
introduction
part( rewording the
requirements).
Some
take responsibility to
writing
an
overview( focusing on
the main trends or
differences). And some
others
write
the
details( look at and
describe the detaills of
the charts.
After that, ask the
groups to collect the
three different parts
from the members to

writing skill.
skill
Class
Excellent Good Fair Poor
(%)
11A3

2,2

4,3
12C6

(%)
10,9

15,2

(%)

Excellent

good

(%)

(%)

(%)

36,1 50,8


24,5

16,4

37

33,5

13,1

PART THREE: CONCLUSION AND REFLECTIONS
I. CONCLUSION
To sum up, the research has brought to me some important lessons of English
writing teaching and learning in general and of working with my students in
particular.
Firstly, the research affirms for me that writing techniques are the first things
that students want to have in a writing lessons. It is not because in the activities,
students have opportunities to choose the texts of their own interest and at their
own level of proficiency but also because writing techniques give them an easy
way of writing in which they are not in pressure to write. Thus, they can
comfortably improve their English writing of describing a chart fluency.
19


It is also proved by the research that students are more engaged in the writing
activities when the tasks are more meaningful to them. More specifically, in my
case that means the tasks that give my students a more meaningful reason to
complete engage them more.
We can not deny the importance of techniques. If students understand


21


REFERENCES
1. Brown, J.D. (1994). Research methods for Applied Linguistics: Scope,
characteristics, and standards. In A. Davies & C. Elder (Eds.), The handbook of
applied linguistics (pp. 476-500). Oxford: Blackwell.
2. Byrne, D. (1988). Teaching writing skills. Longman: London
Creswell, A. (2000). Self-monitoring in student writing: developing learner
responsibility. ELT Journal, 54(3).
3. Frankenberg – Garcia, A. (1999). Providing student writer with pretext
feedback. ELT Journal, 53 (2).
4. Gipps, C (1994). Beyond Testing: Towards a Theory of Educational
Assessment. London: The Falmer
5. Gabe, W. & Kaplan, RB. (1996). Theory and practice of writing. The USA:
Long Man.
6. Charles Hadfield and Jill Hadfield.(1990). Writing games. Longman.

22


23