THANH HOA EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEPARTMENT

HAM RONG HIGH SCHOOL
--------------*****--------------

INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE

THE EFFECTS OF PRE – WRITING ACTIVITIES
ON THE GRADE 11 STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION IN
WRITING AT HAM RONG HIGH SCHOOL

Author: Trương Thi Thanh Hà
Position: Teacher
Research field: English

THANH HOA 2019



TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
1.2. Aim of the study
1.3. Scope and objectives of the study
1.4. Methods of the study
1.5. Significance of the study
2. CONTENTS
2.1. Theoretical background
2.2. The reality of the study

PAGES

ON
1.1
RATI
ONAL
E

Nowad
ays
English
has
becom
3. CONCLUSION
e
an
3.1. Conclusion
internat
ional
3.2. Limitations of the study
18
langua
ge
3.3. Suggestions for further research
becaus
18
e it is
widely
REFERENCES
19
used
in many parts of the world. In the tendency of integration of the global economy, English is

The specific aims of the study are as follows:
- Clarifying the nature of writing in accordance with some important points in teaching this
skill.
- Investigating the present situation of teaching and learning writing of the 11 th form
students to find out advantages as well as problems facing both teachers and students in
writing lessons.
1.3. Scope and objectives of the study
The study will focus on improving the writing skill for 11th students at Ham Rong High
School and how pre – writing activities affect the student’ writing performances in writing
lessons.This study was carried out in two English classes with 104 11th grade students at Ham
Rong High School in Thanh Hoa province.
1.4. METHODS OF THE STUDY
The study is basically a qualitative research, which employs the following methods:
1. Data is collected by means of three sets of questionnaires, one on the teachers and the others
on the students in pre – improvement stage and post – improvement one. The questions
are of the three – kinds: close – ended questions, open – ended questions and scaling.
2. Other sources of data come from writing tasks from the textbooks.
The analysis of the data hopefully will bring about reliable findings useful for the
teaching of writing to non – major students at Nguyen Binh Khiem High School, Hanoi.
1.5. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
Writing, one of the two productive skills, has always a significant position in language
teaching. Nevertheless, how to teach and learn writing effectively often poses great
problems to both teachers and students. For the teachers of English at high school, writing is
considered a difficult skill to teach. Some of them even ignore teaching writing skill and
focus only on grammar excercises for the exams. However, nothing is difficult if we, the
teachers make decision to make it easier. Hopefully , with a range of suggestions of how to
make pre – writing activities effectively in writing lessons introduced in this research, it
will be more motivating for the teachers to teach and make progress in teaching
writing.Therefore, their students will be interested in writing lessons.


another country will often have to leave a note for the mailman, fill out a customs
declaration form, give written instructions, or write a thank – you letter.
Raims (1983,p3) thinks there is “….an additional and very important reason:
writing helps our students learn.”. She shows three ways in which students can learn
through writing:
- Firstly, writing reinforces the grammatical structures, idioms and vocabulary that we have
been teaching our students.
- Secondy, when our students write, they also have a chance to be adventurous with the
language, to go beyond that they have just learned to say, to take risks.
- Thirdly, when they write, they necessarily become very involved with the new language,
the effort to express ideas and the constant use of eye, hand and brain is a unique way to
reinforce learning.
Writing is a productive skill, so it is writing that provides students with a chance to put
all those language itself and practice communicative skills at the same time. Through the act
of writing students will realize what they are already good at and what they still need to
learn to become a better and more effective writer (also a better learner) By far, the
difficult question for teachers to answer is not “why teach writing”, but it is how to create good
reasons for writing.
3


* What is Pre - Writing ?
For most of us, getting started is often the hardest part of writing. A blank page, begging
to be filled with ink, can be intimidating, especially when our words come slowly or when our
minds go blank. Pre – writing is considered to be very important in teaching writing. Smith
(1989) stated that Pre – writing is the complex network of initial mental sequences we undergo
when we write a paper. In addition, Richmond (1985) pointed out that Pre – writing is the first
stage of the writing process and is also called the idea – generating stage which stretches back
to include anything that you have ever done or have ever been that might have given you
ideas to write about.

In terms of methodology, students are expected to master the general study skills.
Students should be active in self – studying, peer and group cooperation. They understand the
process in teaching and learning writing and know how to write.
2.2.1. Background of the study
The action research was carried out with the aim of finding “The effects of pre – writing
th
activities on grade 11 students’ writing performance at Ham Rong High School” While
teaching writing at this school, the author realizes that some English teachers, for some
reasons, do not usually conduct the pre – writing activities effectively at writing lessons. To
4


make it clearly how pre – writingactivities affect to the students’ writing performance,
some factors related to students’participation in pre – writing stage will be discussed in this
part.
Three volunteer teachers from other classes were asked to come to classes 11B6 and
11B7 in two different periods to observe the writing lesson without notifying to the teacher and
all the students in that class. The observers just focused on what the teacher did in pre –
writing stage and the reaction of students in the class at this stage. What is more, the
teachers collected some of students’ writing papers in order to compare the differences in
students’ writing performance between the pre – and post improvement stage of this
research.
2.2.2. Brief description of the lesson
* Topic for the writing task :

“Writing a formal letter expressing gratitude”

* Time allowance: 10 minutes (3 minutes for warm – up and 7 minutes for pre – writing
activities)
* THE RESULTS OF PRE – IMPROVEMENT CLASS OBSERVATION

The class was noisy
because of the hot
weather. Most
of
the students
did
nothing and only
some of them listened
Teacher asked students to do to what the teacher
Task 2 for the while – writing said
stage.

5

Comments
This is a typical
lesson of a careless
teacher. She did not
prepare anything for
the lesson so students
felt bored with
her
lesson so that their
writing
performance
would be affected


11B7


– up stage. This shows
that teacher didn’t
Students seemed tired prepare the lesson plan
and nervous and tried before teaching that
to finish their task
writing lesson.

The above results show that the problem of ineffective pre – writing activities was true
in writing lessons in classes of Ham Rong High School. The next step is to conduct a survey to
find out the causes of the problem from students
Conducting a survey to get information from students
104 students were asked to give their answers to the 5 questions and then handed in
their papers to the teacher. These were the results of the survey:
Question 1: What is your self - assessment on your writing performance today?
Very bad

Bad

Fair

Good

Very Good

No

%

No


5

6.25

The data in Table 1 shows that the writing performance of the grade 11 non –
major English students at Ham Rong High School was not good. The percentage of the students
who thought their writing performance on that day were very bad was 43.75% and bad was
25%. What is more, 10% of the asked students assessed that they had no idea of their
writing performance. Meanwhile, the percentage of the students thinking their writing
performance were good and very good was 15% and 6.25% respectively. Clearly, the
findings show us that most of the students feel their writing performance will be
monotonous if there is nothing improved.
Question 2: Does your teacher ask you to join in the pre – writing activities today?
All the students (100%) are asked to join in the pre – writing activities on that period. This
shows that the trend of having pre – writing activities in the writing lesson is very popular in
Ham Rong school.
Question

Yes

6

No


Does your teacher ask you
to join in the pre – writing
activities today?

100%

slowly)

32
26
12

50.79%
41.26%
19.04%

As can be seen from the table, a large majority of the students (87.3%) stated that their
vocabulary and grammar structures were not enough to take part in the pre – writing
activities on that day. 63.5% of them said that they did not know much about the topic. One
more reason for the inactiveness of students in that pre – writing activity is that students
thought that the topic was not “hot” enough. This accounted for 50.79% of the students.
Motivation and other classroom effects added 41.26% and 19.04% respectively to the list.
From the information collected, teachers at Ham Rong High School should be aware of some
factors affecting to the students’ participation in pre – writing stage so that the y can conduct
more effective activities that help students write better.
Question 5: Multiple choices:
a. Teacher doesn’t conduct the pre – writing activity effectively
b. It is hard to hear what the teacher talks in the activity
c. The topic is not enlightened well enough
d. The teacher’s instructions are not clear enough (You feel confused with what to do)
e. Others: Teacher’s bad mood, she doesn’t make up…
7


Question


(34.9%
)

15
(23.81%
)

42
(67.7%
)

10
(15.87%
)

As can be seen from the table, almost all the students agreed that on that day, their
teacher conducted a boring pre – writing activity whereas 67.7% of them reckoned that
their teacher gave unclear instructions and 34.9% of them thought that it’s hard to hear what
the teacher talked in the pre – writing activity. This proves that teacher’s carelessness in
preparing activities in pre – writing stage is the main reason that causes the students’
inactiveness in the stage. In addition, smaller percentage of other teachers – related factor such
as the teachers’ mood or appearance or the ineffective topic exploitation are also counted
for students’ low motivation in taking part in this stage.
2.2.3. Finding cause of the problem
* Consulting with colleagues
In order to get more professional advice, suggestions and ideas about the problem
of finding out “the effects of pre – writing activities to students’ writing performance” and
with the aims of making teachers at Ham Rong High School realized the importance of pre –
writing activities in teaching writing the author of the research consulted with 10 English
teachers who are teaching in the English Division at Ham Rong High School.


6.6

13.3

6.8

53.3

20

c

0

40

20

26.7

13.3

d

16.6

33.3

41.6

As can be seen from the pie chart, a majority (8 teachers = 53.33%) of the teachers
said they always conducted pre – writing activities, and 26.66% claimed “often”.
Meanwhile,13.33% admitted to conducting these “sometimes” only and 6.6 % of all the
teachers rarely took pre – writing activities into consideration when teaching writing. Luckily,
no teachers confessed “never”
Question 3.Have you ever met the following problems while conducting pre – writing
activities?
a.(problem 1). Students make noises and keep on their personal talks.
b.(problem 2). Students do not do anything, just keep silent.
c.(problem
d.(problem4).Others…………………………………………………………………………
3).Students do not work effectively with the activities you have prepared.

9


The answers to this question revealed that all of the teachers have ever met
problems
when they
conduct pre
– writing
activities in
writing
lessons.
Not
surprisingl
y,
80%
(08/10)
responded

and kept silent.
4 out of 10 teachers (which accounted for 40%) also stated that they had prepared
some pre – writing activities but their students did not work effectively. This should be
concluded that may be the students do not like the activities of the teachers. Besides, 40%
(4/10) of all the teachers gave out some more problems in pre –writing stage they had ever met
such as students slept, they looked out of the windows or leant the other
Question 4.How do you solve the problem? If you choose choice d Please answer the
next question
a. Just do nothing, let the class be.
b. Shout at the students and punish them.
c. Move to another parts of the lesson.
d. Try to find out the reasons why they are not interested in the lesson and find the
appropriate activities for the next lessons.
10


Question 5. What is your suggestion toward the ineffective pre – writing activities?
12 teachers who wished to change the situation gave the following suggestions. They are
rearranged already.
1. Teachers should prepare well enough for both English proficiency and suitable
activities.
2. Teachers should make sure that the students understand what she/he said.
3. Teachers should take notice to their students – related problems such as students’ low
motivation, their English ability and also the writing topic for them.
4. Besides, teachers should also take care of the classroom restraints when conducting the
activities.
5. Last but not least, the time limitation in this stage is another difficulty therefore
teachers should take care of this by choosing the suitable activities for this stage.
* Reading professional books or journals for ideas and suggestions
All the information, ideas or suggestions taken from the professional books or

“Sharply”….All these symbols were drawn on the board. Teacher checked the words by
showing at the symbols and the students read the words without looking at the letters or the
translation of the teacher. At the end of the stage, teacher divided the class into 3 big teams and
let students play a game in which the longer sentences were emphasized such as “the
number of the literate females dropped sharply in 2006”, “it increased slightly”…If any
team has more correct sentences, they will be the winners.
- It might be a successful lesson.
* The second try – out lesson – at class 11B6:
Topic: Topic: “Describing information in a table”
- Pre – writing activities lasted in 10 minutes in a comfortable classroom.
- After the exciting warm up activities of a game “Word category” with the aim of
presenting the new words in describing a table, the teacher showed a A0 paper with the number
indicating the trends of falling, increasing….The students might be successful in writing this
kind of exercise because there were a large number of students repeated these expressions.
POST – IMPROVEMENT STAGE
* Evaluting the try - out
- Three volunteer teachers were asked to observe a lesson after the trying – out stage that
illustrated the changes that had been made.
- The results of class observation was used to reflect on the reasons for those changes
(which could include things that were improved or that got worse).
- A survey was carried out to get information from students.
- Comments and conclusions were made.
2.2.5. Brief description of the lesson
* Topic for writing essay:
“Write about one of the competitions for secondary school students on TV”
* Time allowance: 10 minutes
* Classroom observation description

12


secondary school studentsmen
conducting the
on TV?” .
two try – out
- Rung chuong vang
lessons, teacher
has withdrawn
After looking at those some reasons for
pictures, students
the success of the
- Teacher showed some discovered the name of
period
2. Pre – writing big pictures of the famous the game show was 1. Pre – activity is
activity (10’)
game show “Road to “Road to Olympia” at
interesting
Olympia”
and
asked the second picture and 2. Visual aids are
students to play the game the winner is group 1 effective enough
“What is this?”. There are in the class. The class
3. Students
five big pictures, all are is excited with a big cooperate better
copied
from
the applause for the winner. because they are
gameshow on TV. If any
acquaintances
team can guess the name
4. New words and

13


3. While – writing - Teacher asked students
activity (20’)
to make
sentences
basing
on
the
suggestions
in the
textbook and practice in
pairs.

S: “Ten o’clock” “What
chanel is it on?”
“ VTV3”

- Teacher asked the
students to write about
any competitions
for
secondary school students
on TV. Most of them
chose the show “Road
to Olympia” and some
chose other show such as
“Not Nhac Vui” or “Tuoi
Doi Menh Mong” – the

- Students do the peer
correction

4. Post – writing
activity
(12’)

5.Homework
(3’)

S: How long does it
last?
S: 2 hours

................
- Students write the
passage in a very good
mood with the content
suggested
in
the
textbook. Some of them
write short passage.
However, some write
very well – done ones

Write
notebook

on

Less
on both
Some students tried to follow the grammar Mistakes on grammar and expressions
suggestions
in Task 1 in the
and
has improved a lot. There still existed
textbook but theirs were full of expressions some but for the whole passage they
grammar mistakes
and words
were acceptable because both the
usages (See Appendix…)
teacher and her students need more time
Notes: This may take longer time
to perfect these mistakes
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
Ss’
More creative
Some students in the class did creativity Ss’ creativity in writing is another hard
not know what to do with their
when
work to attain and Ss will make their
writings so they copy the whole producing awriting creative when they are motivated
sample letter in the text book


0%

c
12.5%

Notes
d
37.5%

e
50%

As can be seen from Table 7 50% of the students loved the pre – writing activities on
that day and 37.5% of the students said that they liked the activities because they were
15


interesting and challenging. However, 12.5% of the students had no ideas of the activities. This
might be concluded that the try – out stage of conducting pre – writing
activities with the attention of some factors relating to the writing performance have certain
good effects.
Question 2: What do you think of your writing performance today?
a. Extremely unsatisfied c. Satisfied b. Unsatisfied
Question
What do you think of your
writing performance today?

d. Goode. Very good


Question
Which of the changes made
by the teacher were successful?

Choice

Notes

a

b

c

d

e

0%

0%

0%

0%

100%

All of the students (100%) agreed that the changes made by the teacher were successful
Question 4:

87.5%


It can not be denied that students needed a lot of changes for the situation. That is
the reason why they choose the option e with 87.5% of all the students. Classroom facilities
are really helpful in conducting the lesson. Students can not pay attention to the lesson if the
fans do not work or they can not see the board clearly because of the dim lights.
Therefore, they appreciated that well – equipped classroom with 40% of the students ma y help
to change the situation. It seems that students did not take care of how much time the teacher
used for the pre – writing activities because there was only 10% of the students thought that
this may be the cause of the situation. However, teachers should be aware of the time
limitation problem, because sometimes they make the class involve in the activities and
they forget that they have only 5 to 10 minutes for the pre – writing activities.
Question 5: What are your own changes after taking part in the pre – writing activities
today?
Changes

Extremely Disagree
I
Agree Strongly Not
disagree
don’t
agree given
know
a. I am motivated to work
0%
11.25% 7.5% 46.25% 32.5% 2.5%
because the teacher gives out
many interesting activities
b. I can write with the

The students’ self – assessment are clearly presented in Table 11. An overall
statement made based on the data in the table is that students’ interest in the activities has
increased considerably. It can be inferred from the fact that most of the students (92.5%)
preferred working in a group with their acquaintances and they could work better. This is
drawn from the fact that students are happier if they are put in a groups with their close friends
because they get on well with each other when sharing ideas about one problem. The same
percentage(75%) was shared with the students’ improvement in gaining confidences and being
motivated to work in pre – writing stage. 65% of the students emphasized their improvement
in writing abilities after being instructed by the teacher with useful words and sentence
structures. To sum up, these findings provide us evidence to believe that teachers can
change the situation if they spend time investigating how to increase students’ interest to
each stage of the lesson.
Question 6: What were the good points of pre – writing activities which were
improved in today’s lesson?
a. Students will be more interested in learning writing skills if the teacher conducts these
kinds of activities regularly
b. These activities help to build the students’ confidence in writing and overcome the “shock”
of language use
c. Both a and b
17


Question

What were the good points of
pre– writing activities which
were improved in today’s
lesson?

Choice

3.1. Conclusion
This study is carried out as a contribution to the knowledge of all teachers and students
of English in their teaching and learning.
In previous chapters, the review of literature with theoretical backgrounds of
action research, teaching writing, factors affecting the students’ writing performance are put
at the beginning, the next are the study with the data analysis and findings of questionnaires in
pre – improvement stage, the trying – out and the post – improvement stage. The last chapter
gives recommendations to the teachers and classroom facilities.
The author of this research does hope that this study would be of some value to both
teachers and students in their language teaching and learning process.
3.2. Limitations of the study
The study still has some limitations. First of all, this study is very small – scale, which
focuses on only the effects of pre – writing activities on the students’ writing performance so
while – writing activities roles are not mentioned here. Secondly, the study basically bases
on one source of data, questionnaires, which might be subjective on the side of the informants,
so the researcher can not guarantee the reliability of the information collected. What is more, the
area of the study is only restricted to classroom writing in the textbook published by MOET;
thus, any application outside classroom context requires careful thoughts and consideration.
3.3. Suggestions for further research
There were still some problems that this study could not solve absolutely for during
the try – out stage: The student’s poor vocabularies and the insufficiency of grammar
knowledge. This needs time to realize the improvement. However, the teacher should pay
much attention to this goal when teaching a productive skill like writing. Hopefully that the
above problems could be solved in other studies after this research in the near future.

REFERENCE
19


1. Byrne, D. (1988). Teaching Writing Skills. Longman

Constructivist Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

20

Practice

Approach.
&Theory.

Teachers:

A


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TRỞ LÊN

Họ và tên tác giả : Trương Thị Thanh Hà
Chức vụ và đơn vị công tác : Trường THPT Hàm Rồng- TP Thanh Hóa
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