VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

BÙI BÍCH NGỌC

APPLYING PORTFOLIO TO IMPROVE WRITING SKILLS
OF 11TH-GRADE STUDENTS AT A HIGH SCHOOL
IN LANG SON PROVINCE
(Áp dụng portfolio để cải thiện kĩ năng viết cho học sinh lớp 11
tại một trường trung học phổ thông tỉnh Lạng Sơn)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 8140231.01

Hanoi – 2019


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

BÙI BÍCH NGỌC

APPLYING PORTFOLIO TO IMPROVE WRITING SKILLS
OF 11TH-GRADE STUDENTS AT A HIGH SCHOOL
IN LANG SON PROVINCE
(Áp dụng portfolio để cải thiện kĩ năng viết cho học sinh lớp 11
tại một trường trung học phổ thông tỉnh Lạng Sơn)

Studies for providing me with comprehensive knowledge and supporting me in my
master course.
Finally, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my family who always
encourages and unfailingly supports me throughout my year of study and the period of
doing my dissertation. Also, I am thankful to all my colleagues (Nguyen Bich Hien,
Phan Thu Huong, Du Ai Hue Chi, Nguyen Phuong Thuy, Nong Thi Hao and the others), especially thanks to my beloved husband, Nguyen Huu Duyet who continuously
encourages and helps me cope with the difficulties at University as well as in my personal life. Without their enthusiastic assistances and strong supports, I definitely cannot accomplish my dissertation and finish my master course at University of Languages and International Studies.
30th September 2019
Ha Noi, Viet Nam
Bui Bich Ngoc

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ABSTRACT
One of the effective approaches helping students to sharpen their writing skills,
which is currently being overshadowed by other skills in teaching and learning English, is Writing Portfolio. However, this method has not been applied widely at high
schools in Vietnam in general and Lang Son in particular. Thus, this study is conducted
to examine how Writing Portfolio influences students’ writing skills as well as how
students think about its implementation. The study adopts action research with the use
of both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods, including writing assignment evaluation, questionnaire, and interviews.
The research’s findings reveal some significant improvements in participants’
overall writing scores, as well as in each of the criterion, namely task achievement, coherence and cohesion, grammar and vocabulary. By being given the marking rubrics,
the educator’s regular feedback and chances to revise and rewrite the writings, the language learners can better monitor their progress in writing.
Apart from that, though most of the students think this activity has positive influences on their writing skills, they still fail to see the advantages of this improvement
to their language acquisition process as writing skill has not been included properly in
testing. Therefore, they do not think it’s necessary to apply Writing Portfolios in the
next academic year.
Despite the positive outcome of the research, there is still a need for further
studies to assess more Writing Portfolio’s effects and the best way to apply Writing

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2.5.3. The advantages of portfolio........................................................................... 13
2.5.4. Portfolio writing assessment procedure ........................................................ 13
2.6. Related Studies ................................................................................................... 14
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ...................................................... 17
3.1. Setting of the study ............................................................................................ 17
3.2. Participants ........................................................................................................ 17
3.3. Research design .................................................................................................. 18
3.4. Data collection procedure ................................................................................. 22
3.4.1. Writing assignments ...................................................................................... 22
3.4.2. Questionnaire ................................................................................................ 22
3.4.3. Interviews ...................................................................................................... 23
3.5. Data analysis....................................................................................................... 23
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS .................................................. 25
4.1. Research question 1 ........................................................................................... 25
4.1.1. Effects of writing portfolios on students’ task-fulfillment ............................. 25
4.1.2. Effects of writing portfolios on students’ coherence and cohesion............... 27
4.1.3. Effects of writing portfolios on students’ vocabulary ................................... 28
4.1.4. Effects of writing portfolios on students’ grammar ...................................... 30
4.1.5. Effects of writing portfolios on students’ overall writing skill. ..................... 32
4.2. Research question 2 ........................................................................................... 33
4.2.1. Students’ opinions about the benefits of the writing portfolios in general,
marking criteria and teacher’s feedback in particular. .......................................... 34
4.2.2. Students’ opinions about teacher’s instructions ........................................... 36

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Table 4. The percentage of students arranged by results of grammar criterion ........... 31
Table 5. The percentage of students arranged by results of writing assignments ........ 33

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. The percentage of students arranged by results of vocabulary criterion for the
1st assignment ........................................................................................................ 29
Figure 2. The percentage of students arranged by results of grammar criterion .......... 32
Figure 3. Students' opinions on their involvement in Writing ...................................... 34
Figure 4. Students’ degree of agreement in their improvement in all aspects .............. 35
Figure 5. Students' opinions on the appropriateness of the teacher's instruction .......... 36
Figure 6. Students' opinions on carrying out Writing Portfolios in the future .............. 38

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, the rationale, aims and objectives, significance of the study are
presented. Also, the research questions, chosen research methods and structure of the
researcher are put forward.
1.1. Rationale of the study
Learning English as a foreign language has been made compulsory in the majority of high schools in Vietnam. Based on the current curriculum, it is evident that the
teaching of English at this level places equal emphasis on all four skills, namely reading, speaking, listening and writing. As a teacher of English, I come to realize that
many high school students, including mine, find writing skills a hard one to master. In
fact, even though it is more challenging to acquire writing skills than others, both
teachers and students seem not to pay enough attention to it.
To be more specific, after having spent a long time agonizing over the reasons

one of those studies, E-portfolios at high school level proposed by Nhi and Mai (2018)
have shown considerable potentials. Therefore, I suggest that improving my high
school students’ writing abilities may be achieved by using portfolios in teaching and
learning English as a foreign language.
1.2. Aims and objectives of the study
The study is conducted to investigate the efficiency of adopting portfolio in improving the writing skills of 11th students at a high school in Lang Son province. The
progress that students make can be observed in their own portfolios after a semester.

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Additionally, the paper aims to find out students’ viewpoints on the use of portfolios in
class in term of the effectiveness of portfolios and the obstacles that they encounter
while applying portfolios.
In short, the objectives of the study could be summarized into research questions as followed:
1. To what extent does portfolio help to improve writing skills for 11th grade students
at a high school in Lang Son city?
2. What are students’ opinions about applying portfolio in writing skills?
1.3. Scope of the study
The intent of this study is to investigate the impact of Writing Portfolios on nonEnglish major 11th-grade students at a high school in Lang Son city. The chosen participants are from an intact group who are taught by the researcher due to the time and
logistic constraint. It should be noted that students at this level are only required to
write paragraphs instead of the whole essays. There are 4 criteria that should be considered when evaluating students’ writing skills, including task fulfillment, coherence
and cohesion, vocabulary and grammar. In addition, this study focuses on the participants’ opinions of Portfolio application in writing skills at high school level.
1.4. Significance of the study
Once the study is completed, it will serve to investigate the use of portfolio as a
recommended activity in writing skill lessons. Thus, it may be of considerable use for
other English teachers in this high school or researchers who want to investigate more
in applying portfolios to high school students to enhance their writing skills.
Furthermore, as the study is an action research, it helps to enhance the validity of
the feasibility of portfolio using at schools. Therefore, the recommendations and conclusions from the study could be useful to the policymakers in other schools nationwide if portfolios are considered to be applied into school curricula.

by other researchers are also mentioned.
Chapter 3: Methodology
The research process is demonstrated in detail through each stage. Apparently,
the setting, participants, research design will be discussed. Additionally, data collection
procedure, and data analysis are also justified.
Chapter 4: Findings and Discussions
After data collection process, the findings from students’ portfolios are introduced in this chapter. These data are analysed thoroughly to answer the research questions. Additionally, the result comparison to the previous studies is given in the Discussions section.
Chapter 5: Conclusion
This final chapter summarises the results from all analyses of the prior sections
as well as provides some recommendations for further research. Besides, the possibility
of limitations is also recognized in relation to the outcomes of this study.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter would examine and analyze relevant aspects that are related to the
aim of the thesis. First, it commences from analyzing Writing skills in terms of its definition, paragraph writing and process of writing. The next parts are approaches to
teaching writing, the role of teachers in teaching writing, and assessment of writing.
Finally, after the Portfolio Assessment is reviewed, a brief overview of related studies
discloses the research gaps and justifies the aims and objectives of this research paper.
2.1. Writing skills
2.1.1 Definition of writing skills
Writing is a visual representation of speech which writers use to communicate
their ideas and feelings. Together with speaking skills, writing skills is considered a
productive one, which involves actively producing the language instead of passively
receiving it. In other words, learning how to write in a second language is not merely
trying to arrange the conventional symbols of the writing system that represent the utterances one has in mind. It requires the learners to apply suitable words, use grammar
with ease and present facts in the order of time and space. According to Lounis (2009),
writing is the most integral skill that needs to be mastered by ESL or EFL learners.


Approximately 20 years later, in the mid 1980s, there was a shift from product
approach to process approach which place more emphasis on the process of composing
texts rather than on the products themselves. Oshima and Hogue (1997) state that the
process of writing comprises 4 steps in total, including prewriting, planning, writing
and revising drafts, and writing the final copy. To be more specific, in the first step, the
writing topics are chosen and narrowed down as well as the ideas are brainstormed.
Subsequently, these ideas are organized, and the outline of the writing is drawn up.
Writers are highly likely to revise several drafts before making the final copy of their
product. As Oshima and Hogue claim, there is no writing that is flawless in its first
draft; therefore, writers have to refine and improve their writing until they feel contented with the final writing version. Similarly, Harmer (2004) also says that 4 main stages
are required in order to create a great writing: planning, drafting, editing and final version. In the planning stage, writers think about the topic they are going to write. Simultaneously, the purpose of writing and the organization of the facts will be decided. Afterwards, they start to write the first draft or even several drafts. Editing the writing is
the next stage in which writers can ask for readers’ comments or suggestions. At the
last stage, the final version is completed.
One more approach that can be reviewed is genre approach, in which information concerning the types of writing is provided. The notion of genre stem from the
idea that writing is situational; hence, good writing is determined by the context, purpose and the audience. In conclusion, genre-based approach gives students chances to
get to know a wide range of purposes of writing and deal with various ways of writing
in formation.
In conclusion, it should be noted that process approach is the one that is advocated in this study.
2.3. The role of teachers in teaching writing
In teaching writing skills, teachers act as facilitators who supply students with
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support so that they can produce their own good writings. Brown (2001) says that
teachers are the ones who give responses to students’ writing. He also highlights teachers’ guidance instead of forcing students to follow their thoughts. In addition to this,
Harmer (2004) indicates five responsibilities teachers have to take during the writing
process. They are presented as follows:
(1) Demonstrating: teachers are responsible for introducing to the students the various
genre constrains and writing conventions so that students are mindful of what they

There are 3 types of scoring method, which are holistic, primary trait and analytical scoring (Brown, 2004). Holistic scoring is used to judge the writing assignment
of the student by giving one single, integrated score only after the educator reads the
whole text. In other word, the score given is mostly based on the personal assumption
of the teacher as a reader. The aim of this method is generally used to rate the writer’s
overall proficiency. Hyland (2003) suggests that holistic scoring method concentrates
on what writers can do well instead of diagnosing writers’ deficiencies. Although this
approach is easy to use with larger classes, it is believed to undervalue the process in
which learners plan their writings.
Besides, if the assignment only concentrates on a particular aspect of writing, or
a specific linguistic form, or the use of a certain semantic group, primary trait scoring
allows the instructor and the students to focus their feedback and attention specifically.
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In terms of the last type of scoring method, Weigle (2002) defines analytical
scoring method as a way to evaluate students’ writing assignments based on the components of writing such as content, organization, language use, and mechanics. The
idea behind analytical scoring is that writing quality is not a holistic unified scale but a
combination of certain distinct features. As this scoring method is believed to be more
helpful in diagnosing students’ writing abilities than holistic and primary trait scoring,
it will be used in this study.
2.5. Portfolio Assessment
2.5.1. Definitions of Portfolio
In fact, portfolios have been used for many years in a wide range of areas, for
example mathematics, chemistry, teacher training, etc. As for the assessment of language skills, the application of portfolios is a growing trend and has been of dramatic
interest to teachers for the past few decades (Douglas, 2000). There are various definitions of portfolio. According to Hyland (2003), portfolios consist of various writing
samples which are written over a period of time and give description on students’ development and ability in a certain context. He also adds that portfolio assessment refers
to students’ practice of writing by using some information sources as reference, revising and resubmitting it after receiving constructive comments from their partners and
teachers. Barnard and Deyzel (2003) defines portfolio as a “portable, systematic, purposeful collection of work, selected to provide information about attitude, level of development and growth during a given period of time”. Another definition of portfolio,
as Yang (2003) states, is a collection of students’ activities which record the effort as
well as the progress in learning process and their reflection on the materials. In general,

2.5.3. The advantages of portfolio
The advantages of portfolios have been mentioned by many of the experts. In
1994, Moya and O’Malley claimed that portfolio assessment is one kind of alternative
assessment that not only provide information about students’ weaknesses and strengths
but also keeps records of their development. Besides, by giving students chances to review their own work and better understand what they have learned, portfolios are said
to encourage students to self-reflect and self-evaluate.
Being more specific, Brown (2004, p. 257) lists some of the benefits obtained from
portfolio assessment as follows:
(1) It can help to promote students’ intrinsic motivation, ownership and responsibility.
(2) It assists in promoting the interaction between students and teachers as well as students and their peers.
(3) It provides valuable and reliable information about students’ work.
(4) It aids critical thinking, self-assessment, and revision process.
(5) It allows assessment of multiple aspects of language learning.
2.5.4. Portfolio writing assessment procedure
It is believed that several steps are required to be done by the teacher if portfolio
assessment is applied to measure students’ learning development. As Birgin and Baki
proposed in 2007, there are three steps in developing portfolio assessment, including:
(1) Identifying the purpose of the portfolio
(2) Determining the evidence included in the portfolio
(3) Selecting the assessment criteria
In addition to these steps, Brown (2004, p. 257) adds more in preparing portfo13


lio assessment as presented below.
(1) Determining the aim of the portfolio: It should be noted that the aim of the portfolios must be in line with the integrated goal of the school curriculum.
(2) Considering the evidence included in the portfolio: In this step, the students are
given a sample from which students draw conclusion about the content of the portfolio.
(3) Communicating the assessment criteria: This is regarded as the most complicated
aspect of portfolio assessment as both self-assessment and teacher’s assessment has
to be integrated and published clearly to the students.

the student gains a sense of progress and hence builds up their confidence. In Vietnam,
there are also researchers who carried out studies on E-portfolios. Two teachers at a
high school in Soc Trang province, Tran Thi Que Nhi and Le Xuan Mai (2018), aim at
investigating the students’ perceptions of the use of E-portfolios in an EFL writing
class. The results showed that the contributions of e-portfolios were highly appreciated
regarding the improvement in teacher-student interactions, as well as in learners’ confidence and motivation for writing. Besides, no significant problems were found in using E-portfolios. Despite some studies on E-portfolios at high schools and writing
portfolios at universities, there are hardly any studies in Vietnam investigating applying writing portfolios with high school students.
In terms of learners’ attitudes towards portfolio assessments, in 2008, Wang and
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