english writing skills and critical thinking skills of freshman college students in the university of transport technology system in three provinces of vietnam basic for functional writing activity

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Socialist Republic of Vietnam




BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines



ENGLISH WRITING SKILLS AND CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS OF
FRESHMAN COLLEGE STUDENTS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF
TRANSPORT TECHNOLOGY SYSTEM IN THREE
PROVINCES OF VIETNAM: BASIS FOR
FUNCTIONAL WRITING ACTIVITY



A Dissertation
Presented to
The Faculty of Graduate School
Batangas State University
Batangas City, Philippines

In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Major in English




By:
NGUYEN THANH TU (GOODLOOK)
June 2014




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Republic of the Philippines



i
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
TITLE PAGE………………………………………………………

i
TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………

ii
LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………
v
LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………

vii
CHAPTER

I. THE PROBLEM

Introduction

1
Statement of the Problem…………………………… 7
Scope, Delimitation and Limitation………………

8
Significance of the Study…………………….……… 9
II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Conceptual Literature……………………………… 11
Research Literature…………………………………. 45
Synthesis……………………………………………

52
Theoretical Framework………………………………

55
Conceptual Framework……………………………

59
Hypothesis…………………………………………….

61
Definition of Terms………………………………… 61




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ii
III. RESEARCH METHOD AND PROCEDURE

Research Design……………………………………

64
Research Enviroment………………………………

64
Subject of Study……………………………………… 65
Data Gathering Instrument………………………

66
Data Gathering Procedure…………………………

66
Statistical Treatment of Data………………………

68
IV. PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,INTERPRETATION OF DATA…………………………

70
V. SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATION

Summary of Findings……………………………… 117
Conclusions………………………………………… 129
Recommendations…………………………………

130
BIBLIOGRAPHY
………………………………………………………
131

APPENDICES

A. Quetionaire for Student

138
B. Questionaire for Teacher 148
C. Validation Letter of Questionaires 157
D. Sample Letter 160
E. Photographs of UTT 163




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iii
F. Documents for Approval Sample Letters

166
G. Documents for Administration of Questionaires. 168
CURRICULUM VITAE

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iv
LIST OF TABLES

Table

Title Page

1 Distribution of Respondents……….………………… 66
2 Gender Profile of Student Respondents ………… … 71
3 Profile of Parent's Educational Attainment 72
4 Profile of Place of Origin of Student Respondents… 73
5 Profile of High School Attended by the Student
Respondents………………

74
6 Profile of Exposure to English Media by the Student
Respondents………………………………………

75
7 Performance of Student Respondents in the
Discourse Component of the Writing Skills
Test………


77
8 Performance of Student Respondents in the
Grammatical Component of the Writing Skills
Test………………………………………………………


78
9 Performance of Student Respondents in the
Mechanics Component of the Writing Skills
Test……


80
10 Performance of Student Respondents in the




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v

Morphology Component of the Writing Skills
Test……

83
11 Performance of Student Respondents in the Syntax
Component of the Writing Skills Test

87
12 List of Student skills Validated by 20 Teacher
Respondents as Lexical and Syntactic Competencies
of Freshman Students


89
13 List of Student Critical Thinking Skills According to
the Frequency of Use by Freshman Students as
Perceived by the Teacher Respondents…………….

91
14 List of Student Lexical and Syntactic Skills According
to Their Importance as Perceived by the Teacher
Respondents……………………………………………



93
15 Student's t-test Comparison of the Mean Scores for
the Level of Writing of Students Versus Teachers
Assessment of the Critical Writing Skills Shown as p-
Values…………………………………………………….



94
16 List of Component Skills of Writing to be Used as
Topics for the Design of Functional Activities and the
Basis of their Choice…………………………………….


96





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vi
LIST OF FIGURES

Figure

1

The Reasearch Paradigm……….`…………………
Page

60




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CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM

Introduction
The study of the English language has taken a multifaceted
dimension and has span from the knowledge-based format to the skill-
based format. It has also moved from theory to practice and much more
as the business world has taken an aggressive position to demand the
criteria for hiring their personnel to include certified demonstrable
English language skill.
While it is true that the skill components of the English language
include macro and micro skills, it becomes a challenge to the various
investigators, evaluators, learners and teachers where the focus of the
skills acquisition should be. Other linguistic experts advocate that the
focus should be in speaking or oral communication and this should be
developed to an advance level like a functional speaking skill. If this
direction is pursued, it will carry with it the necessary pedagogical
components from the theory to practice, that would best and effectively
achieve the objective of becoming a functional speaker. In the same
way that others would focus on writing or written communication as a
skill requiring advanced level of competency, there are bandwagon of

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2

concepts and pedagogical practices gearing towards the effective
development of writing skills. Surprisingly, in the literatures and in
practice, these two linguistic skills are biasedly given the priority focus,
seldom can be heard of for functional listening or functional reading as if
these skills are not equally important. Apparently these skills are
considered to be assumed skills at the back of speaking and writing
skills. Moreover, the business sector, the sector that creates the
demand for the commercial value of human skills would put a high tag
price for highly competent speakers and writers rather than the highly
competent listeners and readers. Thus, the speaking and writing skills
especially in the English language are valuable items, hot assets that
can make or break one’s career.
Between speaking and writing however, linguistic experts would
consider writing as the more advanced skill for a number of reasons.
Speaking is a skill that is easily learned first and one need not be an
expert in grammar to be able to speak English fluently. A fluent speaker
like a TV host or news commentator may be very eloquent but could be

in fact, a lousy writer. A good writer however, implies an expertise and
skill in speaking. One cannot be a good writer and yet become a poor
speaker as the tools in writing are at the writer’s disposal and




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conveniently captured in concept and use during a speaking activity.
Thus writing is the most advance form of skill in the English language.
Writing as an act is encoding an idea, a thought, a reflection; a
process of putting one’s thought into words. And this would require that
the words are organized to convey the idea, the way the writer would
want the reader to receive the message and experience the writer’s
concept. Thus the demand for writing is more rigorous than speaking. In
writing, one must have an extensive vocabulary at once disposal to be
able to use the right words corresponding to the idea or message. Thus
the writer, must have a full grasp of the common meaning and special

meaning and use of those words. The writer must also know how
sentences are constructed in the English language so that these
sentences become coherent and cohesive. Then comes the other fine
details of grammar, syntax, morphology to further create a linguistic
impact.
Writing can be easy if the topic is of the interest to the writer and
the writer has a choice of what to write about. The writing becomes
more difficult when it becomes purposive and the sentence construction
would demand complex sentences, and ideas have to be captured in a
very precise and few words. Thus, both simple and purposive writing
demand a strong cognitive skill to the writer. The cognitive skills entail




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an implicit ability to the writer to shift through facts that are relevant to
the topic of concern and be able to weigh them accordingly if they have

substance that are relevant and can be incorporated in the developing
concept.
The educational system with its language curricula considers this
gradating degree of writing skills development where at the elementary
levels, students are required to write formal themes compositions with a
freedom of topic choice at the beginning and later a specific chosen
topic given by the teacher as the basis. In the secondary level, writing
skills are developed through essays and reaction papers. In the tertiary
level, it is a blend of the secondary level materials as well as the writing
of a thesis, a more extensive type of writing piece that would cover an
analytical step where an idea is expounded, from the information of
previous literatures and moving forward to a proposed idea or concept
and providing evidence for the new proposal. The process goes on and
on in the tertiary and higher levels of education. Hence, cognitive skill is
vital in each step of the writing skills development.
Critical thinking on the other hand as stated by Michael Scriven
and Richard Paul in the Annual International Conference on Critical
Thinking and Education Reform is the intellectually disciplined process
of actively and skilfully conceptualizing, applying, analysing,




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synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated
by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as
a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on
universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions:
clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence,
good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness. It entails the examination of
those structures of elements of thought implicit in all reasoning:
purpose, problem, or question-at-issue: assumptions; concepts;
empirical grounding; reasoning leading to conclusions; implications and
consequences; objections from alternative viewpoints; and frame of
reference.
Motivation plays an important role in critical thinking. It is often
manifested in the skilful manipulation of ideas in service of one’s own or
one’s groups’ vested interest when grounded in selfish motives. It
becomes a higher order intellectually when grounded in fair-mindedness
and intellectual integrity. Critical thinkers live rationally, reasonably and
analyse, assess, and improve thinking. In developing the intellectual
virtues of intellectual integrity, humility, civility, empathy, sense of justice
and confidence in reason critical thinkers work diligently.
As in the case of students, critical thinking can be manifested on
different levels. They need first to recall by retrieving information from

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long term memory like recognizing differences or understanding
meaning. Students may also engage in summarizing the differences for
them to understand meaning. They may also analyse concept into its
logical parts. They can also make comparison and contrast and analyse
similarities and differences. Students then may engage in evaluation
using set of criteria and may identify references and construct their own
meaning. Rational thinking and finding solutions are clearly the focus of
critical thinking. Students must focus on the quality of their thinking and
explore whether or not their thinking is good to their lives. They must
also think about their choices, engage in fair-minded questions
formulation, avoiding simplistic thoughts, and show relationship.
As college teacher teaching Basic English, I observed students
have difficulty in writing longer composition. They tend to commit errors
in the construction of sentences, failed to observed correct
punctuations, and other aspects in mechanics of writing. Their levels of
critical thinking in terms of cognitive, affective, and their disposition are

needed to determine as they also play significant role to their learning.
With these contentions, this prompted the researcher to conduct the
study.




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Statement of the Problem
This study will address the following research questions:
1. What is the demographic profile of students in terms of
1.1 gender;
1.2 parent's educational attainment;
1.3 student's place of origin
1.4 type of school attended (high
school); and
1.5 exposure to English media
2. What is the level of writing skills of students relative to:

2.1 discourse component (cohesion, coherence)
2.2 grammatical component;
2.3 mechanics;
2.4 morphology; and
2.5 syntax?
3. How do teachers assess the critical thinking skills of students?
4. How do students level of writing skills and teacher assessment of
students’ critical thinking skills compare?
5. What functional writing activities may be proposed to enhance
student's writing and critical thinking skills?




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Scope, Delimitation and Limitation of the Study
This study is focused on determining the level of students’ writing
skills in terms of discourse components, grammatical components,

mechanics, morphology and syntax as well as the level of students’
critical thinking skills. Responses of 306 first year English language
students from tertiary schools in Vietnam and the respective English
teachers of these students using the stratified random technique were
analysed. The students were made to answer to a validated teacher
made questionnaire designed to assess their level of writing skills while
the teachers were asked to answer a survey cognitive skill assessment
questionnaire where they rated, based on their perception, the critical
thinking skill level of their students.
These two questionnaires were the source of quantitative data
that were analysed statistically. The study site were the tertiary schools
in an urbanized area and the study covered a period of six months from
July to December 2013. Demographic information was gathered from
the students and teachers through the questionnaires but their names
were not revealed. The respondents were those currently enrolled in an
English course. The teacher respondents were the respective teachers
of the evaluated students as they were the ones assessed their
students’ cognitive skills. The students’ respondents were limited only to




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those who were enrolled in their Basic English course in the stated
covered period and teachers who were teaching other English courses
were not included in the study.
Descriptive method of research was used in the study to
determine the levels of writing and critical thinking skills of students.
The study made used of teacher made test for student respondents and
survey questionnaire for teacher respondents.
Significance of the Study
This study is important to different individuals, organizations and
policy makers.
Students. This will be significant to the students as they will have
a chance to participate in a writing skills assessment study. The results
of this work will benefit the students in general because a remedial
strategy in this case a functional writing activity will be designed
catering to their specific needs.
Teachers. This will benefit the teachers not only because the will
be involved in the study but they will also gain insights from the results
and will have a chance to utilize the developed remedial activities for
their future students.
Administrators. Results of the study will benefit them as they will
be guided by the findings on what decisions they will make regarding

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the adequacy of the students’ writing skills and implement remedial
measures that will improve students’ English writing skills of their
schools.
Parents. Findings of the study give them information as to the
level of writing skills of their children and may find ways of helping them
improve these skills through active participation in the learning process.
Policy-makers. The policymakers will be benefited from the
insight that will be gathered in this study. They will be able to formulate
specific and relevant laws that could influence the current educational
system as they will have a concrete basis for doing so.

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CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF LITERATURE

This chapter presents the relevant conceptual and research
literature which have bearing to the present study. The literatures
included are found substantial to the study and gives the necessary
background to understand the present research. It also presents the
theoretical and conceptual frameworks of the study, synthesis, and
hypothesis, and definition of terms.
Conceptual Literature
The following concepts which focused on English language skills,

writing skills, critical thinking skills, functional English writing activities
were reviewed to substantiate the study.
English Language Skills. The ability to comprehend receptive
language and use expressive language to communicate is referred to
as language skills. An individual who possesses good spoken language
skills is presumed to easily master reading and writing skills. The
concept of skill presupposes the possession of specific knowledge and
characteristics as well as the capability to utilize the knowledge with a
certain level of proficiency. In the context of the English language skills,
there are macro and micro skills that comprise the entire language skill





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spectrum (www.englishclub.com/learn-english/language-skills.htm), thus
proficiency in the English language requires a demonstrable proficiency

in the macro and the micro skills as well and these can be probed with a
variety of tools or test instruments.
The four component skills of language also referred to as the
macro skills have been recognized as an established concept by
language educators, these being the cornerstones for language learning
to achieve complete communication. In learning the native language,
these macro skills develops in a sequential manner where learning
begins with listening followed by speaking, then by reading, and finally
writing. Thus, the four language skills referred to are: listening,
speaking, reading and writing (www.englishclub.com/learn-
english/language-skills.htm).
It is understood that these four language skills are related to each
other in two ways: the direction of communication whether in or out and
the method of communication that is whether spoken or written. In the
communication paradigm, the input process is sometimes called
reception and output process is called production. The term spoken is
referred to as oral and the term written is sometimes referred to as
textual. While these four language skills are called the macro-skills, the
term micro-skills is used to refer to the linguistic components such as




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grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and spelling
(www.englishclub.com/learn-english/language-skills.htm).
Considered receptive skill in the oral mode is listening or listening
comprehension. This means that listening pertains to listening and
understanding what is heared and not mere hearing of sounds without
understanding. When the first language is learned, the process was
spontaneous and all the skills and background knowledge needed to
understand what is heard, was complex but outside of one’s awareness.
The process becomes clear when what is involved in learning to
understand what is heard in a second language is examined. Listening
situations can either be interactive or non-interactive. In interactive
listening situations, a face-to-face encounter occurs like conversations
and telephone calls, in which parties are alternately listening and
speaking, and in which they have a chance to ask for clarification,
repetition, or slower speech from each other. Non-interactive listening
situations would include listening to the radio, TV, films, lectures, or
sermons. In these situations the person usually don't have the
opportunity to ask for clarification, slower speech or repetition.
According to Richards (1983, cited in Omaggio, 1986) there are
micro-skills involved in understanding what someone is saying in an
interactive listening situation. These micro-skills involve the following:

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retention of chunks of language in short-term memory; ability to
discriminate among the distinctive sounds in the new language; ability
to recognize stress and rhythm patterns, tone patterns, intonational
contours; ability to recognize reduced forms of words; ability to
distinguish word boundaries; ability to recognize typical word-order
patterns; ability to recognize vocabulary; ability to detect key words,
such as those identifying topics and ideas; ability to guess meaning
from context; ability to recognize grammatical word classes; ability to
recognize basic syntactic patterns; ability to recognize cohesive
devices; ability to detect sentence constituents, such as subject, verb,
object, prepositions, and the like.
Speaking is the productive skill in the oral mode. Like the other
skills, it is more complicated than it seems at first and involves more
than just pronouncing words (www-
01.sil.org/lingualinks/languagelearning/otherresources/). There are
three kinds of speaking situations identified. These include: interactive,

partially interactive, and non-interactive. Interactive speaking situations
include face-to-face conversations and telephone calls, in which one
alternately listens and speaks, as well as having a chance to ask for
clarification, repetition, or slower speech from the conversation partner.
Some speaking situations are partially interactive, such as when giving




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a speech to a live audience, where the convention is that the audience
does not interrupt the speech. The speaker nevertheless can see the
audience and judge from the expressions on their faces and body
language whether the speaker is being understood. Some few speaking
situations may be totally non-interactive, such as when recording a
speech for a radio broadcast.
The following are the micro-skills involved in speaking. The
speaker has to pronounce the distinctive sounds of a language clearly

enough so that people can distinguish them. This includes making tonal
distinctions, use of stress and rhythmic patterns, and intonation patterns
of the language clearly enough so that people can understand what is
being said using the correct forms of words. This may mean changes in
the tense, case, or gender; put words together in correct word order;
use vocabulary appropriately; use the register or language variety that
is appropriate to the situation and the relationship to the conversation
partner, making clear to the listener the main sentence constituents;
such as subject, verb, object, by whatever means the language uses;
making the main ideas stand out from supporting ideas or information;
making the discourse hang together so that people can follow what one
is saying.




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Reading on the other hand, is the receptive skill in the written

mode. It can develop independently of listening and speaking skills, but
often develops along with them, especially in societies with a highly-
developed literary tradition. Reading can help build vocabulary that
helps listening comprehension at the later stages. The micro-skills
involved in reading includes the reader has to decipher the script like in
an alphabetic system or a syllabary which means establishing a
relationship between sounds and symbols.
In a pictograph system, it means associating the meaning of the
words with written symbols, recognizing vocabulary, picking out key
words, such as those identifying topics and main ideas, figuring out the
meaning of the words, including unfamiliar vocabulary, from the written
context, recognizing grammatical word classes such as noun or
adjective, detect sentence constituents, such as subject, verb, object,
prepositions; recognizing basic syntactic patterns and reconstructing
and inferring situations, goals and participants.
Other reading micro skills use both knowledge of the world and
lexical and grammatical cohesive devices to make the foregoing
inferences, predict outcomes, and infer links and connections among
the parts of the text including getting the main point or the most
important information, distinguishing the main idea from supporting




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details, adjusting reading strategies to different reading purposes such
as skimming for main ideas or studying in-depth.
Writing is the productive skill in the written mode. It is more
complicated than it seems at first, and often seems to be the hardest of
the skills, even for native speakers of a language, since it involves not
just a graphic representation of speech, but the development and
presentation of thoughts in a structured way. Here are some of the
micro-skills involved in writing. The writer needs to use the orthography
correctly, including the script, spelling, punctuation conventions and the
use of the correct forms of words.
This may mean using forms that express the right tense, or case
or gender; putting words together in correct word order; using
vocabulary correctly; using the style appropriate to the genre and
audience; making the main sentence constituents, such as subject,
verb, and object, clear to the reader; making the main ideas distinct
from supporting ideas or information, making the text coherent so that
other people can follow the development of the ideas, judging how
much background knowledge the audience has on the subject and
making clear what it is assumed they don't know.
The English Language Skills Assessment (ELSA) is a group of
tests designed to assess the English language proficiency of testers.

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ELSA is intended for non-native speakers, and consists of different tests
for different levels from beginners to advanced (Schmitt, 2000).These
tests have been used for tracking the progress of learners studying
English or to determine the English language proficiency for
employment or education where English language skills are required
These tests are targeted to international audience and are available in
British English or American English.
To cater to different age groups focused mainly on speakers
belonging to the level A1 or A2 of the Common European Framework of
Reference for Languages, a modification of the ELSA, the Foundational
English Language Skills Assessment (FELSA), was developed and
characterized by slight conversational English language familiarity but
are likely not able to succeed in school, business or travel in English.
Apart from these skills assessment, language skill standards have
been established. Different organizations and state institutions have

established their own language skill standards to be used as guide for
their first language educational programs such as the compact
Language Skills: Self Assessment Grid developed by the Council of
Europe (See Appendix 1). In this model, the learner is empowered to
identify the classification level of his skills and in so doing decide how
he would pursue his language skills development program. In the UK,