Evaluating the designed authentic tasks to help students get interested in learning English writing at Thanh Do University nhiệm vụ thực tế được thiết kế nhằm

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





EVALUATING THE DESIGNED AUTHENTIC TASKS TO HELP
STUDENTS GET INTERESTED IN LEARNING ENGLISH WRITING AT
THANH DO UNIVERSITY


(giúp sinh


MA Minor PROGRAMME Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60.14.10


Hanoi – 2011


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



EVALUATING THE DESIGNED AUTHENTIC TASKS TO HELP
STUDENTS GET INTERESTED IN LEARNING ENGLISH WRITING AT
THANH DO UNIVERSITY

(  giúp sinh



MA Minor PROGRAMME Thesis


Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60.14.10
Supervisor: Chu Thị Phương Vân, MA


Hanoi - 2011

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
EFL: English as a Foreign Language
FLT: Foreign Language Teaching
HULIS: Hanoi University of Languages and International Study
TDU: Thanh Do University
VNU, CFL: Vietnam National University, College of Foreign Languages

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LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 1: The usefulness of the tasks
Chart 2: Students’ feelings when doing the tasks
Chart 3: Benefits from doing the tasks
Chart 4: Difficulty level of the tasks
Chart 5: Students’ difficulties in doing the tasks
Chart 6: Students’ preferences of writing lesson activities
Chart 7: Students’ activities after class
Chart 8: Sources of information students used for writing

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION … …………………………………………………… i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ……….…………….………………………………………… ii
ABSTRACT ………….……………………………………………………………………iii
LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS….…………………………………………………… …iv
LIST OF CHARTS………………………………………………………………………….v
TABLE OF CONTENTS vi
PART A: INTRODUCTION……… …… ………………………………………… …1
1. Rationale…… ……….…………………………………………………………………1
2. Aims of the study….….……………………………………………………………… 2
3. Research questions… ……………………………………………………………….…2
4. Scope of the study…….………………………………………………………… ……2
5. Methodology…… ….…………………………………………………………………3
6. Organization of the thesis….……………………………………………………………3
PART B: THE STUDY…… …… …………………………………………………… 4
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW ………………………………………………….4
1. Writing……… …… ………………………………………………………………… 4
1.1. Definition of writing and writing skill…………………………………….……4
1.2. Why do we teach writing? ………………………………………….…………5
1.3. Some theoretical approaches to teaching writing………………………………6

1.4. Principles of teaching writing………………………………………………… 8
1.5. Suggested activities and tasks to teach writing.……………… ………………9
2. Authentic tasks… …………………………….……………………………………… 10
2.1. Definition. ……………………………………………………………………10
2.2. Characteristics …………………………………… …………………………11
2.3. Classification of authentic tasks ……………………….…………………… 11

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2.4. Why should we use authentic tasks? ………………………….……………12
CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY……… …………………….……………………14
1. Setting of the study…………………… …………….…………………………………14
1.1. The university and students…………………………………….…………….14
1.2. The writing program for first-year English-majored students……….…….…14
2. Methodology……… ……… ……………….……………………………………… 15
2.1. Participants………………………………….…………………………… …15
2.2. Instrumentations ……………………………….……………………………15
2.3. Data collection ………………………………….……………………………16
CHAPTER THREE: DATA ANALYSES….……….…………………………………….17
1. Analysis of class observation results…….…….……………………………………… 17
2. Analysis of survey questionnaires…….……….……………………………………… 19
3. Analysis of students’ diary writings…….………………………………………………26
CHAPTER FOUR: DISCUSSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS…………………………….29
1. The authentic tasks designed………….……………………….……………… ………29
2. Group work……… ………………………….…………………………………………30
3. The teacher……….………………… …….………………………….…………… …32
PART C: CONCLUSION…………… ………………………………….…………… 33
1. Summary of the study………… …… …………….……….…………………………33
2. Summary of the findings…………… … ………………….………………………….33
3. Summary of the implications……… … ………….……….………….……………….34
4. Limitations and suggestions for further research……… ……………….…………….35

5. Summary…………………… …………………………………………………………37
REFERENCES……… …………………….……………………….……………………38
APPENDICES………………………….…………………………….……… ……………I

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PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
English has been considered “an international language” since it helps people all over the
world get access to various kinds of information in different fields, especially in business
and technology where information is updated every hour, even every minute. Therefore,
English has taken a prior part in the curriculum of every education system in the world in
general and in Vietnamese education in particular.
However, it is not easy for students to be good at English since it needs different strategies,
techniques and different things from learners such as their aptitude, patience, and so on. In
addition to this, teachers are also of great importance to their learners’ success. There is
one fact that many students are very good at school with high results but they do not know
how to use their language knowledge that has been achieved at school in their real life.
One of the reasons is that at school, they only learn how to use the target language
accurately for pedagogical purposes in the required curriculum and learn only for high
results through tests. When they are in the real life, the language used may be different and
not as perfect as the language they have learnt in terms of form, grammar, etc. Therefore, it
is essential for students to get access to language in the real life through authentic tasks
with authentic materials. To do this, the role of the teacher is crucial. However, the teacher
should know whether the tasks designed are suitable to the students or not so that
modifications can be applied to help students get the best benefits in their learning.
In terms of English learning, writing skill is one of the two productive skills together with
speaking skill which are of great significance in language teaching and learning.
Nevertheless, teaching and learning writing have posed a lot of problems to both teachers
and students. Writing is also a difficult skill since we have to write “for a reader” on our
own without interaction and feedback from readers (Byrne, D., 1988, p4).

However, writing is important in the real life since it helps to transfer the information and
is used for many other purposes. As mentioned above, students need to get acquainted with
written products applicable in the real life. Through authentic tasks with authentic
materials, they can be well prepared in class. There are various types of authentic
materials, so for students of different levels, different tasks should be applied.

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In this paper, the researcher tries to evaluate the authentic tasks designed by the teacher as
an adaptation for teaching writing skill to English majored students at low intermediate
level with a specific textbook of a specific curriculum. Through the results, she can have
modifications to better benefit students in the future.
2. Aims of the study
In general, the research has three aims.
 First, the study is designed to investigate the effectiveness of the designed tasks
based on the textbook with the topics required in an EFL language curriculum.
 Second, the researcher attempts to find students’ difficulties in doing these tasks.
 Finally, the study aims to explore students’ purposes and expectations of students
in writing lessons.
3. Research questions
The research aims to answer the following questions:
 What are students’ attitudes towards authentic tasks?
 What are students’ difficulties in doing the tasks
 Do authentic tasks satisfy the needs and expectations of learners?
4. Scope of the study
Authentic tasks is a broad and interesting theme that has attracted a lot of researchers to
study how to apply to language teaching so as to make language learning become more
purposeful and meaningful. Authentic tasks are also divided into different types; therefore,
within the framework of this paper, the researcher does not have ambition to find how
effective authentic tasks are in a large scale. The researcher only attempts to have an
evaluation on several authentic tasks that have already been designed by the teacher in one

specific curriculum for one specific textbook for students of a specific level: Evaluating the
designed authentic tasks to help students get interested in learning English writing at TDU.
Hopefully, with the findings on the designed tasks from the study and suggestions implied
from the finding results, the study will be helpful in teaching writing skill based on this
book as well as being adapted to other books.

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5. Methodology
The study is a qualitative research with different methods of collecting information as
follows:
 Through the researcher’s class observation, the researcher is able to understand
students’ attitudes, interests in the designed tasks.
 Data is also collected by means of survey questionnaires given at the end of the
term. The questionnaires are of two kinds: scaling and multiple choices.
 Other sources of data include students’ diary writings after each lesson. Through
students’ diaries, the researcher can have specific information of each lesson and
task.
It is hoped that the finding results will be reliable and useful for teaching majored first-year
students at TDU in particular and applicable to teaching other students in general.
6. Organization of the thesis
The thesis is composed of three parts: introduction, the study and conclusion.
PART A introduces some basic knowledge of rationale, aims of the study, research
questions, scope of the study, methodology and the organization of the study.
PART B consists of four chapters:
 Chapter one provides the literature review of writing as a language skill and
authentic tasks.
 Chapter two presents the knowledge of methodology such as the setting of the
study (the university, students, the program, etc) and the methodology including
participants, instrumentation and data collection.
 Chapter three contains the analyses of the data collected through the three

instruments, namely class observation, questionnaire and diary writing
 Chapter four analyze the discussions, followed by implications
PART C summarizes the study, main findings, implications, commenting on the
limitations and suggesting several directions for future research

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PART B: THE STUDY
CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Writing
1.1. Definition of writing and writing skill
The act of writing is so familiar with everyone that even a child can know how to write just
when he is asked. However, to give the definition of writing in general and writing as a
skill in language learning and teaching is another issue which has attracted a lot of
researchers with different points of view.
Writing is defined by Byrne, D. (1988, p1), on one level, as the act of forming symbols:
making marks on a flat surface of some kind. However, he added, “writing is clearly much
more than the production of graphic symbols, just as speech is more than the production of
sounds. The symbols have to be arranged, according to certain conventions, to form words,
and words have to be arranged to form sentences”. According to this definition, any act
that results in the forming of words or sentences can be defined as writing. In addition to
this, Lannon (2003, p9) views writing as “process of transforming the material discovered
by research inspiration, accident, trial and error, or whatever into a message with a definite
meaning – writing is a process of deliberate decision”
In terms of writing skill, Huong, T.T.T et al (2006, p.185) cites a few researchers’ views on
it such as Tribble, Gudschinsky. Tribble (1996) views writing skill as “not just a graphic
representation of speech, but the development and presentation of thoughts in a structured
way”. Writing skill is also defined to be specific abilities which help writers put their
thoughts into words in a meaningful form and to mentally interact with the message
(Gudschinsky, 1973). Besides, as cited in
writing.html “Writing is intellectual and emotional exhibitionism. Regardless the form of a

work, it reveals thoughts and values of its creator”.
In general, writing in real life is the production of graphic symbols or letters into words,
sentences or a sequence of sentences to transfer messages or with deliberate purposes.
Writing skill is somewhat academic, which refers to the writer’s ability to put graphic
symbols into a meaningful form in a structured way to express the writer’s thoughts or to
interact with other people.

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1.2. Why do we teach writing?
Writing has been considered an integral part of FLT since it serves learners with a lot of
purposes.
First, it helps learners communicate with other people in the target language when the
other person is not right in front of them. Linh (2007, p52) shows the result in her M.A
thesis that 97 out of 98 participants agreed that “writing is to communicate”. Byrne, D.
(1988, p1) adds that “we are writing for a reader” since we have to “encode” or interpret
our thoughts into language for others to understand without any further help from us. From
the website ,
Lázaro, L. A. (p89) also affirms that writing was a channel through which students’
knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, idioms, structures and so on are consolidated to be
orally presented to readers. Besides, he emphasizes that writing should be seen as a goal of
learning a foreign language since it is needed to develop students’ communication skills
which will be useful for their future social, educational, personal, or professional lives.
Second, writing also helps to enhance students’ learning. Raims (1983, p3) proves this by
showing three benefits students can get from learning writing: reinforcing learners’
grammatical structures, idioms and vocabulary; providing learners with chances to be
adventurous or take risks with the language and helping learners express ideas in the new
language. Hampton (1989, p1) adds that writing fosters learners’ comprehensibility when
they can write so that it can be read and understood by themselves and others, their fluency
when they are able to write smoothly and easily as well as understandably and their
creativity when they can write their own ideas.

Third, writer’s critical thinking improves through writing practice. Harmer, J. (1998, p.79)
indicates three major reasons for teaching writing: its benefits for comprehending new
knowledge more easily, for language development and because of the fact that it is a basic
productive language skill. Risinger & Frederick (1987, p1-2) also says that writing requires
knowledge for content like facts, generalizations and some other skills. If learners have
mastered these skills, they will be able to write not only for themselves but for other
audiences as well

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Finally, through writing, students can form good characteristics. Risinger & Frederick
(1987, p1-2) claims that the ability to write “empowers students with a sense of efficacy
and achievement”, therefore, they will become more responsible. Hampton (1989, p1) adds
that students will also be independent when they try to write without much assistance.
In short, writing is essential in language teaching and learning since it help learners to
communicate, improve their critical thinking to express their thoughts, enhance their
learning with chances to explore the new language and form good characteristics such as
creativity, independence and so on.
1.3. Some theoretical approaches to teaching writing
How to teach writing effectively is difficult to answer and each teacher has a different
point of view with various teaching styles even in the same level. Therefore, each teacher
and researcher has his or her own way to classify approaches to writing. The following
approaches are amongst the most popular ones.
1.3.1. Product approach
As cited by Huong, T. T. et al (2006, p186-187), the approach is viewed as a largely
“prescriptive and product-centered” (Applebee, 1986) way of teaching writing. Also in the
book, the author cites several famous authors’ views on this approach such as Cheung,
Pennington and Steele. This approach pays much attention to the final outcome and
focuses on “one-shot correct writing for the purpose of language practice” (Cheung, 1999)
and a “one-shot effort by the teacher to evaluate the students’ attempts” (Pennington and
Cheung 1995: 20). Steele (2002) provides four steps as a model for this approach.

 Step 1: students study a model text and mimic its special features
 Step 2: students do controlled practice often in isolation
 Step 3: students organize ideas
 Step 4: students choose a task, then using their knowledge and skill to produce the
product to assess their English progress.



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1.3.2. Process approach
Process approach places more emphasis on the stages of the writing process than on the
final product (Huong et al, 2006, p.187). In the approach, attention is paid first to the
content and meaning and then to the form. The approach encourages students’
communication of feelings, ideas and experiences (Stanley, 2002 as cited by Huong et al,
2006, p.187). Writing is evaluated according to how well it fulfills the writer’s intentions
(Reid, 1993 as cited by Huong et al, 2006, p.187). Roger, G., Phillips, D. and Walters, S.
(1995, p115) point out a clear outline of activities for this approach
 Introduction: students are warmed up with different activities. Then, teacher and
students will discuss a text in terms of the text type, definite readers, etc.
 Working with ideas: students brainstorm and arrange their ideas logically.
 Planning: students plan their writing based on the text provided
 Drafting: students write the first draft freely with their ideas planned.
 Editing: students improve their first writing with teachers and peers’ comments
 Rewriting: students write the final writing paper based on the corrected one
In other words, in this approach, the concentration is not on specific topics or forms but on
the way or common steps in different writings.
1.3.3. Accuracy – oriented approach
In the “accuracy-oriented” approach introduced by Byrne, D. (1988, p21), mistakes are
shown up in students’ written work but not regarded as a major problem and teachers can
give some guidance with language and content with emphasis on step-by-step learning and

formal correctness. At first, students have to write under control. At the later stage, they
are given meaningful exercises with opportunities for self-expression. This approach is
called “controlled-to-free approach”.
1.3.4. Fluency – oriented approach
In the second approach suggested by Byrne, D. (1988, p22 ), students are encouraged to
write as much and quickly as possible to get students’ ideas written down on paper and
students have the feeling of actual writing, not merely doing exercises.

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1.3.5. Text-based approach
This is the third approach recommended by Byrne, D. (1988, p22-23), which focuses on
purposeful writing where paragraphs are considered as the basic unit of written expression,
in which students are mainly taught how to construct and organize paragraphs with a
variety of techniques. Feist also says that “ what you say about the topic largely depends
upon your purpose for writing” (1996, p.24 as cited by Linh, C. T., 2007, p.19). As a
result, writing is considered as a form of communication.
In brief, there are different approaches to teaching writing, in which teacher focuses on
accuracy and the process to be good at writing; the fluency or purposes of the writer to
have a good final outcome. The choice of the approach depends on each teacher and
students’ levels.
1.4. Principles of teaching writing
Teaching writing, like teaching any other subjects, has to follow several principles.
Nevertheless, the principles of teaching writing depend a lot on the approach followed by
each teacher. Therefore, there are different ways to set principles for teaching writing
Byrne, D. (1988, p23-29 ) puts forth three general principals for teaching writing.
 First, we need to take some approaches into consideration and have an “art” to
combine and modify the approaches to suit students’ needs, teaching them how to
write different kinds of texts.
 Second, teachers need to be aware of students’ difficulties in order to have the role
of guidance, providing adequate and relevant experience, techniques and strategies

of the written language in order to create a good learning atmosphere.
 Finally, teachers should also motivate their students, be supportive and sympathetic
to enhance their confidence, make writing tasks more realistic and natural and get
students to be aware of the written language functions as a system of
communication.
In ELT Methodology II course book by Huong, T. T. et al, three principles are given on
teaching writing.

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 Firstly, teachers should provide as many opportunities and varied types of writing
as possible for students to write.
 Secondly, teachers should make their feedback helpful and meaningful in order to
help them correct their mistakes.
 Thirdly, teachers should make the criteria to evaluate students’ writings clear.
(2006, p 190-191)
To sum up, in order to teach writing skill well, the teacher should know how to combine
different approaches to suit students’ needs and make writing lessons become natural,
realistic and meaningful. In class, teachers should also show their helpfulness and
sympathy to motivate students as well as help them with kind guidance so that their
students can get the best benefits from the lessons.
1.5. Suggested activities and tasks to teach writing
Many attempts by researchers have been made on how to teach writing well. Thanks to
these efforts, we now can apply their suggested activities beside our own methods to make
writing lessons useful for our students and satisfying to teachers.
Byrne, D. (1988, p31-142 ) suggests several activities and tasks in different stages.
 In the early stages, students’ writing is still under control, simple, communicative
and orally learned (Byrne, D. (1988, p7). Students can copy from the teacher to
learn something new, link sentences with connectors or transition words write
dialogues or reproduce a similar text with the help of cues. Activities can be
completing questionnaires, puzzles, dialogues, parallel writing, writing about

pictures, programs, writing to ask for information and so on.
 In the next stage, they can write about posing problems, clues for crosswords,
instructions for a game, role descriptions, jumbled stories, jigsaw writing, headlines
and graffiti, etc. After students have perfected their skill, they can be asked to do
some more difficult activities like note-taking and summarizing, writing words for
cartoons, writing book reports and so on.
 In the post-intermediate stages, some activities can be employed to teach, namely
comparison and contrast, free and creative writing. Several communicative

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activities are also suggested, for example, exchanging letters, sharing journals,
making a class magazine, giving directions, matching descriptions to pictures, etc.
All in all, teachers should design different activities in class to motivate and help learners
get the best benefits of their learning. The chosen activities depend on different stages,
their approach to writing as well as the form of writing they intend to teach their students.
2. Authentic tasks
2.1. Definition
Authentic tasks and materials have been widely used by teachers during the recent time. A
lot of researchers have given different definitions of the term.
From the website an authentic task is
defined as an assignment designed to assess students’ ability to “apply standard-driven
knowledge and skills to real-world challenges”. Tasks are authentic when students are
asked to construct their own responses rather than selects from ones presented, replicating
challenges faced in the real world.
Oura also differs authentic or target tasks from pedagogical ones . Authentic tasks are the
ones “the hundred and one things people do in everyday life, at work, at play, and in-
between.". As a result, these tasks enable learners to accomplish these activities
successfully in the real world using the target language while pedagogical tasks are
“classroom work that involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing or
interacting in the target language while their attention is focused on mobilizing their

grammatical knowledge in order to express meaning." (Nunan, 1999, p.25 cited by Oura
from website: p.72-74)
To summarize, authentic tasks are the tasks teachers use in their teaching so that their
students can be brought into the real world with the use of materials and production of
writings applicable in the real world.

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2.2. Characteristics
The website suggests several
characteristics of an authentic task as follows:
 First, students have to “construct” their answers from their old combined with new
knowledge or their creativity to do authentic tasks other than drills like multiple
choices, True-False and so on in traditional tasks.
 Second, students should know as soon as possible about the knowledge
expectations, criteria and standards in advance. Students should be set to high
criteria and standards in order to enlarge their knowledge and “as a vehicle” to
students’ learning
 Finally, students’ product is assessed based on how well they express their
knowledge of the subject or the real world and their performance or “their ability to
apply, analyze, synthesize or evaluate those concepts and skills”.
In short, authentic tasks give students more freedom to use their creativity and existing
knowledge of solve a real world problem.
2.3. Classification of authentic tasks
Authentic tasks can be understood as the tasks that bring students into the real world and
can be classified into three major types as in the website
toolbox/tasks.htm: constructed-response, performances and products items.
 Authentic tasks on constructed-response are the tasks designed in which students
construct an answer out of old and new knowledge. Some examples are brief
summaries, peer editing, journal response, reflections on literary journals,
homework, article , self-assessment, self and group evaluation, explaining your

solution.
 Authentic tasks on performances are those requiring students’ response to a prompt
assignment or series of prompts to construct a performance revealing their
understanding of certain concepts and skills and/or their ability to apply, analyze,
synthesize or evaluate those concepts and skills like conducting an experiment,
book talks, interviews, self-introduction and so on.

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 Authentic tasks on product are similar to a constructed-response item in that
students are required to construct new knowledge and not just select a response.
However, product assessments typically are more substantial in depth and length,
more broadly conceived, and allow more time between the presentation of the
prompt and the student response than constructed-response items. Examples
include essays, stories, or poems, advertisement, book reviews, designing an
advertisement or an experiment, real-world problem solutions; logical sequences,
letter writing: persuasive letters, complaint letter, advice letter; letter to Congress
and so on.
To sum up, authentic tasks are classified into different types based on the levels and the
requirements of students. The threefold classification is popular including narrow answers
(constructed response), tasks revealing their understanding and the ability to apply,
evaluate, synthesize certain concepts and skills (performances) and more broadly
conceived and substantial in depth and length (product).
2.4. Why should we use authentic tasks?
Authentic tasks have been mentioned a lot in language teaching, especially in teaching
writing. Why are they so important? Oura (2001, p68-69) cites a few benefits that have
been studied by famous researchers like Brinton, Gebhard, Melvin and Stout, Nunan and
other researchers as follows.
 First, learning will be practical to students’ needs and demands since authentic
materials and media can bring about the direct relationship between the language
classroom and the outside world (Brinton, 1991). Nunan (1999) adds that authentic

tasks enable students to “make the important connections between the classroom
world and the world beyond it”. Oura (2001, p70) concludes that using authentic
tasks in classroom will help students develop their real-world ability, especially
when they have to deal with real problems in the real world later
 Second, students can get access to valuable source of real knowledge (not only
from the text and teacher beside language input). Gebhard (1996) sees authentic
materials as a way to contextualize language learning, helping them focus more on
content and meaning rather than the language itself.

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 In addition, students have a chance to get access to various knowledge and make
use of different materials and multimedia to understand the real world. Authentic
tasks provide students with the opportunity to make use of non-linguistic clues
(layout, pictures, colors, symbols, the physical setting in which it occurs) to help
them discover the meaning more easily (Brosnan et al., 1984).
 Finally, lessons will be more interesting and necessary to students. Melvin and
Stout (1987) say that students are increasingly motivated and interested to learn.
Brosnan et al. (1984) mention that authentic language offers students the chance to
deal with a small amount of materials with complete and meaningful messages.
Lombardi (2007, p2) concludes that students prefer “learning by doing” – (she adds
that it is the most effective way to learn) to “by listening to just what teachers said”.
Besides, they are more motivated when they have a chance to solve real world
problems where they have responsibility and power.
In short, learners can get a lot of benefits through authentic tasks such as enhancing their
interest and motivation, exposing themselves to the valuable knowledge of the real world
with the help of modern multimedia and being able to use it in the real life later resulting in
more meaningful lessons in class.

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CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY

1. Setting of the study
1.1. The university and students
The study was conducted on first-year university students at Thanh Do University which is
a private and newly founded one. However, the facilities here are quite good. Classrooms
are well equipped with a 42-inch screen, a computer, a cassette. There is also a library full
of various books and computers connected to the Internet, which are available to students
at any office hours. Therefore, it is very convenient for any students who want to search
the information and self – study outside classes.
Students majoring in English had at least three years of English at their high school.
Therefore, they are considered to have been taught basic grammar and vocabulary as they
had passed the entrance exam into university designed to test mainly students’ knowledge
of grammar and vocabulary. However, this is a private university and has been run for only
seven years so it can only attract several good students. Most of them are assumed at pre-
intermediate level of English proficiency. In addition, at high school, they were controlled
by teachers on their study. As a result, students are not very good at self-study.
In short, students here are equipped with good facilities in their learning. The textbook is
the only teaching material use. The writing lessons are based on the topics from the reading
ones. Therefore, the teacher has to use other materials and adapt the textbook so that
students can get the best benefit from the program. Therefore, the teacher can apply
different methods so as to help them get the best results in study
1.2. The writing program for first-year English-majored students
1.2.1. The objectives of the program
After the first term of the first year, students have to master basic knowledge and skills
such as writing simple and complex sentences, making use of knowledge to construct
different types of sentences, etc.
In the second term, students are of low/ basic intermediate level including mastering
paragraph writing and getting to know forms of different writings such as letters, emails,
reports and so on.

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1.2.2. The schedule of the course
The course is designed for first-year students in their second term based on the textbook
“NorthStar - Reading and Writing”, basic/ low intermediate level by Natasha Haughnes,
Longman Press. It focuses on paragraph writing. In addition, students can get to know
several types of writing such as letters, reports, researches and advertisements. The course
book is designed to focus on reading and writing skill based on different topics. In general,
the topics include jobs, countryside and city life, counterfeit money, endangered animals,
network etiquette, organic produces, the environment, health and illnesses and endangered
cultures. After learning reading skill, students have some knowledge on the topic to write
paragraphs and other types of writing.
2. Methodology
2.1. Participants
In group DHTA K1, there were twenty first – year students with the ages ranging from 19
to 23 (three male and seventeen female ones). The lessons were designed and carried out
by the researcher who was also the teacher of the class. After each lesson, students also had
to write a diary. At the end of the term, students completed the questionnaires delivered by
the teacher.
2.2. Instrumentations
 Instrument 1: Class observation
When teaching in class, the teacher had to observe students’ attitudes, interests and
abilities to the knowledge and activities designed. Besides, the teacher had to decide
how much they had learned and whether they had got progress from each lesson and
the whole term. In order to observe well, a note-taking paper is designed with 7 criteria
to take records of students’ ability to do tasks, attentiveness, participation and so on.
 Instrument 2: Questionnaire
The questionnaires were designed with 8 questions to elicit from students the
information about the benefits, suitability and difficulties of using the designed
authentic tasks. The questions are of two kinds: scaling and multiple choices.

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 Instrument 3: Diary writing
Students were instructed to take notes of (writing freely) their thoughts, attitudes,
feelings and perceptions as well as difficulties on the tasks designed, group work and
the teacher’s performance in class following a format given by the teacher. Moreover,
the teacher also explained to them that their suggestions on activities on each topic
instead of the teacher’s would be highly appreciated. The teacher also added that their
information was valuable to improve the teacher’s methods in teaching only and the
teacher was the only one to read their diary. By doing so, students would feel secure
and enthusiastic to speak their mind.
2.3. Data collection
 Class observation
Each lesson consisted of two periods with a five-minute short break. After each period,
the teacher filled in the paper prepared for class observation with what she could
observe in class with the scale from 5 to 0. The elements in the paper for class
observation helped to have a view on students’ attitudes and interests in the lessons.
 Questionnaire
The questionnaires were delivered to university students of K1 group at the end of the
second term on the seventeenth of June, 2010 (together with the summary of all the
tasks applied during the term as in the appendices). There were twenty questionnaires
delivered but only seventeen were taken back.
 Diary writing
The teacher/ researcher explained how and what students had to write in their diaries
on the first day of the term on March, the eleventh. Students’ diaries and their general
assessment were collected at the end of the course on the seventeenth of June, 2010.
Only fifteen out of twenty students wrote their diaries. However, only ten wrote their
diaries about the ten lessons and five of them only wrote about some lessons and five
did not write diaries.

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CHAPTER THREE: DATA ANALYSES
All the data collected will be carefully analyzed in this part. After that, findings will be
reported and implications will be generated from the finding results.
1. Analysis of class observation results
Through the results from the papers noted after each lesson, most students had good
attitudes towards the tasks required, especially in the tasks that are close to their life or
need their critical thinking, for example, writing advertisements about their hometown to
attract tourists, writing a poem, writing a letter to persuade people to use organic produces.
However, there still remain several problems as follows:
In terms of students’ ability to do the tasks, for the topics that are familiar with students
such as jobs, country life and city life, endangered animals, environmentally – friendly
means of transportation, the results were satisfactory. In fact, (sometimes in Vietnamese
when they were not able to understand in English well) and their classmates’ consultancy
(when they did not want to ask the teacher). For students of low level, they were passive
and unconfident at first; however, after some lessons, they started to write without too
much help from the teacher and at the end of the term, they could write on their own.
With regard to students’ attentiveness, all the students were attentive when the teacher
gave instructions and when their classmates discussed to give their ideas for each topic.
They seemed to be more attentive in difficult topics like counterfeit money, endangered
cultures, and organic produces. However, in the topic of depression, most of the students
did not seem to be interested so they appeared to be tired of learning that lesson. Some
students even spoke to the teacher that this topic was too boring to write.
From the notes of students’ readiness and willingness to the task, about 85% were ready to
write immediately what the teacher asked them to and only 15% (3 students) were not
willing to write any topics. They seemed to be forced to learn or learning was not their
needs. It was noticeable that these students were the students of low level in the class. At
first, they often sat in the same desk and did not try to get progress in learning. However,
with teacher’s guide and encouragement, they were better and readier in the later lessons.
On the subject of students’ participation, about 35% students participated well in group
work or the whole class discussion in almost all the lessons. 25% participated in both

18
group work and whole class discussion of interesting topics like advertisements for their
hometown, endangered animals, poems and so on. However, the rest seemed not to
participate in discussion. Amongst these students, some of them participated well in whole
class discussion for interesting topics but appeared to be passive in group work. Several of
them did not have any ideas to discuss. They sometimes gave their ideas when the teacher
asked but it took time to get their responses. These were students of low level in the class.
The teacher tried to have different ways to divide group, for example, grouping active
students with active students, passive students with passive students, then students of low
level with those of high level and so on in order to motivate passive students to participate
in the lessons. However, they only got little progress or improvement.
Concerning students’ interestedness, almost the whole class were really interested in the
tasks designed for such topics as country life and city life, endangered animals, organic
produces, poems. For difficult topics like counterfeit money, endangered cultures, they
seemed to be discouraged because of their little knowledge on the topics. For the topics
like depression, most of the students were uninterested. The atmosphere was boring.
The last things noted in the papers of class observation were students’ difficulties. In
general, students had a lot of difficulties and the difficulties also depended on their levels.
For good students (about 35%), they only got difficulties of the information or knowledge
on difficult topics like counterfeit money, endangered cultures, etc or just some problems
with expressions in English. Normal students got difficulties with difficult topics. Besides,
they had problems with expressions in English. They sometimes also had problems with
the use of words, prepositions and so on. For students of low level (about 20%) got a lot of
problems. The problems include the information, knowledge on the topics, expressions in
English, sentence writing, use of words and so on. They seemed not to be confident to
show their products to the teacher and their classmates.
In brief, through teacher’s class observations, there were two biggest matters. First,
students’ attitudes, interest, participation and difficulties depended a lot on the topic of the
lesson. For that reason, designing and choosing a textbook to teach should be carefully

taken into account so that the topics in the book are interesting and suitable to students’
age, needs, preferences, etc. Teachers should also spend time designing tasks suitable to
their students. The other matter was students’ levels. Students of low level were not

19
confident enough to express their ideas and participate in discussion with their peers. As a
result, they seemed to be passive in almost all the lessons. Accordingly, the teacher also
should learn how to motivate, guide and facilitate students to help them to be confident and
active so as to get progress in learning writing skill.
2. Analysis of survey questionnaires
Question 1: What is your assessment of these tasks in general?

The first question in the survey aimed to find out students’ opinions about the usefulness of
the designed tasks that had been applied. Through their opinions, the teacher could know
whether the tasks were suitable and beneficial to students or not. According to the
information from the survey, all the students agreed that in general, the tasks applied were
really useful, which is a positive sign. To be more specific, 70.59 % said that the tasks
applied were useful and 29.41% emphasized that they were very useful. Therefore, it can
be concluded that the teacher had designed appropriate tasks for students. The results were
really surprising. Before the study, the researcher only hoped that the majority of the
students would find the tasks useful. However, to the researcher’s surprise, all agreed that
the tasks were useful to them. Moreover, it is more important that students recognized the
significance of writing tasks as well.

very
useful
useful
neutral
not very
useful

useless
very
useless
29.41%
70.59%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
70.00%
80.00%
Chart 1: The usefulness of the tasks