Improving Learners’ IELTS Writing Performance Through Modeling

Improving Learners’ IELTS Writing
Performance Through Modeling

Đoa
̀
n thi
̣
Hương

Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ
Luận văn Thạc sĩ ngành: Lý luận và phương pháp dạy học tiếng Anh
Mã số: 60 14 10
Người hướng dẫn: ThS. Lâm Thi
̣
Phu
́
c Hân
Năm bảo vệ: 2012

Abstract: A challenge for English teachers working on EAP or IELTS preparation
course is to find methods to teach writing in general and essay writing in particular
more efficiently and effectively. The purpose of this study is to investigate the
difficulties in learning IELTS writing, to explore the role of model texts (sample texts)
as a source of teaching tool, and learners and teachers’ opinions about the use of
model texts in a writing class. In order to achieve the aims, three data collection
instruments, namely survey questionnaire, tests, and interview, were employed with
the participants of thirty learners studying in a preparation course and four teachers at
London Foreign Language Centre. The results showed that the learners had to face
many difficulties in learning IELTS writing skills and model texts did bear a
significant impact on the writing improvement of the learners. In addition, all the
interviewees expressed their satisfactions with the use of model texts.

Keywords: Ngôn ngữ; Tiếng Anh; Kỹ năng viết; Phương pháp giảng dạy

Content
PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale for the study
During the last decades, there have been a number of English learners wishing to work
and study in English speaking countries. However, one of the prerequisites for their entrance
is that they have to sit for either the International English Language Testing System (IELTS)
or The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). As a result, many non-native learners
are trained to pass these kinds of tests. IELTS, which is widely recognized as a language
requirement for entering universities and working mainly in the United Kingdom, Australia,
USA and New Zealand, is administered by the British Council or IDP Education Australia in
Hanoi. The test aims at testing candidates’ four skills: listening, reading, speaking and
writing. As a matter of fact, those who want to get high score to be admitted to target
universities try to take part in some preparation courses before taking the test. Therefore, there

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are a great number of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) Centers in Hanoi who run IELTS
preparation courses to meet the demands.
Clearly, IELTS writing is one of the important skills for both teachers to teach
effectively and for learners to improve themselves. However, due to the complexities of
learning to write well in a second language (L2), there has been a vigorous debate on more
efficient and effective teaching methods and feedback among EAP teachers and L2 writing
researchers.
Being an IELTS teacher and also an IELTS learner, the author realizes that IELTS
writing requires not only learners’ proficiency in English but also their wide knowledge of the
language, culture and country as well. As a result, the learners often encounter a lot of
difficulties in writing. This fact has encouraged the author to investigate the difficulties faced
by Vietnamese learners in learning IELTS writing. Moreover, in recent years, several studies

on techniques for teaching IELTS writing which have been carried out have proven that the
use of model texts in a writing class as a teaching tool has positive effects on learners’ writing
performance. This inspired the author to do the research to further explore how this technique
affects learners’ writing skill and how teachers and learners assess this kind of technique.
2. Aims of the study
The purpose of the study is to investigate the difficulties encountered by the IELTS
learners in learning writing skill. It also aims at investigating how the learners improve their
writing performance as a result of being exposed to model texts and what the learners and the
teachers think about this teaching technique.
In order to achieve the above mentioned aims, the study will be conducted to answer three
research questions below:

1. What difficulties do learners face in learning IELTS writing?
2. How is the learners’ writing performance improved as the result of being exposed
to model texts?
3. What are the learners and teachers’ opinions about the use of model texts in
improving learners’ writing skill?
3. Significance of the study
This study analyzes and finds out the real difficulties that Vietnamese learners face
when learning IELT writing skill. By doing this, the author would like to help learners foresee
the problems and overcome them in order to improve their writing scores. More importantly,
the study is done to investigate the progress in IELTS writing the learners can make after

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attending the writing course using model texts as a teaching tool and how the learners and
teachers think about this technique. Therefore, teachers who have been teaching IELTS
writing in both the target place and in other educational settings can benefit from this study.
They will adopt appropriate teaching techniques to teaching this skill.
4. Scope of the study
The study focused on learning and teaching IELTS writing skill to Vietnamese

learners who were taking part in IELTS preparation courses. However, due to the small scale
of the study, only London Foreign Language Centre was chosen as the research setting. The
participants of the study, as a result, were 4 IELTS teachers and 30 learners who were able to
provide reliable and valid information for the study.
5. Method of the study
In order to achieve the aims of the study, the researcher applied both quantitative and
qualitative methods as follows:
As for data collection, the author used survey questionnaire, tests, and interviews.
Firstly, survey questionnaire was conducted to find out the difficulties in learning IELTS
writing and the techniques teachers used in the writing class. Secondly, tests (pre and post
tests) were designed for the learners to check how they improve their writing skill after the
course. Thirdly, semi-interviews were conducted among four teachers and fifteen learners
who were attending preparation courses in London Foreign Language Centre to investigate
what they think about the use of model texts in IELTS writing classes.
As for data analysis, the standard IELTS global codification system on a scale of 1 to
9 was employed for rating the participants’ performances on both tests. Then, the data from
questionnaire and tests were collected to carefully and thoroughly analyze in order to provide
the answers to research questions. In addition, the interviews were recorded, then transcribed
and analyzed so as to answer question 3
6. Organization of the study
The study is divided into three parts. The first part is the introduction dealing with the
rationale, aims, scope, significance, methods and organization of the study.
The second part is the main part of the paper with three chapters.
Chapter 1: provides the background for the study, including a review on key concepts relating
to the research topic. This chapter also briefly discusses the literature in the field to reveal the
research gap that needs to be filled.
Chapter 2: present the research methods adopted in the study. Justifications of the chosen
research instruments as well as their implementation are also provided.

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Chapter 3: reveals the results of the study and the discussions of the results.
The last part is the conclusion that summarizes the major findings of the study. This
chapter also gives recommendations to both learners and teachers in order to improve the
learning and teaching IELTS writing skills. Besides, some limitation of the study and
suggestions for further studies are put forward. Following this part are the Appendices and
References.

















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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter provides the theoretical background to the study, including the key
concepts and related research in this field to disclose the research gap. It also provides the
current situation of teaching and learning IELTS in Vietnam in general and at the investigated

centre in particular.
1.1 The nature and theory of writing
1.1.1 The nature of writing
1.1.2 Types of writing
1.1.3 Approaches to the teaching of writing
1.2 IELTS Test
1.2.1 General information of IELTS
1.2.2 IELTS writing test
1.3 Model texts
1.4 Situation of teaching and learning IELTS in Viet Nam and in London Foreign
Language centre
1.5 Previous studies
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
This chapter enhances the main points regarding the methodology applied in the study,
namely the participants, research instruments as well as data collection procedure.
2.1 Participants
The participants in this study were 30 Vietnamese learners aged from 16 to 22. They were
taking a preparation course in London foreign language centre. Their scores raged from 4 to 5
(this is in accordance with the definition of intermediate in IELTS writing module). All of
them had been studying English for at least seven years and had been taught some other types
of writing in English such as writing letters, writing a description of a place or a person. They
had acquired not only the basic knowledge of writing but also a certain amount of experience
in composing different English text types.
The subjects were divided into two groups of the treatment: group A (15 students with no
model essay exposure), group B (15 students with model essay exposure).
In addition, four IELTS teachers were also chosen in this study. They all graduated from
Vietnam National University- College of Foreign Language. They have been teaching IELTS

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for 4 years. Two teachers taught the learners in this writing course. The others were teaching

for other courses in London Foreign Language Centre.


2.2 Instruments
The study aims to investigate the role of model essays in improving Vietnamese
intermediate learners’ writing ability with a particular focus on the problem they have to face
in IELTS writing. In addition, it also aims to investigate how the learners can improve their
writing performance due to exposure to model essays as well as their attitude towards the use
of model essays as a teaching tool.
In order to maximize the aims, this study used a variety of research instruments and
sources of data such as questionnaires, tests and interviews.
2.2.1 Questionnaire
The aim of the learner questionnaire (see Appendix 3) was to obtain general
information about the learners, their views on learning IELTS writing, the challenges in
learning IELTS writing skills and the techniques their teachers often used in writing lessons.
The questionnaires were distributed to all the participants and it took about 15 minutes to
answer the questionnaire.
2.2.2 Tests
The writing tests given to each participants were exercise versions of IELTS writing
tests (academic module) randomly selected from Barron’s IELTS edited by Lin Lougheed
(2006) (see appendix 1 and 2). The writing test includes two writing tasks: descriptive and
argumentative essays. There is a minimum requirement word length (at least 150 words for
task 1, and 250 words for task 2).
The tests were then marked using the standard IELTS global codification system on a
scale of 1-9 with the focus on task response/ task achievement, cohesion and coherence,
lexical resource, and grammatical range and accuracy. (See Appendix 9 and 10)
2.2.3 Interview
The interview conducted with 15 students in group B was used following the posttest. The
aim of the interview is to clarify the researcher’s understanding of the students’ reactions and
feelings towards the teaching technique and the writing task. The interviews were conducted

in the students’ mother tongue (Vietnamese) and later translated into English. The interview
was based on only one question:

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Do you think that model texts are helpful for you to improve your IELTS writing skills?
Why? Why not?
An interview was also conducted with the two teachers who are teaching IELTS writing
for this course and two other teachers at London foreign language centre. The aim of the
interview is to seek information about the teachers’ opinions about the use of model texts as a
teaching tool in this course.
The questions for the teachers are:
Do you believe that the use of model texts is helpful in improving the students’ writing skills?
Why? Why not?
What suggestion do you have for the use of model texts as an effective teaching tool?
2.3 Data collection procedure
The data collection procedure consists of four stages.
Stage 1: The researcher carefully designed the questionnaire for the students who
were involved in the study. Then all of them had to do the pretest which was administrated for
both control and experimental groups before the treatment.
Stage 2: This stage took place at the target department. While group A received the
routine writing instruction of the IELTS program during the course, those in group B were
given 20 model essays written by native and native-like writers apart from the routine writing
training of group A. These model essays were taken from 3 books, namely Barron’s IELTS, a
book for IELTS, and IELTS on tracks. As the teacher was working on model essays, she
explained different academic writing aspects such as organization of the essay, cohesive
devices, domain words, relevant supporting ideas, topic related opinions, structural points, etc
provided by the writers in the essays.
Stage 3: At the end of the term, the writing posttest was administered among all 30
learners of the two groups followed by interviews with all the learners in group B and the
teachers.

Stage 4: The last stage was for synthesizing and classifying the data collected from
the questionnaire, pretest and posttest, interviews and class observations
2.4 Data analysis procedure
The data collected from the questionnaire were analyzed and summarized so as to
provide more information for the study.
For the pretest and posttest, the official assessment criteria for IELTS writing tasks
were used to analyze the data. The frequency count of different types of errors in the pretest
and posttest were used to answer the second question of the study.

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The researcher also transcribed the interview in details to analyze and answer the third
question
In a word, the chapter has justified the methodology applied in the present study by
clarifying four aspects, namely participants, instruments, data collection as well as data
analysis procedure. The next chapter analyses the various kinds of data collected and
interpretations are made with an attempt to answer the research questions.


CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter presents and discusses the findings that arise from three types of data
collected: questionnaire, tests and interviews. The outline of the chapter is as follows:
 Report on learner- questionnaire data
 Report on the results of pretest and posttest
 Report on learners’ interviews and teachers’ interviews
 Interpretation and discussion of the findings with reference to the research
questions
3.1 Report of the results
3.2 Discussion of the results
Restating research questions:

1. What difficulties do learners face in learning IELTS writing?
2. How is the learners’ writing performance improved as the result of exposure to model
texts?
3. What are the learners and teachers’ opinions about the use of model texts in improving
learners’ writing skill?
3.2.1 Research question 1
As regards difficulties the learners faced in IELTS writing, the majority of them found
writing difficult. There seemed to be many reasons for this problem.
Undoubtedly, errors in sentence structures and language use were the main factors
causing problems in writing. Most of the learners used inaccurate grammar and inappropriate
vocabulary. In other words, not only did the learners use very limited range of structures with
only rare use of subordinate clauses, but they also used only basic vocabulary which may be
used repetitively or which may be inappropriate for the tasks.

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In addition, unfamiliar topics, interpretation of diagrams and data given also caused
difficulties for the learners to write. They had to write about the topics which were rather
strange or unfamiliar to them. Besides, they sometimes did not understand the data presented
in the tasks, especially task 1. As a result, they suffered from lack of ideas, and they did not
know how and what to write in writing tests. This may lead to the fact that they address the
task partially and present few ideas which may be repetitive, irrelevant, and not well -
supported.
There seemed to be another reason which was related to the learners’ feelings. Most
of the learners often felt nervous and confused when writing, which made writing tasks more
challenging. In other words, with such feelings the learners may find it difficult to generate or
find relevant ideas to write.

3.2.2 Research question 2
As regards the improvement the learners made as a result of exposure to modeling
teaching technique, the findings revealed that this kind of technique had positive effects on

the learners’ writing performance, especially on the grammar and accuracy. This result,
surprisingly, coincided with that of Farnaz Sahebkheir (2011). He indicated that modeling of
native speaker writing significantly affected the accuracy and complexity of EFL learners’
writing.
More noticeably, although errors of grammatical range and accuracy were made most
frequently, the learners made the great improvement of this kind (from 182 errors in the
pretest to 60 errors in the posttest). However, unlike this finding, Abe (2008), Farnaz
Sahebkheir (2011), and Mohammad Zare (2009) in their studies found that the learners
improved lexis much more than other categories.
3.2.3 Research question 3
Regarding the learners and teachers’ opinions about the use of model texts in writing
class, the majority of them supported this idea.
Firstly, for the learners, although some were not in favor of using model texts, most of
them believed that being exposed to model essays made them write better. It helped them
improve all aspects of writing (Lexical resources, coherence and cohesion, grammar and
accuracy, task achievement/ response). This finding is strongly supported by Abe Makoto
(2008) and Mohammad Zare (2009). In Abe Makoto’s study, the findings indicate that model
essays led the L2 learners to notice various aspects of language and of course the learner
definitely improved their writing skill. Similarly, Mohammad Zare figured out that all the

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learners and teachers in his study agreed that model essays played a positive role in improving
the students’ writing proficiency.
Secondly, for the teachers, the majority of them thought that using model texts as a
teaching tool was really a great idea. In addition, when using model texts in writing classes,
the teachers tend to be more flexible, and creative in designing suitable tasks and activities to
the learners, which plays an important role in improving the learners’ writing skill. This
finding is well supported by Abe (2008) who concluded that teachers can take advantage of
model essays in order to design suitable writing tasks for their learners.
In short, although there were a lot of difficulties the IELTS learners had to cope with,

they should try their best to find out the solution by themselves such as reading model essays,
writing an essay every day, or trying to do all the IELTS practice books . In addition, the
technique the teacher used in a writing class had a great influence on the learners’ writing
performance. What is more, the learners seemed to improve their writing skill a lot when they
were taught how to write through modeling. In other words, using models can be considered
very useful for both teachers and learners in teaching and learning IELTS writing skills.




















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CONCLUSION
This final part provides a brief summary of the study. All the major findings,
pedagogical implications and recommendations, the limitation as well as suggestions for
further studies will be concisely presented.
1. The major findings of the research
On the whole, the present study aims at answering three questions raised from the real
situation of learning IELTS writing at London foreign language centre. Through the critical
data analyses and discussions of the findings, the results could be summarized as follows.
In the case of this study, the learners were supposed to have certain difficulties in
learning IELTS writing skill. To find out the real problem, a survey questionnaire was
designed to thirty learners and the result showed that the learners had to face a great number
of difficulties in learning writing in terms of vocabulary, topic, ideas, background knowledge,
sentence structures, language use and data interpretation. Noticeably, errors in sentence
structures and language use were the main factors cause writing difficult. However,
unfamiliar topic and data interpretation were also problematic for the learners.
Concerning the improvement the learners made as the result of being exposed to
modeling technique, the pretest and posttest were designed to all the learners of both group A
and B to make a comparison. The result indicated that the learners in group B improved much
more than those in group A. More importantly, the experimental learners made much more
progress in grammar and accuracy than other aspects of writing.
Regarding the learners and teachers’ opinions about the use of model texts in writing
class, the interviews were conducted in the target place. The majority of them agreed that
modeling was a powerful and useful teaching technique. Besides, the result also suggested

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that how the learners’ writing performance improved depends much on how flexible and
creative the teachers are to exploit the models.
All in all, the significant findings of the study fully addressed three research questions,
which helped to fill the research gap to a certain extent.
2. Pedagogical Implications and Recommendations
In accordance with these findings, this section gives pedagogical implications and
recommendations for the teachers and the learners teaching and learning writing in general
and IELTS writing in particular.

2.1 To the learners
It is believed that IELTS writing skill is difficult, so the learners have to face many
problems such as errors in sentence structures, language use, unfamiliar topics, lack of
vocabulary and ideas, and so on. The question here is how they should write. Undeniably,
being an effective and efficient writer means more than writing accurately (with correct
grammar and spelling) and knowing a lot of vocabulary. Both of these things are important,
but they do not automatically give the learners a good mark in the IELTS writing module.
Therefore, to become an effective and efficient writer, they should:
Plan the writing
Focus on the reader
Check the writing
2.2 To the teachers
It is clear that teachers should select appropriate model texts to teach their students.
First of all, the model texts must be suitable to the lesson’s objectives. As mentioned (C.f.1.3),
model texts are used as a useful teaching tool to help the teacher achieve particular objectives.
For example, if the teacher would like to teach the learners how to write the topic sentence,
the models should have good topic sentences. Secondly, the models must be suitable to
learners’ level. If the teacher uses an essay which contains too many new words or complex
expressions, the learners will find difficult to understand the sample. This may make them
demotivated. According to Kees Dave (2009), “what students need is the language that is at

their target level or very slightly above.”
More importantly, as revealed in the findings, the teachers’ flexibility and creativity
play a crucial role in improving learners’ writing performance. Therefore, it is teachers’ duty
to design useful tasks and activities to the learners. Models are only the raw materials, thus
the teachers should know how to exploit them effectively at the right time.

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In short, the suggestions offered above focus much more on the writing strategies and
the teaching technique. Undoubtedly, modeling is one of the most powerful teaching
techniques and models are resourceful for teachers to exploit. Due to the limited space, the
study, however, will not explore other teaching techniques to teach IELTS writing.
3. Limitation and suggestions for further study
Like any other research papers, certain limitations in this study are unavoidable.
Firstly, the results merely focus on the survey questionnaires, the tests and the interviews to
thirty learners from London Foreign Language Centre. Therefore, the results may not be true
to all other Vietnamese learners. Secondly, because of the researcher’s experience and
professional knowledge in teaching IELTS is limited, the recommendations for learning and
teaching IELTS writing are, to some extents, subjective and unconvincing enough. Lastly, the
study only investigated the problems of learning IELTS writing skill and how learners’
writing performance is improved through modeling, not through other techniques. Therefore,
further researches on other techniques may have great significance to this study. The author
hopes that those limitations need to be taken into consideration when further studies are
conducted in the future.
In conclusion, within the frame work of this thesis and because of the limited time and
knowledge, there would be some unavoidable insufficiency. Therefore, any comments and
remarks from readers are highly appreciated. However, the author believes that this paper, to
some extents, is reliable resource of reference for EFL teachers in general and IELTS teachers
in particular.

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