Application of genre based approach in teaching writing to 10th form students action research at sơn dương high school, tuyen quang province

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

NGUYỄN THỊ VÂN ANH
APPLICATION OF GENRE-BASED APPROACH IN TEACHING WRITING
TO 10

TH

FORM STUDENTS: ACTION RESEARCH AT SƠN DƢƠNG HIGH
SCHOOL, TUYÊN QUANG PROVINCE

Nghiên cứu hành động về áp dụng phƣơng pháp dạy viết dựa
vào thể loại cho học sinh lớp 10, trƣờng THPT Sơn Dƣơng,
Tỉnh Tuyên Quang

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60140111

Hanoi, 2014


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

NGUYỄN THỊ VÂN ANH
APPLICATION OF GENRE-BASED APPROACH IN TEACHING WRITING

TO 10TH FORM STUDENTS: ACTION RESEARCH AT SƠN DƢƠNG HIGH
SCHOOL, TUYÊN QUANG PROVINCE

Nghiên cứu hành động về áp dụng phƣơng pháp dạy viết dựa
vào thể loại cho học sinh lớp 10, trƣờng THPT Sơn Dƣơng,
Tỉnh Tuyên Quang

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS
FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60140111
SUPERVISOR: Assoc. Prof., Dr. LÊ HÙNG TIẾN

Hanoi, 2014


DECLARATION
I certify that this thesis entitled: “Application of genre-based approach in teaching
writing to 10

th

form students: action research at Sơn Dương High School”, which is

submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, is the
result of my own work. I have provided fully documented references to the work of others.
The material in this thesis has not been submitted for any other formal course of study.
Signature

Nguyễn Thị Vân Anh

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc.
Prof., Dr. Le Hung Tien for his crucial advice, critical comments, invaluable suggestion
and also his devoted lessons.
I would also like to express my sincere thanks to all the lecturers of the Post
Graduate Faculty of University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National
University, Hanoi for their scholarly knowledge and amazing lectures that have helped to
increase my interest for English Methodology and my teaching job.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the library staff for being so helpful
and supportive.
Especially, I wish to express my appreciation to my students of Group 10A1 at Sơn
Dương High School, who have been really helpful and cooperative in the implementation
of the study.
Finally, I would like to thank my family and my friends for their emotional support,
without which doing the thesis would have been a much more difficult experience for me.

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ABSTRACT
th

When teaching writing skill to 10 form students at Sơn Dương High School, the
author of this research found that most of the students did not seem interested in writing
lessons and their writing performance was unacceptable. In an attempt to solve the
problems of students‟ poor writing performance, a hypothetical solution –the use of genrebased approach to teaching writing – was tested in this study through a small-scale action
research project.

This research focuses on improving students‟ writing skill by applying genre-based
th

approach to teach writing to the 10 form students at Sơn Dương High School. In order to
achieve the aim, Action Research was employed to measure the influence of genre-based
approach on the students‟ writing performance. The action research was conducted with
five main steps: Problem identification, Preliminary investigation, Hypothesis, Intervention
and Evaluation. The data was collected via a number of instruments including a
preliminary questionnaire, a post questionnaire, a pre-test and a post-test. After a
preliminary investigation had been carried out, writing course applied genre-based
approach was designed, and then implemented in the second semester of the school year
2013 - 2014 with the participation of 38 students from Group 10A1 at Sơn Dương High
School.
The findings from the tests and the questionnaires revealed that students did make
progress in their writing, and students‟ opinions were positive about the treatment.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...................................................................................................ii
ABSTRACT.............................................................................................................................iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS.......................................................................................................iv
LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES AND CHARTS..................................................................vi
PART A: INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................1
1. Rationale for the study...............................................................................................1
2. Aims and objectives of the study...............................................................................2
3. Research questions.....................................................................................................2
4. Scope of the study......................................................................................................2
5. Methods of the study..................................................................................................2

6. Design of the thesis....................................................................................................2
PART B......................................................................................................................................4
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW.........................................................................4
1.1. Overview of writing................................................................................................4
1.1.1. What is writing?...............................................................................................4
1.1.2. Approaches to teaching writing.......................................................................4
1.1.2.1. The product approach............................................................................... 5
1.1.2.2. The process approach................................................................................6
1.2. Why choose a genre-based approach?....................................................................7
1.2.1. Definition of a genre........................................................................................7
1.2.2. Genre-based approach:................................................................................... 8
1. 3. Related studies.....................................................................................................11
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY..................................................................................12
2.1. Rationale of the using action research.................................................................. 12
2.2. Research setting....................................................................................................14
2.2.1. Overview........................................................................................................14
2.2.2. Writing tasks in the textbook Tieng Anh 10....................................................14
2.2.3 Selection of participants................................................................................. 14
2.3. Data collection instruments...................................................................................15
2.4. Data analysis procedure........................................................................................ 16

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CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION............................................................17
3.1. Problem identification...........................................................................................17
3.2. Preliminary investigation......................................................................................17
3.2.1. Analysis of students’ preliminary questionnaire............................................ 17
3.2.1.1. Students‟ attitudes towards writing skill................................................ 17
3.2.1.2. Students‟ self assessment of their writing competence.......................... 19

3.2.1.3. The difficulties students had encountered...............................................20
3.2.2. The results of the students’ pre-tests.............................................................. 21
3.3. Hypothesis.............................................................................................................21
3.4. Intervention...........................................................................................................21
3.5. Evaluation............................................................................................................. 23
3.5.1. The results of the students’ post-test.............................................................. 23
3.5.1.1. The performance of students in the content of the writing test...............24
3.5.1.2. The performance of students in the organization of the writing test......25
3.5.1.3. The performance of students in using the vocabulary............................ 26
3.5.1.4. The performance of students in using the language................................26
3.5.1.5. The performance of students in using the mechanics............................. 27
3.5.2. The results of the questionnaire for students after taking part in action
research....................................................................................................................27
3.5.2.1. The students‟ self-assessment of the genre-based approach...................... 28
3.5.2.2. The changes the students had after participated in action research............29
PART C: CONCLUSION.................................................................................................31
1. Summary of the findings..........................................................................................31
2. Concluding remarks.................................................................................................32
3. Limitations of the study...........................................................................................32
REFERENCES.......................................................................................................................34
APPENDICES..........................................................................................................................I

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LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES AND CHARTS
Figures
Figure 1: Martin‟s models of genre.......................................................................................8
Figure 2: Steps in the action research cycle.........................................................................13
Figure 3: Steps in the action research cycle in the current research.................................... 13

Tables
Table 1: Students‟ difficulties in learning writing skill.......................................................20
Table 2: The overall results of students‟ writing tests.........................................................21
Table 3: The overall results of students‟ post- tests.............................................................23
Table 4: The students‟ attitude towards post-improvement lessons....................................28
Table 5: The students‟ self-assessment of their writing performance................................. 28
Charts
Chart 1: Students‟ attitudes towards writing skill............................................................... 18
Chart 2: Students‟ self assessment of their writing competence......................................... 19
Chart 3: Comparison of the results from pre-test and post-test...........................................24
Chart 4: Students‟ performance in the content....................................................................25
Chart 5: Students‟ performance in the organization of the writing tests.............................25
Chart 6: Students‟ performance in using the vocabulary.................................................... 26
Chart 7: Students‟ performance in using the language........................................................27
Chart 8: Students‟ performance in using the mechanics..................................................... 27
Chart 9: Students‟ responses on changes they had from new approach..............................29

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PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale for the study
Nowadays, English has played a remarkable role in the fields of economics,
politics, science, culture and education. In Vietnam, it is regarded as one of the most
important subjects at all levels of education. Especially, since Decision 1400/QĐ-TTg
dated 30 September, 2008 of the Prime Minister on the Approval of the Project entitled “
Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in the National Education System, period 20082020” (National Foreign languages 2020 project) was implemented, English has become
one of the most important subjects in general education curriculum.
The teaching and learning of English in our country has changed from the grammar
translation method (GTM) to the communicative language teaching (CLT). As a result, our

English textbook series were compiled under the impact of the communicative approach
which focuses on four skills: reading, speaking, listening and writing. Compared to the
other three skills, writing is considered to be challenging skill to master. Students find it
too difficult to write well while teachers feel frustrated.
At Sơn Dương High School, the dominant approach to teach writing is process
approach which focuses only on process of writing. As the teacher of English at Sơn
Dương High School, when teaching her students in writing lessons, the author of this study
realized that her students did not seem to be interested in learning writing and had some
difficulties to learn writing better.
It appears to her that she needs to make some changes. And the question was raised
that “How can teacher help students to make an improvement in learning writing?”
Through reading the literature, the writer of this study was impressed with the idea of
teaching writing through a genre-based approach. However, through finding and reading
the materials related to topic the writer realized that this approach to writing was little
researched in Vietnamese high schools. So, she decided to experiment this approach to her
teaching writing to her own students in her school. The aim of this action research is to
examine whether a genre-based approach to writing is helpful to her students or not.

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2. Aims and objectives of the study
This study is designed with an aim to improve students‟ writing performance of
English by applying genre-based approach to teach writing skill to students.
In order to achieve this aim, the following objective was set out for the study:
- To examine how genre-based approach to teaching writing affected students‟

writing performance.
3. Research questions
In order to achieve the aim and objective the study was designed to find out the

answer to the following question:
How does the genre-based approach affect the 10

th

form students’ writing

performance?
4. Scope of the study
Because of the limitation of a minor study, the research is only conducted at Sơn
Dương High School in order to recognize the problems in learning writing skills of the 10

th

form students with the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10”. The study mainly focuses on applying
genre-based approach to teaching writing in helping students work well in writing lessons.
5. Methods of the study
Given that this study was implemented in the hope of improving the students‟
English writing skill, the researcher decided to adopt action research because this type of
research is aimed at improving a situation. After a preliminary investigation had been
carried out, a writing instruction course was designed, and then implemented in the second
semester of the school year 2013-2014 with the participation of 38 students from Group
10A1 at Sơn Dương High School. The data was then collected through survey
questionnaires. Questionnaire responses were analyzed by means of descriptive statistics.
In addition to the questionnaires, students‟ writing were collected through pre-test and
post-test and analyzed to measure the students‟ progress in their writing performance.

2

6. Design of the thesis
The study consists of three main parts as follows.


The first part, Introduction, deals with rationale, aims and objectives of the

study, research questions, scope, methods and design of the study.


The second part, Development, contains three chapters, in which chapter 1

deals with some theoretical background that is relevant to the purpose of the study, chapter
2 presents a detailed description of the research methodology, and chapter 3 discusses the
findings of the study. This chapter is by far the most dominant one.


The final part, Conclusion, recapitulates all the main points discussed

throughout the thesis, and suggests further research orientations.

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PART B
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter gives an overview of relevant literature and studies that deal with
approaches in teaching writing skill. It includes three main sections. The first section
describes an overview of the writing with its definitions and some dominant approaches.
The second section discusses why genre based approach is chosen to apply to improve
students‟ writing performance. The last section is to list some related studies in the world

and in Vietnam.
1.1. Overview of writing
1.1.1. What is writing?
As it was mentioned in Part A, writing is a significant and essential area of
development in a native language and in a second language; therefore, there have been
numerous definitions of writing given by different researchers and linguists.
Writing is defined as a social process by Candlin and Hyland (1999). They stated
“Writing is therefore an engagement in a social process, where the production of texts
reflects methodologies, arguments and rhetorical strategies constructed to engage
colleagues and persuade them of the claims that are made” (Candlin and Hyland, 1999:
107).
Writing, in language teacher' opinions, is "a language skill which is difficult to
acquire" (Tribble, 1996:3). It is "a process that occurs over a period of time, particularly if
we take into account the sometimes extended periods of thinking that precede creating an
initial draft" (Harris, 1993:10).
According to Byrne (1988), writing is the act of forming graphic symbols (letters or
combination of letter) which were arranged to form sentences, and a sequence of sentences
arranged in a particular order and linked together in a certain way on flat surface of some
kind was produced.
After considering some different views of writing, let‟s see some approaches to
teach writing which have been introduced and applied to facilitate the writing lessons.
1.1.2. Approaches to teaching writing
As mentioned above, among the four communicative skills writing is considered to
be challenging students expected to master. Writing is complex and multifaceted in nature.
Therefore, helping students to write better is also a challenge to the teacher. Over the last

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few decades, there have been numerous pedagogies developed to improve students‟

writing proficiency. Although there are a great number of such approaches, with the
limitation of the minor thesis, only three approaches which are considered prominent in
teaching writing are chosen to discuss. They include the product approach, the process
approach and the genre-based approach. Needless to say, each approach has its own merits
and backwards and is suitable for a particular context of learning and teaching EFL.
1.1.2.1. The product approach
In traditional pedagogy, for a long time, the product approach which focuses on the
form and content of the finished writing product had dominated much of the teaching that
happened in the English classroom. The writing teachers who subscribe to the product
approach are more concerned to evaluate learning through text analysis of students‟ final
piece of writing according to some criteria such as the standard of rhetorical style, accurate
grammar, and conventional organization (Brown 1994: 320). In his work, Clark (2003: p4)
described how the approach realized in a writing class: “Learning to write in those days
meant being able to figure out what the teacher wanted in order to create an acceptable
product, and apparently few teaches thought that helping students acquire a workable
writing process was part of their job. Whatever process students used, they had to manage
on their own.”
As far as the product approach is concerned, learning to write has four stages:
familiarization, controlled writing, guided writing and free writing.
Due to its primary focus on the finished products, the product approach was
attacked by many criticisms. Trible (1996: 37) wrote, “in that context [using product
approach], one of the trash’s main role will be instill notions of correctness and
conformity”. This product approach is claimed to be totally teacher-centered and productfocused. The weaknesses of product approaches are that process skills, such as planning a
text, are given a relatively small role, and that the knowledge and skills that learners bring
to the classroom are undervalued. However, strengths of this approach can not be denied,
for this approach, the need for learners to be given linguistic knowledge about texts is
recognized.
In short, product-based approach sees writing as mainly concerned with knowledge
about the structure of language, and writing development as mainly the result of the
imitation of input, in the form of texts provided by teacher.

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1.1.2.2. The process approach
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During the seventies of the 20 century, while the product approach received a lot
of critics, teachers are more concerned about the process approach. Unlike the product
approach, the process approach focuses on thinking and writing processes. It is argued by
Nunan (1991: 87) that while the product-oriented approach aims at developing the leamer's
writing skill mainly at sentence-level, the process-oriented approach aims at language at
discourse-level.
Writing in process approach is seen as predominantly to do with linguistic skills,
such as planning and drafting, and there is much less emphasis on linguistic knowledge,
such as knowledge about grammar and text structure.
There are different views on the stages that writers go through in producing a piece
of writing, but a typical model identifies four stages: prewriting, composing/drafting,
revising, and editing. The pre-writing activity would involve introducing techniques that
help the students discover and engage a topic. Instead of turning in a finished product right
away, students are asked for multiple drafts of work. After discussion and feed-back from
readers, the learners would revise the drafts. Rewriting and revision are integral to writing,
and editing is an on-going multiple-level process. In such writing classroom, the central
elements are the writer, the content and the purpose, and multiple drafts. The role of the
teacher in a process-approach classroom is an education facilitator. Writing is essentially
learned, not taught. Providing input or stimulus for learners is perceived as unimportant,
since the teacher‟s task is only to facilitate the exercise of writing skills and draw out the
learners‟ potential.
Since its foundation, the process approach has been widely accepted because it
shifted the focus on the writing process of writers. In comparison with the product

approach, the process approach has undoubtedly made great improvements on practical
teaching and provided much thought for English teachers. However, in the process of
implementing, there has been backwards revealed. The approach has a somewhat
monolithic view of writing as Badger and White (2000) stated. “The disadvantages of
process approaches are that they often regard all writing as being produced by the same
set of processes; that they give insufficient importance to the kind of texts writers produce
and why such texts are produced; and that they offer learners insufficient input,
particularly in terms of linguistic knowledge, to write successfully.”. Atkinson (2003)

6


gives his comments: “The process approach seems to narrowly focus on the skills and
processes of writing in the classroom itself and as a result fails to take into account the
social and cultural aspects that have an impact on different kinds of writing”.
In summary, it can be said that the process approach sees writing primarily as the
exercise of linguistic skills, and writing development as an unconscious process which
happens when teachers facilitate the exercises of writing skills.
To sum up, with brief review of some definitions of writing and two approaches
commonly applied in teaching writing over the last few decays as product and process,
both advantages and drawbacks are defined and looked into. The next section, the genrebased approach and its application on the teaching of writing to high school students will
be largely focused.
1.2. Why choose a genre-based approach?
As discussed in section 1, in the 1970s and the most of the 1980s, experts and
teacher were primarily interested in the process approach. In the later 1980s and the 1990s,
however, theoretical interest in writing instruction seemed to shift to a genre based
approach. This section will explore the genre based approach in more detailed, and
consider how this approach has influenced writing instruction.
1.2.1. Definition of a genre.
Martin (1993: 13) defines genres as staged goal oriented social processes through

which social subjects in a given culture live their life. Callaghan and Rothery (1988: 25)
explain three elements in the definition in detail: “Genres are defined as social processes
because members of a given culture have learned to use them in an interactive social
setting. They are goal oriented because they have evolved to allow people in the culture to
achieve their goals; to get things done. They are staged and have a distinctive beginning,
middle and end structure which is the means for people achieving their goals.
Swale (1990: 58) defines a genre as “a class of communicative events, the member
of which share some sets of communicative purposes. These purposes are recognized by
the expert members of the parent discourse community, and thereby constitute the rationale
for the genre. This rationale shapes the schematic structure of the discourse and influences
and constrains choice of content and style.”

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Genres are also influenced by other features of the situation, such as the subject
matter, the relationships between the writer and the audience, and the pattern of
organization. Martin (1993: 120) offers a diagrammatic explanation of genre.
Purpose
(Genre)
Channel
(Mode)

Text
Figure 1: Martin’s models of genre
As teachers, we are able to engage in more specialized genres such as lesson plans,
student reports, and feedback sheets, bringing a degree of expertise to the ways we
understand or write familiar texts. In more precise terms, we possess a schema of prior
knowledge which we share with others and can bring to the situations in which we read and
write to express ourselves efficiently and effectively.

1.2.2. Genre-based approach
Genre-based approach is the approach in which students are explicitly exposed to
the language features, text structures and the social purposes of each text type. Then,
students step by step produce the text with appropriate scaffolding of the teacher.
At the heart of the approach, therefore, is the view that writing pedagogies should
“offer students explicit and systematic explanations of the ways language functions in
social contexts” (Hyland: 2003). A range of methods is employed in a classroom using the
genre approach. For instance, Paltridge (2001) proposes a framework that involves
investigating the texts and contexts of students‟ target situations, encouraging reflection on
writing practices, exploiting texts from different types of genre and creating mixed genre
portfolios. The underpinning theory of such a pedagogical approach, according to Vygotsky
(1978), as reported in Hyland (2003), is an “emphasis on the interactive collaboration
between teacher and students, with the teacher taking an authoritative role to „scaffold‟ or
support learners as they move towards their potential level of performance.

8


Genre-based approach promises very benefits for learners as they pull together
language, content, and contexts, while offering teachers a means of presenting students
with explicit and systematic explanations of the ways writing works to communicate.
For teachers, genre-based approach not only addresses the needs of ESL writers but
also draws teachers into considering how texts actually work as communication. Teachers
of writing clearly need to be teachers of language as it is necessary to exercise appropriate
linguistic choices in the ways they treat and organize their topics for particular readers
which helps students to give their ideas authority. By categorizing and analyzing the texts
they ask students to write, teachers become more familiar with the ways meanings are
created and more sensitive to the specific communicative needs of their students. Teachers
are therefore in a better position to reflect on their own writing and that of their students,
offering them a means to understand, deconstruct, to make decisions about the teaching

methods and materials to use, and to approach current instructional examples with a more
critical eye.
Derewianka (1990) indicates that in order for learners to learn to write a specific
genre, teachers and learners work through a cyclical process which consists of four stages,
namely Building the Field, Modeling, Joint Construction and Independent Writing. The
first stage is intended to give students time to gather information about what they will be
writing. Then, in Modeling, they are exposed to an authentic text of a particular genre to
familiarize with its generic structure, language features and communicative purpose. Then
with the help of their teacher, they jointly construct a text. Joint writing allows students to
experience the processes of thinking and social interaction in writing by observing how
meanings and language are chosen to serve a particular communicative purpose and by
participating in the decision making which mould them into more confident writers.
Finally, students write the text of the same genre on their own.
The principles of the genre based approach are realized in the teaching and learning
cycle or model. The teaching model consists of a number of stages that the teacher and
students go through so that students gradually gain independent control of a particular
genre. The stages usually come in circle to indicate that there are different points of entry
depending on the needs of the students.

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The examples of genres would be narrative, recount, explanation, information
report, exposition, procedure. In teaching from the genre-based approach, the four part
cycle is proposed. This involves:
Building the context :

a.

- Brainstorming, discussions and opportunities to reveal relevant personal

experiences.
- Vocabulary development

Modeling / deconstruction the text

b.

According to Derewianka (1992: 7), if learners are to write in a particular genre,
they first need to become familiar with its purpose and features through rich exposure in
the genre. This is achieved as follows:


Introduce a model of the genre to the class



Discuss the purposes for which we use this genre in our society



With the class identify how the text is structure. Each genre has a distinctive

set of stages which help it to gain its purpose.


Discuss the function of each stage.

c.Joint construction of the text
- Before students write independent texts, it is useful for them to participate in the

group writing of a text in the chosen genre. A text may be jointly constructed by the whole
class, by a small group, or by a teacher and learner during conference.
- As well as demonstrating what form the final product may take, the joint

construction of a text should also demonstrate the process involved in writing a text.
d.

Independent construction of the text

- Having read and examined the example texts in the chosen text and having

experienced of joint-constructing a similar text, students now are ready to choose the own
texts on a related topic.
In addition to providing teachers with a way of organizing their courses, genre
based writing instruction follows modern theories of learning in giving considerable
recognition to the importance of collaboration, or peer interaction, and scaffolding, or
teacher-supported learning.
In short, while study genre-based approach students move backwards and
forwards through alternate processes of induction and deduction, between language and
meta-

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language, activity and received knowledge, experience and theory. That‟s why the aim of
teaching genre to grade 10 students in my school would empower them to write a variety
of purposes and audiences. So writing should be taught as how it can be used in context
meaningfully.
1. 3. Related studies

To stimulate the students‟ writing skill, especially writing recount text, the
researcher, Setyani (2008) conducted a classroom action research using headline news. The
students can get the headline news from the newspapers or magazines or television. From
these media, the students can make news in English. So writing headline news will help the
students in writing recount text. Therefore, the main problems of the students in writing
recount text can be solved. Finally, the students can write recount text grammatically and
have competence in making English news.
Thi Kim Anh Dang (2002) has applied a genre-based approach in teaching the
writing of English discussion genre to Vietnamese EFL students at the tertiary level. In her
thesis, she pointed out that almost students found the model discussion texts and their
construction helpful for their writing and they gave very positive feedback on the stages of
the teaching cycle and showed that they were aware of the overall objective of the
program, which was for them to gain independent control of the discussion genre, as well
as to understand the purposes of each the stages.
Nghi Nguyen, Phan (2012) and Ha Ngoc, Nguyen (2013) did the study at Tuyen
th

th

Quang Gifted School in order to find out the way to help 10 form students and 11 form
students write a better personal recount. Through students‟ writing results and their
responses to the questionnaires, they both found that most of the students‟ difficulties in
writing came from lacking vocabulary, structures, language features as well as ideas to
write. Students after the treatment are motivated to learn writing skill and have more
confidence in writing and using English.

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CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents a detailed description of how the research was carried out
including the rationale of the using research, research setting, data collection instruments,
data collection procedures, and data analysis procedures.
2.1. Rationale of the using action research
Action research is conducted to investigate a specific teaching situation or practice
when the teacher in charge wants to find a solution to that situation or practice. This action
research was carried out in an attempt to find out solutions to the improvement of students‟
writing skills. It was carried out by the teacher-researcher with her own students in an
intact class. For these reasons, the researcher believed an action research design would fit
well her purpose. (Nunan, 1992)
Although there exist models which include different steps to carry out the action
research, they all share the following basic elements: the process begins with the researcher
identifying a problem, then a plan of action is worked out, afterwards the plan is
implemented, and the process culminates when the researcher evaluates the effectiveness
of the plan and proposes next actions to further address the problem.
In this study, the teacher-researcher followed the model proposed by Nunan (1992)
because the steps in his model made it easier and more convenient for the teacherresearcher to carry out the research. Besides, it reflected correctly what steps were taken
during the study.
According to Nunan (1992), the action research process has seven steps as
illustrated in Figure 2 below:

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Step 7: Follow-up
(Revise for next cycle)
Step 1: Problem identification

Step 6: Dissemination

Step 2: Preliminary investigation

Step 5: Evaluation

Step 4: Intervention
Figure 2: Steps in the action research cycle
Although there are seven steps in an action research cycle, because of the limited
time of study, the researcher conducted her research within 5 steps: Problem Identification,
Preliminary Investigation, Hypothesis, Intervention, and Evaluation.
Step 1: Problem identification
Step 2: Preliminary investigation
Step 3: Hypothesis
Step 4: Intervention
Step 5: Evaluation
Figure 3: Steps in the action research cycle in the current research
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More specifically, after realizing that most 10 form students were not interested in
learning writing, the teacher-researcher began to gather data about the target population
and then interpret the data to see whether they had the same problem. After the results were
obtained, the study was conducted to improve the situation. Finally, the results were
evaluated to propose possible next steps.

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2.2. Research setting
2.2.1. Overview
Son Duong High School, where the researcher has been working as a teacher of
English, is located in the central of Son Duong district in the south of Tuyen Quang, a

mountainous province in the north-east of Vietnam. There are about 89 teachers and about
1400 students, 80% of them from poor and farmer families.
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The 10 form students at Son Duong high school are sixteen years old and have
learnt English; including writing skills, for four years at secondary schools, their English
knowledge is still limited. As a matter of fact, they are beginners of English. Apparently,
applying teaching approaches and using teaching methods should be taken into account in
order to foster and develop their writing skills efficiently.
2.2.2. Writing tasks in the textbook Tieng Anh 10
The textbook Tieng Anh 10 designed by the Ministry of Education and Training
was used. This set of textbook was firstly applied in the school year 2006-2007 under
the Ministry of Education and Training’s decision. The book was compiled following
the theme-based and task-based approaches. It contains 16 units within 105 periods
in two terms. There are 3 periods of English per week. Each teaching unit consists of
five-45 minute periods for basic class: reading, speaking, listening, writing and
language focus. Like other skills, writing skill covers one period. Students often find it
difficult to finish writing task in class’ time and they got low marks for this skill. (For
more details about the writing tasks in Tieng Anh 10, see Appendix 1)

2.2.3 Selection of participants
38 students of grade 10 at Son Duong High School were chosen for the research.
Of the 16 year-old students, there were 20 girls and 18 boys. Most of them were not good
at learning English, especially their writing skills were not acceptable, but eager to master
this subject like communicating fluently, making a good speech etc. All these students
were in the intact class, i.e., in the class where the researcher was teaching.

After the selection of participants, the researcher conducted a cycle, in
which she, being the only teacher at the research site knowing the genre-based
approach, used this method to teach them how to write in English.

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2.3. Data collection instruments
In order to collect sufficient data for the study, a number of instruments were
employed: questionnaires, pre-test and post-tests * Pre-test and post-test
To measure the quality of the participants‟ written texts before and after the
research, the researcher designed a pre-test (see appendix 2) and a post-test (see appendix
3) on English writing. The test types selected for this study are popular kinds of writing test
similar to the tests which students are instructed. Therefore, the students are supposed to be
familiar with the test format.
Actually, the pre-test and the post-test on English writing are similar but not the
same. They are similar in format, instruction, length, level of difficulty, and allotted time.
However, the specific writing topics between the two tests are different although they are
both the same genre, writing a narrative.
To score the pre-test and the post-test, the same marking scale (see appendix 4) will
be used. This analytic marking scale with specific evaluation criteria was adapted from
Jacobs et al‟s (1981) (cited in Weigle, 2002: 115-116). The main reason for the choice of
this analytic marking scale instead of a holistic scale is that it provides more useful
diagnostic information about students‟ writing abilities.
* Pre- Questionnaire and pots-questionnaire
Survey questionnaires were chosen because they allowed collecting a large amount
data in a relatively short time.
The preliminary questionnaire (See Appendix 5) was conducted at the first week of
the research with 38 students. All of the questions are written in Vietnamese to make sure
that the students could fully understand the questions. The questionnaire aims to
investigate students‟ attitudes towards writing skill (items 1, 2) their self assessment of
their writing performance (item 3) and their problems they faced (item 4). The results from
the questionnaire, in cooperation with pre-test results could help the researcher identify

possible problems for students‟ writing skill.
The post-questionnaire (See Appendix 6) was carried out after the intervention step
finished. This was done to investigate the effect of new writing methods on students. The
questionnaire included 3 items, the first item is to find out the students‟ attitude to new
genre, the second requires students to self assess their ability after taking part in the

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research, the last one facing with the changes they could have from this approach in
writing. A noticeable thing about post questionnaires is that in the item 3, the Likert-scale
items are used. Learners rated each statement according to the five –point Likert- scale by
ticking the appropriate item: 1- strongly agree, 2- agree, 3- uncertain, 4- disagree, 5strongly disagree. For the sake of clarity, both positive responses “strongly agree” and
“agree” and negative responses “strongly disagree” and “disagree” are added up. This
approach does not distort the data. On the contrary, it allows showing the findings in a
compact way.
It is hoped that the combination of these instruments would enable the research
questions to be answered.
2.4. Data analysis procedure
The researcher used the questionnaire to collect data in this action research. Then
the responses were analyzed by means of descriptive statistics. This research method was
aimed at providing information on students‟ attitudes towards, and opinions about, the
genre-based approach that their teacher (also the researcher) used.
To gain information about students‟ progress in their writing, students‟ writing pre
and post test papers were collected before and over the treatment period and analyzed
following the guidelines of the marking scheme.

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CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
In this chapter, the main stages of this action research will be presented under the
following headings: Problem identification, Preliminary investigation, Hypothesis,
Intervention and Evaluation.
3.1. Problem identification
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During teaching writing for the 10 form students at Sơn Dương High School in
the first semester of the school-year 2013-2014, the researcher realized that her students
did not seem interested in writing lessons and their writing performance seemed poor.
Therefore, she decided to investigate the problem that her students faced.
3.2. Preliminary investigation
To illustrate the problem that students had in learning writing skill, the researcherteacher conducted a survey questionnaire and pre test. The collected data was analyzed to
find out how students were not interested in learning writing and to assess students‟
writing skill before the new approach to be implemented.
3.2.1. Analysis of students’ preliminary questionnaire.
From the preliminary questionnaire, the students‟ personal information was
gathered. There were 38 students taking part in the study of which 18 were male and 20
were female. Their ages were mostly 16 years old. They had been learning English for 4
years. They all had experience of nearly three years in learning writing skills.
3.2.1.1. Students’ attitudes towards writing skill.
Students‟ answers to question 1 and question 2 help the researcher understand their
attitudes towards writing skill.

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