
ABSTRACT
When teaching writing skill to 10th 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 genre-based
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
approach to teach writing to the 10th 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.