Sáng kiến kinh nghiệm THPT: The use and the effectiveness of using reading in teaching writing at Vinh Cuu high school

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Objectives of the research: The aim of this research is to investigate the use and the effectiveness of taking advantage of reading in teaching writing in Vietnamese classrooms. At the same time, it also creates the environments for students to write confidently basing on reading skills.

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Nội dung Text: Sáng kiến kinh nghiệm THPT: The use and the effectiveness of using reading in teaching writing at Vinh Cuu high school

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐỒNG NAI TRƯỜNG THPT VĨNH CỬU Mã số: ................................ SÁNG KIẾN Người thực hiện: Lê Thị Ngọc Thiện Lĩnh vực nghiên cứu: - Quản lý giáo dục  - Phương pháp dạy học bộ môn: Anh Văn  - Lĩnh vực khác:  Có đính kèm: Các sản phẩm không thể hiện trong bản in SKKN  Mô hình  Đĩa CD (DVD)  Phim ảnh  Hiện vật khác Năm học: 2019-2020
SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐỒNG NAI TRƯỜNG THPT VĨNH CỬU SÁNG KIẾN Người thực hiện: Lê Thị Ngọc Thiện Lĩnh vực nghiên cứu: - Quản lý giáo dục  - Phương pháp giáo dục  - Phương pháp dạy học bộ môn: Anh Văn  - Lĩnh vực khác:  Năm học: 2019-2020
MỤC LỤC Trang INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................1 1. Context of the solution .................................................................................... 1 2. Reasons for choosing the topic ....................................................................... 1 3. Study scope and study subjects ....................................................................... 1 4. Objectives of the research ............................................................................... 1 CONTENTS ...............................................................................................................................2 I. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND REALITY ....................................... 2 1. Theoretical background .................................................................................. 2 2. Reality............................................................................................................. 2 II. CONTENTS OF INVENTION ......................................................................... 3 1. Implementation ............................................................................................... 3 2. Advantages and disadvantages........................................................................ 7 3. Evaluation ....................................................................................................... 8 a) New points .................................................................................................. 8 b) Effects ......................................................................................................... 8 c) Application and results ............................................................................. 11 CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................11 1. Experiences drawn from the process of applying the invention. ........... Error! Bookmark not defined. 2. Recommendation for implementing and applying the invention intoreality.Error! Bookmark not defined. 3. Declaration .................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined. APPENDICES ...........................................................................................................................1 REFERENCES ..........................................................................................................................1
DANH MỤC CHỮ CÁI VIẾT TẮT STT Từ viết tắt Nội dung viết tắt 1 TESOL Teaching English to Speakers of other Languages 2 EFL English as a Foreign Language 3 M.A Master of Arts
THÔNG TIN CHUNG VỀ SÁNG KIẾN 1. Tên sáng kiến: The use and the effectiveness of using reading in teaching writing at Vinh Cuu high school 2. Lĩnh vực áp dụng sáng kiến: Giảng dạy Tiếng Anh 3. Tác giả: - Họ và tên: Lê Thị Ngọc Thiện Nam (nữ): Nữ - Trình độ chuyên môn: Cử nhân Anh Văn - Chức vụ, đơn vị công tác: Giáo viên, THPT Vĩnh Cửu - Điện thoại: 079 2826 815. Email: lethien2607@gmail.com Tỷ lệ đóng góp tạo ra sáng kiến (%): 100%.
1 THE USE AND THE EFECTIVENESS OF USING READING IN TEACHING WRITING AT VINH CUU HIGH SCHOOL INTRODUCTION 1. Context of the solution It is stated that writing is a necessary and crucial skill in language learning as well as English learning (Ariyanti, 2016; Pham & Nguyen, 2014). However, among the four skills, writing is considered to be the most difficult one. It is, therefore the writer investigates the use and the effectiveness of using reading in teaching writing. 23 teachers were chosen randomly to take part in this research. The participants are graduated students who are learning the first stage of Master of TESOL course at Ho Chi Minh City Open University. Two questionnaires were designed to collect teachers’ opinions in order to answer two research questions. The findings revealed that although this technique is effective, there are still many obstacles that were needed to be overcome. 2. Reasons for choosing the topic Writing skill is usually taught separately from other skills (speaking, reading and listening), which causes difficulties for EFL students in learning writing skills (Habibi, Salleh, & Singh, 2015). Considering the difficulties that learners may deal with, many researchers suggested the use of reading as a teaching technique to support and enhance EFL students’ writing abilities (AlOmrani, 2014; Habibi et al., 2015; & Grabe & Zhang, 2013). This writing also aims at investigating the connection between Reading and Writing, the effectiveness of integrating reading skills and writing skills on EFL learners, and the use and the effectiveness of this technique in Vinh Cuu classrooms 3. Study scope and study subjects The area of this study is to investigate the connection between reading and writing. Basing on this, the study attempts to examine how to apply reading in teaching writing at Vinhcuu high school. 4. Objectives of the research The aim of this research is to investigate the use and the effectiveness of taking advantage of reading in teaching writing in Vietnamese classrooms. At the same time, it also creates the environments for students to write confidently basing on reading skills.
2 CONTENTS I. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND REALITY 1. Theoretical background Eisterhold (1990, as cited in AlOmrani, 2014) interpreted the connection between reading and writing by using three hypotheses, which are “directional hypothesis, non-directional hypothesis, and bidirectional hypothesis” (Eisterhold, 1990, as cited in AlOmrani, 2014, p. 102). Directional hypothesis claimed that information/knowledge obtained from reading materials will be used in writing, which means that the use of reading is supporting writing (AlOmrani, 2014). Meanwhile, non-directional hypothesis means that information/knowledge learned from writing can be used in reading and vice versa, which means reading is used to assist writing and vice versa (AlOmrani, 2014). Bidirectional hypothesis stated that “reading and writing are both interactive and interdependent” (AlOmrani, 2014, p. 103). This means that the change in students’ language proficiency may lead to the change in their writing abilities or reading abilities, which can be understood that if their writing abilities develop, their reading abilities will develop and vice versa (AlOmrani, 2014). Although the relationship between receptive skills and productive skills did not state that students need to become good readers to be good writers, it did interpret the reason for integrating reading skills and writing skills in teaching. Meanwhile, the hypotheses of Eisterhold (1990, as cited in AlOmrani, 2014) explained specifically the positive impact of reading and writing on each other. The researcher claimed that the proficiency in students’ writing skills have the influence on the proficiency in students’ reading skills and vice versa. However, the connection between reading and writing in this technique can be interpreted by directional hypothesis, because this technique was made to teach writing skills with reading as the main support of writing (AlOmrani, 2014). The hypotheses of Eisterhold (1990, as cited in AlOmrani, 2014) explained specifically the positive impact of reading and writing on each other. The researchers claimed that the proficiency in students’ writing skills have the influence on the proficiency in students’ reading skills and vice versa. However, the connection between reading and writing in this technique can be interpreted by directional hypothesis, because this technique was made to teach writing skills with reading as the main support of writing (AlOmrani, 2014). The use of reading is suggested as an effective technique to improve EFL students’ writing skills (AlOmrani, 2014; Grabe & Zhang, 2013 & Habibi et al., 2015). Hence, in order to be aware of the feasibility and effectiveness of the use of reading in teaching writing, many researchers and teachers started to do more research on applying this technique in teaching writing as well as apply it in their classes. 2. Reality Grabe and Zhang (2013) almost all students have to face to many difficulties in learning English writing skill such as “less exposure to English texts, and much
3 more limited vocabulary knowledge” (p. 108). In addition, instead of paying attention to “the content and the organizations of ideas” (Rass), EFL students are required to focus on “choosing proper words, using correct grammatical patterns and checking spelling of words” (Tangpermpoon, 2008, as cited in Habibi et al., 2015, p. 1116). As a teacher at Vinh Cuu high school, the writer has noticed some common mistakes that many students have no real understanding of lexis of the language and just apply the grammatical rules mechanically. As a result, they run the risk of producing grammatically correct but semantically inappropriate or anomalous sentences. Some students tend to translate mechanically from Vietnamese into English and use inaccurate words. They would like to write but they feel that they do not have enough confidence and feel afraid of giving their writing work to their teachers or friends. With the above mentioned situations, the researcher conducts a study to investigate the use of reading as a teaching technique to support and enhance EFL students’ writing abilities. II. CONTENTS OF INVENTION 1. Implementation The writer has found out the connection between the two skills Reading and Writing. The relation between reading and writing can be interpreted by the relationship between receptive skills and productive skills. According to Golkova and Hubackova (2014), listening and reading are passive skills, which are considered as receptive skills, because these 2 skills are used to receive and decode accurately information/knowledge in order to understand them (Bhatt & Lilian, 2016). Meanwhile speaking and writing are active skills, which are considered as productive skills (Golkova & Hubackova, 2014) because they are used to produce language (Masduqi, 2016). It is stated that “if a learning process lacks one of them [receptive skills and productive skills], the final outcome will not be completed” (Golkova & Hubackova, 2014, p. 478). For example, students read grammatical structures, which means that they are absorbing theories and rules. Thus, they need reading which is the practice to help them remember and use these grammatical structures effectively and fluently. Hence, “both types of skills [productive and receptive] are inseparable and one cannot exist without the other” (Golkova & Hubackova, 2014, p. 478). As mentioned above, the use of reading is an effective technique to teach writing skills (AlOmrani, 2014; Grabe & Zhang, 2013 & Habibi et al., 2015). However, the use of this technique in Vietnam is still a question. In order to examine the use and the effectiveness of integrating English writing skills and English reading skills Vietnamese classrooms, the writing is designed to answer 2 following questions: 1. Do English teachers in Vietnam use reading to improve students’ writing skills? 2. Does the use of reading in teaching writing improve Vietnamese students’ English writing skills?
4 Methodology Participants: The surveys were carried out at the two classes the writer has taught: 11A2, 11A10 with eighty participants who are in the second term of the school and 23 other teachers were chosen randomly to take part in this research. The participants are graduate students who are learning the first stage of Master of TESOL course at Ho Chi Minh City Open University. There are 5 teachers who are teaching at English language centers, while there are 13 teachers from state schools in Ho Chi Minh city. Another 5 teachers are teaching at private schools. In addition, around 30% of them have over 5 years teaching experience. Data collection Teachers were given questionnaires to elicit information on the respondents. Two questionnaires were designed to collect teachers’ opinions in order to answer two research questions. The first questionnaire includes 7 questions. The first and second questions are used to ask teachers’ teaching experience and institution. The next 5 questions are used to find out teachers’ acknowledgment of this technique and the use of it in their classes. Meanwhile, the second questionnaire has 6 questions, which is used to elicit the effectiveness of this technique by asking teachers who applied it. Findings and discussion Research question 1: Do English teachers in Vietnam use reading to improve students’ writing skills? The data of chart 1 was collected from the questionnaire 1. According to the chart, there were 5 teachers who confirmed that they did not know this technique, because of their old universities, TESOL training courses or the current Master of TESOL did not teach them. Hence, they could not apply this technique in their classes.
5 On the other hand, regarding the chart 2, the rest of 23 teachers (18 teachers) know this technique. Most of them (11 teachers) confirmed that their old universities, TESOL training courses and Master of TESOL taught them this technique. Meanwhile, 5 of them know this technique through reading books or journal articles of teaching writing. This means that they have interest in teaching writing. The rest of them (2 teachers) know this technique because their colleagues introduced it to them. However, there were 5 teachers did not use this technique to teach writing, even though they know it. The reasons for this are shown in the chart 3. To conclude, there were 23 teachers, who were asked about integrating reading skills with writing skills. However, just 18 teachers know this technique. Although there were 18 teachers who know this technique, just 13 teachers (around 57%) applied the use of reading in teaching writing in order to improve their students’ writing skills. Therefore, it can be stated that there were a positive number of teachers paid attention to the use of reading in teaching writing and applied this technique in their classes.
6 Research question 2: Does the use of reading in teaching writing improve Vietnamese students’ English writing skills? In order to answer this question, 13 teachers, who used this technique, were asked to answer questionnaire 2 in order to elicit their evaluation of this technique. Considering answers collected, 5 teachers stated that their students’ writing skills were improved after using reading to support and enhance students’ writing abilities. The chart 4 below displays these 5 teachers’ evaluation of advantages that this technique brought to their students. Regarding the chart 4, after applying this technique in their classes, all 5 teachers believed that their students’ accuracy of using grammar and punctuation was developed as well as their ability of arranging logically their writing’s ideas. In addition, 4 of them confirmed the development in their students’ writing content as well as the improvement in writing’s coherence and cohesion of their students. Meanwhile, they realized that their students could not use complex grammar structures fluently even after using this technique. Considering these figures, it can be claimed that the use of reading did have a positive impact on students’ writing skills, especially improving the use of grammar and punctuation and the organization of writing’s ideas. This is a basis of the development in writing’s content and writing’s coherence and cohesion. However, considering the fact that students were not able to use complex grammatical structures, teachers need to pay more attention to students’ grammar. The rest of them (8 teachers) claimed that this technique is ineffective, because they had to cope with some obstacles.
7 According to the chart 5, 6 teachers claimed that their students lacked reading comprehension skill, while there are 5 teachers stated that the difficulty is students did not know how to use information/knowledge obtained from assigned reading materials in their writing. In addition, a half of them (4 teachers) pointed out that the fact that students did not read assigned reading materials was also an obstacle. Considering these figures, it can be stated that the lack of reading comprehension skill was the main problem, which meant students might have limited understanding of assigned reading materials; therefore, they could not obtain any information or knowledge to support their writing. Moreover, the lack of reading assigned reading materials could be the result of the lack of reading comprehension skills as well as the difficulty level of assigned reading materials and students’ attitudes and low-motivation. Therefore, teachers need to improve their students reading comprehension skill as well as choose reading materials that can interest students and are not beyond their English level. 2. Advantages and disadvantages a) Advantages The use of reading is supporting writing (AlOmrani, 2014). Meanwhile, non- directional hypothesis means that information/knowledge learned from writing can be used in reading and vice versa, which means reading is used to assist writing and vice versa (AlOmrani, 2014). Bidirectional hypothesis stated that “reading and writing are both interactive and interdependent” (AlOmrani, 2014, p. 103). This also means that the change in students’ language proficiency may lead the change in their writing abilities or reading abilities, which can be understood that if their writing abilities develop, their reading abilities will develop and vice versa (AlOmrani, 2014). It can be stated that the use of reading does have the positive effect on teaching writing. Most of students’ writing skills were improved. Their students were able to express their thoughts in English fluently, differentiate between the
8 topic sentence and the thesis sentence or had the improvement in organizing writing’s ideas. b) Disadvantages The first limitation of this writing is that the limited number of teachers who took part in the survey. The second limitation is that the lack of students’ opinions of the effectiveness of the use of reading in teaching writing. The use of reading had some obstacles, which led to the ineffectiveness of this technique. They were the lack of reading comprehension skill, students did not read assigned reading materials, and students did not know how to use information/knowledge obtained from assigned reading materials in their writing. If the teacher pays more attention to improve students reading comprehension skill, these obstacles can be overcome. This will lead to the effectiveness of this technique. 3. Evaluation a) New points The rearcher has also found out some considerations for teachers when using reading to improve EFL students’ writing skills. AlOmrani (2014) stated that because the reading materials are used “as a source for improving writing abilities” (p. 102); therefore, the reading materials must relate with the writing assignments. In addition, it is claimed that EFL teachers also need to focus on improving students’ reading skills (AlOmrani, 2014), because “if a learner has low level of proficiency in reading skills this will lead to low level of competence, performance and proficiency in writing skills as well” (Bhatt & Lilian, 2016, p. 635). However, enhancing students’ writing skills is necessary, teachers should not pay more attention to developing students’ reading skills than students’ writing skills (Morrow, 1997, as cited in AlOmrani, 2014, p. 106), because the aim of integrating reading into writing instruction is using reading materials as resources to improve and assist students with their writing skills (AlOmrani, 2014). b) Effects As mentioned above, the use of reading is suggested as an effective technique to improve EFL students’ writing skills (AlOmrani, 2014; Grabe & Zhang, 2013 & Habibi et al., 2015). Hence, in order to be aware of the feasibility and effectiveness of the use of reading in teaching writing, the researcher began to do more research on applying this technique in teaching writing as well as apply it in her classes. The result shows that almost all students make great progress in writing skill and they feel more confident in writing period, which is obviously shown in chart 6 Chart 6: Students’ view about the benefits of using reading in learning writing
9 70 60 50 40 agree 30 Not sure 20 disagree 10 0 Being confident Being able to Organizing ideas Result in good to write use complex for writing pieces of writing grammatical logically structures As shown chart 6 - students’ views about the advantages they have experienced during the writing lessons in the classroom. The surveys were carried out at the two classes the writer has taught: 11A2, 11A10 at Vinhcuu high school with eighty participants taking part in the survey. In response to the first benefit whether group work motivates students to write or not, 65 students agreed that writing in groups motivates them to write, 9 students were not sure and 6 students disagreed. Regarding to the second benefit, 58 students agree that using reading in learning writing helps them use more complex sentences instead of simple sentences, while 15 students were not sure and 7 students disagreed. In students response to the third point whether this technique makes a contribution to improving students’ organizing ideas, 49 students agreed, 22 students were not sure and 9 students disagreed. For the final view point, which looked at whether taking advantage of reading in teaching writing results in good pieces of writing, 66 students agreed, only 8 students were not sure about this statement and 6 students express their disagreement. The result of the study obviously reveals that more and more students will be highly motivated and have chances to participate in writing activities if teachers .After analysis and discussion of the findings, the researcher can conclude that students considered writing as one of the most difficult skills and the large number of them supports the use of reading skill in learning and teaching writing periods. Dahan (2010) worried about the lack of essential skills for writing of her students, who were EFL learners at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, owned TOEFL 530 even higher. Therefore, she designed an activity, which was the Reading Project, to help her students have more interests in reading so as to improve their writing skills. According to her, students were enabled to freely choose any books that they wanted. Every week, students were
10 required to post something about their books on Discussion Board or iLearn, then they were asked to share their opinions and feelings about what they posted. It was expected that students could receive feedback and responses from their peers. During the last two weeks of classes, students were requested to give informal presentation of their books. After the presentation, they are required to a write summary of the books chosen. After using this project, she admired the improvement in her students’ writing abilities as well as their ability of expressing fluently their opinions through writing. She also confirmed that her students raised the awareness of the importance of improving background knowledge. Meanwhile, Rass designed for first year Arab EFL students at Beit Nerl College a course which integrated reading skills with writing skills in order to improve her students’ writing skills. In this course, learners were required to read anthological literature of English. Then, students were asked to write their reflection on these assigned reading materials within 5 minutes at the beginning of each class. After that, these writings would be shared with their classmates in order to have discussions about the contents and students’ opinions of the assigned reading materials. Their discussion could be considered as the basis of answering reading logs and worksheets which were used to asked about reading’ difficulties of students, the contents and students’ opinions of the reading materials. Moreover, they were requested to do weekly assignments that were writing may types of paragraphs, which was a basis of developing and writing essays. Meanwhile, their monthly assignments were informal journals about their own experiences. Students were allowed to write multiple drafts to surmount their writing’s difficulties. Each draft would receive feedback from teachers. The first and second drafts would be given comments about the content and organizing ideas, whereas comments about grammar and punctuation would be given on the final draft. Students were also required to analyse errors that were made in their peers’ writings. Comparing between students’ first writing assigment and final writign assignments, Rass indicated that her students’ proficiency in writing skills was improved. They were able to compose good essays as well as differentiate between the topic sentence, the supporting sentence and the thesis sentence. Luu (2012) conducted a study of benefits brought to EFL learners by integrating reading skills and writing skills at Ho Chi Minh City University of Finance-Marketing. The participants are 58 students who were selected randomly, then divided into 2 groups, that are control group and experimental group. Moreover, 8 experienced teachers also were chosen to take part in this study. Two groups of students would receive the same knowledge of all types of academic essays. During the first 2 weeks, they were taught by the same teaching instructions. However, from the third weeks, students of the experimental group would be taught by read-like-a-writer approach of Steve Peha, while teachers of the control group maintained the old teaching instructions. In the second week of the course, students had to do the pretest, and after 9 weeks of learning, they had to do the posttest. These tests would be evaluated by teachers based on 5 criteria:
11 organization, ideas, word choice, sentence fluency and convention by using computers. The results from these tests would be kept and used as data for this study. Moreover, students actively learn English writing style, choosing proper words and basing on the reading materials the teacher provides them. Learners remember and broaden their knowledge naturally, not mechanically as teachers teach them. For teachers, they do not need to teach students in details, but just guide students to take advatage of reading materials effectively in writing and celebrate writing activities for all students to join in. c) Application and results After applying the method, the results were completely different. Before asking students to write, the teacher provided students with reading materials about the topic and gave some questions involved in that reading passages. At the same time, the teacher based on those reading passages to teach vocabulary and structures. Students had certain knowledge of the topic. They, therefore, wrote much better. The surveys also were also carried out at Open University where the writer has taken part in M.A course. The instruments are used to do the research are questionnaire and interview. The writer then gathers information about classroom activities. The findings are more reliable with different methods. A questionnaire was designed to collect data from 23 teachers teaching different classes such as public and private schools, which is obviously presented in chart 4 and 5. The result shows that some teachers know the effective of using reading to teach writing while others do not. The findings have also revealed that the experimental group’s students have improved their writing’ essays as well as word choice. The results also pointed out that most students of the experimental group improved their sentence fluency; therefore, their writing performances were better than writing performances of the control group’ students. Considering the class of Dahan (2010), the class of Rass and the study of Luu (2012), it can be stated that the use of reading does have the positive effect on teaching writing. Most of their students’ writing skills were improved. Their students were able to express their thoughts in English fluently, differentiate between the topic sentence and the thesis sentence or had the improvement in organizing writing’s ideas.
APPENDICES APPENDIX 1: Questionnaire 1:
Questionnaire 2: