SKKN The research some suggestions of how to make writing activities effectively in writing lessons at upper secondary school

 THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING 
 HẬU LỘC 3 UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL
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THE RESEARCH
SOME SUGGESTIONS OF HOW TO MAKE WRITING ACTIVITIES EFFECTIVELY IN WRITING LESSONS AT UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL
 Writer : VŨ THỊ KIM TUYẾN
 Position : A teacher of English 
 Field : Enghlish
 Academic year : 2016 - 2017
THANH HOA 2017
A . TABLE OF CONTENTS Page 2
 PART ONE: INTRODUCTION Page 3
A. Reasons for choosing the research Page 3
B. Aims of the research Page 3
C. Scope , object and researching method Page 4
PART TWO: CONTENTS Page 4
1. What is writing? Page 4
2. How people write ? Page 4,5
3. What students need to do in order to write Page 5
4. Teaching writing - difficulties and possible solutions Page 5,6
5. Developing writing skills - problems students face Page 6 
6.Writing activities Page 7
7. Giving directions Page 8
8.Process writing - benefits and drawbacks . Page 8,9
9. Applying process writing to the Vietnamese context some solutions Page 9,10
10. Adapting process writing to the new textbook . Page 10,11
11 . Correcting written work Page 12
12. Guidelines for correcting written work Page 12,13,14
13. Applying the research in teaching Page 14,15,16
 PART THREE : THE STUDY RESULTS OF PROBLEMS Page 17
PART FOUR : CONCLUSIONS AND PROPOSALS Page 17,18
 B . REFERENCE BOOKS Page 19
1. Byrne, D. (1988). Teaching Writing Skills. Longman
2. Practical handbook of language teaching (David Cross)
3. A course in language teaching - Practical and Theory (Penny Ur) 
Cambrige university press
4. Giao trinh giao hoc phap (Khoa ngôn ngữ và văn hóa Anh - Mĩ - Úc – Trường đại học quốc gia Hà Nội)
5.Phương pháp dạy tiếng Anh Trung học phổ thông (Nguyễn Hạnh Dung)
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
A. REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE RESEARCH 
 Nowadays English has become an international language because it is widely used in many parts of the world. In the tendency of integration of the global economy, English is one of the effective communicative tools for everybody. The role of English is considered to be very important in the fields of economics, politics, science, culture and education. Especially, Vietnam’s official membership of WTO on 7th November 2006 opened a new door for integrating into the world economy, and more and more people want to learn English for communicating with foreign partners, tourism, study tours, etc.
 Thanks to the innovation of ways in teaching English, English lessons are taught with four skills (speaking, reading, listening, writing) in one unit. Moreover, there exists three stages – Pre - while – post - teaching in one lesson. This really helps students improve their skills beside the grammar exercises to pass the exams. 
When teaching writing skill to the students at Hau Loc 3 upper secondary School I found out that writing stages are very important in teaching writing and it also has significant effects on the students’ writing performance. If students do not prepare well enough they can not write well, they can not even write anything in their notebooks.
Nevertheless, how to teach and learn writing effectively often poses great problems to both teachers and students. For the teachers of English at high school, writing is considered a difficult skill to teach. Some of them even ignore teaching writing skill and focus only on grammar excercises for the exams. However, nothing is difficult if we, the teachers make decision to make it easier. Hopefully , with a range of suggestions of how to make writing activities effectively in writing lessons introduced in this research, it will be more motivating for the teachers to teach and make progress in teaching writing Therefore, their students will be interested in writing lessons.
B. AIMS OF THE RESEARCH
 When teaching writing skill to students at Hau Loc 3 upper secondary School I found out that writing is very important in developing language skills and it also has significant effects on the students’ writing performance. If students do not prepare well enough, they can not write well, they can not even write anything in their notebooks.
 In this research I suggest how to make writing activities effectively in writing lessons , to investigate the current situation of the teaching writing and learning writing lessons , to find out how writing stages affect students’ writing performance. , and to suggest some appropriate strategies needed to be designed with the hope that students will work more effectively in a writing lesson. Hopefully that the results of this study would be shared with any colleagues who had the same problem or anyone who is interested in this study
C. SCOPE, OBJECT AND RESEARCHING METHOD
- Scope : This study was carried out in two English classes with 84 students in 11th grade at Hau Loc 3 upper secondary School .The research focused on how to make writing activities effectively the student’ writing performances in writing lessons.
- Object: This subject is concerned with ways of making writing activities effectively in writing lessons . 
- Researching method: Reading reference books , discussing with other teachers, applying in teaching, observing and drawing out experiences.
PART TWO: CONTENTS
1. What is writing?
In teaching a language, writing is considered one of the four language skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) that a learner is expected to master. Writing is the process in which the writer expresses his thoughts or ideas in the form of handwriting. “Writing is communicating. Good writing gets your ideas out of your head and into the reader’s head without losing or distorting those ideas” (Leki, 1976). To understand thoroughly the nature of writing, some more academic definitions of writing should be studied.
	According to “Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary” (1989), writing is to “make letters or other symbols on a surface (usually paper), especially with a pen or pencil”. Writing, in Davies’s point of view, involved two kinds of skills. The first ones were low – level skills such as handwriting or typing, spelling, constructing grammatical sentences, organizing and sequencing, structuring, drafting, and editing. Byrne (1988) gave a long and complex definition which might be summarized as follows: writing is the act of forming graphic symbols (letters or combinations of letters) which were arranged to form sentences, and we produced a sequence of sentences arranged in a particular order and linked together in certain way, on a flat surface of some kind.
	In conclusion, Byrne’s definition can be considered one of the most complete definitions of writing because it covers all of the features of writing given by three above – mentioned authors
2. How people write ?
Understanding how people write , can be of great help to teachers vho teach writing as a skill . The knowledge of a writing process will give teachers more conffidence in making their lessons better organised and easier for their students to learn .
	When people write , they write in different stages .First , before they write , they try and decide what they are going to write . They often think about the purpose of their writing . the purpose will help them to choose relevant types of text , and appropriate language . They also think of audience they are writing for - who they write for . This is important , too, because know who they write for will help them decide how they structure their writing and what language they will use . Moreover , they need to think about the content structure or how they organise ideas or facts they want to introduce in their writing .Next, When they finish the first draft , they usually read throuth what they have written to see what works and what doesn’t . then they revise what doesn’t work well .
Once they have edited their draft , changing what they consider is necessary , they produce the final draft , which is ready for their readers to read .
The whole process can be like this : Planning
 ↓
 Drafting 
 ↓
 Editing
 ↓
 Final draft 
3. What students need to do in order to write 
When we ask our students to write something in an English language class , we need to be sure that they : 
→ Know the aim - why they are writing 
→ Know the audience - who they are writing to 
→ Know the genrer - what type of text they are writing 
→ Have enough time for 
 	∙ thinking about the topic
∙ brainstorming ideas
	∙ planning ahead carefully 
	∙ drafting as many times as they can 
→ Have constant feedback from teachers as well as their partners during the writing process.
 4. Teaching writing - difficulties and possible solutions 
 Difficulties 
There are too many students in a class , so it’s difficult to make sure who is on- task and who is off - task 
Most classes are mixed ability 
Teachers feel guilty because they are unable to correct all mistakes for students or to work throuth all their written work .
Marking and correcting is time - consuming .
If a teacher follows the whole writng process it take more time than the 45 minutes allocated for each lesson .
Some teachers don’t feel confident about their own English and shy away from designing writing tasks or getting students to write more than just grammatical exercises .
Tests often don’t include writing thus making it difficult to motivate students to write in class .
Sometimes the teacher doesn’t have enough ideas to help students .
Solutions 
Assign group work or pair work when teaching writing . Move around to monitor.
Let students correct themselves or correct for their peers (peer correction ) by training them to use correction symbols / codes .
It’s not necessary to do all stages of process writing in class . Some stages can be done at home or in the next lesson. Eg: Ask students to prepare the topics at home then you can save time for them to think when doing pre- writing in class or you can ask students to do the first draft in class with some editing and self or peer correction , then ask them to finish the task at home and come back tomorrow with the final product .
Talk to your students and explain that they learn english not only for test , but also for real life communication and for jobs in the future .
Students are a good source of information so let them come up with ideas - they don’t all have to come from you! starting a lesson by asking them to brainstorm around a topic .
Design and share lesson plans with other colleagues so that you get more ideas , more confidence and different tasks .
Using a process approach to writing gives students a lot of support and guidance and can help with a lack of vocabulary .
 5. Developing writing skills - problems students face 
Problemms 
Students 
Don’t have enough vocabulary or structures to express ideas .
Tend to use spoken english when writing 
Have limited background knowledge .
Tend to translate ideas from mother tongue in to English
Write one draft only .
Misure or use wrongly different writing styles .
Tend to express ideas in long sentences and long paragraphs .
Are not aware of different kinds of writing , thus making them unable to write in real life.
Feel bored when doing written work.
Experience a lack of support and motivation .
Advice
The pre-writing stage is very important as students can help each other with ideas and vocabulary . In this stage , the teacher should also provide students with necessary vocabulary and strutures to express ideas around the writng topic . Models should also be set at this stage for students to follow .
Select topics carefully and give students writing tasks suitable for their level.
Provide support for writing with language , pictures, a model text.
Raise awareness of thinking in English so that they can minimisethe influence of L1 when writing 
Familiarise students with process writing by actually using the different stages of this approach in your lessons .
Help students to identify the audience and aim of each writing task . If the book doesn’t make it clear , then you will need to do so yourself !
Cohesive or linking devices are very worthwhile to help students shoten their sentences and paragraphs , but still keeping the meaning clear .
As much as possible keep tasks authentic so that students can relate writing to real life communication such as letters , form filling , questionaires .
Give students writing activities such as games , designing posters , creative writing , poems etc . to allow fun and creativity .
Don’t always set writing for homework . If you do , students will develop have negative associatons with writing . Try and do tasks in class time and set , for example , reading for homework instead .
6.Writing activities 
Here are some practical ideas for writing that you can try in your classes.
Problem letters 
Set the scene by showing students a page from either an English or Vietnamese magazine that has a “ problem page” . Elicit the idea of problem letters are replies giving advice .
In advance prepare some problem letters on a flip chart paper .
Ask students in pairs to choose one of the problems and write a short note giving advice .
1. It’s my girlfriend’s birthday next week and I want to surprise her with a special present or a special evening somewhere . What should I do ? 
2. My best friend wants to borrow some money to help buy a motorbike . I have the money , and she says she’ll pay me back next soon . But I’m worried that it’s not a good idea to lend money to friends . What should I do ? 
3. I’ve become very spotty lately and I feel really depressed and embarrassed . I don’t want to go out as I think everyone is staring at my face .What should I do 
*Get students to swap advice notes and to read each others and guess which problem the advice is for . Is it good advice or not ? Follow up with a brief class discussion .
APPLYING THE RESEARCH IN TEACHING 
Such as Famous people 
Prepare some notes about a famous person . Try and choose someone that the students will like 
Eg. A footballer , pop star , actor etc . you can very easily find information and facts about famous people on the internet . Put your notes into 4 paragraphs :
1 personal information , 2 appearance and character, 3 interest , 4 personal opinion.
In class elicit what the students know about the famous person
Students read the notes to see if they are correct > then elicit sentences from them based on the notes.
Set the scene for the writing task - tell the students they are journalists for the teenage magazine and they are going to write an article about the famous person
In pairs or groups , students use the information to write a short article about the famous person
Eg . David Beckham.
Students swap articles for peer correction.
One way to finish the lesson is to stick all the articles on the walls and tell the students that they are now editors of the magazine and they have to choose the best one .
7. Giving directions 
This activities can help to practise writing sentences and develop students’ bodily-kinesthetic inteligence . This can be used as a warmer or and independent practice activity .Following this activities 
1. Tell students to sit in groups of four or five and have a slip of paper ready for each of them .
2. Ask each person to write an imperative sentence on the slip.
3. Then get them to pass their slips to their partner in the group .
4. Ask them to take turns to mine or act what is written on the paper . Others have to guess axactly what is written on the paper .
8.Process writing - benefits and drawbacks .
There are a lot of benefits to the process approach to writing - but how can this approach fit our teaching context in Vietnam ? The followings are a number of practical and realistic ideas .
Benefits 
1. Process writing can help focus on what students write rather than how they write it . paying attention to what students write can lead to an improvementbin their writing .
2. Process writing is a move away from students writing to test their language towards the communication of ideas , feelings and experiences .
3. Process writing can help integrade different skills students not only write but read each other’s writing , and exchange ideas with their partners.
4. Process writing provides students with constant feedback between drafts . This is more useful to students than doing it when they finish their writing .
5. Process writing helps change the roles of teachers and learners . Teachers move away from being a marker to a reader who responds to the content of students’ it, which helps develop their writing ability.
Drawbacks and solutions 
1. Writing is a complicated process , which may cause frustration among students . Therefore , teachers should set up a supportive environment and be patient . 2. Process writing requires more class time than product writing . Therefore , teachers should organize lessons well and manage enough time for students to experience 
different stages of writing by fitting the stages of writing around one lesson . 
Eg, In one lesson , ideas are generateond and students write their first draft and in the following lesson , students adit and redraft .
3. Students may find working again and again on their writing boring , and refuse to do so . Therefore teachers need to introduce a variety of activities for each stage and set clear objective for class activities .
9. Applying process writing to the Vietnamese context - some solutions
1. Combine both process and product writing 
Both approaches help students in to different ways . Process writing can help students overcome their writing problems such as lack of ideas , ineffective organization , and lack of constant feedback from teachers or peers while they are still drafting . Product writing can help provides them with examples of relevant language and appropriate structures .
2. Build in planning and drafting stages in to a writing lesson .
This is very important because most writing activities in the new textbook are designed on the basis of product writing , in which students are required to study a model , analyse and imitate it . This will definitely discourage students from being creative and / or using their own experiences to express themselves . Useful pre- writing activities unclude brainstorming list ( think quickly and listing as many ideas as possible on a given topic ) , focused questions ( a series of questions used to stimulate thinking , drawing on experiences , $ shaping ideas ) and free writing ( writing about a topic for a fixed period of time to explore the topic and generate ideas ) . Effective drafting stage activities include peer review ( students read each other’s writing and give feedback on the form and its content ) 
3. Encourage and set up collaborative writing .
Most writing activities in the new textbook require mainly individual work . For example , sharing ideas about a topic before they write drafts , and peer review after they finish their drafts are important in encouraging students to learn from each other.
4. Consider the teacher’s response to writing .
The teacher should give feedback many times between drafts , not just one time when students submit their final draft . 
10. Adapting process writing to the new textbook .
Fitting process writing in to the new syllabus can be quite a challenge . the two example lessons below aim to :
Help teachers know how to integrate process writing in to writing activities in English 10 
Demonstrate how process writing can be used in combination with product writing 
Example lesson 1
 *Guessing game : select a map and give it to the students ( teachers may choose the map in the same unit ) .
Divide students in to groups of four or five . One student tells directions to a place that the others in the groups have to guess . Students take turns to give directions .
E.g : It’s on Bright street . It’s opposit