Some experiences in teaching students to describe a chart in texbooks

 PART I: INTRODUCTION
1.1 The reason of selecting the topic 
 As we know English is the global language, it is widely used everywhere in the world. Used in many different fields such as science, economic and trade, media, tourism .... The psychologist confirmed that the process of formation and development of man through and through active communication. Teaching and learning a foreign language is a form of human activity, hence it is full of fundamental properties of activity in general, the language of the particular activity. Wanting to use language as a tool of communication is not one way or the other is going through and by the communication activities such as listening, speaking reading and writing. In the four skills of writing skills, it seems that the most difficult skills students often lead to boredom in the process of learning to write. Especially describing a chart. There are many causes of boredom, such as lack of method, vocabulary, tragedies 
So how to inspire students in a class to describe a chart well is not easy. Actually, there are a few description chart in the textbook. Students are afraid of this writing style. So students are not confident, lack of knowledge to write this kind of lesson. Therefore, in my initiated experience, I want to share “Some experiences in teaching students to describe a chart in texbooks”.
The aims of reseach.
In the process I found teaching writing is one of the four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing that students need to be trained carefully. If teachers do not have good stragedies, the students feel bored with the lesson.
Stemming from the fact, I have chosen the theme “Some experiences in teaching students to describe a chart in texbooks” with the aim of finding the most effective teaching for myself and inspire students. The results show significant changes in the formation and development of writing skills for students, and significantly improved learning atmosphere and attitude of students in writing lesson. Here are some of the experiences that I have compiled during the research and experimental teaching, I would like to present the initiative as an experience. Look forward to the comments of his colleagues to be more complete article.
1.3 Object of research 
The writing parts in textbook, English 10 , 11, 12 - Basic Edition. 
 Range research: 
 Students in grades 11B6, 11B5, at Trieu Son 4 high school - Thanh Hoa.
2. PROBLEM SOLVING
2.1. Rationale and reality
2.1.1. Rationale 
In many subject areas you may need to refer to numbers, statistics and other data during the course of your studies. This is likely to be data collected by other people which you will use to support your written work, but it may be data that you have collected yourself as part of your studies. Data is generally presented in the form of tables, charts and graphs, which makes it easier for readers to understand. However, it is often necessary to reproduce and refer to this type of information in words, as part of a report or written assignment. If you include a graph, chart or table in your writing, you must explain very clearly what the data in it means, and why it is relevant to your report or assignment.
That is to say, to have good writing skills is very important. For every grades, it is more important because having good writing skills is one of the core elements to help them achieve high marks in the examinations.
2.1.2. Reality
During learning process, students at Trieu Son 4 high school have complained that describing a chart in general is extremely difficult because this skill not only asks students to write but also describe it academically. I have found that when doing this kind of tasks, most of them get bad result. I wonder what the reasons are. At the beginning of the first semester - school year 2017 - 2018, I conducted a small survey with 84 students in 2 classes 11B5 and 11B6 - to find out the ways they did the test and why a lot of them got bad result.
From my research, I see that the majority of the students are not good at writing skill. Most of them feel anxious, overwhelmed when facing with this problem because of their lack of words, structures, models. Therefore, they are not only difficult for good students but also far more difficult for average and poor students who only take gifted examination.
PART II: CONTENT
 SOME BASIC KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE CHART.
SOME NOTES FOR DESCRIPTION
- Before describing the chart we must be sure that students learnt about the writing on the symbol, icon name, content found in the chart. What is the trend of the chart? What is the relationship between the information in the chart? Specify the specified time description in the chart: the present, past tense or future.
- Read the request of the chart description: 
What is the aim of the chart description? What is the remarkable thing in the description?. From the specified the target entry index will determine the following ones for the writing. No description to all details in the chart, pay attention to the trend, increase or decrease, the fluctuation.
The past tense is used to describe the chart.
Use formal writing, suitable words to describle the chart.
Give unprejudiced and describe which appear in the chart.
Don’t give personal points.
Don’t use pronouns: We, us, me, my, our, I, you, your
Example: Don’t write: “As we can see from the chart,..”
We rewrite: “As it can be seen from the chart”.
- There are 3 parts in description: Introduction, body, overview.
- Use the specific figures to make the writing more persuadable.
II. WORDS AND STRUCTURES ARE USUALLY USED:
To help students to describe well the chart, the teacher must know the structures, the phrases as well as basic vocabulary used in the description. To describe the new chart to execute the following steps:
Introduce the genaral chart: 
We can use some structures:
-The table illustrates /describes /reveals / shows / indicates the information / propotion / rate ..
-As can be seen from the chart/table that the data on.
- It can be seen from the chart/table that the data on.
-As can be seen the bar chart/ table /pie chart is well described/ illustrated the number of/the data on....
- It is clear from the chart/table that .
-From the chart/ table it is clear.
- As the chart/table shows.
- As is shown in the chart/table that .
-As is illustrated by the table/ the chart.
2. Describe the detail chart:
2.1. About time:
- from (year).. to (year).
- During the period of .years.
- Since
-Between ... and...
- In/during/over the first/last/next years, months
2. 2 Giving the fingures:
To account for /to make up/to constitute 
Example:
- Friench visitors account for 20,5%.
- American visitors account for 79,5%.
2.3. Describe the changes in the chart:
The number of the Chart represented by 4 trends:
- The number or figures grow upward movement: ì
- The index or numbers has shrinking (downward movement: î)
- stable number (not movement: ènot grow, not reduced)
- The boosting or extracting number.
* Some popular adjectives and adverbs:
Adjectives
Adverbs
slight/ slow 
slightly/ slowly
steady
steadily
moderate
moderately
sharp
sharply
gradual
gradually
significant/ considerable
Significantly/ considerablely/ 
vast/huge
vastly/hugely
dramatic/ rapid/ quick
dramatically/ rapidly/ quickly
Looking to description with the image. We can see adjectives as well as adverbs to express the level and the speed of figures
Beside adjectives and adverbs, we can use some verbs and nouns to describe the increasing and decreasing trends.
*Increasing trend: 
Verbs
Nouns
(to) increase
(an) increase
(to) rise 
(a) , a rise 
(to) go/be up
(an) upswing
(to) grow
(a) growth
(to) jump, (to) skyrocket (increasing sharply)
(a) jump
(to) reach a peak, (to) peak (increasing sharply)
(a) peak
Example: The French visitors in Viet nam rose steadily from 2001 to 2002.
 V adv
 There was an slight increase in the number visitor arrivals in Vet nam 
	 Adj N
from 2001 to 2002.
Express the falling trend:
Verbs
Nouns
(to) decrease
(a) decrease
(to) fall (off) 
(a) fall
(to) drop (off)
(a) drop
(to) go down
(a) downswing
(to) decline
(a) decline
(to) collapse (decrease sharply)
(a) collapse (dramatic fall)
(to) slump (decrease sharply)
(a) slump
Example: 
- Married men without children a gradual decrease in the number of domestic chores 
	 Adj N. 
- The rate went down sharply between married men without children and with 
	 V	 Adv
three or more chilren.
Express the stable fingures: 
Verbs
Nouns
(to) remain stable
(to) stay constant
(to) stabilize
Stability
(to) remain steady
Express the inverse falling or rising:
Verbs
Nouns
(to) stop falling/rising
(a) change
(to) stop falling and start rising
(to) stop rising and start falling
We can use some model sentences:
 There (be) a
quick/slow/sharp/rapid/considerable/steady
increase/ grow/ reduction/ rise/ fall/ drop.
There (be) an upward trend +in 
There (be) a downward trend +in 
-There (be) a fluctuation 
Due to time for each period is limited and the students’abilities. So the teacher can not teach all knowledge. Teacher must find the most important and useful data to teach students.Of all important, teacher should spend time finding the effective ways to provide students with knowledge .
Here are some notes and vocabulary considered “hardware data”help us easily to develop writing lesson. However, to reach to the finally target is to have students’ “writing product”. Teacher should give the following prompts, design more tasks for students to approach the lesson. There are some ways I applied in teaching description the chart.
PART III: SOME PROCEDURES IN TEACHING PERIOD.
After a lot of teaching periods to describe the chart. I myself find some suitable methods such as: providing the model writing, setting questions, completing the sentences or short paragraph, reodering the sentences, building the senteces based on the hint.
I. PROVIDING THE MODEL WRITING METHOD:
Target of this method is the settings of the architecture about a description form as building for some the phrase from or pattern structure. I usually apply this method for students in grade 10 because these students is new occurrence with the chart. When teaching UNIT 16: HISTORICAL PLACES Period 98: Writing (Textbook 10). I provide student a model description and a chart. Then asks students to scan the description then analysis
The bar chart illustrates the amount of money spent on five consumer goods (car, computers, books, perfume and cameras) in France and the UK in 2010. Units are measured in pounds sterling. 
Overall, the UK spent more money on consumer goods than France in the period given. Both the British and the French spent most of their money on cars whereas the least amount of money was spent on perfume in the UK compared to cameras in France. Futhermore, the most significant difference in expenditure between the two countries was on cameras. 
In terms of car, people in the UK spent about £450,000 on this as apposed to the French who spent £400,000. Similarly, the British spent more money on books than the French (around £400,000 and £300,000 respectively. In the UK, expenditure on cameras (just over £350,000) was double that of France, which was only 150,000.
On the other hand, the amount spent on the remaining goods was higher in France. Above £350,000 was spent by the French on computers which was slightly more than the British who spent exactly £350,000. Neither of the countries spent much on perfume which accounted for £200,000 of expenditure in France but under £150,000 in the UK.
 From this post template, student students will have the basic architecture about the text to be post the description of a chart: 
	- This chart shows..
	- It is clear that
	- According to the chart.
	- To have the largest..
	- whereas the smallest.
	- To have the smallest . in.
	- nearly ..greater than .. 
- On the other hand.............................
- overall............................
- In term of .......................
Known deeply about the text structure and the use of the language students will be automatical than when progress the steps in your description.
II.BUILDING SENTENCES METHOD:
When teaching UNIT 15: SOCIAL IN SOCIETY (Textbook 12)
This textbook has provided full questions. However, use this data is only applied for the gilfted students. It is difficult fot the rest. In this case I apply the providing data method like:
Task: Study the chart and write complete sentences with the given prompts: 
- Married men/ have/ do/ housework/ they/ have/ more children.
- Women/ spend/ 30 hours per week/ do/ housework/ this number/ be/ 20 hours for men when they have no children.
- The chart/ suggest/ married men should spend/ time/ share/ housework/ their wives.
- Married women/ have/ do/ housework/ they/ have/ more children.
- The numbers of weekly housework hours / men and women with three or more children/ do/ be / 10 and 55 hours respectively.
- In general/ married women/ do/ housework/ men/ do.
- It/ take/ men and women with one or two children/ 15/ 50 hours/ respectively/ do/ housewwork/ every week.
Remind students to use suitable tenses to complete the above sentences. After finishing this Task student can answer thee questions in Task 1.
III. USING HINT WORDS METHOD:
 The target of this process is students understand information in the chart to fill in the words or phrases.
When teaching UNIT 7: WORLD POPULATION (Texbook 11). Teacher must guide students to describe the pie. We can see the distribution of world population by region. The hintary data is only some phrases, if we request students to write a description based on this data number, the students is not able to write. In this details after when extracted one dynamic from the word and provided from the “Useful language” section that will be added the following tasks:
Task 1: Study the chart about the distribution of world population by region and fill in the gaps with given words or phrases: 
Ranks first ranks last distributed unevenly greatest
accounts for approximately more than double
It can be seen that the world population is ..
The South Asian which .accounts for nearly half of the world population with 32%.
The region with the smallest population is Oceania, which..only 2% of world population
Compared with the Oceania which..in the chart, Latin has ..8% of the world population while Northern American has lower rate with only 6%.
East Asia has..the population of Africa with 26% for the former and 15% for the later.
6	 As can be seen, the .. concentration of the world population is in Asia, with Europe far behind. 
 Keys : 1. distributed unevenly 4. ranks last - approximately
 2. ranks first 5. more than double
 3. accounts for 6. greatest
IV. DETERMINED AND ARRANGED INFORMATION METHOD :
For some hard problems that usually apply this method in this process. Target item for verify the learning information in the map and the sort of a logical information.
EXAMPLE: UNIT 7 (Textbook 12). Or we can design any lessons as this form
Task : Study the information given in the table and decide whether the given statements are true(T) or false(F). If they are false, corect them. 
Before 1980 the economy in Tango was not under-developed and stagnant.
All five main production sectors agriculture, fishery, forestry, industry and constructon were in ruins.
Before 1980 people could see a lot of activities of export in the country. Export value was equal to zero.
From 1980 to 2000 all branch of economy decreased considerably and continuously.
It was said that the Government and the people of Tango had carried out economic reforms such as spending more money on agriculture, fishery, forestry and industry to raise the production of economy. 
Especially, construction was improved dramatically from 1975 to2000.
After 1980 Tango started to increase co-operation with the rest of the world by trading a large amount of goods. 
By conducting a lot of positive measures, the economy of Tango now see a big leap in comparison with twenty years before.
Average increasing rate per year was more than 4.5% in all sectors, among which construction has the lowest growth of 6.4% in 2000. 
Keys: 1. False. (was notwas) 6. False.(19751980)
 2. True. 7. True.
 3. False. ( a lot ofno) 8. True.
 4. False. (decreased.increased) 9. False. (lowest.highest)
 5. True.
V. MAKING QUESTION METHODS:
Target of this method is the direction for the students information to be described, students are not disturbed by many messages in the information.
VISITOR ARRIVALS IN VIETNAM
(From the USA, France and Australia)
Example: Unit 16: HISTORICAL PLACES (textbook 10)
Task : Study the chart and answer the following questions :
According to the chart, which country had the biggest number of visitors to Vietnam in 2001?
How many French visitors arrived Vietnam in 2001?
Which country had the smallest number of visitors to Vietnam in 2002?
Is the number of Australian visitors coming to Vietnam in 2002?
Which country, France or Australia, had moreisitors to Vietnam in 2001?
How did the number of American visitors to Vietnam in 2002 increase in comparision with that in 2001?
Answering these questions students have enough information to complete writing.
From these analysis above. I give a lesson plan as a model plan.
UNIT 7: WORLD POPULATION
Period 41st : WRITING
I. Objectives: 
 1.Educational aim: Students will write descriptions of pie charts 
 2.General knowledge: Students learn how to write a descriptions of a chart
 - Language: students should interpret statistics on population from a chart
 - New words: Words related to the topic 
 3. Skills: Writing descriptions of pie charts
II. Method: Integrated, mainly communicative
III. Teaching aids: Student’s book, notebook, projector, computer
IV. Procedure:
Teacher’s activities
 Students’ activities
Warm up
Books closed
T shows Ss a pie or a piece of paper with a pie and asks questions:
T: What’s this?
T: Yes, it’s a pie cake. It’s round. Now look at what I am doing.
T: Yes, I am dividing it into parts. What do you think about the parts?
T: Now open your books and you can see another one. This chart is round so it is a pie chart. Are the patts in the pie chart equal?
T: Yes, these parts stand for the distribution of population in the world, and it is not equal among regions.
T asks Ss to work in pairs: ask and answer about the information in the chart
T presents Useful language and explains:
- The chart shows the distribution of world population by region
- It can be seen that
- distributed unevenly
- account for  per cent
- more than double the population of
- half as much as
- nearly half of
- rank first / last
T instructs Ss how to use Useful language to describe the chart
T goes round the class and provide help when necessary
T gives some suggested sentences :
- The world population is not distributed evenly / is distributed unevenly.
- The South Asia ranks first with 32% / ( The South Asia has the most people / has the largest population).
- Very few people live in the Oceania. / The Oceania is the least populated / The Oceania has the least population.
- Less than that in South Asia is East Asia with only 26%.
- Africa and Europe have fewer people with 11% for the former and 15% for the later.
- Compared with the Oceania which ranks last in the table, Latin has approximately 8% of the world population whereas Northern America has a lower rate with only 6%. Nowadays 15% the world population is living in Europe.
T corrects mistakes and gives suggested answer.
T asks Ss to write a paragraph of their own at home.
Homework: - write a paragraph at home
 - Prepare for LANGUAGE FOCUS
Look at the picture and answer:
S: It’s a cake