The experiences of teaching english writing skill to the grade 10th students of hau loc i high school through writing lessons

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO THANH HÓA
TRƯỜNG THPT HẬU LỘC I
SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM
THE EXPERIENCES OF TEACHING ENGLISH WRITING SKILL TO THE GRADE 10TH STUDENTS OF HAU LOC I HIGH SCHOOL THROUGH WRITING LESSONS
 Người thực hiện: Lường Thị Duyên
 Chức vụ : Giáo viên 	 SKKN thuộc lĩnh vực môn: Tiếng Anh
THANH HOÁ NĂM 2017
TABLE OF CONTENTS
 PART I: INTRODUCTION
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 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. More and more people want to learn English for communicating with foreign partners, tourism, study tours, etc.
 In the current Vietnamese high schools, basing on the textbooks designed by the Ministry of Education and Training, English is taught with four skills and Language Focus which focuses on grammar and pronunciation. Writing is considered one of the four language skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing). Writing skill is an important part of communication. Good writing skill allows students to communicate their message with clarity.
 Next,writing, one of the two productive skills, has always a significant position in language teaching. Teaching writing includes taking students through a process — a series of steps — such as brainstorming for ideas, organising and sequencing them, revising and editing the draft and so on. 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 skills and focus only on grammar excercises for the exams.Therefore, the teachers who are currently teaching English, they always think what they should do to make students’ motivation in writing lessons.
 Thanks to the innovation of ways in teaching English,together my own teaching experience, in the scope of the theme I would like to present : " The experiences of teaching English writing skill to the grade 10th students of Hau Loc I High School through writing lessons”. Hopefully, these experiences could encourage students to write better, develop their writing skills and make students’ motivation in writing lessons. Moreover, the theme would be shared with any colleagues who had the same problem or anyone who is interested in this theme.
PART II. CONTENTS
 In the current education curriculum, teaching writing is mainly to coordinate with other skills to enrich the forms of practice, review students’ knowledge as well as help students get acquainted initially writing style, structure of writing and using writing activities to communicate some specific purpose.
 Moreover, with the aim of improving students’ abilities in writing. On English 10 textbook, there are a range of types to practice writing with narrative, writing letters, giving directions , writing about a story ,describing statistics from a chart or a table, writing a report or a biography,.. Students will have to practise writing in many ways.Thus, the stages of teaching writing skill are very important in writing lessons and they also have 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.The key to successful writing lessons is that the teachers should carry out well the following stages:
Pre- writing stage
 Pre-writing is the first step in writing process, pre-writing consists of gathering ideas and thinking of the order in which they should appear. It should result in some sort of a product – an outline, a timeline. Thus, pre – writing activities is considered to be the most important stage in teaching writing skill and pre-writing activities will help student to get ready to perform the tasks of writing. Additionally, the fact that students’ writing performance can be affected by teachers’ teaching methods and teachers’ instructions in this stage. If the teacher conducts this stage successfully, the classroom atmosphere will change and also the students’ writing performance will be much better. 
 In this stage T should think of good activities to:
 -bexplore the model text 
 -banlyse the organization and style
 -bprepare vocabulary, structures
 -benable students to get ideas together
 -bplan the outline
 Besides, pre-writing can be a social experience. Particularly when students in the class is responding to the same writing prompt, teacher can ask students to work individually, in pairs or in small brainstorming groups. Depending on the writing prompt, teacher can allow groups of students to develop a shared product. Peer tutoring is also an effective strategy to use in helping students develop pre-writing skill.
 The following examples that I have carried out in this stage:
Example 1: Writing lesson of Unit 4
Topic: Writing a letter of complaint 
-Teacher gives two pictures showing two different faces ( one is happy and another is angry) 
-Teacher asks students : 1. How do they feel ? 
 2. Are they happy or angry ? 
-Then teacher can ask students : “ What kind of letter do you write if you feel angry about something or unhappy with something? A letter of complaint or a thank- you letter”?
-Teacher introduces : Today we are going to learn how to write a complaint letter 
-Teacher encourages students to guess the definition and format of a letter of complaint,then teacher gives:
+Complaint is a kind of formal letter used when you are not happy with a service, a contract, a course,
 +A letter of complaint usually includes three main parts:
Opening: giving reasons and purposes
Body: showing and explaining the problems logically
Conclusion: suggesting resolutions
-Teacher asks students to work in groups, gives each group one handout and asks students to read the letter carefully and get the information to fill in the blanks ( In the handout there is a sample letter of complaint and asks students to notice the tenses and the words, phrases as well as main parts in this letter )
Address of the sender:..
Address of recipient.
Salutation.
Reason for writing
Complaints
Solution for the prolem..
Closing. 
Signature .
-After students finish the information, teacher checks and guides students to make an outline. 
Sample outline 
 Address of the sender
Address of recipient
Greeting : ( Deer,..)
Body 
 -State purpose ( I’m writing to complain about..)
 - Give information / evidence to support( First of all, you say that..)
 - Give more information / evidence to support( You also say that../ In the advertisement you say that.)
 - Give more information ( To make the mater worse,.)
 - Give the evidence you dislike most ( What I hate most your .is./ Finally,.).
 - Request action ( To resolve the problem, I require you to )
Closing
Sign off : Yours faithfully
* Teacher notices students that complaint is a kind of formal letter students should use connectors such as: first of all, firstly, secondly, furthermore, to make the matter worse, finally,and present simple tense.
- Teacher asks students to open the book, read the advertisement of “ English For Today Centre”, then teacher gives a hint to students by questions and asks students to work in pairs to discuss: 
 What were advertised 
 What happened to you 
-Native teachers ONLY
-No more than 20 students per class
-Free books and cassettles tapes
-All air conditioned rooms 
-5.30 – 8.30 pm
-Only one / few native teachers 
- About 40 students in class
- Pay for them ( 50.000 or 60.000 dong)
-There is only one ceiling fan/ The classroom was very hot
-Start late and finish early 
Sometimes I waited for half an hour because the room was not ready or the teacher arrived late.
- With a range of suggestions and an outline, students will complete the dialogue in Task 1 and the letter of complaint in Task 2 easily and they might write other letters of complaint well. 
Example 2: Writing lesson of Unit 6
Topic : Writing a confirmation letter
-Teacher asks stuents to work in pairs : Read the two letters and find the requests in Nga’s letter and the confirmation in Hoa’s. 
 + Request : Can you go shopping with me to buy the things we need for the trip
 + Confirmation : Certainly, I will help you to prepare everything you need for the trip. I will be waiting for you at 2.30 p.m.
- Teacher explains the definition of request and confirmation letter:
 + Request is the letter that asks for information or help.
 + Confirmation is the letter that responds to the request. It confirms whether the help is provided or the information is available or not. 
-Teacher explains new words: to pick someone up, to be convenient for,let someone have an early reply.
-Teacher asks students to read the two letters again and underline:
 + the words and phrases used to give the request and the confirmation
 + tenses
 Then students work in groups to make a detail outline 
-Teacher calls on some groups to write their outlines on the board
-Teacher corrects students’ outlines and good outlines can be marked 
 Sample outline 
 *Date 
 * Salutation( Dear,)
 * Starting the confirmation politely with delight and repeating request 
 ( I’m glad to hear that ../ Certainly, I’ll help you)
 * Closing ( I’ll be waiting for you at ../ see you then.)
 * Signature
-Teacher notices students that tenses are used: Future simple tense and Future continuous tense
-Students will use this model and write a confirmation letter easily.
Example 3: Writing lesson of Unit 7
Topic: Writing about the advantages and disadvantages of the mass media.
After the exciting warm up activity: answering 3 questions:
 1.What are some kinds of mass media?
 2.Which one is the most popular?
 3.What are the advantages and disadvantages of television?
- Teacher leads in the lesson and asks students to skim the model text, identify the advantages and disadvantages of T.V and underline some new words and new structures which are used in the model text.
 -Teacher checks and gives tructures and new words : 
 + help / encourage S.O to do sth: help us to learn, encourage us to buy. 
 + make S.O / sth + adjective: make things memorable, make us aware of, make us passive / violent. 
 + 'memorable (adj) : easy to remember
 + en'joyable (adj) : pleasant
 + popu'larity (n) : the noun of " popular"
 + be a'ware of (v) : realize
 + brain (n) : part of the body inside the head
 + 'violent (adj) : fighting, killing, etc.
 + inter'fere with (v) : get in the way of something
-Teacher asks students to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of TV. Use the new structures they have learnt.
-Then teacher devides the class into 6 groups and asks students to work in groups: Give the advantages and disadvantages of :
+ Listening to radio
 + Reading newspapers
 + Using the Internet
- During students dicuss, teacher walks around the class to help students if they need. When the time is over, teacher calls on some groups to present their ideas in front of the class and asks for comments from other groups.
-Teacher corrects and gives: 
Suggested answers
Advantages
Disadvantages
Listening to radio
- Make people happy/ life easier.
-Get updated news and infofmation and enlarger or broaden knowledge and understanding
- Listen to music, dramas, etc.
 -Share opinions/experiences
- It is not harmful to people's eyes.
- It is rather boring because we can't see anything.
- The programmes are not very vivid, there are no games and films, etc.
Reading newspapers
-Get information on many fields: culture,art,business,
-Learn more about the word and to know and see many new things
-It is cheap
-Relax and entertain
-Newspaper may not be available everywhere
-There is no information until the next edition
-The pictures are not moving.
Using the Internet
- Make people happy/ life easier.
-Get the largest source of information and entertainment . 
 -Relax by watching films or football matches, listening to music on-line or chatting to friends or relatives. 
 -Harm people eyes.be short-sighted.
 -Make people passive and influence on the way people think or people’life.
 -It can be dangerous because you can be exposed to harmful websites
 Students might be successful in writing this kind of exercise because there were a large number of these expressions and students can choose any kind of mass media and write the text.
While – writing stage
 This stage is for developing writing skill, students can write individually, but teacher should encourage collaborative writing ( work in pairs or in a small group to write the first draft).While students are writing, teacher goes round the class to see how well students work and whether they need some help. Especially, teacher should pay more attention to less – active or quiet students and encourage them to work.
 Post – writing stage
 The activities in this stage help students much in gaining confidence when writing and also help them become more and more interested in their writing lessons.
Therefore, after students finish their writings, there are many ways of responding to students ’writien work. Teacher can choose from the following techniques:
 + correction
 + sharing and comparing
 + exhibition 
 Besides, teacher should take the lead in this process, and offer direct, explicit, and frequent feedback. Students should be active in self – studying, peer and group cooperation. Feedback from both a teacher and students help to develop their writing style.
 The sample planning lesson 
ENGLISH 10
Period 68 
 UNIT 11: NATIONAL PARKS
 D : WRITING
I. Objectives
1. Education Aims
 - Students can write a letter of acceptance or refusal.
2. Knowledge
 a. General knowledge: 
 - A letter of acceptance or refusal.
 b. Language: 	
 - Language used to write an informal letter.
 - Expressions: "Yes, I'd like/love to."," I'm afraid I can't come because...?", etc.
 3. Skills 
 - Reading: read the expressions in task 1 to fill the blanks of the incomplete letters.
 - Speaking: work in pairs to rearrange the sentences to make a letter of acceptance.
 - Writing: write a letter of acceptance or refusal.
II. Anticipated problems
 - Students may find it difficult to get ideas as well as to choose suitable expressions to write a letter of their own.
III. Teaching Aids
	- board, textbook, chalk,handouts.
IV. Procedures
Teacher's activities
 Students' activities
1.Warm up:( 5 mins)
Competition game-Network 
- Prepare a handout with a network of the word “ letter”.
-Ask sts to work in goups and complete the network with different types of letter they know.
-The winner will be the group with the quickest and correct answers.
-Check and give correct answers.
2. Before you write:( 18 mins)
 Aims: 
+ to get sts to read the expressions in the table and to do task 1 and task 2.
+ to get sts to give outline.
 Task 1
- Introduce the topic of the lesson: Write a letter of acceptance or refusal.
- Introduce some new words:
+ a'cceptance (n): the noun of "accept"
+re'fusal (n) : the noun of " refuse"
+ dec'line (v) : refuse sth offered ( politely)
- Ask sts to listen and repeat and then copy down these words into their notebooks.
- Ask sts to read the expressions in the table, then work in pairs to complete three reply letters by using the expressions in the table. For each blank they can have more than
one answer.
- Move around to help if necessary.
-Call on some students to write their answers on the board and call for peer corrections.
- Comment and give the correct answers.
 * Ask sts to discuss the features of a letter of acceptance or refusal.
 Sts answer some questions:
 + What is the similarity between the three letters?
+ What is the similarity between letter one and three?
+ How is letter two different from the other two?
+ Why did the writer of letter two refuse the invitation?
-Remind sts that:
+ to write a letter of acceptance, firstly, sts should thank their friends for the invitation. Then they use one of the ways of accepting to say they agree to join their friends.
+ to write a letter of refusal, firstly, sts should thank their friends for the invitation.Then they use one of the ways of refusing the invitation to say that they can’t join their friends. Sts should remember to give out the reason for refusal as well.
-Ask sts to use the letters in the task as models.
- Comment and give the correct models.
Task 2
- Remind sts of the letter Nam wrote to Lam to invite Lam to spend a weekend with him. And now Lam writes a letter of acceptance Nam's invitation.
- Ask sts to work in pairs to rearrange the sentences into a letter.
- Call on some pairs to read the letter out loud and ask other pairs to listen and give feedback.
- Comment and give the correct order.
3. While you write:( 12 mins)
 Aims: Sts practise writing a letter of acceptance or refusal.
- Ask sts to read the requirement of task 3.
- Ask them to pay attention to their outlines
- Ask sts to work the letter individually.
- Move around to conduct the
activity.
4. After you write:( 8 mins)
Aims: to get feedback and check sts' work.
-Ask sts to exchange their writing with another student for peer correction
-Goes around and collects mistakes and errors.
-Collects some writings for quick feedback.
-Write sts’typical errors on the board and elicits self and peer correction.
-Give sts a sample letter.
5.Consolidation: (1min)
-Ask sts to summary the main points.
6. Homework: (1min)
-Ask sts to rewrite their own writing at home.
- Listen to the teacher.
-Groupwork 
- Listen to the teacher carefully.
- Copy down the words into their notebooks.
- Do the task in pairs.
- Share their answer with their friends.
- Present their ideas.
1. Accepting: Yes, I'd like/love to.
2. Refusing: I'm afraid I can't come because (or I’d love to, but )
3. Accepting: I'd be delighted to ( or I’d love to)
- Listen to the teacher.
-Whole class
- Work in groups 
-Copy down 
 *A letter of acceptance
Outline 
 Example
-Salutation -Thanking for invitation 
-Starting the acceptance politely with delight
 -Closing 
-Signature 
-Dear Chi,
- Thanks for your 
invitation
- I’d like to come
- How about 
meeting at
 the school 
gate at 8.30?
-Yours,
 Lien
 *A letter of refusal
Outline 
 Example
Salutation -Thanking for invitation 
-Starting the refusal politely with regret
-Closing 
-Signature 
-Dear David,
- Thanks for 
your note
- I’d love to 
come.But 
I’m afraid 
I can’t 
because my 
father 
has been ill 
since yesterday 
and 
I have to look after him 
-Let’s go 
another time.
-Yours,
Mike
-Work in pairs
- Present their ideas:
1.d 2. e 3. c 4. a 5. f 6. b
- Listen to the teacher and copy down.
- Read the requirement.
- Listen to the teacher.
- Do the writing task.
-Pair work and whole class
- Listen to the teacher
- Copy a sample letter.
Dear Binh, 
 It's lovely to hear that you are going for a picnic to Cuc Phuong National Park next weekend. Thank you for inviting me to join you but I'm afraid I can't come.
 My English friend, Maria, is coming to Vietnam next weekend and I have promised to cook her some of our traditional dishes on Saturday morning. After that, I'm going to take her to some famous places in Hai Duong.
 I hope that you will have a wonderful day in Cuc Phuong. Remember to show me the photos you take in Cuc Phuong whem you get home.
Yours,
Nam
- Listen and take note.
-Do at home
PART III : CONCLUSION
 Some innovation of teaching methods and some appropriate strategies were applied in my lessons. Most of students were interested in teaching lessons. They were w