The study deals with the use of writing process to improve 12th graders’ writing skill at Quang Xuong I high school

PART I : INTRODUCTION
( Phần I : Đặt vấn đề)
English has become the most popular foreign language in Vietnam. The number of people learning and using English for different purposes has been unceasingly increased day by day. This has resulted in changing the outlook of the Ministry of Education and Training for teaching and learning English at upper secondary school. It has become a compulsory subject in the state examination and it is one of three subjects for some universities’ entrance exam. However, both of teaching learning of English are still far from being satisfaction. Both teachers and learners have faced many difficulties in English teaching and learning, especially in teaching and learning writing.
In Vietnam in general, teaching writing has not paid much attention as it deserves, which is really a problem in teaching and learning a foreign language . Therefore, educationists should take this into consideration.
 At Quảng Xương 1 High School, the problem of teaching and learning writing skill is rather difficult. The main reason is that the class size with 45-50 students and learners’ proficiency of English is rather low. Another reason is the course book with a large number of new words and structures. Therefore, learners are often confused and find difficult to remember all of them which are necessary for them to write a composition. 
 1. The reason for choosing this theme ( Lý do chọn đề tài ) :
As a teacher of English at the upper-secondary school, the author has realized the reality of teaching writing for English language learners.
English is a required subject for high school students in Vietnam nowadays. Theoretically, the curricula and teaching philosophy are communicatively oriented with four skills equally developed. In practice, writing is a largely ignored area due to the washback of examinations. Most of important tests including graduation and university entrance exams do not have a writing component. As a result, students only focus on learning grammar and vocabulary. They have considerable difficulty in learning the writing skill.
Writing was traditionally considered as a product, which means that students write a composition and the teacher provides comments and gives correction and the students do not have to rewrite the draft. The present trend regards writing as a process. That is, students write multiple drafts before the completing final draft. The ability to write well is not a naturally acquired skill; it must be practiced and learned through experience. Writing is a complex combination of skills that is best taught by breaking down the process. The writing process involves a series of steps to follow in producing a finished piece of writing. By breaking down writing step-by-step, the mystery is removed and writer’s block is reduced. Most importantly, students discover the benefits of constructive feedback on their writing, and they progressively master, and even enjoy writing. Although this idea is not new in theory, how to apply it in practice is not easy. Being a teacher of English at a secondary school, I see the reality of teaching writing skill in my setting. I have, therefore, decided to conduct a study on this area to improve the teaching practice in my school. 
The study deals with the use of writing process to improve 12th graders’ writing skill at Quang Xuong I high school. It focuses on the students’ revising and editing the drafts after they receive feedback from teacher and the changes made to each paper between first and final drafts. The text type was descriptive text.
2. The aim of the theme (Mục đích của đề tài ):
The aims of the study are:
- To investigate the impact of process writing on 12th graders’ composition skill. 
- To find out effective methods of teaching English writing skill to 12th graders
 3. The scope of the theme ( Phạm vi của đề tài ):
The study is narrowed down to the area of teaching and learning writing for grade 12 students at Quảng Xương 1 High School with the textbook English 12. Specifically, this theme deals with the present situation in teaching and learning writing skill. Accordingly, the study deals with the use of writing process to improve 12th graders’ writing skill at Quang Xuong I high school.
The study focuses on the students’ revising and editing the drafts after they receive feedback from teacher and the changes made to each paper between first and final drafts. The text type was descriptive text.
4. The method of the study ( Phương pháp nghiên cứu ) :
The study employs a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. It involves the analysis of students’ writing, interviews, reflexive journals, and statistical data. Multiple drafts approach is used for error treatment and content development. Interviews and reflective journals provide in-depth information that supplements the analysis of writing drafts.
PART II : DEVELOPMENT
( Phần II: Giải quyết vấn đề )
Reasoning basis (Cơ sở lý luận ):
Nowadays, Vietnam opened its doors to the world, beginning a new period of scientific, educational and commercial cooperation with many countries. English has become an essential means for Vietnamese people to enter into international communication. In this context, new approaches and methods of language teaching have been introduced and considered by a large number of Vietnamese teachers and educators .
In an attempt to innovate Vietnamese education to meet the demand of the society in the progress of integration and development, the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training has reformed English textbooks concentrating on four skills: reading, speaking, listening, and writing. Of the four skills, many teachers and students alike consider writing to be most difficult and complicated to teach and to learn. In fact, there are a variety of reasons for this problem, and therefore finding appropriate techniques and methods for teaching writing effectively to students requires long serious research. 
The actual subject before applying new methods to teaching:
 (Thực trạng của vấn đề trước khi áp dụng sáng kiến kinh nghiệm)
At Quảng Xương 1 High School, the problem of teaching and learning writing is rather difficult. There are 36 classes in this school. The class size is generally large with 40-45 learners in one. The classroom are equipped only with a chalk board and desks for four students sharing one. Moreover, some of the teachers of English at Quảng Xương 1 High School find it difficult to teach writing successfully because of the students’ language level. Furthermore, the majority of the teachers were trained under the strong influence of the Grammar-Translation method, which impedes them from teaching writing successfully .
 Besides,the introduction of the new textbook “English 12” in 2006 has marked real renovation in language teaching and learning from the traditional approach-grammar translation method. Writing is the last skill in each unit. It is presented after three skills of reading, speaking and listening. These skills help prepare vocabulary, sentence structures and ideas for writing tasks.Writing skill on different kinds of texts such as: writing a letter of request, writing a report, describing a book, etc. helps students practice writing with real-life situations on text. However , students are still fed up with writing because nowadays all English tests they have to do at exams are multiple-choice tests. They have not been aware of the fact that writing is also an effective way to pracice English grammatical structures and new words, which helps them to do the tests better. 
The results of my students’writing in Unit 10 , English 12, part D
( Writing) in 12T1 and 12C3 before applying the new method:
Class
Results
Mark 9-10
Mark 7-8
Mark 5-6
Mark <5
12T1 (45students)
1
8
27
9
12C3(42 students)
0
3
25
14
In search of documents for the study, I have not found any research on the application of process writing at high school in my region. This is the reason why I have decided to study it in Quang Xuong I high school where I am currently teaching. 
3. Applied methods for solution (Giải pháp):
Writing is one of the four skills in language acquisition. However, teaching and learning how to write is a complicated and laborious process. For every language learner it is essential to acquire the language components of a language before developing the language skills. Therefore, it can not be denied the role of writing in language teaching and learning is extremely significant. 
Therefore, the teacher’s task is to instruct students how to write a composition successfully and in this case, motivation is an important factor that decides the success of learning, which means the teachers have to search for and apply effective ways to motivate their students to learn writing skill.
3.1. Principles of teaching writing :
Teaching how to write effectively is one of the crucial life-long skills that instructors impart to their students. It is a matter of prescribing a set of predetermined tasks or exercises to the students. When teaching a writing course, instructors not only teach about how to develop ideas in writing, but also pay proper attention to how to write English sentences grammatically and systematically. The effectiveness of writing instruction depends on both teaching compositions and assessment. 
3.2. What are the methods of teaching writing?
Various methods of teaching composition have been employed in language teaching. They can be categorized into two major approaches, namely the process and the product approach.
 3.2.1. The product approach
The product approach aims at making the students competent in the language when they write relevant and coherent pieces of writing. It focuses on the final product of the writers and the texts written by the students are based on models provided by the teacher.
3.2.2. The process approach
Writing in process approaches is seen as predominantly to do with linguistic skills, such as planning and drafting, and there is much less emphasis on linguistic knowledge, such as knowledge about grammar and text structure. There are different views on the stages that writers go through in producing a piece of writing, but a typical model identifies four stages: prewriting; composing/drafting; revising; and editing (Tribble 1996: 39) [4]. This is a cyclical process in which writers may return to pre-writing activities, for example, after doing some editing or revising. A typical prewriting activity in the process approach would be for learners to brainstorm on the topic of houses. 
3.3. The process of writing:
Of the two methods metioned, the process of writing is known as the better. The process of writing comes through several stages before reaching the final draft. It is a process that involves six distinct steps: prewriting, drafting, responding, revising, editing and publishing.  
 Stages in Writing Process (Hyland, 2003) [3]
3.3.1. Prewriting
In this stage, students involve the activities such as reading, brainstorming, mind mapping, discussing, fast writing, questioning, interviewing, which encourage them to generate ideas before they write their sentences in the first draft. Then, students try to order their data and arrange them according to their priorities that mean which idea is going to be the first, which is the second, and so on.
The prewriting stage is divided into three steps. The first step is to put the ideas into subsists according to the main idea and eliminate all the irrelevant ones. The second step relies on putting a topic sentence to each of the subsists made in the first step and the topic sentence must reflect the whole subsist, that is when the reader reads the topic sentence, he can infer what is coming. The last step in the first stage is to order the subsists according to what the writer thinks is appropriate to be the first, second and so on.
For example: 
In Unit 14: International organizations, English12. Period: 86
“Suppose you were offered a job with one of the international organizations, which one would you like to choose? Write a paragraph of about 120-150 words expressing the reasons why you choose the organization”.
Students in 12T1 has brainstormed and ordered their ideas: 
WWF- Reasons: 
*love animals wild and plants. 
I really love animals wild and plants. 
*be good research.(omitted) 
*have opportunity to live abroad. 
I have opportunity to live abroad.
* have chance to travel the world
 I will have chance to travel the world
3.3.2. Drafting
Drafting is to start writing according to the ideas planned before. The result of brainstorming session provides a plan of description of topic. Oshima and Hogue (2002; 28) [1] call this stage as writing and revising drafts. They argue that no piece of writing is perfect the first time and the writer has to write and revise several drafts until he/she produces the final draft. In the first step, the composition might be written without considering to grammar, punctuation, or spelling and no importance to the structure. Students may add new information in the drafting stage; there is no matter to hesitate because the focus is on ideas, purpose, coherence and relevance, unity, sufficient supporting ideas and concluding sentences. As a last step in the drafting stage, the student checks the grammar, spelling and punctuation mistakes.
For example:
Suppose I were offered a job with one of the international organizations, I like to work for WWF for an amount of reason. I really love animals wild and plants. plants rare and animals also good research. It make me better biology. On the other hand, I have opportunity to live abroad. I can use English at work and return high salary. I will have chance to travel the world, meet people and works at remote and mountain .Finally, I can protect dangerous species, which I love the most (added information). That’s why WWF is the best suitable fun for me .
3.3.3. Reviewing/Revising
Revising is the stage where the writer comes through his/her final draft and tries to define the different lapses and corrects them in a second draft. All good writers go through several steps of the revision because they want to make their writing the best it can. At this point, they consider what they have written, get feedback from others, and then make changes. They can scratch out unnecessary or irrelevant information, squeeze ideas that they want to add into the margin, and even cut up and re-paste the paper to change the order or make addition. According to Oshima and Hogue (2002; 29) [1], during the first revision we should concern mainly with content and organization. This is how to proceed:
Read over the paragraph carefully for a general overview. Focus on the general aspects of the paper and make notes in the margin.
Check to see that you have achieved your stated purpose.
Check for general logic and coherence.
Check to make sure that the paragraph has a topic and that the topic sentence has a central (main) focus.
Check for unity. Cross any sentence that does not support the topic sentence.
Check to make sure that the topic sentence is developed with sufficient supporting details. Be certain that each paragraph gives the readers enough information to understand the main idea.
Check the use of transitional signals.
Finally, does your paragraph have or need a concluding sentence? If you wrote a final comment, is it on the topic?
The next revision is to check for grammar, sentence structure, spelling, and punctuation. This checking is specific as following: (Oshima and Hogue, ibid.)[1].
Check over each sentence for correctness and completeness: no fragments and no choppy or run-on sentences.
Check over each sentence for a subject and a verb, subject- verb agreement, correct tenses, etc.
Check the mechanics: punctuation, spelling, capitalization, tying errors, etc.
Change vocabulary words as necessary.
 In this stage, the students review a draft to check errors based on the feedback from himself or herself and teacher or peers. The writers need to make changes to another draft before having someone else read it and offer further feedback and suggestions. Thus, drafting and revising could theoretically be completed and repeated indefinitely. 
For example:
Teacher’s comments:
You had many good ideas in the paragraph. To make your writing better, consider the following suggestions:
Your writing is under length. Add some more ideas to make it least 120 words
Do not copy the question, use your own words by paraphrasing it.
Use more linking words to connect your ideas.
Student’s writing:
Everyone has his or her own choice. To me, suppose I was offered to work for one of the international organizations, I’d like to work for WWF for an amount of reasons. First, I really love animals wild and plants. I want to do reseach on plants rare and animals. It will make me better at biology. Second, I have ^. opportunity to live abroad. I can use English at work and may have ^ high salary. Third, I will have chance to travel all over the world, meet different people and works in remote and mountain areas. Finally, I can protect dangerous species, which I love the most. That’s why WWF is the best suitable fun for me .
3.3.4. Editing
Editing is important step because it helps moving from the stage of revising where there are many incomplete ideas, incorrect spelling and unstructured sentences to the stage of correcting all the final draft. Once revisions are made and changes to major traits of a writing project are complete, editing must take place as “a diamond is polished after being shaped”.  Whereas revisions are easily guided by any peer reviewer, editing changes may require the assistance of someone who is knowledgeable about grammar. This is where the role of teacher in giving direct and indirect feedback will be applied. 
According to Trimbur (1999: 680) [2], the reason that the writers must learn to edit their work is not simply to avoid grammatical errors, misspellings, and poor style as if writing were a matter of abiding by the law. There are two further reasons for editing that are important to understand. The first reason is that the correctness of writing influences readers. The sentence errors, punctuation mistakes, misspelling words, and stylistic lapses can distract readers and undermine a writer’s credibility. The second reason is that sentences are basic units of meaning that express the relationship among ideas. Writers edit their work not just to make sure the grammatical correctness of sentences but also to clarify what they are trying to say. For these reasons, editing involves working with sentences to make a piece of writing persuasive to readers.
For example:
 Everyone has his or her own choice. To me, suppose I was offered to work for one of the international organizations, I’d like to work for WWF for an amount (WC) of reasons. First, I really love animals wild (WO) and plants. I want to do reseach (SP) on plants rare (WO) and animals. It will make me better at biology. Second, I have ^. opportunity to live abroad. I can use English at work and may have ^ high salary. Third, I will have chance to travel all over the world, meet different people and works (S-V A) in remote and mountain (WF) areas. Finally, I can protect dangerous (WC) species, which I love the most. That’s why WWF is the best suitable fun (WC) for me. 
3.3.5. Publication
This stage takes place when a product of the writing process is shared with its intended audience.  Publication can occur in a variety of forums as well as numerous times for a single product. The rewards of the writing process are often revealed at the publication stage, when readers of a product express that the purpose of a written project has been fulfilled. The writers realize the payments of their hard work at the publication stage. 
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