USING WEB 2.0 IN TEACHING WRITING: A PRACTICE TOOL IN WRITING ASSESSMENT

Phung Thi Duc Foreign Trade University, Vietnam

In the presentation

• Rational • Research context • Theoretical perspectives - E-portforlios - Wikispaces classroom - E-portfolios on a wikispaces classroom • Research methods • Findings and discussion

Rational

Learning and teaching Writing faces more challenges and problems than in other ESL skills. • Learning writing is a long and arduous process but has

been given less attention. • It requires higher accuracy than in oral communication

and is a much more formal process. • Learning writing requires learners to work independently

and continuously both in and out of class

Rational

At FTU, teachers and students find challenges to teach and study Academic Writing • FTU students lack motivation and confidence. • Teachers see teaching Writing a hard and more time-

consuming job. • Conducting a vocabulary learning strategy (VLS) is

essential to deal with problems above. • “Electronic portfolio” (e-portfolio) is developed on the

wikispaces classroom to enhance the metacognitive use of VLS and promote independent, continuous learning.

The purposes of research

• Describes basic functions e-portfolios and a wiki class.

• Discusses the efficiency in promoting student autonomy in learning writing in English.

Research context

• Students taking writing are mainly non-major English

learners. • Students are unmotivated in learning writing for both

subjective and objective reasons. • Students spend lots of time online, usually on non-

learning activities, e.g. facebooking, chit-chatting and movie watching rather than making it become a studying channel

• The research question: How to support teacher and student in teaching and learning writing skill while taking advantage of technology?

Theoretical backgrounds

Portfolio assessment: • An on-going process involving students and

teacher in selecting samples of students’ work to show the students’ progress. (Hancock,1994) .

• Measures individual learners’ progress rather than the product (White, 1994; Bachman, 1990).

• Teachers and students can work collaboratively (Fearn & Farnan, 2001),

• Students become independent and autonomous thinkers (Hancock, 1994).

E-portfolios

• “digital stories of deep learning” (Barrett,2004) .

• “inherently motivational” (Barker, 2005). • improves students’ progression • fosters learner autonomy

A wikispace classroom

• A free social writing platform for education by creating a classroom workspace, with over 10 million registered teachers and students.

• Teachers and students can communicate and work on writing projects alone or in teams.

• Rich assessment tools give teacher the power to measure student contribution and engagement in real-time => A formative assessment.

E-portfolios on wikispaces

• They both foster collaborative learning. • Feedbacks on e-portfolios set as private or

public on the wikispace by changing the settings.

• E-portfolios can be easily edited and added with new information.

• E-portfolios can be proceed for a variety of tasks: projecting, eventing, using creator and assessing.

E-portfolios on wikispace

E-portfolios on wikispace

E-portfolios on wikispace

Research methods

Participants • 36 first- year students from an intact class

have learned Business English for a semester at university.

The implementation of an e- portfolio task • Length of proceeding: a 10- week semester • Task: Completing the tasks given by teacher

after learning a unit in textbook “Effective Academic Writitng 1”.

Procedure of e-portfolio 1. Students work on writing assignments with different tasks for each week. 2. Students submit their assignment after each in-class lesson by uploading it to wikispace classroom in the project opened by the teacher of class. 3. Teacher and students checks student’s homework and give feedbacks to their peers. 4. When the semester ends, the teacher will mark students’ e-portfolios basing on sufficiency, quality, and the submission deadline. 5. Bonus score policy: Teacher will present from 1 to 1.5 bonus score depending on the quality of the E-portfolio

E- portfolio: Writing tasks

Research methods

Data collection and analysis • This study is a quantitative research. • The data were collected from: - 1 survey on the students’ prior knowledge - the results of 3 progress tests - 1 survey on the student’s attitude to

vocabulary e-portfolios

Survey questionnaire 1

• Survey 1- Students’ prior knowledge, attitude and achievement in learning writing

Survey questionnaire 1

Survey questionnaire 1: Findings and discussion • The majority of participants experience at least a

one- semester period of learning Business English.

• Students mainly realize their writing skill is worsen than other aspects of learning English although they understand the importance of this aspect

• Many think their motivation of learning English is low. Students are aware of the time spent learning writing is not enough and they hardly use other studying sources outside the class.

Questionnaire1 reveals students’ prior-knowledge of English

Question 2-5 show the attitude of students to learning writing skill

Question 6 to 10 demonstrate the experience of student in learning writing

Three progress tests reveal students’ progression when using writing e-

portfolio

• Each in-class progress test includes different writing tasks

• They are designed differently based on in the number complexity of writing questions based on the knowledge and skills in textbook.

• Teacher marks the 3 PTs to see the improvement in writing skills of Ss.

Three progress tests based on the complexity of writing tasks

3 progress tests: Findings and discussion

3 progress tests: Findings and discussion

• nearly 60 percent of students achieved 0-4.1 in progress test 1 meanwhile that of progress test 3 is only 5.56 percent.

• the percentage of students targeted from 6.1 in the first progress test is 5.56 per cent; however, there is 13.88 per cent of students achieving the same target and that of the third progress test is 10 times as many as the result of the first progress test.

=> There is a firm progression when students join in the e-portfolio on wikispace.

Survey questionnaire 2 • Students reveal the effectiveness, joy and difficulties in

doing writing e-portfolios. • Question 1 -3: investigate the joy the students find

when doing writing portfolios • Question 4- 9: reveal the effectiveness of e-portfolio in

learning writing • Question 10 -15: show the difficulties in doing writing

e- portfolio

Question 1 -3 investigates the joy the students find

when doing writing portfolios

Question 4- 9: reveal the effectiveness of e-portfolio in learning writing

Findings and discussion

• Writing e-portfolios increase students’ time of

learning writing and English self-learning outside classroom.

• Students are better at time management and techno-personal skills.

• Students become more autonomous in working online

Question 10 -17: The difficulties in doing writing e- portfolio

Findings and discussion

• Accessing wikispace is generally easy for students.

• Feedbacks for e-portfolios on wikispace are feasible.

• Students are interested in creating their own e-portfolios in a coming time.

• Only few find difficult to operate their e-portfolios in term of editing, collaborating and receiving feedbacks from teacher and friends.

Limitations of the study • The findings are not applicable for students in

year 2 and 3 since the research subjects are Business English learners, mainly first-year students.

• This is a pilot project at personal level because there are no comparative data between different skills: reading, speaking, listening…

• The research has not investigated peer feedback from the teachers in order to come to an all-sided conclusion after conducting the research.

Conclusion

• Despite some difficulties, adopting e-portfolios on wikispaces for teaching writing is a good technique, in terms of the joy, effectiveness and the ease in using it.

• It also opens a newer and more techno-learning context for students to practice in and out class.

• Building an e-portfolio is a method to foster student’s blended learning.

Thank you for your listening!