VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES -oOo - ĐOÀN THỊ NGỌC MAI DEVELOPING AUTONOMY FOR FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT A UNIVERSITY IN VINH THROUGH WRITING PORTFOLIO (Phát triển tính tự học sinh viên năm thứ chuyên ngành tiếng anh trường đại học Vinh thông qua hoạt động viết Portfolio) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01 Hanoi - 2019 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES -oOo - ĐOÀN THỊ NGỌC MAI DEVELOPING AUTONOMY FOR FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT A UNIVERSITY IN VINH THROUGH WRITING PORTFOLIO (Phát triển tính tự học sinh viên năm thứ chuyên ngành tiếng anh trường đại học Vinh thông qua hoạt động viết Portfolio) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01 Supervisor: Dr Nguyen Thi Huong Hanoi - 2019 DECLARATION Title: ―DEVELOPING AUTONOMY FOR FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT A UNIVERSITY IN VINH THROUGH WRITING PORTFOLIO‖ I certify that no part of the thesis has been copied or reproduced by me from any other works without acknowledgement and that the thesis is originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor Hanoi, 2019 Student’s signature Đoàn Thị Ngọc Mai i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To begin with, I would like to send my profound gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Nguyen Thi Huong for her detailed and precise guidance and tremendous support Secondly, I would also like to thank my beloved students for their participation in my action research Without their enthusiasm, the research could not be completed Additionally, I want to send my sincere thanks to the university steering committee and my colleagues They are such a great help to me during the process of research implementation They not only give me useful advice but also encourage me to complete the research Finally, I must express my very profound gratitude to my husband and my family for their wholehearted support ii ABSTRACT Developing and fostering students’ learning autonomy is placed importance for college students since learning autonomy not only helps them to be more independent and effective in their studying but also partly lay some bricks on the path of life-long learning for students This research is implemented with the purpose of investigating the use of portfolio writing to enhance the first-year students’ learning autonomy in writing in particular and in their studying in general The research is undertaken as an action research which employs the qualitative method including surveys, interviews and teaching journals The outcome of the research indicates that most of the students find the use of portfolio writing useful for their learning autonomy A majority of them has learnt how to stick on the requirements of the assignments during their writing and be more responsible for their study Furthermore, they have become more critical on the knowledge and information they encountered and started to understand their strengths and weaknesses to find out their own suitable learning style However, they are still struggling with some essential skills such as time management skills Therefore, most of them want a better schedule for the writing course Even though students favor and find the use of portfolio writing effective, there is a call for further studies to have a bigger and more detailed picture of the usefulness of portfolio writing before it is implemented officially in colleges iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION .i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF FIGURES vi LIST OF TABLES vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Scope of the study Error! Bookmark not defined 1.4 Significance of the study 1.5 Methods of the study 1.6 Structure of the thesis CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Learner autonomy 2.1.1 Definitions of learner autonomy .4 2.1.2 The importance of learner autonomy in language learning .7 2.1.3 Components of learner autonomy 2.1.4 Some ways to enhance learner autonomy 11 2.2 Portfolio writing 12 2.2.1 Definition of portfolio and portfolio writing 12 2.2.2 The role of portfolio writing 13 2.3 Related studies 14 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 16 3.1 Research method 16 3.2 Research design 17 3.3 Settings and participants 23 3.4 Data collection instruments 24 iv 3.4.1 Questionnaire Error! Bookmark not defined 3.4.2 Interviews Error! Bookmark not defined 3.5 Data analysis 26 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 28 4.1 Effects of portfolio writing on the students’ learning management 28 4.2 Effects of portfolio writing on the students’ learning strategies 37 4.3 Effects of portfolio writing on the students’ learning content 45 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS 47 5.1 Major findings of the study 47 5.2 Reflection 48 5.3 Pedagogical suggestions 49 5.4 Suggestions for further studies 50 5.5 Limitations of the study 50 REFERENCES 52 APPENDICES I I SYLLABUS I II CHECKLIST FOR SELF-ASSESSMENT, PEER REVIEW AND REFLECTION .IX III QUESTIONNAIRE .XI IV INTERVIEWS XVI III TEACHING JOURNAL AND STUDENTS’ WRITING EXTRACTS XXXI v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: The classification of cognitive strategies from Oxford (1990:39) LIST OF TABLES Table 1: The topic of each week in the writing course 18 Table 2: Students’ opinions on the effect of portfolio writing on planning and organizing their learning 29 Table 3: Students’ opinions on the effect of portfolio writing on evaluating their learning 33 Table 4: Students’ opinions on the effect of portfolio writing on their cognitive strategies 37 Table 5: Students’ opinions on the effect of portfolio writing on their metacognitive strategies 42 Table 6: Students’ opinions on the effect of portfolio writing on their learning content 45 vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This chapter presents a general overview on the rationale, aims and objectives, research questions, significance of the study In addition, the chosen research methods and the structure of the study are also provided 1.1 Rationale of the study In the past few decades, learners’ autonomy has become a highly – concerned issue that generated heated debates in the educational forums In a context where the necessity of learning and knowledge has been widely acknowledged and lifelong learning is a global imperative, it is understandable why the importance of learners’ autonomy is gaining even more significance According to Benson and Voller (1997: 56), ―learning is more effective when learners are active in the learning process, assuming responsibility for their learning and participating in the decisions which affect it‖ Furthermore, autonomous learning becomes increasingly necessary to university students as Malcolm and Rindfleisch (2003:2) pointed out in their study ―students arrive at university with the potential to be autonomous in their learning‖ Enhancing students’ autonomous learning is also a matter of concern to not only the researcher in particular but also a university in Vinh in general since from my researcher’s observation, in the traditional teaching context of Vietnam, Vietnamese students tend to be passive in their learning Realizing that writing a portfolio can be one of the most effective ways to help students enhance their autonomous learning urged and inspired the researcher to implement the action research ―Developing autonomy for first- year English major students at a university in Vinh through Portfolio Writing Activity‖ For the purpose of research ethics, the university would be named ―X‖ 1.2 Aims of the study The main aim of the study is investigating the extent to which portfolio writing implementation helps students raise their learning autonomy not only in writing but also in their learning 1.3 Scope of the study The study focuses on three dimensions of learner autonomy, including learning management, learning strategies and content The study was carried out as an action research in an undergraduate writing class at a university in Vietnam where the researcher was the teacher The objective of the paper can be summarized into a research question as below: To what extent does the use of portfolio writing enhance the first-year students’ learning autonomy at Foreign Language Department, in University X? 1.4 Significance of the study As one of the pioneering studies on developing learners’ autonomy via portfolio writing in that university, the paper would benefit related populations including English teachers and policymakers there This study would provide useful information for policymakers and teachers to consider applying portfolio writing in the curriculum for the first-year students Furthermore, the study would be a reliable reference to other researchers who share the same interest in developing learners’ autonomy Further research would be carried out after limitations of this study are considered 1.5 Methods of the study The paper is an action research which employs both qualitative and quantitative methods Specifically, the first-year class which the researcher is teaching currently would join the implementation of portfolio writing which would be integrated as home2 How you organize your study now? Do you need more instruction from lecturers now to study effectively? I’m getting used to our university environment and I’m trying to manage my schedule better As I said, I try to avoid procrastination and focus more on what I to be on time Yes, I think teachers are still important to us We won’t understand a lot of things without the teacher’s instruction B Student B How did you feel about portfolio writing? What you like and dislike about it? Well, at first, I thought it would be so difficult but I did enjoy it a lot First, I like the topics listed, for example to writing about a recent trend I think it is much better than writing about something too ―textbook‖ But what I dislike is the pressure of submitting assignments on a weekly basis Aww, teacher, it is kinda a rush every week for us What difficulties did you often have in portfolio writing? The difficulties I got is how to manage time for portfolio writing You know it is not only about writing then submitting, it is also involved with peer commenting A lot of my peers are slow in giving feedback so it takes more time to wait and edit the essays The second thing I struggled a lot is fixing my writing errors Not only me but my friends also struggled a lot We knew the exact problem such as word choice, grammatically incorrect sentences but when we write, we still have difficulties And you know, sometimes each essay is each problem I tried to read more newspaper in English but as you can see; my usage of words is still commented weird and unnatural by you How did you organize and manage your schedule for portfolio writing? I think not only for portfolio writing but also for other assignments of other subjects, I found out that a practical plan would work the best You should not make an unachievable plan Now before the week, for example, I would list down and visualize what I have to and how many assignments I have Then, I would see which one is XX more urgent For example, if the deadline of writing assignment is on Wednesday and I have to hand in reading assignment on Friday, obviously I would spend time on writing assignment first Ah, but about writing assignment, I have to give it to my friend for comment so it takes more time than reading assignment So I will calculate how much time i really need to allocate for each assignment, then again I will decide which to and when to What did you to achieve the requirements of portfolio writing? At first, I did not really pay attention to the requirements of the essays I was kind of like writing without my brain But then in week 9, we learnt about using time order words But in my writing, I did not use any of those words So I was quite upset when I received your strict and brutal comments in front of our class But it becomes something unforgettable to me I always check the section ―What I can …‖ at the end of the lesson in the textbook to see whether I follow and get the goals in writing or not What did you think about peers and teachers’ feedback? Do you like giving and receiving comments? Do you feel you benefit from it? Frankly speaking, at first, I felt like my pride was hurt when I got the negative feedback from my peers I felt like ―oh, I’m an idiot I felt like I’m losing my face.‖ But I found out that my friends also made mistakes Hehehe so we were even at all And you told us that there is no need of fearing being commented We learnt from our mistakes So gradually, I felt it’s normal to get feedback now And I quite enjoy giving and receiving feedback I learnt a lot from my own mistakes and my friends’ + How about from teacher? Uhm, it is more nerve racking than receiving feedback from peers because you are our teacher So we are scared if we don’t perform well, you will judge us badly But I found your comments are constructive and help us write better For example, after you pointed out the clear structure with the importance of topic sentence for paragraph writing, I find it more clear and have a ―compass‖ when I start to jot down my essay XXI How you organize your study now? Do you need more instruction from lecturers now to study effectively? I made a habit of searching the information for my study and find the answers to my own questions Furthermore, I make a timetable for my study and kind of stick to it Of course, teachers’ comments are valuable to me I still need to ask you about the writing mistakes that I often make What should I teacher? You should read more and keep writing Try to imitate and make the phrases/sentences yours after you read You will improve your writing a lot C Student C How did you feel about portfolio writing? What you like and dislike about it? Well, overall, I think the portfolio writing is an OK activity I like it to some extent The reason why I like it is that you are a funny teacher and you are a bit easy going than other teachers Uhm, about the portfolio writing, I know it is useful for us I also realized I improved a bit such as I learnt some more structures and I paid more attention to the requirements of each lesson But I still make a lot of mistakes in writing My writing score is still low, uhm, that’s what I hate +Do you want to make any changes to the process of portfolio writing and our writing course? No, I have no comments about the content of the course I like the topics, though I just want you to extend the deadline for submitting essays and maybe please, change the scoring system Don’t give score penalty, please What difficulties did you often have in portfolio writing? I think the difficulties I get are a lot I had difficulties in submitting my essays on time and correcting my writing errors I continuously make the same mistakes Even I noticed and try to correct but I still make I mean I tried to apply something I read from the references/sources but when I applied in my essay, you said it is not natural or it is a wrong context XXII How did you organize and manage your schedule for portfolio writing? I guess this is my weakness I got a lot of score penalties due to late submission But teacher, you know, sometimes it is not my fault to submit late I wrote the essay early but my friend didn’t give back comments immediately so I had to wait for so long + So it is all your peers’ faults so you submitted your essays late? Ah, no, teacher Just sometimes it took so long to receive feedback from my peers But sometimes, it is my fault I forgot to write the second version I also had other assignments or functions in my place It is like people in my neighborhood held a birthday party and I attended Then, late night suddenly I recalled that the next day, I would have to submit my essay But I was too sleepy to write the second version Hi teacher… I know it's my fault I won’t make it again What did you to achieve the requirements of portfolio writing? I tried to read more and search for more information on the Internet before I write I also tried to start writing earlier so that I had more time to modify my writing after getting comments from my peers But uhm, still, every time I got the feedback from you, I still made some of my old mistakes I tried but I still find it hard, teacher +So, you don’t feel you improved? How about the requirements of each lesson? Did you submit your essays on time? Oh, I felt I made a bit of improvement but there are still too many mistakes that I need to work on Ah it is embarrassing to say but I submitted my essays late three times I’m sorry teacher About the requirement of each lesson, I guess I understand and tried to fulfill but I still made mistakes What did you think about peers and teachers’ feedback? Do you like giving and receiving comments? Do you feel you benefit from it? I remember that once I gave my writing to my friend for peer comment The first thing she commented ―off topic‖ After receiving her comment, I was shocking ―What?! Are you kidding me? How could it be off topic?‖ Then, I looked at the topic again and oh yes, I was really off topic The topic requires that we should write about XXIII the color we would choose for our business However, I did not read carefully and just wrote about the business I wanted to build up Since then, I always read the instructions carefully before I start to write I also realize that when I read and remember the goals in our writing lessons, I focus better in the lesson and it seems easier to acquire what was being taught Then from then on, I always think about goals first and ask myself what is needed to get in this lesson It became my habit now How you organize your study now? Do you need more instruction from lecturers now to study effectively? Well, I still think I’m a bit messy in organizing my study Well, I submitted my essay late three times and got minus points due to the lateness I’m already scared and will try to avoid it in the future B Uhm about studying more effectively, teacher, I’m still confused about the methods to improve my English better + As I said many times, you should narrow down your target Which English skills you want to improve? What you want to focus on now? Ask yourself first then, make a plan Well, I think I have to improve all of my skills I have searched and read a lot on the Internet about many methods but I still find it difficult to study English better + You don’t need to read / seek many methods Just follow one for a while to see if it works for you before you change to another method Furthermore, I think you need to focus one skills/area you want to improve first then think about the other later Step by step D Student D How did you feel about portfolio writing? What you like and dislike about it? I find portfolio writing is a useful activity for us At first, I was not too excited about participating in this activity but gradually I found out I learnt a lot from it I also could make friends with my classmates We had to give comments to one another’s writings so actually, we had more chances to talk and meet and understand one another more I XXIV also learnt more about searching for information on the Internet outside the textbook for my study and writing I don’t think I have something I don’t like in the portfolio writing What difficulties did you often have in portfolio writing? I guess there are a lot of difficulties during the semester but let me see I think it is about correcting my writing mistakes and increasing my scores My essays always have mistakes, though However, I have to admit that thanks to commenting and revising process, I corrected a lot of my mistakes before submitting my essays How did you organize and manage your schedule for portfolio writing? Well, I did not have problems at first with my schedule for portfolio writing I’m a fast person so if I want to something, I will immediately it But at the end of the semester, I was ―drowning‖ a bit with the rush to submit all my assignments so yes, I struggled to manage to finish my essays before the deadlines I guess the reason for late submission of my peers is their procrastination They didn’t hold the pen and jot down immediately They would watch online movies, or browse websites for a while first They thought they would watch for a while but actually it would be possibly for the whole day I already witnessed it once when I went to study in a group with my classmates And I was a bit frustrated because I just wanted to finish the work as soon as possible, but they are so slow + Did you remind them to finish the work first then watch movies later? Yes, I reminded them but they are very slow to get work done What did you to achieve the requirements of portfolio writing? I tried to understand the questions in the essays and I followed your checklist to see if I get all the criteria or not But yes, I have to say at first, I thought my essays were good and I uhmm felt I didn’t need to reread it, but after all the comments, I realized that I should read it again before I submit Well, but yes, I still need to work on my writing a lot XXV What did you think about peers and teachers’ feedback? Do you like giving and receiving comments? Do you feel you benefit from it? I think peers and teachers’ feedback are good and useful The comments helped me a lot to improve my writing Before, I hardly read my writing again Normally, I just tried to finish it as soon as possible Then it’s done However, after receiving my writing full of red highlights and comments, I started to pay attention to proofread my essay I found out a lot of simple mistakes that I did not expect that I would make How you organize your study now? Do you need more instruction from lecturers now to study effectively? I realized that students should always keep track of their learning carefully by themselves This thought is an impetus for us to keep studying and making it better No one can force you to go far as you, yourself, that Obviously, I think I need instructions from you, teacher to study better and correct my writing mistakes But I feel I have more control on my study after I started in university E Student E How did you feel about portfolio writing? What you like and dislike about it? I think portfolio writing is something totally new to me I had never been involved in an activity like this before when I was in high school I was not really good at writing and for university entrance exam, the exercises that I often did were multiple choice questions So, I was quite nervous at the beginning of the semester when you required us to carry out portfolio writing And yes, at first, I struggled a little bit but I think it’s my fault I glanced at the self-assessment list and all seemed like simple Yes-No questions I just thought, ―Oh, it’s so easy Just fill ―yes‖ to all the questions But after getting back my second-week portfolio essay and listening to your explanation about how to use the checklist to self-assess our own essays I began to pay attention to the checklist But only after my peer commented that I did not diversify my sentence types, XXVI I stick more to the checklist And now, I really have to say it helps me a lot Hihihi and I did not expect that my writing scores this term are so high like that What difficulties did you often have in portfolio writing? A lot of times I completed my essays so early and gave them to my peers but my peers did not give feedback or days later They keep delaying until just few hours before the deadline to submit the second draft So, I often have to rush to modify and make my second draft I did not say all of my peers, but there are a lot of them like that It affects others’ schedules badly if they keep doing that Furthermore, some of them just gave few lines of general comments They are not really useful But you know, I found out some of my peers are very careful and dedicated They read my essays very carefully and pointed out a lot of mistakes in that Since then, I just wanted to give my essays to them to comment, not those lazy ones How did you organize and manage your schedule for portfolio writing? Well, I find it ok for me to organize my schedule for portfolio writing I live here with my family so I don’t really experience hostel life as other peers I know that a lot of my peers complained that they are distracted because they have to housework I guess I’m luckier because my family is here with me so my parents not need me to much housework I still help them a little bit but mainly I just need to focus on my learning Furthermore, now I don’t really have as many extra classes as when I was in high school, so I think I have more free time Teacher, don’t you know I used to have a tight schedule in high school so actually this schedule for me is not heavy What did you to achieve the requirements of portfolio writing? I guess the key point is following the instruction As I’ve just told you, after I had understood about the self-checklist, I wrote much better, not really off topic anymore And I found out that I like writing much more than before About submitting the essay, just start to write before it is too late And I think peers or I also need time to XXVII understand and give comments So, now I often give them early so that they have time to give feedback What did you think about peers and teachers’ feedback? Do you like giving and receiving comments? Do you feel you benefit from it? Yes, of course I find it valuable and useful for me to improve my writing and finding out my mistakes However, I just want to give my essays to who also paid attention to writing and give thorough and detailed comments How you organize your study now? Do you need more instruction from lecturers now to study effectively? As the way it is before Actually, I have fewer extra classes than when I was in high school so I feel I have more free time and this schedule is quite OK to me I just organize my study as usual Just try to finish all the homework to submit Well, obviously, I think I still want more instruction from lecturers I think teachers in our university are all nice and helpful to students F Student F How did you feel about portfolio writing? What you like and dislike about it? Ah I just want it to be over soon I don’t really hate portfolio but I felt this semester I can’t focus too much on studying Too many things happened to me and I was trying my best to overcome +What happened to you? Can you specify? Well, I moved here to study in university so I rented a room The people in my rented place are nice but they are often noisy so I got distracted a lot Furthermore, I had difficulty in adapting to the university environment It is too new to me All the new teachers and new classmates It took me a lot of time to adapt and get familiar with the learning style here, the people here I hope I will perform better in the second semester What difficulties did you often have in portfolio writing? XXVIII I think I have too many difficulties and problems in this semester As I’ve said, the first thing is to adapt to the university environment The second thing is about dealing with my personal matters There are many things I have to think about after moving here to study It kept distracting me a lot But I think different learning style is still the biggest problem for me Ya, actually I struggled a lot with the schedule After being overwhelmed in a totally new environment like university, I learnt to face it and survive The deadline of submitting the essays forces me to manage by all my means to complete my writing on time Furthermore, I felt like in high school, teachers seemed to be there when I needed However, in university, I felt like lecturers only give us problems and require us to solve them by ourselves So I was forced to manage by myself It’s like ―swimming‖ How did you organize and manage your schedule for portfolio writing? Ah that is also something I struggled at first I sit down at my laptop early in the evening, thinking that I would finish my writing this night Then, I opened the internet browser in my laptop and as a habit; I opened some familiar news, forum and social networking websites and just told myself that I would just read a little bit and then start to write Uhm you know, and then one thing leads to another Finally, around midnight, I ended up doing nothing for my essay That’s the reason why I couldn’t keep up with my plan Then later, I came up with an idea that I blocked all the sites such as Facebook and so on Then I jotted down some first few lines Then ideas just flow It will be easier after you start writing What did you to achieve the requirements of portfolio writing? Uhm about writing, I guess I need to read more after your lessons so that I can have more ideas to write Actually, I felt it is not so hard to achieve the requirements in term of writing The biggest problem to me is still time managing and not submitting the essays late XXIX What did you think about peers and teachers’ feedback? Do you like giving and receiving comments? Do you feel you benefit from it? Teacher, you know, I was so boastful I was like ―hey, ya, I found your mistakes Oh, what a silly mistake! I was so keen on detecting peers’ comments But oh no, when I received my writing, my peer also crossed my same silly mistake I was so ashamed You know, it is so easy to point out others’ mistake but it is so hard to detect our own mistakes But after that arrogant and embarrassing moment, I tried to carefully read line by line in my essay before giving to my peers How you organize your study now? Do you need more instruction from lecturers now to study effectively? Well, yes, some lessons are learnt for me I now know how to organize my study better but still I hope that next semester I would feel less ―drowned‖ with the assignments Of course, I want more instruction from the lecturers like in high school It will be easier XXX III TEACHING JOURNAL AND STUDENTS’ WRITING EXTRACTS TEACHING JOURNAL Week 1: Introduction to portfolio writing, requirements and so on Week 2: Students all submitted their essays on time There are a lot of errors in their writings They even made a lot of very basic writing errors The format of their writing ―looks very amateur‖ A lot of students gave short comments and did not know how to point out the strength and weaknesses of peers’ writing I instructed them with a sample of comments Week 3: I expected the second versions of their writing would be much better but it seemed that a lot of students just corrected few mistakes and did not really pay attention / know how to self-correct mistakes There are too many basic errors that they could easily correct by themselves when I pointed those mistakes for them It is like they not ―overlook‖ again their essays Week 4: I can see some improvements in the way they gave comments to their peers Some of them followed the format of giving comments with pointing out the strong points and weaknesses of their peers I’m quite satisfied with that Hope they keep doing on their good work Week 5: The students struggled a lot with the topics They complained that the topics of the week are ―dry‖ I just told them to exert more themselves and make a search more on the Internet or other sources to come up with ideas Week 6: Although they tried to improve their writing but the ideas in their essays were not really good, creative And the second versions were not really much better than the first one The students complained a lot of the upcoming and ongoing assignments of other subjects Week 7: A lot of students submitted essays late and most of them gave excuse that they had mid-term tests of other subjects And some of them mentioned that they were XXXI involved in some youth union activities so they were too busy to write the essays They asked for deadline extension Week 8: Mid-term test and free topics The students said they are very tired with a lot of tests They said that they feel OK with the mid-term test and hoped they did it well The free topics are fine for them But they are too tired with tests so they were not much excited though Week 9: I noticed some students really improved their scores and those students seemed to work harder and participate more in the class activities Week 10: Some students keep struggling to submit their essays on time And it seemed like they did not invest enough time for their writing A lot of mistakes they make again and again Week 11: I was very angry with some of the students who kept on submitting essays late and I mentioned the penalty for scores to them Week 12: This week, the students seemed to write better They make fewer mistakes than before Week 13: Some students became more active in preparing their homework and participate more in class activities Week 14: I noticed that just some of the students made progress in writing They are the group that often give detailed comments to peers and help peers to improve writing Week 15: End-of-term test I gave general feedback to the students’ performance in the whole course STUDENTS’ WRITING EXTRACTS Extract 1: Nowadays, Kpop gets more and more developed and effect everyone, especially young people Why? Firstly, Kpop intends to the young, who usually listen to music and feel highly enthusiastic in the new things Secondly, Aesthetically, A example is their attractive fashion styles It's perhaps one of the most dramatic In addition, Kpop singers usually join in Korea films, won the hearts of the audience From that, they love these actors and become Kpop fans XXXII There are contrasting opinions on this matter On the one hand, Supporters presume that this is the healthy trend, it bates the curious about something that isn't siutable their ages The young people can share good songs, attractive dances, or encourage together However, Others ( escpecially is the parents) are worried about over hectic of the children The parents prohibit them from becoming Kpơp fan because of negatives Students ( from 12 to 18 years old) always search information about singers, Korea bands, Korea events,and so on, They find everthing related to their idols from social networks and neglect studying Morever, they spend lots of money buying idol's posters, music tickets Extract 2: Robots are designed by human and they are more than more play an important role in our life While some people argue that robots might have negative effect on the future society, personally, i believer that the benifits of the robot are likely to out weight than the negative effect of it There are two main reason why people think that robots will have negative effects on the future society First, they scared that they will be replaced by robots at work, this leads to increase unemployment As a result, many other problems may emerge such as increased strick action or crimes This leads to social unrest Secondly, people will become more depolend on robots in their daily life, this breeds laziness which brings a sedentary life style and may result in some health problems like obesity.On the other hand, i total agree that robots will be very important for human’s future development Firstly, in our life in the future, robots will become an alternative tool to take charge of domestic responsibilities, wife will be free them self from house hold and they have more free time to take care of themself Secondly, robots readily work twenty-four hours per day and this helps enhance productivity As a result, the international economy will increase Besides, robots can be sent to outer space to collect data, when they come back, they may help people to find solutions to current global problem like climate change, global warming This intributes to science’s future development, finally, robots not only can replace people to worl in extreme condition but also perfom an operationon patients to avoid risks caused by human carelessness Inconclusion, in the future, robots will play an important role in our life and the positive effect of them is out weight than negative effect Extract 3: A vaccin is a medicine that is used to provide immunity against disease There are main types of vaccines which have been called biologically ―Subunit, recombinant, polysaccharide, and conjugate vaccines.‖ To summarize, I will focus on how they are found and made Everyone mistakenly thinking that Louis Pasteur is the XXXIII one who made the vaccines But the truth is Edward Jenner has been agreed as the father of vaccines In addition, he has found out how to make vaccines before people know infectious agent (1796) At the same time, his country had the biggest epidemics of smallpox and that is the reason why he started to research about it Live attenuated vaccines are created by culturing viruses and bacteria in special environment to make them weak and reduce their damage After that, these viruses have been combine with other ingredients of vaccine such as stabilizers and preservative to make the vaccine XXXIV ... STUDENTS AT A UNIVERSITY IN VINH THROUGH WRITING PORTFOLIO (Phát triển tính tự học sinh viên năm thứ chuyên ngành tiếng anh trường đại học Vinh thông qua hoạt động viết Portfolio) M.A MINOR THESIS