The effects of reflective journal writings (RJW) on the vocabulary acquisition and writing performance of primary students at Vinschool Central Park (VSC)

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY

--------------------------------

TRAN THI NIEM MY MY

THE EFFECTS OF REFLECTIVE JOURNAL WRITING (RJW) ON THE

VOCABULARY ACQUISITION AND WRITING PERFORMANCE OF

PRIMARY STUDENTS AT VINSCHOOL CENTRAL PARK

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of

Arts in TESOL

Ho Chi Minh City, 2019

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY

----------------------------------------

TRAN THI NIEM MY MY

Major: TESOL

Major code: 60 14 01 11

THE EFFECTS OF REFLECTIVE JOURNAL WRITING (RJW) ON THE

VOCABULARY ACQUISITION AND WRITING PERFORMANCE OF

PRIMARY STUDENTS AT VINSCHOOL CENTRAL PARK.

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of

Arts in TESOL

Supervisor:

Assoc. Prof. Pham Vu Phi Ho, Ph.D

Ho Chi Minh City, 2019

I

Certificate Of Originality

I certify my authorship of the Master’s Thesis entitled “the effects of

reflective journal writing (RJW) on the vocabulary acquisition and writing

performance of primary students at Vinschool Central Park.”

All sources used by me have been documented. No other person’s work

has been used without due acknowledgement. This piece of work has not

been submitted for assessment in this or any other subject or course at this

University or elsewhere.

Ho Chi Minh City, 2019

Student’s signature

II

Acknowledgements

This work would not have been possible without the tremendous

academic support of my supervisor, Assoc. Prof. Pham Vu Phi Ho, Ph.D. I am

especially indebted to Prof. Pham Vu Phi Ho, who has been supportive of my

thesis as well as encouraging me strongly during my hard times. Your advice

on research has been invaluable to me.

I am grateful to all of those with whom I have had the pleasure to work

with during this research. I would like to thank my managers, Ms.Le Thi Ngoc

Diep, Ph.D – Vinschool Principal and Ms.Tran Ngoc Thuy Nhien – Vinschool

Vice Principal for consulting and giving me an opportunity to conduct the

study at Vinschool Central Park.

My deep gratitude goes to my co-workers at Vinschool Central Park,

who have been giving me emotional support and sharing their own teaching

experience with me. Each of the members in ESL Vinschool team has been a

great inspiration and motivation for me to finish this research.

Finally, but by no means least, words cannot express how grateful I am

to my family. Your endless love for me has been what sustained me thus far.

They are the most important people in my world and I dedicate this thesis to

them.

III

Abstract

The learning and teaching English in Vietnam has not been a new issue for

ages. It has especially gained more attention in such a rapid economic and social

development. New curriculums have been planned, new textbooks have been tried

out, modern teaching approaches and methods have been discussed and applied.

However, it is just a turning point in which not all aspects of renovation can be

successfully carried out. In many schools in Vietnam, Grammar Translation Method

alone, which focused on the translation of text and the rote learning of vocabulary, is

still used to teach all skills, no matter it is reading, writing, speaking or listening and

regardless of what learning objective that is. Teachers say the words, students repeat.

Teachers force students to memorize the words by copying. Students learn writing by

translating sentences from their mother tongue to English and vice versa. Thus, the

effectiveness of the teaching and learning English has been not as good as expected.

This research aimed at examining the impacts of reflective journal writings (RJW) on

the learning of vocabulary and writing performance of primary students at Vinschool

Central Park, Ho Chi Minh City. The quasi-experimental research design was used in

this study. 60 primary students of level 3 in the 12-level English proficiency scale

aged from 8 to 10 participated in the study. These 60 students were divided into two

groups of 30 including control and experimental one. Both groups were taught with

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) method, but the treatment group wrote

reflective journals in the wrap-up phase of every vocabulary lesson in 3 months, while

the control group took the regular spelling and writing practice in the wrap-up phase.

Pre-test and post-test were used to measure their progress before and after the

reflective journal writing experiment. Each test paper was marked separately by two

raters, then the final score was the average number of these two scores. The findings

disclosed that the achievement in the participants’ writing skills and vocabulary

mastery in terms of vocabulary quantity, spelling, word meaning in specific contexts,

and word use of the treatment group is considerably better than that of the control

group. The research also confirmed the positive influence of RJW on students’

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abilities to remember the words, use words in context, writing fluency and accuracy.

The results might have pedagogically significant implications for material developers,

language teachers and students.

Keywords:

Reflective journal writing, vocabulary acquisition, writing fluency, writing accuracy

V

Table of Contents

Certificate Of Originality ............................................................................................ I

Acknowledgements....................................................................................................II

Abstract .....................................................................................................................III

Chapter 1. Introduction ...............................................................................................1

1.1 Background of the study................................................................................1

1.2 Statement of the problem...............................................................................2

1.3 Purpose of the study ......................................................................................5

1.4 Research questions ........................................................................................5

1.5 Significance of the study ...............................................................................6

1.6 Structure of the study.....................................................................................6

Chapter 2. Literature review .......................................................................................8

2.1 Definition of terminology..............................................................................8

2.1.1. Definitions of reflective journal writing ....................................................8

2.1.2. Definition of vocabulary acquisition..........................................................9

2.1.3. Definition of writing fluency and accuracy .............................................10

2.2 Theoretical framework ................................................................................11

2.2.1. Theory-based approaches to reflective journal writing............................11

2.2.2. Theory-based approaches to teaching writing .........................................17

2.2.3 Theory-based approaches to critical thinking ..........................................18

2.2.4 Other benefits of reflective journal writing..............................................20

2.2.5. Previous research studies and research gap.................................................26

2.2.5.1 Previous research studies...........................................................................26

2.2.5.2 Research gap..............................................................................................38

Chapter 3. Research methodology ............................................................................41

3.1. Research design ...........................................................................................41

3.2. Research setting and participants ................................................................42

3.2.1 Research setting............................................................................................42

3.2.2 Participants ...................................................................................................44

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3.3. Research procedure......................................................................................45

3.4. Teaching procedure .....................................................................................47

3.5. Data collection and analysis........................................................................52

3.6. Instruments ..................................................................................................52

3.6.1 The English proficiency test.........................................................................52

3.6.2 The vocabulary pre- and post-test ................................................................53

3.6.3 Reflective journals........................................................................................54

3.7. The pre- and post-test construction .............................................................55

3.7.1 How to measure vocabulary knowledge?.....................................................55

3.7.2 The pre- and post-test format .......................................................................57

3.7.3 The pre- and post-test construction ..............................................................60

3.7.3.1 Content validity .........................................................................................61

3.7.3.2 Inter-rater reliability ..................................................................................61

3.7.3.3 Test reliability data analysis......................................................................62

Chapter 4. Results/ Findings and Discussions..........................................................65

4.1. A comparison of students’ vocabulary acquisition and writing performance

of both groups in the pre-test.................................................................................65

4.1.1 A comparison of students’ overall score in the pre-test ...............................66

4.1.2 A comparison of students’ writing fluency in the pre-test ...........................66

4.1.3 A comparison of students’ writing accuracy in the pre-test.........................67

4.2. A comparison of students’ vocabulary acquisition in the pre- and post-test

69

4.2.1 Control group: A comparison of students’ vocabulary acquisition in the pre￾and post-test...........................................................................................................69

4.2.2 Experimental group: A comparison of students’ vocabulary acquisition in

the pre- and post-test .............................................................................................70

4.3. A comparison of students’ vocabulary acquisition of both groups in the

post-test..................................................................................................................71

VII

4.4. A comparison of students’ writing fluency and accuracy in the pre- and

post-test..................................................................................................................72

4.4.1 Control group: A comparison of students’ writing fluency and accuracy in

the pre- and post-test .............................................................................................73

4.4.2 Experimental group: A comparison of students’ writing fluency and

accuracy in the pre- and post-test ..........................................................................74

4.4.3 A comparison of students’ writing fluency and accuracy of both groups in

the post-test............................................................................................................75

4.5. Discussion....................................................................................................78

4.5.1 The effect of reflective journal writing on the vocabulary acquisition of

Vinschool primary students...................................................................................78

4.5.2 The effect of reflective journal writing on the writing fluency of Vinschool

primary students ....................................................................................................79

4.5.3 The effect of reflective journal writing on the writing accuracy of Vinschool

primary students ....................................................................................................80

Chapter 5. Conclusions, implications and recommendations...................................82

5.1. A summary of the research findings............................................................82

5.2. Conclusion ...................................................................................................83

5.3. Implication of the study...............................................................................83

5.4. Limitations and recommendations ..............................................................84

References.................................................................................................................86

Appendices................................................................................................................97

Appendix 1: Sample reflective journal writing with guided questions.................97

Appendix 2: Sample reflective journal writing with scaffolding for the first two

sessions..................................................................................................................98

Appendix 3: Sample regular spelling and writing practice ...................................99

Appendix 4: Writing Rubric................................................................................100

Appendix 5: Curriculum planning and detailed lesson plan for each treatment

session..................................................................................................................101

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Appendix 6: Vocabulary pre-test and answer key...............................................115

Appendix 7: Vocabulary post-test and answer key.............................................121

Appendix 8: Students’ writing samples...............................................................127

Appendix 9: SPSS data analysis results ..............................................................128

List of figures and charts

Figure 2.1 Conceptual framework of reflective journal writing ...............................26

Figure 2.2 A summary of the literature and the research gap ...................................40

Chart 3.1 Vinschool English program level mapping...............................................43

Chart 3.2 Control group teaching procedure.............................................................49

Chart 3.3 Experimental group teaching procedure ...................................................50

Figure 3.1 Two ways of conceptualizing breadth and depth ....................................56

Figure 4.1 A summary of the data analysis result.....................................................77

List of tables

Table 2.1 A summary of the theory-based approaches to reflective journal writing16

Table 2.2 Reflective journal writing across academic disciplines............................24

Table 2.3 A summary of the reviewed literature about reflective journal writing ...32

Table 3. 1 Procedures to develop the research..........................................................46

Table 3.2 Common grammar and spelling errors in the reflective journal writings.55

Table 3.3 Pre- and post-test specification .................................................................59

Table 3.4 A comparison of students’ score in the pre-test pilot ...............................62

Table 3.5 A comparison of students’ score in the post-test pilot..............................62

Table 3.6 A comparison of group 1 students’ score in the pre- and post-test pilot ..63

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Table 3.7 A comparison of group 2 students’ score in the pre- and post-test pilot .63

Table 4.1 A comparison of students’ overall score in the pre-test............................66

Table 4.2 A comparison of students’ writing fluency in the pre-test........................67

Table 4.3 A comparison of students’ writing accuracy in the pre-test .....................68

Table 4.4 A comparison of students’ vocabulary acquisition in the pre-test and post￾test (Control group)...................................................................................................69

Table 4.5 A comparison of students’ vocabulary acquisition in the pre-test and

post-test (Experimental group)..................................................................................70

Table 4.6 A comparison of students’ overall score in the post-test ..........................71

Table 4.7 A comparison of students’ writing fluency and accuracy in the pre-test

and post-test (Control group) ....................................................................................73

Table 4.8 A comparison of students’ writing fluency and accuracy in the pre-test

and post-test (Experimental group)...........................................................................74

Table 4.9 A comparison of students’ writing fluency and accuracy in the post-test 75

1

Chapter 1. Introduction

1.1 Background of the study

In such a rapid economic and social development, English, which is spoken in

Vietnam as a foreign language, has gained more and more attention in families,

workplaces, schools and universities recently. It is a mandatory subject at primary

and secondary schools, even universities not to mention English language centers. As

stated by the MOET (as cited in Hiep, 2007 and; Huong, 2006), the proportion of

lower secondary students studying English at least three hours a week is 67% and that

of upper secondary students is 86%. As for colleges or universities, all students learn

a foreign language, among that 90% choose to study English as their requirement to

pass schools (Canh, 2007). In spite of the fact that English is highly focused at schools

of all levels, Vietnamese students find it hard to use the language. “Many Vietnamese

students do have the words, they either heard them or read them but they can’t say

them or use them in certain contexts” (Patrick Hayeck, personal communication,

April, 29, 2016). For example, primary students may know landfill is “an area of land

where large amounts of waste material are buried under the earth” (Oxford learner’s

dictionaries); however, they may not know how to use this word in a particular

context like “many tons of waste go into landfill each month.”, or “plastic in landfill

lasts for hundreds of years.” Fanliver Pham (personal communication, Jun 2, 2016)

supposed that having studied English 7 years at schools, most of the Vietnamese

students cannot use English for daily communication; they just study English for

passing the exam instead.

Undoubtedly, these issues are caused in relation to various factors concerning

the socio-cultural environment, teaching and learning methods. At school, it is said

that in spite of a great number of English lessons per week, students have not got

sufficient exposure to English. Students, except those studying at international

schools, usually speak their mother tongue outside schools or right after their English

lessons. Additionally, a large majority of teachers in Vietnam have been applying

traditional teaching methods following teacher-centered approach. Teaching

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vocabulary with this method, teachers read the words, while students listen, repeat

and write them only; no meaningful or authentic contexts are provided for practicing

the language. It turns out that at the end of the lesson, students can learn by heart the

words without really knowing how to use them in either spoken or written

communication. Research has also demonstrated that the learning of several majors

happens passively by absorbing the information and storing it the memory without

any reflection on what they have learned (Neber, He, Liu, & Schofield, 2008)

Teaching writing in Vietnam is also a big issue. Although renovations in teaching

methods have been discussed recently, not many schools successfully apply theory

into their teaching. The common traditional method used in many schools, especially

public schools, has been Grammar Translation Method (GTM). Students are asked to

compose an essay about a specific topic, which may not be of their interest or which

they do not find the need to write. Students are framed and controlled too much in

terms of what and how to write. Hence, their creativity is limited and then killed.

Young learners are said not to have positive attitudes towards writing because they

think it is difficult and boring.

Thus, a more creative and modern method of teaching vocabulary and writing

effectively should be implemented. This research was conducted in this context in

order to investigate the effects of reflective journal writing on vocabulary learning

and writing quality.

1.2 Statement of the problem

For ages, the teaching and learning of vocabulary have not been a new issue.

Lots of researches have been conducted; numerous methodologies and techniques

have been applied to teach vocabulary. However, the teaching and learning of

vocabulary are still facing difficulties concerning various issues. According to Nation

(2001), knowing a word means knowing all its meaning, form and use. In other words,

the term does not definitely refer to just the recognition of words from dictionaries.

Knowing a word means to know how to pronoun, write and use the words or interpret

word meaning in contexts. Lacking any of these factors may prevent learners from a

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full understanding of a word, thus negatively affect the communication either in

spoken or written form. However, it seems hard for one to master all the aspects of

words they have learned. Rohmatillah (2014) stated that difficulties students usually

encounter in learning new vocabulary are related to pronunciation, spelling,

pragmatic meanings and different grammatical forms of the words. These issues are

reflected in student’s writing performances, for instance, misspelling, misuse of the

words or collocation mistakes.

Another research conducted by Farjami (2013) also revealed that the failure to

convert new vocabulary from short - term to long - term memory poses challenges to

the writing fluency. New information or input needs to be preserved in short – term

memory before it turns into long-term memory. This neuropsychological theory can

be applied to examine vocabulary learning process in ESL and EFL classes. In

English classes, English learners listen and read a large number of words or

significant input, but they cannot be successfully stored in their brains for long

without reviewing, practicing and using them regularly. Oxford (1990) proved that

one of the issues preventing learners from achieving fluency is concerning their

ability to remember a great deal of vocabulary. Low-frequency words are not used

frequently, so EFL and ESL students may face the risk of forgetting these words

forever. Brown (2002); Celce-Murcia (2001); Krashen (1989) also showed that

forgetting happens when learners’ brain does not receive input and produce output

sufficiently. A new language item needs regular practice, especially in daily context,

in order to permanently stick to one’s brain.

One more issue that limits learners’ vocabulary acquisition and writing

performance is regarding the method the language is taught. Language, when broken

down into small units like words and taught separately from context, may fail to help

learners communicate effectively. If a vocabulary is presented in such a way that

learners can only remember instead of understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating

or creating as stated by Krathwohl (2002) that vocabulary will fade away easily. It

goes back to the very first problem mentioned when learners just know the new words

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at the surface level, which means just know about the words or their meanings without

having any idea how to use them in certain contexts. That is to say, learners are not

given higher-order thinking learning activities that require different cognitive levels

of complexity and enable deeper learning.

Moreover, concerning writing practice in class, it is said that sometimes

students are not given meaningful communicative context to write. In other words,

they are forced to write with assigned topics without feeling the need to write. Writing

topics may be not of their interest or not connected to their personal life, thus, the

writing is decontextualized, which does not help fully achieve the writing outcomes.

Writing should be composed in a “purposeful and contextualized communicative

interaction” (Silva, 2006, p. 111). Salem (2007) reported that writing performance

may be negatively affected by writing anxiety. Writing reflective journals is

considered a solution to these issues since it can significantly personalize the writing

context and decrease writing apprehension.

As for Vinschool Central Park, in the English first semester test, the average

point for speaking and listening test was 7.7; whereas the score for reading and

writing was 0.6 lower than that. One of the factors affecting the reading and writing

score was connected to spelling mistakes. Students were able to pronoun the words

and use them in context, yet failed to provide correct spellings of the words.

To foster the memorization, application of the words and the creation of using

these words in new contexts as well as the improvement in writing skills, reflective

journal writing is applied. This activity is conducted at the end of every English lesson

with the aim of providing students with more time and space to recall the vocabulary

they have learned, deepen their understanding of the meanings and personalize their

word use for better vocabulary acquisition and writing performance.

The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of reflective journal

writing to the young learners’ vocabulary acquisition and writing performance at

Vinschool Central Park.