Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the study

The ability of writing effectively in a second language is generally considered
to be very necessary for language learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in
the modern world because more and more people in multicultural countries now have
participated in international politics, diplomacy, economy, science, technology,
foreign trade, sports and cultural, educational, professional collaboration in almost all
countries in the world.
Commenting on the importance of English academic writing skills in the
modern world, a large number of educators and linguists (e.g. Christie, 1990b; Gerot,
1995; Halliday, 1985; Martin, 1985; Mathews, 1995) noted that in Western cultures,
good writing skills are considered prestigious. Martin (1985, p. 51) argued that: “The
most prestigious users of languages become writers, not speakers”. It is to say that to
some extent it is writing skills that are more important than speaking abilities and so a
good writer may enjoy more prestige than ever before.
In regards to the importance of writing skills, Trible (1996) shared the same
viewpoint when saying that EFL learners should be competent in writing skills
because:
“Without a capacity to write effectively in the target language, foreign
language learners will not have access to roles that would otherwise be
available to them, for example in an international community which uses that
language for trades or other types of contact.” (p. 12)

Therefore, it is reasonable to say that if anyone wants to be successful in

academic and professional settings where English is used as a medium for the
communicative purposes, he or she should master himself or herself with good
writing skills.
In response to the important role of the English writing skills nowadays, the
Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam (MOET) has recently carried out a
renovation in designing new English textbooks and brought them into use in all
Vietnamese junior and senior high schools since the beginning of the school year

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2006-2007. MOET has aimed at enabling the high school leavers to be competent in
English so that they can enter their tertiary education or participate in their workplace
successfully. As a result, the four skills, namely, listening, speaking, reading and
writing are specially and equally emphasized simultaneously. In terms of English
academic writing skills, the textbook designers of MOET such as Hoàng Văn Vân- a
chief editor and his colleagues, e.g. Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa, Vũ Thị Lợi, Đỗ Tuấn
Minh, and the others (MOET, 2007) designed a new series of English textbooks with
a focus on many text-genres such as recounts, narratives, observations, discussions,
expository essays, information reports, letter writings, etc. In their viewpoint, if high
school students can be successful in handling these text-types, they will have a
chance to be able to handle other text-types in their university context and
workplaces.
Nevertheless, writing skills are generally considered to be extremely difficult
for EFL students in the language learning (Nunan, 1989; Richards, 1990). According
to Richard and Renandya (2002), the difficulties include those in (1) generating and
organizing ideas using an appropriate choice of vocabulary, sentence and paragraph
organization and (2) putting such ideas into an intelligible text. As for Vietnamese
high school students, besides these difficulties, they also have to face with many other
obstacles which may bother them when learning to write compositions in English.
The first difficulty rests in the fact that English in Vietnamese high schools
nowadays is treated primarily as a compulsory subject for studying and for exam-
driven purposes rather than as a tool for communication. Since school year 2005-
2006, high school students have been asked to do the multiple choice tests on their
final exams, graduation exams and university entrance examinations which include
several sections on grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension and writing. In the
writing section, students are asked to “rewrite” some sentences in another way but
keep exactly the same meaning as the given ones. They are also asked to repair word
order in jumbled-word sentences or fill in the blanks with the suitable verbs or verbal
phrases.

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 As passing exams is vital for students’ lives, most of the time in class, a large
number of high school teachers may be more favor of teaching intensive writing
skills to help their students pass the exams and also to secure their positions, which
are assessed on these results. By contrast, the extended prose writing skills as
requested by MOET may be undermined and overlooked in the teaching writing
practice.
Secondly, the “so-called” teaching writing approach of composition deployed
by high school teachers at present may expose some difficulties for students in the
performance of the compositional writing skills. In terms of teaching English
compositions, most of the high school teachers just focus on providing their student
writers with vocabulary relating to the required topic and some guiding questions in
order to help them shape their ideas into the completed paragraphs. Teaching writing
in this way only benefits them to an extent that it can assist them in producing the
error-free texts following the models of correct language. However, it does not
contribute/guarantee to help students realize and master such features as purposes,
audiences, context and linguistic conventions of text which are the important features
of any text-types.
In other words, writing classes in high school nowadays are still
predominantly language-based writing classes that focus on sentence writing for
exam-orientation and teachers’ evaluation rather than focus on writing-based classes
that focus on creating compositions in order to serve for the purposes of plurality of
real readers outside the classroom context.
From the two difficult situations analyzed above, the biggest difficulty facing
high school students when they learn to write compositions in English is that they
have not been taught very much in the skills of writing composition in English.
Therefore, they do not succeed in this skill.
While this thesis does not intend to re-evaluate the exam-driven educational
system, it attempts to seek for ways that can both enhance high school students’
writing skills and build up their positive perceptions towards learning this skill as

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expected by MOET in designing the new English textbooks, i.e. improve the writing
skills for high school students.
The genre-based approach chosen in this study is to solve students’ difficulties
in learning to write English compositions. However, before proving/claiming the
effectiveness of this approach on the teaching writing, it is necessary to investigate it
seriously and carefully in an actual classroom setting. As Freedman (1993) stated:
“It should not be the task of the skeptics to argue against a pedagogical
strategy but rather the work of the proponents to bring forward convincing
research and theoretical evidence preferably before its wholesale
introduction.” (p. 279)

1.2 Statement of purposes

The purposes of this thesis are: (1) to investigate the effectiveness on genre-
based approach in teaching recounts to 11 th graders of English at Trị An high school
and (2) to explore their attitudes towards the use of this approach in learning to write.

1.3 Research questions

This thesis was set out to answer the following question:
How effectively is genre-based approach applicable to teaching recounts to
11th graders of English at Trị An high school?
Underlying this main research question are the two sub-questions aiming at
the students’ performance on the recount writings and attitudes. Therefore, in order to
deal with the main research question, it is important to find the answers to the two
following sub-questions:
1. To what extent can students’ academic recount essays actually be improved
with respect to social purposes, schematic structure and language features after their
exposure to genre-based approach?
2. What are students’ attitudes towards the use of genre-based approach in
learning to write?

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1.4 Significance of the study
This study is significant for both students and teachers involved. As for the
students, the result of this study may contribute to improve their writing skills as well
as to help them gain/build up their confidence in writing through incorporating the
writing strategies into drafting of their essays and getting constructive feedbacks of
their peers and teacher before refining their final drafts. As for the teachers, this thesis
is intended to provide them with an alternative approach to writing by incorporating
the three-stage writing process based on the teaching-learning cycle of the genre-
based instruction. Finally, the study result may be potentially useful and applicable to
teaching and learning contexts to that as described in this study.

1.5 Structure of the thesis

This thesis comprises five chapters and is organized as follows:
Chapter 1 defines the problems of the study. To do this, it deals with the five
parts including background to the study, statements of purposes, research questions,
significance of the study and structure of the thesis. Chapter 2 is a literature review.
Chapter 3 describes the research design and methodology used for data collection.
Chapter 4 involves analysis of the data collected from the two types of essays written
by students and the student questionnaire, and the findings emerged from the data
analysed in light of research questions initially stated. Chapter 5 offers some tentative
conclusions and suggestions on the teaching and learning of writing.

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Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
This chapter mainly focuses on the discussion of genre, genre-based approach
to teaching writing, the recount genres and its implementation on the teaching of the
two sub-recount genres (i.e. personal recount genre and biographical recount genre)
in this study. Before embarking on these important sections, it is necessary to give a
brief presentation about writing skills at high school context, some approaches to
teaching writing in EFL classes which had a direct impact on the shaping of genre-
based approach.

2.1 Writing skills at high school context

Previously, compositional writing skill was not considered important in most
of the Vietnamese high schools. Writing was used mainly as supporting skills in
language learning such as doing grammar exercises, answering reading
comprehension questions, and writing dictation. Writing at that time was seen as a
variety of techniques to add more interest to a lesson or as a testing device to
diagnose grammar or comprehension errors. However, as early as the year 2007s or
so, compositional writing skills began to gain an attention and/or recognition from
MOET as an important skill for high school students to master. Nowadays,
compositional writing skill has been taught as a separate skill in parallel with the
teaching of the reading skills, listening skills and speaking skills. At present, teaching
writing at high school has focused on the two aspects: developing the intensive
writing skills and developing the extensive writing skill.
As an intensive writing skill, writing is still used mainly as supporting skills
like in the past, often to reinforce the grammatical points which students are taught in
the language focus section of each unit in the new English textbooks (MOET, 2007).
Grammar exercises such as building sentences, sentence transformation, gap-filling
exercises and putting jumbled sentences in order to form a dialogue/a letter, etc are
often taught in this type of writing.

6
 As an extensive writing skill, students are taught to write on topics embedded
in the new English textbooks grade 10, 11 and 12, often following the themes
introduced at the beginning of the reading section in each unit (MOET, 2007). The
purposes of these extended writing exercises are to train and develop the reasoning
skills, creative skills, problem-solving skills of students as well as their ability in
creating, organizing the ideas and putting them into their finished written products
with respect to vocabulary, grammar and text organization suitably for each type of
text-types.
While most of high school students may not find too many difficulties in doing
language-based writing exercises which require a mastery of vocabulary and
grammar structures, they themselves find it difficult to perform on long English
compositions. In fact, when student writers are asked to write in English
compositions, they have to face with many problems such as psychological pressures,
linguistic difficulties as well as difficulties in generating the ideas, organizing the
ideas and putting them into intelligible texts. These difficulties largely prevent them
from producing successful and effective texts in English.
In order to remedy the difficulties of students in learning to write English
compositions, high school teachers often try their best to find out the best approaches
to teach students to write. Depending on each teacher’s view of how writing should
be learned and what features are important in a piece of writing, each teacher is
probably in favor of one approach whilst playing down upon, excluding or ignoring
the other.
As approaches to teaching writing may play an important role in stimulating/
inspiring students to write compositions/essays in English, finding out a suitable
approach to teaching writing is still a big question for most of high school teachers.

2.2 Approaches to teaching writing in EFL classes

How is writing taught in EFL classes? What is the best way of teaching
writing? According to Raimes (1983), there are no exact answers to these questions.

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In fact, there exist as many answers as there are teachers and teaching styles, or
learners and learning styles. In the history of L2 composition teaching, a variety of
approaches have been developed to teach students to write. This part limits itself to
the only two teaching writing approaches which had direct effects on the shaping of
the genre-based approach this study closely adopted.
2.2.1 A product-oriented approach
A product-oriented approach has been developed to help students produce
their final coherent, error-free texts. This approach focused primarily on “reader-
based writing for an academic audience” with little or no consideration of student
writers’ “voice” and the processes in which writing took place (Liu & Hansen, 2005;
Reid, 1995b). According to Brown (1994, p. 320), finished compositions were
supposed to (a) meet certain standards of prescribed English rhetorical styles, (b)
reflect accurate grammar, and (c) be organized in conformity with what the audiences
would consider to be conventional.
The teaching writing practices of compositions associated with this approach
were an emphasis of the teaching writing processes through four sequential writing
stages: familiarization, controlled writing, guided writing and free writing (Pincas,
1982a). In the familiarization, students were taught certain language features with
respects to grammar and vocabulary, usually through a sample text. In the controlled
and guided writing stages, students practised using those language features with
increasing freedom until they were ready to move to the free writing stage where they
used their knowledge to produce their own texts independently.
The contribution of a product-oriented approach is that it helps free L2 student
writers, particularly those at their lower levels of language proficiency, from their
severe worries over writing tasks. This approach aims at providing them with enough
knowledge of grammar and vocabulary through a model text provided and analyzed
by teachers so that students later can produce grammatically correct texts. In addition,
this approach also reinforces them with the knowledge of grammatical points through
the practice of such intensive writing-based skills as sentence formation and grammar

8
exercises. Undoubtedly, this approach has been still widely employed these days in
the Vietnamese high school contexts to build up students’ self-confidence and sound
knowledge of both vocabulary and sentence structures as well as exam-focused.
However, the product approach itself has some drawbacks. The first drawback
of this approach rests in the fact that it does not acknowledge the importance of
audiences and purposes when composing a text. Zamel (1982, p. 195) said that “the
whole notion of why and for whom student writers are writing is not taken into
account in the product-based approach”. In the product-based approach, the only
audience may be the teacher or specialists/academic readers who may read, evaluate,
correct, grade and respond to students’ finished product. This may create a false
assumption among students that the function of writing is to produce texts for
teachers to evaluate, not to communicate meaningfully with another person in the real
world (Nunan, 2000). Secondly, the writing processes (e.g. how the content of text is
to be researched, where ideas come from, how they are formulated and developed,
what the various stages of composing entail) are almost ignored in the product-based
approach. Thirdly, there is a false assumption that writing skills are shaped from the
habit formation through the ability of imitation, copying and transformation of the
models of the correct language (Nunan, 2000). The reality counter-claims that writing
is clearly a complex process which requires student writers to master not only their
linguistic processes but their cognitive and social processes as well. Last but not least,
the role of teacher and students in this approach is also problematic. In the product-
based approach classes, the teacher has all the power and control of the instructional
process. He acts as a transmitter/giver of the knowledge and plays a dominant role in
deciding the content and the activities given to students. There is not much room for
teacher-student interaction. The students, in contrast, play the role of considerably
passive recipients of knowledge. In the classroom, instead of learning how to use
language creatively themselves, they spend most of the time practicing, copying and
reproducing language patterns provided by teachers or textbooks. In other words,
students are completely dependent on the teacher for seeking the language sources as

9
claimed by Nunan (1999). Obviously, the role designed for teachers as the
transmitters and students as the recipients are problematic because writing is a
productive skill. In order to write successfully and express their “self/ego” positively,
students need to be given the rights to express their ideas, interact with others in order
to negotiate meanings as well as to enrich their ideas and contents in their writing
papers instead of accepting unconditionally all the ideas, contents and language given
by teachers.
2.2.2 A process-oriented approach
A process-oriented approach, by contrast, emphasized student writers as the
independent producers of texts. It encouraged them to use/explore their internal
resources, creativity, individuality, fluency rather accuracy during a process of
composing a text (Reid, 1995b). Undoubtedly, this approach was considered student-
centered, focusing on students’ interests.
The most important characteristic of this approach is its focus on the process
of teaching writing through the three stages sequentially: pre-writing, writing, and
rewriting. When writing, students care not only about the purpose and the audience
but also the steps involved in drafting and redrafting a piece of work. They are
encouraged to explore a topic fully in such prewriting activities as discussion,
reading, debate, brainstorming, etc. and to get their ideas onto paper without worrying
too much about formal correctness in the initial stages. They then share their work
with others such as peers and teachers, getting their constructive feedbacks on the
ideas, contents, etc before revising their drafts. This makes the students find the
writing process is a process of discovery of new ideas and new language forms to
express those ideas. Moreover, “the collaborative group work between students is a
way of enhancing motivation and developing positive attitudes towards writing”
(Nunan, 1999, p. 272.)
A process-based approach has many positive points that should be taken into
account.

10
 Firstly, this approach acknowledges the importance of “audiences” and
“purposes” and encourages students to take these two factors into account when
writing their texts. This is a significant departure from the product-based approach
where students normally write their texts in order to be assessed by their teachers.
Caudery (1997) further argues that:
“These two factors [audiences and purposes] affect all aspects of a text, in
terms of both the language used and text content. No one can claim to be
proficient in writing in language unless they are able successfully to adapt the
way they write for different audiences and purposes.” (p. 19)

Secondly, it views student writers as active recipients during the process of

writing. As for a teacher, he or she now acts as an organizer, an observer, and a
consultant who organizes the tasks for students to do, observes the class during the
process and gives guidances when needed.
Thirdly, it can lower students’ anxiety level in writing because it focuses on
the fluency of ideas expressed in students’ texts rather than the formal accuracy of
grammar. Students now feel comfortable in expressing their individuality and
originality as well as focusing on polishing/refining their ideas and contents in their
writing papers instead of spending a lot of time worrying about the formal correction
of their texts.
Finally, it provides student writers with teaching writing techniques (e.g.
drafting technique, peer feedback, teacher feedback, etc.) in order to help them write
a text effectively and successfully. At any point the student writers are encouraged to
jump backward or forward to any of these activities; for instance, returning to the
library for more information, revising the plan to accommodate new ideas, or
rewriting for readability after peer feedback.
However, the process-oriented approach itself has its drawbacks (Bazerman,
1980).
Due to an overemphasis of the writing processes, this approach failed to
provide its students with sufficient input, often in the form of the linguistic
conventions of academic texts, to write successfully (Badger & White, 2000). Hyland

11
(2002) argues that in order to write successfully, student writers not only need help in
learning how to write, but in understanding how texts are shaped by topic, audience,
purpose, and cultural norms as well or in Reppen’s words (1995) (cited in Richards &
Renandya, 2002, p. 321) “Simply allowing students to write a lot does not necessarily
provide sufficient practice in the types of writing valued for academic writing”. In
addition, according to Bizzell (1982), teachers who believe in the process approach
should also focus on the conventions of academic discourse, emphasizing the
relationship between discourse, community, and knowledge in addition to providing
teaching processes for learners. In a word, equipping novice writers with good
strategies of composing a text alone does not necessarily lead them to the
improvement in extended writing skills (Hyland, 2002).
In addition, the emphasis of students’ creativity in the composing of texts at
the expenses of the linguistic conventions across the cultures are problematic in the
process approach because if students want to write creatively and express their “self”
in their finished products, they must, in the first place, master very well the linguistic
conventions of a particular text in the forms of grammar, vocabulary and text
organization requested by their particular writing discourse community (Nunan,
1999). In the reality, most of the L2 students are those who are in lack of formal
knowledge of grammar, vocabulary and text organization; therefore, they may find it
difficult to write independently and creatively unless they are taught explicitly about
linguistic conventions of a particular text.
To sum up, this part has just presented two approaches of teaching English
compositions in the EFL classes, namely, the product-oriented approach and process-
oriented approach. These two approaches have both strengths and weaknesses. While
the product-based approach is primarily concerned with students’ ability to produce
grammatically correct texts, focuses exclusively on forms over meaning and the
finished product, the process-based approach focuses more on students’ interests,
creativity, discovery of meaning as well as the processes of composing a text.

12
 Arguably, this thesis took the view that teaching L2 students to be successful
writers requires writing teachers to combine the two above-mentioned approaches
(i.e. both focus on form and focus on meaning and the process of composing a text)
instead of focusing on one approach at the exclusion of the other. As Kaminmura
(2000, p.17) said “a lack of the two approaches lead to the unsuccessful EFL writing
performance”. Therefore, this thesis attempted/endeavored to find out another
approach which can help balance between a product-based approach and a process-
based approach to teach writing more effectively. The approach which can satisfy a
good balance between form-focused and meaning-focused is the genre-based
approach, which is addressed in the next part.

2.3 A genre-based approach

2.3.1 A definition of genre
Traditionally, “genre” was used to refer to particular kinds of literature or other
media of creative expressions such as the novel, short stories, film, art and science
fictions. However, in contemporary education, “genre” refers not only to types of
literary texts but also to the predictable and recurring patterns of everyday, academic
and literary texts occurring within a particular culture (Hammond & Derewianka,
2001). Bakhtin (1986) argues that learning genre is a fundamental part of language
development and it is our ability to predict the compositional structure and length of
genres that enables us to communicate.
In the western countries, “Genre” or “text-type”, either spoken or written, is
often identified/grouped according to its primary social purposes. According to
(Swale, 1990), the genres which share the same purposes belong to the same text-
types. Derewianka (1990) identified further six main school type-types according to
their primary social purposes: (1) Narratives: tell a story, usually to entertain; (2)
Recount: To tell what happened; (3) Information reports: provide factual information;
(4) Instruction: tell the listeners or readers what to do; (5) Explanation: Explain why
or how something happens; (6) Expository texts: Present or argue a viewpoint. These

13
social purposes of the text-genres in turn decide the linguistic inputs of the text (i.e.
their linguistic conventions, often in form of schematic structure and linguistic
features). Specifically, schematic structure refers to internal structure or text
organization of the text-type in forms of introduction, body and conclusion while
language features consist of linguistic aspects such as grammar, vocabulary,
connectors and etc the writers have to use in order to translate information/ideas into
a readable text.
As purposes, schematic structure and language features are important for each
text-type, teaching explicitly these aspects in the writing classes are viewed as
important factors for genre-based approach teachers.
2.3.2 Properties of genre-based approach
A genre-based approach placed great emphasis on the relationship between
text-genres and their contexts (Hyon, 1996). In doing so, it aimed to help students
become effective participants in their academic and professional environment as well
as in their broader communities (Hammond & Derewianka, 2001). This part focuses
on some properties of the genre-based approach as well as some comments on the
genre-based approach in comparison with/to the product-based approach and the
process-based approach.
Firstly, the genre-based approach emphasizes the importance of exploring the
social and cultural context of language use on a piece of writing. The context decides
the purpose of a text, an overall structure of a text in terms of language features and
text features often in the form of linguistic conventions (Christie, 1999; Hammond &
Derewianka, 2001; Hyon, 1996; among others). This approach argues that students
can only produce a composition to be successfully accepted by a particular English-
language discourse community once they take context of a text into account into their
own writing papers.
Secondly, this approach emphasizes the importance of the readers and the
linguistic conventions that a piece of writing needs to follow in order to be
successfully accepted by its readership (Muncie, 2002). According to this approach,

14
any student who wants to be successful in joining a particular English-language
discourse community, he or she will need to be able to produce texts which fulfill the
expectations of its readers in regards to grammar, organization, and content.
Thirdly, it emphasizes that writing is a social activity. This notion originated
from the social-cultural theory initiated by Vygotsky (1978). According to this theory,
knowledge is best constructed when learners collaborate together, support one
another to encourage new ways to form, construct and reflect on new knowledge. In
this case, social interactions and participation of group members play a key role in
developing new knowledge. In the writing classes, students are encouraged to
participate in the activities of meaning exchange and negotiation with their more
capable people such as peers and teacher. Learning writing in this way, as it is
believed, can remove the feeling of isolation which bothers many learners when
writing and at the same time, help student writers have positive reinforcements about
the knowledge of linguistics, content and ideas in the composing of texts.
Fourthly, a genre-based approach to writing instruction looks beyond subject
content, composing processes and linguistic forms to see a text as attempts to
communicate with readers. This approach is concerned with teaching learners how to
use language patterns to accomplish coherent, purposeful prose writing. Its central
belief is that “we do not just to write, we write something to achieve some purpose”
(Hyland, 2003, p.18). In this approach, student writers are requested to consider the
overall social purposes of a text into account when composing a text.
Fifthly, this approach emphasizes the important role of writer-reader
interaction on a piece of writing (Reid, 1995). Firstly, student writer in this approach
is requested to specify or think about the intended and/or potential readers when
writing in order to be able to select or anticipate appropriate content, language and
levels of formality. He or she should always ask himself or herself some questions
such as who will be my intended readers?, who might be interested in reading my
text?, what are their beliefs about a good piece of writing?, what are their levels of
English proficiency? and what are their educational and cultural backgrounds?, etc.

15
Similarly, readers when approaching the text should also ask themselves some
questions such as for what purposes does this writer write this piece of writing?, what
is the writer’s viewpoint when writing the text?, what kinds of language features and
organization does he/she use in the text?, and etc. To recap, there always exist an
interaction between writer and its readers in the form of written communication
despite the absence of readers.
Sixthly, teacher’s role in this approach is viewed as authoritativeness rather
than authoritarian (Rothery, 1996; Wyattt-Smith, 1997). As an expert in the
classroom, the teacher provides students with systematic guidance and careful
support through various activities so that students ultimately gain the control of
written genres. At the same time, he/she also recognizes the importance of students’
contributions to the teaching-learning process.
Last but not least, the genre-based approach emphasizes the explicit teaching
of the linguistic conventions of the genre for L2 novice student writers (Christie,
1990a; Rothery, 1986). It is argued that students cannot produce a particular text-type
successfully if they are not taught explicitly about linguistic conventions of that text-
type with respect to language features and schematic structure. Therefore, making
known these conventions to student writers; especially at the first stage of the
instructional modules of particular text-types is a very important task of genre-based
teachers. In the classroom, teacher following genre orientation often employs the
teaching-learning cycle which comprises the three stages, namely, modeling of a
“sample expert” text, joint-negotiation of text with teacher, and independent
construction of text by individual student (Cope & Kalantzis, 1993, Hammond,
1992). The teaching practice associated with the teaching-learning cycle will be
elaborated in the next sections.
Some comments on a genre-based approach in comparison to a product-
based approach and a process-based approach
When comparing between a genre-based approach with a product-based
approach and a process-based approach, some conclusions can be withdrawn:

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 A genre-based approach can be viewed as an inheritance of good
characteristics of both a product-based approach and a process-based approach.
Like a product-based approach, this approach also puts an emphasis on a
finished/final product, reader expectations and linguistic conventions which a piece
of writing needs to follow to be successfully accepted by a particular English-
language discourse community. In addition, this approach emphasizes social purposes
of a text and views writing as painful, time-consuming and relatively complex
processes in which meanings are negotiated and made in steps and it usually takes
writers more than one steps to achieve their goals (Christie & Rothery, 1987; Martin,
1984). This process is most clearly expressed in the independent construction stage
where student writers are asked to produce a similar text-type which has a structure
approximately to that of a text-type taught. In order to produce a successful text-type,
student writers often have to spend over many stages such as exploring/researching
information from many sources, drafting their writing papers, participating in peer
feedback and teacher’s feedback activities, revision of their drafts, and etc before
producing their final product to be evaluated. Therefore, it can be said that a genre-
based approach is also similar to a process-based approach in which the two
approaches accept the fact that there will never be a perfect text at one attempt
(Nunan, 2000). In order to achieve both form (focus on product) and meaning (focus
on process) at the same time, a genre-based instruction often employs a cycle of
teaching writing instruction called teaching-learning cycle which emphasizes the
instruction of writing though the three main stages, modeling, joint-construction and
independent construction of text as articulated above. The modeling and joint-
construction stage aim at providing students with the knowledge of form in terms of
grammar, content and organization which a particular text-type requires as well as
demonstrating them how these forms are structured in the text to achieve its social
functions. The last stage-independent construction of text- is a stage when students
apply forms and meanings which they pick up from the two initial stages into writing
their text independently through a process of writing. In other words, a genre-based

17
approach helps create a good balance between form and function which are often
missing or left forgotten in either of the two approaches: a product-based approach
and a process-based approach.
However, a genre-based approach is also different from a product-based
approach and a process-based approach in various ways.
A genre-based approach is different from a product-based approach because it
emphasizes the factor “context” on the production of a text and views context and
text as the two inseparable factors; one within another (Butt et all, 2003) while a
product-based approach excludes “the context on a text” (i.e. decontextualization),
and views writing chiefly as habit formation and a reproduction of the model of
correct language through the practice of copying, imitating, transforming and
building sentences. In addition, although both genre-based approach and product-
based approach emphasize the importance of the linguistic conventions on a piece of
writing, they themselves expose differences. A product-based approach focuses on
form, emphasizing the formal correction of grammatical rules but does not link
formal and functional properties of a language in writing instruction. By contrast, a
genre-based approach assumes that there is a clear linkage between form and
function. Students in the genre-based instructions are not only asked to learn about
the linguistic conventions of a particular genre but also learn about the function which
they play in that particular text in order to achieve its social purposes. Finally, the
teacher-student role in the genre-based approach and the product-based approach is
different. While students in the product-based approach are viewed largely as passive
recipients and teacher acts as a giver of knowledge, students in the genre-based
instruction are considered more or less friends of teacher. They are encouraged to
contribute ideas during the process of writing with their peers and teachers for the
text they are working on. As for a teacher, he acts as a guide/an expert who gives
detailed and careful instructions about the conventions of the genre for students at the
beginning stages of genre-based instruction but gradually retreat their intervention
once students master the genre in focus. Therefore, it can be said that teacher-student

18
role in the genre-based instruction is equal and collaborative rather than transmitter
and passive recipients in the product-based approach.
Also, a genre-based approach is different from a process-based approach.
While a process-based approach views writing chiefly as a thinking process;
encouraging students to make use of their internal resources, a genre-based approach
views writing as a social activity. Students in the genre-based instruction are asked to
participate actively during the process of writing activities, collaborating together
right at the beginning of the genre instruction. By contrast, students in the process-
based approach are asked to think about the topics, purposes and the audiences before
writing. They work alone by asking themselves some questions such as “how do I
write this?”, “how do I get started?”. Certainly, there are also social interactions
between students in the process-based approach; yet, this interaction only takes place
after students finish their first drafts. They may give their first draft to their peers and
teachers to respond, summarize or make comment on the ideas used in their text.
Therefore, it can be said that there is little interaction between students in the process-
based approach. By contrast, students in the genre-based instructions are not only
encouraged to make use of their internal resources through the contribution of ideas
with peers and teacher but above all, they are asked to collaborate continually with
their peers and teachers right from the beginning until the end of composing a text to
check their assumptions of ideas or thought. This gives them an idea about how
writing is written and evaluated in the real world. Writing is not to aim to writers’
sake alone but to communicate their ideas/contents meaningfully with readers both
inside and outside the classroom and within the broader communities.
Up to this point, this part has just presented some properties of a genre-based
approach in relation to a product-based approach and a process-based approach.
Through the elaborate analyses above, it can be seen that a genre orientation to
teaching writing instruction focuses on the context of language use on a particular
text-type. Generally, its philosophy is that students have to master linguistic
conventions of a particular text-type relevant to a specific context when writing. In

19
the writing classes, the factors such as contexts, readers, purposes and linguistic
conventions of a particular text-genre should be taught simultaneously so that
students can produce a text which can reach the expectations of the real readers both
inside and outside the classroom. Teaching writing in this way may improve the
writing ability of student writers, especially for those at around the beginning or
intermediate levels of English proficiency. The final section of this part focuses on
offering some reasons for the choice of the genre-based approach in teaching writing
to student participants in this study.
2.3.3 Arguments for the choice of the genre-based approach to teach
writing in this study
As presented clearly in the Chapter 1, one of the difficulties faced by high
school students is that they lack the sound knowledge both in language competence
and in the process of composing a text. Therefore, they cannot translate their ideas
into a readable text (Richards & Renandaya, 2002). The genre-based approach on
the teaching of extended writing skills solved these difficulties for L2 students by
not only aiming at teaching them explicitly the linguistic conventions of a particular
text-type but also showing them the processes of composing a text-genre through
drafting, peer feedback, teacher’s feedback and revision of drafts, etc. so that they
can build a text successfully and effectively. It satisfied a balance between form and
function as mentioned above. As regards to the research site (Trị An high school),
most of the students there had a low proficiency in the extended writing skills
both in language proficiency and composing skills of a text due to the
poor/infrequent exposure to the L2 writing skills outside the classroom. Therefore,
the genre-based instruction was chosen in the hope to solve these anticipated
difficulties for student participants in terms of learning to write compositions.
In order to help students realize the linguistic conventions as well as the
social purposes of a particular text-genre and hence they can apply these aspects
into building a similar text-genre successfully, a genre-based approach often
incorporates a process of instructing to teach writing through the three major stages

20
of teaching-learning cycle, namely, modeling of text, joint-construction of text and
independent construction of text (Cope & Kalantzis, 1993, Hammond, 1992). This
writing cycle framework has been widely used in the writing classes in L1 and L2
countries where the genre orientation is applied. This study adopted it as a
conceptual framework to teach the recount genres. The theoretical framework of
teaching-learning cycle, its empirical studies and the recount genres are provided
elaborately in the next sections respectively.

2.4 The teaching-learning cycle

2.4.1 Conceptual Framework
In the writing classroom, teacher adopting a genre orientation draws on the
work of the Russian psychologist Vygotsky (1978) and its interpretation by Bruner
(1986). This teaching writing pedagogy stresses the view that learning occurs best
when learners engage in tasks that are within their zone of proximal development
(ZPD), the area between what the learners can do independently and what they can do
with assistance (Vygotsky, 1978). To do so, in the process of teaching writing,
teachers will take on an authoritative role similar to that of an expert supporting an
apprentice. At the beginning, teacher uses “a sample text” as guidelines to present to
students “the context of text, the features of the text, and the social purposes of the
text” because at this stage they are still unfamiliar with the conventions and
conception of genre. This role gradually diminishes strategically when student writers
master the linguistic conventions of text-genre in focus and finally it disappears
completely when student writers can perform the writing tasks largely on their own
accord.
In particular, this teaching-learning cycle is characterized by teacher modeling
the text, teachers’ and students’ joint-construction to the text approximating to the
genre which they are working on and students’ independent construction of the text.
On the whole, the curriculum or the teaching-learning cycle, represented in “the
figure of the wheel” (Cope & Kalantzis, 1993, p. 10), outlines the process of genre-

21
based instruction through the three stages as discussed above: modeling of text, joint-
construction of text, and independent construction of text, is depicted in figure 1.

.
Figure 1. The teaching-learning cycle (Source: Callahagan & Rothery, 1988, p. 39)

As depicted in Figure 1 and further elaborated by (Cope & Kalantzis, 1993, p.

10; Gee, 1997, p. 5), the first stage, the modeling stage, is involved with teacher’s
presentation of the sample text-type and its various features: “What the text is for
(function)”, “How the information in the text is structured (schematic structure)” and
“The language features relating to it”. To achieve the purposes of this stage, teacher
should show students how the text achieves its purposes through the examination or
deconstruction of text features and language features of this sample text so that in the
latter phase of their composing of the similar text, they can produce the text similarly

22
to the one which they have just been taught. All of these things together are
considered very important before student writers are asked to produce the similar text
independently.
The second stage, joint-construction of the text, incorporates two elements:
preparation by students and joint construction of new text (by students and teacher) in
the same genre. This stage begins with students’ familiarization with the field and
context of the genre through observation, research, and note-taking and so on. In the
ensuring joint-construction stage, both teacher and students work together to produce
the text, with teacher acting as a guide or a scribe, so that he can shape “the students’
contributions into a text which approximates to the genre under focus” (LERN, 1990,
p. 11).
After students understand very clearly about the genre under focus, they spend
over the last phase of the teaching and learning cycle, i.e. to work independently to
produce the similar text-genre. At this phase, teacher gives the control to the students
and he retrieves his intervention. In order to produce the well-written text
approximating to the genre under study, student writers need to do many tasks such as
writing many drafts, refining their products, conferencing with their peers and their
teachers, editing, and finally producing a text of the genre under study.
It should be noted that the flexibility of the genre-based approach teacher in
the three stages of the curriculum cycle is considered to be very important for the
genre-based instruction’s teaching-learning cycle to be successfully implemented. At
times, teacher needs to come back to the stage two instead of proceeding/progressing
to the stage three if teacher realizes that students are not well-prepared to produce the
similar genre under focus. On the contrary, if teacher realizes that the students have
mastered the features of genre under focus very quickly, he can push them over to
work on the stage three instead of stopping at the former stages for a very long time.
In other words, teacher should not be too rigid in applying the teaching-learning cycle
into the classroom setting. Above all, teacher should take time to explain to the
students why they are asked to spend over these stages “Because writing is such an

23
important part of educational process, it simply cannot be left to hit and miss
strategies” (Callaghan, Knapp & Noble, 1993, p. 181).
Since the introduction of the teaching-learning cycle into the classroom
settings, there have been some empirical studies aiming at investigating its impact on
the students’ writing skill performance as well as their attitudes. In addition to this,
there were also other studies aiming at exploring teachers’ reactions from their own
teaching experiences in the use of this teaching-learning cycle.
2.4.2 Empirical research
In Australia, there have been a few studies concerned with the investigation of
the impact of the teaching-learning cycle on learning writing skills mostly at the
primary and secondary school levels (Hammond & Derewianka, 2001).
Firstly, at the primary school level, a project was carried out by the
Metropolitan East Disadvantaged Schools Programs (DSP) in NSW (Callaghan &
Rothery, 1988). It aimed at exploring the reactions of 16 teachers working in eight
Disadvantaged schools across Australia from their experience in using the teaching-
learning cycle to teach their students to write the report, explanation, exposition and
discussion genres in History and Social Sciences. The teacher participants in this
project reported that the teaching-learning cycle employed in teaching text-genres
actually provided their students with the “tools” to write their own texts more
effectively in terms of language features and schematic structure of the required
genres and at the same time, their students expressed their satisfaction towards the
three stages of the teaching-learning cycle.
Secondly, at the secondary school level, Hallenstein (1994) also applied this
teaching-learning cycle to teach the Discussion genre to overseas and Australian year
11 students at St. John’s College at the North territory. At the end of the course, she
also found out that her students actually gained a better control over the key features
of the Discussion genre. However, she did not detail how these students responded
towards the implementation of the teaching-learning cycle into the classroom setting.

24
 In some other second and foreign language countries, there were also some
other studies aiming at investigating both teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards the
use of this teaching-learning cycle.
Firstly, Kay and Dudley-Evans’ study (1998) in Singapore involved the
investigation of teachers’ attitudes towards the implementation of the teaching-
learning cycle into their own classroom settings. The results of the study indicated
that most of the teacher participants expressed their positive attitudes towards the
teaching-learning cycle. They said that this writing cycle framework not only
provided their students with the knowledge of the genre in focus but also gave their
students a sense of security thanks to the sample text provided and analyzed by
teachers.
Secondly, in investigating the improvements as well as the attitudes of
students on the writing skills by using the teaching-learning cycle, two other studies
in ESL and EFL contexts were found; one in junior high school setting in Indonesia
(Sutojo, 1994) and the other in a teacher training college in Vietnam (Dang, 2002).
The former related to the teaching of Report writing to high school students and the
latter related to the teaching of Discussion writing to second year Vietnamese
students who majored in English and trained to become secondary school English
teachers. In general, the two studies revealed that most of the participating students
could gain control over the key features of the required text-genres with respect to the
language features and schematic structure. At the same time, they also expressed their
positive attitudes towards the teaching-learning cycle.
In short, although only a few studies have been conducted so far with regard to
the implementation of the teaching-learning cycle into teaching students to write the
specific text-genres, they themselves provided really valuable sources for the
researcher of this study to take into a deep consideration when applying this cycle
into teaching the students of this study to write on text-genres and created a strong
motivation for him to make his contribution to this field.

25
 While all of the studies in L1 and L2 countries as mentioned above focused on
the factual genres and were conducted at the primary school, secondary school and
college level, this study focused on high school students and the story genre (i.e. the
recount genres). The information about the definition of recount genre, reasons for
choosing the recount genre and the overall description of these two sub-genres and
finally, the detailed description of the personal recount and biographical recount used
for instructional modules of this study is provided below.

2.5 The recount genre

2.5.1 Definition
The recount genre is one of the story-telling genres used to explore what
actually happened (Rothery & Stenglin, 1997). It comprises four sub-recount genres:
“Personal, Biographical, Historical and Recount based on field studies or
experiments/research” (Droga, 1991, pp. 31-43).
2.5.2 Reasons for the choice of the recount genre
In regards to the chosen genre of the study in the implementation in the actual
classroom setting, it is argued that it should both enable students to perform a broad
range of social purposes for writing in English in the near future and be based on the
students’ most immediate academic purposes (Lin, 2006). Furthermore, according to
Johns (2002), the chosen genre has to evoke students’ interest in the sense that it has
to be in a context that the students are familiar with and that it has to draw from
students’ own life experiences. Finally, the topics chosen for teaching and learning
activities (Herein the text-type or genre) must be suitable to age groups and levels of
the learners (Cunningsworth, 1995).
Taking these things altogether, the recount genre was chosen for this study for
the following reasons. First of all, this is one of the story-telling genres which are
embedded in the New Eleventh English textbook (Unit 2, p. 28; unit 15, p. 174,
MOET, 2007). Coincidentally, this genre has been widely adopted in the Australian
primary, secondary and high school contexts (Martin & Rothery, 1981) in which these

26
students used written genres as their written works to express their feelings and
emotions to their friends about themselves and the world around them in ‘writing”. It
is likely that the student participants in the present study who are nearly the same age
as those in the Australian educational context may be also interested in the story-
telling genres because the personal recount genre, for example, is close to these
student writers’ personal experiences in which they can retell about what they used to
experience in the past and hence it seems more realistic in cultivating the process of
learning a language through “doing” or “using language in order to talk about
themselves and the world around them” (Christie, 1990a). As a result, students may
feel more confident when being asked to write about their real experiences by
themselves. As for the biographical recount genre, students are invited to write about
the outstanding characters or heroes in the history who have made a lot of significant
contributions to the mankind. From learning these biographical recounts, students
may be aroused with the patriotic spirit as well as their learning inspirations by the
stories of the characters who sacrificed their life to the development of the human
civilization history. In addition, this genre is “normally used in conjunction with
another genre”, and “is often used to set the context for a Report, Explanation,
Exposition or Discussion by providing a history or overview” (Droga, 1991, p. 9).
Therefore, the recount genres taught in this study is also to prepare for the students of
this study to learn those inter-related genres in their tertiary education in the near
future.
The descriptions of the recount genre and its two sub-genres taught for the
instructional modules in this present research are presented in the following sections.
2.5.3 An overall description of the recount genre and its two sub-recount
genres
A recount deals with a temporal succession of events, and with giving them
significance. Specifically, a recount is the reconstruction of past experience through
the unfolding of a sequence of events over time. To achieve the social purposes of the
genre, the reconstruction of the past is organized functionally in the three stages of

27
schematic structure, namely, orientation, sequence of events in chronological order,
and reorientation in which orientation serves to guide readers to what is to follow;
sequence of events deals with uncovering the events chronologically; and
reorientation, though optional, serves to round off the text with a comment or
expression of attitude by the writer (Droga, 1991). Additionally, in the reconstruction
of the past experience, the following language features of the recount such as focus
on the individual or specific participants, past tense, temporal conjunctions,
circumstances of time and process types (mainly material process or sometimes
mental process) are generally deployed.
The Personal and Biographical genres are taught in this study because they are
the two story-telling genres introduced/incorporated in the new English high school
textbooks. Table 1 below is the summary of the recount genre and its two sub-recount
genres in terms of function/definition, schematic structure and language features.
Function/definitio To retell the events for purposes of informing or entertaining. Events are usually arranged
n in a temporal sequence.
Schematic The recount genre is sequenced into three stages as follows:
Structure  Orientation
 Sequence of Events
 Reorientation
Linguistic features The linguistic features of the recount genre are:
 Focus on individual human participants.
 Use of past tense.
 Focus on temporal sequence of events.
 Use of material (or action verbs) processes and sometimes mental and relational
process.
Text organization Written recounts are organized into paragraphs. Each paragraph is organized into its
schematic stages temporally as illustrated in the schematic structure.
Types of Recounts For the interest of this study, two kinds of recounts are introduced.
 Personal Recount: retell a series of events or activities that the writers directly
experienced
 Biographical Recount: To reconstruct the most important events in the life of a specific
personality who played a significant role in history.
Table 1. An overall description of the recount genre and its two sub-genres
(Adapted from: Droga, 1991; Droga & Humphrey, 2003)

In addition to the common characteristics, the Personal recount genre and the
biographical recount genre present some differences in terms of function, schematic
structure and language features. The following sub-section further elaborates the two
sub-genres used in the study.

28
 2.5.4 Detailed description of the two sub-recount genres in this study
The social purpose of the Personal Recount is to both entertain and inform. It
serves to reconstruct, in a temporal sequence, a series of events or activities that the
writers have directly experienced (Coffin, 1997; Callaghan & Rothery, 1988; Droga,
1991; Droga & Humphrey, 2003). Texts written in this genre are characterized by “the
use of a first person narrator, specific human participants and action processes
organized around sequences in time” (Martin, 1999, p. 41). The orientation stage serves
to provide information about “who, when, what, where” the recount has taken place.
The middle stage deals with a sequence of events, characterized linguistically by
temporal successive conjunctions. In other words, Personal Recounts present the
readers with a journey of “How character gets from point A to point B” (Rothery, 1995,
p. 284). Moreover, interpersonal meanings can occur at different points although there
is a tendency for them to cluster around key events in the recount. The reorientation
rounds off the sequences of events and gives personal evaluation of the significance of
the events.
On the contrary, the social purposes of a Biographical recount are “to give
account of the most important events in the life of a specific character in history”
(Droga, 1991, p. 35). Texts written in this sub-genre are characterized by “the use of a
third person narrator, specific and generic human participants, and action processes
organized both sequencing and setting in time” (Martin, 1994, p. 41). The orientation
stage serves to provide information about an important person in history and to state
his/ her significant role. The sequence of events outlines the early life and
achievements, career development and later life/ final years. This stage is characterized
linguistically by temporal successive conjunctions deployed either to sequence events
or to set events in the time frame. The reorientation provides overall influences/
contributions, a process which often requires the use of the Appraisal system (Droga,
1991; Droga & Humphrey, 2003).

29
 In addition to the above-mentioned differences, the personal recount and
biographical recount also bear other differences that should be taken into account.
First, personal recount focuses on the writer’s subjective viewpoints, which is
generally left open to the readers’ comments or opinions (Coffin, 1997). In contrast,
the biographical recount focuses on objective elements which are often unarguable
because these elements are based on the extensive studies of the historical documents
(Coffin, 1997). Second, the time-frame in the biographical recount is often longer
than that of personal recount which often lasts a few hours or a day or two days long,
etc. Finally, the temporal organization of biographical recount involves both
sequencing in time (via conjunction) and setting in time (via circumstances of
location in time) whereas the temporal organization of personal recount involves only
in sequencing in time (Martin, 1999).
Table 2 below summarizes the differences of these two sub-recount genres in
terms of function, schematic structure and language features.
Personal recount genre Biographical recount genre
Function

To retell a series of events or activities that the To give accounts of the most important events in the
writer has directly experienced life of specific personality in history.
Schematic structure

Orientation: Orientation:
- Provide information about who, when, - Provide information about an important person in
where. history.
- Gives personal opinion. - State his/her significant role in history.
Sequence of event: Sequence of event:
- Temporal sequence in the order in which  Early life or achievement
they occur. 1. Born where and when
- Personal opinion may be interspersed in the 2. Description of character
events. 3. Family life
4. Education
 Career Development
1. Early Influences
2. Major developments in career.
3. Later life and Final Years
Reorientation: Reorientation:
Round off the text with a comment or Overall influences/contributions of the character to
expression of attitude by the writer. history and society.

30
 Language Features - Focus on the individual or specific - Focus on individual participants: Human (e.g. Uncle
participant: Human (e.g. Mary, Peter, he, etc.) Ho, Helen Keller, etc.)
- Use of first personal pronoun such as I, we.
- Subjective perspectives. - Use of third personal pronoun such as he, she, they,
- Sequencing events as happened. etc.
- Use of direct appraisal - Objective or naturalized perspectives.
- Use of past tense. - Highlighting significant events.
- Focus on a temporal sequence of events. - Use of indirect appraisal.
- Use of material (action) processes and - Use of Past Tense.
sometimes mental and relational processes. - Focus on a temporal Sequence of Events or setting in
time.
- Use of Material (Action) processes and Sometimes
Mental and Relational processes.

Table 2. Detailed description of the Personal and biographical genre (Source: Droga, 1991, p. 42; Droga &
Humphrey, 2003, p. 141.)
The distinctions between the personal recount and biographical recount are
considered to be important for novice student writers because the two types highlight
the similarities and differences in terms of function, language features and schematic
structure. By realizing these differences clearly, students can produce these two text-
types successfully. The final session of this chapter is to present the applicability of
the theory of the conceptual framework of the genre’s teaching and learning cycle
into teaching the two sub-recount genres of this study because the whole process of
data collection and data analysis are emergered from it.

2.6 The implementation of the teaching-learning cycle on the teaching of the two
sub-recount genres in this study: A proposed lesson plan
Based on the conceptual framework of genre’s teaching-learning cycle
(Callaghan & Rothery, 1988, p. 39) as presented in figure 1 in section 2.4.1 on the
page 22, particularly a discussion of the potential applicability of this framework in
the EFL classroom setting, specifically at Trị An school’s context, where the study
took place, two instructional modules of the Personal and Biographical recount
genre (a proposed genre-based lesson plan) adopted the three stages of genre-based
instruction’s teaching-learning cycle as a conceptual framework for the whole course
of study from design of instructional modules to designing the questionnaires, two
types of the written essays and collection of data, analysis and discussion of results
and findings.

31
 The discussion now turns to an elaboration of the three stages of the teaching-
learning cycle for the two instructional modules, namely, modeling of recount genre,
joint construction of recount genre and independent construction of recount genre.
Each stage is, then, broken into two or more sub-stages.
The figure 1 on page 22 indicates that the phase “modeling of text” consists of
two sub-stages respectively, i.e. context exploration and text exploration. The stage 2
“joint-construction of text” also comprises two sub-parts, namely, preparation for
joint-construction of new text in the same genre and joint construction of new text (by
students and teacher) in the same genre and finally, the stage 3 “independent
construction of text” incorporates four sub-parts, namely, individual writing of text in
the same genre (drafts), consultation with teacher and working with peers about
writing; editing and reworking of writing; critical evaluation of success and
publishing, and creative exploitation of genre and its possibilities to represent other
fields.
Table 3 below is a description of lesson plans designed on the basis of the
three stages of genre-based instruction to teach student participants to write on the
two sub-recount genres (i.e. personal recount genre and biographical recount genre).

Lessons
Stages Purposes Activities

32
 Activate the students’ prior knowledge Make a list of all the instances when
about the recount genres. you told someone about things you had
Give students the chances to practice done or happened to you.
speaking English Examples:
Locate the recount genre to contexts in The most embarrassing/ scariest/ sweetest/
which it may be applied (e.g. at school, the most regretful experience in my life.
at university, etc.) The English oral competition held at
Context Emphasize the importance of taking the my school.
explorati audience into “writing” My first experience in the participation
on of the charitable work to Nguyễn Đình
Chiểu School for the blind.
My first trip to Vũng Tàu beach.
An account of the traffic accident I
witnessed on the way to school
Others: .........................................
Tell your pen-pals about your most
memorable experiences in your life.
Discuss and compare some of the
Modelin examples above from the point of view of
a writer.
g of Who would write the recount of this
recount kind?
genre For what purposes might the recount be
written?
Who do you think are the intended
readers?
Discuss and compare these from the
point of view of the reader.
Where might you have come across to
know a recount of this kind?
Who would be interested in reading this
recount? Why?
What information might you expect to
find in each one?
Guide students to the language In your opinion, what is the purpose of this
features and schematic structure of the text?
recount used in the sample texts (an - Where and how are the purpose made clear
example of a personal recount: My in the text?
first Trip to Greece (Appendix 4) and a - Where do you think you find this text?
Text biographical recount: Helen Keller (Give as many answers as you can)
explorati (1890 -1968) (appendix 5). - In your opinion, who is the author of this
on text?
- Can you arrange this text into an
organizational scheme? (introduction,
body and conclusion).
- Please find some language features used in
this text (i.e. tenses, conjunction of time,
adverbs of time, types of verbs,
participants, etc.).

Help students apply the theory of the The given topics:

recount genres into practice My last summer vacation (personal recount)
and Mother Teresa Calcutta (1910 –
1997) (Biographical recount)
Preparations by students:
Joint construction + Students search information from many
sources suitably for each kind of recount
in the same genre.
recount genre + Students discuss in groups or in pairs in
order to contribute their ideas to “The
chosen topics”.
Joint construction of text:
Teacher demonstrates the way of writing to

33
 them by using the ideas offered by them
and at the same time teacher reminds
them again and again of focusing on the
text organization and language features of
the recount genre.

Help students produce the similar Building the knowledge of the similar
recount genres approximate to the type (Personal recount and Biographical
recounts under focus. recount).
Help students be familiar with the Activate the knowledge of the recount
teaching writing techniques such as genres through purposes of the text,
writing many drafts, peer feedbacks and audiences, the organizational scheme and
teacher’s feedbacks, refining, editing and linguistic features of the recount genres.
publishing. Students’ independent construction of
Independent Help students realize that, in order to their first drafts.
construction write successfully, they have to spend over Topic given: Write about the most
many stages such as writing many drafts, memorable past experience in your life
of text peer feedbacks and teacher’s feedbacks. and biography of Uncle Ho (1890 – 1969)
- the great father of Vietnamese people.
Peer correction and feedbacks on the first
drafts.
Students rewrite the first draft based on
the constructive corrections of their
friends.
Students give their second draft to
teacher for corrections and asking him to
make clear in what aspects they have not
yet understood (In terms of text
organization, language features, content
and grammar).
Students rewrite their written product and
refine it before handing it in to teacher for
assessment.
Table 3. Proposed genre-based lesson plans

Summary
This chapter has briefly reviewed the theoretical background related to the
fields in question with the focus on the genre-based approach to teaching the recount
genre, its two sub-recount genre; especially, recount genre lesson plans built on the
three stages of teaching-learning cycle. The next chapter will outline the research
design and methodology applied in the study.

34
Chapter 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Introduction
This chapter describes in details the research site, research method employed,
research participants, training, sources of data and data analysis.

3.1 Research site

An investigation about the effectiveness on genre-based approach in teaching
recounts to 11th graders of English took place at an extra-curricular writing class (see
appendix 3, p. 107), 11A6 at Trị An high school in Đồng Nai province from October,
2010 to December, 2010.

3.2 Research method

In a general term, a qualitative approach was employed in this study through a
content analysis of essays written by 45 students and a questionnaire to 45 students
that sought their opinion on the use of genre-based approach to teaching writing.
Such an investigative nature needed to be intensively and carefully conducted in a
normal context of a classroom so that the researcher could describe the participants’
perspectives from the beginning to the end of the study. In order to do so, he needed
to become a member/a teacher of a classroom that he was observing/describing.

35
Therefore, a qualitative approach was considered to be more appropriate in capturing
this complex phenomenon.
Specifically, in order to see to what extent these participating students actually
gained their improvement in the two types of the sub-recount essays with respect to
their social purposes, language features and schematic structure after the treatment of
genre-based approach, the data collected from students’ essays were processed in
terms of qualitative data analysis. Due to the data collection of 75 essays of student
participants, only the two selected recount essays were analyzed in detail/depth in
order to elicit their achievement in the writing skills in addition to the initial analyses
of these 75 essays. Furthermore, students’ essays produced were supported by
students’ responses in the student questionnaire distributed to them at the end of the
training (week ten- see section 3.4 below) to elicit their attitudes towards the use of
the genre-based approach in learning to write.

3.3 Research participants

Forty five students of class 11A6, chosen from the eleventh-grade population
of Trị An high school, took part in a quasi-experimental study about writing in
which the researcher used the genre pedagogy’s teaching-learning cycle presented in
the Literature in order to teach these student participants to write on the two sub-
recount genres (personal recount and biographical recount).
Reason for the choice of these students is that the researcher was teaching
them at the time the study took place. In the reality, he did not have freedom to
choose students from the other classes randomly as he wished because he did not
teach those classes at that time. It should be noted that the classes at high school are
decided before hand by the school authority and that teachers have to teach the
classes as assigned by the headmaster of the school. In this study, no other teachers at
Trị An high school were available for recruitment to participate in the study as they
were too occupied with their teaching schedules/timetables at school. Therefore, the
researcher had to act as a teacher for this selected group.

36
 As a researcher and a teacher at the same time, he was well aware of the fact
that his subjective viewpoint towards his student participants might affect to the result
of the study. Therefore, he tried to collect as many data as possible and described,
analysed and interpreted them from these very study subjects’ viewpoint as much
objectively as possible.
Prior to the study, the researcher met all student participants in person to
inform them of the thesis title, its objectives, its theories behind it, its research
methodology and its duration as well as to get their consent to take part in this study.
The information about the training, design of the instructional modules and
description of teaching steps used in the lesson plans are provided below.
3.4 The training
The 10-week training (two periods per week, each lasted 45 minutes) was
designed on the basis of the three key stages of teaching-learning cycle presented in
the Literature.
The detailed description of the proposed genre-based lesson plans and two
sample teaching units designed for the training could be found in section 2.6 of
chapter 2 and in appendices 4 & 5 of this thesis. This section only focuses on the brief
description of the design of the instructional modules and the key teaching steps
carried out in the lesson plans in light of teaching-learning cycle.
3.4.1 Design of the instructional modules
Weeks Stage Content/activity Text modeled/ produced
of instruction
One Modeling Introduction: genre and genre-based pedagogy, An informal conversation
recount genre: personal and Biographical recount. with student participants.
Two Modeling Personal recount: setting the context, Schematic Model text: “My first trip
structure and Linguistic features. to Greece” (appendix 4).
Three Joint- Personal recount. Written topic: “My last
construction summer vacation”.
Four Independent Personal recount: 1st draft and peer feedback, 2nd Written topic: “My
construction draft, teacher’s feedback, final draft. most memorable past
experience”.
Five Teacher’s assessment on the final draft.
Six Modeling Review of the personal recount, biographical Model text: “Helen
recount: setting the context, schematic structure and Keller (1880-1968)”

37
 linguistic features. (appendix 5).
Seven Joint- Biographical recount Written topic: “Mother
construction Teresa Calcutta (1910-
1997)
Eight Independent Biographical recount: 1st draft and peer feedback, Written topic: “Uncle
construction. 2nd draft and teacher feedback, final draft. Ho (1890-1969).
Nine Teacher’s assessment on the final draft
Ten Questionnaire distributed to students to ask their opinion towards learning to write with the recount
genre through the three stages of teaching-learning cycle.
Table 4. Design of the instructional modules

The design of the two instructional modules was conducted in ten weeks (see
table 4 on page 37 above).
The first week focused on the introduction to the student participants about
genre, genre pedagogy, its purposes, the recount genre and its two sub-recount genres
taught in the study.
In the three subsequent weeks (weeks 2-4), students were taught to write about
the personal recount genre through the three key stages of teaching-learning cycle,
namely, modeling, joint-construction and independent construction.
In week 5, 45 essays titled “write about the most memorable past experience
in your life” produced by students in the independent construction stage were
collected and analyzed to reveal their control over the key features of this genre with
respect to its social purposes, its schematic structure and its language features.
In the weeks 6-8, students were taught to write about the biographical recount
genres with the same procedures as those of the personal recount genre.
In week 9, 30 essays titled “write about Uncle Ho (1890-1969)-The Great
Father of Vietnamese people” produced by students in the independent construction
stage were also collected and analyzed to reveal students’ control over the key
features of this genre with respect to its social purposes, its schematic structure and
its language features. The reasons for the collection of 30 biographical recount essays
are provided in section 3.5.1 below.
In week 10, the researcher distributed the questionnaire to 45 students to seek
their opinion towards learning to write with the recount genres through the three

38
stages of teaching-learning cycle to draw an overall picture of the effectiveness of the
genre-based approach towards the teaching of writing.
Below is the description of key teaching steps carried out in the two lesson
plans (i.e. personal recount genre and biographical recount genre) in this experimental
class.

3.4.2 Description of teaching steps in the two lesson plans

When a lesson was taught in light of teaching-learning cycle of genre-based
instruction, the three following stages would be carefully considered. They were the
modeling of text, joint-construction of text and independent construction of text (to
see detailedly how these stages were conducted, please look at the proposed genre-
based lesson plan in chapter 2 and the two sample teaching units in appendices 4 &
5).
In stage 1, the two model recount texts (see table 4 in section 3.4.1 above)
were to be introduced to present their social purpose and to demonstrate how they
achieved their purposes through their schematic structure. Then, the following
linguistic features were to be picked out to present to students, focusing on specific
participants, uses of past tenses, uses of circumstantial adverbs of time, use of the
material, mental and relational processes. However, before the features of these
sample texts were actually analyzed by the researcher, a sub-stage-context
exploration was added to present to student writers about social context and
audiences of the recount genres. Therefore, the modeling stage comprised two sub-
stages, namely, context exploration and text exploration as mentioned in table 3
section 2.6 of chapter 2.
In stage 2- joint construction, students were requested to work in groups on
the given topics (see table 4 in section 3.4.1 above) by establishing a clear purpose for
these intended topics and jointly constructing them with the researcher acting as
scribe. His major role would be to help shape the students’ contributions into texts

39
which approximated the structure of the recount genres. Generally, this stage was also
conducted around the two sub-stages, preparation by students and joint-construction
with teacher acting as scribe as mentioned in table 3 section 2.6 of chapter 2.
In stage 3- the indepependent construction, students worked independently to
produce the two topics as requested by the researcher (see table 4 in section 3.4.1
above). In order to produce the finished products, student writers had to spend over
many stages. First, they produced the first drafts of the required recount genres in the
independent construction stages. Second, they handed in their first drafts for their
friends to give constructive feedbacks and comments on. Based on these corrective
suggestions, they rewrote their second drafts, which were in turn given feedbacks and
corrections by the researcher. Finally, they incorporated all of the comments and
feedbacks from their friends and researcher in order to produce their final written
works. These written works were then analyzed by the researcher to elicit to what
extent their academic recount essays could actually be improved in terms of social
purposes, language features and schematic structure.

3.5 Sources of data

As detailed in the preceding sections, the sources of data collected in this
study were written essays and a questionnaire.
3.5.1 Student participant essays
The essays collected were the ones written on the following topics (1) write
about the most memorable past experience in your life and (2) write about Uncle Ho-
The greatest Father of Vietnamese people. The first topic was collected in week 5 of
the instructional modules and the second topic was collected in week 9 of the
instructional modules.
Specifically, there were 45 personal recount essays and 30 biographical
recount essays collected for assessment because 15 students decided not to write the
biography of Uncle Ho. Their reasons were that they did not find any relevant
information relating to the biography of Uncle Ho. Instead, they asked the researcher

40
to let them write about the biography of Neil Armstrong from the given information
on page 174 of their eleventh new English textbook, MOET, 2007 (appendix 4) and
received his consent. Therefore, the essays collected were 75. Table 5 (p. 41)
presented the summary of students’ collected essays.

Essays The number of students’ essays

collected
1. Write about your most memorable past experience in your life. 45
2. Write about Uncle Ho (1890-1969)- the great Father of Vietnamese 30
people
Total 75
Table 5. A summary of the number of students’ essays

3.5.2 Questionnaire to student participants

A questionnaire consisting of two parts; part A and part B (see appendices 1& 2)
which was designed to elicit students’ attitudes towards the genre pedagogy’s
teaching-learning cycle and the recount genres in reference to the sub-question 2 was
administered to 45 student participants right after they had finished the two instructional
modules of the two sub-recount genres. Precisely, the questionnaire was handed out and
recollected in week 10 right after the end of the two instructional modules. The learner
respondents were required to answer the questionnaire within 30 minutes right in class.
Meanwhile, the researcher was present in the class to help them straighten out any
ambiguity or responded to any questions from students who did not understand clearly
the points used in the questionnaire.
Technically, this questionnaire composed of close-ended questions which
were designed on five agreement extensions, namely, strongly agree, agree,
uncertain, disagree and strongly disagree as proposed in Likert’s work which was
published in the late 1920s. Besides that, the open-ended questions were added to
all of the two parts of this questionnaire in order to give students more chances to
express their further opinions towards the genre pedagogy’s teaching-learning cycle,
and the recount genres.

41
 In order to facilitate student participants’ understanding about the items asked
in the questionnaire, all the statements in this questionnaire were thus translated into
Vietnamese language for the students’ references (please see the appendices 1 & 2 for
more details). In addition to this, before the questionnaire was actually sent to student
participants, all of the technical terms used in the teaching-learning cycle, the recount
genres and its two sub-recount genres were carefully explained by the researcher to
student participants in order to help them avoid unexpected misunderstanding or
confusions arising from their not understanding clearly the terms used.
Generally, this questionnaire sought to gather information about students’
attitudes towards (1) the three stages of teaching-learning cycle and (2) the recount
genre, and its two sub-recount genre. It consisted of 33 items which were distributed
in two parts in the form of close-ended questions (A, B). Part A aimed at the three key
stages of teaching-learning cycle and part B aimed at the recount genre and its two
sub-recount genre.
As for the teaching-learning cycle (part A), the researcher’s purposes were to
see whether this teaching writing framework could actually help student
participants gain control over the key features of the chosen recount genres in terms
of realizing the purposes, its intended readers, language features, schematic structure
and contents or not and therefore, they could apply these features into constructing
their own similar essays which approximated to the features of the sample recount
genres. Therefore, 26 items in all focused on these pieces of information.
As for the recount genre (part B), the 7 remaining items aimed to ask whether
the recount genres chosen were interesting enough to arouse their interests in learning
to write and suitable to their age group, current level of English, prior knowledge,
immediate academic needs as well as the need for their learning writing in the future
or not. Therefore, all the questions in this part focused on these pieces of information.
In addition to these 33 close-ended questions, 7 open-ended questions were
also included so that respondents could give further opinions on a particular issue
which Likert’s scale might fail to address. As Nunan (1992, p. 143) said, “It is also

42
likely responses to open questions will more accurately reflect what respondents want
to say”. For this reason, these questions focused on asking students to give their other
comments towards the stages in the teaching-learning cycle, the recount genre and its
two sub-recount genres.

3.6 Data analysis

This part focused on presenting the methods of analyses of the two sources of
data collected from students’ essays and a questionnaire.
3.6.1 Analysis of students’ essays
Analyses of students’ essays were done through the two stages. 75 texts were
initially analyzed together with the detailed subsequent analyses of the two selected
texts from these 75 texts in the second stage to obtain cross-findings of students’
achievements on the two types of essays.
Generally, the analyses of these essays were based on the three evaluative
criteria of the recount genres developed and explained by Droga (1991) and Droga &
Humphrey (2003) as mentioned and discussed in table 2 in section 2.5.4 in chapter 2
of this thesis. More specifically, the students’ text analysis focused on:
o Students’ control over the social purposes of the required recount genre: to
retell a series of events that the writer has directly experienced (for personal recount
genre); to give accounts of the most important events in the life of a specific character
in history (for biographical recount genre).
o Students’ control over the schematic structure of the recount genre. These
include: The orientation stage, the sequence of events in chronological order stage
and the re-orientation stage.
o Students’ control over the language features of the recount genre. These
include: focus on the main specific human participants, process types (i.e. material
process, relational process and mental process), circumstantial adverbs of time, and
the past tenses of verbs.

43
 In addition to this, the researcher was also interested in the improvement of
students in the two types of their required recount essays involving the accuracy of
the surface grammatical points. Therefore, he also analyzed students’ essays at the
sentence levels in terms of sentence structures, word choice, spelling and punctuation.

3.6.2 Analyses of the student questionnaire

As can be seen in the student questionnaire, there were two types of questions
designed for students to respond to, namely, close-ended questions and open-ended
questions. These corresponded to the two types of data, quantitative data and
qualitative data. Students’ answers to the close-ended questions were processed in the
form of quantitative data along the three measurements: frequency, percentage and
mean meanwhile students’ other comments in the open-ended questions were
processed in the form of qualitative data by summarizing the key contents written by
the respondents to find patterns relevant to the open-ended questions asked.
Summary
This chapter has just presented the research site, research method, research
participants, the experimental teaching, data collection and methods of data analyses.
The data analyses and discussion of results will be presented in the next chapter.

44
Chapter 4 DATA ANALYSES AND FINDINGS
Introduction
This chapter presents analyses and interpretation of the collected data being
guided by the two sub-questions of the study: An analysis of student participant
essays in relation to the sub-question 1 and the student questionnaire involving
students’ attitudes towards the genre-based approach’s teaching-learning cycle, the
recount genre pedagogy in relation to the sub-question 2.

4.1 Analysis of students’ personal recount essays

The personal recount essays produced in the first stage of the instructional
module by student participants were analysed elaborately through the two stages. In
the first stage, 45 essays of these students were analysed on the three evaluative
criteria, namely, social purposes, schematic structure and language features by
counting the frequency of students’ gaining control over the features in these essays.
In the second stage, a selected essay of one male student were picked out in order to
be analysed in detail in term of social purposes, schematic structure, language
features and mechanisms with aim to draw an overall picture of students’ gaining
over the key features of the personal recount essays. They can be analysed as follows:
4.1.1 The initial analysis of 45 personal recount essays

Schematic structure Language features

circumst
re- main past antial
Essays Social orient sequences orientatio participant process tense adverbs
1-45 purposes ation of events n s types of verbs of time
Total 45 45 45 45 45 45 45 45

45
count
Table 6. Summarization of students’ controls over the key features of the personal recount essays

The summarised table 6 indicates that 45/45 students were successful in

gaining controls over the key features of the personal recount essays (to see a detailed
analysis of these 45 student participant essays, please look at the appendices 8.1 &
8.2 on pages 119-120 for more detail.)
Specifically, these 45 student participants incorporated all stages of the
schematic structure in their essays from orientation, sequences of events in
chronological order to re-orientation. In the orientation, they achieved the purposes
of this genre by introducing the background information about “who, what, where
and when” their recount took place as well as embedding their attitudes towards the
whole events in their essays. Similarly, in the sequences of event stages, they
sequenced a series of events in which they directly experienced in a chronological
order by using the appropriate circumstantial adverbs of time. Finally, in the re-
orientation, they rounded off their essays by expressing their personal attitudes
towards the whole events. Therefore, they succeeded in gaining control of the
schematic structure of this sub-genre.
Regarding the language features, they demonstrated their good understanding
and good execution of all features in their own essays by providing a focus on the
main participant with the first personal pronouns: I, me, my, and corresponding noun
groups and pronoun references for other participants, deploying a variety of
processes in the correct tense-the past tense-and using temporal devices, additive
conjunctions in order to sequence the events in time order. Interestingly, they also
used other adverb sources such as cause, place, result, purpose and concession to
provide more meanings for their personal recount essays. In one word, they were
successful in using the linguistic resources as required by the personal recount genre.
To recap, it was evident from their essays to say that they actually gained
control over the key features of the personal recount genre.
4.1.2 Detailed analysis of one selected personal recount essay

46
 This part focuses on the analyses of one selected essay of a male student in
terms of controls of the schematic structure, controls of the linguistic features (i.e.
main participant, process types, past tenses, circumstantial adverbs of time) and
surface grammatical points. It can be analysed as follows:

4.1.2.1 Control over the schematic structure

Stage An original essay written by one student participant
Title A PICNIC
Orientation In a busy life nowadays, having a picnic is a great time that you can relax yourselves and
regain a close and mutual relationship with all family members. Last month, I traveled with
my family to Nha Trang, which is one of the most beautiful beaches in Vietnam. Although
this trip was short, it left unforgettable memories on me.
Sequence of
events:
Event 1 As soon as we were already seated on the car, my father said “let’s go to Hon Tre island”,
which was situated in Nha Trang province. To get there, we had to spend 8 hours on the car
and 2 more hours traveling by boat. We had* a little tired after a long trip but we soon forgot
our tiredness as soon as we arrived there. Fresh air, cool water and beautiful beaches gave us
a comfortable feeling.
Event 2 At first, we came to the hotel that we booked in advance. The hotel was by the beach; hence,
we could easily see the sea through the windows, and enjoy the salty smell of sea air. After
putting all the luggage in the hotel, I went to the beach. It was rather crowded with tourists
who were swimming and playing there. When I jumped into the water for a swim, I had a
feeling that the water here was fresher and cooler than other places*. After an hour, I came
out of the water and joined in football match with other people on the beach. One more thing
that makes beach in Nha Trang popular is that the sun here is not intense. You can stay all day
on the beach without being afraid of sun burnt.
Event 3 I was on the beach all the morning. This made me tired and so hungry; thus, I came back to
the hotel and had lunch with my parents. The hotel had a restaurant at* the first floor where it
served a lot of seafood such as steamed shrimp, fried nail and other specialties. They were so
delicious that my family liked them so much.
Event 4 At* the evening, I walked with my parents along the beach. While we were enjoying the
sunset as well as breezy and cool sea-air, my father told me about memories that he had with
my mother at this place when they were young. I was really surprised that their love was that
romantic and happy at the time of 25 years ago.
Reorientation Our trip went fast and we had to say goodbye to Nha Trang with a little great regret. But the
most important thing was that my family had a good time together. I hope that I will have a
chance to come back there again.
Table 7. Schematic structure of one representative student’s personal recount (the * represents this student’s
failure of surface grammatical point)

As shown in table 7, this student’s essay represented a successful instance of

the personal recount. Consistent with this genre, this essay started with an
orientation, followed by the sequence of events, and ended with an optional re-
orientation. Moreover, it adequately fulfilled the social purposes by unfolding a series

47
of events from the writer’s own personal experience in the trip with his family to Hon
Tre Island located in Nha Trang province.
Specifically, the orientation stage provided readers with the background
information about “Who, what, where and when” and at the same time provided them
with his overall personal feelings towards his trip. Although the introductory
paragraph consisted of three sentences, it fulfilled the social purposes. The first
sentence told readers about how important the picnic was for busy people in the busy
society nowadays, which was viewed as a general statement. The next sentence
guided them to the events in chronological order that his personal recount essay
would unfold by providing them with time of the trip (i.e. last month), main
participant as well as other related participants (i.e. I, me, my, their, tourists, you,
family members, etc.), what (i.e. the picnic to Nha Trang) and where (i.e. Nha Trang).
Finally, in the third sentence, the writer of this essay rounded off the orientation by
providing them with his feelings towards the trip (i.e. “it left an unforgettable
memory on me”).
In the main body of the text, it was evident that this student had control over
the sequences of event patterns of this genre by drawing a relatively clear and
chronological picture of events from the first event of the departure phase of the trip
to the last event of him and his father on the beach in the evening in event 4 when his
father retold him about the sweet memories he had with his mother at the very place
25 years ago. This sequence of events stage (the body paragraph) consisted of 4
events which were sequenced into its four corresponding body paragraphs in the
chronological order. More importantly, the writer interspersed his personal opinions
across the events 1-4 in the sequence event stages to provide readers with his feelings
towards each event in his trip to Nha Trang beach. They can be seen in the last
sentence of each body paragraph (please look at table 7 on page 47 again for more
details.)
The concluding paragraph (the optional re-orientation) had two functions:
round off the event and give a comment or expression of attitudes by the writer. The

48
writer of this essay finished his essay with three sentences which fulfilled these dual
functions. The first sentence informed readers of the time they had to say goodbye to
Nha Trang with a little regret. The second sentence informed readers of the good time
he had with his family during their trip and the last sentence addressed about his hope
to visit Nha Trang again.
On the whole, it was evident to say that the writer of this essay gained control
of the schematic structure of the personal recount genre.
4.1.2.2 Control over the language features
This section presents this student’ controls over the key language features of
the personal recount genre in terms of main participants, process types, past tenses,
circumstantial adverbs of time and finally the mechanisms. These are analysed
elaborately as follows:
 Towards the control over the main participant
As typical for the personal recount genre, this student provided a focus on the
main participants with the first personal pronouns (i.e. I, me, my, we), and noun
groups and corresponding pronouns for other participants (i.e. family members,
tourists, my parents, their.)
 Towards the control of the process types
Stage Material Relational Mental Verbal *Note from the researcher Total
process Process Process Process count
Orientation 4 2 1 Material process: can relax, 6
regain, traveled, left.
Relational process: is, was.

Event 1 9 1 1 1 Material Process: were already 12

seated, go, was situated, to get,
had to spend, traveling, arrived,
gave.
Relational process: Had*
(misused verb).
Mental Process: forgot.
Verbal Process: said.
Event 2 12 6 1 Material process: came, booked, 19
enjoy, putting, went to, were
swimming, playing, jumped into,
came out of, joined, makes, can
stay. Relational process: was,
had, was, was, is, is
Mental process: could easily see

49
 .
Event 3 3 4 1 Material Process: made, came 8
back to, served.
Relational Process: was, had,
had, were.
Mental Process: liked.
Event 4 2 3 1 Material Process: walked, was 6
enjoying.
Relational Process: had, was,
was.
Verbal Process: told
Reorientatio 3 3 1 Material Process: Went, had to
n say, to come back 7
Relational Process: was, had,
will have.
Mental Process: hope.
Total count 32 19 5 2 Material Process: 32 58
Relational Process: 19
Mental Process: 5
Verbal Process: 2
Table 8. Breakdown of process types used in this representative student’s personal recount genre

Table 8 revealed that the main type of process that this student used in his
personal recount essay was the Material processes, numbering 32 out of the total
of 58, as expected of this genre. In keeping with the social purposes of this
genre, he employed Material processes to document the sequences of events
across all stages and thus are instrumental in achieving the social purposes of
this genre.
Relational processes were the next most common process choice in this
writer’s essay, totaling 19. They were used to provide identification and
description of the main participants.
The third-ranking Process (Mental Processes) which was not used much
in the personal recount genre was also evidently present in this essay, naming
5/58. They were used to realize his own perception, cognition and affective
domains towards the events, and places that his family and he spent during the
trip to Nha Trang. In his essay, he used one perceptive verbs “could easily see”
to project his and family’s perception towards the beautiful beach in Nha Trang
from the windows in the hotel where they were staying. Moreover, his thoughts
were realized by two examples “forget, hope” to address his cognition of
evaluating the overall impressions which impacted on him throughout the trip as

50
well as his burning desire to come back to Nha Trang in the very near future.
Finally, he used one example “liked” in order to realize his positive feelings
towards the seafood dishes which he enjoyed on Nha Trang beach.
Interestingly, two instances of the Verbal process “said, told” which were
used to express what the main participant actually said or thought was found to
be present in event 1 and event 4 although this process type was not not required
in personal recount genre (Droga, 1991; Droga & Humphrey, 2003). This
indicated that this student writer could use a variety of process types creatively
and effectively to achieve the purpose for his own essay.
On the whole, the flexible and creative use of the process types in the
writer’s personal recount indicated this student writer’s ability in gaining control
of the use of the process types of the personal recount genre.
 Towards the control of verb tenses
Typical of a personal recount genre, this student used almost all past
tenses, totaling 42/47 across the orientation to reorientation in order to retell the
events or activities that he has directly experienced on the trip to Nha Trang.
Moreover, the other two types of tenses (i.e. the present tense used in orientation
and event 2, the future tense used in the reorientation stage) were also deployed
by this student writer. First, the simple present tense in the first sentence in the
orientation was used to project his general comments about the benefits that the
picnic brings about for every body. Second, the present tense in the last sentence
in the event 2 was employed to comment about the favorable weather in Nha
Trang, which in turn invites the readers to visit Nha Trang. This present tense
was viewed as a bridge to strengthen the solidarity between the writer and his
intended readers and at the same time created the dramatic effects on the readers
as if they were participating in the trip with the writer. Finally, the future tense in
the last sentence in the reorientation stage was used to talk about the writer’s
hope to come back to Nha Trang in the near future.

51
 On the whole, the flexible and creative use of the tense categories in the
writer’s personal recount indicated the ability of this writer in gaining control of
the use of the tenses of the personal recount genre.

 Towards the control of circumstantial adverbs of time

Stage Circumstantial adverbs of time Total
count
1. Orientation Adverbial phrases of time: Last month 1

2. Sequence of
events:
2.1 Event 1: Adverbial clauses of time: as soon as we were already seated on the car, 2
as soon as we arrived there.
2.2 Event 2: Adverbial phrases of time: at first, after putting all the luggage in the 3
hotel, after an hour.
Adverbial clauses of time: when I jumped into the water for a swim. 1

2.3 Event 3

2.4 Event 4: Adverbial phases of time: *At the evening, while I was enjoying the 4
sunset, at the time of 25 years ago, at that time.

3. Re-orientation:

11
Table 9. Breakdown of circumstantial adverbs of time used in this representative student’s Personal recount
genre

A personal recount genre relies heavily on temporal components to sequence

events in time (Droga, 1991; Droga & Humphrey, 2003). The main function of these
components is to locate this recount in time and unfold one event after another. As
indicated in table 9, this student deployed both linguistic resources, namely, adverbial
phrases of time and adverbial clauses of time, totaling 11 to tell readers about his
journey to Nha Trang beach in chronological order. The adverbs (i.e. as soon as, at
first, *at the evening) indicated the sequences of events his family and he spent in the
time order to help readers follow the flows of the events easily. Moreover, other
circumstantial elements in his text made his personal recount essay more matured
and more developed by providing more meanings and conditions to it.

52
 Below are some other adverbs of place, purposes, results, and concessions
found in this personal recount genre.
 Place: At this place, there, *at the first floor, here
 Cause and effect relationship: They were so delicious that my family liked
them so much.
 Comparison: The water here was fresher and cooler than other place*
 Concession: Although this trip was short, but
 Purposes: To get there.
 Results: Hence, thus.
In brief, it was evident that this student succeeded in gaining controls over the
adverbial phrases and adverbial clauses of this sub-recount genre.
 Towards the control of the mechanism
It was evident from this student writer’s personal recount essay that he was
successful in using the grammatical aspects both at the sentence level and at the text
level in terms of using a variety of sentences (i.e. simple sentences, compound
sentences and complex sentences), verbal types (single verbs and phrasal verbs)
(please see table 8 on pages 49-50 above), using the cohesive ties (i.e. the temporal
devices as analyzed in table 9 on page 52 above). There are just some minor mistakes
found in his essay which did not cause a communication breakdown. Examples of
such errors are:
(1) Errors in using verb: We had* a little tired after a long trip/ (2) & (3) Errors in
using preposition: *At the evening; *at the first floor/(4) Error in using sentence
structure: The water here was fresher and cooler than other places*
It is important to note that the Vietnamese language might exert influences
over the surface grammatical errors in this student’s personal recount essay. It was
obvious to see that errors marked by (1), (2), (3) and (4) were caused by his mother
tongue interference. In the first error, he used the verb “had’ instead of the right verb
“was”, which might be caused by his direct translation from Vietnamese into English.
In fact, Vietnamese language did not have a fine distinction between the “verb to be”

53
and the existing verb “have’ in expressing people’s physical and mental feelings such
as sickness, tiredness, happiness, sadness and so on. For example, Vietnamese people
often ask their friends “Bạn có mệt không?”, which was directly translated into
English “did you have tired?”. However, in English, people said “were you tired?”.
Therefore, there was an evident to say that, in the sentence “we had a little tired after
a long trip” was caused by his direct translation from Vietnamese into English.
Similarly, the errors 2, 3, 4 might be also caused by his first negative language
transfer. For example, the sentence “water here was fresher and cooler than other
places” might be explained in light of his “direct” and “word by word” translation
from Vietnamese into English, which made his structure of comparison illogical.
Instead, he should write “water here was not fresher and cooler than that in the other
places”. However, the errors listed and analyzed here were not serious enough to
prevent him from making readers understand the messages of his essays. On the
whole, he was generally successful in gaining control of accuracy of the surface
grammatical points.
Some general comments on the student essays
With the topic “Write about the most memorable past experience in your life”,
the student participants in this study were allowed to write freely and creatively about
any past events in their life such as their childhood memories, their last summer
vacation. Though the student essays collected and analysed in the main text here and
in the appendices 7.1 & 7.2 (pp. 119-120) at the back of the thesis were varied in the
contents, the text length, the number of verb types, the number of circumstantial
adverbs, the number of tenses, the number of sentence connectors and etc, they
themselves shared some thing in common, i.e. All of the essays written by the
students expressed the purposes, the language features and the schematic structure of
the personal recount genre. The most obvious example of students’ gaining control
over the key features of the personal recount genre can be found in the analyses of
the selected student participant essay titled “The Picnic” extracted above. This

54
selected essay may represent many the student participant essays which expressed
clearly the salient features of the personal recount genre.
Although there still remained some surface grammatical errors to be present
and unavoidable throughout the student participant essays in this first sub-recount
genre, it was not of great matter so long as the readers can understand the
purposes/meanings of the text which these the student writers wanted to convey in
their personal recount essays.
Summary
The detailed analysis above indicated that the student participants have
actually established a good level of control over the features of the personal recount
genre. Indeed, they have displayed a sound understanding of the social purposes,
language features and schematic structure of this genre. They began their personal
recount essays with an adequately-formed orientation, followed by recording a
series of sequences of the important events and rounded off their texts with a
comment or expression of their attitudes towards the whole experiences they have
spent. Moreover, they have displayed a good command over a wide range of
linguistic features as expected of this genre in terms of gaining control over the
main participants, process types, past tense of verbs, circumstantial adverbs of time
and surface grammatical points. Overall, the improvement of students on the salient
features of the personal recount genre was evident throughout their whole text.

4.2 Analysis of students’ biographical recount essays

The biographical recount essays produced in the second stage of the
instructional module by student participants can also be analyzed elaborately through
the two stages with the same procedures as those of the personal recount essays
above.
4.2.1 The initial analysis of 30 biographical recount essays

Essays
1-30 Schematic structure Language features

55
 circumst
Social re- main past antial
purpose orientati sequences orientatio participant process tense adverbs
s on of events n s types of verbs of time
Total 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30
Table 10. Summarization of students’ controls over the key features of the biographical recount essays

The summarised table 10 indicates that 30/30 students were successful in

gaining controls over the key features of the biographical recount essays (to see a
detailed analysis of 30 essays of these students, please look at the appendices 9.1 &
9.2 on pages 124-125 for more detail.)
With respect to the schematic structure, these 30 student participants
demonstrated all typical stages of a biographical recount essay, namely, an
orientation, a sequence of events and a reorientation. Specifically, in the orientation,
they identified Uncle Ho as the main participant and then provided the reasons for his
fame in their orientation. Thus, they succeeded in revealing the social purpose of their
essays: To give an account of a famous specific character in the history. In the same
vein, in the sequences of event stages, they demonstrated their good understanding
and good execution of typical features of a biographical recount genre by unfolding
the major stages in Uncle Ho’s life in a temporal order, deploying proper
circumstantial adverbs of time and proper tenses of verbs, and finally rounded off
their essays by summarizing Uncle Ho’s contributions to his country.
In addition, they were also successful in deploying proper linguistic resources
of the biographical recount genre by focusing on one main participant- Uncle Ho,
using a variety of process types such as Material process, Relational Process, Mental
Process across the schematic structure of their essays, using proper past tenses of
verbs and circumstantial adverbs of time. Interestingly, they also know how to use the
other adverb elements such as cause, place, result, purpose and concession to make
their whole essays hang together.
All in all, it was evident from their essays to say that they actually gained
control over the features of the biographical recount genre.
4.2.2 Detailed analysis of the selected biographical recount

56
 This part focuses on the analyses of one selected essay of a representative
student in terms of controls of the schematic structure, controls of the linguistic
features (i.e. main participant, process types, past tense, circumstantial adverbs of
time) and surface grammatical points. They can be analysed as follows:

4.2.2.1 Control over the schematic structure

Stage An original essay written by one female student participant
Title Uncle Ho (1890-1969)- The great Father of Vietnamese people

Orientation Ho Chi Minh was not only the ever greatest Vietnamese leader but also known as “the old
Father of Vietnamese people”. He was loved and revered by Vietnamese people because of
his humanity for human kind as well as his greatest contributions to the liberation of
Vietnamese people from the dominance of French colonist and American imperialist
Sequence of
events:
Event 1 Uncle Ho was born on May, 19th, 1890 in a patriotic Confucian family in a small straw hurt*
in the town of Kim Lien, in the province of Nghe An. When he was young, he was inspired
with the patriotic spirit and hate* towards the French invaders by his parents. His burning
wish was to get* the French colonist out of Vietnam to bring about the independence and
freedom for Vietnamese peoples.
Event 2 When Uncle Ho was nineteen years old, he attended at the French high school in Hue.
However, sooner after that, he left school and went to a small town of Phan Thiet, where he
found a job as a teacher to both earn a living and went on with the pursuit of finding out the
best way to free Vietnamese country.
Event 3 In 1910, he came to Sai Gon, where he found a job as a cook on the French touring ship
with* the hope to have a chance to go to France. During that time, he read many works of the
great authors and mastered many languages. Thanks to these, he could survive in many
foreign countries where he set foot and helped him lots in building the political and
revolutionary methods when he came back to Vietnam.
Event 4 On Sept 2nd, 1945, at Ba Dinh square, Uncle Ho read the article “the declaration of
independence” to declare the birth of the Vietnamese democratic Republic. One of his
famous sayings was: “ A peoples who have courageously fought against French domination
for more than eight years, a peoples who have fought side by side with the allies against the
Fascists during these last few years- such a peoples must be free and independent”
Event 5 Unfortunately, Uncle Ho could not live to witness the liberation of the whole Vietnam on
April 30th, 1975. He grew old and sick in the 1960’s and could not do as much himself for
Vietnam as before. He began to have a heart failure. On September, 1969 at 9: 45 A.M, Uncle
passed way at the age of 79.
Reorientation Ho Chi Minh was loved and honored as the greatest hero in the twentieth century. When he
passed away, his body was laid at the spot where he gave his independent speech in 1945.
At the present*, his embalmed body has been on display in a granite mausoleum. Each
year, thousands of people come to pay tribute to President Ho Chi Minh at his mausoleum.
The city of Sai Gon nowadays was renamed Ho Chi Minh city in remembrance of Unclo
Ho- a person who sacrificed his whole life for the liberation and independence of
Vietnamese people.

57
 Table 11. Schematic structure of one representative student’s biographical recount (the * represents this
student’s failure of surface grammatical point)

As shown in table 11, this female student’s biographical essay displayed a

successful example of the biographical recount genre in terms of schematic structure.
Consistent with this genre, the essay starts with an orientation, followed by the
sequence of events and ended with an optional re-orientation. Moreover, this essay
adequately fulfilled the social purposes of this sub-genre by recording a series of
significant events from the life of a real important historical Vietnamese figure- Uncle
Ho, who was very much loved and respected by Vietnamese people.

58
 Specifically, the orientation stage provided the readers with the background
information about the name of the character and stated the reasons why he was
famous. Although the writer of this essay wrote only two sentences in the
introductory paragraph, she succeeded in stating social purposes of this sub-genre.
The first sentence identified the name of the character: Uncle Ho. The second
sentence told the readers about his greatest contributions for Vietnamese peoples in
terms of liberating Vietnam from the yoke of the French colonist and American
imperialist as well as his immerse love for human kind. All of these of qualities made
him become well-known and admired both nation-wide and world-wide.
The body paragraph (sequence of events) consisted of 5 paragraphs which
were sequenced in the order of time from event 1 to event 5. The writer of this essay
was successful in unfolding the life of Uncle Ho from his birth to his death.
Concretely, the event 1 informed the readers of his early life, family education
background as well as the early influences he received from his family education
background. It was the family education that inspired him to determine to find out the
best way to liberate his peoples from the dominance of the French colonist and
American imperialist. The event 2 briefly described his early education in Huế French
high school and his important decisions were made to leave school to continue in the
pursuit of his revolutionary career. Event 3 informed readers of experiences he picked
up from the Western travels. Thanks to the experiences he picked up from these
journeys, he could come back to Vietnam to help his peoples at best. Event 4
informed readers of the milestones in his life: He declared the birth of the Vietnamese
Democratic Republic. The last event rounded off the events by telling about his
terrible sickness and finally reporting his death in 1969.
The concluding paragraph (re-orientation) fulfilled function of summarizing
the recount by giving Uncle Ho’s contributions to Vietnamese people as well as the
feelings that Vietnamese people reserved especially for him.
4.2.2.2 Control over the language features

59
 This section presents this representative student’s controls over the key
language features of the biographical recount genre in terms of main participants,
process types, past tenses, circumstantial adverbs of time and finally the mechanisms.
These are analyzed elaborately as follows.
 Towards the control over the main participant
As typical for the biographical recount genre, this student provided a focus on
the specific participant (i.e. Unclo Ho). In order to avoid the repetition, she used other
reference pronouns such as he, him, his to refer to Uncle Ho and the events
surrounding his life.
 Towards the control of the process types
Stage Material Relational Mental *Note from the researcher Total
process Process Process
count
Orientation 1 3 Relational process: was. 4
Mental process: [was] known, was
loved [and] revered.
Event 1 4 1 - Material process: was born, was 5
inspired, was to get, bring about,
- Relational process: was.
Event 2 8 1 - Material process: attended, left, went, 9
found, earn, went on with, finding, to
free.
- Relational process: was.
Event 3 9 1 Material Process: Came, found, read, 10
mastered, could survive, set foot, help,
building, came back to.
Relational process: have.
Event 4 4 1 Material process: Read, to declare, have 5
fought, have fought.
Relational process: was
[metaphorically used from verbal
process], must be.
Event 5 3 2 1 Material process: Could not live, could 6
not do, passed away.
Relational process: grew, began to
have.
Mental process: witnessed
[metaphorically].
Reorientatio 6 2 Material process: passed away, was 8
n laid, gave, come to pay tribute to, was
renamed, and sacrificed.
Mental process: Was loved, honored.
Total count 34 7 6 Material process: 34 47
Relational process: 7
Mental process: 6
Table 12. Breakdown of process types used in this representative student’s biographical recount genre

60
 Table 12 (p. 59) revealed that the main type of process that this student used in
her biographical recount essay was the Material processes, numbering 34 out of the total
of 47, as expected of this genre. In keeping with the social purposes of this genre, she
employed Material processes to reconstruct the significant events in Uncle Ho’s life
from his early childhood until his death.
The second largest process type was the relational processes, totaling 7 out of
the total of 47 processes. Specifically, he used the relational process “was” in the first
sentence of the orientation stage (i.e. he was not only ever the greatest leader) in order
to identify the status of Uncle Ho as the greatest leader. The relational process “was”
and “had” in event 2 & 3 were used to describe his early childhood and education as
well as the chance he caught in deciding to travel overseas to learn from the Western
advanced education. Interestingly, in event 4, she knew how to turn creatively the verbal
process “was” metaphorically into the relational process to quote the famous saying of
Uncle Ho. Finally, the two other relational processes “he grew old and began to have a
heart failure” in event 5 were used to describe his later life before reporting his tragic
death in 1969.
The final-ranking process type which was counted 6/47 was the mental
processes. First, they served as describing the affections of Vietnamese people
towards Uncle Ho with 4 mental processes “was loved and revered” in the orientation
and “was loved and honored” in the re-orientation. Second, the mental process
“witnessed” which was used metaphorically from the “Material process’ was used to
draw the reader’s attention into the flow of the story. It was used perceptively as if the
reader could visualize how terribly ill their beloved Uncle Ho’s health was and hence
created the sympathy of the readers towards their much loved leader as well as
created the solidarity between the writer and his audiences.
 Towards the control of verb tenses
As expected by (Droga, 1991; Droga & Humphrey, 2003) in section 2.5.4 in
chapter 2 for the biographical recount essay, it was found that the writer of this essay
used almost all simple past tense, totaling 32/37, across the orientation to the

61
reorientation to reconstruct the biography of Uncle Ho. There were only two other
categories of tenses (i.e. present perfect and present tense) being used partially with
deliberate intentions of the writer in event 4 and in the reorientation stage. The
present perfect in event 4 was used to quote the famous saying of Uncle Ho. The
present perfect tense and the present tense in the re-orientation were used to bring his
text back to the present (i.e. at present, his embalmed body has been on display in a
granite mausoleum & Each year, thousands of people come to pay tribute to
President Ho Chi Minh at his mausoleum).
Towards the control of circumstantial adverbs of time
Stage Circumstantial adverbs of time Total
count
1. Orientation

2. Sequence of
events:
2.1 Event 1: Adverbial phrases of time: On May, 19th, 1890 1
Adverbial clauses of time: When he was young. 1
2.2 Event 2: Adverbial phrases of time: Sooner after that. 1
Adverbial clauses of time: When Uncle Ho was nineteen years old. 1
Adverbial phrases of time: In 1910; During that time. 2
2.3 Event 3: Adverbial clauses of time: When he came back to Vietnam. 1
Adverbial phases of time: On September 2nd, 1945; for more than 3
2.4 Event 4: eight years; during the last few years.
Adverbial Phrases of time: on April 30th, 1975; in the 1960’s, on 3
2.5 Event 5: September, 1969
Adverbial phrases of time: at present; each year. 2
3. Re-orientation: Adverbial clauses of time: When he passed away. 1

16
Table 13. Breakdown of circumstantial adverbs of time used in this representative student’s biographical
recount genre

Another common feature of this biographical recount is that it was set in time
through circumstantial adverbs of time and relied heavily on temporal
components. This was achieved through the grammatical resources called adverbials
which provided about the circumstances surrounding actions. As indicated in table 13,
in the writer’s essay, he employed 16 circumstances of time including both adverbial
phases of time and adverbial clauses of time which had the functions of both setting
his recount text in the order of time and marking the extent in time. Specifically, 6
adverbial phases of time (e.g. on May, 19th, 1890; 1910; on September, 1969; etc.) and

62
three adverbial clauses of time (e.g. when he was young, when he passed away; etc.)
were used to set her recount in chronological order of time and other adverbs (e.g.
When he was nineteen years old; for more than eight years; during the last few years;
etc.) were used to mark extent of time.
Moreover, other circumstantial adverbs could also be found in this essay,
which made it more developed and cohesive by providing more meaning and
circumstances to it. Below are some adverbs of place, cause, purposes, results,
manner and concessions found in this biographical recount genre.
 Cause: Because of his humanity for his human kind, liberate; his
greatest contributions to the liberation of Vietnamese people
from the dominance of French colonist and American
imperialist; etc.
 Place: In a patriotic Confucian family in a small straw hurt* in
the town of Kim Lien, in the province of Nghe An; etc.
 Concession: However.
 Manner: Unfortunately.
 Purposes: To get* the French colonist out of Vietnam to bring
about the independence and freedom for Vietnamese peoples;
etc.
 Results: Thanks to these.
In brief, it was evident that this student succeeded in gaining controls over the
adverbial phrases and adverbial clauses of this sub-genre.
 Towards the control of mechanism
It was evident from this student writer’s biographical recount essay that she
was successful in using the grammatical aspects both at the sentence level and at the
text level in terms of using a variety of sentences (i.e. simple sentences, compound
sentences and complex sentences), verbal types (single verbs and phrasal verbs-see
table 11 on pages 57 above), using the cohesive ties (i.e. the temporal devices as
analyzed in table 13 on page 61 above) and reference pronouns such as he, him and

63
his to refer to the main participants (i.e. Uncle Ho) in order to make her text focused
on the main participants, the important events in his life from early childhood until
his death as well as to make the whole text hang together. There were just some minor
mistakes found in her whole essay which did not interfere greatly with her readers’
understanding of her recount (please look back again at table 11 on page 56 above).
These surface grammatical mistakes symbolized as * may be analysed as follows:
In terms of spelling, in the event 1 in sentence 1 “he was born in a small
straw hurt” instead of “hut”. This mistake assumed by the researcher was that she
misspelled the word but she herself could realize a fine distinction between the verb
“hurt” and the noun “hut”. The second mistake found in the event 1 was her failure
in differentiating between the adjective and its corresponding noun. Instead of
using the noun “hatred”, she used the adjective “hate” in her essay, which made her
sentence 2 unparalleled (i.e. he was inspired with the patriotic spirit - noun phrase
and hate*-adjective towards the French invaders by his parents). Finally, included in
the event 1, the writer of this essay failed in using the right phrasal verb “drive
someone out of”. Indeed, she used the verb “get” instead of using the right verb
“drive”.
Some general comments on the student essays
With the topic “Write about Uncle Ho-the Great Father of the Vietnamese
people”, the student participants in this study were asked to write about a real
outstanding figure in the Vietnamese history. The biographical recount genre was
often said to be difficult for the student participants to write because this story text-
genre required the student writers to research a lot of information about the character
in the history; however, these 30 student participants endeavored to produce their
biographical recount essays that approximated to the structure of the biographical
recount genre taught in this study.
Despite the fact that the student essays collected and analysed in the main text
here and in the appendices 8.1 & 8.2 (pp. 124-125) were varied in the text length, the
number of verb types, the number of circumstantial adverbs of time, the number of

64
tenses, the number of sentence connectors and etc, they themselves shared some thing
in common, i.e. All of the essays written by the students expressed the purposes, the
language features and the schematic structure of the biographical recount genre. The
most obvious example of students’ gaining control over the key features of the
biographical recount genre can be found in the detailed analyses of the selected
student participant biographical essay extracted above. This selected essay may
represent many the student participant essays which expressed clearly the salient
features of the biographical recount genre.
Although there still remained some surface grammatical errors to be present
and unavoidable throughout the student participant essays in this second sub-
recount genre, it was not of great significance so long as the readers can understand
the purposes/meanings of the text which these the student writers wanted to convey
in their biographical recount essays.
Summary
The detailed analyses above indicated that the student participants in this
study have established a good level of control over the features of the biographical
recount genre. Indeed, they have displayed a sound understanding of the social
purposes, language features and schematic structure of this genre. They began their
recount with an adequately-formed orientation, followed by recording a series of
sequences of the important events in Uncle Ho’s life in temporal order, and rounded
off their text with typical comments on the overall influences and contributions of
Uncle Ho for the Vietnamese people in general and for human kind in particular.
Moreover, they have displayed a good command over a wide range of linguistic
features as expected of this genre in terms of gaining control over the main
participants, process types, past tenses of verbs, circumstantial adverbs of time and
surface grammatical points. Overall, the improvement of students on the salient
features of the biographical recount was evident throughout their whole text.

65
4.3 Analysis and interpretation of students’ attitudes towards the teaching-
learning cycle, the recount genre and its two sub-recount genres
As indicated in the student questionnaire, there were two types of questions
designed for students: One was in the form of close-ended questions and the other
was in the form of open-ended questions. Interestingly, after the data was collected, it
was found that 45 respondents expressed their responses in both forms. Data
collected in this section will be analysed and interpreted both quantitatively and
qualitatively in order to draw an overall picture of students’ attitudes towards the
teaching-learning cycle and the recount genres.
4.3.1 Students’ attitudes towards the teaching-learning cycle
This part presents the three themes which are the modeling of the recount
genre, joint-construction of the recount genre and independent construction of the
recount genre respectively.
Stage 1: Modeling of the recount genre
This part is sub-divided into two sections: context exploration and text
exploration.
 Context exploration
Student choice SA A U D S M
The activities in the 5 4 3 2 D 3.0
context exploration 1
1. Realizing the social purposes of the recount genres. 20 20 5 0 0
44. 44. 11.1 0.0 0.0 4.3
4 4
2. Knowing the writer of the recount genres. 17 23 5 0 0
37. 51. 11.1 0.0 0.0 4.3
8 1
3. Knowing the intended readers of the recount genres. 17 23 5 0 0
37. 51. 11.1 0.0 0.0 4.3
8 1
4. Exploring the possible contexts of situation of the recount genre. 9 25 9 2 0
20. 55. 20.0 4.4 0.0 3.9
0 6
5. Realizing that the contextual factors can affect the production of the 12 15 15 2 1
recount genres. 26. 33. 33.3 4.4 2.2 3.8
7 3
6. Activating their background knowledge. 15 25 5 0 0
33. 55. 11.1 0.0 0.0 4.2
3 6
7. Expressing their personal opinions or attitudes towards the recount 12 15 15 2 1
genres. 26. 33. 33.3 4.4 2.2 3.8

66
 7 3

8. Necessity and usefulness for them in the latter phases of learning 27 14 4 0 0

writing. 60. 31. 8.9 0.0 0.0 4.5
0 1
Table 14. Students’ attitudes towards the activities in the context exploration of the recount genres

As indicated in table 14 (p. 65), the majority of student participants (91.1%)

reckoned that the activities in the context exploration was necessary and useful for
them in the latter phases of learning writing (M = 4.5). Concretely, 27 students
accounting for 60% agreed that these activities really helped them in learning writing
in addition to 14 students (31.1%) expressing their strong agreement towards this
statement. As a result, most of the students expressed their positive opinions from
approval to strong approval (M ranged from 3.8 to 4.3) to the 7 remaining items
(from item 1 to item 7) with respect to realizing the purposes of the recount genre,
knowing the reasons why writer writes the recount genre, the audiences of the recount
genre, knowing the situations where the recount genres can be applied, helping
explore the contextual factors affecting the production of the recount genres, helping
activate their background knowledge and expressing their personal opinions towards
the recount genres. Specifically, around 88.8% of the respondents affirmed that the
activities in the context exploration could help them realize the social purposes, writer
and the intended readers of the recount genre. In the same vein, nearly the same
number 88% of them noted that these activities helped them realize in what situation
this genre could be applied and roughly 90% of the respondents showed that these
activities could activate their prior knowledge towards the recount genre. Although
the criteria in terms of exploring the possible contexts of situation of the recount
genre and expressing their personal opinions towards the recount genre were not
warmly received with favorable opinions (i.e. the hesitation of the respondents
dropped from high proportion 33.3% to low proportion 20%), 77.6% of them also
expressed that these activities were really helpful for them. Finally, roughly 60% of
the respondents, albeit still predominant, reckoned that these activities could help
them realize that the contextual factors could affect the production of the recount

67
genre and that these activities were the good chances for them to express their likes
and dislikes towards the recount topics which they were learning.
In short, the students’ attitudes towards the activities in the first sub-stage of
the modeling of the recount genre were generally positive. Although there were some
students showing their uncertainty and disagreement towards some options in the
items in this stage, they were just a few. Generally, all the activities in this sub-stage
actually facilitated and prepared them in the following stages of the teaching-learning
cycle.
 Text exploration
Student choice SA A U D S M
The activities in 5 4 3 2 D 3.0
the text exploration 1
1. Realizing how the information is structured in the sample recount 21 19 5 0 0
genres to reach the purposes, audiences, content and text organization. 46. 42. 11.1 0. 0.0 4.4
7 2 0
2. Picking up the salient language features of each of the recount genres 27 13 5 0 0
thanks to the teacher’s explicit analysis of these features. 60. 28. 11.1 0. 0.0 4.5
0 9 0
3. Picking up the salient schematic structure of each of the recount 27 13 5 0 0
genres thanks to the teacher’s explicit analysis of these features. 60. 28. 11.1 0. 0.0 4.5
0 9 0
4. Realizing that each recount genre has different writing conventional 30 10 5 0 0
rules. 66. 22. 11.1 0. 0.0 4.6
7 2 0
5. Realizing that these conventional rules of writing differ from culture 22 10 9 4 0
to culture. 48. 22. 20. 0. 0.0 4.2
9 2 0 9
6. Realizing that conforming to the conventional rules of a particular 30 10 5 0 0
recount genre is very important when writing. 66. 22. 11.0 0. 0.0 4.6
7 2 0
7. Necessity and usefulness for them in the latter phases of learning 25 15 5 0 0
writing. 55. 33. 11.1 0. 0.0 4.4
6 3 0
Table 15. Students’ attitudes towards the activities in the text exploration of the recount genre

It is obvious from table 15 that the activities in the text exploration of the
recount genre could facilitate students in learning writing in particular and in the
latter phases of their learning writing in general. Indeed, 88.9% of them expressed
their approval towards these activities with 55.6% higher percentage of strong
agreement and lower percentage 33.3% of agreement. In turn, their strong belief
entailed their agreement to the 6 remaining items (from item 1 to item 6). In addition,
it was also noted that only 5 students each asked expressed their uncertainty in the

68
items 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 9/45 students expressed their hesitation in item 5 along with
4/45 students expressing their disagreement. This indicated that almost all
respondents expressed their positive opinions towards the activities in the text
exploration. Specifically, 88.9% of these students expressed that, with the sample text
offered and analyzed by the researcher, they could realize how the information was
structured to obtain social purposes, language features and schematic structure of the
required text. This entailed 27/45 students (60%), together with 13/45 students
(28.9%) expressing their agreement, strongly agreed that they were able to pick up
the salient language features and schematic structure which were suitable for each of
the required recount genres thanks to the process the researcher analyzed the features
of the required sample recounts for them. Interestingly, 88.9% of the respondents,
which was albeit 88.9% of the respondents in the item 7, reported that they realized
the differences of the two sub-recount genres in terms of social purposes, language
features and schematic structure and that, in their viewpoints, conforming to the
linguistic conventions of a particular recount genre was very important for them to
learn writing (88.9%). Finally, it was found in item 5 that 32/45 students (71.1%)
agreed that the conventional rules of writing differed from cultures to cultures.
To sum up, the text exploration stage was really useful and necessary for
students in learning writing. This was confirmed in their positive responses towards
the aspects of the social purposes, language features, schematic structure and etc. of
the required recount genres. This was in coincidence with the researcher’s
expectations. As identified in the conceptual framework of the teaching-learning
cycle, the first stage-modeling-aims at providing the novice students with the “tools”
to construct the text with in terms of social purposes, language features and
schematic structure of a particular text-type because in this stage students themselves
are still unfamiliar with these conventional rules. It turned out that after being taught
with this first stage of the cycle, almost all students (88.9%) expressed their positive
feelings towards it. Similarly to the context exploration, it was found in this sub-stage
that some of the students still expressed their doubtfulness and even their

69
disagreement towards this stage. Nevertheless, the negative reactions from the
respondents were very small. On the whole, they acknowledged that this stage
facilitated them in learning writing.
Summary
As revealed in the table 14 & 15 and analyzed elaborately by the researcher,
the modeling of the recount genre actually enjoyed favorable opinions from the
student respondents. The statistical figures of 91.1% and 88.9% of student
respondents towards the usefulness and necessities of the activities in the context
exploration and in the text exploration indicated these positive attitudes. On the
whole, they were of the opinion that the modeling of the text in this study was
useful and necessary. While the activities in the context exploration could help them
realize the purpose of the text, context of the text, the writer of the text, audiences of
the text and activation of their prior knowledge towards the text-type under focus, it
was the activities in the text exploration that assisted them in the realization of its
language features and schematic structure embedded in a sample recount genre. In
other words, this stage provided them with the reasons for learning writing, giving
them the time to think about the topic, its writer and intended readers, the scopes
where it is applied and especially having a close look at the salient aspects of that
particular recount genre. Hence, these activities could be viewed as a spring-board
for learning writing in the latter phases of writing processes. All of these things
when pulled together were considered to be extremely important for the novice
students before they were asked to write any text-types independently.
Stage 2: The joint-construction of the recount genre
Student choice SA A U D S M
The activities in the 5 4 3 2 D 3.0
Joint-construction 1
1. Applying the theories of the recount genres into practice. 21 18 4 2 0
46. 40. 8.9 4. 0.0 4.3
7 0 4
2. Realizing that the preparatory phases are very important and necessary 32 13 0 0 0
for constructing an effective recount genre. 71. 28. 0.0 0. 0.0 4.7
1 9 0

3. Knowing “what to write” in order to achieve the social purposes, 31 10 1 3 0

language features and schematic structure of a particular recount genre 68. 20. 2.2 6. 0.0 4.5

70
thanks to the process teacher demonstrates the way of writing for them. 9 0 7

4. Knowing “how to write” in order to achieve the social purposes, 31 10 1 3 0

language features and schematic structure of a particular recount genre 68. 20. 2.2 6. 0.0 4.5
thanks to the process teacher demonstrates the way of writing for them. 9 0 7
5. Necessity and usefulness for them in the latter phase of learning 23 17 5 0 0
writing. 51. 37. 11.1 0. 0.0 4.4
1 8 0
Table 16. Students’ attitudes towards the activities in the joint-construction of the recount genre

Table 16 show that roughly 90% of the student respondents thought that the
activities in the joint-construction stage were necessary and useful for them in
learning writing (M=4.5). This was confirmed by the fact that nearly all of the
respondents were of the opinion from agreement to strong agreement with (M ranged
from 4.3 to 4.7, items 1-4 in table 17). In particular, 86.7% of them expressed that
they knew how to apply the theories of the recount genres in terms of orientation,
sequences of events in chronological order and reorientation into practice. The figure
8.9% of uncertainty and 2% of disagreement in this statement did not indicate the big
differences in terms of negative attitudes in this item. More interestingly, the
preparatory phases such as researching information from many sources (e.g. from
internet, textbooks, newspapers, teachers and peers) earned the most favorable
opinions (71.1% strongly agree and 28.9% agree). Finally, roughly 90% of the
student respondents agreed that they knew “what and how to write” in each stage to
achieve the social purposes, language features and schematic structure of a required
recount genre in the independent construction stage of the recount genre thanks to the
process their teacher demonstrated the way of writing for them
Briefly speaking, this stage was generally really helpful for students in
learning writing. It was served as a transitional phase of the first stage in transforming
the theories they picked up into practice. This stage was successfully implemented
thanks to the collaborative writing processes between teacher and students with
teacher acting as a scribe. Although this stage was also received with unfavorable
responses from the respondents like stage modeling, these negative reactions were
just a few. On the whole, all of these activities were considered to be very necessary
before the student writers were asked to write independently.

71
 Stage 3: The independent construction of the recount genre
Student choice SA A U D S M
5 4 3 2 D 3.0
The teaching writing 1
techniques applied in the
Independent construction
1. Writing many drafts can help improve their own essays. 31 10 1 3 0
68. 20. 2.2 6. 0.0 4.5
9 0 7
2. The constructive feedbacks of their friends towards their first drafts 21 18 4 1 0
better their second drafts. 46. 40. 8.9 2. 0.0 4.2
7 0 2

3. Their feedbacks towards their friends’ drafts can help them review the 25 12 6 1 1
knowledge of the recount genres and realize their mistakes (if possible) 55. 26. 13. 2. 2.2 5.1
in their own recount essays. 6 7 3 2
4. Teacher’s feedbacks can help them realize whether their recount 30 15 0 0 0
essays fulfilled the contents of the required recount genres or not. 66. 33. 0.0 0. 0.0 4.7
7 3 0
5. Their final recount essays are much better improved after being given 18 21 6 0 0
feedbacks and corrections by their friends and teacher. 40. 46. 13. 0. 0.0 4.3
0 7 3 0
6. These teaching writing techniques are necessary and useful for 18 22 5 0 0
learning to write any text-types. 40. 48. 11.1 0. 0.0 4.3
0 9 0
Table 17. Students’ attitudes towards the activities in the independent construction

It is clear from table 17 (pp. 70-71) that the teaching writing techniques
applied in the stage “independent construction of the recount” were really helpful for
students (roughly 90%). From the table 17, it was seen that most of the students
responded positively to the issues of writing many drafts, peer feedback and
teacher’s feedback (M ranged from 4.2 to 5.1). In terms of writing many drafts,
roughly 90% of the respondents expressed that it did really help them improve their
writing skills. As for their friends’ feedback, 21 out of 18 students in the scale
agreement extension strongly agreed that this activity could help them improve their
second drafts (86.7%). That meant that in giving constructive feedbacks of their
friends towards their first drafts, their friends could help them locate as well as point
out to them the mistakes or errors committed in their first drafts and at the same time
suggested the ways of helping them revise their first drafts to become better. Also,
they agreed that their feedbacks towards their friends’ drafts could help them review
the knowledge of the recount and spotted their mistakes and errors in their own
papers (82.3%). More importantly, teacher’s feedbacks received the most favorable

72
opinions (100%) in which 66.7% expressed their total agreement along with 33.3% of
agreement. As such, they were of the opinion that their final written products were
better improved after being offered the constructive feedbacks and corrections from
their friends and teacher (86.7%). Like stages 1 & 2 above, besides the positive
responses offered by students, the researcher still received a relatively small
percentage of other respondents who both expressed their uncertainty and their
rejection towards the usefulness of these teaching writing strategies used in the cycle
which needed paying more attention to. They can be seen in the items 1, 2, 3, 5 in the
table 15 on page 69 above.
In brief, the last phase of the teaching-learning cycle did contribute to the
learning of writing of students in this study. This was expressed in the high proportion
of percentage of agreements towards the teaching writing techniques used by the
researcher. Certainly, the positive responses of students were not by chance. The
statistical figures actually indicated these positive attitudes.
Summary of students’ attitudes towards the teaching-learning cycle
Generally, most of the students in this study expressed their positive opinions
towards the three stages of the teaching-learning cycle. This was expressed in the last
statement in each stage of the teaching-learning cycle of the genre-based instruction
(i.e. item 8 in the context exploration, item 7 in the text exploration, item 5 in the
joint-construction and item 6 in the independent construction; see tables 14-17
above). Equally, 90% of the respondents expressed that each stage actually had a
position in helping them in learning writing. For instance, the activities in the context
exploration helped realize the purposes, audiences, the writer and context of the
recount and activation of their background knowledge towards this topic field. In the
meantime, the activities in the text exploration helped them realize how the text
achieved the social purposes through the salient features (i.e. language features and
schematic structure) embedded in these required sample recount genres. This was
considered to be extremely important for them before they were asked to produce the
similar recount genre approximately to the structure of the recount genre under focus.

73
 Whilst arguing that the modeling provided them with the theories about the
recount genres in aspects of social purposes, language features and schematic
structure of the recount genre, they further claimed that the stage 2: joint-construction
and the stage 3: independent construction really helped them in transforming the
theories of the recount genres into their own practice. With stage 2, they understood
more deeply about a three-step-structure of the recount genres in terms of orientation,
sequence of events and reorientation as well as the salient language features of the
recount genre such as focusing on the past tense of verbs, verb types and
circumstances of time thanks to the process their teacher demonstrated the way of
writing for them. With stage 3, they really enjoyed the teaching writing techniques
used by the researcher such as writing many drafts, peer feedback and teacher
feedbacks. In one word, the three stages of the teaching-learning cycle deserved a
place in the learning writing processes.
4.3.2 Students’ attitudes towards the recount genre and its two sub-
recount genres
Student choice SA A U D S M
5 4 3 2 D 3.0
The recount genre and
1
its two sub-recount genres
1. Suitability for their learning English at high school. 17 28 0 0 0
37. 62. 0.0 0.0 0.0 4.4
8 2
2. Suitability for their learning English in the near future. 12 22 11 1 0
26. 48. 24. 2.2 0.0 4.0
7 9 4
3. Suitability and interest for them personally. 12 18 13 2 0
26. 40. 28. 4.4 0.0 3.7
7 0 9
4. Suitability for their current English level. 20 20 5 0 0
44. 44. 11.1 0.0 0.0 4.3
4 4
5. Suitability for their age. 21 17 5 2 0
46. 37. 11.1 4.4 0.0 4.3
7 8
6. The Personal recount genre stimulates them to learn to write. 25 15 2 3 0
55. 33. 4.4 6.7 0.0 4.4
6 3
7. The Biographical recount genre stimulates them to learn to write. 5 10 24 5 1
11.1 22. 53. 11.1 2.2 3.3
2 3
Table 18. Students’ attitudes towards the recount genre and its two sub-recount genres

74
 From table 18, it was seen that 45/45 respondents agreed that the recount
genre chosen for this study was suitable for their learning English at high school (17
students agreed and 28 students strongly agreed). However, the following criteria
regarding items 2-5 were not received with completely favorable opinions from the
respondents although the positive responses in these items were found to be
outnumbered than the negative responses. First of all, in terms of suitability for their
learning English in the near future, there were 34 students expressing their positive
feelings towards it (i.e. 12 students strongly agreed and 22 students agreed) while 11
of them expressed their uncertainty and the other one student rejected this criteria.
Secondly, in the next item (suitability and interest for them personally), while 30 out
of 45 respondents responded positively towards it (i.e. 12 strongly agreed and 18
agreed), 13 of them expressed their hesitation and the other two students expressed
their disagreement towards it. Thirdly, despite the fact that there were 40 respondents
agreeing about suitability for their current English level, 5 of them also expressed
their doubtfulness towards it. Finally, with respect to suitability for their age, 38 out
of 45 respondents expressed their approval while 5 expressed their doubtfulness and 2
expressed their disagreement towards it. These pointed out that there were
fluctuations in the attitudes of the respondents ranging from strong agreement,
agreement, uncertainty to disagreement towards the suitability and interest of the
recount genres.
In responses to item 6 (i.e. whether they thought the personal recount genre
could stimulate them to learn to write or not), 40 respondents expressed their
approval ranging from strong agreement (55.6%) to agreement (33.3%) towards this
genre. By contrast, there were only 2/45 respondents expressing their uncertainty and
the remaining 3/45 respondents expressing their rejection towards the personal
recount genre. This indicated that the personal recount could stimulate students in
learning writing despite the fact that there were still some respondents who were not
in favor of this genre.

75
 Finally, in reference to item 7 (i.e. whether they thought the biographical
recount genre could stimulate them to learn writing or not), it was seen that there
were only 15 students expressing their positive feelings towards the biographical
recount genre (i.e. 5/45 expressing their strong agreement and 10 expressing their
agreement) while the number of respondents which responded uncertainly and
negatively to this genre was very big (i.e. 24/45 respondents expressing their
uncertainty plus 6/45 students expressing their disagreement towards this genre: 5
rejection and 1 complete rejection). This indicated that the biographical recount genre
chosen for teaching writing in this study did not meet the great expectations from
most of the student participants.
All in all, students’ attitudes towards the recount genre in general and its two
sub-recount recount genre in particular enjoyed both positive and negative reactions
from the respondents, of which positive attitudes were outnumbered than negative
attitudes. Apart/except from the criterion (suitability for their learning English at high
school), other remaining criteria (from item 2 to item 7) were not met with the great
expectations from the researcher, especially in terms of stimulating them to learn to
write the biographical recount, suitability and interest for their personal needs and
suitability for their learning English in the future.
4.3.3 Students’ other comments towards the teaching-learning cycle, the
recount genre and its two sub-recount genres
This section focuses on analyses and interpretation of the other comments of
the respondents in written forms also along the two themes, namely, the teaching-
learning cycle and the recount genre, its two sub-recount genres respectively in order
to provide further opinions of the student participants towards these issues.
4.3.3.1 Students’ other comments towards the teaching-learning
cycle
Generally speaking, most of the student participants expressed both their
positive attitudes and negative attitudes towards the three stages of the teaching-

76
learning cycle, of which the positive attitudes were received with more number of
respondents. They were analyzed and interpreted elaborately as follows:
 Towards the activities in the modeling stage
THE CONTEXT EXPLORATION
Students’ responses Total
count
Positiveness: Very necessary, similar to the pre-reading activities; a spring-board for interesting 40/45
writing lessons; pool and exchange their ideas in pair and in group and learn from one another; a
good chance for practicing speaking English
Negativeness: Sometimes unnecessary; beyond their expectation; don’t think these are the writing 5/45
activities.
THE TEXT EXPLORATION
Students’ responses Total
count
Positiveness: Very helpful thanks to the teacher’s breakdown of stages of the recount genre for them; 40/45
understand the schematic structure and language features of the recount genre.
Negativeness: Don’t see any usefulness of this stage; just a waste of time; think that these activities 5/45
are similar to those of the reading comprehension.
Table 19.1. Students’ other comments towards the modeling stage

As illustrated in table 19.1, all of the student participants (40/45) expressed

their positive opinions towards both context exploration and text exploration.
Specifically, in the context exploration, they voiced their opinion that this
stage provided them with a spring-board for the interesting writing lessons. By
designing these activities, teachers offered them with abundant/ample opportunities to
pool and exchange their ideas with peers and hence promoted the collaborative
writing activities among them and their friends. They also admitted that, through
these activities, they could have chances to practice speaking English to their friends
and teacher- an activity which they had not done in their previous writing classes
before. This provided them with a new insight into learning writing, i.e. writing could
be integrated into learning other skills.
As for the text exploration, they also observed that the breakdown of the
schematic structure of the recount genres really helped them understand of how and
what to do in each stage and the analysis of teacher about the language features of
the recount genres could assist them further in picking up these features to serve for
their independent writing stage better.
As for the negative feelings, 10/45 respondents (5/45 in the context
exploration and 5/45 in the text exploration) expressed that this stage was sometimes

77
not necessary. In their viewpoint, these could not be viewed as the teaching writing
activities because they were nearly similar to those of the reading comprehension, i.e.
read the sample reading text and answer the questions that follow.
 Towards the activities in the joint-construction stage
Student’s responses Total
count
Positiveness: A new approach for learning writing; the preparatory phases are useful for learning 41/45
writing in the near future; promote collaborative learning; have a thorough understanding of the
features of the recounts thanks to teacher’s demonstration of writing for them; have a chance to
discuss and contribute the ideas before writing with their friends and teacher.
Negativeness: Very demanding and difficult because of having to brainstorm the ideas; feel loosing 4/45
face if not being able to contribute the ideas; very artificial because teacher did every thing for them.
Table 19.2. Students’ other comments towards the joint- construction

Table 19.2 indicates that 41/45 respondents responded positively whilst 4/45
expressed their negative responses towards this stage.
In general, a multitude of students (41/45) found this stage fruitful for them.
This was expressed in their responses to this question. In their viewpoint, the
preparatory phases before writing were very necessary. Thanks to exploring
information from many sources such as newspapers, magazines, textbooks, teacher
and their more able peers, they could produce a good piece of writing. In addition,
the activities in this stage could also promote the collaborative learning among them
and their peers through the sharing and contribution of the ideas. More importantly,
thanks to the teacher’s help “acting as a scribe”; they knew how to write the recount
genre better in terms of social purposes, language features and schematic structure.
In one word, this joint-negotiation stage of text left a remarkable impact on the
student participants in this study.
Contrary to the positive reactions of 41 respondents, the remaining four
participants were opposed to the joint-construction stage, which deserved
mentioning here. In their point of view, brainstorming, pair work and group work
activities in this stage might be difficult and demanding for students because most
of the students were afraid of loosing face if failing to contribute or share the ideas
in group or in pair. In addition, they did not agree with “the way teacher acts as a
scribe” because he had a tendency to rewrite every thing from their joint-essays

78
after having asked students to share, contribute and write their essays in groups.
Basically, they preferred their finished joint-written works to be revised and
corrected by their teacher rather than be rewritten in another way.
 Towards the use of the teaching writing techniques
Students’ responses Total
count
1. Drafting
Positiveness: Help improve writing skills and fluency, especially text organization, language use, 41/45
contents and grammar.
Negativeness: Take up a lot of time. 4/45
2. Peer feedbacks
Positiveness: Help revision of grammar, word choice; know what and how to write in each stage, 40/45
especially useful with friends pointing out errors and give suggestions for correction; learning to
write collaboratively.
Negativeness: Not helpful too much; friends only pointing out the surface grammar mistakes; 5/45
suspicion of friends’ ability of correcting errors on the drafts.
3. Their feedbacks
Positiveness: Ability to offer constructive corrections on friends’ papers; a good chance to review the 37/45
language features and schematic structure of the required recount genre; know how to evaluate the
successes of a specific text-type.
Negativeness: Not really helpful; Sometimes feel a little bit confused because not knowing what, 8/45
where and how to give a constructive feedbacks; afraid of making their friends hurt; did not use to do
it before.
4. Teacher’s feedback
Positiveness: Really helpful for them; teacher not only pointed out the mistakes in terms of the 45/45
sentence level but also in terms of the text level; make the writing much easier with errors pointed
out and explained.
Table 19.3. Students’ other comments towards the teaching writing techniques

Table 19.3 (p. 77) indicates that most of the student participants (40/45
respondents in drafting, 40/45 in peer feedbacks, 37/45 in their feedbacks and 45/45
in teacher’s feedbacks) expressed positively towards the teaching writing techniques.
With drafting technique, 40 out of 45 respondents commented that writing many
drafts helped them improve their writing kills better in terms of fluency and accuracy.
40/45 respondents claimed that their friends’ feedback on their drafts helped them
review of grammar, word choices and know what and how to write in each stage.
These activities were very useful with errors pointed out and corrected by their
friends. In addition, their feedbacks on their friends’ papers provided them with
opportunities to review the knowledge of the recount genres in terms of language
features, schematic structure and hence helped them realize their own mistakes and
errors in their own papers. Finally, it was interesting to find out that 100% of the

79
respondents expressed their approval towards the teacher’s feedbacks. They said that
their teacher not only corrected the errors of their essays at the sentence level but
errors at the text level as well.
Nevertheless, the negative responses of a few participants (5/45 respondents
in drafting, 5/45 in peer feedback and 8/45 in their feedbacks) should be taken into
account. Specifically, 5 other students expressed that the drafting technique was not
able to be successfully implemented in the high school context nowadays because of
the time constraint. Next, in regards to their friends’ feedbacks, 5 out of 45 students
expressed that this activity did not actually help them too much in improving their
written works. In their viewpoint, their friends might only help them realize the
grammatical mistakes. Indeed, they expressed their suspicion towards the values of
peer feedback. In the same vein, 8 out of 45 respondents were unsure of their
feedbacks on their friends’ papers. They said that they did not know what, where,
when and how to offer corrective feedbacks on their friends’ papers. What’s more,
due to being affected by the Eastern cultures, they expressed their reservation in
giving feedbacks to their friends’ papers for fear that they would make their friends
hurt if they showed their friends’ errors too overtly.
4.3.2.2 Students’ other comments towards the recount genre and its
two sub-recount genres
Students’ responses Total
count
1. Personal recount genre
Positiveness: interesting and easy to write because it was close to their personal experiences; might 40/45
get students’ personal involvements into learning writing, used to do it before; encourage their
creative ability in learning writing.
Negativeness: May be difficult for those who never had their personal experiences before; may be an 5/45
uneasy experience for those who were shy and rarely expressed their personal experiences with
others.
2. Biographical recount genre
Positiveness: Can ignite students’ interests in learning writing; learn many golden lessons from the 15/45
characters that devoted all their lives to the development of the history of the human kinds.
Negativeness: Very difficult for students because they had to search information from many sources 30/45
and had to remember exactly the important events, the dates and places in history of that character;
argue that there was no ground for personal ideas; boring and “crude” because they could not
develop their creative ability in learning writing.

Table 20. Students’ other comments towards the recount genre, personal recount genre and biographical
recount

80
 It can be seen from table 20 that students expressed both their positive
reactions and negative reactions towards the two sub-recount genres introduced for
teaching in this study. Overall, the personal recount genre was received with more
positive opinions from the respondents than the biographical recount genre. These
responses from students were analyzed and interpreted elaborately as follows:
As for the personal recount genre, almost all informants said that this genre
was interesting and easy to write because it was close to their personal experiences
(40/45 expressing their positive reactions). They said that this genre could get their
personal involvements into learning to write by telling the others about what they
used to experience. Also, they did not feel strange when being asked to produce an
English essay in this genre because they had written this type in their Vietnamese
language before, and this genre could encourage their creative ability in learning to
write. However, there were 5/45 other students expressing their negative responses
towards this genre. In these students’ point of view, this genre was not suitable for
those who did not have their own personal experiences to share or for those who were
shy and were not used to expressing their personal experiences with the others in
public.
As for the biographical recount genre, 15/45 respondents said that this genre
could ignite their interests in learning to write. By writing on this genre, they could
learn many golden lessons from those who sacrificed their whole life for the
development of the history of human kinds. Nevertheless, 30/45 student participants
expressed their negative opinions towards this genre. In their point of view, this genre
was very difficult for them to write because it required them to search a lot of
information from many sources and they had to try to remember exactly the
important events, dates and places of the specific characters in the history. This could
be big challenges for them because there were not lots of available materials for them
to make reference to. Moreover, this genre was not as interesting as the personal
recount genre. In this genre, they did not have chances to express their personal ideas
and developed their creative ability in their writing papers like the personal recount

81
genre. All of the facts and figures about the characters in the history had to be
interpreted as closely naturally and objectively as possible. As a result, this genre, in
their concepts, hardly inspired them to learn to write.

4.4 Findings
Here are some findings on students’ achievements through the essays
produced by students and their attitudes towards the teaching-learning cycle, the
recount genres and its two sub-recount genre that can be inferred from the analyses
above.
4.4.1 Findings on the student participant essays
From the analysis of 75 student participant essays in the initial analyses as
well as the detailed analyses of one personal recount essay of one male student and
one biographical recount essay of a female student, the researcher firmly validated
that a genre-based pedagogy based on the three stages of teaching-learning cycle
actually helped the student participants in this study produce better recount essays
with respect to the language features, schematic structure and social purposes.
The detailed analyses of the mechanisms of the two selected essays revealed
some surface grammatical and lexical errors at the sentence level; yet, some of them
were typically a result of the interferences from the students’ mother tongue.
Generally, students’ essays were also improved in term of the accuracy of the
grammatical structures at the sentence level thanks to the three-step writing process
based on teaching-learning cycle as well.
4.4.2 Findings on the students’ attitudes towards the teaching-learning
cycle, the recount genre and its two sub-recount genre
This part is sub-divided into two sections: Findings on students’ attitudes
towards the teaching-learning cycle and findings on students’ attitudes towards the
recount genre in general and its two sub-recount genres in particular.
4.4.2.1 Towards the teaching-learning cycle

82
 The investigation into the students’ attitudes towards learning to write the
recount genre with the teaching-learning cycle elicited mainly positive viewpoints
and only a few negative points from the respondents.
Most of the student participants (40/45 respondents) positively agreed that a
genre-based instruction based on the three stages of teaching-learning cycle was
really necessary and useful for them in learning to write.
In reference to the modeling stage, most of them agreed that this stage
provided them with knowledge of social purposes, language features and schematic
structure of a specific recount genre with the sample recount text given and analyzed
by the researcher. In addition, this stage provided them with the reasons for learning
to write by setting context of text. This helped them realize that “Writing is not solely
the product of an individual, but is a social and cultural act” (Weigle, 2002, p. 19).
Therefore, they had to consider such contextual factors affecting the production of the
text as audiences and environment surrounding the text. Finally, this stage helped
them recall of the knowledge of the recount genres, expressed their personal opinions
towards the recount genres as well as provided them with abundant/numerous/ample
opportunities to practice other related-skills such as listening, speaking and reading.
The joint-negotiation stage was also received with almost all positive reactions
from the respondents. They said that they knew what and how to write in each stage
thanks to the processes their teacher acting as “a scribe” for them. More importantly,
they realized that the preparatory phases were very important in learning to write.
Personally, most of them enjoyed co-operative learning activities with ideas, grammars
and word choices contributed and shared among them and their friends to help produce
the written products more effectively.
The last phase in the teaching-learning cycle- the independent construction of
text- was nominated by most of the student participants to be the most useful stage in
the three stages. According to them, all the teaching writing techniques (i.e. peer
feedback activity, teacher’s feedback and drafting technique) applied by the
researcher helped them a lot in improving the quality of their writing papers.

83
Regarding the peer feedback activity, nearly most of them claimed that the
identification and correction of errors, either by themselves or by their friends, were
useful in improving their proficiency in surface grammatical points. It was noted by
most of the students that teacher’s feedback facilitated their writing tasks through
their improved understanding of grammar at the sentence level as well as at the text
level. Finally, drafting technique was helpful in improving their writing skills.
Nevertheless, an average number of five students in each stage voiced their
reservations towards some activities carried out in each stage of the teaching-learning
cycle. The former belonged to the inadequate understanding about the nature of the
genre-based approach as well as the usefulness hidden behind each stage of the cycle
of the student participants and the latter belonged to the cultural aspects. These are
discussed elaborately as follows:
First of all, in these students’ point of view, the modeling stage was sometimes
unnecessary in learning writing because they hardly saw any of the activities in this
stage related to “writing” at all. Before being taught with the teaching-learning cycle,
most of these students had thought of writing as writing only. Therefore, in this study,
they felt uncomfortable when asked to think of the topic, brainstorming the ideas,
audience, “the social location” of the recount genre before writing, read the sample
text and answer the questions that followed. They cannot make distinction between
“the reading comprehension skills” and “the modeling stage of the text”. Personally,
they thought that these activities served for reading comprehension skills rather than
for writing skills. They did not realize the purposes of this stage which the researcher
wanted to equip them, i.e. provide them with enough knowledge of grammar,
vocabulary, purposes and features of the required recount genre before asking them
to write them independently. This misunderstanding arising was due to the fact that
the researcher did not explain adequately why he asked them to perform these
activities. Therefore, in the near future, when the teaching-learning cycle is
reintroduced into the teaching writing program, the researcher needs to explain
enough of the meanings, purposes and benefits of each of the stage of the cycle for

84
students so that they can accept to learn with each of the stages of the cycle with more
confidence and comforts.
Secondly, these participants felt that the group work activities in the joint-
construction stage were not much really helpful for them in learning to write. They
argued that these activities could not be successfully implemented because there was
a tendency for the more capable students to dominate almost all classroom activities
by contributing more ideas whereas the less capable ones would get lost because they
did not find the right ideas to express in words. Moreover, due to the influence of the
Eastern culture, they felt uneasy to share the ideas with one another and with teacher
if they were unsure of their answers. Thus, this called for the reconsideration from the
researcher in using group work into teaching writing in the near future. This related to
the rearrangement of the group work, explaining and assigning the tasks for every
member in group and at the same time creating non-threatening environment for
every member of the group in the near future. Involving the cultural aspects, it is
necessary to take time to explain to them about the benefits of working in groups and
that making mistakes is a normal development in learning language. By this way,
they could take risk expressing their ideas. Moreover, teacher’s role acting as “a
scribe” in this stage should be put into question. As expressed by these students,
teacher seemed to do everything for them. Therefore, the flexibility of the genre-
based teacher in this stage was summoned, i.e. He should encourage students to
practice writing more and more and only corrected the mistakes or errors
committed/made in their joint-essays to make sure that their written products have the
structure similarly to that of the sample recount genre. Certainly, this will be only
done with caution in the context where the participants’ knowledge in writing is good
enough, i.e. they understand very clearly purpose, language features and text features
of the sample required genre in the modeling stage. This is also the thing that needs
the reconsideration of some activities in stages of the teaching-learning cycle in the
near future.

85
 Finally, involving with the peer feedback activities, a few of student
participants expressed their doubtfulness of the benefits of these activities. This again
belonged to the cultural aspects and inadequate explanation and guidelines of the
researcher to students in these activities. Five of the student participants voiced their
opinions that they were unsure of their corrections on their friends’ papers and feared
that they would hurt their friends’ feeling by commenting too much publicly/overtly
on their friends’ papers. Therefore, in the near future, in order to utilize at best the
benefits of peer feedback activities, the researcher should train students with peer
feedback techniques by providing them with peer feedback sheets which contain the
concrete/discrete criteria of the features of a specific text-type so that they know
what, where and how to give correction on their friends’ paper. Moreover, involving
with the cultural aspects, the researcher should take time to explain the meanings of
learning from one another from giving feedbacks on their friends’ paper so that they
could accept the corrections of errors from their friends willingly.
In sum, the teaching-learning cycle created a significant impact on students’
attitudes in learning writing. This cycle uncovered them the social purposes,
language features and schematic structure of a specific text-type so that they could
produce any specific text-types successfully and effectively to meet the international
readers’ expectations in terms of grammar, vocabulary, text organization and content.
Although there were a few student participants expressing their negative reactions
towards some activities in the cycle, it was found that they were just minimum and
belonged to the cultural aspects of the Vietnamese students as well as the inadequate
explanation of the researcher in this study. This called upon the reconsideration of
some activities in the stages of the cycle, the careful explanation of each stage,
training of the teaching writing techniques as well as the change of the students’
viewpoints from too much reliance on teacher’s help towards collaborative writing
activities.
4.4.2.2 Towards the recount genre and its two sub-recount genres

86
 Investigation into students’ attitudes towards learning the recount genre,
personal recount genre and biographical recount also elicited with the positive
opinions as well as the negative opinions from the respondents. Generally speaking,
this genre was suitable for their learning English at high school, their current English
level, and for their age as well as this genre might create the bridge for learning to
write in the near future. However, the significant number of the respondents expressed
their uncertainty and disagreement about the suitability and interests for their own
personal needs and growth, and for their current English level. This called upon for
introducing more topics and text-types in the near future to the students which can
arouse their interests in learning to write.
As for the personal recount genre, almost all respondents expressed their
positive feelings towards this genre. They argued that this genre inspired them to
write because it was close to their personal experiences. Although there were few
students expressing their dislikes towards this genre, it was found that the negative
responses were not remarkable. Nevertheless, there is a need to reconsider the
biographical recount genre in the future. Indeed, there were only three-quarters of
students (15/45) expressing their approval towards this genre. Most of the remaining
students expressed their uncertainty, disagreement as well as their strong
disagreement towards it. This was out of the researcher’s expectations because he
assumed that the biographical recount which was based on the historical documents
about a famous character in the history could ignite their interests in learning to write.
In sum, the recount genre in general and the personal recount genre and
biographical recount in particular might meet the needs of students in learning
English at school as well as in the near future but not too much. To some extent, this
genre was suitable for their age and current English levels as well as it might create
their minimum interests in learning to write among students. However, to match with
the needs of every student in learning to write, there should be many of the topics and
the genres introduced for students in the hope that they will feel enjoyable in learning
to write.

87
4.5 Summary of findings
The findings, as discussed in the section 4.4, have shown that:
With respect to the students’ achievement on the two types of the sub-recount
genres, it was found that most of the students gained the control over the key features
of the required recount genres in terms of social purposes, language features and
schematic structure.
In terms of students’ attitudes towards the use of teaching-learning cycle into
learning the recount genre, it was also found that most of the student participants
expressed that this cycle was very necessary and helpful for them in learning to write
the recount genre. In addition to their positive attitudes, there were a few of students
expressing their negative feelings towards some activities carried out in each stage of
the teaching-learning cycle. However, as explained in the section 4.4, these negative
reactions from these participants arose from the fact that they did not understand the
meanings of the activities embedded in these stages fully and another reason was
that they belonged to the inherently cultural aspect, which deserved investigating in
the future research. As for the recount genre chosen in this study, there were favorable
opinions as well as unfavorable ones from the respondents towards it. Generally, a
significant number of the respondents were of the opinion that this recount genre
pedagogy was suitable for their learning English at school and for their current
English level, met their personal needs as well as their age. However, in order to
really inspire them in learning writing, there was a need to reconsider seriously the
other topics and other genres in the school context in addition to the recount genre
applied in this study.

This chapter has just presented the analyses of the student data through the
student participant essays, the student questionnaire and the findings emerged from it.
The data analyses themselves have led to some tentative findings concerning the
achievements of students through the two sub-recount genres with respect to their

88
social purposes, schematic structure and linguistic features, and their attitudes
towards the teaching-learning cycle, the recount genre and its two sub-recount genre.
At the same time, the findings gave answers to the research questions raised in the
Introduction. Based on what have been found in this chapter, the researcher would
like to present some pedagogical suggestions for English high school teachers as well
as some recommendations for further study in the next chapter.

Chapter 5 SUGGESTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Introduction
Based on the findings in the preceding chapter, this chapter aims at offering
some suggestions for high school teachers of English in the future in the hope to help
them overcome the difficulties in teaching their students to write the high school
English compositions as well as some recommendations for further study.

5.1 Suggestions for English high school teachers in the future

In this study, the researcher was relatively successful in applying the genre-
based approach into teaching the recount genre in general and its two sub-recount

89
genres in particular for 45 eleventh-grade student participants at Trị An high
school. It was evident that a genre-based approach based on the three stages of the
teaching-learning cycle had created a great impact on these student participants.
Indeed, most of the student participants gained control over the key features of the
required recount genres and at the same time, expressed their positive feelings
towards this cycle as well as the recount genres applied in this study. Although there
were still some of the student participants who expressed their disapproval towards
some activities carried out in each stage of the teaching-learning cycle and the
recount genres, it was found that these negative reactions from these small number of
participants did not affect much to the results of the research and indeed, the results of
the research were still obtainable. As a result, the researcher of this study could feel
confident in using this teaching-learning cycle in teaching writing skills in particular
and other related-skills in general for high school students in the near future. The
other high school teachers who share the same interests as the researcher can also
apply this teaching-learning cycle into teaching the writing skills as well as other
related-skills for their students in the future. However, in order to implement
successfully this teaching-learning cycle of the genre-based program into their own
actual classroom, they should follow some suggestions from the researcher as
follows:
First of all, teachers of English in the future should introduce many well-
written sample reading texts which contain the features of the specific text-types into
their own classroom. As identified at the outset of this study, one of the difficulties
facing the EFL high school students when they learnt writing skills was that they
lacked the knowledge of the text-type in terms of language features and text features;
therefore, they did not know how to turn their ideas into their intelligible text. After
the project of this study was over, the researcher was confident to know that a sample
“expert” and “selective” recount genres helped his students realize its purposes, its
language features and its schematic structure and they could use this knowledge to
produce their similarly own recount genre effectively. Therefore, the researcher of

90
this study believe that other teachers may also harvest the similar outcomes if they
know how to bring into their classroom many sample reading texts containing the
features of a particular text-type into teaching students to write.
Secondly, in order to implement the teaching-learning cycle successfully, it is
very necessary for high school teachers of English in the future to explain carefully
and clearly to their students about purposes, meaning of each of the stages embedded
in this cycle. As discussed in the previous chapter, some of the students in this study
disagree with some activities carried out in the teaching-learning cycle. For instance,
they said that the modeling stage was not necessary because they did not realize any
of the writing activities here. Therefore, in the future when the genre-based approach
based on the three stages of the cycle is repeated, teachers should take time to explain
to them why they asked their student to perform these activities. By this way, students
will accept to learn these activities more comfortably.
Thirdly, the flexibility of the genre-based approach teachers should be also
summoned. In other words, they should not be too rigid in applying the three stages
into their classroom. For more capable students who understand very clearly the
modeling stage and want to practice more of writing skills, teachers can ignore their
role as scribes. Instead, he or she should revise and correct their texts which
approximate to the structure of the sample text. However, for those students who have
not yet mastered the structure of the sample reading text, the role of teacher as a
scribe in the joint-negotiation stage is still considered necessary.
Fourthly, teachers should be accustomed to the teaching writing techniques
such as drafting, redrafting, peer feedbacks and teacher’s feedback as well as
changing the conception of teacher-student role in learning writing. However, in order
for these things to take place as expected, there must be many things to be done. First,
the time for the writing periods must be extended so that teachers and students can
have enough time to conduct these teaching writing techniques. This is beyond
teachers’ ability because the time for teaching writing skills is decided by MOET and
depends on each high school’s decision. However, teachers of English can negotiate

91
with their authority to extend the time for the writing periods. Second, teachers of
English also have to change their role from “a used-to-be transmitter” figure into
their new role “facilitator” and at the same time students also have to learn to be
used to working in group, in pairs as well as accepting the comments from their
friends. In order for students not to feel strange and stressful, it is very necessary for
teachers to explain the benefits of these teaching writing techniques as well as
training the peer feedback techniques for their students.
Fifthly, the teachers of English in the future should consider incorporating the
grammar teaching skill into teaching writing skills. As indicated in this study, the
researcher combined the skills of teaching grammar into teaching the required
recount genre with respects of the reasons of using the past tenses of verbs, process
types and circumstantial adverbs of time and the main participants. As a result,
these student participants knew how to deploy flexibly the adequate linguistic
resources to build their own recount texts effectively.
Finally, there is a need for reconsideration of choices of topics and genres in
teaching writing in the future. As interpreted and discussed in chapter 4 above, not all
of the students in this study expressed their agreement towards the recount genre,
personal recount genre and biographical recount chosen for this study. So in the
near future, if the teachers want to implement successfully the teaching-learning cycle
into their classroom, they must consider carefully the topics and the genres used for
teaching writing. The topics and genres are available in the high school textbooks,
grade 10, 11 and 12. Depending on students’ interests, levels and ages, teachers can
assign the suitable topics for them. Another option is that teacher can allow students
to vote what topics and genres which really inspire them to learn to write. By joint-
negotiating the topics, teacher can make students feel more comfortable in learning to
write. Commenting on the importance of choices of the topics for teaching writing,
Christie (1984) and Rothery (1986) noted that the choice of the topic is crucial to
students’ success in writing because, if the topic is of interest and relevant to their
needs, they will not only enjoy studying it, but will also be able to write their texts

92
better. Sharing the similar viewpoint, another language educator- Prodomou (1992)
also asserted that:
“When a class is given opportunities to work around the topics that genuinely
interest them, the teacher may achieve dual purpose: those students who are
struggling with aspects of the language will be encouraged to persist in their
efforts because the contents of the lesson appeals to them, while those
students who are more linguistically able will be more patient of a slow pace
at times because they are not intensely bored.” (p.25)

Therefore, the choices of the topics and genres for teaching writing to high
school students must be viewed as the top prioritized aims/missions for the teachers
of English in the future.

5.2 Limitations of the study

There were some limitations in this study. The first limitation concerns the
nature of investigating the values of genre-based approach and exploring the attitudes
of students after their exposure to this approach. A project of this nature required
detailed study and detailed analysis of data, which would be extremely time-consuming
to undertake with many groups of participants. As a result, only a cohort of 45
eleventh-graders of English who were recruited on a voluntary basis to learn with
genre-based approach in order to arrive at the responses to the main research question
and its two sub-questions. Due to such nature of investigation, there was not enough
valid evidence to conclude whether genre-based approach was a better alternative
choice in comparison with non-genre-based approach or not. Therefore, in the near
future, there should be other studies aiming at investigating the effectiveness of genre-
based approach into teaching high school students to write by designing a true
experimental research which focuses on comparing two groups of students, namely
experimental group and control group, in which the experimental group will be taught
to write with the interference of genre-based approach while the control group will be
taught to write without the interference of genre-based approach. If, after the treatment
of genre-based approach, the genre-based approach students can make bigger progress
in terms of achievements and attitudes, the researchers can draw a more concrete

93
conclusion about the overall impacts of genre-based approach in comparison with the
other existing writing approaches in high school. Secondly, the researcher was deeply
aware of the fact that, with a limited duration of time (10 weeks), it was difficult for
him to teach the two sub-recount writings at the same time the most successfully as
well as to explain fully to the student participants about all the benefits of the three
stages of teaching-learning cycle. This, in turn, might make the results of findings hard
to be as good as he expected/anticipated. However, it should be noted that these
drawbacks are not big obstacles to undermine the study results.
On the basis of the limitations, some recommendations for further study are
suggested below.

5.2 Recommendations for further study

For the time being, an investigation into the effectiveness on genre-based
approach in teaching recounts to 11th graders of English at Trị An high school was
proved to be fruitful not only for the researcher himself but also for other teachers and
students concerned. For the researcher part, this study will help him a lot in his
teaching career as an English teacher in the future. This thesis opens a new horizon to
him, broadens his view. What the researcher has introduced in this thesis is certainly
not the best, but, to some certain extent, it has contributed in helping high school
teachers teach the students to learn the compositional writing skills better. However,
to draw an overall picture of the benefits which genre-based approach actually brings
for students and teachers, there should be more studies into investigating its impacts
in other Vietnamese high school contexts to see whether the similar research design
can come up with the similar outcomes like those in this study or not.
Specifically, there should be other investigations into other related genres
instead of the recount genres in this study. Alternatively, there may be studies into
comparing/contrasting between genre-based approach and non-genre-based
approach in order to validate the values of the genre-based approach in high school
context. Finally, the stages of teaching-learning cycle should be carefully examined

94
by any teachers who wish to apply them into their own English language teaching
and learning environment.
Summary
This chapter has just presented the whole process of conducting the research.
The data analyses and findings in the preceding chapter led the researcher of this
study to some tentative conclusions, suggestions, limitations, and recommendations
for further study involving the future pedagogical implication of genre-based
approach on the teaching and learning of writing at high school level.

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Sutojo. (1994). Develop Competence in Writing in English as a Foreign Language:
A study in The Teaching of Writing of Report to Junior High School Students in
Indonesia Using a Genre-based approach. Unpublished Masteral Thesis, Northern
Territory University, Darwin.
Swayer, W.,& Watson. (1987). Questions of Genres. In I. Reid (Ed). The Place of
Gene in Learning: Current Debates. Geelong, Australia: Deakin University, Centre
for Studies in Literary Education.
Swales, J. M. (1990a). Genre Analysis- English in Academic Research Settings.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Trible, C. (1996). Writing. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, p. 12
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher
Psychological Process. Cambridge, Mass: Havard University Press.
Walshe, R. D. (Ed). (1981a). Donald Graves in Australia. Sydney: Primary English
Teaching Association.
Weigle, S. (2002). Assessing Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zamel, V. (1982). Writing: The Process of Discovering Meaning. TESOL Quarterly 16, pp.
195-209.
APPENDIX 1
QUESTIONNAIRE ABOUT STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE USE OF
GENRE-BASED APPROACH IN LEARNING WRITING

Dear Students,
After more than two months of being instructed to learn writing with the genre-based
approach, now you are invited to complete a questionnaire about your attitudes towards the
genre-based instruction.

99
 Specifically, there are two parts to be asked about your attitudes towards the genre-
based instruction, namely, your attitudes towards the genre-based instruction’s teaching-
learning cycle of the recount genre, your attitudes towards the recount genres, personal
recount genre and biographical recount genre.
Please try to answer ALL questions as honestly as you can. All you have to do is to
circle the number that best describes how much you agree with the statement. There is no
either “right” or “wrong” answer to these questions, and your answers will be kept
confidential and used for the purposes of the research only.
Many thanks for your assistance.
Best regards,
TRƯƠNG PHI LUÂN

Instruction:
For most questions listed below, all you have to do is to circle the number that best describes
how much you agree with the statement. If you change your mind about an answer, draw a
cross through it and circle the new answer.
5 = Strongly agree
4 = Agree
3 = Uncertain, neither agree nor disagree

100
 2 = Disagree
1 = Strongly disagree
YOUR ATTITUDES TOWARDS:
A. THE TEACHING-LEARNING CYCLE

I. MODELLING

disagreeStrongly
Strongly agree
1. What do you think about the activities in the context
exploration stage?

1 They help me realize the primary social purposes of the 5 4 3 2 1

recount genres.
2 They help me know the reasons why the writer writes 5 4 3 2 1
the recount genres.
3 They help me know the intended readers to whom the 5 4 3 2 1
writer may aim.
4 They help me explore the possible contexts of situations 5 4 3 2 1
in which the chosen recount genres may be used.
5 They help me realize that the contextual factors can 5 4 3 2 1
affect the production of the text.
6 They can activate my background knowledge such as the 5 4 3 2 1
linguistic knowledge and social knowledge.
7 They enable me to express my personal opinions or 5 4 3 2 1
attitudes towards the recount genres which I am going to
learn.
8 They are useful and necessary for me in the latter phases 5 4 3 2 1
of learning writing.
2. Do you have any other comments on the activities in the context exploration stage?
..................................................................................................................................................
..................................................................................................................................................
disagreeStrongly
Strongly agree

3. What do you think about the activities in the text

exploration stage?

1 They help me realize how the information is structured in 5 4 3 2 1

the recount genre to reach the purposes, audiences,
content and text organization.
2 I can pick up the salient language features of each of the 5 4 3 2 1
recounts thanks to the teacher’s explicit analysis of these
features.
3 I can pick up the schematic structure of each of the 5 4 3 2 1

101
 recounts thanks to the teacher’s explicit analysis of these
features.
4 They help me realize that each recount genre has 5 4 3 2 1
different writing conventional rules.
5 They help me realize that the conventional rules of 5 4 3 2 1
writing differ from culture to culture.
6 They help me realize that conforming to the 5 4 3 2 1
conventional rules of a particular recount genre is very
important when writing
7 They are useful and necessary for me in the latter phases 5 4 3 2 1
of learning writing.
4. Do you have any other comments on the activities in the modeling stage?
……………………………………………………………………………………………...
……………………………………………………………………………………………...
II. JOINT-CONSTRUCTION

disagreeStrongly
Strongly agree
1. What do you think about the activities in the joint-
construction stage?

1 They help me to apply the theories of the recount genre 5 4 3 2 1

into constructing the similar recount genre.
2 I realize that the preparatory phases such as collecting 5 4 3 2 1
information from many sources (e.g. internet,
newspapers, textbooks, my teachers and peers) are very
important for constructing a recount essay effectively.
3 They help me know “what to write” in each stage to 5 4 3 2 1
reach the social purpose, audiences, language features
and schematic structure of the required recount in “the
free writing part” thanks to the processes teacher
demonstrates the way of writing to me.
4 They help me know “how to write” in each stage to
reach the social purpose, audiences, language features
and schematic structure of the required recount in “the
free writing part” thanks to the processes teacher
demonstrates the way of writing to me.
5 They are necessary and useful for me in the 5 4 3 2 1
“independent construction of my essay”.
2. Do you have any other comments on the activities in the joint-construction stage?
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
III. INDEPENDENT CONSTRUCTION

102
 disagreeStrongly
Strongly agree
1. What do you think about the following teaching writing
techniques (i.e. writing many drafts, peer feedback, teacher’s
feedback) employed in the independent construction stage?

1 I think that writing many drafts can improve my own 5 4 3 2 1

recount essays.
2 I think that the constructive feedbacks and correction of 5 4 3 2 1
my friends towards my first drafts can help me better my
second drafts.
3 I believe that my feedbacks towards my friends’ first 5 4 3 2 1
drafts can help me review the knowledge of the recount
genres and realize my mistakes (if possible) in terms of
language features and schematic structure in my own
recount essays.
4 I feel satisfied that my teacher’s feedbacks on my final 5 4 3 2 1
drafts can help me realize whether I have fulfilled the
content of the required recount genres or not.
5 I realize that my final product is much better improved 5 4 3 2 1
after being given constructive feedbacks and corrections
by my teacher and my more competent peers.
6 I believe that these teaching writing techniques are 5 4 3 2 1
necessary and useful for learning any text-types.
2. What are your other comments about the teaching writing techniques applied in this
study?
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
3. What are your overall comments about “these three stages”?
……………………………………………………………………………………………...
……………………………………………………………………………………………...
B. THE RECOUNT GENRES AND THE TWO SUB-
RECOUNT GENRE
disagreeStrongly
Strongly agree

1. What do you think about the recount genre and the two
sub-recount genres chosen for this study?

1 The recount genre is suitable for my learning English at 5 4 3 2 1

high school.
2 The recount genre is suitable for my learning English 5 4 3 2 1
writing in the future.
3 The recount genre is suitable and interesting for me 5 4 3 2 1
personally.
4 The recount genre is suitable for my current English 5 4 3 2 1
level.
5 The recount genre is suitable for my age. 5 4 3 2 1

103
6 The personal recount genre stimulates me to learn to 5 4 3 2 1
write.
7 The biographical recount genre stimulates me to learn to 5 4 3 2 1
write.
2. What are your other opinions about the recount genres, personal recount genre and
biographical recount?
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
3. What other text-types do you think may also arouse your interests in learning writing?
What are the reasons for them?
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………………..

104
APPENDIX 2
BẢNG CÂU HỎI KHẢO SÁT VỀ THÁI ĐỘ CỦA HỌC SINH HƯỚNG ĐẾN VIỆC
SỬ DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP DỰA TRÊN THỂ LOẠI TRONG VIỆC HỌC VIẾT

Các Em học sinh thân mến!

Sau hơn hai tháng được hướng dẫn học viết theo phương pháp thể loại, bây giờ các
Em được mời hoàn tất bảng câu hỏi về ý kiến của Em đối với phương pháp này.
Cụ thể, có hai phần được hỏi lần lượt là: Ý kiến của Em đối với chu trình dạy viết
của thể loại tường thuật, ý kiến của Em đối với thể loại tường thuật, tường thuật cá nhân và
tường thuật tiểu sử.
Em vui lòng trả lời thành thật tất cả những câu hỏi dưới đây. Đối với hầu hết câu hỏi
Em chỉ việc khoanh tròn con số mà Em cho là sự lựa chọn tốt nhất. Em chú ý rằng không có
câu trả lời “đúng” hoặc “sai”, và câu trả lời của Em sẽ được giữ bí mật và chỉ được sử dụng
cho mục đích nghiên cứu mà thôi.
Cám ơn các Em rất nhiều.
Trân Trọng
TRƯƠNG PHI LUÂN

105
Hướng dẫn:

Đối với hầu hết các câu hỏi Em chỉ việc khoanh tròn con số mà em cho là sự lựa chọn tốt
nhất. Nếu muốn thay đổi Em đánh dấu chéo rồi khoanh tròn câu trả lời mới.
5 = Rất đồng ý (RĐY)
4 = Đồng ý (ĐY)
3 = Không chắc (không đồng ý cũng không phản đối) (KC)
2 = Không đồng ý (KĐY)
1 = Rất không đồng ý (RKĐY)
Ý kiến của Em về:

A. BA GIAI ĐOẠN CỦA CHU TRÌNH DẠY VIẾT

I. GIAI ĐOẠN PHÂN TÍCH BÀI LUẬN MẪU CỦA

THỂ LOẠI TƯỜNG THUẬT

RĐY

RKĐY
1. Em nghĩ gì về những hoạt động trong giai đoạn phân tích
ngữ cảnh?

1 Nhận biết được mục đích của thể loại tường thuật. 5 4 3 2 1
2 Biết được lý do tại sao tác giả viết thể loại tường 5 4 3 2 1
thuật.
3 Biết được những độc giả của thể loại tường thuật. 5 4 3 2 1
4 Nhận biết được trong những tình huống nào thể loại 5 4 3 2 1
tường thuật có thể sử dụng.
5 Nhận ra rằng bối cảnh có thể ảnh hưởng đến bài 5 4 3 2 1
viết.
6 Gợi nhớ về kiến thức ngôn ngữ và kiến thức xã hội. 5 4 3 2 1
7 Đưa ra những ý kiến của mình đối với thế loại tường 5 4 3 2 1
thuật.
8 Hữu ích và cần thiết cho tôi cho những giai đoạn sau 5 4 3 2 1
của quá trình học viết.
2. Em có bất kì những ý kiến nào khác về những hoạt động trong giai đoạn phân tích ngữ cảnh
không?
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
RĐY

RKĐY

3. Em nghĩ gì về những hoạt động trong giai đoạn phân tích

bài luận mẫu?

1 Nhận ra mục đích của bài luận thông qua ngôn ngữ 5 4 3 2 1
được sử dụng trong bài luận.
2 Học được những khía cạnh ngôn ngữ đặc trưng của 5 4 3 2 1
mỗi thể loại tường thuật nhờ quá trình giáo viên

106
 phân tích kĩ các khía cạnh ngôn ngữ được sử dụng
trong bài luận mẫu.
3 Học được bố cục đặc trưng của mỗi thể loại tường 5 4 3 2 1
thuật nhờ quá trình giáo viên phân tích kĩ bố cục
được sử dụng trong bài luận mẫu.
4 Nhận ra rằng mỗi thể loại tường thuật đều có những 5 4 3 2 1
qui ước viết khác nhau.
5 Nhận ra rằng các qui ước viết khác nhau từ nền văn 5 4 3 2 1
hóa này đến nền văn hóa khác.
6 Nhận ra rằng tuân thủ các qui ước viết của thể loại 5 4 3 2 1
tường thuật là rất quan trọng khi viết.
7 Nhìn chung giai đoạn này là hữu ích và cần thiết 5 4 3 2 1
cho tôi trong những giai đoạn sau của quá trình học
viết.
4. Em có bất kì các ý kiến nào khác về giai đoạn phân tích bài luận mẫu không?
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
II. XÂY DỰNG BÀI LUẬN DƯỚI SỰ HƯỚNG DẪN
CỦA GIÁO VIÊN

RĐY

RKĐY
1. Em nghĩ gì về những hoạt động trong giai đoạn cùng
nhau xây dựng bài viết với giáo viên?

1 Vận dụng kiến thức ngôn ngữ của thể loại tường 5 4 3 2 1
thuật (trong giai đoạn phân tích bài văn mẫu) vào
bài luận của mình.
2 Nhận ra rằng những giai đoạn chuẩn bị chẳng hạn: 5 4 3 2 1
nghiên cứu kĩ các thông tin từ nhiều nguồn như
internet, sách báo, giáo viên và những người bạn có
năng lực hơn mình là rất quan trọng để xây dựng
một bài luận hiệu quả.
3 Giúp em biết sẽ phải viết gì để đạt được mục đích, 5 4 3 2 1
bố cục và nội dung của bài luận nhờ quá trình giáo
viên chứng minh cách viết cho em.
4 Giúp em biết sẽ phải viết như thế nào để đạt được 5 4 3 2 1
mục đích, bố cục và nội dung của bài luận nhờ quá
trình giáo viên chứng minh cách viết cho em.
5 Hữu ích và cần thiết cho tôi trong giai đoạn viết độc 5 4 3 2 1
lập.
2. Em có bất kì các ý kiến nào khác về giai đoạn này không?
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
III. GIAI ĐOẠN VIẾT ĐỘC LẬP:

107
 RĐY

RKĐY
1. Em nghĩ gì về những kĩ thuật dạy viết mà được áp dụng
trong giai đoạn viết độc lập?

1 Viết nhiều bản nháp giúp tôi cải thiện bài luận của 5 4 3 2 1
mình.
2 Việc đóng góp ý kiến của bạn tôi cho bản nháp đầu 5 4 3 2 1
tiên của tôi giúp tôi viết lại bản nháp thứ hai tốt hơn.
3 Việc đóng góp ý kiến của tôi cho bài luận của bạn 5 4 3 2 1
tôi góp phần giúp tôi ôn lại kiến thức về ngôn ngữ
đối với thể loại tường thuật và nhận ra lỗi (nếu có)
trong bài luận của mình.
4 Việc sửa lỗi của giáo viên trên bản nháp của tôi giúp 5 4 3 2 1
tôi biết được bài luận của mình đã đáp ứng được nội
dung của thể loại tường thuật chưa.
5 Tôi nhận thấy rằng, hai bài luận của tôi về hai thể 5 4 3 2 1
loại tường thuật sau khi được sửa và góp ý của bạn
và giáo viên, đã hoàn thiện tốt hơn.
6 Các kĩ thuật dạy viết này rất cần thiết và hữu ích 5 4 3 2 1
trong việc học viết bất kì thể loại nào.
2. Các ý kiến khác của Em về các kĩ thuật dạy viết được áp dụng trong cuộc nghiên cứu này?
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
………………………………………………………………………………………………….

3. Các ý kiến khác của Em về ba giai đoạn này?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
B. THỂ LOẠI TƯỜNG THUẬT, TƯỜNG THUẬT CÁ
NHÂN VÀ TƯỜNG THUẬT TIỂU SỬ:
RĐY

RKĐY
1. Em nghĩ gì về thể loại tường thuật, tường thuật cá nhân
và tường thuật tiểu sử?

1 Thể loại tường thuật được chọn cho cuộc nghiên 5 4 3 2 1

cứu này phù hợp với nhu cầu học viết Tiếng Anh
của tôi ở trường.
2 Thể loại tường thuật đáp ứng được nhu cầu học viết 5 4 3 2 1
Tiếng Anh của tôi trong tương lai.
3 Thể loại tường thuật phù hợp với trình độ Tiếng Anh 5 4 3 2 1
hiện nay của tôi.
4 Thể loại tường thuật phù hợp với độ tuổi của tôi. 5 4 3 2 1
5 Thể loại tường thuật thú vị và phù hợp với cá nhân 5 4 3 2 1
tôi.
6 Thể loại tường thuật cá nhân cuốn hút tôi học viết. 5 4 3 2 1
7 Thể loại tường thuật về những nhân vật lịch sử có 5 4 3 2 1
thể cuốn hút tôi học viết.
2. Các ý kiến khác của Em về thể loại tường thuật, tường thuật cá nhân và tường thuật tiểu sử?

108
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
3. Các thể loại khác mà cũng có thể cuốn hút Em học viết là những thể loại gì? Lý do của Em
là gì?
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………....................

109
APPENDIX 3
DEFINITIONS OF TERM

An extra-curricular writing activity

In this study, an extra-curricular writing activity should be understood as an
additional writing activity which was conducted outside the students’ regular-class hours
(i.e. Outside students’ compulsory attendance hours of learning English at school).
The reason for the application of the extra-curricular writing activity in this study is
that the researcher was not able to apply it in the students’ regular-class hours. It should be
noted that, at high schools, students have to learn four skills simultaneously, namely,
listening skill, speaking skill, reading skill and writing skill. If the researcher conducted an
investigation of writing in students’ regular-class hours, he might interfere in the fixed
curriculum of the school and hence might affect the learning results of the students at school.
However, the extra-curricular activity of teaching English for students at Trị An high
school has been regularly conducted for a long time and approved by the board of Trị An
administrators. It is viewed as a chance to provide students there with additional chances to
practice more in the skills they are weak at.

110
APPENDIX 4
Unit 15 Space Conquest.
Lesson 4 Writing a biography

Task 1. Below is some information about Neil Amstrong, the first human to set foot on the
moon. Put each of the headings in the box in the appropriate blank.

Career Place of birth Date of birth

Quote Known as

Neil Amstrong
American astronaut
(1)__________ 5th August, 1939
(2) __________ Wapokoneta, Ohio
(3) __________ the first person to walk on the moon.
(4) __________ 1949-1952: pilot in United States Navy
1955: receive a B.S./ Purdue University
1962: join NASA astronaut program
20th July, 1969: become first man/ step/ Moon’s
surface
1970: receive his M.S./ University of Southern Caliornia
1971: resign/ NASA
1971-1979: teach/ University of Cincinnati
1986: appointed vice chairman/committee/investigate/space shuttle Challenge
disaster
(5) __________ “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”

Task 2: Write a biography of Neil Amstrong from the information given in task 1
Source: 11 grade textbook, page 174, published by MOET

111
APPENDIX 5
Instructional Materials: The Recount Genre: Personal Recount
A Sample Lesson Plan of Personal Recount: Modelling of Text

A. OBJECTIVES AND AIMS

At the end of this instructional phase, students will be able to:
- Know the social purposes of the personal recount
- Identify the Schematic Structure and the Language Features of this genre
- Produce the similar personal recount genre approximating to the genre being taught
B. MATERIALS
A Sample reading text (My first Trip to Greece) will be used for the modeling stage (see this
below).
C. ASSUMPTIONS
Students have already been familiar with the knowledge about the simple past tense,
descriptive adjectives and adverbs, circumstances of time, prepositional phase of time and
time connection relationship.
D. ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS
a. Students may have some difficulties understanding the organization and the language
features of the personal recounts
b. Students may have difficulties understanding the terms of the recount genre such as
Material Process (action Verbs), Relational Process (Linking/ copula verbs), Mental Process
(Mental verbs/ verbs of perceptions) and Participants.
E. SOLUTIONS
a. Teacher will show them the text features and the language features of the personal recount
by giving them the sample of the recount genre, deconstructing this text and demonstrating
the internal structure of this recount.
b. Teacher explains these terms for them in Vietnamese and gives examples to illustrate
them.
F. PROCEDURES AND CONTENTS
Teacher’s activities Students’ activities Purposes Time
Context andText exploration (Pre-
writing activities)
Grouping:
Teacher divides students into groups and
then gives them some questions relating to
the contents of the sample text “My First
trip to Greece”(see below)
Activity 1:
Please answer the following questions: - Students working
1. In your opinion, what is the purpose of in groups.
this text? - Students report
2. Where and how are the purposes made their findings.
clear in the text?
3. Where do you think you find this text?
4. In your opinion, who is the author of this - Activate students’ prior
text? background knowledge and

112
5. Can you locate the text organization function of this recount genre
(Introduction, body and conclusion)? - Guide students to the internal
6. Please some language features used in structure of the model text (text
this text. organization and language
Activity 2: features)
Give students more chances to understand
the internal structure of the text and see
how the language is structured in the text in
order to obtain the purposes of the recount
genre.
1. Who was in the story? - Students working - The same
2. Where did the writer go? in their group
When did he go? -Students report
3. Please summarize the sequence of events their findings.
in which he spent in the text?
4. How did the writer feel in each stage?
5. Students report their findings to the
teacher.
Text exploration (while-writing)
- Teacher introduces some new words used
in the text
- Teacher demonstrates the three stages and
the language features of this recount to the
learners (see below).
- Note: key language features are coded as
follow:
a. Specific participants are italicized
and in boldface.For example: I
b. Verbs in simple past are in
boldface. For example: was
c. Action verbs are in boxes. For - Students take note - Teaching students the language
example: landed the key language features and text features so that
d. Mental verbs are italicized and features and text they can know how to use the
feature taught by linguistic sources to build the text
underlined. For example: remember
teacher successfully in the latter phase of
e. Relational verbs are italicized
. writing.
and in boxes. For example: was
f. Circumstance adverbs are
underlined. For example: when the plane
landed in Athens airport
Post-writing
- Teacher reminds students of the schematic
structure and the language features of the
sample text which he has just analyzed - Homework Consolidate the knowledge about
- Teacher asks students to prepare writing the recount genre
the similar text at home “My most
memorable summer holiday” at home.

113
 Sample Readings:
My First Trip to Greece
ORIENTATION: Orients the readers to the events that follow
I didn’t know what to expect from a country like Greece. I had heard good things and bad
things about it.
The trip was a long 22 hours and I can remember hoping that it was worth the trouble to get
there.
Records of events in chronological order: Gives a sequence of events
Event 1:
When the plane landed in Athens airport we had to wait an additional 10 hours for another
domestic flight to Kos, which is the island my dad comes from. When we got to Kos all my
relatives were waiting for us. We picked up our luggage and it took us another half hour to
get to the village that my father comes from. It was the most exhausting day I ever had
[writer’s comment to the trip]. When we got to our Grandmother’s place I was very tired.
The only thing I wanted to do was to sleep .
Reaction of the writer to event 1:
It was a bit unfair because I had never seen them before. Before I knew it I was fast asleep.
Event 2:
At the crack of dawn I was awake, not because I wanted to, but the roosters were so loud
that they wouldn’t let any one sleep. That was one time that I would have liked to be in a
place that had no roosters to wake me up (writer’s reaction to event 2). After breakfast we
caught the bus to the city. I saw some shops which reminded me of Sydney. I didn’t think
that Greece was that modern. The city had a Pizza bar and many café bars. [One thing I
forgot to mention [verbal process] is that it was summer in Australia while it was winter in
Greece. In Greece not too many shops open during winter because not too many tourists go
there, that’s why most of the place is quiet.] (Writer’s comment or ideas, explanation to
event 2)
Event3:
I also went to Neapolis, which is a port city, situated on the coast road of Greece. This is
where my mother was born. I must admit that Greece is a very beautiful country [writer’s
feeling towards Greece]
REORIENTATION: Returns the readers to the point of departure
The whole trip lasted seven week almost (2 months). These seven weeks went by quickly
which prove time does fly when you ’re having fun [writer’s overall feelings towards the
events in the story].
Figure 2: A Model Text with Linguistic features and schematic structure
Source: Reading and Writing Narrative: What Can We Teach in English? Rothery, J: 281 – 289 cited in
“Reading and Writing: Theory into practice”: Makhan L Ticko: Anthology Seies 35: SEAMEO Regional
Language Center

114
APPENDIX 6
Instruction Materials: The Recount Genre: biographical Recount
Model Lesson Plan: Modeling of Text

A. OBJECTIVES AND AIMS

At the end of this instructional phase of the biographical genre, students can:
a. Know the social purpose of the biographical genre.
b. Identify the Schematic Structure and the Language Features of this genre
c. Produce the biographical genre approximating to the genre being taught
d. For the long run, students can develop the patriotic spirit due to being exposed to the
outstanding characteristics of the character in the history and, at the same time, they find no
difficulties when being asked to write a summary of a character in the history in the literature
class in their academic life of university.
B. MATERIALS
a. One sample reading material about a famous person in the history - Helen Keller (1880-
1968) – a famous blind and deaf American woman who overcame her handicap and
contributed very much to the improvement of education and the life for the handicapped.
C. ASSUMPTIONS
Students are already familiar with the knowledge about the past tense of verbs, descriptive
adjectives and adverbs, action verbs, mental verbs and relational verbs, reported clause,
circumstances of time and of location, etc.
D. ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS
1. Students may have some problems understanding the historical terms, and the new words
about history.
2. Students may have difficulties organizing the recount in schematic structure and finding
out the appropriate language features.
E. SOLUTIONS
1. Teacher/ researcher provides students with the new words relating to this genre
2. Teacher introduces the sample of biographical genre; demonstrating the steps of this genre
and its language features.
F. PROCEDURES AND CONTENTS
TEACHER’S ACTIVITIES STUDENTS’ purposes
ACTIVITIES
Context andText exploration (Pre-
writing activities)
Grouping:
Teacher divides students into groups and
then gives them some questions relating to
the contents of the sample text “Helen
Keller”(see below)
Please answer the following questions
Activity 1:
1. What is the purpose of the writer writing - Students working in
this recount? group
2. Where and how is this purpose made - Students report their - Activate students’ background
clear in this essay? finding knowledge and function of this recount

115
3. Can you tell me about the timeframe in genre
the life of Helen Keller in order? - Guide students to the internal
4. Can you pick out some language structure of the model text (text
features used in this text? organization and language features)
Text exploration (while-writing)
- Teacher introduces some new words used
in the text
- Teacher demonstrates the three stages and - The same
the language features of this recount to the
learners (see below).
- Teacher introduces some new words used
in this text.
- Teacher shows the students the text
features and the language features of this
sample text.
Note: key language features are coded as
follow:
g. Specific participants and [maybe
generalized participants] are italicized and - Students take note the - Teaching students the language
in boldface. For Example: Helen Keller key language features features and text feature so that they
h. Verbs in simple past are in and text features taught can know how to use the linguistic
boldface. For example: was by teacher sources to build the text successfully in
i. Action verbs are in boxes: took the latter phases of writing.
j. Mental verbs are italicized and
underlined. For example: was
remembered
k. Relational verbs are italicized
and in boxes. For example: became
l. Circumstance adverbs are
underlined. For example: In 1886, at the
age of six
m. Athens airport
Text exploration (Post-writing)
- Teacher reminds students of the
schematic structure and the language
features of the sample text which he has
just analyzed - Homework - Consolidate the knowledge about the
- Teacher asks students to prepare writing recount genre
the similar text at home “Mother Teresa
Calcutta’s biography”

116
 Sample reading: Helen Keller (1880-1968)

ORIENTATION: Name of person and why he or she was famous.

Helen Keller was a famous American woman. Although she was blind, deaf and mute, she
could overcome her handicap, went to university and became a prominent author and
lecturer. She was best remembered for the fighting for improvement in the education and
the life of the physically handicapped.
SEQUENCE OF EVENTS
Event 1
Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880 in the state of Alabama, America. Her parents
were Captain Arthur H. Keller and Katherine Adams Keller. Helen was born a normal
child. However, when she reached nineteen months, she was caught by a terrible
childhood fever. As a result, she was left blind and deaf.
Event 2
In 1886, at the age of six, Helen was taken by her parents to see Dr. Alexander Graham
Bell to find some ways of helping her. When meeting Helen, Bell suggested that they
should send her to the Perkins Institute for the blind in Boston, Massachusetts. So in
March, 1887, Helen’s parents took her there. As a result of the visit, Helen met her first
and lasting teacher Anne Sullivan. It was Anne Sullivan, who changed her life completely
by opening the door of the whole new world of learning to her; helping her break through
the world of silence.
Under Annie’s instruction, Helen could learn the sign language by touching and [empty
subject: Helen] used the Braille system to read. She also learnt to write by using a special
typewriter. Helen was a quick learner, hence only three years later, in 1890, she could read
and write perfectly. During that time, Annie Sullivan always stayed by her side day and
night, patiently instructed and encouraged her not to give up. Thanks to Annie’s endless
effort, Helen could overcome her destiny to educate herself. Therefore, Helen always
regarded Annie as her greatest teacher. It was also Annie who always accompanied with
her in the later phase of her life around the world to lecture and helped the handicapped.
They were close friends and companions for 49 years.
Event 3
Around the years 1894 and 1896, Helen attended the Wright – Humason School for the
deaf. Here she continued to work on improving her communication as well as her math,
French, German, and geography. In this way, Helen prepared herself for college and went
on to Cambridge school for young ladies. Her beloved and patient teacher Annie Sullivan
always stayed with her through those years, interpreting the lectures, class discussion, and
books for her because they were not in Braille.
Event 4
In 1900 when she was sixteen; Keller passed the admissions examination for Radcliffe
College and four years later, in 1904, she graduated with honors (Cum laude). This was
done with the assistance of Sullivan interpreting lectures and the texts.
Event 5
After university, she together with Annie Sullivan lectured throughout the world, and
appeared in many international conferences to appeal to people to sponsor the finance to

117
help the blind and the deaf. With the burning determination and devotion to humanity
inside, she and Annie also visited hospitals and helped the blind soldiers, consoled them
and encouraged them not to give up the hope to lead a meaningful, rich, productive and
beautiful life for others and for themselves. Totally, she lectured more than twenty five
countries on all major continents. Wherever she appeared, she brought new courage to
millions of blind people.
Event 6
She died in June, 1968 in Connecticut.
REORIENTATION: Overall contribution to history/science and society and the feeling of
writer toward this character.
Helen Keller will be always remembered as an exceptional person who overcame her
blindness and deafness to achieve great things. As she always said [verbal process] “The
best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be
felt within the heart” [reported clause].
Figure 3. A Model biographical recount with linguistic features and schematic structure.
Source: Composed by the researcher based on the New Advanced English Tenth Text book published by MOET,
2006: 23.

118
APPENDIX 7
EXPLANATIONS OF SOME JARGONS USED IN THIS STUDY
Extracted from An introduction to Functional grammar (Halliday, 1994)

1. Participants: They are nominal groups or nominalization and typically occur next before
or next after the verbal groups. E.g. Mary (participant) is a teacher (participant), I
(participant) bought a book (participant).
2. Process: it is a kind of verb which expresses “the happening, doing, being, saying or
thinking” of the subject.
 Material process: It is the process of doing: an action and an event such as kicking,
beating, running, walking. Related to the process itself, there may be two or even three
participants.
- When a process has one participant, this role is referred to as Actor (one that perform an
action). E.g. He (actor) was coming (material).
- When it has two participants, these roles are referred to as Actor and Goal. E.g. The boy
(Actor) hit (material) the dog (Goal).
- When it has three participants, these roles are referred to as Actor, Goal and Receiver.
E.g. He (actor) gave (material) a bunch of flowers (goal) to her (receiver).
Note: The representation of a material process can come in either the active form (e.g. I kick
the ball) or the passive form (e.g. the ball was kicked by me).
 Mental Process: It is the process of sensing such as thinking, loving, wanting,
hoping. It consists of four subtypes: Cognitive (thinking, knowing,realizing), perceptive
(hearing, sensing, feeling), affective (loving, hating, adoring, pampering) and desiderative
(wanting, desiring, wishing). In a mental process, there are two participants referred to as
Sensor (one who senses, feels, thinks, wants) and Phenomenon (one that is sensed, felt,
thought or wanted).e.g. the boy (sensor) loves (mental) the girl (phenomenon)
 Relational Process: It is the process of being or possessing.
Example: she (Carrier) is (relational) good (attributive)/ she (carrier) is (relational) a good
teacher (attributive)
She (possessor) has (relational) a big house (identifying or possessed)

119
3. Circumstances: They can occur with all process types. They are served as providing more
information for the participants and processes. They answer for the questions such as when,
where, why, how, how many. Below are some types of circumstances:
- Indicating time order: at first, at the beginning, but later, later on, after that,
first/then/next/at last, finally.
- Prepositional phrases of time: on May 19, 1890.
- Adverbial clauses of time with time markers such as: when, while, meanwhile, before, after,
at the same time, previously, once upon a time etc.
- Additional conjuctions: Moreover, in addition, and, besides, furthermore, etc.
- Adverbs of consequences or results: As a result, the result of that is, consequently, after all,
in conclusion, therefore, hence, so, due to, because of, as, since, etc.
- Adverbs of concession: However, yet, but, although, despite, in spite of, etc.
- Adverbs of manner: in this way, slowly,endlessly, in a careful manner, etc.
- Adverbs of location (place): in his room, at the university, etc.
4. Appraisal: It is concerned with evaluation: The kind of attitudes that are negotiated in a
text, the strength of the feelings involved and the ways in which the values are sourced and
readers aligned (Martin & Rose, 2003). As appraisal involves with attitudes, it employs a
variety of adjectives (i.e. positive, negative, direct, indirect) in order to express the attitudes
of the characters involved.

120
APPENDIX 8.1
Students’ gaining control over the features of Personal recount essays

Schematic structure Language features

past
Social sequences tense circumstantial
re- main process of adverbs
Essays purposes orientation of events orientation participants types verbs of time
1        
2        
3        
4        
5        
6        
7        
8        
9        
10        
11        
12        
13        
14        
15        
16        
17        
18        
19        
20        
21        
22        
23        
24        
25        
26        
27        
28        
29        
30        
31        
32        
33        
34        
35        
36        

121
37        
38        
39        
40        
41        
42        
43        
44        
45        
Total 45 / 45 45 / 45 45 / 45 45 / 45 45 / 45 45 / 45 45 / 45 45 / 45

APPENDIX 8.2

122
 Detailed analyses of linguistic and structural features in students’ personal recount
essays (the number indicated the number of language features found in students’ essays)

Schematic structure Language features

past
tense circumstan
Social sequences re- main process of adverbs
Essays purposes orientation of events orientation participants types verbs of time
Gain knowledge
about Hue
people and
culture, hope to Material:
To retell about the Background 4 events visit Hue again 31, mental:
writer’s trip to Hue information: who sequenced by in the near The writer 7,
1 ancient Citadel what,where,when adverbs of time future himself relational: 3 16 2
To retell about an
interesting morning Material:
occurring to the Background 4 events 23,
writer when he was information: who sequenced by Discover a new The writer relational:
2 young what,where,when adverbs of time thing in his life himself 7, mental: 5 19 3
Give her
Background personal Material:
To retell about the information: Who, 2 events comments about The writer herself 24,
writer’s first day at what, when and sequenced by the special day and her relational:
3 school where adverbs of time in her life classmates 8., mental: 3 16 5
To retell about Background Round off the Material:
writer’s trip with his information: Who, 5 events trip with his 24,
classmates to Da Lat what, when and sequenced by overall feelings The writer and his relational:
4 city where adverbs of time towards the trip classmates 8., mental: 3 23 6
To retell about Background Round off the Material:
writer’s trip to Hon information: Who, 4 events text with his 32, mental:
Tre island located in what, when and sequenced by personal The writer and 5,
5 Nha Trang province where adverbs of time opinions his family relational: 5 39 4
Learn a new Material:
To retell about Background lesson: dare to The writer 26, mental:
writer’s first life information: Who, 4 events speak up what himself, his 5,
argument with his what, when and equenced by he considered to classmates and relational:
6 teacher six years ago where adverbs of time be right his teacher 12 19 4
To retell about Learn a golden Material:
writer’s shameful Background lesson: always 19, Mental:
experience in his information: Who, 4 events be well- 4,
gymnastic class six what, when and sequenced by prepared for any The writer relational:
7 years ago where adverbs of time exams himself 13 16 2
To retell about
writer’s trip with his Material:
family to the Cua Lo Background His 19, mental:
beach located in information: Who, 4 events unforgettable 4,
Vinh city, Nghe An what, when and sequenced by memories The writer and his relational:
8 province where adverbs of time towards that trip parents 17 38 4
Learn a golden
To retell about lesson: Never Material:
writer’s motorcycle Background entrust the 39, Mental:
accident caused by information: Who, 3 events motorcycle for 1,
her 14 year-old what, when and sequenced by those who The writer and Relational:
9 cousin 2 years ago where adverbs of time cannot drive her cousin 7 32 3
To retell about
writer’s camping trip
with some of her Background Material:
friends to a forest information: Who, 3 events Leave a lot of 25, mental:
near her what, when and sequenced by sweet memories The writer and 1,
10 neighborhood where adverbs of time on her her classmates relational: 7 22 3
Material:
Background 26, mental:
information: Who, 4 events Learn a precious 9,
To retell about what, when and sequenced by experience in relational:
11 writer’s childhood where adverbs of time her life The writer herself 22 30 3
Material:
Background An 26, mental:
To retell about information: Who, 2 events unforgettable 3,
writer’s first day at what, when and sequenced by memories left relational:
12 school where adverbs of time on her The writer herself 10 33 3

123
 To retell about Material:
writer’s wonderful Background 25, mental: 33
4
trip to Mui Ne beach information: Who, 3 events Her personal 3,
with her class what, when and sequenced by feelings towards The writer and relational:
13 where adverbs of time the whole trip her class 16 29 6
To retell about Her personal Material:
writer’s first visit to Background feelings towards 25, mental:
Quang Ngai information: Who, 3 events the whole 3,
province where her what, when and sequenced by events in the relational:
14 parents were born where adverbs of time trip The writer herself 16 29 5
Material:
Background His personal 26, mental:
To retell about information: Who, 3 events feelings towards 4,
writer’s trip to Vung what, when and sequenced by the whole The writer and his relational:
15 Tau beach where adverbs of time events classmates 13 29 6
Material:
Writer’s Background 29, mental:
unforgettable trip to information: Who, 5 events Friendship was The writer 7,
Vung Tau with his what, when and sequenced by reinforced after himself and his relational:
16 friend last summer where adverbs of time a trip classmates 13 27 7
Her
Writer’s Background unforgettable Material: 20
unforgettable trip information: Who, 2 events memories Mental: 4
with her parents to what, when and sequenced by towards the The writer and Relational:
17 Da Nang city where adverbs of time beautiful city her parents 8 27 5
Background Express his Material:
Writer’s information: Who, 3 events overall feeling 23, mental:
unforgettable trip to what, when and sequenced by the towards the The writer 3,
18 his uncle’s farm where adverbs of time whole events himself relational: 6 25 6
Background 4 events Material:
Writer’s information: Who, sequenced by Her overall 28, mental:
unforgettable trip to what, when and the adverbs of feelings towards The writer, her 3,
19 Vung Tau beach where time the whole trip friends relational: 7 26 6
Retell about writer’s Background His overall Material:
wonderful trip with information: Who, 2 events feelings towards 25, mental:
his friends to Vung what, when and sequenced by the trip as well The writer and his 4,
20 Tau beach where adverbs of time as his friends friends. relational: 6 27 7
Material:
Background 37, mental:
To retell about information: Who, 5 events Her overall 5,
writer’s trip to Da what, when and sequenced by feelings towards The writer and relational:
21 Lat city where adverbs of time the trip her classmates 15 35 9
Her overall
feelings about
this beautiful Material:
Background city as well as 37, mental:
To retell about her information: Who, 5 events her wishes to 5,
trip to Nha Trang what, when and sequenced by visit it again in The writer and relational:
22 city where adverbs of time the future her family 13 35 11
His overall Material:
Background feeling towards 37, mental:
information: Who, 5 events the whole 5,
To retell about his what, when and sequenced by events in the The writer and his relational:
23 trip to Da Lat city where adverbs of time trip classmates 11 36 8
A lesson picked Material:
Background up after an 27, mental:
To retell about her information: Who, 3 events incident: never 2,
most shameful what, when and sequenced by judge people relational:
24 experience where adverbs of time hastily. The writer herself 10 32 5
People,
To retell about his Background landscapes left Material:
unforgettable trip to information: Who, 4 events unforgettable 15, mental:
Daklak, a city what, when and sequenced by impressions on 2,
25 located in a highland where adverbs of time the writer The writer hinsefl relational: 8 23 7
Learn a good
To retell about one lesson: how to Material:
of the most Background build up a 30, mental:
embarrassing information: Who, 5 events relationship and 5,
experience in what, when and sequenced by how to learn The writer relational:
26 writer’s life where adverbs of time from friends herself 10 35 12
Children are Material:
To retell about Background easily 25, Mental:
writer’s scary information: Who, 3 events influenced by 3,
childhood what, when and sequenced by adult’s making- The writer Relational:
27 experience where adverbs of time believe himself 6 29 7
Material:
Background 25, Mental:
A recount about the information: Who, 3 events Her nice 3,
writer’s wonderful what, when and sequenced by memory The writer and his Relational:
28 trip to Mui Ne beach where adverbs of time towards the trip friends 6 30 6

124
 A good lesson Material:
To retell about the Background picked up from 20, Mental:
writer’s trip to Nam information: Who, 2 events the tour: love 3,
Cat Tien national what, when and sequenced by the nature and The writer and his Relational:
29 park where adverbs of time wildlife more friend 6 23 4
Material:
Background Learn a good 24, Mental:
information: Who, 3 events lesson: always 3,
To retell about the what, when and sequenced by value one’s Relational:
30 writer’s childhood where adverbs of time beloved people The writer 10 20 4
Broaden her
knowledge
about Dalat city, Material:
Background people and 25, Mental:
To retell about the information: Who, 3 events landscape, hope 4,
writer’s first trip to what, when and sequenced by to visit it again The writer and Relational:
31 Dalat city where adverbs of time soon her friend 6 27 7
Material:
To retell about the Background A lot of fun and 20, Mental:
writer’s trip to Vung information: Who, 3 events sweet memories 2,
Tau beach last what, when and sequenced by picked up from The writer and Relational:
32 summer where adverbs of time the trip her classmates 7 20 7
Material:
Background 30, Mental:
To retell about the information: Who, 5 events The wonderful 3,
writer’s trip to Mui what, when and sequenced by time spent with The writer and Relational:
33 Ne beach where adverbs of time the friends her classmates 6 29 6
Material:
To retell about the Background 25, Mental:
writer’s trip with his information: Who, 3 events Express overall 3,
family to Nha Trang what, when and sequenced by feelings towards The writer and Relational:
34 beach where adverbs of time the whole trip her classmates 6 20 6
Material:
To retell about the Background Express his 30, Mental:
writer’s trip with his information: Who, 4 events overall feelings 3,
family to Nha Trang what, when and sequenced by towards the The writer and his Relational:
35 beach where adverbs of time whole trip family 6 25 7
Material:
To retell about the Background Express his 30, Mental:
writer’s trip with his information: Who, 5 events overall feelings 3,
family to Vung Tau what, when and sequenced by towards the The writer and his Relational:
36 beach where adverbs of time whole trip family 6 30 8
Material:
To retell about the Background 30, Mental:
writer’s trip with his information: Who, 4 events Express overall 3,
classmates to Nha what, when and sequenced by feelings towards The writer and his Relational:
37 Trang beach where adverbs of time the whole trip classmates 6 27 8
Material:
To retell about the Background 30, Mental:
writer’s trip with his information: Who, 4 events Express overall 3,
family to Nha Trang what, when and sequenced by feelings towards The writer and his Relational:
38 beach where adverbs of time the whole trip familly 6 28 7
Material:
To retell about the Background 30, Mental:
writer’s trip with his information: Who, 4 events Express overall 3,
family to Nha Trang what, when and sequenced by feelings towards The writer and his Relational:
39 beach where adverbs of time the whole trip familly 6 28 7
Material:
To retell about the Background 30, Mental:
writer’s trip with his information: Who, 5 events Express overall 3,
family to Vung Tau what, when and sequenced by feelings towards The writer and his Relational:
40 beach where adverbs of time the whole trip familly 6 30 7
Background Material:
information: Who, 5 events Learn a precious 30, Mental:
To retell about the what, when and sequenced by experience after 3,
41 writer’s childhood where adverbs of time an incident The writer Relational: 32 8
Background Material:
information: Who, 4 events Learn a precious 30, Mental:
To retell about the what, when and sequenced by experience after 3,
42 writer’s childhood where adverbs of time an incident The writer Relational: 27 6
Background Material:
information: Who, 4 events Learn a precious 30, Mental:
To retell about the what, when and sequenced by experience after 3,
43 writer’s childhood where adverbs of time an incident The writer Relational: 30 7
Background Material:
information: Who, 3 events Learn a precious 30, Mental:
To retell about the what, when and sequenced by experience in 3,
44 writer’s childhood where adverbs of time her life The writer Relational: 24 5
45 To retell about the Background 4 events Learn a precious The writer Material: 29 6
writer’s childhood information: Who, sequenced by experience after 30,

125
 what, when and Mental:3,
where adverbs of time an incident Relational: 6

APPENDIX 9.1
Students’ gaining control over the features of biographical recount essays

126
 Schematic structure Language features
Social circumstantia
l
purpose orientat sequences re- main process past tense adverbs
Essay s ion of events orientation participants types of verbs of time
1        
2        
3        
4        
5        
6        
7        
8        
9        
10        
11        
12        
13        
14        
15        
16        
17        
18        
19        
20        
21        
22        
23        
24        
25        
26        
27        
28        
29        
30        
Total 30 / 30 30 / 30 30 / 30 30 / 30 30/ 30 30 / 30 30 / 30 30 / 30

APPENDIX 9.2

127
 Detailed analyses of linguistic and structural features in students’ Biographical recount
essays (the number indicated the number of language features found in students’ essays)

Schematic structure Language features

circumsta
main past ntial
Social orientatio sequences particip process tense adverbs
Essay purposes n of events re-orientation ants types of verbs of time
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
5 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
1 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 24 16
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
4 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 33,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
2 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 8, mental: 6 24 15
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
5 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
3 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 24 16
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
4 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
4 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 13
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
5 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
5 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 9, mental: 6 26 16
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
4 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
6 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 15
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
4 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
7 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 14
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
4 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
8 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 23 13
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
4 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 35,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
9 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 8, mental: 4 23 12
10 Give an account of Introduce 4 events Give an overall Uncle Ho Material: 24 16
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and sequenced or contribution of Uncle 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he by adverbs of Ho to Vietnamese Relational:

128
 people and people in
the world; the
time or set in writer’s feeling
people was famous time towards him 7, mental: 6
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
4 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
11 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 23 15
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
4 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
12 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 22 14
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
4 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
13 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 22 13
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
4 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
14 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 22 12
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
5 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
15 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 26 16
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
4 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
16 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 24 15
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
4 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
17 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 25 14
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
4 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
18 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 21 11
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
4 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
19 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 26 16
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
4 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
20 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 23 13
21 Give an account of Introduce 4 events Give an overall Uncle Ho Material: 23 14
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and sequenced or contribution of Uncle 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he by adverbs of Ho to Vietnamese Relational:
people was famous time or set in people and people in 7, mental: 6
time the world; the
writer’s feeling

129
 towards him
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
4 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
22 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 26 16
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
4 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
23 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 22 11
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
4 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
24 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 22 12
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
4 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
25 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 22 13
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
5 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
26 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 26 16
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
4 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 31,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
27 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 4 22 13
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
4 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 32,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
28 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 8, mental: 6 25 15
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
4 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
29 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 24 14
Give an overall
contribution of Uncle
5 events Ho to Vietnamese
Give an account of Introduce sequenced or people and people in Material:
Uncle Ho- A great Uncle Ho and by adverbs of the world; the 34,
father of Vietnamese reasons why he time or set in writer’s feeling Relational:
30 people was famous time towards him Uncle Ho 7, mental: 6 24 16

130
131