How can I improve my students'

writing ability
How can I improve my students' writing ability?
MaYangui,
Hui Zhong, Haiyuan. April, 2006

The Hui Zhong is now a senior school with over 100

teachers and more than 2000 students from
different nationalities. It lies in the south of
Haiyuan town of Haiyuan county next to the city of
Guyuan, Ningxia Province in China. But it used to
be a small junior school, set up in 1980 by the
government for Muslim children to be educated
well in Haiyuan county where more than one
hundred and ten thousand Muslim people lived.
The aim was to increase the development of the Hui
nationality's culture in this area, in order to improve
the home, social, and moral environments of Hui
people. Short as the Hui Zhong's history is, it has
educated thousands of graduates, of whom some are
outstanding such as Tian Fengjun (director of the
English Department of Guyuan Teachers College and soon to be Ningxia Teachers University ), Tian
Yuming (Shi Shuqing is his pen name, a famous
novelist of such works as "Bitter Spring in mind ",
and "The Knife Dipped in Pure Water"). Some
graduates are at work in various fields in China. I
am also a graduate of this school and I have the job
of teaching here. I liked the thought of the job when

I was in senior grade, so after graduating from the

English Department of GTC, I've been working on
teaching in our county for nearly 20 years and have
tried to keep up with the latest methods of teaching
to improve my students' English studying ability.
With the current changes for example, the
innovation of a New Curriculum - it is now very
important for the students to develop their abilities,
so I think I should find a way to help them learn
English well. Professor Moira Laidlaw came and
introduced us to Action Research.

My students in Senior Grade One come from

different Junior schools in our county and their
essential English levels differ. When I started with
them, half of them could not even write out an
entire English sentence. Moreover, it was my duty
to be their English teacher for three years, so I
wanted to help them improve their English,
especially when in three years' time they would
need to have a good score in the English
examination for college-entry in China. Some time
ago Professor Moira Laidlaw visited our school, and
over time introduced Action Research to some of
the teachers in the English department. I believed
this constitute my best chance to improve my
students' fundamental English level so I chose the
topic, 'How can I improve my students' English
writing ability?' as my Action Research?

After several quizzes about students' writing during

the first term in Senior Grade One, I found that half
of my students' English writing was very poor, and
although they had learnt lots of English words and
phrases, they were not able to use them to make a
correct sentence. The following from their exercise
books are typical of their mistakes:

in Class 6 Grade One this year.

I father is a farmer.

I'm usually get up at 6:00 in the morning.

She have gone to Guiling twice.

My classroom has seventy students.

Because of this worrying level of performance, I

decided to talk to some of my students so that I
could find out about their English studying and
learning methods. Their names are Feng Xingang,
Zhou Penglong and Li Xiaohui. The following
represents our conversation in which I had
prepared my questions beforehand (I made notes
about their answers):

T: Do you like learning English?

Ss: (mentioned above): Yes

T: Do you think English is very interesting or not?
They (all): very interesting
T: How do you think of learning English and why?
(Li): very interesting but difficult to learn. Because
it is a foreign language for us.
(Feng): I like learning English very much, but I have
difficulty in learning it.
Especially in writing ability. Perhaps I need some
help.
(Zhou): I enjoy learning English, and know that
learning English well will be very
useful to me in the future.
T: What was wrong?
(Li): I started learning it in Junior school in the
countryside, at the beginning I found it very
interesting to learn English, but later I couldn't
remember the English words and often made
mistakes in any quiz. Then I spent less time in
learning it .(translated by me)
(Feng): I always like learning English and want to
learn it well, but each time we had an exam, I
always found many errors in it, this gave me a great
shock. I couldn't find the reason out.

(Zhou): I thought I could learn English well,

however desire is one thing, doing is another one.
Meanwhile I spent much time and energy learning it
but usually was afraid of taking any English
activities in class in case of making mistakes and
being laughed by the other classmates, little by little
I was lack of practicing it and failed English quiz or
exam each time, especially in writing ability. Thus I
lost my heart and confidence. (Translated in my
words)

T: Well, which part of learning English do you think

is the most difficult--- listening, speaking, reading
or writing?
All: Writing
T: Why?
(Li): First I always cannot remember English words'
spelling. Second I don't know how to use English
words to make sentences correctly. I only got lower
mark in writing in each exam.
(Zhou): I think I have learnt lots of English words
and phrases, but I don't know how to use them
correctly in a sentence and I failed in each quiz or
exam because of failure in writing.
(Feng): I think the most difficult part in learning
English is the writing ability. I always fail in
organizing an English sentence and never have got

high score in English exams.

(Then)
T: Would you like to improve your English writing
ability with your English teacher's help?
All): Yes (excited) Li: I'm so glad to hear that. Zhou:
It's lucky to have your help, thanks a lot. Feng: I'll
give all my thanks to you if I can make any progress.

According to our talk, I didn't believe my students

really lost heart in learning English, they actually
wanted to learn English and only needed help and
encouragement. So in order to help them improve
their English writing ability, I made an action plan
first:

*
To help them set up their learning
confidence and overcome fear of English and their
learning-difficulties.
*
To encourage them to face all kinds of
challenges in learning English.
*
To help them distinguish English from
mother tongue-Chinese, such as 2005,12,30.in
Chinese, and December 30th, 2005 in English; Tom
Smith in English and Li Xiaoping in Chinese; I'm in
Senior Grade One this year in English and I in
Senior Grade One in Chi-English; and so on.

*
To encourage them to take an active part in
English lessons.
*
To help them find out some easy,
interesting and funny short-story books to read,
repeat and so on;
*
The teacher should have great patience
during the entire period and carefully observe every
student's changes. This is the most important first
step for these students. Because we know the
proverb that is well begun, half done.

What did I do to improve it?

While giving lessons to the whole class, or
correcting my students' exercise-books, I sometimes
kept an eye on these students in class or after class
to find out their advantages, generally by asking
them easy and simple questions in class and over
time praising them, which seemed to make them
happy and feel satisfied.

Here is an example. Once my students and I came

to learn a reading part with a few pictures, I first
asked them what they could see and whether they
could say anything about the pictures. When he or
she was able to give the answer, the others and I
would clap for his or her doing, he or she looked
very happy and satisfied. Their eyes were shining

with delight. Because I didn't know whether Action

Research could help my students improve their
English or not. I only wanted to have a try. This
seemed to lead to them doing better the next time in
class as well as in their exercise-books. If they did
well, I would often write down phrase like: 'You did
well. Go on, please'. 'Congratulations!' 'Well done,
please, go on.' 'Next time, better,' etc. For instance:

Ma Yulian's English handwriting was very neat in

her exercise-book, I gave my praise "Your
handwriting is very neat and tidy. I think you can
do better from now on ."

In Tian Shiliang's exercise-book, he wrote the

following sentences: I heard some people had
been killing the rare animals. We should
remember that protecting animals is our duty.
Below his writing I wrote : you did very well in your
writing , and I'm looking forward to your further
progress.

After each class or each work-book marking, I and

the students usually had a talk about the class or
work-book and discussed how they could do even
better. When they came across a problem, I first
asked them to talk about their opinions, asking
them such questions as:


Or

'What do you think about what you've done?

'Why did you do so?'

Then I let them have a discussion. If they could

solve the questions posed, I only gave my opinions
about the problem(s). Getting the students to
evaluate themselves is very much in accordance
with the New Curriculum's principle:

'Teachers should find multiple forms of assessment

in order to help their students' development.' (VSO,
2004).

By getting students to take more

responsibility for their learning, I wanted to
help them learn more effectively. Day after
day, they seemed to find our communication
easier and they said I was kind. Some of
them even dared talk to me in English. At
first we just talked, no matter whether their
use of language was right or wrong. For
example, students would introduce
themselves spontaneously.

Feng Xingang: My name's Feng Xingang, I

in Senior Grade One. We have seventy
students in my class. We study Chinese,
Mathematics, English, Politics, Physics,
Chemistry and so on.

Zhou Penglong: I'm Zhou Penglong. I'm from a

part of Haiyuan. I like very much to learn English.
But I know my English is poor, and always make
mistakes. I don't know how I to learn it and can
make progress.

Gradually, however, I found their mistakes

became fewer and fewer, which made me so
comfortable and happy. It seemed a good
start, so I realized I should go on with this
method. Then I started telling them simple
and interesting stories, while asking them to
repeat them, with the same results as above.
For example, I wrote four English words on
the blackboard and asked the class to work
in groups of four to tell a story, after their
discussing and organizing about the story. I
asked some groups to tell their stories with
their colleagues and they did very well.

For example I wrote "television, blackboard,

desk, he" on the blackboard.

Then I asked the students into groups of four

and they tried their best to make a story with
the words. Here was one of the group's
efforts. The four students were Zhou haiyan,
Ma Yuexia, Ma Yulian and Tian Jingrong.

Tian Jingrong: in a corner of the classroom

stands a TV set .
Ma Yuexia: There is a blackboard on the
wall.
Ma Yulian: He is at the desk and watching
TV.
Zhou (leader of the group): In a corner of
the classroom stands a TV set , and on the
right of it there is a blackboard on the wall.
He, a newcomer named Tian Jingrong, is
sitting at his desk and watching TV.

Then I asked them to write down what they

had heard and retell it to the other students
in class. Having done this for about two
months, I found these students made much
progress and liked having English lessons
for that they had chances to perform in
classes and showed their abilities which
were not weaker than the others, Ma Yuexia
often took her diary to me to have a

correction. The same as the other students

such as Liu Yanqing, Caoshan, Ha Yuting, Su
Haiying, and so on. They were willing to ask
me to give an attention to their written
passages and give my comments to theirs.
Here was the composition from Feng
Xinggang:

What will life be like without animals?

We all know that animals are our friends,
especially protecting animals will make the world
more beautiful.
These few days, we heard some people killed
animals and even ate them, due to some people
didn't realize that protecting animals is very
important.
Protecting animals is the public's job. We ought to
make the people learn about it and protecting our
living earth.

These students gained confidence and interest in

learning English. They spent time in reading in the
morning self-classes; they became more active in
English lessons than before, and wanted to get more
chanced to perform than the others; They came to
my office more often to have a talk with me about
learning English after classes, and some of my

students even began to talk with me in English, at

the beginning, they felt very nervous. However, they
had encouragement to do it, and later they could
speak smoothly, for example, the student named
Xieqing in Class 6. Her English pronunciation was
very standardized and read English very frequently,
but her English writing ability was so poor that she
couldn't write out a good passage in English. So
after four-word story, she found it very useful and
helpful to write an English passage, and came to my
office with a smile on her face, obviously excited
and told me that she had found the way to learn
English well, and she made a decision that she
would study English harder than before. Every
morning she read English for fifteen minutes and in
English classes she took an active part in answering
the questions the teacher offered and discussing the
questions with her group-mates. She also finished
her exercise-books and homework by herself. Once
she met some difficulties, she came to my office and
had a talk with me about her opinion of the
problem. She paid more attention to what the
teacher said in class and made detail notes, then in
her spare time she often would go over her notes in
order to grasp every knowledge point. As time went
on, she got a high score of 19 in the writing part in
an English exam. Here were a paragraph from her
writing composition:

You asked my that how to learn English well. I

think English is a living language. It is widely used
all over the world. More and more people begin to

learn English in order to be able to use it freely at

work and learn from developed countries.

The following gives us a comparative illustration of

this progress about other students:

Before: the following from the students:

Our classroom have 70 students. (Luo Yupeng)
I have joined the league member for three years.
(Luo Yupeng)
I do my homework until 10:00 last night. (Su
Haiying)
We class have a meeting in this afternoon.(Li
Shuqing)
When he climbing up the hill, he was out of breath.
(Su Haiying)

After our work together:

There are seventy students in our classroom. (Luo
Yupeng)
I have been a league member for three years. (Luo
Yupeng)

I didn't do my homework until 10:00 last night. (Su

Haiying)
Our class will (is going to) have a meeting this
afternoon.(Xieqing)
When climbing up the hill, he was out of breath. (Li
Shuqing)

Here I have to say that more and more students

willingly began to practise writing diaries and
handed in to correct them. And some even wrote
English short articles, and asked me to read them,
right them. O.K, let's have a short example from
other students.
The one from Ha Yuting:
I did a survey about our school uniform. I asked
some of my classmates what they thought about the
uniform. Here is the main report about it.
50% of them say it is very fashionable and the
colour is very nice. They think it neat and tidy, and
suits the students. In some student's opinion, when
they wear the school uniform they feel equal.
30% of them don't fond of the school uniform.
Some of them feel it uncomfortable and the colour
is too dull. Some even consider it old-fashioned.
What's more, its style is too simple, lacking
personality.

And the rest has no idea about it. Obey the school
rule is the only best choice in their eyes. I think it
better to have the school uniform, and we needn't
follow the fashion.
Although these students were making progress, I
still found they needed my help, because I found
they were still unable to organize an English
sentence in the right structure, especially in terms
of placing the words in the right place. So I
encouraged them to make a diary in English. At the
beginning, I asked them to write down a sentence
about any news or interesting information they had
found on any particular day. After a few entries I
asked them to exchange their books and correct the
others' mistakes. This had the result of showing that
most of the poor-writing students did catch up with
the well-writing students.

Here is one of their efforts written by Feng

Xinggang:

Saturdays are Cool

Our students had a good afternoon today, so did I.
Because we were taking our weekend's rest
without having any classes. Some students played
on the playground, such as basketball, football,
PingPang, tennis, volleyball. Some played games,
some did washing, I liked playing basketball, so I

was active in a basketball match with my

schoolmates. I ran, blocked my duty-opponent
from shooting a ball into the basket of ours in the
match, or I would be punished out of the match, we
played attentively and relaxingly.

After supper, I paid a look at the TV news and

finished doing my homework, then I went back to
the dormitory and fell asleep happily.

After reading it, I was so excited that he had made

great progress. Although he made several mistakes
in the diary, at once I wrote down the following
below his diary-entry:

'Very well-done, you are stepping to success,

congratulations!'

In addition, there was another student who was

very naughty and poor in writing in English but very
clever. His name was Li Xiaohui. He usually fell
asleep in my class and I often paid attention to him
to find out how I could help him, but he had no
idea. However, once in a class in which my students
did corrective work, only he did it correctly. It was a
good chance for me to encourage him with praising
words, such as:

'You see, you did very well. If you work harder

from now on, you will succeed. Don't you want to
have a try?'

He replied he would try. From then on, he never fell

asleep and was attentive to what I taught in class
and noted down the main points, such as : the use of
the word "famous" in his note book like this: be
famous for, be famous as, be famous to, and he even
made a sentence: China is famous for the Great
Wall. He's famous as a great singer. Gradually he
made a little progress from his actions in class, his
workbook after class and his scores from tests, and
showed thanks to me, for example, in one class, I
wrote a sentence on the blackboard "I visited the
room which I had lived yesterday." Then I asked the
students to decide whether it was right or not. It
was the first time for Li Xiaohui to stand up and
explain the sentence. He explained:

"I think after the word 'lived', there should be the

preposition 'in'. He did it correctly. At the same
time, I praised him:

"Well, you are very clever and you did very well,
and I am so happy to listen to your explanation.

I'm sure you will do better next time, O.K.?"

He said he would. And after class I called him into

my office, and I had a good talk with him, pointing
out some of his errors, and encouraging him to
make much more progress in learning English in
the future. He followed my advice and succeeded,
for instance, his English handwriting becoming
better than before; his attention in class and his
work with more care and so on .his score in English
exams was a little higher than before. For example,
he had never got the score over 35 points, but after
our talk, he exceeded his scores and gained 43
points.

After that I was so encouraged that I should keep on

my Action Research and I realized that Action
Research could help me improve some of my
students' interest in learning English. This had been
proved from the examples above and I persevered
so that my students would get more profit from my
doing Action Research.

Well, up to now, I think Action Research has helped

my students and me a lot. It is Action Research that
makes my students become interested and gain
confidence in learning English and does improve
their writing abilities. And to me as a teacher, it

makes me realize that the Action Research is not

only for the top students, but for all of a teacher's
students in the class, especially to those who have
some difficulty in learning.

Secondly I think it is very helpful to a teacher to

accomplish his or her teaching task to increase the
learning level of the whole class.

Thirdly it is also adjusted usefully to other subjects

of teaching, and probably can improve the teaching
quantity of a school, a county, even to the whole of
the province of Ningxia.

Meanwhile I think I will keep on to do the Action

Research in future, and my next AR is "How can I
help to develop my students' English reading
ability?" I am choosing this question because if the
students read more English articles, they would
learn more from them and reading would be helpful
to their writing abilities.

Endnote:
Here I would like to show my respect to Professor
Moira Laidlaw, as it is she who brought us Action
Research and introduced it to us English teachers in

detail. So I think her contribution is more than I can

describe. All I can say to her is "Thanks very much".

Bibliography:
VSO, (2003), 'What's new in the New Curriculum?'
in March Issue, VSO Newsletter.

Appendix: Here is my Action Research plan:

NUMBE
R

TIME

AIM

one week

manage to know about my students' studying

one week

try to show the importance of learning

English

one week

introduce some ways for learning English

two
months

manage to develop the habit of learning

English

one
month

right my students' pronunciation

one year

right my students' writing

Objective:Thisstudyinvestigatedtherelationshipsbetween
specificperformancecomponents,eyehandcoordination,

visuomotorintegration,inhandmanipulation,andhandwriting
skill.
Method:Asampleof48typicalfirstgradestudentswere
identifiedasgoodandpoorhandwritersbytheirteachers.Each
childcompletedtheMotorAccuracyTest;theDevelopmental
TestofVisualMotorIntegration(VMI);twotestsofinhand
manipulation,includingarotationandatranslationtask;and
theMinnesotaHandwritingTest(MHT).
Results:Alltestscoresforthesubjectswithgoodhandwriting
weresignificantlyhigherthanthoseofthesubjectswithpoor
handwriting.Eachperformancecomponenttestwas
significantlycorrelatedtoMHTscores.Translation,VMI,and
rotationscoresweresignificantpredictorsofMHTscores,
accountingforalmost73%ofvariance.Adiscriminantanalysis
usingtheperformancecomponentscorrectlyclassified98%of
thestudentsasgoodorpoorhandwriters.
Conclusion:Inhandmanipulationhassignificantassociationto
handwritingskill.