PRACTICAL BACKGROUNDIN THE WRITING TASKS IN TIENG ANH 10 AND TIEN...

2.2. Practical backgroundIn the writing tasks in Tieng Anh 10 and Tieng Anh 12 textbooks there are elicitingquestions so students can have some ideas for their writings to make comparisons but in the tasks in Tieng Anh 11 there is not any eliciting questions for them to write except for the chart, useful language and the requirements. Students find it difficult to write.In writing section of Unit 7 – World population (Tieng Anh 11-Page 86), a piechart is given with the requirement “Study the chart carefully then write aparagraph of 100-120 words, describing the information in the chart”. Oceania

2%

Northern

America

Latin

6%

South Asia America32%

8%

Africa11%East AsiaEurope26%15%Students have to do the task with the following suggestions of useful language:- It can be seen that- distributed unevenly- account for… per cent- more than double the population of- half as much as/ nearly half of- rank first/ lastAnd the beginning “The chart shows the distribution of world population by region. …”With all these cues, the student

wrote:

writing ErrorsThe chart shows the distribution of world→ lack “the world” and verb population by region. It can be seen thatpopulation distributed unevenly. South Asia→ form of the verb → lack the verb and wrong account for 32 percent and more than double thepopulation of Europe. Latin America more than informationdouble the population of Europe. NorthernAmerica nearly double the population of Africa.→ spoken languageOceania account for 2 percent. Rank first SouthAsia, second East Asia and seventh Oceania.In Unit 11 – Sources of energy (Tieng Anh 11-Page 130), a bar chart is given forstudents to write the description of it.In Task 2, they are required to write the same writing as Task 1. However, theygave some mistakes in their writings.Writing ErrorsThe chart shows the energy consumption inHighland in 2005. As can be seen, the totalenergy consumption was 170 million ton.→ spelling mistake→ wrong informationPetroleum made up the largest amount of thisfigure (50 million tons). This was followed by theconsumption of smallest (45 million tons).→ wrong answer→ wrong wordNuclear and hydroelectricity made up thebiggest amount of energy consumption (75million tons)energy consumption was 170 million tons.Petroleum made up the largest amount of thisfigure (75 million tons). This was followed by theconsumption of nuclear and hydroelectricity (50million tons). Coal made up the smallest amountof energy consumption (45 million tons)And many students did like these.After doing Task 1 and Task 2 with the requirements in textbook, students did Task3 by combining two these tasks in turn.