A study on common grammatical errors in speaking of first year English majored students at Thuongmai University and some possible solutions

A study on common grammatical errors in speaking of first year English majored students at Thuongmai University and some possible solutions A study on common grammatical errors in speaking of first year English majored students at Thuongmai University and some possible solutions A study on common grammatical errors in speaking of first year English majored students at Thuongmai University and some possible solutions A study on common grammatical errors in speaking of first year English majored students at Thuongmai University and some possible solutions A study on common grammatical errors in speaking of first year English majored students at Thuongmai University and some possible solutions A study on common grammatical errors in speaking of first year English majored students at Thuongmai University and some possible solutions A study on common grammatical errors in speaking of first year English majored students at Thuongmai University and some possible solutions A study on common grammatical errors in speaking of first year English majored students at Thuongmai University and some possible solutions A study on common grammatical errors in speaking of first year English majored students at Thuongmai University and some possible solutions A study on common grammatical errors in speaking of first year English majored students at Thuongmai University and some possible solutions A study on common grammatical errors in speaking of first year English majored students at Thuongmai University and some possible solutions A study on common grammatical errors in speaking of first year English majored students at Thuongmai University and some possible solutions A study on common grammatical errors in speaking of first year English majored students at Thuongmai University and some possible solutions A study on common grammatical errors in speaking of first year English majored students at Thuongmai University and some possible solutions

THUONG MAI UNIVERSITY

HANOI, 2021

HÀ NỘI - 2015

The present study examined some common grammatical errors in speaking

of first -year English- majored students at Thuongmai University In this study, theauthor combined the use of quantitative and qualitative methods to gain goodresults The participants of the study were eighty students of K56

Research results illustrate that most of the freshmen in English Faculty atThuongmai University suffered from errors related to verb tense, prepositions,articles, subject-verb agreement, and plural, and singular as well Meanwhile, errors

in the use of prepositions, errors in the use of articles, and verb tenses were the mostcommon grammatical errors Besides, the author said that the main cause of theseerrors is lacking practice speaking, the influence of the mother tongue, and theperformance pressure In order to minimize these errors, the researcherrecommended some solutions to help the students improve their problems At last,limitations of the study and some recommendations for future research werepresented

In fact, we cannot deny that every success is associated with support orassistance, whether more or less, directly or indirectly by others I would like toexpress my many thanks to the people who have supported me to complete theresearch

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to mysupervisor Ms Pham Minh Hong for her whole-hearted guidance and support.Without her invaluable recommendations and advice, I could not finish this study

I would like to convey my gratitude to all first-year students from K56English Faculty for their participation and cooperation during the time I surveyed

I also would like to express my special thanks to the teachers in the EnglishFaculty at Thuongmai University for their dedicated knowledge 4 years ago which

is not only a foundation for the research but also a precious knowledge for me tostep into life in a solid and confident way

Last but not least, I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to my family, myfriends who always encourage and inspirit me to complete this graduation paper.Sincerely thanks!

Hanoi, April 2021

ThuyNguyen Thi Phuong Thuy

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vi

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Previous study 2

1.3 Aims of the study 5

1.4 Research subjects 5

1.5 Scope of the study 6

1.6 Research methodology 6

1.7 Organization of the study 6

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 8

2.1 Overview of speaking skill 8

2.1.1 The definition of speaking skill 8

2.1.2 The importance of speaking skill 9

2.1.3 The need for speaking skill in learning English 10

2.2 Some grammatical errors in speaking English 11

2.2.1 The definition of grammatical errors 11

2.2.2 The common grammatical errors 13

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH FINDINGS 17

3.1 Participants of the study 17

3.2 Data collection instruments 17

3.2.1 The survey questionnaires 18

3.2.2 The interview questions 18

3.3 Data analysis 18

3.4 Findings and discussion 19

3.4.1 The reality of speaking skill of first -year English- majored students at Thuongmai University 19

3.4.2 Some common grammatical errors in speaking of English- majored

freshmen 20

3.4.3 The results of survey questionnaires 20

3.4.4 The results of interview questions 31

3.5 Discussion 33

CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 34

4.1 Summary of the study 34

4.2 Some solutions for first -year English- majored students at Thuongmai University to avoid grammatical errors when speaking 35

4.3 Limitations and suggestions for further studies 38

4.3.1 Limitations of the study 38

4.3.2 Suggestions for further studies 38

CONCLUSION 39 REFERENCES

APPENDIX

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

TMU: Thuongmai University

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Chart 3.1: Students’ years of learning English 20

Chart 3.2: The importance of English speaking skill 21

Chart 3.3: Students’ interest in English grammar 22

Chart 3.4: Student’s frequencies of making grammatical errors 23

Chart 3.5: The role of grammar in speaking skill 24

Chart 3.6: The common grammatical errors in speaking skill 25

Chart 3.7: The errors based on surface structure descriptions 26

Chart 3.8: Reasons for the grammatical errors 27

Chart 3.9: Students’ errors correction strategies regarding speaking 29

Chart 3.10: The ways to limit grammatical errors 30

Table 3.1: Typical grammatical errors collected from the recordings 31

Image 4.2: Oxford English Grammar 36

Image 4.3: Understanding and Using English Grammar 36

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale

Within the context of significantly growing globalization, language plays animportant role in building bridges to interconnect people around the world It isknown that the English language is considered an international language or linguafranca and it is also the third common language in the world, after Chinese andSpanish Up to now, there are more than 350 million people around the worldspeaking English as a first language and over 430 million speaking it as a secondlanguage This figure shows that the English language is used widely over the worldand Vietnam is not an exception In the country, English is mainly used as a mean

of communication in trading and exchanging goods with foreign countries andserved as one of the most important subjects in many schools There are fouressential skills in learning languages which are speaking, listening, reading, andwriting Nonetheless, learners especially the students at high school seem to focus

on reading and writing rather than speaking and listening They spend a lot of time

on learning grammar for official English tests and ignore the others Then, afterentering university, students are afraid of speaking English in class, they getdifficulties in conveying messages and making mistakes is unavoidable It is the facthappening in almost every school across the country

Most of the first-year students at Thuongmai University (TMU) in generaland majored students at English Faculty in detail also have the same situation Theyare confused by speaking English or communicating with foreign teachers at schooland easy to make mistakes when making a grammatical sentence There are manyfactors that affect speaking English such as pronunciation, intonation, linking,rhythm, context, grammar and so on In this study, we will discuss grammaticalerrors during speaking English Although this error may not affect too much onspeaking, it will help students realize their errors and overcome them to becompetent speakers and get academic achievements

Being conscious of the need of correcting mistakes for the first-year student

of English major at TMU, the author decided to conduct the study entitled: “A study on common grammatical errors in speaking of first -year English- majored

students at Thuongmai University and some possible solutions." It is hoped that the

study will help students find out their problems in speaking and there are somesolutions to handle the issues

1.2 Previous study

In this part of the study, we will review some previous studies related to thisresearch These studies have been conducted to identify errors in grammar whenstudents speaking

Dan Van Dao (November 2019) conducted a study on English grammatical

errors entitled: “Some Vietnamese Students’ problems with English grammar: A

preliminary study” The study focused on some common problems faced by

Vietnamese learners of English grammar The study involved twentyfive first year English majors and forty-seven first-year non-English majors at Kien Giangcollege in Vietnam The result illustrated that the common grammatical errorsmade by students were tense and aspect, particularly the simple and progressiveaspect, the copula “be”, and adverb positions in verb and adjective phrases Afterfinding out the errors, the author proposed some suggestions for teaching inVietnam

-In another study made by Nguyen Minh Phuong (2019) entitled: “A study on

common grammatical errors in speaking skill of 11 th -grade students at high school

in Vietnam.” This study was aimed to investigate some common grammatical

errors in speaking by students of grade 11 at Yen Khanh A high school, also thereasons that students make grammatical errors when speaking and then suggestsome solutions for a teacher could find out the common mistakes students make.The participants of the study were one hundred and twenty students of grade 11th atYen Khanh A high school The author combined both quantitative and qualitativemethods to gain the highest result The result showed that most 11th grade studentsfaced with some grammatical errors related to verb form, prepositions, articles,subject –verb agreement as well The researcher said that the reasons were thedirect impact on students’ psychology, the influence of Vietnamese grammar whilespeaking, and not good grammatical knowledge Besides, the author gave somesolutions for both teachers and students at Yen Khanh school to improve speaking

skill This study was necessary and useful for any students who suffer fromgrammatical errors when speaking because the author gave clearly the reasons,analyzed grammatical errors in very detail, and recommended some solutions tohandle this problem

Nguyen Minh Nhut (June 2020) conducted a study entitled “An Analysis of

Grammatical Errors by Vietnamese Learners of English” The study focused on

examining the reasons for interlingua errors committed by Vietnamese learners ofEnglish There were forty students at Tra Vinh University in Vietnam whoparticipated in this study The author mainly analyzed the errors following fourcategories: inflectional morphosyntax, article, word order, and copula “tobe” Thisstudy identified potential grammatical errors in more categories faced byVietnamese students Then this study would be a valuable material for teachers orstudents who want to find grammatical errors then seek out effective methods tohandle this issue

In a study conducted by Hervina (November 2014) entitled “Grammatical

Errors in Speaking Made by the Third Year English Department Students STKIP Abdi Pendidikan Payakumbuh”, the author aimed to investigate the grammatical

errors of English Department junior of STKIP Abdi Pendidikan Payakumbuh Theresearcher used qualitative research as the main research methodology to get thedata by observation, interview, and documentation The study was conducted oneight students taken randomly in the attendant list The results of this studyrevealed that the students have not mastered the use of verb groups, because theauthor thought that in Bahasa Indonesia they do not have verb conjugations andagreement between subject and verb Then, Hervina recommended students needmore practice speaking English, record and find out the errors in these records,meanwhile teachers also need to motivate their students, help them understand themistakes, and evaluate them fairly The study was analyzed in very detail and had alot of demonstrations The author used the qualitative method making readers easy

to understand and have deep insight into the topic

Bambang Sugeng (August 2016) conducted a study about “Common

grammatical errors in the use of English as a foreign language: a case in students’

undergraduate theses” to find out the multitude of grammatical errors made by

students in their undergraduate theses and the necessary learning materials tohandle this issue This study was conducted on 228 undergraduate theses from 28English study programs from out of the 34 provinces in Indonesia Data collatedfrom grouping, counting, and ranking the data reveals that the errors made bystudents rank as follows: verb groups, finite verbs, subject –verb concords,predicates, concords of nouns, concords of numbers, clauses, passive voice, andword choices Besides showing the errors, the author suggested the way to improvethe quality of undergraduate thesis writing for students of the English studyprogram, that is common-core grammar materials The study was nice and valuablewhen showing concretely the errors of students and gave some possible solutionsfor this problem However, this study should show the figure by chart and use thenumber

In another study, Su-Hie Ting –University Malaysia Sarawak (January 2010)

conducted a study entitled: “Grammatical errors in spoken English of university

students in oral communication course” The author aimed to find out the types of

errors and the changes in grammatical accuracy focusing on oral communication.The participant of the study is 42 students who are less proficient in English joining

in 5 role-play situations in the oral communication course The result from erroranalysis revealed that there are five common grammatical errors are preposition,question, article, plural form of nouns, subject-verb agreement, and tense.Moreover, the author showed that at the end of the course, students speak moreaccurately in grammar

Nesreen Saud Alahmadi (2014) conducted a study entitled: “Errors

Analysis: A Case Study of Saudi Learner's English Grammatical Speaking Errors”.

This study aimed to determine more about the most common speech errors made bylearners who are in the early stages of learning a second language The authorcarried out oral interviews personally 30 Saudi students who live in Saudi Arabiaand have study English for six years and then transcript them to analyze easily Theresult showed that verb tenses were made by most students especially “perfecttense”, then the errors in the use of pronouns, and errors in regular and irregular

verbs, which are less common among the others The author said the reason for thisproblem was due to the mother tongue interference, which may support recentstudies of the importance of the role played by the first language and in which has agreat impact on the process of second language learning.

1.3 Aims of the study

My study is about to determine the types of errors in grammar for the first year English faculty students at Thuongmai University as well as find out the ways

-to eliminate the errors In order -to achieve these aims, the study focuses on twomain issues The first one is to find out the common grammatical errors in speaking.The last one is about some solutions to encounter this problem

In short, this study is conducted to answer the following questions:

1 What are some common grammatical errors English –majored freshmen facedwhen speaking?

2 What should we do to speak fluently without grammatical errors?

1.4 Research subjects

This study is researched common grammatical errors in speaking of first year English- majored students at Thuongmai University They were both male andfemale between 18 and 19 years old They have just entered the university soeverything is surprised and unfamiliar with them For example, learning inuniversity is more practical than learning in high school In high school, studentsjust learn for points and the form of examinations mainly are reading and writingskill Therefore, students often ignore speaking skill and do not spend time onpractice speaking Meanwhile, besides learning theories, practicing is mainly used

-in teach-ing -in university, particularly, Thuongmai University is an advancedacademic environment allowing students to practice more in class Although allgrammar rules are taught already, students are still confused and can’t apply thesegrammar rules accurately when speaking English Thus, this study chose the first –year English –majored students to help them find out the grammatical errors whenspeaking and suggest the way to improve this skill

1.5 Scope of the study

With the time limitation, this study will focus on the most typicallygrammatical errors made by first –year English majored students at TMU that isverb tenses, article, preposition, subject verb agreement, and plural form However,according to Dulay, Burt, and Krashen’s (1982) surface structure taxonomy, which

is based on “the ways surface structures are altered in erroneous

utterances/sentences” (cited in Ellis & Barkhuizen, 1995) there are four principal

ways in which students modify target form –misinformation, omission, additionand misordering

The study involved 80 freshmen of English Faculty at TMU for thequestionnaire and 3 ones for the audio record The author expects that this studywill be such a valuable material for those who concern about this issue

Qualitative research is based on the research focus; to analyze thegrammatical errors of English department students at TMU when speaking In thisresearch, the author used three open-ended questions to find out the grammaticalerrors in the students’ answers The main instrument is used for data collection isthe interview

1.7 Organization of the study

My graduation paper is divided into four main chapters:

Chapter 1: Overview of the study

In this chapter, the researcher mentions the Rationale, Previous studies, Aims

of the study, Research subjects, Scope of the study, and Research methodology

Chapter 2: Literature review

In this chapter, the researcher reviews and discusses some previous relevanttheories and studies

Chapter 3: Data analysis and research findings

The researcher gives more detail about the reasons why the researcherchooses the quantitative method and qualitative method Basing on the datacollected from the survey questionnaire and free speaking aloud test (an audiorecord), the issues will be analyzed in-depth to provide realistic information aboutsome common grammatical errors of first -year English -majored students

Chapter 4: Recommendations and suggestions

The researcher gives some recommendations to this problem from the results

of chapter 3 Then show the limitations and suggestions for further study

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Overview of speaking skill

2.1.1 The definition of speaking skill

Speaking is one of four important skills when learning a foreign languageand t seems to be the most necessary skill because people who know a language areusually referred to as speakers of that language (Ur, 1996) Then, there are manyresearchers and authors who have written about it leading to a large number of itsdefinitions In this part, the definition of speaking skill will be presented to providemore information for anyone interested in this topic

First of all, speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning thatinvolves producing and receiving, and processing information (Brown, 1994; Burns

& Joyce, 1997) Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which itoccurs, including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, thephysical environment, and the purposes for speaking It is often spontaneous, open-ended, and evolving

According to Richards & Renandya (2008), speaking is one of the coreelements of communication Chaney (1998) suggested speaking is “the process ofbuilding and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in

a variety of contexts”

Besides, Hybel (2001) stated that speaking is any process where individualsshare information, thoughts, and feeling, it includes all of non-verbalcommunication and style whatever contributes significantly to a message.Especially, speaking is to express our thought to others in oral communication,additionally a handle in which a speaker passes on data or messages to listeners.Spratt, Pulverness, & Williams (2005) added that speaking is a productive skill thatinvolves speech as a medium to express the intended meaning

Furthermore, it is believed that speaking skill is one of the important skillsthat must be mastered by a language learner (according to Goh & Burn, 2012) Itmeans that if we want to become a good language learner, we should not ignorespeaking skill Because speaking is a speech production that becomes a part of ourdaily activities (according to Thornbury, 2005) He said that many people produce

many words each day in order to express their ideas and feelings Obviously, wemust speak if we want to share our thoughts, opinions, or something.

Based on the definition above, we can be inferred that speaking is one of thebasic personal skills to produce sounds that have meaning and be understood byother people It is a mean of communication and the speaker can give information,convey messages to a listener or group of listeners by transferring those effectively

2.1.2 The importance of speaking skill

In the context of globalization, communication skills play an important role

in each one’s life and career We need to communicate with others, to express ourideas and opinions with others A person who has a good communication skill canpursue their dream, ambitions, desires, and goals According to Richards &Renandya (2008), speaking is one of the core elements of communication Then,speaking seems to be the most important skill among all the four language skills –listening, writing, reading, and speaking -to communicate with others nowadays

If we want to get a good job, besides having high knowledge, we need tohave good speaking skills which are also necessary when we want to settle down inyour professions Nowadays, in order to seek out qualified candidates at first,employers often base on the performance of the interview So the employees whoare confident and good at speaking will have more opportunities for their jobs andeasy to conquer the employers People who don’t speak well may work doingpaperwork and its promotion will be limited

In addition, speaking skills are important for career success Taking abusinessman as an example, to become a successful businessman, we have to equipourselves a good speaking skill Businessmen have to give a presentation to appeal

to the investors, give a speech to promote the products or introduce the companiesand give training to the colleagues and staff To do these activities, we all have tospeak An effective speaker can draw the attention of the listeners and let them beinterested and understand the messages that the speaker wants to deliver We cansay that everything depends on the way how people communicate their messageswith others Obviously, speaking play a vital role in our success

Besides our careers, we can deny the necessity of speaking in our life Toexpress our own opinions, our feeling, or share our thoughts, we need to speak toothers Letting someone know your feelings, your ideas when you are upset willmake you happy and you will not be stress anymore

2.1.3 The need for speaking skill in learning English

Nowadays, the English language is used as an international language spokenaround the world English is used widely in many fields such as education,software, information and technology, travel and tourism, scientific research,business, trade and commerce, and so on As a result, more and more people aroundthe world are learning English In this process, there are four skills acquired that arelistening, speaking, reading, and writing We can devise these skills into passiveskills and active skills Passive skills include listening and reading because thelearners do not produce any words, sentences Speaking and writing are active skillswhich means that the learners have to produce words, make sentences on their own,and have to practice a lot Although all four skills require the learners to learngrammar, vocabulary, sentence structure, and usage, so on, only speaking skill canshow the talent of the learners If a learner can speak well, it means that he/she isgood at other skills

According to Parupalli (2019): “even if there are four other skills in theEnglish language, speaking skills are the most effective one among them as amajority of communication is done through speech Therefore, speaking skills arethe most important method of communication While mastery of each skill isneeded to become a well-rounded communicator, the ability to speak skillfullyprovides speakers with several distinct advantages.” The main advantages ofspeaking skills are:

 To participate actively in pair or group activities in the classrooms

 To give a maiden and impressive speech on different occasions

 To participate actively in debates and group discussions

 To develop critical thinking among the learners

 To pursue higher studies in foreign countries

 To interact with people all around the globe

 To promote the sale of products in the business.

 To make living abroad simpler and easier

 To get better employment opportunities

 To make use of the internet effectively

 To perform well in job interviews

 To acquire more knowledge

 To travel to a foreign country

 To do good international business

 To earn high respect in society

 To give run for all purposes

 To communicate effectively with others

 To increase the income of the individual

 To boost up the speakers' self-confidence

 To know the different cultures of the world

 To interact with people all around the globe

 To keep over cognition and reasoning very sharp

 To get better employment opportunities all over the world

 To increase the ability of problem-solving and critical thinking

 To improve the overall development of the speaker's personality

 To highly motivate and attract the customers in buying the products

2.2 Some grammatical errors in speaking English

2.2.1 The definition of grammatical errors

2.2.1.1 Definition of grammar

According to Oxford Dictionaries, grammar is the whole system andstructure of a language or languages in general, usually taken as consisting ofsyntax and morphology (including inflections) and sometimes also phonology andsemantics

Besides, there are different experts who define the term of grammar andthere is no fixed definition of grammar Harmer (2004) defined grammar as thedescription of how words can change their forms and can be combined into asentence in that language As he stated in communication, it was rules or

regulations when building a language and using that language Besides, Urmentioned grammar as the manner in which language controls and consolidateswords or bits of words to frame longer units of implications

According to Gerrot and Wignell (1994), grammar is a theory of language, ofhow language is put together and how it works And, Leech et al (1982) also thatgrammar can be briefly described as a set of rules for constructing and analyzingsentences Obviously, grammar includes rules which used to arrange sentences andanalyze sentences

Meanwhile, James (1998) considered an error as grammatical correctnessand acceptance He judges errors according to ignorance, it is the research onlinguistic ignorance, surveys about those mistakes, and how people face suchignorance He stated that the ignorance of learners of the target language can beshown following four categories: grammaticality, acceptability, correctness andstrangeness, and infelicity

Moreover, Hendrickson (1987) cited that errors are “signals” that indicate anactual learning process taking place and that the learner has not yet mastered orshown a well-structured competence in the target language This means that an error

is a signal that helps students recognize problems during learning English, and alsoindicates that students do not have a good grammar position And Brown (2007)declared that error as a noticeable derivation from the grammar of a native speakerreflects the competence of the learner and reveals a portion of learners’ competence

in the target language Errors are factors to reflect learners' qualifications andattitudes towards the purpose of language learning

2.2.1.3 Definition of grammatical errors

Grammatical error is a term used in prescriptive grammar to describe an

instance of faulty, unconventional, or controversial usage, such as a misplaced

modifier or an inappropriate verb tense Also called a usage error Compare

grammatical errors with correctness Grammatical errors are usually distinguished

from (though sometimes confused with) factual errors, logical fallacies,misspellings, typographical errors, and faulty punctuation

(https://www.thoughtco.com)Grammatical errors, according to Burt and Kiparsky (1972), are classified aslocal errors, which include linguistically morphological, vocabulary, syntactic, andorthographic errors, while worldwide errors are described as informative errors,which show students misinterpreting conversational messages It means that thereare two types of grammatical errors: in writing and in speaking In writing, theerrors related to spelling, syntax, … And in speaking, the speakers oftenmisunderstand the meaning of the messages which is related to pronunciation,vocabulary, and grammar

In addition, Hsu (2013) highlighted these categories of grammatical errorsthus means inaccurate form, semantics meanings, and use

2.2.2 The common grammatical errors

2.2.2.1 Errors in production of verb tense

Verb tense errors occur when we use the wrong verb tense They are one of themost common grammatical errors The verb tense tells the reader of your sentenceswhen the action is taking place – in the present, the past, or the future We must beconsistent on verb tense unless there are some reasons to make a switch to adifferent tense Some examples of verb tense errors:

 I have breakfast and went to school.

 “have” is a present tense verb “went” is a past tense verb

The sentence should be: I had breakfast and went to school.

Or I have breakfast and go to school

Because these two events occur at the same time

 I will watch TV and did my homework tonight

 “will watch” is a future tense verb, but “did” is a past tense verb.

The sentence should be: I will watch TV and do my homework tonight

Because next week is an adverb of time in the future, it is not possible that I did myhomework already

 Last year, I had a trip to Nha Trang and I meet my boyfriend by chance.

 “had” is a past tense verb, but “meet” is a present tense verb

The sentence should be: Last year, I had a trip to Nha Trang and I met my

boyfriend by chance

Because “last year” is an adverb of time in the past, it is not possible that I meet myboyfriend at the present

2.2.2.2 Errors in agreement between subject and verb

The subject of the sentence (the person or thing doing the action) has toagree in number with the verb (the word representing the action)

Here are some examples of situations where the subject and verb do notagree with one another:

 My friends and I am going to go camping together

“My friends and I” are plural, “am” is singular

The sentence should be: My friends and I are going to go camping together.

 My father or my mother pick me up at the station

“My father or my mother” is singular, “pick” is plural

The sentence should be: My father or my mother picks me up at the station.

 Four miles are too far to walk.

“Four miles” is considered as a unit, “are” is plural

The sentence should be: Four miles is too far to walk.

2.2.2.3 Errors in the use of article

In reference to English language grammar, the use of articles is divided intotwo main types: definite and indefinite articles

According to the Oxford dictionary, “definite articles” refer to the world

“the” as it is indicative of something specific that is specific singular, plural,uncountable nouns

The “indefinite articles,” on the other hand, refer to the use of “an” and “a”

to indicate something vague Article an is used before a word that begins with aconsonant sound, such as cat, dog, pen, and so on, whereas article an is used before

a word that begins with a vowel sound, such as actor, old man, engineer, and so

on

Here are some examples of the errors in the use of the article:

 Jane always plays guitar in her free time

In the sentence, the student did not use any article

The sentence should be: Jane always plays the guitar in her free time.

 I received an uniform from my school

The error here is the wrong article

The sentence should be: I received a uniform from my school.

2.2.2.4 Errors in the use of preposition

According to oxford dictionary, a preposition is a word governing, andusually preceding, a noun or pronoun and expressing a relation to another word orelement in the clause, as in “the man on the platform”, “she arrived after dinner”,

“what did you do it for?”

The wrong usage of a preposition can be as follow:

 Missing preposition error:

Error: Hoa was very excited the show last night

The sentence should be: Hoa was very excited about the show last night

 Wrong preposition error:

Error: I spend a whole day in playing games.

The sentence should be: I spend a whole day on playing games.

 Unnecessary preposition:

Error: She went to Hanoi with her sister in last May.

The sentence should be: She went to Hanoi with her sister last May.

2.2.2.5 Errors in singular and plural

The plural form of a word is defined by Collin dictionary as the form usedwhen referring to more than one person or thing

Making mistakes in plural forms, perhaps the influence of mother tongue -aconclusion reached by Marlyna Maros et al (2007) Based on the analysis of 120members of the student, he pointed out that the number or state of the subject doesnot affect the verb structure in the predicates (cited in Marlyna Maros et al., 2007)

By adding “s” or “es” after a noun we can change a singular noun to itsplural form in English

For example: apple – apples; book – books

watch – watches; bus - busesSeveral nouns have the irregular plural form

For example: child- children; man-men;

woman-women; person-people There are several nouns that have the unchanged plural form

For example: fish – fish, sheep – sheep

Students may make mistakes in the usage of the plural form

For example: Most man like playing football

The sentence should be: Most men like playing football.

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH FINDINGS

3.1 Participants of the study

The study was conducted with 80 first year English Faculty students from 2classes at Thuongmai University All of them are students of K56 They are aboutthe same age and both genders Because most students in English Faculty arefemale, the number of females as subjects in the research was much larger than that

of males The participants were chosen randomly to take part in this survey so theyare from various educational backgrounds These students were chosen because thefirst year English majors are the new ones, they have learnt English for over 6 yearsbut they are still difficult to speak English well Moreover, they may not realizetheir mistakes when speaking English Therefore, they wholeheartedly participated

in the survey to share their difficulties and find ways to improve their problems.All students agree to provide information in a voluntary, comfortable, andaccurate manner

3.2 Data collection instruments

In research, the instruments were important because the data collectedinfluenced them

In the current study, the researcher decided to employ the quantitative methodand qualitative method The research instruments employed to collect data werequestionnaires and speaking test (audio recording) A survey questionnaire wasdesigned carefully with reference to earlier researchers Furthermore, the researcheralso uses a flexible combination of other methods: interviewing, categorizing andanalyzing of data, and description of the result With the aim of making theresponses more confident in the interview, all the questions are simple andunderstandable for students to answer

After that, a recording was created with the assistance of the supervisor Aftercollecting the recording data, the researcher checked and took note of their errors,then classified and put them in different categories, and made a table of commonerrors collected from the data

3.2.1 The survey questionnaires

The survey questionnaires included 10 questions designed for first-yearstudents to study real situations of students’ English speaking They were asked totick the most suitable answers which correspond with their opinions The surveyquestionnaires had 3 parts: multiple choice test; multiple-choice form and sorted bydecreasing level: always-often-sometimes-rarely-never; strongly agree-agree-neutral- disagree- strongly disagree

The researcher conducted the survey by sending the questionnaire to eachstudent The researcher will clearly introduce the purpose of the survey with theexpectation that students understand and respond honestly and enthusiastically Ifthere is a problem that students do not understand, the researcher will explain tothem for finding the most accurate answer Then, the researcher synthesizes datafrom the survey and has general comments

3.2.2 The interview questions

The audio recordings were analyzed for mispronounced sounds based on threequestions Although these questions are just simple and common, they are oftenmade mistakes by first year students When mistakes analysis was performed, eachstudent recording was listened to and analyzed to confirm the grammatical errors.The analyzed data are quantified to illustrate the grammatical errors and theirfrequencies

Step 1: Preparing three questions for the audio recording

Step 2: Sending these questions for 3 English major freshmen at ThuongmaiUniversity to record

Step 3: Gathering the results from their records

3.3 Data analysis

In the study, two different types of data collection instruments were utilizedregarding the research questions The first one was the audio record, the second onewas the survey questionnaire After collecting the survey questionnaire and audiorecording, the author checked the different opinions, counted the number of studentswho selected each idea, and concluded them in the form of tables, pie charts, and

bar charts From the statistics and findings, a solution for first year students ofEnglish major at TMU was worked out.

Regarding a survey questionnaire and some open-ended questions of theinterview, the author decided to use both qualitative method and quantitativemethod Complicated data and information were embedded in the Word platformthrough tables, pie charts, and bar charts, which are easier to read and analyze thedata

3.4 Findings and discussion

3.4.1 The reality of speaking skill of first -year English- majored students at Thuongmai University

After observation and interview, the speaking ability of freshmen at

Thuongmai University is not uniform During the observation process, some

students are able to speak well, fluently, and convey messages They used a widerange of vocabulary but used only a narrow range of linking words However, most

of the first year students are not confident, still shy, and confused when asked andinterviewed in English They used mainly is simple structures and more complexsentence forms tend to contain errors They easily make errors in pronunciation aswell as grammar during speaking Moreover, first-year students often have the habit

of memorizing the sentence or thinking the answer and then translating fromVietnamese into English This makes the messages they said unnatural and affectsyour ability to reflect

The first-year students can answer the interview questions given by theauthor However, the delivery of the messages was not really great Although theerrors they make when speaking they don’t affect too much on the message for thesimple questions, as the students of the Business English Faculty need to speakEnglish more professionally Making errors when speaking can lead tomisunderstanding especially when learning about negotiation and discussion

Therefore, this study will help you point out some common grammaticalerrors when speaking and suggest methods to improve this problem