Some errors made by students at Tho Xuan 4 high school when doing exercises on English nominal claus...

Some errors made by students at Tho Xuan 4 high school when doing exercises on English nominal clauses and suggestions for teaching them 1 PART A INTRODUCTION I Reasons for Choosing the Study Nowadays English has become an international language It plays an important role in enhancing the solidarity among the countries all over the world and is also used in every field of society Realizing its importance, most of Vietnamese schools choose it to be one of the obligatory subjects However, learning[.]

PART A: INTRODUCTION

I Reasons for Choosing the Study

Nowadays English has become an international language It plays an important role in enhancing the solidarity among the countries all over the world and is also used in every field of society Realizing its importance, most of Vietnamese schools choose it to be one of the obligatory subjects However, learning English as a foreign language brings learners certain problems,

especially with English structures In this study, we choose the topic: “Some errors made by students at Tho Xuan 4 high school when doing exercises on English nominal clauses and suggestions for teaching them” for the following

reasons:

Firstly, nominal clauses play an important role in both spoken and written English However, they are not easy to use and are one of the most difficult English grammatical phenomenon, especially, with their sub - types and their functions

Secondly, because of their difficulties, students often make mistakes or commit errors when using English nominal clauses Sometimes they cannot realize what is a nominal clause and what functions they are acting

For example, they may think “that – clauses” in these two following sentences:

“1 The news that you told me is not true.

2 The news that he has left home is not true.”

are of the same type, that is, relative clause (or adjectival clause) In fact, these two that – clauses are of absolutely different types: “that – clause” in the first sentence is adjectival clause but “that – clause” in the second sentence is nominal clause functioning as appositive

Finally, being teachers of English, we should do something to help our students overcome these confusions so that they can use English nominal clause

in an excellent way with as few errors as possible

II Aims of the Study

Our study is aimed at:

- Listing all kinds of English nominal clauses

- Indicating some errors that students often commit when doing exercises on English nominal clauses

- Offering some suggestions for teaching English nominal clauses

III Research Questions.

This study tries to find out the answers for the following questions:

1 What is a nominal clause?

2 What is the classification of English nominal clauses and the features of each sub – type?

3 What are predicted errors students may commit when learning English nominal clauses?

4 How to teach English nominal clauses effectively?

IV Methods of the Study

1 Descriptive method.

2 Analytic and statistical method

V Design of the Study

The study is developed in three main parts:

Part A: Introduction:

1 Reason for choosing the study

2 Aims of the study

3 Research questions

4 Method of the study

5 Design of the study

Part B: Investigation:

Chapter 1: Theoretical Background

Chapter 2: Some errors made by students when doing exercises on English nominal clauses and suggestions for teaching them

Part C: Conclusion

PART B: INVESTIGATION Chaper 1: Theoretical bacground 1.1 Definition of nominal clause.

Nominal clause or noun clause is one category of dependent clause Quirk

et al (1972: 732) stated that nominal clauses have a function of a noun phrase Just as noun phrases may act as subject, object, complement, appositive and prepositional complement in a clause, hence every nominal clause may act in some or all of these roles

Nominal clauses are usually connected with the main clause by that, if,

whether, whom, which, what, when, where, why, how, etc (noticing that the

meanings of these words are different when they are used to connect adjectival and adverbial clauses) One common use of nominal clauses is the object in reported speech Below are common functions of nominal clauses:

o Subject (S):

Eg: Whether we need it is a different matter

S

o Direct object (Od):

Eg: Adam could not believe what he heard

Od

o Indirect object (Oi):

Eg: He gave whoever came into the door a winning smile

Oi

o Subject complement (Cs):

Eg: The trouble was that February the twenty – fourth looked a lot closer from this

Cs side of Christmas

o Object complement (Co):

Eg: You can call me whatever you like.

Co

o Appositive:

Eg: The question, where my husband was last night, has not been answered yet

appositive

o Prepositional complement:

Eg: He thought about why he could not sell Lady

prepositional complement

o Adjectival complement:

Eg: He was not sure what he was saying

adjectival complement

In order to check whether a clause is a nominal clause or not, we can substitute it with an appropriate pronoun such as: he, she, it, or them For instance: “Whoever said it is wrong.”

We can substitute “Whoever said it” with “he” or “she”, therefore we have sentence: “He/ She is wrong.”

1.2 Categories of nominal clauses

According to Quirk et al (1972: 734), nominal clauses are classified into five major categories: the That – clause (or dependent declarative clause); the dependent interrogative clause; the nominal relative clause; the to – infinitive clause; and the –ing clause

1.2.1 That – clauses

A nominal clause which begins with that is so called that – nominal clause (that – clause) That clause can occur as Subject, Direct object, Subject

complement, Appositive and Adjectival complement However, it cannot occur

as Prepositional complement or as Object complement

Harry thought (that) he was having a heart attack

Direct object

That he accepted his behavior is unbelievable.

Subject

Your trouble is that you need to lern to relax

Subject complement

I am sorry that your brother is ill.

Adjectival complement

The announcement that a new airport was to be built nearby aroused

immediate

Appositive position

1.2.2 Dependent interrogative clauses

The dependent wh – interrogative clauses occur in the whole range of functions available to the that – nominal clauses In addition, they can act as

prepositional complement and usually begin with: who, whom, which, what,

where, when, why and how.

The dependent interrogative clause consists of two main sub – types: “wh – interrogative” clause and “yes – no interrogative” clause

 Wh – interrogative clause:

Eg: What is coming will come.

Subject

Grandmother then told him how her husband won her heart.

Direct object

 Yes – no interrogative clause:

Eg: The question is whether he is able to do that job.

Subject complement

He wasn’t sure if this wonderful smell came from the flowers or from her

breath.

adjectival complement

1.2.3 Nominal Relative Clauses

The nominal relative clauses are also introduced by a “wh – element”

The formation of nominal relative clauses follow the same pattern as that of interrogative kind but the list of introductory “wh – elements” used is slightly different “Whether”, “if” and “who” are not used for relative type while the compound with “-ever” are not used with the interrogative type For example:

What – whatever Which – whichever Where – wherever

When – whenever How – however Whoever

However, we rarely used “whoever” and “whomever” In stead of using

“whomever”, we usually use “whoever” even if nominal relative clauses

function as object of sentence

Nominal relative clauses refer to facts, events, states, ideas, etc rather

than to objects The only exception to this generalization is the nominal relative

clauses which may refer to objects, people, substances, etc and may in fact be

analyzed, on one level, as a noun phrase consisting of head and post – modifying relative clauses

Eg: Whoever breaks this law deserves a fine.

We can paraphrase this sentence as:

“Anyone who breaks this law deserves a fine.”

Nominal relative clauses can function as: Subject; Direct object; Indirect

object; Subject complement; Object complement; Appositive; and Prepositional complement

Eg: Whatever happened was over so quickly that Harry didn’t catch it

I will give you what you want

He told whoever he knew this piece of information.

This is exactly where we wanted to end up.

1.2.4 Nominal to – infinitive clauses

+ Nominal to – infinitive Clauses as Subject

Eg: For Osbert to appear in public at such a time was rather courageous

(Quirk & Greenbaum, workbook, 99)

To get married with a rich person is her dream.

+ Nominal to – Infinitive Clauses as Direct Object

Nominal to – infinitive clauses functioning as direct object often occur after these verbs:

allow arrange ask beg choose claim decide demand

expect fail help hope learn plan prepare promise

prove permit teach tell threaten warn want wish, etc

Eg: I expect everyone to be punctual this evening (Quirk & Greenbaum,

workbook, 99)

I consider her to be a very able headminister (Rowling, 580)

+ Nominal to – Infinitive Clauses as Subject Complement

Eg: The Triwizard Tournament’s aim was to further and promote magical

understanding (Rowling, 723)

The main goals of the Association are to accelerate economic growth,

social progress and cultural development (Van Hoang Van, English 12, 173)

+ Nominal to – Infinitive Clauses as Adjectival Complement

Eg: He was right to trust Hagrid and Professor Lupin (Rowling, 481)

+ Nominal to – Infinitive Clauses as Appositive

Eg: The plan for us all to meet outside was absurb (Quirk & Greenbaum,

workbook, 99)

1.2.5 Nominal –ing clauses

The nominal –ing clauses may be called a participle clause and functions

as: Subject; Direct object; Subject complement; Appositive; Adjectival complement and Prepositional complement

Eg: Buying and selling drug are illegal.

Subject

When the –ing clause has a subject, there is sometimes a choice between genitive case in formal style For instance:

“I’m bored with her/ Mary’s telling that story.”

and in informal style, objective case (for personal pronouns) or common case (for nouns) For example:

“I’m bored with her/ Mary telling that story.”

+ Nominal –ing Clauses as Subject

- Telling the truth makes me confused

+ Nominal –ing Clauses as Direct Object

Nominal –ing clause functioning as direct object often occur after these verbs:

admit anticipate can’t help can’t stand delay deny dislike enjoy

excuse fancy give up imagine keep (on) leave off mention mind

permit postpone practice quit resume suggest tolerate etc

Eg: I dislike people asking me personal questions.

+ Nominal –ing Clauses as Subject Complement

Eg: His desire is holding a special place in my heart.

+ Nominal –ing Clauses as Appositive

Eg: His greatest pleasure, climbing mountains, had to be abandoned

(Quirk & Greenbaum, workbook,99)

+ Nominal –ing Clauses as Prepositional Complement

Eg: Jane is thinking of selling her house.

+ Nominal –ing Clauses as Adjectival Complement

The nominal –ing clause acting as adjectiaval complement often occurs after some adjectives such as: “busy; happy; regret; worth; etc.”

Eg: Tom regrets having invited her to the party.

The two minors types of nominal clause which we must briefly consider

are: the bare infinitive clause (without to) and the nominal verbless clause.

The to of the infinitive is optionally omitted in a clause which, as complement, expands the meaning of the verb do.

Eg: What the plan does is (to) ensure a fair pension for all.

Subject complement

All I could do was (to) sit and look at her in class.

Subject complement

In addition, the category of a verbless nominal clause is required to account for a type of subject which, although superficially a noun phrase, has some of the structural as well as semantic characteristics of a clause

Eg: A friend in need is a friend indeed (proverb)

S

Chapter 2: Some errors made by students at Tho Xuan 4 high school when doing exercises on English nominal clauses and suggestions for teaching

them 2.1 Predictions of errors made by students when learning English nominal clauses.

Nominal clauses in English and their equivalents in Vietnamese are far different from each other Thus, from these differences, some errors which students of Xuan Truong C high school may commit when studying nominal clauses are predicted as follows:

2.1.1 Inversion between subject and verb in nominal interrogative clauses.

A large number of Vietnamese students think that a sentence beginning with wh – element has the form of a question Students may commit this error because they are accustomed to the form of a wh – question This is a reason why the verb or auxiliary is usually put in front of the subject in wh – interrogative clauses

For example, students may say:

“ Please tell me what is your name.” (1)

In stead of: “ Please tell me what your name is.”

Or: “ I don’t know what does that word mean.” (2)

In stead of: “I don’t know what that word means.”

The two sentences (1) and (2) are incorrect as the dependent clauses: “what

your name is” and “what that word means” are statements, not questions

Therefore, the verb “ is” and “mean” can not be placed in front of the subject.

2.1.2 Disagreement of subject and verb

Nominal clauses often refer to abstract things Therefore, when they function as a subject of a sentence, they always take singular verb But sometimes, students may use the verb at plural form, especially with to – infinitive clauses as subject complement This is because Vietnamese learners are interfered by their mother tongue when studying the second language, or in other words, it is the effect of the negative transfer that causes them to commit this error

For example: “All I could do was to sit and look at her in class.”

Students may put the verb to be after “all I could do” is “were” They may transfer this clause to their mother tongue as: “ tất cả tôi có thể làm” and

think that “ tất cả” is plural in Vietnamese This is the reason why they may use

the verb “were” instead of “was”.

Or: “What he needs now are sleep, and peace and quiet.” (incorrect sentence) Instead of “What he needs now is sleep, and peace and quiet.” (correct

sentence)

2.1.3 Misuse of “whether” and “if” in yes – no interrogative clauses.

Being transferred into Vietnamese, “whether” and “if” have similar meaning An amount of Vietnamese students do not know exactly the usage of these two conjunctions because there is no equivalent construction of “whether” and “if” between these two languages Vietnamese language does not have distinguished forms between “whether” and “if” Thus, they may use the negative verb form in whether – interrogative clauses

For example: “I don’t know whether it doesn’t rain.” (incorrect sentence)

In fact, whether – interrogative clauses cannot be made negative except in the second part of an alternative question We have change “whether” into “if”,

so that the correct sentence must be: “I don’t know if it doesn’t rain.”

Moreover, yes – no interrogative clauses functioning as subject can only

take “whether”, not “if” “If – interrogative” clauses cannot occur in subject

position

For example, students may say: “If he will come or not is not your concern.”

(incorrect sentence)

In stead of: “Whether he will come or not is not your concern.” (correct

sentence)

2.1.4 Omission of “that”

When that – clauses functioning as subject of the sentence, Vietnamese students may omit the conjunction “that” when transferring from their first language (Vietnamese) to their second language (English) In Vietnamese, learners do not pay much attention to the meaning of “that” because its meaning

is unimportant, and when they omiting “that”, there is no effect on the meaning

of the whole sentence Therefore, they can say:

“Anh ấy thi đỗ làm tôi rất ngạc nhiên.”

Because of their habit in using Vietnamese structures, they may transfer this sentence to their foreign language as:

“He passed the exam makes me very surprised.”

The construction of this sentence is acceptable in Vietnamese but in English, it is absolutely incorrect The correct sentence in English must be:

“That he passed the exam makes me surprised.”

2.1.5 Unsuitable change from quoted speech to reported speech.

Reported speech is one of the most common forms of nominal clauses It refers to using a nominal clause to report what someone has said When changing a sentence from quoted speech into reported speech, students often do not change all the necessary elements appropriately It is also the effect of earlier learning that negatively affects to Vietnamese learners’ process of learning reported speech

For example, we have a sentence in quoted speech as:

(1) “I’m going to move to Ohio.”, said Bruce

Learners may change this sentence into reported speech as:

“Bruce informed me that he is going to move to Ohio.”

Or: “Bruce informed me that I’m going to move to Ohio.”

Another example is:

(2) Maria asked, “Have you seen my grammar book?”

They may change this sentence to indirect speech as:

“Maria wanted to know if I have seen her grammar book.”

Or: “Maria wanted to know if I had seen my grammar book.”

According to the rules to change from direct speech to indirect speech, we must take the tense of the verb backwards to the past tense, except for the reporting verb is simple present, present perfect or future Moreover, we have to change all the other elements appropriately such as: the pronoun, possessive adjective, adverb of time and place, etc Thus, the correct sentence of (1) must be:

“Bruce informed me that he was going to move to Ohio.”

And (2) must be:

“Maria wanted to know if I had seen her grammar book.”

2.2 Some actual errors that learners at Tho Xuan 4 high school committed when doing exercises on English nominal clauses.

To find out actual errors that Vietnamese learners commit when learning English nominal clauses, a survey was carried out I investigated the ability to learn English nominal clauses of 37 students at Xuan Truong C high school The students were asked to do five exercises dealing with some major types of nominal clauses (The exercises are added in the appendix) The detail results are illustrated as follows:

2.2.1 Inversion between subject and verb in nominal interrogative clauses

Type of error Frequency of

occurrence Percent (%)

Inversion between subject and verb

Table 1: Error of inversion between subject and verb in nominal

interrogative clauses

The result from the table above shows that there are an amount of students commits this error when using nominal interrogative clauses (15 students over total 37 ones) It is clear that the effect of prior learning upon later learning is far from imagination Nearly a half of the students place the verb in front of the subject in nominal interrogative clauses

2.2.2 Subject and verb disagreement

Type of error Frequency of

occurrence Percent (%)

Table 2: Error of Subject and verb disagreement

This table illustrates that there have been a large number of students do not use the form of the verb after nominal clauses appropriately (27 students, making up 73%) The detailed errors that student committed in the survey are:

1 What causes the fire remain a mystery.

2 What we all needed were a spell of warm sunshine.

3 Now all he could do are sit and listen to the others.

4 What he needs now are sleep, and peace and quiet.

Or: 5 All I could do are sit and look at her in class

As I have mentioned, these errors are made by the negative transfer from foreign language to students’ mother tongue The students transferred the word

“all” to their mother tongue with the meaning “tất cả” which is plural in Vietnamese but in English nominal clauses, it is always at singular form On the

other hand, in the sentence: “What he needs now are sleep, and peace and

quiet.”**, students saw that the predicate of this sentence contains three elements: “sleep, peace and quiet” Therefore, they used the verb “to be” at plural form In fact, we have to put the verb in concord with the subject of the sentence, not with the predicate For this reason, the verb “to be” in this sentence has to be put at singular form: “is”, not “are” Students caused this error partly because they misunderstood the substance of this phenomenon

2.2.3 Misuse of “whether” and “if” in yes – no interrogative clauses

Types of error Frequency of

occurrence Percent (%)

- Using negative verb form in

Table 3: Error of Misuse of “whether” and “if” in yes – no

interrogative clauses

The result of this table shows that there are still an amount of students do not understand the different use of “whether” and “if” in yes – no interrogative clauses The evidence is that there are 23 students of total 37 ones (making up 62,2%) still placing “if” in subject position They could not correct the errors containing “if” in subject position in the exercise 3 in the appendix This is because there is no different use between “whether” and “if” in students’ mother tongue On the contrary, they are of the same meaning and the same use in Vietnamese: “liệu là ” or “liệu xem”, etc

Furthermore, when the verbs are put the negative form in “whether – interrogative” clauses, 17 students did not enable to realize this error Similarly, there are 21 students (over a half of total 37 students) also could not realize the error when “or not” is put right after “if” in the sentence: “I wonder if or not she will come.” This sentence is incorrect because “or not” cannot be put right after

“if”, but after “whether” is acceptable Hence, the correct sentence must be:

“I wonder whether or not she will come.”

Or: “I wonder if she will come or not.”

All these errors are made because there is no equivalent constructions between yes – no interrogative clauses in English and in Vietnamese

2.2.4 Omission of “that” in that – clauses functioning as subject

Type of error Frequency of

occurrence Percent (%)

Omission of “that” in that - clauses

Table 4: Error of Omission of “that” in that – clauses functioning as

subject

As can be seen from this table, the number of students omit the conjunction

“that” in subject position when transferring from their mother tongue to English

is 29 students, making up the highest percent: 78,4% Students omitted “that” in subject position because the meaning of conjunction “that” is unimportant in Vietnamese and it can be omitted But it is not allowed in English On the other hand, “that” is compelled to be present in subject position in English that - nominal clauses Being affected by the features of their mother tongue (Vietnamese), students easily commit this error

2.2.5 Unsuitable change from quoted speech to reported speech

Types of error Frequency of Percent (%)