(SKKN 2022) SOME EFFECTIVE MEASURES OFCORRECTING ERRORS IN WRITNG ENGLISH FOR 11TH GRADE STUDENTS AT HAM RONG HIGH SCHOOL

THANH HOA EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEPARTMENTHAM RONG HIGH SCHOOL ---*****---INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE SOME effective MEASURES OF correctinG errorS in writing english FOR 11th grade STUDENT

THANH HOA EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEPARTMENT

HAM RONG HIGH SCHOOL

-***** -INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE

SOME effective MEASURES OF correctinG errorS in writing english FOR 11th grade STUDENTS AT HAM RONG HIGH SCHOOL

Author: Trương Thi Thanh Hà Position: Teacher

Research field: English

THANH HOA 2022

TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGES

1.3 Scope and objectives of the study 1

2.2.1 Background of the study 42.2.2 Brief description of the lesson 5

2.2.5 Brief description of the lesson 11

3.2 Limitations of the study 18

3.3 Suggestions for further research 18

1 INTRODUCTION1.1 RATIONALE

As you know English is an international language and is a core subject atschools English is not only necessary for tourism, foreign trade, foreign companies,computer users, etc., but also a compulsory one in GCSE exam Therefore, eachstudent in high school needs to have the certain knowledge of English to prepare forexams and after graduation, they must be able to at least communicate, read andwrite some common documents To do this, we constantly innovate teachingmethods as well as study programs to achieve real results for English in general andforge some basic skills for students

When learning a foreign language, writing skill is considered as one of theimportant skills that learners need to master if they really want to succeed incommunication Learning English is not an exception, especially in the era ofopening up to international economic integration, when most information sourcesare written in English, the requirement for writing skills in this language isincreasing Writing is a skill that everyone in any profession uses on a daily basis

As students, you have, are and will encounter many types of writing to completeyour learning process

In the process of learning a foreign language, making mistakes is also aninevitable part and plays an important role When practicing writing, students oftenface a lot of difficulties to write consistent and coherent paragraphs For 11thgraders, who started to get used to writing short paragraphs last school year , thisschool year it is very important to point out basic mistakes and guide them tocorrect them because it will help them improve in the process of learning andpracticing writing skills later Finding out where children often make mistakes andhow teachers and students correct them will also help improve their writing skills.For English teachers, who have the main responsibility to help students perfect thisskill, the effectiveness of teaching depends not only on the method of teachingwriting skills but also on language knowledge and skills of the teacher There aremany factors that affect learners' writing results, error correction is an importantfactor among them We cannot deny that making mistakes in writing is inevitableduring the learning process The more students pay attention to the lesson, the morethey want to create and develop their own understanding in the process of languageformation This is one of the reasons why students make an increasing number ofmistakes but making mistakes is also seen as a positive process From the mistakesmade, learners can see whether they write satisfactorily or not and it also helps

teachers to assess the ability of students at certain times to help them improvequickly, so how to correct those mistakes, whether correction will work in thefuture help students improve their writing skills or not, how to correct errors mosteffectively, and when correcting errors is reasonable.

With the problems encountered in the process of teaching writing skills to 11th

graders, I decided to carry out a research work with the topic: "Some effective

measures of correcting errors in writing English for 11 th grade students at Ham Rong High School "

By synthesizing and analyzing common errors in students' writings andapplying some error correction methods, I hope to contribute to helping studentsunderstand the difficulties in the process of learning to write, students will workmore effectively in a writing lesson Hopefully that the results of this study would

be shared with any colleagues who had the same problem or anyone who isinterested in this study

1.2 Aim of study

The specific aims of the study are as follows:

- Clarifying the nature of writing in accordance with some important points inteaching this skill

- Investigating the present situation of teaching and learning writing of the 11thform students to find out advantages as well as problems facing both teachers andstudents in phonetic lessons

1.3 Scope and objectives of the study

The study will focus on improving the writing skill for the small number of

11th students at Ham Rong High School and show some effective error correctionmethods in English writing articles of 11th graders that affecting the student’writing performances in writing lessons This study was carried out in three Englishclasses with an experimental class B7 of 52 students, 11B11 of 44 students and acontrol class B6 of 50 students

1.4 METHODS OF THE STUDY

The study is basically a qualitative research, which employs the followingmethods:

- Firstly, observe the writing lessons, make students aware of the importance ofthe writing skill, thereby helping them have improve writing skill

- Secondly, present the analysis of the data come from writing tasks from thetextbooks

- Thirdly, take experimental measures with control comparison help students useEnglish words correctly, ensure subject knowledge standards, thereby helpingstudents solve the essays in exams or graduation exams and university and helping

teachers of foreign languages have a few small suggestions in practicing writingskills for students.

- Finally, check the results after the implementation

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

One of the four skills that English learners in general and high school students

in particular often face certain difficulties in the learning process is writing skill andmake errors in learning process – an inevitable part Nevertheless, how to correct thestudents' mistakes and teach the writing skill effectively often poses great problems

to both teachers and students For the teachers of English at high school, thisproblem is considered a difficult part to teach Some of them even ignore teachingthe writing skill and focus only on grammar excercises for the exams However,nothing is difficult if we, the teachers make decision to make it easier Hopefully,with a range of suggestions of how to correct errors in writing lessons introduced inthis research, it will be more motivating for the teachers to teach and makeprogress in teaching the writing skill Therefore, their students will be interested inwriting lessons

2 CONTENTS

2.1 Theoretical Background

* What is writing in language theory?

When learners read English book they know many ideas and have a lot ofinformation When they gain that point of view, they can apply them to write a newtopic Beside that readers can see how to organize ideas on the books So in order tohave an appropriate and effective approach to teaching writing skills, it is necessary

to understand the concept of "writing" in language theory There are manydefinitions of “write” Each linguist has their own definitions depending on thecriteria they consider important

According to Byrne (1979), writing is "the act of forming a sequence ofconventionally arranged symbols to form words and words arranged in sentences".From this point of view, we can see that any activity that makes up a word/sentence,whether meaningful or not, is considered "writing"

Writing, in terms of language theory, is not as simple as the concept proposed

by Byrne It is a complex process that, according to Lannon (1989) "is thetransformation of materials discovered by inspiration, chance, trial and error, orwhatever in the message is full meaning – Writing is a process of careful decisions”(p.9) According to this definition, writing must contain meaningful messages,which is more complete than Byrne's (1979) definition because it is directedtowards the purpose of writing, not writing without a clear direction

In the process of teaching and learning, writing is considered a “languageskill” (Tribble, 1996, p.3), it is not only the presentation of language in writtenform, but also the development and expression of those skills ideas in a structured,ordered way.” It is “a process that occurs over a period of time, especially when wetake time to think before we write our first outline” (Harris, 1993, p.10) Comparedwith the concepts given earlier, this concept is the most satisfactory because itcovers all aspects of writing skills: form (written text), purpose (expression of ideas)

… , and texture (with texture)

When we write we know that a written text is the product of an individual forthe purpose of communicating with others indirectly That means the receiver doesnot stand in front of the writer to hear from the writer Therefore, the writer mustmake sure that the text he writes is not only accurate but also understandable to thereader

* The writing process

According to Tribble (1996), the writing process consists of four steps:

1 Before writing: This is the step that the writer takes before writing a draft,

including choosing a topic, thinking, taking notes, discussing, organizing ideas,making an outline, and gathering information (For example, interviews, librarysearches, data processing).

2 Drafting: Drafting is the process by which writers put ideas into sentences andparagraphs, focusing on explaining, clarifying, and linking ideas

3 Proofreading: This is an important step to a complete text The writer will thinkabout what the reader expects, the reader is the center of the text towards Forexample, refine structure, link ideas, or add conjunctions

4 Editing: The writer revises the form of the article such as spelling, grammar,punctuation

As we see from the above point of view, writing is a one-way process thatdoes not involve the reader Reid (1993) makes the same point but adds three moresteps to the writing process: feedback, evaluation, and post-writing This makesReid's writing progress more satisfactory

Briefly, the steps of the Reid (1993) writing process can be illustrated in thefollowing diagram:

Before writing

Drafting

FEEDBACKCORRECTIONEditing

EVALUATIONAFTER WRITING

* The conceps of errors and correcting errors

Errors

There are many definitions of error given by famous researchers such as:Abbort (1981), Edge (1989), McKay (1989), Goldstein (1990), Hubbard (1991),Klassen (1993), Crosling (1996) etc Although they are expressed in different ways,the concepts have something in common regarding the nature and function of errors

Goldstein (1990) defines error as “an action resulting from ignorance,omission, or inadvertent distraction, deviation from the original direction, or failure

to achieve the goal.”

Klassen (1993) offers a simpler definition of error According to Klassen, anerror is "a form or structure that is unacceptable to native speakers because ofinappropriate use"

Meanwhile, Crosling (1996) gives his opinion in the direction of attachingimportance to the criteria "Any deviation from the usual method is considered anerror"

When it comes to errors, some researchers have the same opinion that notonly language learners make mistakes but also native speakers Native speakersoften make mistakes on two levels of “morphological errors” and “expressionerrors”, the latter of which is a common mistake with a higher frequency (McKay,1984) Therefore, errors should be viewed as unconventional and inappropriate Wecan see making mistakes at all levels of language from errors in form to expression

Error classification:

Lippman, J (2003) classifies errors into two categories: “general errors”(overarching errors) and “specific errors”

Covered Error Own Error 1 Thesis

Not exactly the Not exactly the 2 Structures

whole sentence each element 3 Basis

Ex Order word, Ex Tense, 4 Compatibility and Consistency

5 Suitability for audience and purposeConjuntion article, Specific issues:

errors auxilary verb 1 spelling

failure ineffective 3 grammar

communication communication 4 Punctuation

Trích theo Lippman (2003)

There are many ways of classifying errors depending on the purpose of theresearcher in the analysis and the suitability with the actual conditions of teachingand learning that language

Error correction

When evaluating an article, we have the concept of "feedback" - feedback, inwhich there are two components to distinguish: "assessment" - evaluation and

"correction" - correcting errors In terms of assessment, learners are simply judged

as performing well or not in the written work Regarding error correction, learnersreceive detailed information about the article such as explaining, providing a betterway of writing In principle, error correction can and should give information aboutwhat the writer is right and wrong and why, but in general both teachers andlearners see the concept as correcting mistakes

2.2 The reality of the study

In reality, writing skill needs a lot of factors, learners have to know how toorganize the structure of paragraphs or essays, know how to write coherently

Basing on the new textbooks designed by the Ministry of Education and Training,English are taught with four skills and Language Focus which focuses on grammarand pronunciation The writing program at Ham Rong high school follow thesyllabus of the Ministry of Education and Training with the aim of improvingstudents’ abilities in writing On English 11 textbook, there is a range of types

to practice writing with describing a friend, celebration’s activities, alocation, writing letters of invitation or reply, describing statistics from a chart or

a table or writing a report or a biography

As regards the language, for non - major English students, studentssometimes have to depend on the provided structures and phrases or vocabularies.However, some of them start to be aware of and perform different styles aswell as various levels of formality to match the writing situation But most oftheir works still need to be examined for vocabulary and style accuracy

In terms of methodology, students are expected to master the general studyskills Students should be active in self – studying, peer and group cooperation.They understand the process in teaching and learning writing and know how towrite

2.2.1 Background of the study

The action research was carried out with the aim of finding “The measures tocorrect errors effectively on grade 11th students’ writing performance at HamRong High School” While teaching writing at this school, the author realizesthat some English teachers, for some reasons, do not usually conduct the corectioneffectively at writing lessons To make it clearly how error correction affects to the

students’ writing performance, some factors related to students’participation incorecting stage will be discussed in this part.

From the analysis of survey data and reading, finding errors in students'writing during the teaching process, we can see some of the current status of theproblem raised in this experiential initiative as follows:

Both teachers and students have a positive attitude towards correcting errors,and both consider error correction an integral part of the learning process, animportant factor in improving students' writing ability

While correcting is an important part of writing skills, and despite efforts byboth teachers and students, students' writing skills have not improved much Thereason is that there are still many errors that have not been fully pointed out andcorrected after giving a general assessment of the student's writing, so even ifstudents review it, they cannot understand where they are wrong

There are errors that are difficult for both teachers and students to detect such

as logic errors, expression errors, or word errors (Example: Correct sentence: I likereading historical magazine Wrong sentence: I like reading historic magazine Theadjective historic - famous, important in history and historical - belongs to history).Students and teachers often only pay attention to spelling, grammar, or structureerrors when evaluating writing

In the method of error correction, both teachers and students believe thatteachers correct mistakes, students correct students' mistakes and correct mistakesthemselves as the main method Students are often passive in the correction process

Before doing the topic, I have done 2 surveys on students' understanding ofmaking mistakes in writing articles

2.2.2 Survey 1

Survey 1 is a survey on the ability of students in grades 11B6, 11B7 and11B11 at Ham Rong High School to practise the writing skills of students at thebeginning of the term I have given each student a 10-minute writing about a shortbiography of somebody

Ex: Find and correct the mistakes in the short biography of Jack Friedhamm

Correction:

Jack Friedhamm was born in New York on October 25, 1965 He beganschool at the age of six and continued until he was 18 years old He then went toNew York University to learn Medicine He decided on Medicine because he likedbiology when he was at school While he was at University, he met his wife Cindy.Cindy was a beautiful woman with long black hair They went out for years beforethey decided to get married Jack began to work as a doctor as soon as he hadgraduated from Medical School They have had two children named Jackie andPeter, and have lived in Queens for the past two years Jack is very interested inpainting and likes to paint portraits of his son Peter

The results of the number of students correctly completing and the number ofquestions in each class are as follows (with percentages):

Class Total Correct 5

mistakes

Correct 4 mistakes

Correct 3 mistakes

Correct 2 mistakes

Correct 1 mistakes

No mistakes

2 hs

4 %

1 hs

2 %11B11 44 26 hs