The difficulties in learning writing skills of the first year english majors at an giang university

23 4.1.1.1 The common difficulties in learning English writing skill of the freshmen English majors at An Giang University .... To help students overcome difficulties in English writing,

AN GIANG UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

LÊ LONG THUẬN DTA151105 DH16TA

AN GIANG UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

LÊ LONG THUẬN DTA151105 DH16TA

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS



Second, I show my unique gratitude to instructors of English classes as well as the students

of DH19TA and DH19AV classes at An Giang University for their enthusiastic support during my data collection for the study

Third, I really would like to give my gratefulness for what my best friends have done for

me They all supported me a lot while I did the investigation

Last but not least, I am extremely obligated to my family, especially my dearest sister, for their encouragement and whole-hearted help Without their encouragement, I could not have completed this thesis

Le Long Thuan

TABLE OF CONTENTS



CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rational of the research 1

1.2 The research aims and research questions 2

1.3 Scope of the thesis 3

1.4 Significance of the study 3

1.5 Limitations of the study 3

1.6 Organization of the study 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 The definitions of writing 5

2.2 The difficulties in writing skill 6

2.2.1 Objective difficulties 6

2.2.2 Subjective difficulties 7

2.3 Approach to teach writing 8

2.3.1 Product-based approach 8

2.3.2 Process-based approach 10

2.3.3 Genre-based approach 11

2.4 Related studies 13

2.5 Summary 14

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 15

3.1 Research designs 15

3.2 The participants 16

3.2.1 Students 16

3.2.2 Teachers 17

3.3 Research instruments 17

3.3.1 Samples 17

3.3.2 Questionnaires 18

3.3.2.1 Questionnaire for students 18

3.3.2.2 Questionnaire for teachers 19

3.3.3 Informal interviews 20

3.3.3.1 The interviews for teachers 20

3.3.3.2 The interviews for students 20

3.4 Data analysis 21

3.5 Validity and reliability 21

3.6 Summary 22

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS 23

4.1 The results from the questionnaires 23

4.1.1 The results from the questionnaire for students 23

4.1.1.1 The common difficulties in learning English writing skill of the freshmen English majors at An Giang University 23

4.1.1.2 The solutions for the freshmen English majors at An Giang University to develop their writing skill 31

4.1.2 The results from the questionnaire for teachers 35

4.1.2.1 The attitudes of students to English writing 36

4.1.2.2 The knowledge of their students about students’ grammar, structures and creativity 36

4.1.2.3 The recommendations of teachers to develop English writing for freshmen English majors at An Giang University 40

4.2 The results from the informal interviews for teachers and students 42

4.2.1 Data gathered from interview for teachers 42

4.2.2 Data gathered from interview for students 43

4.3 Summary 45

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 46

5.1 Introduction of the discussions 46

5.2 Discussions 46

5.2.1 The common difficulties in English writing of the first year English majors at An Giang University 47

5.2.1.1 Discussion about the questionnaires for teachers 47

5.2.1.2 Discussion about the questionnaires for students 48

5.2.2 The solutions to make English writing better for the freshmen English majors at An Giang University 49

5.2.2.1 Discussion about the questionnaires for teachers 49

5.2.2.2 Discussion about the questionnaires for students 49

5.2.3 The recommendations for improving English writing in pairs and community 50

5.3 Implications 51

5.3.1 Suggestions for students 52

5.3.2 Suggestions for teachers 53

5.4 Suggestions for the further research 54

5.5 Conclusion 55

REFERENCES 56

APPENDIX 1: Questionnaire for Students (English version) 60

APPENDIX 2: Questionnaire for Students (Vietnamese version) 63

APPENDIX 3: The questionnaire for Teachers 66

APPENDIX 4: Interview questions for Students 68

APPENDIX 5: Interview questions for Teachers 69

LIST OF FIGURES



Figure 1 Teachers’ length of senior 17

Figure 2 Having poor organization in writing 24

Figure 3 Lack of vocabularies 25

Figure 4 Using sentence structure incorrectly 26

Figure 5 Using linking words incorrectly 27

Figure 6 Having difficulties in checking spelling 28

Figure 7 Having difficulties in expressing words in English 29

Figure 8 Having difficulties in writing thesis statements 30

Figure 9 Writing simply and clearly 32

Figure 10 Practicing writing in leisure time 33

Figure 11 Making outlines before writing any article 34

Figure 12 Spending less time cultivating vocabulary 36

Figure 13 Lacking knowledge about tenses 37

Figure 14 Lacking creativity in using words 37

Figure 15 Using sentence structures is not good 38

Figure 16 Translating words by words 38

Figure 17 Having difficulties in using the linking words 39

Figure 18 Writing rambling 39

Figure 19 Working in pairs and sharing experiences to others 50

Figure 20 Joining in writing community to improve English writing 51

LIST OF TABLES



Table 1 Gender of students 16

Table 2 Classes 17

Table 3 Reliability statistics of the questionnaires for students 23

Table 4 Using tenses incorrectly 25

Table 5 Having difficulties in using passive voice in writing 26

Table 6 Checking spelling of words takes a long time 28

Table 7 Having difficulties in defining what items related to the topic 29

Table 8 Cannot write the appropriate sentences to support the topic sentence 30

Table 9 Using the simple words in writing 31

Table 10 Reading more English articles helped to improve vocabularies and grammar 33

Table 11 Practicing with favorite topics 34

Table 12 The opinions of students about writing down all ideas that come to mind 35

Table 13 Reliability statistics of the questionnaires for teachers 35

Table 14 The attitudes of students to English writing 36

Table 15 Cannot write the appropriate sentences to support the topic sentence 40

Table 16 Encouraging students to read many English books 40

Table 17 Brainstorming helps students improve their vocabulary and ideas for writing 41

Table 18 Getting students to correct their drafts in pairs 41

Table 19 Giving favorite topics for students 42

ABSTRACT



Four important skills that are indispensable for English learners are listening, speaking, reading and writing In particular, students think the most difficult is English writing To help students overcome difficulties in English writing, the researcher would like to conduct the study with the hope that its results would find the common difficulties in English writing and positive solutions on English writing improvement of the freshmen English majors at An Giang

The findings of the research show the popular difficulties in English writing that the

freshmen English majors often face Moreover, the results of the research expose the attitudes of the freshmen to English writing

Finally, from the findings of the research, some effective solutions and recommendations have been made for improving English writing skills of the first year English majors at An Giang University

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION



Chapter one includes six main sections The first section 1.1 is about the rational of the study Section 1.2 presents the research aims and research questions of the study The scope of the study is discussed in section 1.3 Next, section 1.4 explores the significance of the study.The limitation of the study will be shown in section 1.5 And the last section 1.6 describes the

organization of the study

1.1 Rational of the research

Learning a second language includes the treatment of four basic abilities: listening,

speaking, writing and reading Writing is a definitive proficiency that students should control and practice It is a fundamental communication skill that should be gained It can be socially

transmitted or can be learned through formal teachers In contrast with speaking skill, there is no quick feedback in written collaboration The writer needs to envision the readers’ association, and makes a content which stays close to principles According to Grice (1975), the writer

should attempt to write an evident, related, honest, instructive, fascinating, and important

content Writing both in common sense and in the informative sense involves one of a kind of highlights that result in particular commitments to speaking language learning in general

Writing anything helps students to rehearse, practice the material and store it in long-term

memory

Writing in social orders because of social changes that made new informative needs Writing

is important because it is a basis clear communication The advancement of writing ability is a complex and dynamic psychological procedure since it requires more than the authority of

vocabulary and linguistic ability Writing is considered a method for learning language frames and a method for communication Writing ability must be rehearsed and learned through

understanding It also additionally includes forming which infers the capacity either to tell or retell pieces of data in the type of accounts or depiction, or change data into new messages, as in explanatory writing

One of the points of instructing English is to build up the capacity to convey The capacity includes the four abilities: listening, speaking, reading and writing One of the abilities that are the most difficult and confused to be educated is writing because writing needs hard reasoning to create thoughts, words, sentences, section, and organization Harmer (2001) expressed that the students can turn out to be extremely baffled when they do not have the words or the punctuation they have to express in writing The students likewise experience issues when they are asked to write about the themes that they do not have enthusiasm to do, maybe in new types, and without the fundamental data Writing invigorates students to focus on proper language uses, they can experience what they know in their brain or even counsel the word reference, sentence structure book and another reference (Harmer, 2004) It implies that writing is not just around a thought; however, it is progressively complex in picking vocabulary and using proper structures It is the manner by which the author introduces and communicates these thoughts in powerful writing Unfortunately, in reality students realize writing is the most difficult skill, and they do not recognize their weakness in writing Besides, because the studying environment at university is different from high school, students may be like a fish out of water, and they can get troubles when acquiring the knowledge as well as writing an essay or paragraph Studying skills at

university is necessary for students especially freshmen to improve and develop their skill and writing Therefore, the researcher study about the common difficulties in learning writing

freshman English majors and give solutions to improve students’ writing skill Consequentially, thanks to the investigation, English teachers and students will find out what are the most

common mistakes students made and offer some solutions on the English writing improvement for students, especially the first year English majors at An Giang University

1.2 The research aims and research questions

The study mainly aims at:

 Investigating the importance of writing skill

 Finding out the common difficulties in writing skills which students meet with, especially freshmen

 Exploring the attitudes of students and teachers towards writing skill

 Giving some solutions and recommendations to improve students’ writing ability

The research questions of the study are as follows:

 What are the difficulties of the first year English majors in learning English writing?

 What are some solutions making writing better for the freshmen English majors at

An Giang University?

1.3 Scope of the thesis

The primary aim of the research is to investigate the common difficulties in English writing of the first year English majors at An Giang University In addition, the researcher will also explore the solutions developing students’ skill afterward The ultimate target of this research is to find out the popular difficulties in English writing on students

1.4 Significance of the study

It is certain that English writing is a significant subject in most colleges and universities since

it can encourage different abilities, for example, listening, speaking and reading which are

additionally critical subjects Thus, teachers and students should find out mistakes to fix them in teaching and learning English writing That is the reason why we have to find the normal

difficulties The researcher expects that this survey will show the common difficulties in writing that the students have to face when starting to write a topic and how important improving writing skill is for them The researcher herself also believes that this study will give the students

inspirations to practice writing by their own as well as provide teachers interesting methods to

help students overcome the difficulties

1.5 Limitations of the study

In reality, the difficulties that the researcher mentioned are not really overwhelming for all English major students, but just for freshman English majors Besides, the researcher focuses on some common difficulties The researcher cannot mention all the difficulties and solutions for English writing in this study This is the first time that the researcher has carried out doing

research, so maybe this research will be flawed

1.6 Organization of the study

The study is organized into five main chapters:

Chapter 1: Introduction – provides the information about rational of the study, the research aim, the research questions, the significance of the study, basic information of the methodology and the organization of the study

Chapter 2: Literature Review – focuses on the theoretical background of the study

Chapter 3: Research Methodology – describes how the data and information are collected and analyzed

Chapter 4: Findings – presents the results of collected data and analyzes the findings of the study through statistics in the graphs and tables

Chapter 5: Discussions and Conclusions This chapter will discuss the findings, the

conclusion of the thesis and suggestions for teachers and students teaching and learning English writing based on the results of the study The suggestions for further research are also included in this chapter

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW



This chapter introduces the theoretical background of the study There are 5 main sections in

this chapter Section 2.1 reviews the definitions of writing Importantly, the difficulties in writing skill presented in section 2.2 consists of the objective and subjective difficulties Section 2.3 is about the approach to teach writing which includes product-based approach, process-based approach and genre-approach Section 2.4 shows the related studies Chapter 2 is ended by section 2.5, Summary.

2.1 The definitions of writing

Today, communication across the cultures and countries is more important than ever before Language is the best mode of communication and is truly basic for human communication In this global world, a lot of people talk more than one language Besides numerous languages being taught in Vietnam, the English language is broadly perceived for personal and expert use The obtaining and use of a second language is fundamental to the daily lives of people around the globe The pattern for obtaining of second language influences the careers and ways of life of people (Cook, 2001) English appreciates a status of second language in Vietnam as it is used widely for some reasons in the public area For obtaining and using any language efficiently and effectively, it is basic to master four essential skills, specifically listening, speaking, reading and writing Writing is certifiably not a characteristic movement, so unequivocal instructions are required for learning this ability (Aronoff and Rees-Miller, 2007) "Writing is an arrangement of more or less imprints used to speak to an expression so that it tends to be recovered precisely without intercession of the speaker" (Daniels and Bright, 1996) Written expression is

progressively effective in social psychological occurrences of communication than oral

expression In contrast to speaking, writing empowers people to pass on a message autonomous

of reality (Hughes, 1996)

Writing plays an important role in our own and expert lives; in this manner, it has turned out

to be one of the basic subjects in tertiary educational program Second language writing has dependably been a troublesome zone for second language students and a hot issue for second language researchers Writing is important because it is a basis for communicating clearly The

advancement of writing ability is a complex and dynamic psychological procedure since it

requires more than the authority of vocabulary and linguistic ability Writing is considered a method for learning language frames and a method for communication Writing ability must be rehearsed and learned through understanding It also additionally includes forming which infers the capacity either to tell or retell pieces of data in the type of accounts or depiction, or change

data into new messages, as in explanatory writing

2.2 The difficulties in writing skill

capitalization The standards of capitalization are not all-inclusive and ordering things as

legitimate and normal things is troublesome for students (Gower, 1995)

Raimes (1983) expressed that the other issue of association in students' writing is the

difficulty of separating a subject and supporting thoughts or speculations and explicit details The poor association or unreasonable arrangement may likewise be said to begin from poor educating

in the learning procedure The issue could be diminished by effective educating, the creating of a more extensive reading and writing propensity, and inclusion in discourses and debates The syntactic error is a term used in prescriptive syntax to depict an occurrence of flawed, unusual, or

questionable use (Nordic, 2005)

The thought would be hard to accumulate when the imagination is limited The thought is a soul in writing product which became interesting to read The principal thought was the most important thought in a section or entry The primary thought might be specifically expressed, or

it might be suggested In any case, the thought was the essential issue for the students other than

the limited imagination on the topic This issue made students baffled to develop writing when the topic was limited The extension of thought ought to be supported as well The limitation

on informativeness and thought disappointment made students to be hard to help their thoughts

or point that has been made Bahloul (2007) contended that the supporting thoughts are reasons, precedents, realities, steps, or different sorts of proof that clarify a primary thought It clarified, depicted, demonstrated, or gave examples of the fundamental thought and topic sentences It confused on supporting the thoughts Moreover, the time using in the class likewise gave an inconvenience for them on doing it Accordingly, they confounded and expected to be ability to

help their thoughts in a constrained time and imagination

(Bahloul, 2007; Smith, 1973) The way that English spelling was conflicting to makes it

increasingly difficult and requires more exertion to retain Spelling is an ability of recognizing a word in expressed or written mode Spelling and writing abilities are firmly connected, students who experience the ill effects of spelling issues need to remember the spellings of strongly used, unpredictable words In addition, to pass on the message properly it is essential that students effectively use punctuation marks Students ordinarily make mistakes in using commas, full stops, semicolons and colons which influences communication process The abuse of the capital letters is the most well-known writing trouble Capitalization troubles are a piece of the

punctuation trouble which might be the result of insufficient learning or wasteful educating

Punctuation helps other people to comprehend what you expect to state (Davidson, 2007)

On the other hand, grammar is the most difficult region for writers Students face troubles in the use of right sentence structure and passage advancement, and in making an intelligible

structure Language structure abilities incorporate run-on sentences, sections and verbiage, consideration of essential data, use of various sort of sentences, subject-verb, and position of

modifiers, tense understanding and parallel development (Leisak, 1989) According to Kleisar (2005), grammar is something other than a lot of rules; it is a consistently developing structure of

a language Then again, learning syntax can be quite dull, as nobody likes rules; and the

remembrance of guidelines is most exceedingly awful than applying them Students realize how

to assemble tenses, however when use them in composed expression they are befuddled

Students face trouble in combining two complete sentences Parallelism is additionally one of the

with meaning, form, possible word combinations and structures (Miller, 1984)

Another issue which students of English face is that of an efficient introduction The data which is efficient is easier to remember and get it Rhetoric consists of the investigation of

cohesion and coherence, full scale structure of content, logical plan of data and story structure (Grab and Kaplan, 1996) Coherence is a certain component of content which describes the logical connection between the thoughts and data typified in talk Coherence is helped by

cohesion which is the way toward clinging one sentence to the following sentence (Bex, 1996)

2.3 Approach to teach writing

To help language educators to improve students' writing competence and produce great writing, here are some sorts of ways to teach writing in class such as genre, product, and process approaches

2.3.1 Product-based approach

Product-based writing approaches have been called by a few names: the controlled sans to approach, the content based methodology, and the guided arrangement (Raimes, 1983; Silva, 1990) Essentially, writing in product-based methodologies has served to strengthen English

writing regarding linguistic and grammatical structures

There is an assortment of exercises in product-based writing which can bring students'

mindfulness up in English writing from the lower level of language capability to advance like English majors; for example, the use of model paragraphs, sentence-combining, and rhetorical

pattern exercises

The first two models are reasonable for lower English capability level students because they expect students to take a shot at the given exercises entirely in order to stay away from linguistic mistakes However, the rhetorical patterns in this approach, which give a specific measure of opportunity for English major students to make their organizations For this situation, students have the information of suitable second language use and can apply their knowledge to write in the rhetorical patterns, comparison/contrast, cause-effect, classification, and definition (Harris, 1993) Writing in the product-based methodology is seen as a basic direct model of the writing procedure which continues efficiently from prewriting to creating and to correcting (Tribble, 1990) Additionally, educators and students trust that arranging phase of writing in text-based

approaches starts and completes in the essential time of organization

Nevertheless, the product-based writing methodology is generally acknowledged among teachers in charge of writing skill because they have discovered a few points of advantages in it for writing in the classroom Firstly, students figure out how to write in English

structure methodically from using the product-based systems, to be specific the rationale of English rhetorical patterns such as description and persuasion They likewise figure out how to use vocabulary and sentence structures for each kind of rhetorical patterns In long term, product-based method enables teachers to raise students' writing mindfulness, especially in grammatical

structures

However, there are also drawbacks related to the use of the product-based method Writing with this approach gives close to nothing with regard to audiences and the writing reason since students and teachers tend to overemphasize on the significance of grammar and sentence

structure Students will need inspiration in learning and have high pressure in making their writing effective, as their teachers generally focus on the accuracy of the language structures

five-step writing process model of Scott (1996) below:

2.3.2.1 Prewriting

Teachers will provide a writing task and help them to generate vocabulary and ideas by applying a number of strategies in class namely brainstorming, clustering, and discussion, without concern for correctness or appropriateness in the first stage of writing

2.3.2.2 First draft composing

Learners will use vocabulary and ideas which they have got acquired from the previous stage

to express what they want to convey in their writing

2.3.2.3 Feedback

In this writing stage, learners will receive comment from real audiences which can be a writing teacher or their peers and move on to new ideas in another draft

2.3.2.4 Second draft writing

Based on the comment of teachers and peers, learners will modify their previous draft by revising, adding, and rearranging ideas

Writing processes might be seen as the writer's toolbox In using the devices, the writer is not compelled to use them in a fixed request or in stages Using any tools may make the need to use another Creating thoughts may require assessment, as may writing sentences Assessment may compel the writer to brainstorm new thoughts (Scott, 1996) Writing in the process approach would be able to be viewed as a dynamic and unpredictable procedure (Tribble, 1990) while writers attempt to reformulate their thoughts and approximate the meaning of what they need to express in their work Process-based methodologies are well-known devices for writing teachers

to train English writing since they have various advantages Students can figure out how to create writing in English with little when process-based writing is contrasted with other writing

approaches

They can improve their writing well-ordered organizations since teachers will control them through the entire process of their writing assignments by giving them feedback and enough time and opportunity through friend and teacher survey to build up a feeling of audience (Boughey, 1997), which permits them not only to think about their past writing but also to think about the conceivable presence of different perspectives Students need to spend a significantly long time

to finish one specific piece of writing in the classroom Badger and White (2000) also call

attention to that students have no clear understanding about the qualities of writing and are given

insufficient semantic contribution to write in English effectively in a specific content sort

Teachers ought to provide students with certain instances of the content sort that they need to write in order to enable them to have a clear understanding about the point and the system of a specific writing type Teachers should not spend too much time on one piece of writing in the class because this may diminish students' learning inspiration and hinder them from learning different sorts of writing They should prepare English majors to build up an idea of gathering of people by alternating giving comment on their classmates' writing The process-writing activity

in the class can help students develop their basic reasoning and learn not to depend just on the

teachers' feedback

2.3.3 Genre-based approach

Hammond and Derewianka (2001) defined the genre-based methodology as the best approach

to language and literacy instruction that combines an understanding of classification and genre

encouraging together in the writing class The genre-based methodology can be called

differently, for example, the "English for Academic Purposes approach" (Silva, 1990) or the

"English for Specific Purposes approach" (Dudley-Evans, 1997), they stress the significance of different sorts of writing which are fixing closely to social purposes (Maley, 1996) According to Badger and White (2000), writing in the genre-based approach is viewed as an expansion of the item situated methodology since students have a chance to think about a wide variety of writing

patterns, for example, the business letter, the academic report, and the research paper

Like other writing approaches, the genre-based methodology is increasingly used in the English writing classroom The focus of writing in this methodology intends to integrate the information of a specific sort and its open reason, these assistance students to create their written items to impart to others in a similar discourse community effectively Therefore, learning

specific genre development can be considered an approach to enable students to think of fitting genuine writing in their real life outside the classroom It additionally builds students' awareness

of such writing conventions as association, arrangement, structure, and kind Through the

creating procedure (Candlin, 1999), genre-based writing reflects a specific motivation behind a social circumstance and enables students to gain writing ability deliberately by impersonation

and investigation of each writing classification (Badger and White, 2000)

The negative side of the genre-based methodology is that students might not have enough information of suitable language or vocabulary to express what they plan to impart to a particular audience Another weakness, as Badger and White (2000) point out, is that this approach

underestimates the writing ability which students need to deliver a written product and overlooks

the writing skills students have in different regions

Teachers ought to describe clearly the genre which students need to learn toward the start of the writing class in order to enable students to plan and have thoughts regarding the language use for every genre Besides, teachers should assist students with producing their composed products step by step For instance, teachers may use a brainstorming method to enable students to

produce their thoughts and come up with the suitable language use or specific vocabulary for what they need to convey to individuals in a particular talk network At last, teachers should focus on the ability that will enable students to build up their writing capability through the writing process

2.4 Related studies

Writing is viewed as the most significant language ability that students require for their

self-improvement and academic achievement (Emig, 1977) There are many problems that students show at the moment of writing The individual with writing difficulties may have one or more of the following problems: poor handwriting, poor spelling skills, having problems with grammar, syntax and organization Some researchers have studied about these problems and they have identified the difficulties in English writing Students who do not have grammatical or other basic writing skills do have difficulty with academic writing The writer Lunsford (1979)

explained the reasons why students have problems, but she realized that they have not focused on the assigned topic That means that they are not conscious of what they are doing, this just

happens Moreover, Lamberg (1975) and Lynn (2011) said that students have difficulties writing thesis statements that focused on topics

According to Badi (2015) at Colleges of Applied Sciences-Sohar in Barcelona, his study titled

“Academic writing difficulties of ESL learners” used two questionnaires 20 participants joined

in this survey To support the quantitative data collected from the first questionnaire, two

participants were asked to complete a similar questionnaire and it mostly contains open-ended questions The results showed that they tend to have similar difficulties in academic writing The most common difficulty is coherence and cohesion Another is finding relevant topics

The thesis titled “University students’ English writing problems: diagnosis and remedy” by Alfaki (2015) at Nile Valley University Atbara, Sudan The study used the descriptive research method 20 students participated in this survey They wrote a composition about 250 -300 words

on “A description of my own home town” The aim of this study was to discover the errors and mistakes made by the students The results presented that students have various writing

difficulties: spelling mistakes, punctuation and capitalization mistakes, lack of several writing development skills

Msanjila (2005) researched the study titled “Problems of Writing in Kiswahili: A Case Study

of Kigurunyembe and Morogoro Secondary Schools in Tanzania” This study discovered the writing difficulties in Tanzanian secondary schools The study involved 60 students at the

Kigurenyembe and Morogoro Secondary Schools in Tanzania The study used questionnaire to gather the data The findings showed six glaring writing difficulties, namely: capitalization and punctuation problems, poor organization or illogical sequence, spelling problems and

grammatical errors The study argued that most of these writing problems arise from pedagogical reasons

The thesis titled “Writing Difficulties and Quality of Academic Essays of Senior High School Students” is discovered by Jim and Pablo (2018) The study used the questionnaire to survey 227 Grade 11 Senior High School students in the Schools Division of Laoag City (Philippines) The findings showed that the students have difficulties in writing academic essays such as lack of ideas in terms of content, lack of connectives in terms organization, incorrect word usage in terms vocabulary and word choice, poor sentence structures in terms of language use

The drawbacks of these studies are that only one method is used to collect data Most of them used questionnaires to gather the information The researchs would have been increased the reliability if researchers had used the qualitative method to gather more data

2.5 Summary

To sum up, writing is an ability and a complex type of self-expression It is a presentation of subjective, visual, calculated and motor possibilities (C Mercer, and A Mercer, 2004) English writing is a difficult assignment for the students because of the lingual and social contrasts These distinctions may cause the syntactic errors, composition problems and wrongness of introduction of thoughts in English (Cai, 2004) English is a typical language being

comprehended and used for communication in the world It is considered as a key to success

In this chapter, the researcher has given a short review of the theoretical foundation to the research and past investigations which are related to the study The following chapter will

address the methodology used in the proposal

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research designs

The purpose of this research is mainly to discover the common difficulties in writing skill of English majored freshmen at An Giang University In addition, so as to perceive teachers' and students' attitudes to writing skill, the researcher based on the theoretical framework and

previous studies Moreover, the researcher gives some solutions and recommendations to

improve students’ writing ability through the survey that she undertakes in this research In order

to ensure that this study gets valid results, the researcher uses two main tools for gathering data:

a set of questionnaires for the teachers and the first year English majors from two classes

DH19TA and DH19AV at An Giang University, informal interviews for instructors in charge of writing skill and English majored freshmen at An Giang University

 Questionnaires:

The researcher plans the questionnaire cautiously with the goal that she could gather the solid results for the investigation The researcher conveys the questionnaires to the first year English majors at An Giang University to accomplish some vital data for the study including students' troubles in writing skill and some solutions which are effective for them to improve writing ability From that point onward, the researcher breaks down the insights previously and she gives

at the conclusion

 Informal interviews:

The researcher sorts out informal interviews with some teachers and students browsing the examples in order to get more guideline information and data The students and the teachers

implement answering some questions related to their difficulties in writing skill and some

solutions which are effective for them to improve writing ability of the first year English majors

at An Giang University

3.2 The participants

There are two principal groups taking part in the research First, the number of population in this research also focuses on the students of two classes (DH19TA and DH19AV) There are 68 students participating in answering the questionnaires All of them are concentrating on a four-year program at An Giang University Particularly, 25 students in DH19TA follow the non-pedagogical major curriculum Meanwhile, 43 students in DH19AV follow the English

pedagogical major curriculum The researcher intended to survey 50 students of DH19TA and 50 students of DH19AV Because students from both classes were absent, only 68 questionnaires were collected

In addition, there are five teachers who are teaching English at An Giang University taking part in answering the questionnaire and four teachers participating in interview All of them have taught English for many years, so they have many experiences to share

3.2.1 Students

Firstly, there were 68 students taking part in the investigation (Table 1)

Gender Number of participants Percent

Table 1 Gender of students

Secondly, as of the class of participants, all students are freshmen English majors coming from DH19TA and DH19AV classes As the table 2 below, 25 students of DH19TA (36.8%) follow the non-pedagogical major curriculum, otherwise 43 students of DH19AV (63.2%) follow the pedagogical major curriculum (Table 2)

Class Number of participants Percent

English writing at An Giang University for at least 3 years Evidently, five teachers here have a lot of incredible experiences in teaching English writing for students at university

Figure 1 Teachers’ length of senior 3.3 Research instruments

3.3.1 Samples

In this investigation, the researcher uses both quantitative and qualitative techniques to

examine the information to ensure that they are generally valid and reliable The questionnaires are gathered from 68 freshmen English majors consisting of two classes DH19TA and DH19AV

60%

40%

More than 10 years More than 8 years

at An Giang University They are concentrating English writing as a mandatory subject at An

Giang University

Moreover, the research has the cooperation of four teachers who have great experience in

teaching English, and they are teaching English writing at An Giang University

In this way, the researcher trusts that the teachers will support her with their significant

experience and inventive sentiments In addition, the researcher believes the students will help

her to do the investigation

3.3.2 Questionnaires

Questionnaire is a self-report information collection instrument that each research members fill out as a component of the research study (Johnson & Christensen, 2008) This section is to depict the instruments to gather the information It incorporates surveys and informal interviews for teachers and students

3.3.2.1 Questionnaire for students

To gather solid and fundamental data for the investigation, the researcher planned surveys for

students who are from DH19TA and DH19AV classes (Appendix 1)

The poll for students consisted of two primary sections: individual data and survey The initial segment was to get some foundation data from the students, such as gender, their class and their average writing mark in the first semester The next segment included 21 questions about the difficulties in English writing that students face with and the suitable solutions for them to

improve writing skill for freshmen English majors

Particularly, the first six questions were about the difficulties in English writing about

grammar The next three questions were about the spelling and the using of words of students Besides, questions 10, 11, 12 were mainly about brainstorming to support the topic In order to continue the survey, questions 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 were the solutions about self-learning of students to improve their English writing And the solutions to develop their skill in pairs and

community were mentioned in the last two questions 20, 21

At that point, the researcher gave her supervisor the survey to peruse and check whether the poll was prepared for the following stages After the teacher fixed and agreed that the

questionnaire enveloped all the principal contents of the research “The difficulties in learning English writing skills of the first year English majors at An Giang University” The researcher created the questionnaire on Google Form to start the pilot stage She conveyed the questionnaire planned for one class at first This way aims at getting the researcher to know about her

questionnaire whether it is good or not And then, she fixed the questionnaire clearly and exactly, which is fully-constituted for all students After that, the researcher began asking teachers of two classes DH19TA and DH19AV for coming to their classes to deliver the surveys to students

3.3.2.2 Questionnaire for teachers

Besides getting information from students, the researcher collected the data from teachers

who are teaching English at An Giang University to increase the authenticity of this research

The questionnaire for teachers included two main segments: the teachers’ demographic

information and questionnaire The first segment was to get the basic information from teachers such as the duration they have been teaching English and English writing at An Giang

University The next segment consisted of 13 questions about the difficulties in English writing that their students met with and some solutions to help freshmen English majors write better

(Appendix 2)

Especially, the first two questions were mainly about the attitudes of students to writing skill The next seven questions were mentioned to check the knowledge of students about grammar, structures and form And the recommendations of teachers to develop English writing for

students were mentioned in the last four questions 10, 11, 12, 13

After designing the questionnaire for teachers, the researcher delivered the questionnaire to her supervisor and discussed together to make it more comprehensible The researcher created the poll on Google Form and sent it to English teachers at An Giang University During the time

of data collection, one teacher sent the researcher an email to edit some places in the survey

Thanks to her enthusiastic feedback, the researcher can make the poll more clearly

To sum up, the questionnaire was an important source for the research, so the researcher planned the survey clearly for the participants to reply The thoughts are unmistakably exhibited

so as to make the data collection sufficient and accurate

3.3.3 Informal interviews

The informal meetings were done with four teachers who are in charge of teaching English writing at An Giang University and 10 students chosen randomly from two classes DH19TA and DH19AV On account of the data given by the teachers and students, the researcher could find out the common difficulties in writing skill of freshmen English majors at An Giang University

3.3.3.1 The interviews for teachers

The teachers were asked to share thoughts regarding the difficulties in writing ability and solutions for improving it The researcher planned the questionnaires in English The researcher attempted her best to make a friendly environment all together, which makes teachers share all of their experiences openly and comfortably After listening to researchers' inquiries, the teachers replied and expressed their thoughts The researcher attempted to listen and record the teachers' discussion; simultaneously, she took noticed their thoughts precisely with the goal that she could get the data precisely By this helpful way, the researcher could see precisely the teachers'

disposition as well as the difficulties and recommendations in writing skill for freshmen English

majors at An Giang University The interviews for teachers included four questions as follows:

 What do you often do to help your students improve writing skill?

 What difficulties in writing that students at An Giang University faced?

 What are the reasons why students at An Giang University cannot write supporting ideas?

 To improve grammar and vocabulary, can you give some recommendations to help students?

3.3.3.2 The interviews for students

The point of the meetings was to gather the students' thoughts about the common difficulties

in writing skill The students needed to answer six inquiries while they were taking 15-minute break The researcher endeavored to make a friendly environment with the goal that the students did not feel nervous while answering the questions Concurrently, the researcher conveyed the paper which included six inquiries for students to record their own thoughts with the goal that she can investigate thereafter After the meetings, the researcher could recognize what the

students think There were five questions in the interview They were as follow:

 Do you like to learn English writing? Why (or not)?

 In your opinion, what is the most difficult in writing? Why?

 What do you often do to improve your writing ability?

 Do you like to use simple words or new specialized words to write?

 Do you think if you join in writing community, you will improve your writing skill?

3.4 Data analysis

The researcher used four main tools to analyze the information, such as Microsoft Word

2007, Microsoft Excel 2007, Google Form and IBM SPSS Statistic software 20 In the

investigation, the researcher used Google Form to analyze and count the number correctly and accurately Besides, IBM SPSS Statistic software 20 helped the researcher measure the reliability

of the questionnaire In addition, she used Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft Excel 2007 to

develop some vivid diagrams and tables

3.5 Validity and reliability

The researcher structured different sorts of instruments for data collection consisting of

questionnaire, informal meetings to interview students and teachers The valuable Google Form helped the researcher investigate the data efficiently and exactly The researcher used Google Form to design the pilot study before using the questionnaires She sent the pilot survey to

participants and edited the information of the questionnaires after that

Furthermore, the researcher had the informal meetings with four teachers who are teaching English writing at An Giang University Also, she had a meeting to interview 10 students of DH19TA and DH19AV classes who are studying at An Giang University She trusted that these

meetings were incredibly enlightening and helpful

The researcher used both quantitative and qualitative methods in the thesis These are

questionnaire and interview for both teachers and students who are teaching and learning English writing at An Giang University She used the questionnaire to collect the data from large number

of participants, this way would save the time However, there is no opportunity to ask the

participants whether they meant something in sense A, B, or C (Johnson & Christensen, 2008) Thus, the researcher used interview method to increase the reliability of the study Interviews provide useful information when participants cannot be directly observed According to Creswell

(2009), the interviewer has better control over the types of information that they receive The

interviewees will give the truthful answers as well as show their ideas to develop the answers

In conclusion, the researcher emphatically believed that all the conveyed questionnaires to students and teachers, the informal interviews for four teachers and 10 students who are teaching and learning at An Giang University could express precisely the difficulties in writing ability and the solutions to make it better for the freshmen English majors at An Giang University

3.6 Summary

The investigation has two main techniques including all questionnaires and informal

interviews for students and teachers in order to discover the answers of two main problems in

research questions of the investigation

And the next chapter will show the findings of the investigation, chapter 4

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS



The previous chapter presented the research methodology of the study In this chapter, the

researcher will report the results of the study Section 4.1 reviews the results of questionnaires The results of interviews are presented in section 4.2 Chapter 4 is ended by section 4.3,

Summary.

4.1 The results from the questionnaires

4.1.1 The results from the questionnaire for students

The researcher conveyed 80 questionnaires for students originating from DH19TA and

DH19AV Because some students were absent from classes, the researcher just delivered

questionnaires for 68 students altogether of two classes The results showed the data through charts, tables with insights and figures So as to gather enough the delivered surveys, the

researcher was in the class when the students were picking the most reasonable choices for the

appropriate response

After using SPSS statistics software to analyze, the researcher gained the reliability from

Cronbach’s alpha From table 3, we can see that Cronbach’s alpha is 769, which indicates a high

level and demonstrates that the questionnaires have the reliability statistics

Reliability Statistics

Cronbach’s Alpha Cronbach’s Alpha Based on

Standardized Items N of Items

Table 3 Reliability statistics of the questionnaires for students

4.1.1.1 The common difficulties in learning English writing skill of the freshmen English majors at An Giang University

In this investigation, the researcher designed the first question to ask about the ability to choose the topic that suits students to write This is the most basic step in writing 26 students (38.2%) had difficulty in selecting a suitable topic to write and seven students (10.3%) who

strongly agreed with it Whereas, 16 students (23.5%) and three others (4.4%) in turn disagreed and strongly disagreed Moreover, 16 students (23.5%) who did not know whether they could or

not (Figure 2)

Figure 2 Having poor organization in writing

The question “Lacking vocabularies makes me get confused in writing” was designed in order

to figure out the ability in using new words of students in writing skill As a result, the column chart showed out that 31 students (45.6%) and 25 students (36.8%) in turn in troubles with lacking vocabularies in writing In contrast to them, just 1.5% and 4.4% disagree with this

opinion Additionally, 11.8% (8 students) were wondering whether they had difficulty or not

Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree

Figure 3 Lack of vocabularies

Then, to explore the using of tenses of students, 68 students were asked to answer about their ability to use tenses The results indicated that 42.6% of students (29 students) showed their agreement that they cannot use tenses correctly Moreover, 19.1% of the students strongly

disagreed with this statement The researcher discovered that they agreed with the question that

using incorrect tenses because they lack knowledge about tense (Table 4)

Table 4 Using tenses incorrectly

Moreover, at the statement that “Having difficulties in using passive voice in writing”, about 13.2% of the students (9 students) and 27.9% (19 students) showed their strongly disagreement

12 students (17.6%) did not know they get trouble in using passive voice or not while 23.5% and

0510

Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

17.6% of the students agreed that they had difficulty in using passive voice The number of students showing their disagreement and agreement for this statement is nearly the same (Table

Table 5 Having difficulties in using passive voice in writing

To get to know students’ opinion about whether the ability in using sentence structure is good

or not, the researcher asked students to give their opinion for the statement “Using sentence structure (single, complex, compound) is not good” The results indicated that 33 students agreed and 17 students strongly agreed (in turn 48.5% and 25%) whereas 8 students (11.8%) were

thinking about the answer (Figure 4)

Figure 4 Using sentence structure incorrectly

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

The question “Using linking words incorrectly” was designed Responding to the question, about 48.5% of the students (33 students) confirmed clearly that they often use linking words wrongly Meantime, 33.8% of the students (23 students) could use linking words correctly and easily This figure signalized that they had different ideas about their ability in using linking

words 17.6% of the students (12 students) had no ideas with this question (Figure 5)

Figure 5 Using linking words incorrectly

When being asked whether they get difficulties in checking the spelling or not, most of

students (about 61.8%) thought that they actually get troubles in checking spelling of new words (42 students) It meant that the students usually focus on the correction of the words in their composition They feel worried that they have a typo However, 18 students (about 26.5%) considered that the spelling of new words was not difficult for them Meantime, 11.8% of the

students (8 students) had no ideas about this question (Figure 6)

Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

Figure 6 Having difficulties in checking spelling

From the information in chart 9 below, the researcher realized that in 68 students, 28 students (41.1%) thought that checking spelling of new words was not difficult because they thought when they wrote down a simple word, it was very easy to realize whether the word was correct

or not Otherwise, 25 students (36.8%) believed that checking spelling is one of problems in writing skill At the same time, 15 students (22.1%) were wondering whether they felt difficult or

not when checking spelling of words (Table 6)

Table 6 Checking spelling of words takes a long time

To get to know the students’ ability about expressing words in English, 68 students were

asked to answer the question “Having difficulties in expressing words in English”

0510152025

Stronglydisagree

Disaree Neutral Agree Strongly

Figure 7 Having difficulties in expressing words in English

To answer that question, among 68 students, nearly three quarters of them (53 students about 77.9%) agreed that they cannot express words in English Besides, 12 students (17.6%) thought that they could express words in English well There were three students who considered about

their ability in expressing words in English (Figure 7)

The researcher investigated the students’ perceptions about the difficulties in defining what items related to the topic The table below showed that the idea was agreed by 44.1% of the students The rest 11.8% were wondering if they could define items related to the topic or not

Table 7 Having difficulties in defining what items related to the topic

When being asked about the difficulties in writing thesis sentences, most of students showed their agreement Especially, 57.4% of the students (39 students) showed that they had problems

Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

agree