A study on common english written errors made by second year english majored students at tay do university

ABSTRACT Writing is seen as one of the four central skills of English that contributes to the success of language learners.. Hence, to improve the ability of writing skill, English major

TAY DO UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE

A STUDY ON COMMON ENGLISH WRITTEN ERRORS MADE BY SECOND YEAR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH MAJOR

AT TAY DO UNIVERSITY

Phan Thi Minh Uyen, M.A Students’ code: 15D220201005

Class: English 10B

May 2019

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This research proposal has been completed thanks to the help of many people from Tay Do University whom I have received support, I would like to express my appreciation to all of them First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to

my supervisor, M.A Phan Thi Minh Uyen for her support, guidance, and spent her valuable time to read and give comments on my study Without her help and support, I would not have completed my study Secondly, I would like to show my special thanks

to all lecturers in the Faculty of Linguistics and Literature at Tay Do University for their teaching and helping me gain a widen knowledge of English over the past four years Lastly, I am grateful to my parents and my friends for their mental support They are the motivation for me to overcome all the difficulties in completing this Again, thank you so much!

Ngo Bao Anh

COMMENTS

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT i

COMMENTS ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

ABSTRACT v

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 The significance of the study 2

1.3 The organization of the study 2

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW 3

2.1 Definitions of writing 3

2.2 The importance of writing 3

2.3 Some common English written errors 4

2.3.1 Problems in Vocabulary 4

2.3.2 Problems in Background knowledge 5

2.3.3 Problems in Grammatical structure 5

2.3.4 Problems in Writing styles 6

2.4 Previous studies 6

CHAPTER III RESEARCH AIMS – RESEARCH QUESTIONS – HYPOTHESIS 8

3.1 Research aims 8

3.2 Research questions 8

3.3 Hypothesis 8

CHAPTER IV RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 9

4.1 Research design 9

4.2 Participants 9

4.3 Instruments 9

4.4 Procedure 10

CHAPTER V EXPECTED OUTCOME 11

REFERENCES vi

APPENDIX viii

ABSTRACT

Writing is seen as one of the four central skills of English that contributes to the success of language learners Hence, to improve the ability of writing skill, English majored students have to meet some difficulties in learning process Consequently, th is

research titled “A study on common English written errors made by second-year

English majored students at Tay Do University” was conducted to identify

sophomores‟ writing problems in English language and to suggest ways of solving those problems The study was conducted in Tay Do University The research method used was the descriptive research method A sample of 40 English language sophomores was selected using a simple random sampling procedure They were asked

to fill in a questionnaire The aim was to identify the problems and mistakes that students could get in writing The findings revealed that those sophomores have various writing problems: grammatical problems, problem about vocabulary, problem about organization, problem about context

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter will present in details (1) the rationale of this research, (2) the

significance of the study and (3) the organization of the study

1.1 Rationale

English has become one of the most dominant media in many fields like economy, politics, and culture Obviously, English is the most popular foreign language taught in Vietnam The goal of teaching and learning foreign language is improving learners‟ communicative competence In order to acquire this competence, learners must be good at four skills in English such as reading, writing, speaking and listening; among which writing is considered a very important proficiency Besides speaking, writing is

a productive skill It helps people communicate with others through messages Furthermore, writing makes contribution to enhance other skills in languages and learners‟ logical way of thinking, thus facilitating them in their profession

Writing is a method of representing language in visual form Writing systems u se sets

of symbols to represent the sounds of speech, and may also have symbols for such

things as punctuation and numerals According to Lado (1964), “Writing is a partial

representation of Units of language expression.” In learning, students are often asked

to define words and phrases to prove that they understand the terms clearly However, academic writers generally also identify important terms carefully sometimes, so readers can understand and know exactly the meaning of those words before understanding the full content of the essay Hence, when important words are not explained clearly and correctly, the result may lead to misunderstandings

Previous studies have categorized these factors into some broad domains, for example, teachers‟ incompetence (Haider, 2012; Mansoor, 2005; Harmer, 2008), students‟ lack

of interest (Byrne, 1991; Harmer, 2008) and methodological inappropriateness (Ahmad, Khan, Munir, et al., 2013; Javed, Juan, & Nazli, 2013; Siddiqui, 2007) However, there is still a need of further research that could explore the origin of these factors and their subsequent conversion into permanent writing problems of students‟ written discourses The current study, along with teachers‟ and students‟ perceptions,

explores and examines the students‟ opinions and their written texts to identify their writing problems and the factors that generate these issues coupled by suggestions from the respondents on the improvement of learners‟ writing skills It will bring the latent psychological and cognitive factors into light for further enquiry and suitable solution

The ability of third semester students‟ in writing English is good enough, although they still have weaknesses in terms of grammar, vocabulary and some other skills that should be owned by the student in writing In fact, based on experience in English learning process after 7 semesters, the researcher realizes that English majored students, especially English majored sophomores now still have difficulties in building sentences The students‟ difficulties in writing English can be influenced by lack of many vocabularies, and grammar, lack of written exercises and ideas It is supported

by Sulastic (2003), the problems that they mostly face are about how to write, what to

be written, and lack of vocabulary words as well as incompetence in structure

1.2 The significance of the study

The research is conducted to help students find out some difficulties in writing English essays, particularly English major sophomores at Tay Do University Besides, they also find out their own problems for making some useful solutions or update some study methods to improve their writing skills

1.3 The organization of the study

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Literature Review

Chapter 3: Research Methodology

Chapter 4: Result and Discussion

Chapter 5: Conclusion, Implications, Limitations and Recommendations

CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter will present in details (1) definitions of writing, (2) the importance of

writing, and (3) some common English written errors

2.1 Definitions of writing

In daily life, writing is one of good ways for people to communicate to each other It helps us express our thoughts and ideas by text The term of writing can be defined by several ways, the researcher figured out some definitions that are easy to understand Writing is a medium of human communication that represents language and emotion with signs and symbols It is an important and complex language skill that everyone must learn it Byrne (1988) & Heaton (1990) pointed out that writing is a complex process because it requires the mastery of grammatical devices, conceptual thinking and judgmental (have purpose and activating) elements In most languages, writing is a

complement to speech or spoken language “Writing is communicating Good writing

gets yours ideas out of your head and into the readers’ head without losing of distorting those ideas” (Leki, 1976, p.4)

Furthermore, the time management is an essential element for writing skill According

to Chakraverty & Gautum (2000), writing is defined as “a reflective activity that

requires enough time to think about the specific topic and to analyze and classify any background knowledge Then, the writers need a suitable language to structure these ideas in the form of a coherent discourse.” Moreover, Hedge (1988:11) stated that the

idea of time needs to be given attention because writing activities by nature have different stages which need ample time Learners need time for gathering ideas, organizing their ideas, writing draft, proof reading and re-writing

To sum up, writing is a form of communication that allows students to put their feelings and ideas on paper, to organize their knowledge and beliefs into convincing arguments, and to convey meaning through well-constructed text

2.2 The importance of writing

Writing is seen as an important element that is widely used in English major at university It supports and ensures students develop at all levels of English skills such

as grammar, vocabulary, phonology, or discourse, and so on Therefore, if students cannot express their writing skill, they will not communicate in written language with anyone else

Furthermore, besides reading, speaking and listening, writing nowadays has an irreplaceable position in English teaching methods for teachers as well as in training English majored students‟ English skills To be successful in writing, it is considered that learners have to go through a hard learning process First of all, they need to recognize the objectives in their writing, then planning carefully a logical structure or outline of this At the same time, analyzing the sources in the writing and impacting them are absolutely required In particular, one of the best ways to attract language learners to improve their writing skill is to let them write as freely as possible at the beginning of learning process and evoke in them the feeling of creativity Creative writing obviously can play a crucial role in the development of writing skills (cf Janikova, 2005/6; Zajicova, 2011; or Rico, 1984)

2.3 Some common English written errors

Language learners have a number of problems in their attempts to write in the second language As verbs take different forms depending on tense and subjects they are used with, they create problems for second language writing students Students have problems with subject verb agreements, pronoun references, and connectors

2.3.1 Problems in Vocabulary

Researchers have been studying the important role of vocabulary in writing essays for over twenty years Most of people agree that lack of vocabulary is the main problem

which of learners in writing skill Thornbury (2002, p.33) stated, “Without grammar

very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed.” In fact,

students often lack necessary vocabulary when they are engaged in authentic communicative situations such as writing essays

A good writing or composition should consist of appropriate and varied range of vocabularies used along with proper grammar and varied range of sentence structures When the writer practices, the choice of vocabulary would always cause difficulty for delivering the reader about the purpose and content of writing Zughoul & Husain (1985) considered that lack of lexical variety was also remarkable problems students

face in writing their papers They did not add any information to the text because of lacking words to express their ideas Therefore, using appropriate words in appropriate contexts in writing in English is a problem for students For example, students usually use words that are too sublime and professional in their small essays to impress their readers or teachers, then it leads to a problem of diction unsuitably

2.3.2 Problems in Background knowledge

Most students who learn writing in English often do not have enough words and language structures to express their ideas while writing So they often have to change words and sentence structures that they do not know by what they have learned Thus, this has caused lack of knowledge

According to Bland (2003), “Background knowledge consists of many aspects in

practical life such as culture, society, custom and etc…” Hence, if students have poor

background knowledge, they cannot build a good structure of English writing to attract readers This means that for the topics assigned, many students still cannot prepare the outline or structure very well with opening, body or closing in their essays Moreover, lack of confidence also causes difficulty to the students in writing about the topic Students feel that they are not as experts as those writers who are both experienced and intelligent This implies that students need to learn about the topic carefully before they start writing an essay by reviewing some articles related to their topic

2.3.3 Problems in Grammatical structure

The highest number of errors was made in grammar Grammatical errors included errors of different word classes, subject-verb agreement, and forms of singular and plural, for example, „these applications gives a proper protocol to communicate others‟, „these channels provide numerous number of information‟, „every day the situation goes bad to bad‟ and „their personality impress by everyone‟ James (2005;2) said, “Grammar is a study of the structure of the language and describes the way of putting words together to make meaningful sentences.” In reality, students usually make grammatical errors in their writing such as tense, word order and pronunciation They do not even know how to write sentences correctly, so it leads to unclear meaning and content in their essays Therefore, learners should try to recognize and fix

in time with common mistakes by appropriate methods

2.3.4 Problems in Writing styles

When mentioning about writing styles, it can be seen that the use of spoken and informal style of writing was also observed Spoken expressions like “Let‟s talk about television first” and “Now if we talk about life without them” were used by learners in their writing Moreover, the learners used the contracted form mostly in their negative

sentences using don’t, won’t, and can’t

According to Rogers Henry (2005), “Writing essay features mentioned include

informative, complex, formal, precise, objective, explicit, qualification and responsibility.” Besides, students cannot build good ideas to attract readers Moreover,

students rarely read some materials to enrich knowledge about various topics in real world, so they are confused in showing their thoughts when facing unfamiliar topics Thus, they often make readers bored because of not having enough background knowledge in their writing

2.4 Previous studies

Furthermore, many researchers have emphasized the difficulties in writing First, Dr Ibrahim Mohamed Alfaki (2015) conducted a study to identify the errors and mistakes made by the students The research method used was the descriptive research method

A sample of 20 English language students was selected using a simple random sampling procedure They were instructed to write a composition of about 250-300 words on “A description of my own home town/village” The students‟ compositions were reviewed twice by 10 English language instructors The findings reveal that those university students have various writing problems: language problems at the levels of morphology and syntax; usage errors, and mechanical mistakes, that is, spelling, punctuation and capitalization, lack of several writing development skills, cognitive problems and graph motor problems

Greenhalgh (1992, cited in Tony 2001) mentioned that most frequent advice students receive about their work progress come from ESL teachers of writing The writing task

is challenging because many practical and theoretical issues are included The ethical issues of rights and responsibilities also arise in texts Researchers recommend that students should be supported by teachers to take control of their own writing As a result, a responsible teacher would be a reactive reader, a person who helps students