Luận văn high school students’ errors in using english articles as shown in their written exercises

MINOR THESIS High school students’ errors in using English Articles as shown in their written exercises Nhitng léi trong viée sir dung mao tie Tiéng Anh trong các bài viết của học sinh

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

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MAI THI NGAN

M.A MINOR THESIS

High school students’ errors in using English Articles as

shown in their written exercises

Nhitng léi trong viée sir dung mao tie Tiéng Anh trong các bài viết của học

sinh Trung hoc phé théng

Field: Methodology Code: 60.14.10

Hanoi — 2011

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-—-#œsElw»cœs—- y

MAI THI NGAN

M.A MINOR THESIS

High school students’ errors in using English Articles as

shown in their written exercises (Những lỗi trong việc sử dụng mạo từ Tiếng Anh trong các bài tập viễt của

học sinh Trung học pho théng)

Field: Methodology Code: 60.14.10

Supervisor: Dr Ha Cim Tâm

Hanoi — 2011

ABSTRACT

s of learning English as a foreign langusy

do have to face a lot of problems English article is considered as one of the most troublesome problems for every leamer because of its complex uses This MA minor thesis

is am allemmpt to point oul some problems in using English articles of students in writing TL

is hoped that the study would be useful for teachers and students in teaching and learning English at high schools

In order to achieve the goal, two data collection instruments were used including, exercises and interviews While the exercises were designed to collect information reflecting real problems in using English articles, the interviews following that were devekaped to find ont the problems in using articles and some possible causes as well

Results of the study show that Articles in English are complicated words which cause a lot

of difficulties for Vietnamese students Scven problems: substitution cxrors, indefinite article forms, deletion of the articles, problems in using indefinite article with marked and umiaked plurals, problems in using indefinite article with uncountable nouns, problems in covering the uses of definite articles and ovarusing articles were committed in the process

of leaming and using Articles Besides, this research also found out that it is the inlerference of mother tongue, avoidance, overgeneralizalion and the conditions of learning

4 training that have great influence on students’ foreign-language learn

It is hoped that fom this study, teachers and students would he more aware of the problems lo be solved and from the identified problems, they would develop Icaching and learning methods accordingly

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.3 Review of pIcvious studiG8 ào

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY

3.2 Implications fbr teaching and learning English Articles 28

3.4, Suagestions fbr ñuflet SiMÄlSS à crc oehieiserse son 3Ô

Table 1: The Uses of English Antictes

Table 2: Results by the issues’ exercises

Table 3: Results by the yypes of exercises

CANDIDATE'S STATEMENT

| hereby certify that the thesis entitled:

High schaot students’ errars in using English Articles as shown in their written

The largest debt of all is to my supervisor, Dr Ha Cam Tam, who has given me much invaluable advice and careful instructions since the very beginning and has always been my

frequent secure for many invaluable insights I am also

grateful to her for reading and helping me make the necessary changes

I am indebted to all the lecturers of the Post-Graduate Department, College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their valuable teaching and assistance

during my study at the College

I must in particular thank Assoc Prof Dr Le Hung Tien, the Head of the Post- Graduate Department, and the lecturer of Scientific Research fer his useful and precious instructions

during the course

My sincere thanks are due to the students and teachers at

Thach Thanh High School No.3, Thanh Hoa, who have provided me

with the valuable data

Finally, I am grateful my family and my friends for their great support and encouragement in the accomplishment of this

study

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

English as native language or second language is the most widely used throughout the world, Since English has become an offective means of intemaltional communication and i can be instrumental to personal and professional success, it has been the first choice of most Vietnamese learners of foreign languages, But in the process of learning, Vietnamese learners do have to face a lot of problems English article is considered as one of the most

troublesome problems for every learner because of its complex uses

‘The Lnglish articles “a(n), zero, the” are quite difficult to acquire not only for USL / HL'L learners bul also for eluildien learning English as a firs! language Articles are believed to

be a source of difficulty for leamers (and teachers) of English as a second / foreign language, especially for those whose native languages do not have articles English articles are hardly crucial communication devices, which are supported by the fact that they are dropped in telegraphic exchanges They are generally overlooked by learners when processing language primarily for meaning According to Pienemann (1998), the difficulty

of the meming expressed by an utlicle is delormined by the novelty and abstrackness of the concept, not to mention learners’ changmg hypotheses about article usage at different stages in interlanguage development and the potential influence of the native language which may further complicate the task

Articles do not impede understanding, for in oral communication, they are generally unstressed and almost inaudible, Nevertheless, given the faet thal they are among Ihe most frequently used words in English (Master, 2002), it is significant that students have some control of their usages, When you learn English articles, you are learning one of the easier components of this language But if you want to master articles, one of the first things you must perfect is your understanding of their nuances However, if the very conecpt of

articles does not exist in your native language — as is te of many Asian countries

inckuding Viemam, then it can be quite a daunting task to learn English articles and use thcm appropriately Most Vietnamese Icamers defined that the definite (the) and indefinite (a, an) are presented and the different cases where they are applicable But many of them

can’t explain why is it correct to say "@ ern” and not "an kere": but "an j#awr" and not "a

hour"; "a unit’ and not "an anit", but “an utterance” and not “a utterance” ‘They even

Tdon't

have difficullies im explaining a / the before “dentist? in two following sertene

like going to the dentist amd A dentist is a person who checks your teeth Or there are instances where no article must precede a noun, and fixing an article before it can change the meaning which confuses students ax well For example, "Clothes are expensive" implies that all clothes in general are expensive, but " Zhe clothes are expensive" implies that only the clothes that one is talking about are expensive

Thess questions remain quite problematic for Victnamese students, Therefore, it is necessary to carry out this research about problems in using English Articles of students at Tigh Schools Hopefully, this study may be of some help to those who are interested in the topic

1.2 Aims of the study

This study aims at identifying problems in using English articles in writing by students of Thach Thanh High School No 3 and suggesting some possible solutions to overcome the problems

1.3 Research question

‘The study was set up to answer the following question:

‘What problems in using English Articles do students of Thach Thanh Tigh School No.3 usually encounter in their writing?

1.4 ‘Ihe scope of the study

The rescach will be studicd to find out the problems in using both indefinite and definite articles in writing sentences by students of Thach Thanh High School No.3

‘The exercises used in this study were taken from the textbook “Peng snk 11 and Tieng Anh 12 - chương trình có han” and 1

Iøsic grammar books in which the sxemples involved have been examined, described and classified tor pedagogioal purpose

1.5 Methods of the study

In order to identify what problems high school students have in using English Articles in their writings, Quirk’s framework was used to the descriptive statistics for data analysis

6

1.6 Organization of the study

The study consists of three main parts Parl ơne, Introduction, includes the rationals, the

aims, the scope, the research question, the methodology and the organization of the study,

Part hyo includes two chaplors, Chapter one provides the theorctical background on

Parl three ents the conclusions of Ihe mwjor ñndings, lục implications for learning und

teaching English articles, and suggestions for farther research,

PART H: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides an overview of the theoretical background of the research in general Tlis divided into lwo main sections Saction 1.1 discusses some basic concepls of English articles via the definition, classification and usage system of English articles, A minor comparison hetween the definite article and indefinite articles is also given in this chapler Section 1.2 discusses

1.1.1 Articles in English

According to Erichsen (2005), English articles are somewhat arbitrarily defined as a small group of delsrminers thal are placed before nouns Arliclos standing alone have Tittle meaning; when used with a noun they can indicate whether the noun refers tơ a specitic

one or ones of its type or whether it refsrs to its type in general It means that the English

article is the part of specch uscd to indicate and specify nouns

‘To clarify the definition above, classification and usage system of English articles are considered in the following scetion

1.1.2 Classification of English articles

‘There are two types of English Articles They are indefinite and definite articles

LL21 Indefinite articles

@ Form: A- An

Ais used before a word beginning with 4 consonant, or a vawel with a consonml sound:

a European a one-way street

ĐI

An is used before words beginning with a vowel(a, ¢ j ø, w) or words beginning with a

ule A

E.g an apple anisland — anuncle an egg an hour an onion

- Or individual letters spoken with a vowel sound

Tp an MP an SOS an X

- A/ Anis the same for all genders

Eg aman a woman an acior an actress atable

6 Uses of A/ An

- Before a singular noun which is countable (i.e of which there is more than one) when it

is mentioned for the first time and represents no particular person or thing

E.g They live ws «flat He bought an ive-creun

- Before a singular countable noun which is used as an example of a class of things

Fig 4 car must be insured (= All cars / Any car must he insured )

+ Wilh a noun complement, This includes names of professions

E, She'll be a dancer

- Incertain expressions of quantity:

F.g alotof a great many a great deal of a couple a dozen

- With certain numbers:

Lg ahundved a thousand ahalf kilo of

- In expressions of price, speed, ratio

k.g four times a day sixty kilometers an hour

- Inexclamations before singular, countable nouns:

Tp Sue along quene! What a pretty girl!

¢ Omission of A/An

A/ Anis omilted:

- Before plural nouns A / An has no plural form, So the plural of “a dag” is “dogs”, and

“an egg” is “eges”

+ Before uncountable nouns,

- Before names of meals, except when these are preceded by an adjective:

E.g Wehave breakfast at eight But He gave ws a good breakfast

1.122 Ddinie drticles:

« Form The

The is the same for singular and plural and for all genders:

Eg tha bov the girl the day

the bang the girls the days

b Uses of The

- When the object or group of objects is unique or considered to be unique

F.g tha sanh the sea the sky the equator

- Before a noun which has become definite as a result of’ being mentioned a second time

E.g His car truct a tree; you car still see the mark on the tree

+ Before a noun made definite by the addition of a phrase or clause

E.g The girl in blue The man with the banner

The boy that 1 met the place where I meet hint

- Before a noun which by reason of locality can represent only one particular thing:

E.g .dzn is in the garden (the garden of this house)

Please pass the wine, please {the wine on the table)

- Before superlative and first, second usetl as adjectives or pronouns, aud andy

E.g The first week the best day the only way the second purt

- Before certain proper names of seas, rivers, group of islands, chains of mountains, plural

names of countries, deserls, regions:

E.g The Atlantic The Netherlands The Thames The Sahure

- Lefore other proper names consisting of adjective + noun ot noun + of + noun:

F.g The National gallery The Tower of Landon

- The + singular noun can represent a class of animals or things:

Lg The whale is in danger of becoming extinct

The can be used before a member of a certain group of people:

kg The small shopkeeper is finding life increasingly difficalt

- The | adjective represents a class of persons

F.g The old =old people in general The vich = rich people in general

- The with names of people has a very mited use The + plural sumame can be used to

mean ‘the family’ Eg The Smiths = Mr and Mrs Smiths (and children)

© Omission of The

The definite artiele (Whe) is not used:

- Before names of people

- Before abstract nouns except when they are used in a particular sense

Tig Menfear death (Rut: The death of Prime Minister left his party without a leader.}

- After a noun in the possessive case, or a possessive adjective

Eg The boy's uncle = the uncle of the boy

Ha mụ (Blue) hook — = the thiue) hook is mine

- Before names of meals

E.g The Scots have porridge for breakfast

(But! The wedding breakfast was held in her family's house.)

- Before names of games

Eg Le plays gold

1.1.3 Articles in Noun Phrase

Singular count nouns in English always follow one of the articles "a, an, the", while non- count nouns require the "zero" article or a definite article "the" Quirk and Greenbaum (1973) scl up two different systems of artiele use depending on the Lype of reference

GENERIC The tiger

REFERENCE | A tiger Ink

Tigers

With definite speeific referenes, the definite article is used for all noun classes:

E.g Where is the pen I bought? Where are the pens I bought?

Where is the ink I bought?

With indefinite specific reference, singular count nouns take the indefinite article a(n),

while non-count and plural count nouns take vera atlicle or unst some (any) itt non

assertive contexts

L.g Iwant a pen / some pens / some ink

I don'twant a pen / any pens / any ink 1.2 Review of previous studies

The problems cncountered by English learners whose mother tongue does wat have an article system have been researched extensively, A detailed account is given of the commonest types of errors, classified according to the misuse of each article It is found

thal the commonest errors involve misuse ofthe defile article for generic referenee,

Master (2002) showed that te is the commonest word in Linglish and a in the top five and logether the and ar make up 8.5% of all English tex! (Berry, 1993) Scott and Tucker (1974) found article errors among the top four types of error among high school graduate But many studies do not all classify errors in the same way or count the same things; Batainehs (2005) only looks at a, for example Scott and Tucker (1974) and Tataineh (2005) do not tally accurate use instances so an overall success or failure rate for cach article camot

be calculated In Scott and Tucker’s (1974) and Bataineh’s (2005) data, “@-for-a” is the wore frequent error sublype, im Kharmna’s dala “thefor-a” is slightly more

fiequent

Kharmas (1981) data is the most detaited about types of article use: he identified 5 types of usc forte anda and3 for @ Oftthe ten most common mistakes in his cloze test six are categorized as instances of generic or general use (3 where the comect answer was @, and 3 where it was a), and 3 as misrenderings of idiomatic phrases (e.g for an example)

Ina range of idiomatic uses laarnzrs are likely to “Teinstate” definite articles omitted in English (e.g T went ta ths bed)

Kharma and [lajjaj (1997) add four other likely transfer problems:

use of the definite article for abstract nouns ‘Allmen fear the death f death}

use of the definite article for mass nouns — | The milk {Mf#k7 is mmtzitious to the

phrases

where Finglish would require « (&.g The walf ate fim fox A wolf ale him

In terms of the role of transfer in causing errors, Scott and Tucker (1974) attnbuted half’ their subjects article errors to transfer, and Kharma (1981) attributed the majority of his subjccts crrors to transfer but adds the compounding effect of “inadcquat instruction” Batainh (2005) considered tuansfar responsible only for “@-for-a” errors

and even then only as a possibility, citing overgeneralication, training transfer, learning and communication stralogics as olhor possible causes

A frequent and persistent grammatical problem many KKL teachers encounter in

schools, colleges and universities is the misuse or omission of the articles a, am and #we in both written and spoken language This is a serious lingusstic problem for several reasons

+ Articlss occur ficquenily The American Horilage Word Frequency Book (Carroll ct al, 1971) lists the as the mos! commonly used word in the English language, and a as the fourth.

19

- Misuse of articles can lead to serious errors because of resulting meaning variations,

since ‘the distinction they mark is obligatory’ (Malthews, 1997, p.26) Master (1994,

p.230) notes that the need for accurate use of articles increases with wntting, since readers do not have the luxury of extralinguistic clues to help understanding

- The problem is persisienl, even to higher-level learners Claire and Greenwood, (1988, cover page) state that Articles “are often the last grammatical item that distinguishes the native-speaker of English from the foreign-born speaker *

There is a wide range of complications in tackling language targct of this sort The question of the use of a and the, far ftom being an isolated point of language, is intimately tied inlo a variety of closely-linked Tanguage questions,

uch as pronoun use, plurals, countable and uncountable nouns, zero article, language ‘chunks’ which include articles, and those ‘rules” which seem to be clear cut, such as naming hotels and rivers, In addition, there scim to be murngraus momatics, or subtules which complicate the issu for both student and teacher

Eg We go to ihe bathroom (butnot to the bed.)

We alsa go to work (but not to affice.;

Students are likely to be baffled when British people say that someone is ‘in hospital’, meaning they have been admitted, but someons went to ‘the hospital’ to visit a

sick person

Analyzing the errors made by ‘Taiwanese EFL college students, Li-Ling Chen (2006) showed hat another grammatical crror thal is Gequently found in Taiwanese RFI siudentst

Chen (2000) cous could be one of the most difficult grammatical parts for Taiwanese EFL students as there is not an equivalent syntactical device to the lznglish article system Master (1988) further

indicated that beginning level EFL Icarners tend to be more interfered by such a linguistic

difference between Mandarin and English

compositions is ths misuse of English articles

sred thal, English artiches

Ina few mallcrs of form, Trunk, Jr (1918) showed the problem in using articles is thai omitting initial @ or the ftom titles when you place the possessive before them for the titles

of literary works

11

Lg the iad The Odyssey To a Skylark

Tn addition, some re:

In the book “Common mistakes at the certificate and how to avoid them” Susanne

Tayfoor (2004) showed that we use te to talk about a particular thing / person when the

speaker and listener know which one we are referring to We use a am to refer to something for the first time, and the lo refer il again And then he showed four cases we don’t use the, Those often causes problems to students at High School,

‘We don't nmually nse te in four following cases

= to lalk aboul people / Uuings in gericral

~ for countries, mountains or seas, unless it is a group or states or islands:

- with meals (R.g have breakfast; eat lunch; finish dinner)

= with certain common daily routines (li Cia fo work! schaal, be at home; be at wark! school, go by kus/ cur; yo home; watch TV:

(pp 50-51)

In sum, there were many problems for students in using the English articles in ths writings, but within a limited time, results of the study will be taken based on the following usages: the uses of articles including errors in using definite article for specific things, errors in using articles for definite or indefinile meaning, errors in misusing articles (as in using the

for generic plural or uncountable non phrases, abstract nouns, mass nouns, using He instead of @ with generic plural noun phrases, using #He in generic singular noun phrases where English would require g, using indefinite article for specific singular noun phrases, using @ instead of the with the only onc of something, nol using the for classes of people,

universally unique items, items unique to a situation, diectically obvious items, items of

anaphoric reference, items defined by a relative clause, superlatives not using te to talk aboul # particular thing / person, when the speaker and Hslener know which one we are referring to, not wing the to talk about people’ things in general, using a / an for

18

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY

This chapter outlines the research question, data collection instruments, the participants analytical framework, data analysis and discussion Section 2.1 discusses research question while section 2.2 presenis two dala collection instruments, Section 2.3 discusses participants joined in interviewing and doing exercises Section 2.4 presents a brief overview of the articles’ usages, it’s used to analyze the data in section 2.5 Section 2.6 discuss

s the data of Ihe siudy,

2.1 Research question

Tn order Lo achieve the aims of the study the research question below will be adiressed:

- What problems in using English Asticles do students of Thach Thanh High School

‘No.3 usually encounter in their writing?

2.2, Data collection instruments

Section 2.2 provides an overview of data collection instruments Data was collected via exercises and interviews

2.2.1 Exercises

aed based on Lhe uses of articles and these Lypes of exercises: filling

in the blanks with the suitable article, multiple choice and mistake correction

s wore designed to sturlerts im both le

Four main exercises (see Appendix 1) which were taken fiom the textbook “Tieng Anh 77 and Tieng Anh 12 - chuong with ca ban” and the basic grammar books, were used to

Exercise 1 including 15 questions was designed to distinguish these issues: a vs an, the

vs @, a vs, the by circling the best answer Exercise 2 including 10 questions was about the uses of articles by the filling-in exercise, The same number of questions was also pointed in exercise 3 but in different type of exercise: multiple-choice These exercises aimed al checking the usas of articles, following thal problems in using Tnglish Articles were found Besides, exercise 4 was designed as the rewritten exercise to check the positions as well as the uses of English Articles, which answer the research question about

of only open-ended ones and belonged to scmi-struelured lype This Lype of inlorviow was chosen because il was believed to gel more information of problems which students usually made in using English Articles,

The students wors asked about the usos of articles, Iho difficulties they eflen eneourter it using articles, The information collected helped a lot in answenmg the research question

‘The last question which is about their suggestions, would help a lot in the final chapter of this research aboul some suggestions for beller teaching of English articles, This inlerview was ensured to take place in a very informal and comfortable atmosphere so that the students can share their opinion openly and freely

2.3 The parti

pants

100 students at random from Al to A5 (including 52 male and 48 f>male) at Ihach Ihanh

High School No.3 itt Thanh Hoa look parl inthe survey The students aged from 17 Lo 19 are learning in 12°" form, Most of them have been learning English since they started high junior school, i.e they have bean learning Lnglish for at least more than 6 years

In the total of 100 students above, 20 students were chosen (including 40% male and 60% female), all of whom were between 17 and 19 years of age and got marked 3 ar 5,7,9 in

their excreise papers (5 stndsnls (25%) per each murk), wore seloeled for the ints