Luận văn an investigation into oral errors in english speaking classes of 10th form non english majors at phan boi chau specializing high school nghe an

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, IIANOL UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES LÊ TIU HƯƠNG AN INVESTIGATION INTO ORAL ERRORS IN ENGLISH SPEA

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

LE TITU IMWONG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO ORAL ERRORS IN ENGLISIT SPEAKING CLASSES OF 10TH - FORM NON-ENGLISH MAIORS AT PUAN BOT CITAU SPECTALTZING TNGIT

SCHOOL, NGHE AN

(Nghiên cứu lỗi nói của học sinh lớn 10 không chuyên ở trường

THPT chuyên Phan Bội Châu, Nghệ An)

MA MINOR PROGRAMME TIIESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 601410

Hanoi - 2010

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, IIANOL

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

LÊ TIU HƯƠNG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO ORAL ERRORS IN ENGLISH

SPEAKING CLASSES OF 10TH - FORM NON-ENGLISII

MAJORS AT PHAN BOI CHAU SPECIALIZING HIGH

SCTIOOL, NGITE AN

(Nghiên cứu lỗi nói của học sinh lớp 10 không chuyên ở trường

TIIPT chuyên Phan Hội Châu, Nghệ An)

MA MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 601410 Supervisor: Pham Minh Hiền, MA

Tlanoi - 2010

Table 1: The reason for leaming English

Table 2: Students’ attitude toward English speaking skills

Table 3: Students? ability of speaking English in classrooms

Table 4: Frequency of students’ oral errors in English speaking classes

Table 5: Types of students’ oral errors in English speaking classes

Table 6: The omission of the inflectional suffixes in English speaking classes Table 7: The ctrors of mispronouncing the voiceless /s/

‘Table 8: The errors of adding “s” or other sounds to a certain number of words Table 9: The error of mispronouncing /s! for tyr

Table 10: The error of mispronouncing the fiicative sound /8/

‘Table 11: The error of mispronouncing vowel sounds

Table 12: Teachers’ attitude Loward students’ oral crrors and oral srrer correction Table 13: Types of students’ oral c1ror caxrcetion

‘Table 14: Teachers’ techniques used to correct students’ oral errors

PART A: INTRODUCTION eccscecsecsesiieienetsinnennninintatanenstienenimsneeel

1 Rafionales ðf the stgdy cọ HH 1.0 eeriiierie

2 Aims of the study

3 Scope of the stUdy ccsesensneieeimneuienenetenenetane

5 Methods af the study

6 Significance of the study

CHAPTER II: METHODS OF THE §EUDV ào eeseerrrreeoeo.ES

ILL.1 Description of the teachers of English at PBC Specializing High School - lỆ ILL.2 The students at Phan Boi Chau Specializing High School 15

1.1.3 The current situation of English teaching and learning at PBC Specializing High

11.1.3.1 The matetials of teaching and learring ed T1.1.3.2 The teaching and learning English speaking skills 16

11.2.1 The instruments for collecting data - - 16 11.2.2 Procedures and method af the study - 17 CHAPTER IIE THE STUDY - n1 erree 2S LL3 Data analysis, tindings and discusston 18 113.1 The reality of Students’ English speaking al PRC Specializing High School 18 111.3.1.1, The reason for Ieaming English „18 111.3.1.2 Students” attitude toward Tinglish speaking skills - 19 111.3.1.3, Students’ ability of speaking English in classtoomis sceseeenlD 13.1.4, Frequency of students’ oral errors in English speaking classes 20 1L3.1 5 ‘Types of students” oral errors in nglish speaking classes ccd 1.3.1.6 Factors causing studonts'aral errors in their Fnglish speaking 26

I1L3.2, Strategies for correcting students’ oral errors at PBC Specializing High School 29

TIL.3.2.1 Teachers” attitude toward students® oral errors and oral error correction 20

1H1.3.2.2 Teachers’ decisions on what to ConCGt neni snnmnnenenes stimenenedO

411.3.2.3 ‘Teachers’ techniques used to correct students’ oral errars 31 TIL4 Some suggested solutions to correct students’ oral errors effectively 33

ES Summary

PART C: CONCLUSIONS

, 13

LL Implications

TIL Limitations of the study c.ccusciscstueseisiecnnenea

IV Suggesfion for Turthier sẽuđy nhưng are

REFERENCES

APPENDICES:

APPENDIX A: FEACHER SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE

APPENDIX B: STUDENT SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE

APPENDIX C: CLASSROOM OBSERVATIONG 00

wT

L2: Second language

CLT: Communicative Language Teaching

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationales of the study

English has been playing an important role in the world’s social life In

Vietnam, English is widely used by not only foreigners but also Vietnamese

people as a language of work and business There have been an increasing

number al‘ people desiring to know English with the hope of keeping up with the

latest modern technology in the world English has now been taught not only at

all universilics and colleges, bul also al almost cvery senior high school and it is

considered as a compulsory subject at secondary school

Therefore, teaching and learning English is now considered as a necessity

in the society with the aim of mastermg an international language Being aware

of the importance of teaching and learning English, methodology for teaching

leaming English as a foreign languaye has been considerably changing im order

to enhance the abilities of English language leamers, especially speaking Knglish

to meet the needs required by their work

At Phan Boi Chau Specializing High School, English is a compulsory

subject in the curriculum and it is considered as a major subject for the high school examination It is taught with the purpose that students have some basic

knowledge of English in order to communicate and to use it as a key to science

and technology Ilowever, there still exist many difficulties facing English

language teachers in Vietnam in general and English language teachers at Phan

Boi Chau Specializing High School in particular in teaching speaking skills to

One of the reasons for this is that students often make oral errors in speaking As we know, it is inevitable for learners to make errors in their

learning process At Phan Boi Chau Specializing High School I have found that

most of the non-English majors who specialize in natural subjects such as

Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology or social subjects such as: Literature, History and Geography ofion make oral errors in their speaking For

most students, they find speaking especially important yet most challenging one

although they are given more chances to practise speaking English during all

Fnglish lessons They are always passive and not familiar with, oven afraid of

taking part in pair-work or group-work activities in classrooms In addition,

many students feel shy and ashamed when making errors in speaking As a

result, there are various kinds of oral errors appearing in students’ English

speaking

Those are the reasons thal inspire me with the desire to conducl An

investigation into oral errors in English speaking classes of 10” - form Non- English Majors at Phan Boi Chau Specializing High School, Nghe An

2 Aims of the study

This research is designed to investigate Students’ oral errors and the

strategies of oral correction at Phan Boi Chau Specializing High School, Nghe

An Ithas 4 purposes

* to clarify the reality of students’ English speaking in classrooms

* to find out kinds of oral errors that students make when they speak

English in classrooms.

* to gain an insight into the teachers’ attitude toward students” oral errors

and oral error correction

* to help teachers develop their possible strategies for oral error

corrections

3 Scope of the study

the study concentrates only on investigating students’ oral errors in their English speaking classes and teachers’ stralegies of oral error correction al Phan

Boi Chau Specializing High School, Nghe An The study mainly focuscs on the

learners in the tenth form at Phan Boi Chau Specializing [igh School, Nghe An

4 Rescarch questions

4.1, What is the reality of students’ English speaking at Phan Boi Chau

Specializing High School, Nghe An?

4.2, What are teachers’ attitude toward students’ oral errors and oral error

5 Mcthods of the study

In the process of carrying oul the study, the instruments for collecting data

in this research are classroom observations In addition, questionnaires are used

to collect data for the study

English Majors at Phan Boi Chau Specializing Iligh School, Nehe An make too

many errors in their English speaking classes ‘Iherefore, the results of the study

can be of a great significance for both teachers and students in the field of

corresting students’ oral errors clfvotively in English language tsaching and learning in general and in English speaking classes in particular

7 Design of the study

This paper is divided into three main parts

Part A is the INTRODUCTION In this part, the rationales of the study, the

alms, research questions, the scope of the study, methods of the study and also

ils design are presented

Part B is the DEVELOPMENT which includes 3 chapters Chapter 1 deals

with some theoretical background that is relevant to the purpose of the study:

students’ oral crrors, common factors causing students’ errors, the techniques [or

correcting students’ oral errors in classrooms Chapter II describes the situation

where the study was conducted and the informants involved in the study It includes the teachers of English, the students, the textbook, the current teaching

and learning situation The method of data collection and its procedures are also

presented in this chapter

Chapter LL presents the results stastistically to find out about the teachers and

students’ attiludes toward errers and error correction as well as some correcuion

techniques ‘his chapter is by far the most dominant one in which some suggestions for correcting students’ oral errors effectively in English speaking

classes,

Part € is the CONCLUSION which includes the obtained results, implications

af the study and suggestions for further research

APPENDICES and REFERENCES are presented in the last pages of the study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

Bygate defines “Oral expression involves not only the use of the right

sounds in the patterns of rhythm and intonation, but also the choice of words and

inflections in the right order to convey the right meaning.” (cited in Mackey

1965: 266)

According to Brown and Yules’s (1983) spoken language consists of short, fragmentary utterances, in a range of pronunciation There is often a great

deal of repetition and overlap between one speaker and another, and speakers

usually use non-specific references They also point out that in speaking the

Inosely-organized syntax, and non-specific words and phrases are used, spoken

language is, therefore, made to feel less conceptually dense than written

It is noticeable from the two productive language skills that speaking is

different from writing in both processing conditions and reciprocity conditions

“First, spoken language is affected by the time limitations, and the associated

problems of planning, memory, and production under pressure Socond, it 18

reciprocal activity, which has a crucial effect on the kinds of decisions to be

made.” (Bygate 1987: 11-12)

1.2 The characteristics of speaking

According to Bygatc, M (1985), in almost speaking, the person to whom

‘we are speaking is in front of us and able to put us right 1Ý we make mistakes He

or she can generally show agreement and understanding or mcomprehension and

disagreement as well Unlike readers or writers, speakers may need patience and

imagination, too While talking, speakers need to take notice of the other and

allow listeners chance to speak IL means thal we olen take tums to speak

To be more specific, Bygate (1987) assumes that conversation can be analyzed in terms of routines, which are conventional ways of presenting

information,

In Bygate’s opinion, there are two kinds of routines They are information

routines and interactional ones

information routines may be described to involve two sub-routines:

expository and evaluation The former includes description, narration,

comparison and instruction ‘lhe latter consists of explanation, prediction, justification, preference and decision

Interaction rautines arc routines based not so much on sequences of kinds

af term occurring intypical kinds of interactions ‘These routines, thus, can be

characterized in broad terms including the kinds of turns typically occurring in

given situations and the order in which the components are likely to occur So,

telephone conversation, interview conversations casual encounters, conversations at partics, lessons, radiv or television interviews, all icnd to be

organized in characteristic ways

To sum up, in leaming speaking skills, the learners can be much more

confident with clear understanding and governing thesc skills Moreaver, the oral

skill depends much on knowledge of language they can leam such as grammar,

pronunciation and vocabulary

In addition, leamers rely on common conventional expression of

communicating specific meanings, particularly on the language environment It

is clear that practice m classroom might not be similar to oral communication

outside classroom In a foreign language classroom, practice is rather simple and

Lar from real life

And it is undeniable that speaking is a key to communication By considering what good speakers do, what speaking tasks can be used in class,

and what specific needs learners report, teachers can help learners improve their

speaking and overall oral competence

13 The importance of speaking

Speaking plays an utmost important role among the Jour language skills

since it helps to identify who knows or does not know a language Pattison (1992) points out that when people mention knowing or learning a language,

they mean being able to spcak the language In a sucial context, social role are

attention as or even more attention than written skill In order to carry out many

of the most basic transactions, it is necessary for learners to speak with confidence

1.4 Learners’ crrors

1.4.1, Definitions of error

1.4, Error

Enror is the use of a linguistic item (e.g a word, a grammatical item, etc)

in a way which a fluent or native speaker of the language regards as showing

faulty or incomplete leaming Errors are sometimes classified according to

vocabulary (lexical error), pronunoialHon (phonological error), grammar

(syntactic error), misunderstanding of a speaker's intention or meaning

Gnterpretive error), production of the wrong communicative effect If a student

cannot scl{-correet a mistake in his or her own English, but the icacher tamks

that the class is familiar with the correct form, we shall call that sort of mistake

an error

1.4.2, Oral crror

In our educational system, English is viewed as a foreign language for

teaching and learning at all schocl levels When students use English for

communication in classrooms, they will cerlainly make errors in their speaking

‘Therefore, oral error can be defined as an error that students often commit when

they speak English

In the light of orror analysis, a clear-cut definition of language crror in spoken English is that oral error is the use of a linguistic item m a way, which

indicate faulty or incomplete learning According to Liski and Duntanen (cited in

Lennon, 1991, p72) “eral error oceurs where the speaking fails to follow the

pattern or manner of speech of educated people in English speaking countries”

1.5 Errors and Mistakes

It is quile difficult to dillcrenuate mistakes and errors A distinelion is

sometimes made between an error, which results from incomplete knowledge,

and a mistake made by a learner when writing or speaking and which is caused

by lack of attention, fatigue, carclessness, or some other aspect of performance

Ina simple way we can have this distinction: 4 mistake is a slip of the tongue or

ihe pen, the learner knows the correct form bul has temporarily forgotten it A

leamer ean prebably correct his/her own mistakes 4 error, on the other hand,

occurs because the leamer doesn’t know the correct form and sa cannot produce

it at this stage of learning

1.6 Causes of Errors

‘There have been many causes of leamers’ errors or mistakes when they

learn English The following are generally among the major ones:

1.6.1 Mother-Tongue Interference

Wilkin (1972:190) claims that we should be able 1o identify the mother- tongue of a group of pupils basing solely on the reocurring mistakes that we had

noticed By this it is meant that these mistakes of different individuals share

some characteristics which can be traced back to an external source the

mother-tongue Rspecially for Victnamese learners, it looks as though the mother tongue

is the main cause of errors since many significant differences between English and Vietnamese can be found: the nouns in Vietmamese are not inflected for number, the verbs are not inflected for tense or person, the word order does not

always fit into the English language system It is on this basis that contrastive

analysis appeared Under the light of this hypothesis, it is widely accopled that “a

learner of a second language transfers into his performance in the second language the habits ol his mother tongue” (Corder 1974:130), and thal the

similarity between the two contact languages would facilitatc an mdividual to

learn the L2, and the differences would hinder the L2 learning process In the

former case, where paralle] features of the two languages correspond oxactly,

positive transfer from the L1 to L2 is concerned, and in the later case it is said

that “negalive transfer” or interference involves and causes errors tv occur oF even reoccur

While it is easily accepted that the first language does interfere the second

language Icaming, there is also a disagreement among resvarchers on the nature

of imterference process In other words, there is considerable controversy over the definition of interference For Dulay and Burt (1976:71), interference is

defined as “the automatic transfer, due to hahit, of the surface structure of the

first language onto the surface of the target language” Moreover, there are many

ways in which mother tongue can be directly transferred onto the target language

and the foreign language learner tends to transfer not only forms, but also

meanings and cullural aspecls of the native language to the target language (Lado 1957.21)

George, on the other hand, expresses doubt on the idea of direct interference lrom the mother- longue and altributes errors lo the redundant

21

features of the language as a direct source By this onc may imply that the

highest level of difficulty occurs and causes errors when there is an absence of a

language item from either language, or when both languages possess similar but unidentical features (1972-45)

Corder (1974:130) does not emphasize on the differences of the languages

im contact On the other hand, he explains the similarity of many orrors to the

forms of the mother tongue in terms of strategy that the learner uses when Icarming a foreign language A [orcign language leamer, when processing the

data and inducing rules which he is constantly testing for their validity, is

hypothesizing that language two is like language one until he discovers the

correct rule by making errors and having it corrected

One of the reasons why leamer tends to transfer into his performance in

the foreign language the habits of his mother tongue is given by Corder: “If one

does not know some rule of the second language then one either keeps silent or

uses the most similar available rule, i.e of one’s mother-tongue” In other words,

he tends to use wards and structures from his own language and try lo make

them fit into the foreign language (Edge 1989:7)

For Dulay et al, this kind of L] interference is due to the performance

pressure Hesides, the limited 1.2 environment is to blame, especially in

Vietnamese classroom settings where English is learnt as a foreign language

Another source of 1.] interference is the manner of eliciting verbal performance

A teacher may give students a task, a translation exercise for instance, where

they are required 1o think in both the mother tongue and the target language;

hence increasing their reliance on the structures of the mother tongue Finally,

the monitor use is taken account This is reflected in the learner's use of

vocabulary of the target language to fill the native language structures, the result

of which is crroncous utteranecs similar to word-for-word translation

(1982:108-110)

Although there seem to be no disagreements on the sources of mother

tongue interference, it is not surprising that error analysis projects have yielded

widely contradictory results Undoubledly, this is partly due to differences of

definition IL is presented in Lolt (1983:258) that while Dulay and Burt state a

percentage of fewer than 5 percent of errors classified as interference, some other

researchers allmbule as many as 80% of errors to interference Lol himself vates for about 50% of crrors as owing to intereference

The advantages of the mother tongue in the foreign language learning are

admitted “Tt is economical and productive fer 1.2 learncrs to transfer their

previous knowledge of language to the new task” since the first language

provides “a rather rich and specific set of hypotheses” which leamers can use

Obviously, they donat have to discover everything from zero (Littlewood 1998

25, 26) This is why it is worth looking at the mother tongue as one of the main

sources where we can find the explanation for some of the socond language errors

1.6.2, Overgeneralization

Littlewood (1998:23) claims that generaliztion is a fundamental learning

strategy in all domains including language “In order to make sense of our world,

we allocate items to categories; on the basis of these categories, we construct

“rules” which predict how the different items will behave” Ile also stales that

our predictions may sometimes be wrong for one of the following two main reasons: (1) The rule we construct does not apply to this particular item, though

23

we have allocated the item to the appropriate category (2) The item actually belongs to quite a different category and we must have allocated it wrongly

In both cases the overgeneralization will cause the wrong prediction which

will lead to learners’ errors In terms of foreign language learning, Littlewood

(1998:23) suggests that the learner is employing similar strategies to those used

by first language lvarnors One of the stratogics is corlainly overgencratization

which enables the learner to make errors similar to those produced by the child

in the mother tongue This is why we can [ind a set of errors such as “She cans

sing” “He singed” and “many mans” occurring regardless of whatever the

mother tongue of the leamer is Thus, transfer and overgeneralization are not

distinct processes They represent aspects af the same underlying learning

strategy Both results from the fact that the leamer uses what he already knows about the language, in order to make sense of new experience In the case of

transfer, the learner uses his previous mother tongue experience as a means of

organizing the target language data In the case of overgeneralization, it is his

previous knowlcdge of the sccond language that the learner uses

Overgeneralization errors are largerly due to leamer limited exposure to the target language Mc Keating (1981:231) claims that the learner tries to reduce

the learning, load by searching for patterns and regularity in the target language

and formulating rules But he may over-generalize his rules and fail to take

exceptions into account because his exposure to the language is limited and he

has insufficient data from which he can derive more complex rules It is well

supported by IIubbard et al (1983:141) who states that lhe learner processes new

language data in his mind, and based on evidence, produces rules for its production When the data are inadaquate or the evidence is only partial, he may

well produce crrors Followings arc the two lypical cxamples of this lype of

errors A leamer of English who has learnt a rule for forming plurals may predict that a noun can be made plural by adding “-s” He then says “two mouses”

without knowing that “mouse” is one of the exceptions to the rule which he has

overgeneralized Similarly, he may produce “comed” and “goed” until he leans

that “come” and “go” require irregular past tense forms

Ovorgeneralization is associated with redundancy reduction A learner

may reduce many items which are redundant to conveying the intended meaning This phenomenon may especially oveur with ilems which are conlrasted in the

grammar of the language but which do not carry significant and obvious contrast

for the learner The “-ed” marker, for example, often appears to carry no

meaning for the learner since pastness is usually lexically indicated So the

learner tends to reduce the learning load by simplifying the linguistic structures,

which leads to the production of a wide range of sentences such as “Yesterday I

go to university and | meet my new professor” (Richards 1974:175)

Overgeneralization is also closely related to other sources of errors

propused by Richards (1974), nolably ignorance of rule restrictions, [alse

concept hypothesized and incomplete application of rules

According to Richards, some of the learner deviant structures indicate that the learner has failed to observe the restrictions of existing rules, 1.¢ he has

applied the rules to contexts where they do not apply Abbott, in support of this

view, affirms that ignorance of rule restriction is another reason for over-

generalization ‘lhe rule that the leamer has found appears to work so well that

he tends to ignore counter-examples to the rule which will only complicate

matters It means that the leamer will keep applying his overgeneralized mules provided he can get his intended meaning across

The interest in communication may give a reason for Icarner incomplete application of rules When trying to produce acceptable utterances, the leamer

‘uses structures whose deviancy represents the degree of development of the

required rules He is said to have motivation to achieve communication which

may exceed motivation to produce grammatically correct sentences (Richards

1974:177) Typical examples of this kind of developmental crrors are the errors

in making questions and responding to questions, as in “Where you went?” or

“Do you read much?” —Yes, I read very much”

There is also a group of developmental errors deriving from false concepts

hypothesized These errors result from “faulty comprehension of distinctions in

the target language” Richards (1974) shows how the misunderstanding of’

differences between language items leads to learner errors He has found many

deviant structures in his leamers’ output which show their failure to correctly

distinguish between the present simple and present continuous tense, and

between the usage of some confusable words such as so/too/very; do/make; and teach/leam For him, mosl crrors of this class can be traced back to contraslive-

based teaching which will be discussed in more details in subsequent section

L6.3 Interlanguage

In some circumstances, the concept of “interlanguage” is useful in

classroom language teaching and learning Interlanguage, in Allwright &

Balley’s words (1991), stresses the systematic nature of the learners’ linguistic development between two languages Larsen-Freeman & Long (1991) remark that interlanguage might better be understood if it is thought of as a continuum between the LI and L2 along which all the learners traverse At any point along

continuum, the learners’ language is syslemalic, ig rule-governed, and common

†o all leamers, any difference being explicable by differences in their learning experience Selinker (1972) uses the term “interlanguage” to describe a language

system that clearly differs from the mother tongue and the foreign language,

which the leamers are studying In his words, interlanguage refers to the

seperateness of a foreign language learner’s system that has a structurally

inlormediatc slalus betwoon the nalive and target languages He also views

interlanguage as a dynamic system, and a product of psychological structural language process thal inlerfere in wo languages Additionally, Nemser (1971)

expresses the same general phonemenon in language learning but stresses the

successive approximation to the target language in his term “approximate

system”

With the name “idiosyncratic dialect”, Corder (1971) demonstrates that

each leamer has his awn individual characteristics im language leaming that the

others do not have ‘lhe learner basing on the system of his mother tongue and

the language he is learning forms a new language system This is neither the

sysiem of the native language nor the system of the targel language, but instead

falls between the two; it is a system based on the best attempt of learners to provide orders and structures to the linguistic stimuli surrounding them Thus,

errors the learner commits are not predictable and called “developmental errors”

1.6.4 Simplification

In addition to interlanguage, simplication can be seen as another factor

that causes leamers’ errors According lo Widdowson (1984), simplication is

considered as a communication strategy and he divides it into 2 types The learners will form the first type of simplifications when they want to express

something in a new way The second type is due more to the limitation of

27

lcarers' ablity in languagc lcarning than to the construotion ef the rulcs They

often reduce some essential elements of a sentence or sentences as when

speaking Larsen-reeman and Long (1991, p58) view simplification as

“redundancy reduction by omitting elements such as “plural marker omitted

from a noun preceded by a cardinal number larger than one In their example “I

sludicd English for 2 yoar”, they indicate that the omission of the plural marker

following the noun year could be termed redundancy reduction, as no

information is lost, ic the cardinal number alrcady signals plurality

16.5 Teaching materials and methodology

Resides the above-mentioned factors that interfere the process of language

learning, the teaching materials and methodology is one of the most important

causes

The teaching process itself may affect the English language learning If we

are to achieve a perfect teaching method, the errors or mistakes will never be

commiticd in the first place, and therefore the occurrence of crrors is merely a

sign of the present inadequacy of our teaching techniques (Corder, 1981)

Moreover, according to those who support the behaviourist theory, errors have

no positive contribution to the learning of any skill including language To them,

an error is the evidence of failure, of ineffective teaching or the lack of control If materials are well chosen, graded and presented with meticulous care, there will

never be any errors (Hubbard, 1984)

1.7 Techniques used te correct learners’ oral errors

Gower and Walters (1983, p167) suggest the three common ways for the

teachers to correct learners’ ural errors in classrooms.

I.7.1 Sclf- correctian

Nguyen Bang and Nguyen Ba Ngoc (2001: 20) stated that: “Self-

correction means giving students the chance to correct themselves If they are

going to become more accurate they must learn to monitor themselves They

may have just made a slip and will welcome the opportunity to pul il nght

Sometimes they need some assistance from teacher in knowing where the

mistake is and whal kind of mistake 11 is, before Lhey can scl{-correct”

Sclf-correction is very important because it gives the students a chanec for

self-correction when it is thought that a mistake is what we called slip In

addition, sclt-correction helps the students to remember easier

1.7.2, Peer- correction

Hf the student still cannot get it right, it is probably because she doesn’t

know how to So with a gesture, hold his/her attention and get another student to

help out This has the advantages of

* involving all the students in the correction process

* making the learning more co-operative generally

* reducing student dependence on the teacher

* increasing the amount the students listen to each other

* giving the better students something to do

However, there exist two more problems with peer-correction ‘lherefore,

etr- correction must be done carefully Firstly, when the teacher asks for pegr-

correction from the whole class, it might be that the same two or three people

always want to answer If this is the case, teachers need to call on other students

who do not volunteer, or lo give more help with the corrcelion themselves It is

29

not good for the class if the same few students do the correction all the time The

idea of peer-correction is to encourage cooperation, not to put one or two

students in the traditional place of the teacher Secondly, if students are not used

to correcting each other, they may find it very difficult to change their habits

They may just listen negatively for mistakes They may feel that they are being

crilicized by poople who have no right to onlicize them They may {eel thal the

teacher is not doing his or her job properly In this sort of atmosphere, peer-

correction is uscloss if damaging

1.7.3 Teacher Correction

Sometimes, we may fecl that we should take charge of correction because

the students are extremely mixed-up about what the correct response should be

In thal case we can re-explain the item of language, which is causing the trouble

‘This will be especially appropriate when we use that a majority of the class are

having the same problem After the re-explanation we can move to choral and

individual repetition (if necessary) belore moving on

Remember that the objective of using correction techniques is to give the student(s) a chance to (know how to) get the new language right It is important,

therefore, that when we have used these techniques we should ask the students

who originally made the mistake to give us a correct response

CITAPTER II: METIIODS OF TIE STUDY

IL1 Background of the study

This chaptor discusses Lhe context that determines the study of oral errors

of 10” - form Non-English Majors at Phan Hoi Chau Specializing High School

The researcher slarls by describing the situation where the sludy was

conducted and the informants involved in the study Tt includes the teachers of English, the students, the textbook, the current teaching and learning situation The subjects and the method of data collection arc also discussed in detail

11.1.1 Description of the teachers of English at Phan Boi Chau Specializing

High School

There are 12 teachers of English aged between 24 and 54 In general, most

of English teachers have been Wained in Viclnam (only one teacher studied

Master Degree abroad), many of them studied Mater Degree at Hanoi University

of Languages and Intemational Studies and some are now studying for MA

I2egrees there In general, they are well-trained and rather professionally

experienced with at least 4 years in teaching

111.2, The students at Phan Boi Chau Specializing High School

The research was carried out al Phan Boi Chau Specializing Ligh School

with the participation of 10" form students whose majors are Mathematics, Physics, Literature, History, Geography, Biography and Chemistry, especially

classes specializing in Hislory and Gcagraphy come from rural arcas so their

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Fnglish is bad To those students, English was not their majors but a compulsory subject in the courses Most of the students have been studying English for at

least five years at secondary schools (from grade 6 to grade 10), some of them

have been leaming English since they attended primary schools Others learned

French or Russian at Lower- Secondary School and only started leaming English

al Higher Scuondary Schools Most of them can do grammar very well but they

jhave difficulties in mastering four language skills Of the four skills, as many of them revealed, they Lind speaking especially important yet challenging one That

was the reason why most of students feel bored, not interested in English

speaking classes and gradually make more and more oral errors

IE1.3 The current situation of English teaching and learning at Phan Boi Chau Specializing High School

1.1.3.1 The materials of teaching and learning

At Phan Boi Chau Specializing High School, English is one of the

compulsory subjects in the curriculum and students have to pass at the national

cxamination by the end of grade 12 to be qualified {or the secondary school

diploma

“Tieng Anh 10” textbook consists of sixteen units for two terms Lach unit

focuses not only on four different language skills: reading, speaking, listening

and writing but also such language elements as pronunciation, grammar and

vocabulary

Speaking lesson is the second one in each unit introduced just after

teading lesson These speaking lessons are under the tendency theme-based and

task-based approaches In general, the textbook provides students with a variety

of topics and speaking activities with the aim of helping students improve their

speaking skill To be morc specific, some of the lopics have raised a lot of

interest and enthusiasm in teachers as well as pupils However, there are some speaking topics that are unfamiliar and far from the students’ background

knowledge Consequently, the students lose their interest, don’t want to involve

in English speaking classes

IL.1.3.2 The teaching and learning English speaking skills

It can be seen that communication is the goal of English language leaching, The proper purpose of English language teaching is lo help students

develop their communicative ability This makes teaching and learning speaking

skills seem to be an important part in any English courses Like many other high

schools in Victnam, tcaching and lcarning speaking skills at Phan Boi Chau

Specializing High School are affected by some constraints such as large class

size, not well-equipped classrooms, students’ unfamiliarity with CLT, students’

low participation in class All the factors make the teaching and learning

speaking skills more challenging

TL.2 Data collection

11.2.1 The instruments for collecting data

The instruments used to collect data were two questionnaires for both teachers

and students and classroom observations

Qucstionnaircs

Firstly, the questionnaires were employed to collect important information

about students’ attitudes toward the importance of learning English and their

ability of speaking English in classrooms Secondly, the researcher vould receive

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students’ oral errors, the causes of oral crrors and their techniques to correct students’ oral errors in classrooms

Questionnaire 1 including 8 questions was delivered to 10 teachers

Questionnaire 2 including 10 questions was for 240 students

Classroom observations

The sccond type of dala collection in the study was classroom

observations In this study, observation was used as an instrument for collecting

oral errors Number of observations was 10 The reasons of using classroom observations were justitied as follows:

Firstly, the researcher was aware of the importance of collecting data on

what actually went on in the classrooms Sccondly, the rescarcher could assess

the teachers’ implementation of using techniques for correcting students’ oral

errors and students’ participation in their language leaching and learning

Finally, information from classroom observations enabled the researcher to

clarify and confirm what was collected from the questionnaires

(1.2.2 Procedures and mcthed of the study

The study was done through the following steps:

Questionnaire 1: 10 copies of questionnaire 1 were distributed to the teachers of

English at Phan Boi Chau Specializing Iligh School

240 copies of questionnaire 2 were also distributed to the students who are in the

tenth Non -English Majors at Phan Boi Chau Specializing High School Before

the questionnaires were given to the informants, the researcher look time to

explain the purpose of the questionnaires, the requirements of the informants

The data collected from questionnaires, classroom observations were analyzed quantitatively

CHAPTER I: THE STUDY

IIL.3 Data analysis, findings and discussion

1113.1 The reality uf Students’ English speaking at Phan Boi Chau

Specializing High School

TIL.3.1.1 The reasons for learning English

With the aim of finding out the reality of students’ English speaking in

classrooms, two hundred and fourly cupivs of the survey questionnaires were distributed to students from seven classes majored in Mathematics, Physics,

Chemistry, Biology, Literature, Ilistory, Geography

In the questionnairc, the participants were asked to response to questionnaire items showing reasons for learning English ‘The result is presented

in the table below

The rcsult from tablc ] shows that many students at Phan Boi Chau

Specializing High Schoo! are aware of benefits of learning Hnglish ‘The portion

25% of the students learn English to pass the examinations and 45% says it is 4

compulsory subject reveals that a greater number of the students are not really

motivated in learning English It can be seen from the statistics that 25% of them

loam English bocause thoy think it will be helpful lo gel a good job in the future Only 5% of the students state that they learn English to listen to songs, read

books, magazines in English In other words, nol many students al Phan Boi

Chau Specializing High School love English and Icarn it as a hobby

11.3.1.2 Students’ attitude Coward English speaking skills

‘Table 2: Students’ attitude toward English speaking skill

‘The data collected is featured by the students’ high awareness of

importance of speaking skills in their English learning 50% and 47,5% of them

state that speaking skills is a very important and important skills respectively

Whereas only 1,25% of them think that speaking skills is not important And number of students who think speaking is of little umportant make up only

1,25%

II1.5.1.5 Studenfs? abilify of spcaking Knglish in classrooms

Speaking skill is a difficult and challenging language skill Speaking

English well requires students to master not only linguistic competence but also

communicative competence To master these competence students need to

practise English regularly Besides, teachers are very important laclors who give

students chances of practising speaking in classrooms such as creating an English speaking environment and encouraging students lo take part in speaking

activities cnergetically and dynamically However, trom the classroom

observations, ihe researcher realizes the fact that most of the students have a low

ability of speaking English in classrooms

Table 3: Students’ ability of speaking English in classrooms

According to the figure 3, the majority of infonmants, 65% said that their abilily of speaking English in classrooms was bad, 25% of them thought that their English speaking ability im classrooms was normal, the rest, 10% had a

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good English speaking ability in classrooms Thus, from the data analyzed the

researcher might come to the conclusion that English speaking ability of 10" - form Non-English Majors at Phan Boi Chau Specializing High School is not

good ‘Through the classroom observations reveal that although pair-work and

group-work activities are often taken place in classrooms, students often use the

native language when they work together With the purpose of helping students

to master English linguistic competence for examinations, most of the teachers focus on structures, grammar and vocabulary rather than spend much time

developing their students’ English listening and speaking skills

TH.3.1.4 Frequency of students? oral errors in English speaking classes

From the questionnaire and classroom observations of the teachers, the

researcher can say lhat most of the students make oral errors when speaking

English in classrooms However, the students’ oral error frequency is very

different The following table is an illustration of that error frequency according

to the ideas from questionnaire of tcachers at Phan Boi Chau Specializing High

School

Frequency of students’ oral errors Options No of teachers %

Table 4: Frequency of students’ oral errors in English speaking classes

The table describes that 70% of the students always make errors and the

rest, 30% sometimes make errors in their English spcaking As in the book

“BAL Language Teaching Methodology” (2003, p39) Nguyen Bang asserts that

making errors is sometimes acceptable and encourageable because il shows that

real leaming has been taken place in classrooms and students can contribute their

learning positively to the lessons

111.3.1.5 Types of students’ oral errors in English speaking classes

Looking at igure 5, it is clear that 100% off the Leachers agreed that their

students made pronunciation errors in their English speaking classes, 40% of the

teachers demonstrated their ideas about the errors of literal translation, missing

words and redundancy

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In order to have a clear and exact result of students’ oral crrors the

researcher got information from classroom observations to find out and classify

students’ oral errors effectively After collecting information from classroom

observations, the researcher found out that students’ oral errors made when

speaking English in classrooms also fell into 4 categories: pronunciation, literal-

translation, missing words and redundancy However, the most frequent ones

‘were pronunciation errors, some of which involved sounds especially the ending sounds, intonation and slress Therefore, only some typical common errors of

pronunciation are chictly focused on and analyzed in this research

From the classroom observations, the researcher can conclude that most of

the students commit the following common sound errors when speaking English

in classroom

The first kind of error is the omissions of ending sauunds Most of the

students speak Hnglish without any ending sounds or omit the sound of the

inflectional suffixes like /s/ and /z/, or /t/ and /d/ in their speaking The following

table shows some cxamples of the ending sound errors or the omission of the

inflectional suffixes in English speaking classes

Table 6: The omission of the inflectional suffixes in English speaking clusses

The second one is also related to the ending sound errors or the final

position consonant errors As Deshayes (2005) remarks “the most common

pronunciation problem for Vietnamese learners of English is articulating

consonant sounds at the ends of words” (p5) He also emphasises that “many

Victnamese speakers of English oflen drop off these important consonants,

changing not only the pronunciation, but also grammar” Hence, the final posilion consonant errors ollen appear in students’ speaking al Phan Boi Chau

Specializing High School when they speak English in classraoms They are

unable to make a distinction between voiced and voiceless fricatives, especially

the voiecless usually substituted /7/ in their speaking, They produced voiceless

fricates but not voiced ones We can see these types of errors clearly in the

following table

Table 7: The errors of mispronouncing the voiceless /s/

‘The third error that 10" - form Non-Knglish Majors at Phan Boi Chau Specializing Iligh School made in their English speaking is that they often add

or other sounds to a certain number of words, or pronounce /s/ for /s/ ‘These

‘Table 8: The errors of adding “s” or other sounds to a certain number of

words

Table 9: The error of mispronouncing /s‘ for Fƒ:

The neat errors is the allocative sounds in English like /U, /dz, /z/, /6/, /ð/

students don’t often affricate these consonants, they only have a tendency to

pronounce them like other sounds in Vietnamese For cxample, many of 10" - form Non-English Majors at Phan Boi Chau Specializing High School often

change the fricate /8/ sound into similar sound /d/ or /z/ in Vietnamese

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