language activities for improving linguistic competence of the first year students in thai nguyen university (sum)

NGO THI BICH NGOC SUGGESTED LANGUAGE ACTIVITIES FOR IMPROVING THE LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE OF FIRST YEAR STUDENTS IN THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Speciallity: English Language and Literature P

NGO THI BICH NGOC

SUGGESTED LANGUAGE ACTIVITIES FOR IMPROVING THE LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE

OF FIRST YEAR STUDENTS

IN THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

Speciallity: English Language and Literature

Ph.D E DISSERTATIOM SUMMARY

THAI NGUYEN - 2014 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam Republic of the Philippines

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

Scientific supervisor: Dr Matilda H Dimaamo

The peer review 1:

The peer review 2:

The peer review 3:

The dissertation is defended to the Panel of Experts at:

Dissertation can be found at:

National Library

Learning Resource Center, Thai Nguyen University

Library of International Training and Development Center Library of Batangas State University, Philippines

“ In this summary dissertation, all figures and tables are numbered as in dissertation”

In our world today language is our mean of communication and learning It is one’s knowledge and a tool of expressing of thoughts and perception Thoughts and ideas can never be expressed and can not be understood by one another without good language Because it enables people to communicate and express themselves, it becomes an important part of any society

Learning other languages besides national language is also of vital importance since it helps to have additional knowledge of other people and cultures

Considered as the international language, English now is chosen by many people and in learning it as the second language One of most difficulties of the students in learning English are related

to their problems of linguistics and words formation and in order to have a good command of this language, students need to have opportunities to improve their ability of these skills

Thus, the theme “Language Activities for improving Linguistic Competence of the First Year Students in Thai Nguyen University” is chosen to study

The structure of dissertation includes 5 chapters

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1 THE PROBLEM

Language is considered important because it is the vehicle for communication between countries, cultural groups, organization, communities and friends Language is used to give information to people around us, expressing feelings, desires, and questions as well

as understanding the world

In learning English as a foreign language, students most common difficulties encountered are attributed to the interference of their mother tongue like Vietnamese language particularly in pronunciation, syntax, and usage; their lack of opportunity also to use the English language in some communication or situations in their daily lives; the kind of English lessons taught by their teachers, their being passive listeners, their lack of confidence in the language; and their irresponsibility in their own learning

These causes can also be related to other issue like that of their lack of understanding of words or vocabulary It is believed that students’ vocabulary increase when they elaborate their conceptual knowledge based on known words; relate new words to known concepts

to deep understanding of words and connect with other concepts

On the other hand, students need to have good intuitive command of morphology They have knowledge in specific morphemic elements and its combinations They can explore on the use of prefixes and suffixes and based words and on Greek and Latin prefixes for them to be provided with valuable prior knowledge in their learning of new terminologies Students with better

understanding on word formation such as prefixes, suffixes and roots have the tendency to acquire larger vocabularies and better comprehension in compared to those who do not have such background, knowledge and skills

As a College teacher of Thai Nguyen University teaching Basic English, I am interested to investigate the level of linguistic competence

of students in terms of connotation, denotation, antonyms, synonyms, and ambiguities as well as the level of students’ understanding on word formation related to acronym, clipping, blending, and compounding with the end view of proposing language activities to enhance their linguistic performance This prompted the researcher to conduct the study

2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

This study attempts to determine the level of Linguistic Competence of the First Year Students at Thai Nguyen University Specifically, it seeks to answer the following questions:

1 What is the level of linguistic competence of students in the teacher - made test using the following:

2 What is the level of understanding of students on word-formation

3 SCOPE, DELIMITATION AND LIMITATION

The study covered the level of linguistic competency of Thai Nguyen University first year students The output of the study is the proposed language activities to enhance the linguistic competency of first year students of Thai Nguyen University

The respondents included in the study were the 382 First year College students taking up Basic English course in Thai Nguyen University system in the Academic Year 2013-2014 Results of this study were limited only on the data gathered from these respondents

4 SIGNIFICANT OF THE STUDY

This study is believed to have significant to the Administrators

of Thai Nguyen University the First Year Students, Basic English Teachers, Parents of the First Year Students and future researcher

Administrators Findings of this study will provide relevant

input for them to be able to design an effective curriculum for the students

First Year Students of TNU Students will be informed on

their weaknesses so that they can devise ways to improve their linguistic performance

Faculty Teaching Basic English Results of this study will

provide relevant information to the faculty teaching Basic English to design their own instructional material to enhance the linguistic proficiency of students

Parents of First Year Students of TNU Findings of this

study will provide them the weaknesses of their children so that they may provide proper guidance and motivation for their children’s improvement

Future Researchers Future researchers may use this study to

broaden their knowledge in the field linguistic

CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE

1 REVIEW OF RELATED STUDIES

This section presents of some literatures related to the topic

2 RESEARCH PARADIGM

INPUT PROCESS OUTPUT

Figure 1 Research Paradigm

The research paradigm explains the relationship of the process-output of the study The input covers the level of linguistic competence including connotation, denotation, antonyms, synonyms, ambuigities and vocabulary Also part of the input is the level of understanding of students on word formation employing acronyms,

Assessment Through

-Survey

Questionnaire

- Teacher- made Test

Language Activities

clipping, blening and compounding, The process bos involvesthe assessment of the level of lingistic competence and word formation

of the students These were assessed through survey questionnaire, teacher-made test Finally, form the relationship of the first two boxes emerge the third box of the paradigm that illustrates the output

of the study, the suggested language activities

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHOD AND PROCEDURE

1 RESEARCH DESIGN

This study made used of descriptive method of research to

determine the level of Linguistic Competence of the First Year

Students at Thai Nguyen University

According to Dr Y.P Aggarwal (2008) descriptive research is devoted to the gathering of information about prevailing conditions

or situations for the purpose of description and interpretation This type of research method is not simply amassing and tabulating facts but includes proper analyses, interpretation, comparisons, identification of trends and relationships

In this study, level of linguistic competence of first year college students of Thai Nguyen University System in terms of connotation, denotation, antonyms, synonyms, and ambiguities as well as the level of students’ understanding on word-formation in terms of acronym, clipping, blending, and compounding were determined These were assessed through survey questionnaire and teacher-made test The output of the study was in the form of language activities to improve students’ linguistic competency

2 SUBJECT OF THE STUDY

The subjects of the study comprised of three hundred eighty two first year students taking up Basic English course in five universities namely; Thai Nguyen University of Education (TUE), Thai Nguyen University of Information and Communication Technology (ICTU), Thai Nguyen University of Sciences (TUS), and Thai Nguyen University of Medicine and Pharmacy (TNUMP) at Thai Nguyen University system during the first semester Academic Year 2013-2014

Table 1: The distribution of sample respondents

Universities

Population

Proportionate allocation

Population

Proportionate Allocation

As shown in the table, a total of 382 student respondents and

66 teacher respondents were selected from the given population The sample size was calculated using the Slovin’s formula: n= N/ 1+N*e2

where n is the sample size, N is the given population and e is the desired error For the student respondents, 382 questionnaires were retrieved however, six questionnaires were not answered completely and thus, were excluded from the data analysis For the teacher respondents, all the questionnaires were answered completely and thus, all the 66 responses were included in the analysis

3 DATA GATHERING INSTRUMENT

The main instrusment used in gathering was questionnaire checklist for teacher and the teacher - made test for students to determine the level of students in linguistic competence and word formation and teachers’ assessemnet of students results

The questionnaire checklist consists of 2 parts

Part 1: consists of personal information such as gender, age, eduactinal qualification and years of teaching experience

Part 2: consists of teachers’ assessment of luanguage competence of students; the frequency of language competency assessment and the degree of importance

Based on the view of literature and related study, the researcher designed a set of questinnaire checklist to collect the data with the following scales

Table 2: Scale of values of frequency of language competency

Table 3: Scale of values of the degree of importance

Teacher Made Test consits of 2 parts:

Part 1: Consists consists of personal information such as gender, age and schoo

Part 2: Consists of questions on language competence and word formation of the students in terms of denotation, connotation,

antonyms, synonyms, vocabulary, acronyms, clipping, blending and ccompounding

This was used in evaluating student respondents to determine their level of linguistic competency and level of understanding on word formation Linguistic competency has the following components: Connotation, Denotation, Antonyms, Synonyms, Ambiguities and Vocabulary Word formation, on the other hand has been defined as the process by which new lexical bases are formed as well as the structure of complex lexical bases, particularly those composed of more than one morphological element (Huddleston and Pullum, 2002) It is a term in linguistics (particularly morphology) which denotes of the ways in which new words are made on the basis

of other words or morphemes Among the common types of word formation are: Acronym, Clipping, Blending and Compounding

-In constructing the Teacher Made Test for linguistic competency and word formation, test questions were obtained and modified from different books dealing with the topic and class notes Ten questions were formulated for each of the above listed components of language competency and word formation

4 DATA GETHERING PROCEDURE

Concepts and literatures were read to deepen knowledge and understanding about the present study Books, journals, other reading references, published and unpublished researches and online references were used to come up with the present research

The study made used of two data gathering instruments namely survey questionnaire for teacher respondents and teacher-

made test for student respondents In the development of the questionnaire and teacher made test, the first draft prepared was submitted to the adviser for comments and suggestions The two instruments were reviewed and checked in line with their contents and statement of the problem

The survey questionnaire for teachers and test for students were presented to the practitioners for content validation The survey questionnaire was submitted to English teachers for comments and suggestions for further improvement Likewise, the teacher-made test for student respondents was pilot tested to other students not the respondents of the study to determine the strength and weaknesses of the instrument These two instruments were validated by experts before administration to the respondents The score of each item was given a corresponding weight value with one as the lowest and five

as the highest Descriptive equivalents or verbal descriptions were also provided for the interpretation of results

Prior to the distribution of the two instruments, the following procedures were done Permissions to conduct the study from the administrators of different universities were sought Upon granted approval, questionnaires were distributed There was a separate schedule for student and teacher respondents As soon as the questionnaires were answered by the teachers and the students, questionnaires were retrieved Then items in the questionnaire were checked and then tallied for interpretation and analyses

5 STATISTICAL TREATMENT OF DATA

The study applied the following statistical treatment:

Coefficient of Correlation This was used to evaluate the

relationship between the teachers’ perceptions and the students’ performance in the linguistic test

Frequency, percentage and rank These were used to

present the descriptive characteristics of the respondents’ level of linguistic performance and understanding of word formation

Linear Regression This was used to validate the t-test

analysis and coefficient of correlation

Standard Deviation This was utilized to estimate the degree

of homogeneity or heterogeneity of students’ performance

Student’s t-test This was used to test the significance of the

means score of teachers’ assessment versus the students’ performance in the linguistic test

Weighted Mean This was used to determine the students’

level of linguistic performance

CHAPTER IV: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

1 LEVEL OF LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE OF FIRST YEAR STUDENTS

The levels of linguistic competence of First year students of the six universities in TNU Vietnam was assessed along the areas of connotation, denotation, antonyms, synonym, and ambiguities and vocabulary

In the area of connotation, result of 68 % of the correct answer indicates that students have an average level when it comes to the