Some effective methods of correeting errors in writing english for 10th grade students

THANH HOA EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEPARTMENTHAM RONG HIGH SCHOOL ------TEACHING INITIATIVE SOME EFFECTIVE METHODS OF CORRECTING ERRORS IN WRITING ENGLISH FOR 10th GRADE STUDENTS AT

THANH HOA EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEPARTMENT

HAM RONG HIGH SCHOOL

- -TEACHING INITIATIVE

SOME EFFECTIVE METHODS OF CORRECTING ERRORS

IN WRITING ENGLISH FOR 10th GRADE STUDENTS AT

HAM RONG HIGH SCHOOL

Conductor: Luu Thi Thanh Tu Teacher of English

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology

THANH HOA, 2020 BOOK MAP

PAGE CONTENTS

1 1.1 Rationale

2 1.2 Objectives of the study

2 1.3 Scope of the study

3 1.4 Methods of the study

3 1.5 Significance of the study

4 2.1 Theoretical Background

10 2.2 The reality of the the study

10 2.3 Measures taken to solve the problem

10 2.3.1 Teachers’ activities

12 2.2.2 The students’ activities

15 2.4 The effectiveness of the initiative

18 3 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

18 3.1 Conclusions

18 3.2 Limitations of the study

18 3.3 Recommendations for further research

1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE

English is the most popular language in the world, an important schoolsubject Recognizing the importance of this language in internationalcommunication as well as in the development of international integration, theVietnamese education industry has chosen English as the leading subject.English is not only necessary for tourism, foreign trade, foreign companies,computer users but also a compulsory high school graduation exam.Therefore, every student in high school must have a certain level of English toprepare for exams and after graduating, at least they must be able tocommunicate, read and write some common texts meet In order to do this, weconstantly innovate teaching methods as well as curriculum to achieve realresults for English in general and to train some basic skills for students

When learning a foreign language, writing skills are considered as one ofthe important skills that learners need to master if they really want to succeed incommunication Learning English is not an exception, especially during theopening period of international economic integration, when most of theinformation resources are written in English, which requires increasing writingskills of this language Writing is a skill that everyone, regardless of theprofession, will use every day As students, they have been and will meet manytypes of writing to perfect their learning process However, according to Nunan:

"In all skills, writing a coherent, fluent and suggestive writing is the mostdifficult thing in language learning" (In terms of skills, producing a coherent,fluent and extended piece of writing is probably the most difficult thing there is

to do in language)

In the process of learning a foreign language, making mistakes is also aninevitable part and plays an important role When practicing writing, studentsoften face many difficulties in writing consistent and coherent paragraphs For10th graders at Ham Rong High School who are just starting to get used towriting a short paragraph, it is essential to point out the basic errors and guidethem to fix them because it will help them improve their English in the process

of learning and practicing writing skills later on Understanding the situations inwhich children make mistakes and how the teachers and their students correctthem will also help improve their writing skills For English teachers, who havethe main responsibility to help students perfect this skill, the effectiveness ofteaching depends not only on the method of teaching writing skills, but also on

knowledge and language skills of the teacher There are many factors that affectthe learner's writing results, error correction is an important factor among them.

We can not deny that making mistakes in writing articles is inevitable duringthe learning process The more students pay attention to the lesson, the morethey want to be creative and develop their own way of understanding thelanguage formation process This is one of the reasons why the number ofmistakes students make is increasing but making mistakes is also seen as apositive process From mistakes, learners can see whether they write well or notand it also helps teachers assess the ability of students at certain times to helpthem progress quickly In the process of correcting errors, teachers stillencounter feedback from students This means that there will be disagreementnot only among teachers but also among the students about what errors studentsoften make, how to fix them, whether correcting errors will work in helpstudents improve their writing skills or not, how to fix errors most effectively,and fix errors when it is reasonable

1.2 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

This study is aimed at:

- providing idears of errors and error correction in English writing skillsfor students at high school

- finding out the errors of students in English writing classes of the grade

10 students at Ham Rong High School

- suggesting the useful techniques of error correction for writing work tothe grade 10 students at Ham Rong High School in learning writing English

1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

With the problems encountered in the process of teaching writing skills to10th grade students at Ham Rong High School, I implemented an initiative of

experience in the school year 2018 - 2019 with the subject: “Some effective methods of correcting errors in writing English for 10 th grade students at Ham Rong High School”

To improve writing skills for students at Ham Rong High School, theteachers can make use of various techniques and a number of things should bedone However, within the framework of a teaching experience, the author onlyintends to draw a brief overview of what errors in writing skill are and howerror correction techniques are used at Ham Rong High School

Also, due to the time constraints, this study only involves a small number

of students at Ham Rong School

1.4 METHODS OF THE STUDY

By synthesizing, analyzing common mistakes in student writing andapplying some corrective methods, I hope to contribute to help studentsunderstand the difficulties in the learning process and to suggest teachers andstudents some effective ways to correct mistakes to make the lesson achieve thedesired results

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE INITIATIVE

This initiative is hoped to be used to both teachers and the 10 gradestudents at Ham Rong High School This study has been able to contribute toteachers’ knowledge of teaching writing skill for students in particular, andwriting for daily communicative activities in general Besides that, from thefinding of the study, teachers can be provided with important information whichmay be valuable for their future lesson planning On the other hand, theteachers’ transformation in finding studtens’ errors and error correctionimplementation will be beneficial to the students

2 CONTENTS

2.1 THEORY BACKGROUND

2.1.1 What is writing?

2.1.1.1 The concept of "writing" in language theory

In order to have an appropriate and effective approach in teaching writingskills, it is necessary to understand the concept of "writing" in language theory.There are many definitions of "writing" Every linguist has his own definitionsdepending on the criteria they consider important

According to Byrne (1979), writing is an "act of forming a sequence ofsymbols arranged by convention to form words and words arranged intosentences" From this perspective, we can see that any activity that makes up theword / sentence, whether meaningful or not, is considered "written"

Writing, in terms of language theory, is not as simple as the concept thatByrne came up with It is a complex process that, according to Lannon (1989),defines "the process of converting materials discovered by inspiration,randomness, trial and error or whatever is in the message full meaning -Writing is a process of careful decisions ” (p.9) According to this definition,writing must contain meaningful messages, this definition is more completethan Byrne (1979) because it aims to write, not write without clear direction

In the process of teaching and learning, writing is considered to be a

"language skill" (Tribble, 1996, p.3), it is not only the presentation of thelanguage in written form but also the development and expression of ideas in asequential, structured way ”It is“ a process that takes place over a period oftime, especially when we spend some time thinking before writing the firstoutline ”(Harris, 1993, p.10) Compared to the concepts given earlier, thisconcept is most satisfactory because it covers all aspects of writing skills: form(written text), purpose (express ideas) , and structure (textured)

When writing we know that a written document is the product of anindividual with the purpose of communicating with others indirectly Thatmeans the receiver does not stand before the writer to hear from the writer.Therefore, the writer must make sure that the text he or she writes is not onlyaccurate but also easy to understand for the reader

Several factors need to be considered when writing according to Raimes (1983)

SYNTAX CONTENTS Sentence structures Coherence, Cohesion

Paragraphs, Reason for writing

Topics Coherence, Cohesion

OPTIONS/CHOICES Vocabulary, Collocation, Expression

2.1.1.2 Writing process

According to Tribble (1996), the writing process consists of 4 steps:

1 Pre-writing: This is the step that the writer takes before drafting, includingchoosing topics, thinking, taking notes, discussing, organizing ideas, drafting,collecting information (For example, interview, search library information,process data)

2 Drafting: Drafting is the process by which writers write ideas into sentencesand paragraphs, focusing on explanations, clarifying ideas, and linking ideas

3 Revising: This is an important step for a complete document The writer willthink about what the reader expects, the reader is the center of the text towards.For example, refining texture, linking ideas or adding conjunctions

4 Editing: The writer reviews the form of writing such as spelling, grammarand punctuation.

As we can see from the point of view, writing is a one-way process thatdoes not involve the reader Reid (1993) makes the same point but adds threemore steps to the writing process: feedback, evaluation and after writing Thismakes Reid's writing process more satisfactory

In short, the steps of the writing process according to Reid (1993) can beillustrated in the following diagram:

PREWRITNGDRAFTINGFEEDBACKREVISINGEDITINGEVALUATINGPOSTWRITING

In short, writing is an exercise that two people do not do in the same way.However, there are basic steps that every writer must follow when writing.Every researcher has different ways to illustrate the writing process, but all ofthem consistently write as a "recursive" rule that requires great effort from thewriter

2.1.2 The concepts of "error" and "error correction":

2.1.2.1 Overview of the error:

There are many definitions of errors made by famous researchers such asAbbort (1981), Edge (1989), McKay (1989), Goldstein (1990), Hubbard (1991),Klassen (1993), Crosling (1996) etc Although they express in different ways,the concepts have in common the nature and function of the error:

Goldstein (1990) defines errors as "an act of ignorance, omission, orunintentional neglect, lost from the original orientation or failed to achieve thegoal";

Klassen (1993) gives a simpler definition of error According to Klassen, theerror is "a form or structure that natives cannot accept because of inappropriateuse.";

Meanwhile, Crosling (1996) made his point in the direction of respectful of thecriteria "Any deviation from the method is considered to be a fault"

When it comes to errors, some researchers have the same opinion that notonly foreign language learners make mistakes but also native speakers.Indigenous peoples often make mistakes at two levels of "morphological error"and "expression error", the second one is a common error with higher frequency(McKay, 1984) Therefore, errors should be considered as unconventional andinappropriate We can see mistakes at all levels of language from form errors toexpressions

2.1.2.2 Error classification

Lippman, J (2003) classifies errors into two categories: "general error"(covering error) and "specific error"

CATEGORIES COVERING ERROR

- Not exactly in the whole

sentence

For example: Wrong sentence

syntax, wrong word choice

From the above categories, we can see that:

- Covering errors include:

1 Thesis

2 Structures

3 Information

4 Compatibility and consistency

5 Relevance to the object and purpose

- Specific errors include:

2.1.2.3 Overview of error correction

2.1.2.3.2 Some basic methods of curing writing for students

In the process of teaching in general, teachers often have to solveproblems such as "which errors need fixing" and "fix errors effectively"

Gower and Walter (1983) presented four problems for language teachers

to solve when students made mistakes in writing, which is "what to fix, when,how and how much"

Meanwhile, Raimes (1983) also gave 7 basic error correction principlesfor error correction during classroom teaching:

1 For students' writing, there is no need to mark errors but still identify errors to

be corrected

2 Identify the error carefully and find the cause

3 Find the parts that students have successfully completed

4 Record the students' mistakes

5 Set up error symbols that are clear and easy to understand

6 Regularly give reasons or correct and remove errors carefully

7 Finally: handle errors carefully and create habits for students

Addressing the problem of "fixing what, when", researchers often suggestthat the teacher should choose to fix it immediately or until similar errors occur

in the same lesson

To make the problem of "how much to fix" it is clear that Gower andWalter offer some suggestions:

• Engage students in the writing process

• Spend less time fixing individual mistakes but focusing on common mistakes

• Identify errors students have made

• Indicate the location of the error

• Indicate the type of error

• Give learners the opportunity to correct themselves

• Learners who cannot fix the lesson, ask other students for help

• If the previous step fails the teacher corrects the error

Edge (1989) also offers the following three basic troubleshooting steps:(i) Self-correction - Self-correction:

Teachers point out errors for students to correct themselves becausesometimes students need help to identify errors before they correct themselves.(ii) Peer correction - Learner corrects errors together:

Students work in pairs or in groups to find and correct errors in eachother's writing This attracts all students to the process of error correction,making them more active, less dependent on the teacher

(iii) Teacher correction - correction teacher:

The teacher finds the writer who wants to say the wrong sentence andteaches students how to express it correctly

2.1.3 The relationship between error, error correction with the process of teaching and learning writing skills

Making mistakes is inevitable in the learning process, in this way learnerscreate important and essential characteristics for language learning Makingmistakes is the way learners verify the knowledge they have learned, therebygrasping that language

For teachers, making mistakes in the learning process helps them assesstheir knowledge level, consider what they need to learn to improve

Error correction also has a positive impact on the language teaching andlearning process Students who learn through self-correction, correct mistakesmade by their classmates, and listen to their teachers' mistakes can progressfaster Especially writing skills require high accuracy in words and expression