During studying writing skill, especially writing essay, I am very interested in Cause and Effect essay, I realized how important they are and their effects when being used to write a pa
Trang 1ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
During the process of doing this graduation paper, I have received many necessary assistances, precious ideas and timely encouragements from my teachers, family and friends This paper could not have been completed without the help, encouragement and support from a number of people who all deserve my sincere gratitude and appreciation
First of all, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor - Ms
Truong Hoang Lan, M A, who has always been willing to give me valuable advice and suggestions in order that I can complete successfully this study
I also would like to take this opportunity to show my sincere thanks to all my lecturers at the Faculty of Foreign Languages of Pham Van Dong University, who have handed me basic knowledge to complete this study
I am so thankful to students of two classes 11A2 and 11A3 at Mo Duc No II High School for their whole - heart participation in the study
I am equally indebted to my classmates for their suggestions and encouragements in the progress of my study
Last but not least, my particular thanks are given to my parents for their encouragement and support which played an important role in my graduation paper
Trang 2TABLE CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……… ……….…1
TABLE OF CONTENT……… ……… ……2
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION……… .4
1.1 Rationale of the study… ……… 4
1.2 Aim of study……… 5
1.3 Scope of the study……….…5
1.4 Research questions……… …5
1.5 Methodology……… 5
1.6 Organization of the study………5
CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW……….7
2.1 Review of Previous Studies……… 7
2.1.1 Writing in the English class: The key to Improve the Vietnamese eleventh grader as a Foreign Language Learner’s Productive Writing Skill……… ….7
2.2 Theoretical Background……… 7
2.2.1 Theories of Writing Skill………7
2.2.1.1 Writing Skill Definition……… 7
2.2.1.2 Writing Skill in Teaching Foreign Language………7
2.2.1.2.1 The Importance of Writing Skill in Teaching Foreign Language……… …7
2.2.1.2.2 The difficulties of Writing Skill in Teaching Foreign language……… 7
2.3 Overview on Cause and Effect Essay……… 8
2.3.1 What is an essay? 8
2.3.2 Types of essays Used in Academic Writing……….8
2.3.3 The Definition of Cause and Effect Essay……….8
Trang 32.3.3.1 Structure of Cause and Effect Essay……… … 8
2.3.4 Process of a Cause and Effect Essay……… 9
2.4 Rules for a Good Cause and Effect Essay……… 9
CHAPTER III: METHODS AND PROCERDURES……….… 11
3.1 Research Methodology……….… 11
3.2 Research Procedures……….….11
3.3 Data Collections……… 11
3.4 Data Analysis……… 11
3.5 Reliability and Validity……….….11
CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS……… … 12
4.1 Some Errors in Writing Cause and Effect Essay……….12
4.1.1 Repeating Transitional Words in an Essay……… 12
4.1.2 Omitting Transition Words in an Essay……… 12
4.1.3 Incorrect Topic Sentences in Body Paragraph……… 12
4.2 Some Suggestions to Improve Writing Cause and Effect Essay… 12
4.2.1 Using Various Transitional Words……….…12
4.2.2 Writing Correct Topic Sentences……… 13
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION……… 14
5.1 Conclusion……….…14
5.2 Implications………14
REFERRENCES……….15
Trang 4CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Rationale of the study
Nowadays, almost countries in the world speak English and English can be considered one of the most essential languages for international communication In Vietnam, there are a lot of foreign investors, they establish their own companies in Vietnam They all speak English and of course, they will employ the people who have ability of using English Therefore, English is an important criterion to find a good job in Vietnam It becomes the second language to many people When we learn English, we can widen knowledge about culture, customs, lifestyle in each countries However, it is not easy to learn a foreign language well In order to use English fluently, I think the learners have to pay attention to four skills: Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking Of four skills, writing is considered the most difficult skill in all Different from the rest, writing requires not only the learners to have knowledge of grammar (grammatical structures) but also plentiful source of vocabulary to write a paragraph as well as an essay completely Many learners think that when they can speak well, they will automatically write well However, when they begin writing first sentence, everything is not easy as they expected There are many differences between spoken and written languages So, writing requires much patience and constant practice
In all walks of life, people use writing as a basic working skill It is a process, a skill of hard- work and people must perform almost daily As a student, you will have a lot of writing tasks such as: assignments, essay, graduation training report, graduation paper,… Therefore, we should think clearly about what to write, how to write in order to have a good writing To my knowledge, there are many factors which help learners write an essay successfully During studying writing skill, especially writing essay, I am very interested in Cause and Effect essay, I realized how important they are and their effects when being used to write a paragraph or an essay But due to the limitation of time, the study on how to write
a Cause and Effect essay effectively is not introduced clearly in writing subject Students do not have chance to understand much about them With the hope that I can study more about Cause and Effect essay deeply Thus, I decided to choose a study on how to write a Cause and Effect essay, some common errors made by high school students in writing Cause and Effect English essay and suggestions for solutions as my graduation paper
Trang 51.2 Aims of the study
The study “Some common errors made by high school students in writing Cause and Effect English essay and suggestions for solutions” is carried out in
order to survey the skills of writing of high school students, especially the students
at Mo Duc No II High School The study provides learners with the theoretical background of writing, such as the theory of academic writing, essay and especially, the theory of Cause and Effect essay It also points out the common mistakes facing the learners in the process of writing Cause and Effect essay and gives some advices, specific exercises to help English learners improve writing Cause and Effect effectively
1.3 Scope of the study
Cause and Effect essay is used in every types of discourse, such as speaking, reading, listening and especially in writing However, due to the limitation of time,
of knowledge and materials, I can only focus on theory of Cause and Effect essay, types of errors which students often make and methods to help students write the essay effectively
1.4 Research questions:
1 How do students understand about Cause and Effect English essay?
2 What are the common errors which students often make?
3 What are the solutions to help students write Cause and Effect English essay effectively?
1.5 Methodology
To fulfill the above aims, qualitative and quantitative methods were chosen for the study All comments, remarks, assumptions and conclusion of the study were based on the data and analysis Data collections for analysis in this study were gained through the following the survey questionnaires resources
1.6 Organization of the Study
This paper presented in five chapters They are:
Chapter I( Introduction)
The author provides information about the rationale of the study, states the aims of the study, specifies the scope of the study, research questions, research methodology as well as organization of the study
Trang 6Chapter II (Literature Review)
Provides the previous study, the theoretical foundation of teaching writing
Chapter III (Methods and Procedures)
Mentions methods and procedures including the research methods and procedures, data collection, data analysis, reliability and validity
Chapter IV (Findings and Discussions)
Elaborates the procedures of the study in order to give clear answers to the study questions that have been proposed before The findings and discussions presented based on the data that analyzed and they are related to the theoretical background in chapter two
Chapter V (Conclusion and Implications)
Presents the conclusion of this study, the implications for teaching and learning, the limitations of the study and some suggestions for further study
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CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Review of Previous Studies
2.1.1 Writing in the English class:
“The Key to improve the Vietnamese eleventh grader as a Foreign Language Learners’ Productive Writing Skill.”
The researcher believes that considering the limitations of evaluation and reformation of problems in the form of teacher-student and the advantages of application of student-student approach, this approach can be a step forward in the attainment of education objectives of productive writing skill
2.2 Theoretical Background
2.2.1 Theories of Writing Skill
2.2.1.1 Writing Skill Definition
According to Rivers (1981: 294), writing is conveying information or expression of original ideas in a consecutive way in the new language Brown, (2001: 336) also claimed that writing is a thinking process Furthermore, he states that writing can be planned and given with an unlimited number of revisions before its release In addition, Elbow (1973) in Brown (2001: 336) also says that writing
is a two-step process The first process is figuring out the meaning and the second process is putting the meaning into language Writing represents what we think It
is because the writing process reflects things, which stay in the mind
2.2.1.2 Writing Skill in Teaching Foreign Language
2.2.1.2.1 The Importance of Writing Skill In Teaching Foreign Language
The ELLs find listening and reading are the easiest skills whereas they find speaking and writing are more difficult ones as they are productive skills
2.2.1.2.2 The Difficulties of Writing Skill in Teaching Foreign Language
Among skills, they find writing skill the most difficult one and face many problems while composing simple short paragraphs
Trang 82.3 Overview on Essay and Cause and Effect Essay
2.3.1 What is an Essay
According to Oshima, Alice and Hogue Ann (2004: 16) - the authors of English grammar: An essay is a piece of writing consisting of several paragraphs
long instead of just one or two paragraphs
2.3.1.1 The Structural Parts of an Essay
An essay has three main parts: Introduction, Body and Conclusion
2.3.2 Types of Essays Used in Academic Writing
It would be wise to start studying different types of essays from the most time-consuming Five main categories of academic essays exist Those are:
1 Descriptive
2 Narrative
3 Compare-&-contrast
4 Persuasive/argumentative
5 Expository
2.3.3 The Definition of Cause and Effect Essay
The cause and effect essay explains why or how some event happened, and
what resulted from the event
2.3.3.1 Structure of Cause and Effect Essay
The following is a common structure of a cause and effect essay
a, Introduction:
Hook: introduces the causes/effects
Background information helps the readers understand the causes and effects It can give historical information
Thesis statement showing a relation between causes and effects
b, Body
Body paragraph 1 (cause1/effect1)
Topic sentence Supporting details
Trang 9Body paragraph 2 (cause 2/effect2)
Topic sentence Supporting details Body paragraph 3 (cause 3/effect 3)
Topic sentence Supporting details
c, Conclusion
Restatement/Summary
Final comment
2.3.4 Processes of a Cause and Effect Essay
Whenever we want to write any types of essay, we must do 3 necessary following processes :
- Stimulating ideas
- Brainstorming and Outlining
- Developing ideas
2.4 Rules for a good Cause and Effect essay
In the introduction, provide the necessary background to introduce your
reader to your topic, and then write a thesis statement that clearly indicates whether your essay will discuss causes or effects
In the body paragraph, analyze the causes or effects, giving a paragraph to
each major cause or effect
Use proper word indicators to show causes or to show effects Use appropriate transitions
Explore each cause or effect thoroughly; do not just write a list
Do not shift away from the causes or effects For instance, do not discuss ways to avoid sunburn in a paper whose purpose is to discuss the causes of sunburn
Trang 10Regularly remind your reader of your main idea or state the importance of the topic
When you analyze causes, you should attempt to understand the relationship
of events that brought about an outcome, but in this case one that was probably unexpected and not likely to be repeated in exactly the same way
When you are discussing multiple causes for an effect, you need to be aware
of the types of causes you are analyzing
Do not have too much information to cover or introduce into your argument Avoid falling into a never-ending cycle of ideas; be concise, get to the point
Some topics may have many causes and effects with which to deal Therefore, give some thought to how many and which ones you want to use; some may be more useful than others
Trang 11
CHAPTER III: METHODS AND PROCERDURES 3.1 Research Methodology
In order to meet the above - mentioned aims of the study in the previous chapter, qualitative, quantitative and survey questionnaires are three approaches that the design of this study is based on
3.2 Research Procedures
The study is conducted in some following steps:
- Collecting data: conduct questionnaires to know the students' responses
- Analyzing data (based on the research questions): point out students' attitudes about some writing skill aspects and the impact of suggestions to help students write Cause/ Effect essay better
- Synthesizing the findings and drawing conclusions
- Putting forwards some implications for teaching and learning and some suggestions for further research
3.3 Data Collections
The data collection took place around the end of May 2020 Data was collected by distributing 80 questionnaires to the eleventh graders at Mo Duc No II High School The students were written informed about the objectives of this study and then given the questionnaires to fill in during their lessons' break
3.4 Data Analysis
The aim of the questionnaires was to collect data relating to students' attitudes towards writing skill, the reasons that caused students' diverse in learning writing skill, students' attitudes towards Cause/ Effect essay, using suggestions to write essay better in teaching and learning writing skill Basing on categories established, data was then analyzed by using descriptive statistics (percentage) and qualitative statistics (informal discussions, interview) Charts were mainly employed to analyze and compare figures
3.5 Reliability and Validity
Validity and reliability are often based on a perspective congruent with the philosophical assumption underlying the paradigm of the case being investigated (Merriam, 2009: 211)