Common mistakes in English negative patterns: the case of students at Academy of Public Administration= M.A. Thesis Linguistics : 60 14 10

The results of the study reveal that APA learners have certain difficulties in using those negative patterns such as confusing the negative words with other, wrongly translating Vietname

Questionnaires are used to get their attitudes towards their understanding of negative patterns as well as their difficulties in using them and causes The students’ test is designed

to investigate students’ knowledge and evoke their typical mistakes in using the English negative patterns The results of the study reveal that APA learners have certain difficulties

in using those negative patterns such as confusing the negative words with other, wrongly translating Vietnamese negative sentences into English negative sentences, etc The main causes of these mistakes are mother tongue inference and overgeneralization Finally, some suggestions and recommendations are given for APA teachers and learners of English to make their teaching and learning of English negative patterns really effective

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBRIVIATIONS vi

LIST OF TABLES & CHARTS vii

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 1

3 Research questions 1

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Methods of the study 2

6 Significance of the study 2

7 Design of the study 3

PART II: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Overview of theories of mistake in English language learning 4

1.1.1 Notion of mistake 4

1.1.2 Distinction of error and mistake 4

1.2 Learners’ common mistakes in English negative patterns 6

1.2.1 English negative patterns 7

1.2.1.1 Negative patterns with NO- 7

1.2.1.2 Negative patterns with NEITHER/ NOR 7

1.2.1.3 Negative patterns with LITTLE & FEW 9

1.2.1.4 Semi – negative adverbs 9

1.2.2 Common mistakes in English negative patterns 10

1.2.2.1 Problems related to negative patterns using NO- 10

1.2.2.2 Problems related to negative patterns with NEITHER/NOR 11

1.2.2.3 Problems related to negative patterns with LITTLE & FEW 12

1.2.2.4 Problems related to negative patterns with semi – negative adverbs 12

1.3 Causes of mistakes in English negative patterns 13

1.4 Summary 14

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 15

2.1 Research setting 15

2.2 Subjects 15

2.3 Data collection instruments 16

2.3.1 Questionnaires 16

2.3.2 Students’ test 16

2.4 Procedure 17

2.5 Summary 17

CHAPTER III: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 18

3.1 Results collected from questionnaires 18

3.2 Results collected from exercises 22

3.2.1 Mistakes in using ‘neither, either, no one, none, nothing, nobody, no, nowhere’ 22

3.2.2 Mistakes in confusion of using ‘little, a little, few, a few’ 26

3.2.3 Mistakes in wrong uses of positions of semi – negative adverbs 27

3.2.4 Mistakes in translating negative expressions 29

3.3 Summary 31

PART III: RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION 32

1 Recommendations 32

1.1 Suggestions for lesson preparation 32

1.2 Suggestions for presentation 33

1.3 Focused practices 35

1.4 Feedback correction 35

2 Limitations of the study 35

3 Conclusion 36

REFERENCES 37 APPENDICIES I

Appendix 1 I Appendix 2 IV Appendix 3 VIII Appendix 4 XII

LIST OF TABLES & CHARTS

Table 1: Negative patterns with no- 7

Table 2: Negative patterns with neither/nor 8

Table 3: Negative patterns with little & few 9

Table 4: Negative patterns with semi – negative adverbs 9

Table 5: Rate of frequencies and confusion of using negative words 19

Table 6: The correct wrong choice & the wrong choice of exercise 1 24

Table 7: The rate of choice of little,a little, few, a few 26

Table 8: Positions of semi – negative adverbs in sentences 28

Table 9: Negative ideas - their English equivalents made by APA students 30

Chart 1: Students’ recognition of negative words … 18

Chart 2: Numbers of students giving correct answers to exercise 1 23

Chart 3: Correct & incorrect answers in choosing verbs agreed with subjects as neither &

negative words of no group 25

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

‘Most of people agree that making mistakes is part of learning Most of people also agree that correction is part of teaching (Edge, J., 1:1989) Finding mistakes is an interesting issue which draws much attention of researchers as well as teachers In the field of

teaching English as foreign language, Richards is famous for Error analysis (1974), Norrish (1983) is well – known by Language Learners ad their Errors and Corder (1974)

is popular with the significance of learners’ errors As a matter of fact, mistakes appear

daily in classrooms Working as a teacher of English as a foreign language (TESL), the writer of this study has no doubt about the phenomenon

Recently, there has been increasing realization of the mistakes concerning negative patterns in English language classrooms at the Academy of Public Administration (APA) The variety of English negative patterns makes the students confused They seem to be

familiar only with the negative patterns with not Except for the popular negative patterns,

these students hardly use other negative patterns correctly Some students even do not

know whether little or a little refers to a negative meaning This leads to their mistakes

whenever they express negative ideas With ambition to help students to eliminate their mistakes in the most practical way, the study has investigated common mistakes in English

negative patterns, specifically the negative patterns without not Following is the topic of

the researcher’s M.A thesis: Common mistakes in English Negative Patterns: The case

of Students at Academy of Public Administration It is hoped that the study will make

some contributions to improve the level of teaching and learning process of APA students and teachers

2 Aims of the study

The study is conducted in order to:

- find out common mistakes concerning negative patterns without not made by APA

students;

- figure out causes of these mistakes;

- make suggestions to reduce the students’ mistakes

3 Research questions

These above aims of the study bring us to three major questions:

- What are common mistakes in English negative patterns without not made by APA

students?

- What are the causes of these mistakes?

- What should be done to reduce and eliminate these mistakes?

4 Scope of the study

Students at different levels face with different difficulties in leaning English Hence, mistakes made in the learning process are also various This study has investigated types of mistakes concerning negative patterns derived from writing practice tests made by pre - intermediate non – major English students at APA In this study, the writer has also

presented different kinds of negative patterns without not, including No- group, neither, little and few, and semi – negative adverbs (Nguyen, Q., 1998: 77) (hardly, scarcely, rarely, etc.) and mainly focuses on analyzing mistakes within those negative patterns

Mistakes of other negative patterns are hoped to be investigated in further studies

5 Methods of the study

To achieve its objectives, qualitative and quantitative methods are employed as the main research methods

Qualitatively, the writer synthesizes theories concerning notions of mistakes, popular structures of negative patterns, common mistakes of negative patterns, and mistake treatment After that, the writer bases on the theory background to investigate typical mistakes of negative patterns made by APA students and relevant causes Quantitatively, the writer collects data through questionnaires and students’ paper tests In addition, such

methods as descriptive, analytic, comparative and contrastive are also utilized to describe

and analyze, to compare and contrast the database so as to bring out persuasive findings of the study

6 Significance of the study

The study is expected to bring benefits to teaching and learning English at APA In details, this study desires to figure out common mistakes relating to typical negative patterns

without not made by non – major English students at APA and causes of these mistakes

From this investigation, the teachers and learners could have a deep insight into the problems they have been faced with and draw out solutions for their better language teaching and learning

In terms of material design, the study suggests useful information which is more practical and effective to their learning and teaching environment at APA

7 Design of the study

The study is divided into three parts:

Part I – Introduction - provides the rationale, the aims and research questions of the

study; it also specifies the scope and the general structure of the study;

Part II – Development - consists of two chapters:

Chapter 1 - Literature Review - presents the theoretical background related to the

topic;

Chapter 2 - The study – includes the research setting, subjects of the study, data

collection instruments, procedure, analysis of the data and the results;

Part III – Conclusion - summarizes major findings of the investigation and provides implications and suggestions for further study

PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents theoretical background related to notions of mistake, common

English negative patterns and second language learner’s typical mistakes in using them It also summaries possible causes of the mistakes

1.1 Overview of theories of mistake in English language learning

1.1.1 Notion of mistake

When we use the word mistake in general sense, we all know what it means In teaching

and learning language, mistakes appear every day in classroom When a teacher says to a

student that his writing is full of mistakes, it seems to be easy to understand the meaning of the word mistake in this situation However, if we look at it carefully, we can see that the word mistake owns various meanings and there are many different views of its notion Hence, firstly, the paper would like to review some typical notions of mistake

From the views of language teachers, Norrish (1983:1) explains that a mistake is an

unwanted problem and a sign of failure to students due to lack of paying attention or listening properly Mistakes may be caused by teachers themselves because they do not give their presentation clearly or do not allow their students enough time to practice what they have been taught

Oxford dictionary (2008: 282) defines ‘a mistake as a wrong action, idea, or opinion’

According to Collin English dictionary (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mistake),

‘a mistake is an error or blunder in action, opinion, or judgment, or misconception or

misunderstanding’ In Wikipedia dictionary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error), ‘mistake

is an error’

In general, mistake refers to a wrong performance in action From the point of teaching methodology, the writer defines notion of mistake as any incorrect results appearing when

students practice exercises or tasks

1.1.2 Distinction of error and mistake

In spite the fact that many dictionaries claim that mistake is synonymous with error, arguments concerning the distinction between mistake and error have emerged among

researchers

Liski and Puntanen (1983:227) argue that an error occurs ‘where the speaker fails to

follow the pattern or manner of speech of educated people in English speaking countries

today’ Another idea of definition of error is discussed by Lennon (1991:182) that an error

is ‘a linguistic form or combination of forms which in the same context would in all likelihood not be produced by the learner’s native speaker counterpart’ This view is the

same as James’ opinion (1998:1) that defines an error as an unsuccessful bit of language

In terms of comparison, according to Corder (1967: 166), a mistake is regarded as an error

of performance meanwhile an error is applied to systematic deviation We can rebuild learners’ acquisition of the language when he makes an error Similar to Coder’s opinion, Norrish (1983: 7 - 8) gives a more detail explanation of differences between mistakes and errors When a learner has not been taught the knowledge, he will give an answer which is incorrect in the same way time from time We call this phenomenon an error which is

systematic deviation A child using his own language sometimes makes the same error For

example, when a learner practices a form of a verb followed by to + verb (V), it is supposed that he has already learnt that need + to V, want + to V, ought + to V However,

he has not known about the use of must He creates the form of must + to V on his own He

will make the error continuously if no one shows him the correct form The learner will

make a mistake if he has learnt the right form of must; however the right form is not always expressed The last kind is lapse A lapse is caused by lack of full attention or memory, etc It is unlike an error or a mistake Both native speakers as well as second

language learners could sometimes cause a lapse

APA students chosen in this study are all learners of English as a foreign language They are at different levels In Vietnam, each university requires taking some specialized subjects for its entrance examination These specialized subjects are usually divided into four main groups such as: group A including Math, Physics, and Chemistry, group B including Math, Chemistry, Biology, group C including Literature, History, Geography and group D including Math, Literature and English Traditionally, if a student chooses a university requiring taking group A exams, he spends most of his time on those subjects and just studies other subjects only to pass his final tests This leads to the case that normally a student who is good at subjects of group A is hardly good at other subjects or vice verse The point here is although these students are in the same class at their high school, some knowledge of the subject is well – known to this student but unknown or dim

to other due to their ignorance or less intention during their learning process The Academy

of Public Administration (APA) selects students who focus on subjects of group A, C or D Thus, a class at APA consists of members interested in subjects of group A, C or D at their high schools That means in an APA class, there are students who are worse at English than others In addition, in rural areas such as Cao Bang, Ha Giang, Lai Chau, etc foreign languages are not properly taught at school There are also high schools in which France, Chinese or Russia, not English, is taught as foreign languages Therefore, if there are any incorrect answers happen while APA students practice English exercises, it is difficult for

the researcher of this thesis to call their wrong answers errors or mistakes for above -

mentioned objective reasons For example, there is an exercise as follows:

Task: Rewrite the sentence without changing its meaning beginning with the word given in the bracket:

She has never bought any red hats (Never)

-> Never she has bought any red hats (Incorrect)

-> Never has she bought any red hats (Correct)

In this case, the writer could not completely call the learners’ wrong answer an error or a mistake or a lapse because in a such mixed level class, the writer finds it hard to know

whether the learner already learnt but sometimes forgets, or he has not been taught the knowledge yet

In summary, ‘the problem of determining what is a learner’s mistake and what a learner’s error is one of some difficulties and involves a much more sophisticated study and analysis

of errors than is usually accorded them’ (Richards, 1974:123) Moreover, the most important goal of the study is finding the problems APA students facing with negative patterns, their causes and solutions to them So, in the agreement with Edge (1989: 9) and

starting from teaching methodology point of view, the researcher presumes mistakes to be synonymous with errors and commonly names any wrong answers made by APA language learner’s mistakes

1.2 Learners’ common mistakes in English negative patterns

This part of the study focuses mainly on finding typical mistakes made by APA students in

using of four following groups of English negative patterns: negative patterns with no, with neither…nor, with little and few, and with semi – negative adverbs (hardy, scarcely,

rarely, seldom, barely, etc.) Mistakes concerning the usage of negative patterns with not

are not mentioned here Logically, syntactic and semantic features of the negative patterns are firstly presented in structures There are examples illustrating those structures

1.2.1 English negative patterns

An investigation into basic structures of negative patterns in English without not is

presented as follows:

1.2.1.1 Negative patterns with NO-

No keeps a role as a central determiner and forms part of compound pronouns when followed by (-) one, (-) body, or (-) thing Therefore, negative patterns with no refer to negative words such as: none, nothing, nobody, no one, no where, no more, no longer, no, etc These negative words own complex syntactic features (Please, see appendix 4) Similar to non – auxiliary negation with not, negation with no might negate elements of a

sentence or clause (ellipse clause) Being originated from criteria of negator positions,

negative patterns with no mainly fall into some typical structures:

1 (No + Np)/ Nobody/ Nothing/ No one/

None (of + NP) + [Be + Co)]/[Aux + V]

Nobody has come yet (Quirk, R.,1972:225)

2 S + [Be + Co]/[Aux + V] + [No + O

(N/Np)]/ Nobody/ Nothing/ No one/ None

(of + N)/ A (Nowhere)/ No longer/ No

more)

I’ve seen them nowhere

He’s at school no longer (unusual) I’m none the wiser now

1.2.1.2 Negative patterns with NEITHER/ NOR

Neither or nor is restricted to a set of two people or things Structures including neither are various but mainly as follow:

No Negative patterns with neither/nor Examples

1 S (Neither + NP) + [(Aux) + V]/ [Be + Co]

9 Statement containing Neither (mobile in

position) + Nor + Operator + S + …

Neither Peter wanted the responsibility, nor did his wife (Nguyen, Q., 1998: 110)

10 Neither + S1 + Nor + S2 + Predicate Neither Tom nor Jim has it

1.2.1.3 Negative patterns with LITTLE & FEW

We could easily define a sentence as a negative one because of the occurrence of no

Besides the words having both negative forms and negative meanings, there are words that have no signal of negative appearance but own negative meanings Among those words,

little and few take much concern

Little and few are both negative in meaning (Please, see table 3) They are quantifiers corresponding to many and much or infinite pronouns

No Negative patterns with little & few Examples

1 S [(Little + Uncount N)/ (Few + Count

N)] + [Aux + V]/Be + …

Few changes in government have ever taken many people surprise (Quirk, R., 1973:380)

2 The + Few/Little + Np + S + [Aux + V]/

Be +…

The little money I have left

(Quirk, R., 1985:392)

3 S + Be + Few/Little His faults are few.(Quirk ,R., 1985:392)

4 Few/little + [Aux + V]/Be + … Marry are called, but few are

chosen (Quirk, R., 1985:380) Table 3: Negative patterns with LITTLE & FEW

1.2.1.4 Semi – negative adverbs

Semi – negative adverbs include hardy, scarcely, rarely, seldom, barely, etc They are

usually followed by non – assertive rather than assertive forms Their syntactic and semantic features are presented in the following table:

No Negative patterns with semi – negative adverbs Examples

1 S + Aux/Be+ Never/ Seldom/ Rarely/ Hardly/

Barely/ Scarcely (ever) + (V) + (Any) + O/C

I seldom get any sleep

I’ve spoken to hardly anyone who disagrees with me

(Quirk, R., 1973:380)

2 Never/ Seldom/ Rarely/ Hardly/ Barely/

Scarcely (ever) + Aux/ Be + S + (V) + (any) +

O/C

Rarely does crime pay so well

as Mr Benn to think

(Quirk, R., 1973:380) Table 4: Negative patterns with semi – negative adverbs

In general, to aim at giving a clear description of English negative patterns which are

informative to APA learners, this part of the thesis focuses on twenty – two popular

structures of four negative pattern groups without not [negative patterns with no, with neither…nor, with little and few, and with semi – negative adverbs (hardy, scarcely, rarely, seldom, barely, etc.)] which share similar syntactic and semantic features and

positions in sentences The description of the negative patterns creates favor conditions for analysis of common negative mistakes made by APA learners Notably, this thesis does not

investigate negative patterns using an auxiliary negative word not or negative patterns with negative prefixes/ suffixes (un-, im-) as well as implicit negative words (deny, refuse, fail, forget, etc.)

1.2.2 Common mistakes in English negative patterns

Based on the four negative pattern groups have already been divided in 1.2.1, in this part typical mistakes in using those negative patterns made by foreign language learners are listed as one of the theoretical backgrounds of the study

1.2.2.1 Problems related to negative patterns using NO-

 Syntactic features of negators originated from no such as none, nobody, and nothing

lead many learners to mistakes when using them, especially problems of the concord

between negative subjects and finite verbs Except for none, most of these negators

take singular forms:

Mistake: Nobody have complained about the noise

Correction: Nobody has complained about the noise (Nguyen, X.T., 2003: 370)

 Nobody, no one, no longer, nobody are used without of ; however, learners of English confuse them with none which is followed by of:

Mistake: Nobody of the children was hurt, but the driver of the car died Correction: None of the children was hurt, but the driver of the car died

(Nguyen, X.T., 2003: 370)

 The rules on none are genuinely in flux Unlike other definite pronouns, none can be

either singular or plural depending on the meaning of your sentence The rule of

thumb is: if it refers to a group in total, or to thing as a whole, then none is usually

viewed as singular and takes a singular verb If it refers to a number of things, meaning your emphasis is on the quantity of the parts and not on the whole, then

none is considered plural:

Mistake: He wants a jukebox, but none are available

Correction: He wants a jukebox, but none is available (Batko, A., 2400: 114)

 When a subject is negative (nobody, no one, nothing), its followed verb is positive

So, instead of using a positive verb with a negative subject, learners normally use a negative verb with a negative subject:

Mistake: Nobody in the office could not give me the information

Correction: Nobody in the office could give me the information

 Infinitive verbs in some special negative structures with no are wrongly presented:

Mistake: It’s no use to cry like a baby

Correction: It’s no use crying like a baby (Fitikides, T J., 1936: 19)

1.2.2.2 Problems related to negative patterns with NEITHER/NOR

 Neither is generally used with a singular finite verb Because it is restricted to a set of two people or things, neither with a plural finite verb is frequently misunderstood:

Mistake: Neither of the governments are willing to give way

Correction: Neither of the governments is willing to give way

(Turton, N., 1995: 513)

 Neither is used as both to refer to two people or things; however, this does not mean both …don’t could be replaced for neither to express negative ideas:

Mistake: Both of them didn’t go to school today

Correction: Neither of them went to school today (Fitikides, T J., 1936: 39)

 In neither … nor structure, nor divides two parts of a subject and we consider them

separately Each part of the subject is a singular, so the plural verb is incorrect: Mistake: Neither the horse nor the trainer were ready

Correction: Neither the horse nor the trainer was ready (Batko, A., 2400: 110)

 A clause normally has only one negative word:

Mistake: Neither Helen nor David is not old enough to travel alone

Correction: Neither Helen nor David is old enough to travel alone

(Turton, N., 1995: 514)

 We have never had neither without nor when our intention is to compare two things

We can use neither as a pronoun, as in He invited neither of them But if we were to revise that sentence to use neither as a conjunction, nor should be combined with:

Mistake: He’s not going to school or working, neither

Correction: He’s neither going to school nor working (Batko, A., 2400: 154)

 Misplaced correlative conjunctions suggests that two units linked by neither… nor

must be grammatically equal:

Mistake: Sara speaks neither English or French

Correction: Sara speaks neither English nor French (Fitikides, T J., 1936: 39)

1.2.2.3 Problems related to negative patterns with LITTLE & FEW

 Few & little are misused as a few & a little Few & little mean hardly any:

Mistake: Although the question was easy, a few boys were able to answer it Correction: Although the question was easy, few boys were able to answer it

Mistake: He took a little exercise and wasn’t very fit

Correction: He took little exercise and wasn’t very fit

(Fitikides, T J., 1936: 110)

1.2.2.4 Problems related to negative patterns with semi – negative adverbs

 Subjects are misplaced when inversions appear with semi – negative adverbs in sentences:

Mistake: Never I have heard of such a thing

Correction: Never have I heard of such a thing (Fitikides, T J., 1936: 77)

 The auxiliary do is used before not but not before never, rarely, seldom…:

Mistake: My mother does never eat meat

Correction: My mother never eats meat (Turton, N., 1995: 512)

The researcher has tried to collect materials from different sources by both grammarians speaking English as the first language and ones speaking English as the second language,

so that common mistakes in using English negation could be fully presented This provides

the study with theoretical background of common mistakes in using English negative

patterns without not made by second or foreign language learners of English, and

encourages the author to continue to do research into possible reasons of these mistakes Nevertheless, in comparison with reality of learning English at APA, the researcher does not imply that all mistakes in this part are made by APA learners

1.3 Causes of mistakes in English negative patterns

Norrish (1983: 21) reviews that one of the most popular causes of mistakes is students’ carelessness Another cause is mother tongue interference which is named in terms of linguistic knowledge According to Lado (1957:1), ‘errors are originated in the learner’s disposition to transfer the forms and meanings of their native language and culture to the foreign language and culture’ In general, mistakes in using English negative patterns, as discussed by many researchers are caused by:

OVERGENERALIZATION

The concept of generalization is discussed by Jacoborits (1969: 55) as ‘the application of previous available strategies in new situations’ In Richard’s opinion overgeneralization is considered one of the contributory factors to cause mistakes Thus, he (1974:174) explains:

‘overgeneralization covers instances where the learner creates a deviant structure on the basis of his experience of other structures in the target language’ Therefore, after learning

that both is used to refer to two things or people, a learner may say Both of them didn’t go

to school today instead of Neither of them went to school today (Fitikides, T J., 1936: 110)

IGNORANCE OF RULE RESTRICTIONS

This cause of mistakes is closely related to the generalization of deviant when learners use already – learnt rules to the contexts where they are not applied Some mistakes may be originated from analogy; others are caused by rote – learning of rules For example:

You went nowhere, didn’t you? (= did you?)

A learner makes the mistake in this case because he is familiar with the formation of a

question tag in which if the previous clause is negative, the question tag is normally

positive; or if the previous clause is positive, the question tag is normally negative However, he does not note about the negative meaning in the first clause

INCOMPLETE APPLICATION OF RULES

From Richard’s view (1984:177), when the second language learners are more interested in exchanging information for communication than producing grammatically correct sentences, they may fall into application of incomplete rules He gives an example of

systematic difficulty in the use of questions: ‘What’s he doing?’ ‘He opening the door’

Obviously, the answerer just pays attention to the information he is giving, not the right grammatical form of the utterance he is using

FALSE CONCEPT HYPOTHESIS

Besides a wide range of errors originated from learners’ part, there is a class of developmental errors which derive from faulty comprehension of distinctions in the target language due to poor gradation of teaching items (teaching methods, materials, etc.) The

confusion between too, very and so is taken as an example Let us look at the story: ‘The house empty because it’s cold….I’m very cold England is too cold… The fire is very big… It’s very big It’s a very big fire The firemen are going to put water on the fire because it’s too big.’ (Richard, 1973: 180) In the story, the contrast between too and very

is intentionally presented However, the presentation naturally gives confusion of

meanings of these two words How can we avoid saying this is a too big house (Richard, 1974:180) or I am very tired that I cannot go (Richard, 1974:185)

1.4 Summary

In this chapter, the researcher has defined the notion of mistake, distinguished between error and mistake, listed basic negative structures, common mistakes of negative patterns without not and explained causes of these mistakes This theoretical background has

formed a theoretical framework supporting the researcher in carrying out her investigation into common mistakes in using English negative patterns made by APA students

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

This chapter will present the research setting and subjects of the study After that, the instruments and procedure of data collection will be described

2.1 Research setting

The study is conducted at the Academy of Public Administration (APA) At APA, English

is taught as a foreign language to the first and second year students of all departments with the total number of 215 periods In the first three terms, students learn and practice communicative skills in English within 150 periods Other 75 periods are spent on English for Public Administration English is arranged in APA students’ learning schedule logically, continuously and regularly for their first two years, normally 2 days per week and 3 periods per day Each period lasts 45 minutes For each term of fifty - periods, there

is a conditional test given after the fifteenth period For the term of seventy – five periods, there are two conditional tests given after the fifteenth period and the thirtieth period Based on the results of conditional tests, teachers know the students’ progress as well as their difficulties in learning so that they could have suitable changes in their teaching strategies In addition, these tests are designed to require serious learning from the students because marks scored for conditional tests account for 20% of the final assessment The curriculum is designed with hope that, after 2 years, their English could be well – developed both in daily communication and in their special field This is expected to be useful for students’ future jobs

The English textbook taught at APA now is Lifeline II designed for pre – intermediate students by Tom Hutchinson, (1999), Oxford University Press This book is taught within the first three terms during 150 periods Besides, a textbook for the last term is English for Public Administration by Nicolas Geoffrey Stedman, Nguyen Khac Hung & Nguyen Quoc Hung (Ed.), (2011), APA Publisher which accounts for the last 75 periods

2.2 Subjects

To guarantee the validity and reliability of the research results, the subjects of the study come from three classes at APA The total population is 97 second – year students at APA from different departments, both male and female, homogeneous in age All students are at the fourth term of English course at APA They have already finished their English for communicative skills at pre – intermediate level as scheduled

2.3 Data collection instruments

To collect data for the study, the following research tools are deployed:

2.3.1 Questionnaires

Questionnaires are given to students to get their attitudes towards their understanding of English negative patterns At the same time, their difficulties and causes are investigated There are 7 questions in the questionnaires From question 1 to question 2, the researcher would like to start up the respondents with the focused negative patterns in the study In question 3, the respondents are asked to list negative patterns causing them much confusion and difficulties in use The fourth and fifth questions seem to be the most important one in the questionnaires The researcher encourages the respondents to present all causes to their troubles in learning and using the negative patterns Some causes have been already suggested Besides, there are blanks for other causes from the students’ ideas Question 6 refers to students’ opinion of solutions to avoid mistakes when they use the negative patterns The last question is an open question seeking for students’ suggestions

to their teachers of English for improvement of teaching and learning the English negative patterns

purpose here is to check how far these students are well – known with and there is any confusion within those negative words Part B of the first exercise is designed to examine

how correctly the students use the finite verbs with subjects as neither or negative words of no- group To check how the students can distinguish little and few from a little and a few

is the aim of the second exercise Meanings and usages of semi - negative adverbs such as

hardly, seldom, scarcely, etc usually cause students many difficulties in their learning

process Hence, the researcher designs the third exercise mainly interesting in appropriate

positions of these semi - negative adverbs in sentences The last exercise is a synthetic task which requires APA students to translate Vietnamese sentences into English by using the four types of the above – mentioned negative patterns This task is to measure the students’ application of their English negative knowledge to practical communication

Necessarily, mistake analysis and contrastive analysis are considered to be important to figure out related causes

2.4 Procedure

There are three stages in the data collection:

Stage 1: The questionnaires and exercises are designed in separated papers The exercises are written in English, but the questionnaires are written in Vietnamese so that the respondents could present their ideas exactly

Stage 2: 97 students are from 3 classes; therefore, the researcher have to give the exercises and questionnaires into three times To each class, the following procedure is carried out: the students are asked to finish the questionnaires first, and exercises later The questionnaires are answered within 30 minutes meanwhile the test is done within 60 minutes The respondents in each group are gathered into a classroom, under control of the researcher Before giving the test and questionnaires, all information is explained carefully

by the researcher The respondents are encouraged to give their true answers to all questions No name is written down on the papers No judgment and evaluation of their answers are made By this way, the collected data can be considered more reliable, valid and convincing

Stage 3: The data is analyzed and contrasted to draw answers to the research questions

2.5 Summary

In this chapter, questionnaires and students’ test are used to collect the necessary data for the study The data collection procedures have been described specifically through three stages The results will be explained carefully in next chapter after the data analysis

CHAPTER III: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Results of the study will be presented through tables and charts in this chapter There will

be an interpretation of the results and exploration of the mistakes made by APA students

3.1 Results collected from questionnaires

The results of the first three questions are shown in charts because data of close questions can be straightforwardly analyzed The last four questions are open and they are discussed separately

The total numbers of students who finished the questionnaires are 92 out of 97 students Five students were late or absent so they could not attend the part

In the first question, the students were asked to recognize words carrying negative meanings The writer chose 7 words considered to be rather popular to APA students in their learning of English The results are shown in chart 1:

Chart 1: Students’ recognition of negative words

As can be seen from the table, there are remarkable differences in the results of the first

question For little, scarcely, few, rarely, seldom, at least 33% or averagely from 43% to

51% of these students have learned these words It is notable that 96% and 89% of these

students consider neither & none as ever - known negative words It seems that these two

negative words are easiest to recognize

In terms of quality of APA students’ knowledge, the data collected from the second and the third questions is clear evidence presented in the following table:

Negative words none neither little few scarcely rarely seldom

Table 5: Rate of frequencies and confusion of using negative words

In this question, the students are required to list negative words they have used most frequently The results of the second question show that the students’ frequencies of using

those words arranged from higher to lower as follow: neither (48%), none (33%), little/ few (16%), rarely (7%), seldom (5%), and scarcely (3%) Relevant to the data collected from the first question, it can be seen that none and neither are the most popular negative

meaning words to APA students because more than 80% of them have ever used the words

in their learning; hence, the frequencies of using the words are highest in comparison with

the given negative words Meanwhile, for other words such as little, few, rarely, seldom and scarcely, less than 50% of APA students have considered these negative meaning

words; so, only from 3% to 7% of students point out that they use them at the highest frequencies The result partly proves quality of the students’ knowledge of the negative

patterns without not in English is quite limited

The third question provides more evidence of limitation in APA students’ knowledge of

negative patterns without not, especially with semi – negative adverbs When being asked

which negative word causes most confusion in usage, 46% of APA students choose

neither, 27% of them choose none Meanwhile, only 23% of them vote for little and few, 7% for scarcely, 4% for rarely, and 1% for seldom The explanation of this phenomenon is that little, few, rarely, seldom and scarcely have ever been used just by from 30% to 50%

of the students This means not many students know about those words, so they cannot say

that those words are difficulty or easy to learn The preferred choices are to neither and none, the most familiar negative words to them The fact is that neither and none have

been practiced by approximately 90% of these students (see chart 1); however, more than

half of the students choosing neither (46%) and one - third of them choosing none (27%)

still claim that those words confuse them It is wondered that whether the knowledge of the two words, which the students have learned about, could ensure them correct uses

The questions from number 1 to 3 are logic to seek in quantity and quality of the students’

knowledge of the negative patterns without not The result releases that APA students’ knowledge of English negative patterns without not is limited in both quality and quantity

In addition, the discovery is the first step to define the mixed level among APA students

that leads to difficulty in naming their wrong answers mistakes or errors

In the fourth question, the researcher would like to investigate reasons which cause difficulties to APA students in learning and using these negative patterns There are four

reasons given in this question They are little paying attention to lesson, not have learned yet, forgotten due to little practice and other reasons For each chosen reason, the students

are asked to give detail explanations 74% of the students prefer the first reason, 47% of them consider the second reason, 71% of them choose the third reason and 30% of them contribute additional opinions There are several explanations why the students have not paid attention to their lessons Almost of them admit that English was not the major subject for their entrance examinations into universities, so they spent little time on learning it At high school, they learned English only to pass their final exams Some of them blame for teachers’ uninteresting teaching methods which make them feel sleepy in classroom Some students explain the knowledge of negative pattern is poor in English; hence, they have little concentration on it Others confess that they do not like English or they are lazy students; or because they are not good at English and they feel it difficult to learn and ignore it

The reason of not having learned yet comes up from differences in education programs in

different provinces

Three – fourth of the students admit that because they do not use English negative patterns for a long time, they are easy to forget how to use them correctly or confuse this negative

word with another

The students add some different reasons; for example, they get trouble with some negative

words, especially words in no group which rather similar in form and meaning Another

idea is that syntactic features of negative patterns are various; therefore, they find hard to remember them exactly

The content of the fifth question is that when writing a negative English sentence, APA students usually think of the negative sentence in Vietnamese at first, or directly think of

an English sentence The answer is that 90% of the students think in Vietnamese language

at first Only 10% of the students show that they think directly in English language The result points out that mother tongue inference may contribute partly on causing the mistakes when APA students practice the English negative patterns More clearly, the inference between mother tongue and target language can cause misunderstanding if there are differences between syntactic and semantic features of negative patterns of two

languages This type of mistakes usually occurs in translation exercises

The sixth question mentions solutions which can help these students over their difficulties

in learning and using the English negative patterns There are also four choices for them in

this question 70% of the students agree that exercises could help them get better in understanding English negative patterns 59% of them wish to gain more knowledge from reference books or from asking their teachers 13% of them answer if they meet difficulties with a negative word, they will leave it behind and avoid using it 11% of the

students suggest joining into English clubs for regular practices, learning by heart negative structures, communicating with native speakers, exchanging knowledge with friends, or watching English channels through films, music programs or international news

If the sixth question is asked for solutions from the students themselves to reduce difficulties in learning and using the English negative patterns, the seventh question is asked for the students’ recommendations to their teachers of English The students present some major recommendations which teachers should do as follow:

 give careful explanations of theories of English negative patterns and relevant exercises for practices;

 provide practical illustrations of English negative patterns in lectures;

 make comparisons among negative patterns to help students distinguish them;

 teach knowledge from simple to complex levels;

 advise students useful methods for efficient learning;

 usually check and revise students’ misunderstood knowledge;

 create lively and interesting lectures by visual aids, teachers’ enthusiasm, and friendly environment in classrooms;

 provide more help to students not good at English

To sum up, the first three questions in the questionnaires collect the data of APA students’

awareness and general understanding of English negative patterns without not The last

four questions find out the students’ difficulties in learning and using the negative patterns From that, their choices of solutions are investigated Through the questionnaires, the researcher could understand more about APA students’ difficulties and their recommendations which guide her to persuasive and practical suggestions for better

teaching and learning of the negative patterns

3.2 Results collected from exercises

The tests were finished by 97 students The five students who had been late for the first part of the questionnaires came in time and attended the test

Based on the collected data from four exercises in the tests, there are typical mistakes figured out in this part as follow:

3.2.1 Mistakes in using ‘neither, either, no one, none, nothing, nobody, no,

suitably The sentences having the same correct answers are presented adjoining each other

in one group in chart 2 In detail, nowhere is the answer to question 1, no to questions 2 and 5, neither to questions 3 and 7 and 10, nothing to questions 4 and 9, nobody or no one

to question 6 and none to question 8