Difficulties in learning writing, from the perspective of grade 6 students in a local school

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES ********************* NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG AN DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNIN

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

*********************

NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG AN

DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING WRITING, FROM THE PERSPECTIVE

OF GRADE 6 STUDENTS IN A LOCAL SCHOOL

Những khó khăn trong việc học Viết, từ quan điểm của học sinh lớp 6

tại một trường ở địa phương

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Method Code: 8140231.01

Hanoi, 2018

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

*********************

NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG AN

DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING WRITING, FROM THE PERSPECTIVE

OF GRADE 6 STUDENTS IN A LOCAL SCHOOL

Những khó khăn trong việc học Viết, từ quan điểm của học sinh lớp 6

tại một trường ở địa phương

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Method Code: 8140231.01

Supervisor: Prof Dr Nguyễn Hoà

Hanoi, 2018

DECLARATION

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled “Difficulties in learning Writing, from the perspective of grade 6 students in a local school” submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Teaching Methodology No person‟s work has been utilized

without the acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

ACKOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Prof Dr Nguyễn Hòa, who helped, supported and encouraged me while I conducted this research Without his helpful comments, valuable advice and considerable assistance, this research could not have been completed I also want to thank all the staff members, colleagues and students of the secondary X for providing me the best conditions to fulfill my research

LIST OF ABBREVIATION

NWREL Model The Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory Model

LIST OF THE TABLES

Table 1 Figure 1.1 The percentage of students who do not know how to use tenses

Figure 1.2 The number of students who do not know how to use tenses

Figure 5.1 The percentage of students who do not know exact meaning of

the English words

Figure 5.2 The number of students who do not know exact meaning of the

Table 7 Figure 7.1 The percentage of students who do not have enough ideas

Figure 7.2 The number of students who do not have enough ideas

ABSTRACT

Writing - one of four main English skills - plays an important part in learning this language It is not only a compulsory subject at schools but also an essential skill in a real life Therefore, this research has been conducted to determine what difficulties Grade 6students often have in learning writing

The study is a case study It used both qualitative methodology and quantitative methodology The participants included 50 grade 6 students in a secondary school located in Hanoi (school X) The data have been collected from the survey, interviews and written artifacts The written artifacts help me find out students‟ writing problems The survey and the interview used as a means to get more information about grade 6 students‟ point of view about learning writing and difficulties they cope with when learning this skill From these findings, some suggestions were proposed to grade 6 students and EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers in order to improve students‟ writing skill throughout their writing learning process

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Content Page

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

3 Research questions 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Methods of the study 2

6 Significance of the study 3

7 Design of the study 3

II PART II: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Literature review 5-10 1.1 Definition of terms 7

1.1.1 Definition of Writing 1.1.2 Definition of Writing Problems 1.2 An overview of writing 5-8 1.2.1 Types of writing in Grade 6 5

1.2.2 The 6+1 Traits Writing Model (NWREL Model) 7

1.2.3 Main causes of writing problems 9

1.3 Previous studies 9

1.4 The importance of writing skills to Grade 6 students 10

1.5 Summary 10

Chapter 2: Methodology 11-15 2.1 Setting of the study 11

2.2 Research type 11

2.3 Participants of the study 12

2.4 Data collection procedure 12

2.5 Data collection instruments 13

2.5.1 Written artifacts 2.5.2 Survey 2.5.3 Interviews 2.6 Summary 15

Chapter 3: Data analysis 16-33 3.1 Results from students’ written artifacts 16

3.2 Results from survey 18

3.3 Results from interviews 30

3.4 Summary 32

III PART III: CONCLUSION 1 Recapitulation 33

2 Conclusions and Recommendations of the research 33-36 2.1 Conclusions 33

2.2 Recommendations 34

3 Limitations and Suggestions for future research 36

REFERENCES 37

APPENDICES 41

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

Nowadays, English is considered as an international language and is used by people all around the world Flanegin and Rudd (2000) found that this language is necessary for different fields Thus, it cannot be denied that English is the need of modern world with four main skills named listening, speaking, reading and writing In these skills, writing is the most difficult part in learning English It is

“the expression of feelings, thoughts, desires and plans in black and white”

(Akkaya & Kirmiz, 2010) Mentioned by Rita Rani Mandal (2009), “it is an

important tool, which enables man to communicate with others people in many

ways.”

In fact, writing is not only a compulsory subject at schools but also an essential skill in a real life It can be recognized that improving writing skills may help students develop their using language ability Moreover, it supports others skills such as reading or speaking Otherwise, writing is a significant tool for leading into different fields like literature or even technology With these benefits, writing is obviously a required skill for students However, most of the secondary students do not aware of its importance and they make lots of mistakes in their written works Additionally, learning writing is a challenging task for the majority

of grade 6 students Actually, they do not know how to write a paragraph correctly That is one of the reasons why they often get low marks when taking the writing examinations and it affects their learning‟s results Therefore, teaching English in creative ways as well as helping students become independent learners

and benefit a lot from the innovative teaching techniques is “a tough mission for

teachers” (Rury, 1996).This research has been done to identify the writing

difficulties of grade 6 students as well as to suggest some techniques which can help the students‟ writing skills get better

In the secondary school X where the research was conducted, English is the subject which received various investments in the form of specialized classrooms, foreign teachers, etc Besides that, there are two types of students in this school: students who learned at the primary school X, and students who were in other primary schools Throughout the teaching – learning process, I recognized that almost students have met with writing difficulties Actually, students in these two types tend to make the same mistakes when writing a paragraph and the difference

is the rate of mistake repetition Therefore, it is necessary for me to figure out the writing difficulties and recommend some suggestions to improve students‟ writing ability

2 Aims and objectives of the study

The aim of the study is to identify difficulties grade 6 students often have in learning writing in order to suggest ideas which can minimize these weaknesses

In particular, the objectives of the study are to find out the difficulties grade 6 students have to deal with when they learn writing English, and to suggest some

solutions to help students enhance their writing skill

3 Research questions

- From the grade 6 students‟ perspective, what are the writing difficulties in their learning process?

4 Scope of the study

Despite the fact that there are many difficulties in all four main English skills, the research just focus on difficulties grade 6students often have in learning

writing and some suggestions to solve their problems

5 Method of the study

The research used the qualitative approach and followed by certain steps:

Firstly, 50 written artifacts were collected Collecting students‟ writing

samples helps me to determine common writing problems of grade 6 students

Next, the questionnaire was given 50 Grade 6 students directly It was used

as a means to get information about students‟ difficulties when learning writing

After that, personal interview with students were carried out which helped

me assert their point of view, difficulties and ways of minimizing writing

mistakes

Finally, recommendations for the solutions to the students‟ English writing

difficulties were proposed based on the collected data

6 Significance of the study

In Vietnam, the new English language curriculum – Project 2020 – is receiving concern from students, their parents, teachers, etc This English curriculum requires students to have knowledge of four skills: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing In these four skills, writing is recognized as the most difficult skill learned in classes by most of the secondary students Consequently, it is necessary to consider writing at the secondary level and

identify the difficulties students cope with when learning writing skill

Furthermore, for most of Grade 6 students, learning writing is a really challenging task As a matter of fact, only a few of them have known how to write

a paragraph correctly The Grade 6 students‟ ability to write in academic English may be influenced by different factors such as their level or the native language literacy background which is very important in the development of students‟ writing skills Thus, finding out writing difficulties based on students‟ self – awareness is the essential mission which can help these students improve their

learning ability

7 Design of the study

Part one gives information about (1) the rationale of the study, (2) the aims and objectives, (3) research question and (4) the scope, (5) the method, (6) the

significance and (7) the design of the study

Part two includes three chapters Chapter 1 – Literature review - provides a theoretical framework for the study by reviewing previous studies and presenting relevant concepts to writing such as definitions of writing or types of writing that Grade 6 students have learned at school Chapter 2 – Methodology – explains (1) the setting, (2) the participants, (3) type of research, (4) data collection techniques and (5) procedure of research Chapter 3 comprises information about (1) data

analysis and interpretations, (2) discussions and (3) pedagogical recommendations

Part three presents conclusions of the research which mentions (1) the recapitulation, (2) the limitation of the study and (3) some suggestions for further

studies

Finally, references and appendices are reported The references consist of various authors, psychologists, and researchers Appendices contain the survey, a list of interview questions, six-trait scoring rubrics of the NWREL Model, the Northern Nevada Writing Project‟s secondary writing guide, a table of general

paragraph rubrics and some Grade 6 students‟ written artifacts

PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Definition of related terms

1.1.1 Definition of Writing

Writing is regarded as a thinking tool for the creation of ideas and the consolidation of the language development That is the reason why Robert (1990) asserted that writing was one of the most significant inventions in the process of human evolution As a result, third-year students in National University

of Singapore (1994) defined writing as “the creative process because it is a

process of reaching out for one’s thought and discovering them Writing, as such,

is a process of meaning-making.” Thanks to writing, people could share their

knowledge, opinions or even their feelings However, Burke (2010) pointed out

“writing can be understood only from the perspective of a society rather than a single individual.” Nunan (1991) also emphasized that “the most difficult task to

do in language learning is to produce a coherent, fluent, extended piece of writing, which is even more challenging for second language learners.”

1.1.2 Definition of Writing problems

When learning English at schools, students have practiced all four language skills and writing is always their concern Thereupon, writing problems

in this research are the concept referring to cases when students get troubles or make mistakes in the writing process These aspects of writing may be the use of

grammar, the range of vocabulary or the time management

1.2 An overview of writing

1.2.1 Types of writing in Grade 6

In the course of English 6, students are introduced four main types

of writing: Description, Exposition, Letter writing and Narration

a Description

Description is a type of writing that requires students to describe a person, a place or a thing In other words, it focuses on illustrating details of a character, an event or a place Moreover, in descriptive writings, five senses of human being - sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch - are paid attention because both writers and readers rely on these senses to experience the world Hence, it can be said that descriptions are important not only in the education but also in real life situations

say thank you and asking for information politely

d Narration

Narrative writing‟s main purpose is to tell a story with relevant details It describes either an actual event or a fictional one that the writer creates Thus, there will usually be characters and dialogues A factual story is one that is based in fact, meaning it can be proven, repeated or observed A fictional story is an imagined story that all characters and events can be created by the writer Narrative writing in fiction, non-fiction, and even poetry tells others the stories of personal experiences and allows readers to gain empathy and sympathy about the world.

1.2.2 The 6+1 Traits Writing Model (NWREL Model)

The 6+1 Traits Writing Model is an analytic approach to writing

which assesses basic traits of writing ability named ideas, organization, voice,

word choice, sentence fluency, conventions and presentation It was constructed in

the early 1980s by the researchers of the Northwest Regional Educational

Laboratory (NWREL), so it is also called NWREL Model

a Ideas are considered as the most important part of the writing Ideas make up the content of the writing, so they should be clear, focused and interesting Along with qualifying details, they help to expand and deepen the given topic

b Organization - the structure of the writing - includes the beginning, middle and end Writers need arranging their writing in a logical and effective way so that readers can understand easily

c Voice is regarded as the person behind the words It conveys writer‟s personal style as well as his or her convictions and life experience, so voice should be individual and appropriate

d Word choice is the use of colorful and precise language It is writers‟ weapon which can create images and evoke emotions in their writing Hence, word choice should be specific and memorable

e Sentence fluency is the structure and flow of the sentences It is the way the writing appeals to the ear, not just to the eye Thus, writers try to vary sentence length, structure and rhythm in order to make their writing smooth and easy

to read aloud, even musical

f Conventions refer the rules writers have to follow when writing They are correct and communicative Therefore, writers often check spelling, capitalization, punctuation and grammar

g Presentation is how pleasing the writing appearance is to the eye Make sure the form and layout of the writing on the page

The following chart is applied for teaching Writing in secondary schools (see Appendix 03), and it shows the connection between the writing process and these traits writing

(Valle, 2007)

http://writingfix.com/process/response.htm

1.2.3 Main causes of writing problems

According to Al-Khsawneh (2010), main causes of students‟ weaknesses in English are the teaching method and the learning environment Their weak qualification in English is either related to the lack of student motivation or the teacher‟s interest Furthermore, Rabab‟ah (2003) found that students have limited vocabulary, so they tend to repeat same words and cannot reveal their thoughts Moreover, when students write a passage, they are not able

to distinguish whether what they write is right or wrong Said in another word, they cannot check their writing by themselves Finally, the fact that students do not get the suitable feedback or they do not spend enough time on practicing writing is also the reason of students‟ weaknesses in learning writing English

1.3 Review of previous related studies

Throughout history, the key position of writing skill has been revealed and affirmed in various studies Abdul Haq (1982) concluded that most of the students often face problems in writing skills When required to write, they felt overwhelmed and make lots of mistakes such as grammar, vocabulary or organization On the other hand, some studies have ventured into how students‟ writing skill improves Recently, many studies have been conducted to examine a new teaching method – blending learning It is a flexible approach that students are suggested participating both in the classroom and an online course Students are allowed to read their classmates‟ writing as well as visit the lecture more than once (Graham, C., 2006) As stated by many researchers, this technique received positive attitude from students, and it also helped them improve their scores (Boyle, 2003; Dowling, 2003; Dziuban, 2004) Obviously, writing is still considered the complex and tough skill to master (Graham, Harris & Mason, 2005)

In short, all the previous studies mentioned the same writing mistakes and causes According to my expectation, this study was conducted with aims of

discovering more writing difficulties and proposing further solutions to help students improve their writing skills

1.4 The importance of writing skills to Grade 6 students

In the secondary school setting, writing not only is one of the most important English skills but also plays complementary roles in students‟ learning process Firstly, writing is a skill which needs the use of strategies such as outlining, brainstorming or even evaluating Obviously, this skill is able to help students achieve many and various goals, for example, expressing an opinion about a real-life situation Secondly, writing requires a long-term and careful investment from students Like some researchers‟ illustrations, writing is a means

of extending and deepening student‟s knowledge or said in another way, it acts as

a tool for learning subject matter (Key, 2000; Shanahan, 2004; Sperling & Freedman, 2001) In general, writing is an effective method for transmitting thoughts or ideas from one person to the others, the essential skill in learning English and also the key to success in high schools and universities

1.5 Summary

This part shows the previous related studies and theoretical framework for the study, which are the cornerstone of designing the survey and interview questions Based on the information, the writing difficulties as well as the solutions of these problems were investigated

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

2.1 Context of the research

School X is a private school which was officially founded and started its first academic year in 2012 Its goal is providing the best education system for students in Hanoi, Vietnam with different levels: kindergarten, primary school and secondary school With the aim of providing an ideal learning environment for students, all classes in school X are equipped with modern facilities such as networked computers, projectors or air-conditioner systems In this research, I just focus on secondary level, especially grade 6 There are 12 grade 6 classes in Secondary level, each class has maximum of 30 students and classes are arranged according to students‟ result of the entrance test This test includes three minor tests which evaluate students‟ knowledge of Literature, Mathematics and English

It is the means of is checking and classifying students‟ level If students are primary school X, they will have the bonus point which is their advantages In this school, English is one of the subjects received a lot of investments such as specialized classrooms, foreign teachers, etc The main material for teaching and learning English for grade 6 students are a course book and a workbook English 6

in the new curriculum – Project 2020 Moreover, teachers are enabled to provide supplementary materials which are appropriate for grade 6 students‟ level

2.2 Design of the study

This research used Case Study in order to seek and verify answers for real issues In detail, the research adopted both qualitative and quantitative approaches

to gathering information and data in order to assist in achieving the study goals

2.3 Participants of the research

The participants of the study comprised 50 grade 6 students in the secondary school X Half of them had learned English when studying in the

primary school X The rest of the students were from other primary schools and they got used to English at that time At the time of data gathering, they nearly finished the second semester of the school year It demonstrates that these students were used to writing skill in the English Project 2020 curriculum and this skill is one of their main concerns

2.4 Data collection procedures

Firstly, written artifacts were collected and the procedure was conducted in

the same ways with 50 grade 6 students With the support of the English teachers, the collection was carried out in 30 minutes and noticed as a mini-test The students‟ writing samples were selected and analyzed in order to determine their writing problems In fact, these writing problems were classified according to five categories named grammar, vocabulary, idea, background knowledge and other problem such as time management Moreover, four of the students‟ writing samples were presented in the appendices part, and they were writing samples of students who were interviewed

Next, the survey with Vietnamese statements was given 50 grade 6 students directly The data gathering procedure was the same in the two classes To begin with, I presented the purpose of the survey as well as the way of implement Then, the students listened to my instruction and finish the survey 10 minutes later, the survey was gathered After that, the collected data were converted into numbers, and then a table of specifications and details was formed

Finally, four grade 6 students in the secondary school X were chosen in order to interview Two of them were students at the primary school X Others were new students at the secondary school X These data provided me more comprehensive information about learning writing process of grade 6 students The face-to-face interviews were conducted in the teachers‟ room and recorded under students‟ permission After that, they were transcribed, analyzed and recapitulated

2.5 Data collection instruments

In this study, the survey, interviews and written artifacts were used as instruments for gaining the required information The research used both qualitative data and quantitative data Quantitative data were information from the survey which was written in Vietnamese Qualitative data were information from interviews and the students‟ written artifacts All of them allowed me to gain an insider perspective without being too subjective

2.5.1 Written artifacts

With the support of the English teachers, the collection was carried out in 30 minutes and noticed as a mini-test 50 students‟ writing samples were selected, and then analyzed The purpose of this collection was to determine grade 6 students‟ problems in their learning writing process It also provided the basic information for me in setting up ideas of the survey These problems were classified according to five categories: grammar, vocabulary, idea, background knowledge and other problem such as punctuation marks or time management

2.5.2 Survey

The survey was based on collected mistakes in students‟ writing samples and was given 50 grade 6 students directly It was used as a means to get information about their point of view about learning writing The survey consisted

of 13 statements written in Vietnamese in order to grade 6 students can understand clearly the questions, avoid misleading and be able to answer questions correctly I

employed a scale of frequency: Never, Sometimes, Often, Always to identify the

difficulties and solution of students‟ writing problems (see Appendix 1) The data were classified according to 5 following clusters:

- Cluster 1: Statement 1, 2, 3: Identify students‟ grammar problems

- Cluster 2: Statement 4, 5, 6: Identify students‟ vocabulary problems

- Cluster 3: Statement 7, 8: Identify students‟ idea problems

- Cluster 4: Statement 9, 10: Identify students‟ background knowledge problems

- Cluster 5: Statement 11, 12, 13: Identify other students‟ problems such as punctuation marks, time management, etc

2.5.3 Interview

A list of students‟ interview questions was designed on the findings of the survey It helped me assert their point of view, difficulties and ways of minimizing writing mistakes Four students were chosen and half of them had learned English when studying in the primary school X (group 1) The rest of the students were from other primary schools and they had to do the English entrance test to evaluate their level (group 2) In each group, I chose one student who made lots of mistakes and another with only few difficulties when writing a paragraph The reason for this choice was to figure out the writing difficulties in two different student groups These writing difficulties could be same or different

To avoid misunderstanding and inaccuracy, all the interviews were conducted in

Vietnamese and recorded under students‟ permission, and were carried out following 5 days after data processing of the survey Each interview included the three steps

- Step 1: Introduce students the purpose as well as the content of the interview

After that, I asked the students to be recorded the interviews

- Step 2: Give the questions, record the answers, and may check the information in case I wanted to understand the answers correctly I also paid attention to the students‟ reactions in order to provide more information for confirming the

sincerity in their answers

- Step 3: Thank the students for their cooperation as well as their helpful information After that, I listened to the interviews, transcribed and recapitulated

them

2.6 Summary

This chapter offers a presentation of the research question, setting of the study, the participants, research types, data collection instruments and data collection procedure It is regarded as the outline that I should follow to answer

the research questions

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS

2.1 Results from students’ written artifacts

- Students learned English at the primary school X are students in group 1

- Students learned English in other primary schools are students in group 2

a Common problems in students’ writing

Most grade 6 students have the same difficulties when writing an English paragraph They often use simple sentences, make mistakes in tenses of verbs and have not enough vocabulary to write in full meanings Furthermore, they do not have enough background to explain or understand the issue clearly

Take some examples of errors in grammar with the subject – verb

agreement, the sentences often lack the subject such as “In my house has 3

rooms” (in fact, the correct one is In my house, there are 3 rooms or My house has 3 rooms) or students use incorrect form of verb such as “He is not go to work

on Sunday” (in fact, they have to use V-ing form of the verb go and the sentence

must be He is not going to work on Sunday) Take another example with a student‟ word choice, the sentence is “This film is interested,” in which the word

“interesting” has to be used instead of the word “interested.”

I also find out some other uncommon writing errors such as translating words by words, using incorrect connectives, misplacing modifiers and lacking clarity in the paragraph Generally, the majority of grade 6 students may get the same problems in grammar, vocabulary, background knowledge, etc because they are at the same age and learn in the same kind of books If any student can learn more than others, she/ he still inexperienced child, so his/ her writing is poor

b Comparison between Group 1’ writings and Group 2’ writings

In general, writings of students in group 1 are better than writings of

students in group 2 Based on The 6+1 Traits Writing Model (see Appendix 4) and

General paragraph Rubrics (see Appendix 5), the following table shows some

short comments on writing quality of students in two groups

- Arrange quite logically

- Be easily understandable for readers

- Have 2 parts: beginning and middle

- Arrange not well

- Make readers confused sometimes

- Make several errors

- Interrupt the flow of writing

Presentation - Be clean and clear

- Be easy to read

- Have quite suitable length

- Confusing handwriting

- Unsuitable length

2.2 Results from the survey

2.2.1 Question about Grammar problems

Question 1

bao giờ

Thỉnh thoảng

Nhiều lần

Thường xuyên

Em quên/ không biết cách sử dụng các thì đã học 8 16 15 11

52% of students admitted that they often forget or do not know how to use tenses In these students, a number of students who learned English at the primary school X (Group 1 – 8 students) nearly equal a number of students who learned English in other primary schools (Group 2 – 18 students) Then, 32% of the sample stated that they hardly ever make this kind of mistake The number of students in group 1 is more than the number of students in group 2, 11 students and 5 students respectively Finally, 16% of students expressed their choice for „Never‟ column with the number of students in group 1 (6 students) triples the number of students in group

Never 16%

Someti mes 32%

Students learned English at the primary school X (Group 1)

Students learned English in other primary schools (Group 2)

2 (2 students) These results indicate that many Grade 6 students, both students in group 1 and students in group 2, make mistakes of verb tenses when writing English paragraphs

Question 2

bao giờ

Thỉnh thoảng

Nhiều lần

Thường xuyên

Em quên/ không biết cách sử dụng các thể đã

According to figure 2.1, if the two scales (Usually and Many times) are merged, the total percentage would be 8% + 36% = 44% It means there are nearly half of students who said they have problems in active form and passive form In these scales, the number of students in group 1 and the number of students in group 2

Never 10%

Someti mes 46%

Often

36%

Always 8%

Students learned English at the primary school

X (Group 1) Students learned English in other primary schools (Group 2)

are quite nearly double, 8 students and 14 students respectively In two scales Never and Seldom, a total percentage would be 10% + 46% = 56% which is slightly above a total percentage of other scales (44%) In addition, the number of students in group 1 (3 + 14 = 17) is higher than the number of students in group 2 (2 + 9 = 11)

Question 3

bao giờ

Thỉnh thoảng

Nhiều lần

Thường xuyên

Em quên/ không biết về sự đồng nhất giữa chủ

It can be seen in figure 3.1 and figure 3.2 that nearly quarter of the students (38%), which includes 9 students in group 1 and 10 students in group 2, considered subject – verb agreement as the challenging mission and they make mistakes many times when writing a passage It is followed by scale Usually with a lower percentage, 32% which consist of 6 students in group 1 and 10 students in group 2 These

Never 14%

Someti mes 16%

Often 38%

Students learned English at the primary school X (Group 1)

Students learned English in other primary schools (Group 2)

percentages prove that there are a large number of students who admitted they have problems in subject – verb agreement Next come Seldom (16%, with 8 students) and Never (14%, with 7 students)

2.2.2 Question about Vocabulary problems

Question 4

bao giờ

Thỉnh thoảng

Nhiều lần

Thường xuyên

Based on figure 4.1, most of the students feel anxious when writing because they do not remember how to write words exactly 18% of them confessed that they usually forgot about spelling, the 54% of the surveyed students said that they made spelling mistakes, but there is just 28% of them seldom or never coped with this problem Moreover, the data in figure 4.2 shows that the number of students in group

2 met with difficulties in spelling more than the number of students in group 1, 20

Never 6%

Someti mes 22%

Often 54%

Students learned English at the primary school X (Group 1)

Students learned Eanglish in other primary schools (Group 2)