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 OFPOSTGRADUATE STUDIES ********************* NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG AN DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING WR

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

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project reportentitled “Difficulties in learning Writing, from the perspective of grade 6 students in alocal school” submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree ofMaster in English Teaching Methodology No person‟s work has been utilizedwithout the acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Prof Dr NguyễnHòa, who helped, supported and encouraged me while I conducted this research.Without his helpful comments, valuable advice and considerable assistance, thisresearch 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 tofulfill my research

LIST OF THE TABLES

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

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

The percentage of students having problems with active/passiveFigure 2.1

formTable 2

The number of students having problems with active/passiveFigure 2.2

formThe percentage of students having problems with subject-verbFigure 3.1

agreementTable 3

The number of students having problems with subject-verbFigure 3.2

agreementThe percentage of students who do not know how to write aFigure 4.1

word correctlyTable 4

The number of students who do not know how to write a wordFigure 4.2

correctlyThe percentage of students who do not know exact meaning ofFigure 5.1

the English wordsTable 5

The number of students who do not know exact meaning of theFigure 5.2

English wordsThe percentage of students who do not have enough range ofFigure 6.1

vocabularyTable 6

The number of students who do not have enough range ofFigure 6.2

vocabularyFigure 7.1 The percentage of students who do not have enough ideas

Table 7

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

The percentage of students who do not know how to manage theFigure 8.1

ideasTable 8

The number of students who do not know how to manage theFigure 8.2

ideas

Figure 9.1 The percentage of students who do not understand the given

Figure 9.2 The number of students who do not understand the given topics

Figure 10.1 The percentage of students who do not know the given topics

exactlyTable 10

Figure 10.2 The number of students who do not know the given topics

exactly

Figure 11.1 The percentage of students having problems with using

punctuation marksTable 11

Figure 11.2 The number of students having problems with using punctuation

v

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

The study is a case study It used both qualitative methodology andquantitative methodology The participants included 50 grade 6 students in asecondary school located in Hanoi (school X) The data have been collected from thesurvey, interviews and written artifacts The written artifacts help me find outstudents‟ writing problems The survey and the interview used as a means to get moreinformation about grade 6 students‟ point of view about learning writing anddifficulties they cope with when learning this skill From these findings, somesuggestions were proposed to grade 6 students and EFL (English as a foreignlanguage) teachers in order to improve students‟ writing skill throughout their writinglearning process

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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 bypeople all around the world Flanegin and Rudd (2000) found that this language isnecessary for different fields Thus, it cannot be denied that English is the need ofmodern world with four main skills named listening, speaking, reading andwriting 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 anessential skill in a real life It can be recognized that improving writing skills mayhelp students develop their using language ability Moreover, it supports othersskills such as reading or speaking Otherwise, writing is a significant tool forleading into different fields like literature or even technology With these benefits,writing is obviously a required skill for students However, most of the secondarystudents do not aware of its importance and they make lots of mistakes in theirwritten works Additionally, learning writing is a challenging task for the majority

of grade 6 students Actually, they do not know how to write a paragraphcorrectly That is one of the reasons why they often get low marks when taking thewriting examinations and it affects their learning‟s results Therefore, teachingEnglish 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 canhelp the students‟ writing skills get better

In the secondary school X where the research was conducted, English is thesubject 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 otherprimary schools Throughout the teaching – learning process, I recognized thatalmost students have met with writing difficulties Actually, students in these twotypes 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 thewriting difficulties and recommend some suggestions to improve students‟ writingability

2 Aims and objectives of the study

The aim of the study is to identify difficulties grade 6 students often have inlearning 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 6students have to deal with when they learn writing English, and to suggest somesolutions to help students enhance their writing skill

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

Despite the fact that there are many difficulties in all four main Englishskills, the research just focus on difficulties grade 6 students often have in learningwriting and some suggestions to solve their problems

The research used the qualitative approach and followed by certain steps:Firstly, 50 written artifacts were collected Collecting students‟ writing

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 meassert their point of view, difficulties and ways of minimizing writing mistakes.Finally, recommendations for the solutions to the students‟ English writingdifficulties were proposed based on the collected data

6 Significance of the study

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

Furthermore, for most of Grade 6 students, learning writing is a reallychallenging 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 Englishmay be influenced by different factors such as their level or the native languageliteracy 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 theirlearning ability

Part one gives information about (1) the rationale of the study, (2) the aimsand 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 atheoretical framework for the study by reviewing previous studies and presentingrelevant concepts to writing such as definitions of writing or types of writing thatGrade 6 students have learned at school Chapter 2 – Methodology – explains (1)the setting, (2) the participants, (3) type of research, (4) data collection techniquesand (5) procedure of research Chapter 3 comprises information about (1) dataanalysis and interpretations, (2) discussions and (3) pedagogical recommendations.Part three presents conclusions of the research which mentions (1) therecapitulation, (2) the limitation of the study and (3) some suggestions for furtherstudies.

Finally, references and appendices are reported The references consist ofvarious authors, psychologists, and researchers Appendices contain the survey, alist of interview questions, six-trait scoring rubrics of the NWREL Model, theNorthern Nevada Writing Project‟s secondary writing guide, a table of generalparagraph 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 andthe consolidation of the language development That is the reason why Robert(1990) asserted that writing was one of the most significant inventions in theprocess 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 fourlanguage skills and writing is always their concern Thereupon, writing problems

in this research are the concept referring to cases when students get troubles ormake mistakes in the writing process These aspects of writing may be the use ofgrammar, 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 aperson, a place or a thing In other words, it focuses on illustrating details of acharacter, an event or a place Moreover, in descriptive writings, five senses of humanbeing - sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch - are paid attention because both writersand readers rely on these senses to experience the world Hence, it can be said thatdescriptions are important not only in the education but also in real life situations

Narrative writing‟s main purpose is to tell a story with relevantdetails 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 isbased in fact, meaning it can be proven, repeated or observed A fictional story is animagined story that all characters and events can be created by the writer Narrativewriting in fiction, non-fiction, and even poetry tells others the stories of personal

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 EducationalLaboratory (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 thebeginning, 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 isthe way the writing appeals to the ear, not just to the eye Thus, writers try to vary sentencelength, structure and rhythm in order to make their writing smooth and easy to read aloud, evenmusical

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 secondaryschools (see Appendix 03), and it shows the connection between the writingprocess 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 studentmotivation or the teacher‟s interest Furthermore, Rabab‟ah (2003) found thatstudents have limited vocabulary, so they tend to repeat same words and cannotreveal 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 donot get the suitable feedback or they do not spend enough time on practicingwriting 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 andaffirmed in various studies Abdul Haq (1982) concluded that most of the studentsoften face problems in writing skills When required to write, they feltoverwhelmed and make lots of mistakes such as grammar, vocabulary ororganization On the other hand, some studies have ventured into how students‟writing skill improves Recently, many studies have been conducted to examine anew teaching method – blending learning It is a flexible approach that studentsare suggested participating both in the classroom and an online course Studentsare allowed to read their classmates‟ writing as well as visit the lecture more thanonce (Graham, C., 2006) As stated by many researchers, this technique receivedpositive attitude from students, and it also helped them improve their scores(Boyle, 2003; Dowling, 2003; Dziuban, 2004) Obviously, writing is stillconsidered the complex and tough skill to master (Graham, Harris & Mason,2005)

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

discovering more writing difficulties and proposing further solutions to helpstudents 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 mostimportant English skills but also plays complementary roles in students‟ learningprocess Firstly, writing is a skill which needs the use of strategies such asoutlining, brainstorming or even evaluating Obviously, this skill is able to helpstudents achieve many and various goals, for example, expressing an opinionabout a real-life situation Secondly, writing requires a long-term and carefulinvestment 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 transmittingthoughts or ideas from one person to the others, the essential skill in learningEnglish and also the key to success in high schools and universities

1.5 Summary

This part shows the previous related studies and theoretical framework forthe study, which are the cornerstone of designing the survey and interviewquestions Based on the information, the writing difficulties as well as thesolutions 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 itsfirst academic year in 2012 Its goal is providing the best education system forstudents in Hanoi, Vietnam with different levels: kindergarten, primary school andsecondary school With the aim of providing an ideal learning environment forstudents, all classes in school X are equipped with modern facilities such asnetworked computers, projectors or air-conditioner systems In this research, I justfocus on secondary level, especially grade 6 There are 12 grade 6 classes inSecondary level, each class has maximum of 30 students and classes are arrangedaccording to students‟ result of the entrance test This test includes three minortests which evaluate students‟ knowledge of Literature, Mathematics and English

It is the means of is checking and classifying students‟ level If students areprimary school X, they will have the bonus point which is their advantages In thisschool, English is one of the subjects received a lot of investments such asspecialized classrooms, foreign teachers, etc The main material for teaching andlearning 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 providesupplementary 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 realissues 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 thesecondary 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 andthey got used to English at that time At the time of data gathering, they nearlyfinished the second semester of the school year It demonstrates that these studentswere used to writing skill in the English Project 2020 curriculum and this skill isone of their main concerns.

2.4 Data collection procedures

Firstly, written artifacts were collected and the procedure was conducted inthe 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 Thestudents‟ writing samples were selected and analyzed in order to determine theirwriting problems In fact, these writing problems were classified according to fivecategories named grammar, vocabulary, idea, background knowledge and otherproblem such as time management Moreover, four of the students‟ writingsamples were presented in the appendices part, and they were writing samples ofstudents who were interviewed

Next, the survey with Vietnamese statements was given 50 grade 6 studentsdirectly The data gathering procedure was the same in the two classes To beginwith, 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, thesurvey 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 inorder to interview Two of them were students at the primary school X Otherswere new students at the secondary school X These data provided me morecomprehensive information about learning writing process of grade 6 students.The face-to-face interviews were conducted in the teachers‟ room and recordedunder students‟ permission After that, they were transcribed, analyzed andrecapitulated

2.5 Data collection instruments

In this study, the survey, interviews and written artifacts were used asinstruments for gaining the required information The research used bothqualitative data and quantitative data Quantitative data were information from thesurvey which was written in Vietnamese Qualitative data were information frominterviews and the students‟ written artifacts All of them allowed me to gain aninsider perspective without being too subjective

2.5.1 Written artifacts

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

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

of 13 statements written in Vietnamese in order to grade 6 students can understandclearly 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 datawere 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

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

To avoid misunderstanding and inaccuracy, all the interviews were conducted inVietnamese and recorded under students‟ permission, and were carried outfollowing 5 days after data processing of the survey Each interview included thethree 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 incase I wanted to understand the answers correctly I also paid attention to the students‟ reactions inorder to provide more information for confirming the sincerity in their answers

- Step 3 : Thank the students for their cooperation as well as their helpfulinformation 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 thestudy, the participants, research types, data collection instruments and datacollection procedure It is regarded as the outline that I should follow to answer theresearch 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

Most grade 6 students have the same difficulties when writing anEnglish paragraph They often use simple sentences, make mistakes in tenses ofverbs 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 translatingwords by words, using incorrect connectives, misplacing modifiers and lackingclarity in the paragraph Generally, the majority of grade 6 students may get thesame problems in grammar, vocabulary, background knowledge, etc becausethey are at the same age and learn in the same kind of books If any student canlearn more than others, she/ he still inexperienced child, so his/ her writing ispoor

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

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

short comments on writing quality of students in two groups

- Be focused on topics

- Have 3 parts: beginning, - Have 2 parts: beginning and

- Arrange quite logically - Arrange not well

- Be easily understandable for - Make readers confused

 Spelling mistakes:

 Spelling mistakes:

more than 5less than 5

Cohesion - Use many linking words and - Have few linking words and

Capitalization and - Make some errors but the - Make several errors

Punctuation writing are still easy to read - Interrupt the flow of writing

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2.2 Results from the survey

2.2.1 Question about Grammar problems

Question 1

Figure 1.1

Never Always

22%

Someti Often

Never Sometimes Often Always

Students learned English at the primary school

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

52% of students admitted that they often forget or do not know how to usetenses In these students, a number of students who learned English at the primaryschool X (Group 1 – 8 students) nearly equal a number of students who learnedEnglish in other primary schools (Group 2 – 18 students) Then, 32% of the sample

respectively Finally, 16% of students expressed their choice for „Never‟ column withthe number of students in group 1 (6 students) triples the number of students in group

18

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

Question 2

Em quên/ không biết cách sử dụng các thể đã

học (chủ động, bị động)

Always 8% Never

10%

Often

mes 46%

Never Sometimes Often Always

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

Students learned English in other primary schools (Group 2)

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

are quite nearly double, 8 students and 14 students respectively In two scales Neverand Seldom, a total percentage would be 10% + 46% = 56% which is slightly above atotal 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

Em quên/ không biết về sự đồng nhất giữa chủ

Often 38%

Never Sometimes Often Always

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

Students learned English in other primary schools (Group 2)

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, consideredsubject – verb agreement as the challenging mission and they make mistakes manytimes when writing a passage It is followed by scale Usually with a lower percentage,

percentages prove that there are a large number of students who admitted they haveproblems in subject – verb agreement Next come Seldom (16%, with 8 students) andNever (14%, with 7 students).

2.2.2 Question about Vocabulary problems

Question 4

Never Always

18%

Often 54%

16

14

12 10

Never Sometimes Often Always

Students learned English at the primary school

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

Based on figure 4.1, most of the students feel anxious when writingbecause they do not remember how to write words exactly 18% of them confessedthat they usually forgot about spelling, the 54% of the surveyed students said that theymade spelling mistakes, but there is just 28% of them seldom or never coped with thisproblem 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

students and 16 students respectively Besides, only 14 students in both groups

seldom or never forget how to write words correctly

Question 5

Students learned English at the primary school

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

The results from figure 5.1 show that the percentage of students does not

understand the meaning of words exactly (in two scales: Many times and Usually)

equal to the percentage of students know the proper meaning of words (in two scales:

Never and Seldom), with 50% for each total percentage Besides, other results

22

group 2 (14 students) which is higher than the total number of students in group 1 (11 students) in two items: Many times and Usually.

Question 6

Figure 6.1

Someti Always

Never Sometimes Often Always

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

Students learned English in other primary schools (Group 2)

According to figure 6.1, most of Grade 6 students (64%) have limitedvocabulary, so they are not able to express their opinions or ideas through writing.None of Grade 6 students is confident of having a wide range of vocabulary Thenumber of students in both groups is close at the almost same frequency In every

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