Socio political editorials in english and vietnamese argumentative patterns and linguistics devices

The purposes of the thesis were to investigate the types of errors that 12th formstudents at Thanh Ha High School often make in learning English, possible causes ofcommon English written

This minor thesis was carried out with an attempt to improve the teaching andlearning of writing skill of the teachers and the 12th form students at Thanh Ha HighSchool, Hai Duong province

The purposes of the thesis were to investigate the types of errors that 12th formstudents at Thanh Ha High School often make in learning English, possible causes ofcommon English written errors made by 12th form students and to offer some possiblesolutions to overcome these common English written errors

The subjects involved in the study were 130 students' actual writings in class and 8teachers who are currently teaching and have taught writing skill before Teachers wereinvited to answer the survey questionnaire and to participate in the interview

The study reveals that in lexical and grammatical errors, students often commiterrors in spelling, noun number, word choice/ wrong word, wrong conjunction/ connective,article and verb form mistakes The common causes for these kinds of errors are mainlytheir carelessness, mother tongue interference, incomplete application of rules,overgeneralization and ignorance of rule restrictions

The study suggests that teacher should use some techniques in pre-writing stageand post- writing stage to reduce and prevent students' written common errors In pre-writing stage, teacher can elicit students' vocabulary and structures, give students samples

of the topic which students are required to write, and sometimes teach them grammar rules

In post-writing stage, teachers can ask student to correct themselves, then correct in pairsand finally teachers give corrective feedback

1 Background to the study

2 Aims of the study

3 Research questions

4 Methods of the study

5 Scope of the study

6 Organization of the thesis

1.2.1 Error versus mistake

1.2.2 Errors in language learning process

1.2.2.1 First language and second language errors.1.2.2.2 Receptive errors and expressive errors

1.3 Causes of errors in foreign language learning

1.3.1 Mother tongue interference

1.3.2 Overgeneralization

1.3.3 Ignorance of rule restriction

1.3.4 Incomplete application of rules

1.3.5 Carelessness

1.4 Review of previous studies.

Chapter II: The study

2.1 The setting of the study.

LISTS OF TABLES

Table 1: Errors of lexical and grammatical items of 12th form students at Thanh Ha High

School synthesized from teachers' questionnaire

Table 2: Written error of 12th form students at Thanh Ha High School as synthesized from

document analysis

Table 3: Components of grammatical errors

Table 4: Typical examples of common grammar errors

Table 5: Typical examples of lexical errors

Table 6: Teachers' rating the significance of causes to students' common written errorsTable 7: The popularity of each kind of causes to students' common written errors

Table 8 Teachers' recommendations to reduce and prevent students' common written

errors

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Background to the study

English has become one of the most popular languages in the world As an effectivemeans of international communication, it is used as the official language in many fields oflife such as economics, politics, science, technology, sports and many others Therefore,there is a great demand for teaching and learning English throughout the world There aremore and more people who learn English and consider it an inevitable factor in their workand life

In Vietnam, English has been brought into the school curriculum as a compulsorysubject, and the teaching and learning of the international language has been recently paidgreat attention to When teaching English, the teacher teaches his learners not only theEnglish language but also its usage It means that his aim is to train learners with a goodcontrol of English skills and to teach them to put the language into use in realcommunicative situations: either writing or speaking This learners' competence is assessed

in terms of how comprehensibly and accurately a message is conveyed If a message isunsuccessfully conveyed, the teacher will consider the reason why it is so, and the answeroften is the means that causes it What lessens the effectiveness may be that there aresomething wrong with the meanings of the sentences i.e what is usually called 'error' inforeign language learning

In effect, learners often make mistakes when they produce English When teachersfind the learners' errors, they often give feedback by correcting or just pointing them.However, this is sometimes not effective because learners still make the same errors thenext time Like many teachers and researchers, Vietnamese teachers have been alwaysseeking for new and effective methods and techniques to improve their teaching with thehope of predicting and preventing errors before they appear Nevertheless, they pay muchmore concern to why Vietnamese learners commit errors and how to prevent or reducethese errors, not students at high schools Therefore, the situation encouraged the author to

do the research on "Possible causes of common English written errors made by 12th- formstudents at Thanh Ha High School, Hai Duong and some possible solutions" This studywill be really useful for both teachers and students in teaching and learning writing skill

2 Aims of the study

The researcher defines the major objectives of the study as:

to investigate the types of written errors that 12th-form students at Thanh

Ha High School often make in learning English

to investigate possible causes of common English written errors made by 12th- form students

to offer some possible solutions to overcome these common English written

errors

This study is carried out with the hope that teachers can improve their writingteaching methods and students can define their common errors and adjust their way oflearning this skill to obtain better results

3 Research questions

In order to achieve the above aims, three research questions are raised:

3.1 What are the types of written errors that 12th- form students make in writing skills?3.2 What are the major causes of these errors?

3.3 What recommendations should be given to reduce and prevent these errors?

4 Methods of the study

With the aim of finding out the causes of common written errors made by form students at Thanh Ha High School, Hai Duong, this study adopts quantitative andqualitative methods

12th-To identify the problems, the study has been carried out with the data collectedfrom different instruments:

- Consulting related materials: For the sake of getting knowledge and usefulideas, I read many books and other materials in addition to earlier researchers about errorsand causes of common English written errors

- Delivering survey questionnaire: To fulfill this thesis, one surveyquestionnaire for teachers was carried out to find out the teachers' attitudes toward causes

of common English written errors and some possible solutions

- Interviewing teachers who have been teaching writing to 12th formstudents to investigate what and how they do to prevent and reduce students' commonwritten errors

- Using students' actual writings as a technique of eliciting data for the analysis and statistical counting as measurement of results

5 Scope of the study

This study is limited to the area of teaching and learning writing in 12th-form atThanh Ha High School, Hai Duong Specifically, this minor thesis deals with the possiblecauses of common English written errors made by 12th- form students, and based on thesediscussions of the findings, some possible solutions will be introduced

6 Organization of the thesis

The thesis has three main parts: introduction, development and conclusion

The introduction presents the background to the study, aims and significance of thestudy, research questions, methods, scope and organization of the thesis

The development consists of two chapters Chapter One exposes literature reviewrelating writing and causes of errors in foreign learning Chapter Two is about the studywhich investigates possible causes of common English written made by 12th- formstudents at Thanh Ha High School from survey questionnaires on teachers and students'actual writings It also contains findings of the study and some solutions for the problems

The conclusion gives a summary of what has been discussed so far in the thesis, thelimitation of the study, and suggestion for further research

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Overview of writing

1.1.1 Definition of writing

Writing is a significant and essential area of development in a native language and

in a second language; therefore it has been studied by many researchers and defined in avariety of ways According to Byrne, D (1998, p.1), writing can be seen as the "act offorming graphic symbols"; that is letters or the combination of letters or simply writing islike "making marks on the flat surface of some kinds" (p.1) Whereas Lannon (1989, p.9)points out that writing, in fact, is a far more complicated process than the production ofgraphic symbols It is "a process of transforming the material discovered by researchinspiration, accident, trial and error, or whatever into a message with a definite meaning ,

a process of deliberate decision." From another view of writing, Brannon et al.(1982, p.2)defines writing as "a creative art, not as an assembly line operation of locking wordstogether into sentences and bolting sentences together into paragraphs in accordance with apredefined plan" Byrne does not seem to share the same view with Brannon, Knight andNeverow Turk in stating that "writing is a sequence of sentences arranged in a particularorder and link together in a certain way"

Noticeably, language teachers have defined writing so differently As for Tribble(1996, p.3), writing is "a language skill which is difficult to acquire" He also stresses thatwriting "normally requires some forms of instruction" and that "it is not a skill that isreadily picked up by exposure" (1996, p.11) From my personal experience as a classroomteacher, I agree with Rivers' definition (1981) that "writing is not a skill that can be learned

or developed in isolation but it should be taught and developed in cooperation with otherskills and aspects of the language studied."

1.1.2 Roles of writing

Writing emerges with its own functions and brings along communicative code ofthe writers When making a piece of writing, the writer implies a message or a certainpurpose In the modern world, writing (written language) serves a range of functions ineveryday life As Nunan (1991: 84) points out, writing is:

(i) Primarily for action: public signs (on roads and stations), product labels and instructions (on food, tools or toys purchased), recipes, maps, television and radio guides, bills, menus, telephone directories, etc.

For social contact: personal correspondence, letters, postcards, greeting cards (ii) Primarily for information: newspapers and magazines, non- fiction books including textbooks, public notices, advertisement, guidebooks and travel literature, etc.)

(iii) Primarily for entertainment: light magazines, comic strips; fiction books;

poetry and drama; film subtitles; games including computer games.

In classroom, the teaching and learning of writing also play an important role.Through writing we are able to share ideas, arouse feelings, persuade and convince otherpeople We are able to discover and articulate ideas in the ways that only writing makespossible Therefore, writing has always occupied a place in the language syllabus.Discussing about this issue, White (1981, p.1) describes a number of reasons why writingmerits a place in the language syllabus:

(i) Writing remains the commonest way of examining student performance in English (all public examinations include a composition) Consequently, ability to write remains a key to examination success.

(ii) In the eyes of both parents and students, ability to write may be associated with evidence of having learnt the language Writing is tangible-parents and students can see what has been done and what has been achieved So it has high "face validity".

(iii) In the classroom, writing may be used as one of a number of techniques to help add variety and interest to lesson.

(iv) Teachers may use writing as a testing device to provide feedback on what students have learnt Students' writing can provide useful evidence of successes of failures

in learning, of confusions, and errors.

(v) Writing requires thought, discipline and concentration It is relatively a permanent form and readers judge us by our style, content and logic So writing demands care and thought.

In CLT, the teaching of writing also aims at communication However, beside used

to communicate, writing helps our students learn According to Raimes' opinion (1983),

"first writing reinforce the grammatical structures, idioms and vocabulary that we havebeen teaching our students Second, when our students write, they also have a chance to be

adventurous with the language, to go beyond what they have just learnt to say, to take risks.Third, when they write, they necessarily become very involved in the new language; theeffort to express ideas and the constant use of eyes, hand and brain is a unique way toreinforce learning".

With all the roles mentioned above, writing really becomes an integral part inalmost every language syllabus from elementary to tertiary level

1.2 Overview of errors

1.2.1 Error versus mistake

Before 1960, the concept of error was hardly mentioned in the literature of firstlanguage However, it started to be paid in second and foreign language after the turn ofthat decade Distinction was generally drawn between what people termed "error" and

"mistake" although they found it impossible to indicate any sharp differentiation

According to Chomsky (1965), there were two types of errors: one resulting fromverbal performance factors and the other from inadequate language competence Later in

1975 Corder, S supported this view He called performance errors "mistakes" and deemedthem to be a result of psychological or neurological factors such as fatigue, lack ofattention, or lapses of memory, etc Mistakes are said to be unsystematic in nature andcorrectable when attention is drawn to their procedures In contrast, errors refer to anysystematic deviations from the rule of the target language system as a result of the learnerinternalizing the language and still developing his knowledge They are recognized asdefects in learners' competence and stubborn faults resistant against learners' immediateperception and correction

However, in 1969, Duskova, L investigated errors made by Czech learners ofEnglish in an attempt to look for a reasonable answer and found that the above-mentionedprinciple of distinction was not reliable She discovered that many recurrent systemicerrors: failure to express genitive relation or confusion of passive an active voice, etc reflected no defects in knowledge at all She also provided an explanation for these casessaying that lack of autonomy in rule application was responsible

In that situation, Duskova, L (1969) suggested a criterion for treatment of errors,according to which errors manifest themselves in their regular occurrence and the systemicnature they share This is noticeable and well taken for our research:

An error analysis should be based primarily on recurrent systematic errors

that are made by a number of learners and that can be readily traced to their

sources, no matter whether they reflect defects in knowledge or they result

from inadequate habit formation

1.2.2 Errors in language learning process.

To enhance language teaching we should make a clear understanding of howlanguage is learned It means that we should know language learning process In order tocomprehend the process, researchers always observe the product of learners: through whatthey successfully take in and what failures they experience Some linguists stated that

"errors are trustable evidence based on which they can look into the process" Therefore, inthis part, we try to give a brief account of the background setting in which errors inlanguage learning are approached and dealt with Some issues are included: errors in firstlanguage and second language; receptive errors and expressive errors

1.2.2.1 First language and second language errors

Error committing is an observable and common phenomenon both in first languageacquisition and second language acquisition An examination of both L1 and L2 learners'speech as well as writing enable researchers to conclude that these learners both undergosimilar systematic stages of learning since most of the errors they systematically makeshare the same nature These erroneous forms are categorized as developmental errors, i.e.those which are "the result of a normal pattern of development in language learning"(Richards et al 1992, p.104)

Both children learning L1 and children and adults learning L2 are believed toproduce errors of the following types:

(i) The omission of grammatical morphemes: she go, cat go there

(ii) The double marking of a given semantic feature: Joe doesn't goes; I didn't remembered it

(iii) The overgeneralized application of irregular rules: I falled; he gots a flower

(iv) The use of one form for several required: She no goes there; she has a pants

(v) The wrong word ordering: what it is?; how she is like?

Deviations of such sorts, in the viewpoint of many researchers are non-serious tothe learning because they will finally disappear of themselves as the learner developsability to control the language being learned

Apart from this characteristic, studies of FL learning point out that there is anotherminor group of errors that are thought to reflect the nature of learners' mother tongue Theyare called interlingual errors This will be mentioned more in subsequent sections.

To sum up, it is accepted that while L1 errors are results of learners internalizingthe rule system, L2 errors reflect not only the process of internalization but the nativelanguage influence as well

1.2.2.2 Receptive errors and expressive errors.

Linguistic comprehension and expression can be respectively related to linguisticcompetence and linguistic performance Chomsky (1965) draws out attention to thedistinction between these two concepts With respect to the former, he holds that itaccounts for a person's capacity to produce and comprehend new utterances In that sense,failure to understand an utterance addressed to him may emerge from lack of competence.Failure of this sort was hardly detectable and very few studies were carried out about it.The latter is defined as actual use of the language in specific situations, and to have a goodperformance a FL learner needs to develop his competence in that language, which isalways the teaching goal of FL teachers Nonetheless, production of a language isobviously susceptible to a great deal of influence Therefore any wrong or deviantutterance does unnecessarily originate from inadequate knowledge although neither does itmean "never"

Corder, S (1975) therefore presents two types of errors: the receptive errors, whichare caused by failure of comprehension on the reception level, and the expressive ones,which manifest in the learners' utterances in "meaningful discourse" In this paper, theinvestigation is carried out on the written discourse of Vietnamese learners, so the focus isstressed on those errors on the level of self-expression

1.3 Causes of errors in foreign language learning

To know why certain errors arise from learners' performance is essential and helpful

in different ways as aforementioned However, it is not easy to elucidate the problem inpsycholinguistic terms: what process and strategy it is that leads to the making of errors.According to Norrish, J (1992), he reported that some causes of errors were carelessness,first language interference, translation, overgeneralization, incomplete application of rulesbut Richards, C suggested that over-generalization, ignorance of rule restrictions,incomplete application of rules and false concepts hypothesized are main

causes From the two authors' theory above and from my experience, The researcher seethat a number of reasons for how learners go wrong are mother tongue languageinterference, overgeneralization, ignorance of rule restrictions, incomplete application ofrules, and carelessness.

1.3.1 Mother tongue interference

According to Norrish, J (1983, p 22) "It was commonly believed until fairlyrecently that learning a language (a mother tongue or a foreign language) was a matter ofhabit formation The learner's utterances were thought to be gradually "shaped" towardsthose of the language he was learning" That is the reason why whenever an error appears,there is likely that the mother tongue is responsible Traditionally, the notion ofinterference is understood as negative transfer It stems from what is termed "proactiveinhibition", i.e the way learning new habits is hindered by previously- learnt ones Thisexplanation which relies on the behaviorist theory so far discussed goes that learning takesplace through habit formation Language is a set of habits, and learning a new language is aprocess of formulating a new habit During this process the old ones: those of the firstlanguage may at a time interfere, hence causing errors

Language differs in many aspects, and the most basic difference is the way a sharedmeaning is realized Two languages employ different devices to express the same meaning

It is this distance that may give rise to error because FL learners have a tendency to transferthe realization devices of their native language into the foreign language Vietnamesebeginner learners of English very often transfer the word order of Vietnamese into Englishbecause of the contrast between the two languages in arranging words For example,Vietnamese students may produce such utterance as "after working hard a day " or "I feltsad very much"

Beside forms, meanings and cultural aspects can be transferred Lado (1957, p.1)claims "errors are originated in the learner's disposition to "transfer the forms andmeanings, and the distribution of forms and meanings of their native language and culture

to the foreign language and culture"

George (1972, p.45) disagrees with this assumption casting doubt upon the idea of

"direct interference from the mother tongue" Instead, he attributes L2 errors to theredundant features of the language as a direct source In effect, the term "interference" in

CA hypothesis has later possessed a less technical sense Contrastive linguists contended

that interference first resulted from the contrasting features between the source and thetarget languages They presented scales of difficulty with possibilities from the least to themost likely for errors to occur The explanation stresses that in case a language item isabsent from either languages or both possess similar but unidentical features, as errorsoccur, they are believed to result from interference.

Corder (1975) rejects this explanation, observing that L2 learners make hypothesisabout the language they are learning, trying compare it with their native language This is,

he believed, the reason why L2 errors reflect the mother tongue features Later in 1978, herecasts interference as learners' reliance on L1 as their strategy of communication Learnersuse literal translation as a learning strategy to overcome their ignorance Reliance bytranslation is indeed dissimilar to influence Norrish (1983) distinguishes interferenceagainst translation The explanation goes as follows: translation is a voluntary strategyreflecting learners' consciousness of using L1 while interference takes placesubconsciously This suggested distinction is very fine, and it is uneasy to decide whether

an error reflects a conscious or subconscious process

Despite the fact that many linguists have not accepted the habit formation theory,the notion of interference still proved to be useful and necessary in a number of nun-contrastive studies of errors Errors due to L1 interference have been estimated to rangeapproximately from 23% (Mukattush 1975) found in English of Jordanian students to 51%(Chau, 1974) found in non-native speakers of Spanish in Toronto

Then, beside the different nature of the L1 and FL, what other factors might besources of L1 interference? Generally there are four major factors that may enable FLlearners to use their native language in second language acquisition

In the first place, it is common knowledge that at a certain stage of their learning:often very early in classroom settings, FL learners are required to produce the newlanguage The performance forms needed in classrooms are for example writingcompositions, talking about something, or taking tests The important thing is that they areforced to perform even though they do not want or their linguistic competence fails to meettheir expansive needs to communicate It is due to this pressure both from the demand forcommunication and the teacher's request that the learner falls back on the language he ismost familiar with

Secondly, the limited L2 environment is to blame The absence of a naturallinguistic input with native speakers and confinement to contact with non-native teachersand people cause learners to have recourse on their language.

What is more, the way learners are asked to perform the FL also has a significantaffect on his verbal production For example, he is asked to translate a paragraph into thetarget language, write an essay or describe a picture orally, etc All these things may havemother tongue influence rooted in them Among the types of tasks, translation is said to

"increase the L2 learner's reliance on first language structures" (Dulay et al., 1982: 110)

Last but not least, the monitor use is believed to be in effect It is realized by Dulay

et al as "an important factor associated with L1 use in L2 acquisition" (Dulay et al 1982:110) It is reflected in the learner's use of L2 vocabulary to fill L1 structures He is said tothink in his mother tongue and attempt to put his idea in the target language By this way,

he has subconscious reliance on his vernacular

By far land large, the influence coming from L1 and FLL is one of the popularattempts to interpret the source of Fl errors It is conditioned by four basic factors: theperformance pressure, limited language environment, manner of eliciting verbalperformance and the monitor use

1.3.2 Overgeneralization

The concept of generalization has been perceived the same as transfer byJakobovits (1969, p.55), i.e "the use of previously available strategies in new situations".This use of previously learned rules is, for some reason, sometimes misleading where therules are inapplicable, thus being over-generalized Over-generalized covers instanceswhere the learner creates a deviant structure on the basis of his experience of other

structures in the target language: he can sings, we are hope, it is occurs, he come from.

(Richards, 1971)

What then give rises to the process of overgeneralization? Actually, it is part of thelearning process and it reflects the learner's consciousness and creativeness in learning It isclosely related to the process of simplification as seen in L1 learners L2 learners also tend

to reduce redundant subsystems such as omission of the third person s or the past maker ed

-However over- extension may result from other sources as well "Failure to observerule restrictions of existing structure" is one of the reasons A good example suggested by

Richards is the application of infinitive even to verbs that do not require it The last factor,perhaps an important one that is worth noticing is the teaching and presentation technique.Certain types of teaching techniques increase the frequency of over- generalized structures.Many patterns drills and transform exercises are made up of utterances that can interferewith each other to produce a hybrid structure Richards (1971) gave the following example:Teacher

He walks quickly

This has been described as overlearning of a structure At other times, he walks may

be contrasted with he is walking, he sings with he can sing, and a week later, without any teaching of the forms, the learner produces he can sings, he is walks.

George (1972) also agreed on the same thing He postulated that the erroneousstructure like Did you mended it? Owed its cause to the instruction of simple presentstatements, simple present questions and simple past statements respectively in succession

In short, along with l1 interference, over-generalization is regarded as one of themajor causes of error-making It is the result of learners' processing and making hypothesesabout the language that is subjected to a variety of factors and is hard for us to control

1.3.3 Ignorance of rule restriction

Closely related to the generalization of deviant structure is failure to observe therestrictions of existing structures, that is, "the application of rules to contexts where they donot apply" (Richards, 1974) The scholar also mentions that some rule restriction errors thatlearners commit may be accounted for in terms of analogy For example, the learner,encountering a particular preposition with one type of verb, will attempt to apply the samepreposition with similar verbs by analogy To be specific, students know the sentence "Heshowed me the book" so that they may think the sentence " He explained me the book" iscorrect one

Besides, the rote learning of rules is also a cause of learners' ignorance ofrestrictions For instance, students are taught to use a to-verb infinitive after some verbs

such as allow, enable, permit and then that makes students assume that the use of verb make should be make sb to do sth (Richards, 1974)

1.3.4 Incomplete application of rules

Like L1 learners, Fl learners undergo developmental stages through which theyprocess target language rules This is the reason for their imperfect application of the rules

There are two factors Richards thinks that lead to this violation The first one is the use ofquestions in classroom as elicitation techniques For example:

Teacher: What does she tell him?

Student: She tell him to hurry

The second factor may be that the learner is so interested in the communication thatthey need not a mastery of L2 rules provided that they can achieve efficientcommunication (Richards, 1974)

1.3.5 Carelessness

Carelessness is also a significant cause to students' common written errors.Carelessness is often closely related to lack of motivation Many teachers will admit that it

is not always the student's fault of he loses interest; perhaps the materials and / or the style

of presentation do not suit him

Norrish (1983) mentioned one way of reducing the number of "careless" errors inwritten work Teachers get students to check their work themselves and then each other'swork This will involve students in an active search for errors and English can be used for agenuine communication while discussing these errors in class

1.4 Review of previous studies

A great number of error studies have been carried out in many countries.Researchers like Corder (1967), Richards (1974), Dulay and Burt (1974), and Norrish(1983) among others emphasized the importance of errors in theory and practice ofteaching and learning a foreign language As Corder observed, errors as traced to theirsources are helpful in different ways First, they tell language teachers how much progress

a learner has made toward the target language, as a result, where he needs help and whatsort of help he needs Second, they provide evidence for researchers of the second languagelearning process That is to say, the researchers discover what strategies FL learners use inlearning and acquiring a language The last benefit is practical in the sense that errors canserve as good feedback to the learners for self- adjustment

However, errors searched in those studies come from learners other thanVietnamese and may be characteristic of those learners The causes may be common butthe types of error may be distinctive and must be pointed out together with their causes.Despite common errors believed to exist in learners of various language backgrounds.Etherton (1977) still holds the view that learners of different mother tongues "make

different types of mistakes" This is why this study should be conducted to find out whattypes of errors are derived from the Vietnamese students and what their causes are To bespecific, in this study the researcher wants to investigate common written errors made by12th form students and from these findings she gives some possible solutions.

CHAPTER TWO: THE STUDY 2.1 The setting of the study.

2.1.1 Teachers

There are totally eight teachers of English Their English proficiency and teachingmethod are not equally qualified Five of them graduated from English Department,Vietnam National University, Hanoi College of Foreign Languages Two were trainedEnglish as their second foreign language at Russian Department, Vietnam NationalUniversity, Hanoi College of Foreign Languages One graduated from English Department,Hanoi University of Education

2.1.2 Students

The 12th form students at Thanh Ha High School are eighteen years old and havelearnt English, including writing skill, for seven years from grade six to grade twelve.Although they have learnt English for seven years, they seem be beginners of English.More importantly, few students take English examinations into universities and collegesand if they do, they take multiple choice tests, not essay or composition, therefore they arelikely to be demotivated easily Apparently, applying teaching approaches and usingteaching methods should be taken into account in order to foster and develop their writingskills efficiently

2.1.3 Facilities

Generally speaking, the average class size of fifty-five students is rather big andinconvenient The desks are arranged traditionally with two rows of seven desks There is anarrow isle in the middle and two narrower on the sides, no other empty space left wherethe teachers and the students can move to and from if they implement interactive activities.Moreover, the classroom are not equipped with modern facilities such as television,computer, DVD and projector, except for a board

2.2 "Tiếng Anh 12" textbook

2.2.1 An overview of English textbook 12

The textbook 12 is compiled following the communicative approach in whichcommunicative competence is emphasized The development of communicative skills arethe most important objectives in teaching and learning Therefore, each unit focuses on fourskills: reading, speaking, listening and writing Language knowledge such as

phonetics, vocabulary and grammar are considered the means and condition to form andimprove communicative ability.

Along with the communicative approach, the learner-centered approach is alsoadapted in order to promote students' activeness and creativeness The teacher is theorganizer and controller in the class

To achieve the teaching objectives under the two approaches mentioned above,task-based teaching is the major method applied in the book In each lesson, tasks arestated clearly with different activities which provide students with opportunities to interactand cooperate

The content of the book was designed under theme-based approach It is thesuccession and development of previous grades textbooks with 16 units covering differenttopics which were contextualized and developed naturally to attract and to help studentspractice communicative skills Each unit includes five items corresponding to five periodssuch as reading, speaking, listening, writing and language focus There are six "testyourself" to help students revise and check their achievement after each three units

2.2.2 Writing lesson

Writing lessons in the textbook make up 20% of 86 periods of the English syllabus.Although each lesson is not clearly divided into stages: pre-writing, while-writing and post-writing, it can be easily noticed that the initial tasks are a preparation for the final task.There are totally 16 units, so 16 writing lessons are designed with a view to make studentsfamiliar with real-life situation on text The required competences of writing lesson in eachunit are detailed in the following table:

2.3.1.2 Data collection instruments

In order to obtain adequate data for the study, the researcher employed three datacollection instruments namely document analysis and survey questionnaire and interview.The combination of these methods offers the researcher not only quantitative but alsoqualitative data for later analysis

(i) Document analysis

Regarding the objectives of the study, the researcher would like to employdocument analysis as a feasible method to gain insights into the problems of the study Thismethod is "considered a research technique that provides objective, systematic andqualitative data" (Verma and Mallick, 1999) This method of researching enables the

researcher to summarize students' typical errors and it also allows her to make inferencesfrom data collected, which can be used to assist the data gained from the surveyquestionnaire as well.

(ii) Questionnaire

On account of the researcher's limited time, questionnaire is only delivered to theeight teachers While the teachers were completing the questions, the researchers also satbesides them to give them clarification if any confusion arose

The questionnaire consists of two main parts The first part was given to obtain thepersonal information of the teacher respondents The second part was to investigate theteachers' opinion about their views on students common errors, their causes andrecommendation for reducing and preventing them In this study, the researcher was onlyconcerned about errors on lexical and grammatical items so that she investigated these onstudents' writing only and this extracted from "error correcting symbols" (Klassen 1991,Bates at al 1993, Ingram & King 1996) In researcher's experience and her colleagues', sheonly mentions some typical types of errors students often commit, not all aspects of lexicaland grammatical items Additionally, the questionnaire is written in English because itstarget respondents are the teachers of English at a foreign language university It goeswithout saying that their level of proficiency in English is high enough to comprehend whatthe researcher would like to express

(iii) Interviews

The researcher interviews teachers for question number 3 only to get better insightsinto the recommendation for reducing and preventing students' common errors Fourteachers were invited to discuss for further information about the items raised in thequestion number three

2.3.1.3 Data collection procedure

As being described in the previous part, various instruments were designed

Document analysis was the first instruments for this study The students' actualwriting were the results of their writing lessons in the class The researcher collectedstudents' writings in units 9, 10 and 16

Secondly, eight sheets of questionnaires were delivered to the eights teachers ofEnglish While the respondents were working on the questions, the researcher was alsopresent to give any explanation, if any problems arose

Thirdly, after teachers completed the survey questionnaires, four of them werechosen to take part in a one to one interview It was conducted in a quiet room free fromdistraction.

2.3.2 Data analysis and discussion

This part serves as a representation of data collected during research procedure.Accordingly, the interpretation of these data is also offered to address the three researchquestions

2.3.2.1 Research question 1

As stated in the Introduction part, the first research question is " What are the types

of written errors that 12th- form students make in learning English?" This question wasanswered by the interpretation of the qualitative data gained from analyzing 130 students'actual writing in the class and the quantitative data collected from eight teachers' surveyquestionnaire Following are the tables to illustrate 12th form student written errors atThanh Ha High School

connective Wrong verb tense Subject-verb agreement Verb form

Common written errors made by 12th form students at

Thanh Ha High School

Table 2: Written errors of 12th form students at Thanh Ha High School as

synthesized from document analysis

In terms of table 1, the researcher would like to choose "often" as the mediumindicator That is, if most of the teachers agree that a certain item of errors occur after it,namely "usually" and "always", it would be a common error and vice versa According tothe table, 100 percent of the teachers agree that wrong word or word choice are commonerrors In the meantime, 87.5% of the teachers are in agreement with the fact that wrongverb tense, subject-verb agreement and verb form are common errors 75 % of them thinkthat article mistakes and incorrect spelling are also common ones Another potion of 62.5

%of the teachers see preposition , noun number and wrong conjunction or connective are common ones

popular with one twentieth of the population or at least one out of twenty errorsencountered will fall into these groups According to the figures in the table 2, incorrectspelling, noun number, word choice/ wrong word, wrong conjunction/ connective, articlemistakes and verb form are the most common errors with the descending percentage 34%,16.6%, 15.1%, 10.4%, 8.5% and 7.5% respectively The types of errors related topreposition, subject-verb agreement and wrong verb tense are less common This can beunderstood by the fact that the writing tasks in unit 9, 10 and 16 are guided In unit 9,textbook gives students full information about Sahara and students base on this to writedown In unit 10, students have background knowledge about measures to protectendangered and rare animals in task 1 so they can write the paragraph easily In unit 16,students have a sample letter in task 1 so they know form and structures used in this kind

of letter

Grammatical items

Grammatical errors Preposition

Article mistakes Noun number Wrong conjunction/

connective Wrong verb tense Subject-verb agreement Verb form

Table 3: Components of grammatical errors

As can be seen from the table above, errors about noun number, wrong conjunction/connective, article mistakes, verb form and preposition are the most prevailing ones Thesefigures reveal the fact that students' knowledge related to noun usage (noun number andarticle mistakes), verb form and preposition usage are problematic to students Inparticular, students often omit prepositions in some phrases containing some nounstogether Additionally, for noun number mistakes, students do not often add "s" to pluralnoun or they add "s" to singular nouns or uncountable nouns The

same phenomenon is encountered when students' article mistakes are found out Studentsoften omit articles where they are needed and insert them into inappropriate places.Specially, wrong conjunction or connective is the kind of error that almost students have It

is common that students place "so" and "and" at the beginning of a sentence Regardingstudents' wrong use of verb form, they do not often change the verbs into -ing form aftersome verbs or participant form in passive voice The table below describes details of theaforementioned errors

Common grammatical errors

Preposition