An analysis of 9th graders written errors a case study at vinh thanh seodary schoo

Do Minh Hung 2007 pointed out that studies on errors made by the learners of foreign language in some countries in the world began in the 1970s, and that certain theories and models on l

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

BUI TRUONG AN

A CASE STUDY AT VINH THANH SECONDARY SCHOOL

MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION

Nghe An, 2017

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

BUI TRUONG AN

A CASE STUDY AT VINH THANH SECONDARY SCHOOL

MAJOR: TEACHNG ENGLISH TO SPEAKER OF OTHER LANGUAGES (TESOL)

i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I acknowledge that this study is my own work The data and findings discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission, and have not been published elsewhere

Author

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

TABLE OF CONTENTS ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT iv

ABSTRACT v

LIST OF TABLES vi

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims of the study 2

1.3. Scope of the study 3

1.4 The significance of the study 3

1.5 Organization of the thesis 4

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Causes and Sources of Errors 5

2.2 General introduction on errors 12

2.2.1 Definition of errors 12

2.2.2 Distinction between Errors and Mistakes 13

2.3 Error Analysis 14

2.3.1 Definitions on error analysis 14

2.3.2 Methods on error analysis 16

2.4 Error studies from different countries 17

Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY 23

3.1 Research questions 23

3.2 Participants 23

3.3 Research Instruments 24

3.4 Data collection procedure 24

Chapter 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 26

4.1 Results of Error analysis on prepositions 26

4.1.1 Errors on the preposition “in" 29

4.1.2 Errors on the preposition “with” 32

4.1.3 Errors on the preposition “for” 34

4.1.4 Errors of the preposition “to” 35

4.1.5 Errors made with other prepositions 38

4.2 Results of Error analysis on verb tenses 41

4.2.1 Errors on the misuse of verb tenses 44

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4.2.2 Errors on the misuse of verb forms 47

4.3 Discussions 49

4.3.1 General remarks on the students’ errors 49

4.3.2 The main causes of the students’ errors 51

4.3.2.1 The influence of mother tongue on their language learning 51

4.3.2.2 The lack of frequent writing practice 52

4.3.2.3 The students’ limited knowledge of grammar and writing techniques 52

4.3.2.4 The teacher’s correction and feedback 53

Chapter 5 IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION 54

5.1 Implications 54

5.2 Conclusion 57

5.3 Limitations 58

5.4 Suggestions 58

REFERENCES 61

APPENDIX 1 65

APPENDIX 2 68

I would also like to thank to the teachers, staff in Vinh University, especially Dr.Tran Thi Ngoc Yen, for their legitimate contributions to the success of the course and for their invaluable lectures and encouragement

This thesis would never have been possible without the permission, encouragement and support from Mr Le Tan Hung, The Principal of Vinh Thanh secondary school for study support and encouragement

Last but not least, my recognition and gratitude are addressed to my family, without their motivation, reassurance, patience, love, and unfaltering support, I would not have managed to complete my master study

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ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to explore the most common errors made by the 9thgraders at Vinh Thanh secondary students in their English essay writing The most common errors which were found in the students’ essays included: faulty prepositions and incorrect verb tenses These errors were classified and tabulated according to their number of frequency in the students’ essays The data for my study was from a random collection of more than 100 pieces of writing papers by the students Under analysis, the data revealed many types of writing errors made

by the students, and here in this thesis, I limited to present two main types, namely errors in prepositions and errors in verb tenses Based on the findings, I attempted to point out some reasons leading to the students’ error commitment as well as to suggest some ways to help with correcting, avoiding and limiting errors in 9th graders’ written errors at Vinh Thanh secondary school

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

Learning foreign languages, especially English, has become a popular movement now in Vietnam For practical purposes, the youth now find English an essential tool for pursuing employment and a key to success In addition to learning

at schools, they spend more time at language teaching centers or at home learning the language Some learn English with tutors, while others do that with the assistance of modern technology, namely computers and the Internet As a result, the fact that today students at school can have a good command of English is not a surprise

Admittedly, however, the number of successful English learners at school level is still small, as noted by Brunei’s Minister of Education, SEAMEO 40thmeeting in Hanoi, 2004 He said that in Vietnam, a large number of students are excellent in math, merited with good records on math competitions, but not in languages or more exactly in learning foreign languages It is clear that, in student’s performance of productive skills, speaking or writing, thousands of errors remain This phenomenon is rather prevalent; some kinds of errors tend to become deeply rooted in learners and are so serious that, Pham Dang Binh (2002) concluded: “as the students have made progress in their studies, their possibility of committing errors will not disappear as we believe, but it will be on the way to development and become habits”

In order for the above - mentioned situation to be improved, it is important that research should be done in the field of student’s learning strategies Do Minh Hung (2007) pointed out that studies on errors made by the learners of foreign language in some countries in the world began in the 1970s, and that certain theories and models on learning procedures, learning strategies, reasons for errors

have been described In Vietnam, by contrast, such studies remain incoherent and unsystematic It is quite easy to find teachers’ books, teaching manuals, or teaching guides for teachers, while books mentioning learners’ learning methods or learner error types are not available for students

It is strongly believed that once students have knowledge about errors , they will avoid committing them, or they will make them less frequently For the existing errors, perhaps with the help of teachers and friends, they will be able to correct them and reduce the likelihood that they will become habits

In Dong Thap, especially in Vinh Thanh, the teaching and learning of English began for years ago Up to now, English has been taught at school from grade 6 to grade 9 The students of many generations have returned and became English teachers Obviously, regarding the development history, the teaching and learning

of English in Vinh Thanh have achieved satisfactory results This can be seen in the continuous increase of teachers of English at school during the past ten years

However, it is unfortunate to note that until now no studies on the students’ errors have been done in the school although the teachers have often complained about the students’ poor writing performance By practical work with the students,

I strongly believe that the students have hundreds of difficulties in learning the language, especially in writing Meanwhile, my colleagues have not found any suitable teaching methods to help the students avoid errors during class time For these reasons, I am engrossed in the issue of errors and decided to make it the topic

of my thesis

1.2 Aims of the study

The study aims to investigate the most common errors that 9th graders at Vinh Thanh Secondary School made in their writing papers Based on the findings, recommendations and some implications which are of significance to students as well as to EFL teachers are provided At last, it is hoped that the

results of this study could be of much benefit for developing the English writing skill among students in Vinh Thanh

1.3 Scope of the study

The study is limited to analyse the most common errors in student writings which are focused on two main points in this thesis: faulty prepositions and incorrect verb tenses

Due to time limitations and the complex nature of the analysis, 100 writing samples by students (grade 9) will be chosen as research samples The writing samples, which are on common topics like letter, education, job, student life, sports, health care, food and drink…and of about 100-150 words in length each, will be chosen at random from among examination papers, tests, in-class writing practice and homework assignments

1.4 The significance of the study

Many educators and theorists in the field of error analysis have focused on the importance of second language learners' errors

Corder (1967) indicates that errors are significant in three different ways First to the teachers, in that they tell them how far towards the goal the learners have advanced and consequently, what remains for them to learn Second, they provide to the researchers evidence of how language is learnt or acquired, what strategies or procedures the learners are employing in their discovery of the language Thirdly, they are indispensable to the learners themselves, because we can regard the making of errors as a device the learners use in order to learn Research has provided empirical evidence pointing to emphasis on learners' errors as an effective means of improving grammatical accuracy (White et al, 1991; Carroll and Swain, 1993) Indeed, as Carter (1997:35) notes, 'Knowing more about how grammar works is to understand more about how grammar is

used and misused' There is a need for students to recognize the significance of errors which occur in their writing, to fully grasp and understand the nature of the errors made This requires English language teachers to be better equipped, more sensitive and aware of the difficulties students face with regard to grammar In other words, it is a way the learners have for testing their hypotheses about the nature of the language they are learning Taking these ideas into consideration, this study attempts to identify the grammatical errors which students make in writing English essays in order to help teachers of English tackle the problem and

to indicate the points of weakness in English writing

1.5 Organization of the thesis

This research comprises 5 chapters as follow: Chapter 1: introduces the background to the studies on writing errors as well as the reason for taking this study The rationale, aims, scope of the study, and the organization of the thesis are also included in this section Chapter 2: (literature review) presents fundamental concepts relating to the study, including the definition of error, errors and mistakes, causes and sources of errors, error studies form different approaches, definition of error analysis, methods for error analysis Chapter 3: includes two sections: (1) the description of the subjects in my study and (2) the description of data collection instruments used in the study Chapter 4: presents my study results, as well as analyzes some of the reasons leading to error commitment The study results will

be about the errors on the prepositions and verb tenses This chapter also presents the main reasons for the students’ errors as well as some suggestions on how to help the students improve their writing skill Chapter 5: includes implications, conclusion of the study, the limitations of the study and suggestion for further research

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Causes and Sources of Errors

A lot of causes and sources of errors have been introduced by some theorists In the following section the primary causes of errors will be reviewed: Interlingual errors and intralingual errors Interlingual errors are those which are related to the native language (NL) That's to say there are interlingual errors when the learners' NL habits (patterns, systems or rules) interfere or prevent them, to some degree, from acquiring the patterns and rules of the second language(SL) (Corder, 1971) Interference (negative transfer) is the negative influence of the mother tongue language (MTL) on the performance of the target language (TL) learner (Lado, 1964)

Intralingual errors are those due to the language being learned, independent of the native language According to Richards (1971) they are items produced by the learner which reflect not the structure of the mother tongue, but generalizations based on partial exposure to the target language The learner, in this case, tries to “derive the rules behind the data to which he/she has been exposed, and may develop hypotheses that correspond neither to the mother tongue nor to the target language” (Richards, 1974, p 6) In other words, they produce deviant or ill- formed sentences by erroneously applying their knowledge of TL rules and structures to new situations In 1974, Selinker (in Richards, 1974, p 37) reported five sources of errors:

1 Language transfer

2 Transfer of training

3 Strategies of second language learning

4 Strategies of second language communication

5 Overgeneralization of TL linguistic material

In 1974 Corder (in Allen & Corder, p 130) identified three sources of errors: Language Transfer, Overgeneralization or analogy, & Methods or Materials used in the Teaching (teaching-induced error) In the paper titled “The Study of Learner English” that Richards and Simpson wrote

in 1974, they displayed seven sources of errors:

1 Language transfer, to which one third of the deviant sentences from second language learners could be attributed (George, 1971)

2 Intralingual interference: In 1970, Richards exposed four types and causes for intralingual errors:

a Overgeneralization (p 174): it is associated with redundancy reduction It covers instances where the learner creates a deviant structure based on his experience of other structures in the target language It may be the result of the learner reducing his linguistic burden

b Ignorance of rule restrictions: i.e applying rules to contexts to which they do not apply

c Incomplete application of rules

d Semantic errors such as building false concepts/systems: i.e faulty comprehension of distinctions in the Target language (TL)

3 Sociolinguistic situation: motivation (instrumental or integrative) and settings for language learning (compound or co-ordinate bilingualism) may affect second language learning

4 Modality: modality of exposure to the TL and modality of production

5 Age: learning capacities vary with age

6 Successions of approximative systems: since the cases of language learning vary from a person to another, and so does the acquisition of new lexical, phonological, and syntactic items

7 Universal hierarchy of difficulty: This factor has received little interest in the literature of second language acquisition It is related to the inherent difficulty for man of certain phonological, syntactic, or semantic items or structures Some forms may be inherently difficult to learn no matter what the background of the learner is Krashen (1982) suggested that the acquisition of grammatical structures follows a 'natural order' which is predictable For a given language, some grammatical structures tend to be acquired early while others late This order seemed to be independent of the learners' age, L1 background, and conditions of exposure

James (1998, p 178) exposed three main diagnosis-based categories of error:

1 Interlingual: interference happens when “an item or structure in the second language manifests some degree of difference from and some

degree of similarity with the equivalent item or structure in the learner’s first language” (Jackson, 1981 101)

2 Intralingual:

a Learning strategy-based errors:

i False analogy

ii Misanalysis

iii Incomplete rule application

iv Exploiting redundancy

v Overlooking co-occurrence restrictions

vi Hypercorrection (monitor overuse)

vii Overgeneralization or system simplification

b Communication strategy-based errors:

i Holistic strategies: e.g approximation and language switch

ii Analytic strategies: circumlocution (expressing the

concept indirectly, by allusion rather than by direct reference

3 Induced errors: they “result more from the classroom situation than from either the student’s incomplete competence in English grammar (intralingual errors) or first language interference (interlingual errors)

a Material induced errors

b Teacher-talk induced errors

c Exercise-based induced errors

d Errors induced by pedagogical priorities

e Look-up errors

Language transfer is another important cognitive factor related to writing error Transfer is defined as the influence resulting from similarities and differences between the target language and any other language that has been previously acquired (Odlin, 1989) The study of transfer involves the study of errors (negative transfer), facilitation (positive transfer), avoidance of target language forms, and their over-use (Ellis, 1994) Behaviorist accounts claim that transfer is the cause of errors, whereas from a cognitive perspective, transfer is seen as a resource that the learner actively draws upon in interlanguage development (Selinker, 1972)

Despite the fact that L1 transfer is no longer viewed as the only predictor

or cause of error at the structural level, a writer's first language plays a complex and significant role in L2 acquisition For example, when learners write under pressure, they may call upon systematic resources from their native language for the achievement and synthesis of meaning (Widdowson, 1990) Research has also shown that language learners sometimes use their native language when generating ideas and attending

to details (Friedlander, 1990) In addition, contrastive studies, which have focused on characteristics of L1 languages and cultures, have helped us predict rhetorical error in writing These studies have been valuable in our understanding of L2 writing development However, many feel that these studies have also led to reductive, essentializing generalizations about ways of writing and cultural stereotypes about students from certain linguistic backgrounds (Fox, 1994; Leki, 1997;

Spack, 1997) As a result, erroneous predictions about students' learning based on their L1 language and culture have occurred regardless of social factors, such as "the contexts, and purpose of their learning to write, or their age, race, class, gender, education, and prior experience" (Raimes, 1998, p 143)

J Kerr (1970) based his study on the common errors in written English made by a group of Greek learners of English as a foreign language It was found that the causes of mistakes were: 1 Ignorance of the words or constructions to express an idea; 2 Carelessness; 3 The influence of the mother – tongue; 4 Mistakes arising from making false analogies with other elements of the foreign language

On the other hand, Ntumngia (1974) conducted research on error analysis of Francophone Cameroonian secondary school students The purpose of this study was to identify and analyze the errors of these students with the hope that this identification and analysis would result

in implications for instructional strategies used by teachers of English The result of the study showed that the sources of errors committed by the students were due to both interlingual and intralingual factors For instance, the writing problems experienced by Spanish speakers living in the United States may be due to a multiplicity of factors, including the effects of transfer and interference from the Spanish language, and cultural norms (Plata, 1995) First of all, learners may translate from L1,

or they may try out what they assume is a legitimate structure of the target language, although hindered by insufficient knowledge of correct

usage In the learning process, they often experience native language interference from developmental stages of interlanguage or from nonstandard elements in spoken dialects (a common occurrence in students writing in their native language as well) They also tend to over- generalize the rules for stylistic features when acquiring new discourse structures In addition, learners are often not certain of what they want to express, which would cause them to make errors in any language Finally, writers in L2 might lack familiarity with new rhetorical structures and the organization of ideas (Carson, 2001; Connor & Kaplan, 1987; Kutz, Groden, & Zamel, 1993; Raimes, 1987) L2 writing relates closely to native-language literacy and particular instructional contexts Students may not be acquainted with English rhetoric, which can lead to writing that appears off topic or incoherent to many learners

of English as a foreign language The studies relating to the process of language transfer and overgeneralization received considerable attention

in the literature Swan and Smith (1995, p ix) gave a detailed account of errors made by speakers of nineteen different L1 backgrounds in relation

to their native languages

Diab (1996) also conducted a study in order to show through error analysis the interference of the mother-tongue, Arabic, in the English writings of EFL students at the American University of Beirut Okuma (1999) studied the L1 transfer in the EFL writings of Japanese students Work on over-generalization errors, on the other hand, is reported by Richards (1974, pp 172-188), Jain (in Richards, 1974, pp 208-214) and

Taylor (1975) Furthermore, Farooq (1998) identified and analyzed two error patterns in written texts of upper-basic Japanese learners, in an EFL context He focused on both transfer and overgeneralization errors Habbash (1982) studied common errors in the use of English prepositions in the written work of students at the end of the preparatory cycle in the Jerusalem area and found out that more errors were attributable to interference from Arabic than to other learning problems She indicated that students always resort to literal translation before they form English patterns In other words, they translate the English into Vietnamese and then the Vietnamese back into English, word for word (not phrase by phrase) Finally it is clear from this brief discussion that the learner brings with him one source of error: his mother tongue Even more importantly, the learning process itself is the source of other errors

2.2 General introduction on errors

To better understand 9th graders written errors in writing English essays, it

is helpful to examine the literature in the following areas: the causes and sources

of error, error analysis and patterns of errors

2.2.1 Definition of errors

Errors and making errors are unavoidable in one’s process of language acquisition In a teaching - learning environment, error indicate any incorrection in what one says or writes, including simple misspellings, mispronunciations, and

grammar mistakes However, errors are defined as“ the use of a linguistic item (e.g

a word, a grammatical item, a speech act etc, ) in a way which a fluent or native speaker of the language regards as showing faulty or incomplete learning”

(Richard et al, 1992, p.127) In his 1967 article, Corder observed that leaners’ errors are indicative both of the state of the leaners’ knowledge and the way in

which a second language is learned In his view, errors are considered as an indicator of failure as well as an evidence to show the learner’s way towards learning the target language

2.2.2 Distinction between Errors and Mistakes

It is essential here to make a distinction between mistakes and errors According to Brown mistakes refer to "a failure to utilize a known system correctly" whereas errors concern "a noticeable deviation from the adult grammar

of a native speaker, reflecting the interlanguage competence of the learner" (1994a: 205) Two things need to be stated here: Firstly, mistakes do not require special treatment assuming they are recognized Secondly, error here refers to structures only Both Corder (1967, 1971) and James (1998) reveal a criterion that helps us to do so: A mistake can be self-corrected, but an error cannot Errors are “systematic,” i.e likely to happen regularly and not recognized by the learner Hence, only the teacher or researcher would locate them, the learner would not (Gass & Selinker, 1994)

Norrish (1983) made a clear distinction between errors and mistakes He stated errors are" systematic deviation when a learner has not learnt something and consistently gets it wrong." He added that when a learner of English as a second or a foreign language makes an error systematically, it is because he has not learnt the correct form Norrish defined mistakes as "inconsistent deviation." When a learner has been taught a certain correct form, and he uses one form sometimes and another at other times quite inconsistently, the inconsistent deviation is called a mistake And it is in this light that the researcher has chosen

to focus on students' errors not mistakes An error, however, is considered more serious In Contrastive Analysis, the theoretical base of which was behaviourism, errors were seen as “bad habits“ that had been formed The response was based

on the stimulus It was assumed that interference of the mother tongue (L1) was responsible for the errors made during the transition period of learning the target

language As an English teacher, I am well aware of the fact that my speaking students in grade 9, science section, commit many errors in essay writing (See appendix 2) These students have been studying English almost their whole lives and still, their errors are numerous

In the cognitive approach, errors are seen as a clue to what is happening in the mind They are seen as a natural phenomenon that must occur as learning a first or second language takes place before correct grammar rules are completely internalized I think teachers are relieved to find a more realistic attitude towards errors Errors are no longer a reflection on their teaching methods, but are, rather, indicators that learning is taking place So errors are no longer “bad” but “good”

or natural just as natural as errors that occur in learning a first language The insight that errors are a natural and important part of the learning process itself, and do not all come from mother tongue interference, is very important There is variation in learners' performance depending on the task Learners may have more control over linguistic forms for certain tasks, while for others they may be more prone to error

2.3 Error Analysis

2.3.1 Definitions on error analysis

Error analysis is an essential source of information to teachers It provides information on students' errors which in turn helps teachers to correct students' errors and also improves the effectiveness of their teaching The study of errors

by themselves would have been misleading, but in contrast to the number of correct responses gives a good picture of which items are being mastered and which are not This study hopes to enlighten teachers on the grammatical errors that require remedial work so that time is not wasted on teaching grammar items

or any other linguistic features which pose little or no problems to the majority of the students in relation to writing compositions

The definition of error analysis by Corder (1974) is very close to the Malaysian context: "What has come to be known as error analysis has to do with the investigation of the language of second language learners." In line with the emphasis on examinations in the Malaysian education system, Lim (1976), stated: "One of the main aims of error analysis is to help teachers assess more accurately what remedial work would be necessary for English as a Second Language (ESL) students preparing for an English Language test, so as to help these students avoid the most common errors."

Error analysis is a type of linguistic analysis that focuses on the errors learners make It consists of a comparison between the errors made in the Target Language (TL) and that TL itself Pit Corder is the “Father” of Error Analysis (the EA with the “new look”) It was with his article entitled “The significance of Learner Errors” (1967) that EA took a new turn Errors used to be “flaws” that needed to be eradicated Corder presented a completely different point of view

He contended that those errors are “important in and of themselves.” For learners themselves, errors are 'indispensable,' since the making of errors can be regarded

as a device the learner uses in order to learn

Hence, I have decided to conduct an error analysis, the best tool for describing and explaining errors made by speakers of other languages (Johanson, 1975) in order to know the sources of these errors and the reasons behind their continuous occurrence year after year with different groups of learners

We find studies such as Richards's "A non-contrastive approach to error analysis" (1971), where he identifies sources of competence errors; L1 transfer results in interference errors; incorrect (incomplete or over-generalized) application of language rules results in intralingual errors; construction of faulty hypotheses in L2 results in developmental errors Not all researchers have agreed with the above distinction, such as Dulay and Burt (1974) who proposed the following three categories of errors: developmental, interference and unique

Stenson (1974) proposed another category, that of induced errors, which result from incorrect instruction of the language In addition to studies focusing on error categorization and analysis, various studies concentrated on these three different areas In other words, research was conducted not only in order to understand errors per se, but also in order to use what is learned from error analysis and apply it to improve language competence Such studies include Kroll and Schafer's "Error-Analysis and the Teaching of Composition", where the authors demonstrate how error analysis can be used to improve writing skills They analyze possible sources of error in non-native-English writers, and attempt to provide a process approach to writing where the error analysis can help achieve better writing skills

2.3.2 Methods on error analysis

Concerning the procedures for errors analysis, we would like to touch upon two methods introduced by key linguistics whose results of study have been the basis for later work in the field In his viewpoint, James (1998) stated that identification of errors must be taken into consideration His method of error identification included three steps: (i) error detection, (ii) error location, and (iii) error description James also concluded that “the analysis in error analysis is not restricted to one relatively late procedure That is, there is not a step in doing Error Analysis which could properly called the analytical step, a step which may coincide with the collation or interpretation of one’s data” (p.90)

According to Corder (1967), the procedure of error analysis undergoes five steps:

- The first step is choosing the research texts The texts used for research must be of the same types and produced by the study participants (students) of similar age and background knowledge of English

- The second step is identifying sentences with errors Examine every sentence or utterance produced by the learners If a sentence has grammatical errors, they are said to have overtly idiosyncratic errors If a sentence is grammatically correct but contains structures different with the contexts, then covertly idiosyncratic errors are present

- The third step is classifying and describing the errors The criteria for classification are up to the aims and scope of the study

- The forth step is explaining Compare the correct sentences with the incorrect ones in the foreign language or the learner’s mother tongue After that, explain the reasons for the errors

- The last step is evaluating Estimate the impact of the errors on the information in the sentences and then determine the significance of the errors

2.4 Error studies from different countries

In the first place, our error research on the students’ writing will have a review on the outgoing theories Thus, a look at past work on error studies is done, which will help guide the study Error study is supposed to have come into being in the middle of the nineteenth century when the science of Contrastive Analysis was found According to Nguyen (1999, p.26), one reason for the formation of Contrastive Analysis originated from the work of language teaching and learning

In learning foreign languages, one faced many problems because of the differences between a person’s mother tongue and the second language Based on the theory of behaviorism, writers then claimed that the only hindrance to learners’ progress was due to the influence of their mother language on the others The differences between the two languages were said to be the reason for errors and for the learner’s difficulties The only way to point out differences and later to avoid errors was to contrast the two languages

Based on generative grammar, S.P.Corder produced many works on Contrastive Analysis and suggested that the procedures of error analysis included five steps From Corder’s time on, much research on errors has been done For errors in learning English, we have seen much work on phonetic and grammatical errors

On phonetic errors, Backman (1977) on Spain; and Fathman (1981) on learners in Indochina The results of these studies showed that the mother tongue had significant influences on the learner’s pronunciation

On grammatical errors, there have been studies by Bailey et al (1981) on learners in Spain; Larsen-Freeman (1978) on learners in Japan, Spain, Iran; Krashen et al (1981) on the learners at University of Southern California;… These studies revealed that regardless of the learners’ native language, their process of foreign language acquisition was relatively similar though the acquisition rate was

at a different level

On cohesion errors, Stephen (1981) conducted a survey on ninety writing papers by freshmen students in University of Texas He found that the high rated essays were much denser in cohesion than the low rated ones However, in his work, he just clarified the frequency of cohesion means in the students’ writing, not the errors He found that in the low rated essays, cohesive ties occurred at once every 4, 9 words and in the high rated ones, cohesive ties occurred at once every 3.2 words (p.195) He affirmed that our analysis of cohesion suggests that cohesion

is an important property of writing quality…However, our analysis also suggests that while cohesive relationships may ultimately affect writing quality in some ways, there is no evidence to suggest that a large number (or a small number) of cohesive ties of a particular type will positively affect writing quality (p 202)

Another study on cohesion errors was done by Anchalee S and et al (2008) They performed a study to evaluate the writing skills of first year medical students

in Mahidol University and found that errors related to cohesion were at high rate

Lack of development of the main ideas made up 69,40%, no transitional words 90,30%, and incoherence 76,87% They suggested that “all medical students at Madihol University should be taught to write a standard opinion paragraph Further more, transitional words should be taught and emphasized” (p.31)

Yousef (2010) conducted a study named “Errors in the Use of Preposition by the Arab EFL University Students”

In Vietnam, studies on errors made by the Vietnamese learners are very few, and books on this field are not easy to find although the learning and teaching of English began many decades ago Documented learners’ errors are mostly crude (merely lists of common errors without any scientific explanation), or they are short

articles on language journals, and finally, in MA thesis

In his handbook, Tran (2007) presented nine groups of errors usually committed by Vietnamese learners These are misused forms, incorrect omission, unnecessary words, misplaced words, confused words, confused adjectives, and confused nouns, plural and singular errors, confusion of parts of speech He just presented cases of errors, illustrated sentences and explained each item but did not offer the reasons why the errors occurred Thanh (2008), a teacher of Global Education pointed out ten common mistakes in Vietnamese learners’ writing They are: spelling, word order, misplaced comma, punctuation, redundancy, omission of theme, omission of conclusion, omission of quotation,omission of word Like Tran (2007), Thanh (2008) just simply confirmed that such usage were incorrect without identifying the reasons for them He then simply suggested ways to avoid and overcome the mistakes

For articales published in language journals, they can be the article written by Cao (2004), with an article entitled “Distinguishing similar English verbs commonly misused by Vietnamese learners” (translated); Hoang (2005), with an article “The most common mistakes made by Vietnamese learners when using the

“become” verb group” (translated); and Nguyen (2005), with “Initial findings on second-year students’ ability to use reference demonstrative as linking words in writing” (translated); and Tran(2005), “Common mistakes on word order made by Vietnamese when learning English” (translated) In these articles, the writers just examined certain aspects of the errors In other words, the focus was only on simple separated error phenomenon

In more intensive studies, we have some results announced in MA thesis The work is that of Le’s, a study on writing errors made by students (non-majored English) at Ha Noi University of Technology In her work, Le (1999) focused her study on two error groups; vocabulary and grammar, and she classified the errors into 7 types: (i) tenses of verbs, (ii) articles, (iii) adjectives and adverbs, (iv)infinitives and the gerund), (v)prepositions, (vi) morphology) and (vii) conjunctions and sentence structures The study results showed that the students made the most errors in their usage of articles, tenses and infinitive or gerund forms She also found 3 main reasons accounting for the students’ errors: (1) inappropriate teaching curriculum and teaching materials,(2) unqualified and inexperienced teachers, and (3) the students’ lack of knowledge on grammar and on writing skills In her work, Le (1999) ran statistics on the rate of errors, analyzed the reasons for errors as well as suggested ways to avoid committing them but did not categorize the reasons for making errors by the Vietnamese learners, nor identify the characteristics of grammar used by the learners, or any learning strategies they employed

Like the study of Le’s (in term of the depth of study), another work entitled

“English Modality Used by Vietnamese Learners, An Error Analysis” by Nguyen (2002), and “An analysis of errors made by 3rd

year students of Faculty of English - Hanoi Open University when they use English nominal nonfinite clauses” by

Nguyen (2005) only identified the reasons for making errors and the difficulties that Vietnamese students usually had when learning English as a foreign language

Researching errors the Vietnamese learners make when learning English, Pham (2003) based his study on the aspects of behaviorism, functional linguistics, psycho-linguistics, contrastive linguistics, and intercultural communication, Pham proposed and analyzed some strategies applied in error analysis A new and important contribution of the study to the error analysis body of work is that a new set of rules was introduced This suggested using inter- culture and language in the work of error analysis In doing so, the study made a precise analysis of examples

of errors committed by Vietnamese learners However, Pham did not touch much

on the learners’ learning strategies in his error analysis

In “Lỗi ngữ pháp tiếng Anh thường gặp của người Việt” (Common English grammar errors in Vietnamese learners (translated), Do (2007) examined learners’ errors from the perspective of behaviorism theory, contrastive analysis, culture crossing, and learning strategies…and found five prominent errors characteristics

He believed that these results would contribute to the understanding of error study

The last error study we found is the work of Dinh’s (2008) In her study “An Analysis of the errors made by the second-year students at Hanoi University of Business and Technology in their writing papers”, Trang focused on grammar errors the students (100 students) made in their writing papers (10 tasks of sentence building) She concluded that the errors were very high and the main reasons for errors were from: (i) the influence of learners’ mother tongue and (ii) the learners’ mistakes (wrong awareness) of their language competence

In short, studies on errors made by Vietnamese learners have achieved significant results, opening avenues for further work Here in this intended study,

my effort will be made to categorize and systemize errors committed by students at

Vinh Thanh Secondary School, identify the reasons for errors and suggest appropriate ways to overcome

Error analysis is closely connected with language teaching and learning and has been the interest of not only the researchers but the teachers and learners of language Error analysis leads to a better understandings and awareness of what errors really are From that, the teachers and learners of language could identify, correct and avoid mistakes in their language manipulation

Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research questions

The research attempts to point out the common errors that the 9th graders at Vinh Thanh Secondary School make in their writing papers so that possible causes

of those errors can be identified for a better performance of students in writing The students will be supposed to work with writing in the next three years at high school and in their future studies or their future jobs With this view to direct the focus of the thesis, the three research questions which need to be dealt with here in this thesis are:

Question 1: What are the most common errors in 9th graders’ writing?

Question 3: What are the main causes of student’s errors?

Question 2: What should be done so that students could improve their writing?

3.2 Participants

The students to be chosen for my research will be:

The students of 9th graders at Vinh Thanh Secondary School

The level of English proficiency of the students to be chosen is approximately

at pre- intermediate level for almost all have already finished the 3 year or 6 year teaching curriculum in primary and secondary schools Moreover, by the time of the study, the students will have finished more than three years learning English as the pilot program At the pre-intermediate level, learners of English are working with more and more speaking and writing and they themselves have begun to stabilize their knowledge acquisition process And this can likely be the best time

for research on writing errors

3.3 Research Instruments

The methods to be used in this research paper are:

- Contrastive analysis: this is a means to indicate the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese, which helps give a rationale for the errors

- Quantitative analysis: this will be used for counting error types by using student writings (here prepositions, verb tenses) (through tables) It will also be used to show the rate of occurrence of each kind of error committed by the students

At the same time, we will apply what Corder (1967) named as “error analysis” in the thesis This is a fundamental basis for which the errors are handled and it is used to determine overtly idiosyncratic and covertly idiosyncratic errors in sentences

In order to help with deciding whether the students’ writing papers are right

or wrong, our contrastive analysis work will be based on the following works as authentic references of English grammar

(i) A Comprehensive Grammar Of The English Language, Randolph Quirk,

Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartik, Longman, London and New York, 1985

(ii) Longman English Grammar, L.G.Alexander, Longman, Ho Chi Minh

city, 1994 (translated by Đào Đăng Phong, Trần Văn Huân, Phạm Hoàng Thanh)

(iii) Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English, AS Hornby,

Oxford University Press, 2005

3.4 Data collection procedure

The research was conducted among 100 students at grade 9 in Vinh Thanh secondary school who just finished their third year and on the way to their next

years at High School They are from the 9th graders at school The researcher visited each of these classes two periods a week of 45 minutes each During two periods, the students had more than 30 minutes for activities before getting ready to write (paragraphs) and at least 30 or 40 minutes for writing practice at the lesson

“Language focus” for each unit It took the writer 8 weeks to collect more than 100 writing pieces from the students Then a random selection of 100 pieces was done again All the errors made by the students were checked and marked on the papers Finally, the data were worked out, analyzed and presented in the next chapter of this study

Chapter 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

4.1 Results of Error analysis on prepositions

According to R Quirk (1985, p 657), a preposition expresses a relation between two entities, one being that represented by the prepositional complement, the other by another part of the sentence In some of the books for English learning published in Vietnam, written by Vietnamese authors, a preposition is defined as “a word used to show the relationship of a noun or a pronoun to some other words in a sentence” (Le, 2004 p.192), or “a preposition is a word used to show the relation between a noun or a noun equivalent to other words in a clause” (Tran, 1999, p.7)

“We use a preposition before a noun, a noun phrase, a pronoun or a gerund to show the relationship between a person, an event or something with others” ( Dao, 1994, p.281)

In the English language, prepositions are abundant in numbers, in kind, and

their use is complicated They can be used to show: (a) time: in, at, on, up, out of,

over, during, from to, until, since, v.v., (b) place: at, in, on, under, above…etc…

(c) purpose : for, because of, for fear of, v.v., (d) direction: for, to, at, v.v., (e) means: like, unlike, as, with, by, v.v., (f) concession: without, for, against, in spite

of, v.v., (g) aspects: with reference to, such as, except, as well as, than, v.v Some

common prepositions like “at”, “in”, “on” can be used in some fifteen cases, and some others, once combined with verbs to make phrasal verbs or idioms, undergo a change in meaning that turns out to be quite different from the root, which usually confuses the learners (Do, 2007)

Classified in term of formation unit, the prepositions are divided into two main

groups: the simple prepositions and the compound prepositions The simple ones

are of one morpheme, like in, at, on, up, over, till, for, as, down, before, behind,

between, v.v and the compound ones, which make up a small number in

comparison to the former ones, are of two or more than morphemes, like according

to, thanks to, next to, apart from, along with, such as, in spite of, by means of, in charge of , v.v

In 100 pieces of writing (of about 100-150 words in length) in our survey,

more than 36 prepositions were used with 1.278 times of occurrence They include:

Simple prepositions (29): about, after, along, around, as, at, before, beside,

between, by, of, for, from, in, into, like, near, on, out, outside, over, since, to, under, unlike, until, up, with, without

Compound prepositions (07): according to, as well as, because of, from to,

in addition to, in front of, such as

Our survey shows that out of 1.278 times of using the prepositions, the students made 112 errors prepositions were misused 112 times, equal to 9%, i.e.in

9 times of use, one preposition will be misused

Table 4.1: Errors on prepositions Prepositions Total of

misused pres

Wrong pres Redundancy

of pres

Omission of pres

Most of the prepositions used in the students’s writing were those of simple prepositions Notably, the simple prepositions students used in their writing were the common ones whose meanings are just simple and easy to handle In use, these prepositions just denoted simple notions, namely time, direction, place, purpose and can be used almost in the same way as in both English and Vietnamese without any chances of making mistakes

Examples:

Two years ago, I went to HCM city on my holidays

I visited Ba Chua Xu Festival in Chau Doc

In the evening, we went for a walk along the riverside…

Compound prepositions, by contrast, were of very low frequency of occurrence (04 of them) in the surveyed writing pieces Once again, prepositions of simple notions like such as, in front of, as well as were favored while the others with complex meanings were not chosen

These above – mentioned phenomenon could possibly be explained by the fact that most of the students, as we found in their writing papers, had no breakthrough in their writing styles They have not gotten away from the usual writing tasks and exercise types designed in textbooks at secondary and high school, the focus of which were to deal with verb tenses As a result, most of the sentences were simple, or if any, were some compounds derived from the combination of short clauses When the students did not write long and complex sentences but preferred the short simple ones, the chance of using complex and compound prepositions would surely be smaller

For further information on how the students committed errors in using the prepositions, we would like to have some more clarification by discussing about the cases of most common mistaken prepositions

4.1.1 Errors on the preposition “in"

“In” appears at the highest frequency in the student’s writing papers with 157 times but unfortunately is ranked among the top mistaken prepositions (see table 4.1) Unlike other prepositions, “in” can be used in so many different cases It can

be normally used for time, place, manner or in most prepositional phrases

Examples:

I was very happy when I saw the sun in the morning

Umbrellas aren’t popular in my town

All of them are always in a rush

Beside these, “in” is used in many fixed impressions: in action, in addition,

in all, in any case, in brief, in business, in case of, in cash, in (the) circumstances,

in comfort, in comparison, in conclusion, in control, in danger, in debt, in demand,

in depth, in detail, in doubt, in (the) end, in fact, in full, in general, in half, in (a) hurry, in ink (pencil), in love, in a minute, in no time, in order, in pain, in person,

in practice, in public, in return, in short, in tears, in time, in trouble, in turn, in view of…

In other cases, “in” is used as an adverb and in such cases “in” can be used

with some of the verbs like: add sth in, fit sb/sth in, leave sb/sth in, paint sth in,

plug sth in, type sth in, write sth in, drive a snail in, smash sth in…

Because of the complexity and diversification in use, “in” is, in the first place, very easy for the learners and in the second place, turns to be very difficult,

so much that it confuses the learners Therefore, in usual cases, students made no mistakes but in others, mistakes were of course unavoidable in students’ writing The common reasons for the misuse of the preposition “in” here in students’ writing papers are that while students just paid much attention to the common use

of “in” i.e time, place, manner they have not tried on familiarizing themselves with some exceptions In his doctoral dissertation on common grammatical errors made

by Vietnamese learners, Do (2007) concluded that Vietnamese have usually been

instructed to use “at”, “on”, “in” for time expressions (“On Sunday mornings, I get

up at 9.00 and I go shopping Then in the evenings I sometimes go to the theater or the opera with a friend…”(p.75)

The consequence of such general instruction, together with their accommodating speculation, leads to the fact that the learners, at all the time, will automatically think of “at”, “on”, “in” every time they are supposed to express time, place, manner Thus, the redundancy or omission of “in” in students’ sentences, like these in the followings, is of no questions

She was very impressed with Dam Sen Park because it was beautiful and busy

Moreover, there were many games for her to play in there (Redundancy)

The thing that made me surprised was that all of my neighbors were boys

In fact, I was only a girl student in here (Redundancy)

I’ve had a lot of surprises since I visited in Ho Chi Minh city ( Redundancy) Especially when your friend is (in) trouble, your help is very important (Omission)

Next, chop the potatoes (in) half (Omission)

The redundancy of “in” the three examples above comes from the student’s

miscomprehension and confusion of prepositions and adverbs In English, “here” and “there” are adverbs of place and can be immediately preceded by an intransitive verb without any prepositions, and if any, the prepositions will come after them

Examples:

The first time I entered in Lap Vo town I was most impressed with the green

of trees

You can join in some clubs such as dancing clubs, sport clubs, badminton

clubs to make more friends

After the banana has been properly smashed, add in some sugar

For the case of wrongly used prepositions, the student’s mistakes are generated from the misconception of time location In Vietnamese, “vào lúc”,

“trong” usually introduce prepositional phrases of time without any distinction of long or short time period while in English, with more deliberate time distinction, prepositional phrases of time can begin with “at”, “on”, or “in” Normally, “at” indicates a short period of time, a point of time, i.e at mid night, at 7 o’clock,…

“on” is for longer period, day; “in” for months, seasons, years, centuries… The students, however, did not respect this specification and they just used “in” in all cases, which leads to errors