Những lỗi học sinh lớp 10 trường thpt thuận thành 2 gặp phải khi học viết bằng tiếng anh

Sources of writing errors I.3.3.1 Intralingual and developmental factors It is natural that language learners make errors during their learning process.. Importance of errors to teaching

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

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ĐỖ VĂN LẬP

ERRORS MADE BY TENTH GRADERS AT THUAN THANH II HIGH SCHOOL IN THEIR WRITINGS IN ENGLISH

NHỮNG LỖI HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TRƯỜNG THUẬN THÀNH II GẶP

PHẢI KHI VIẾT BẰNG TIẾNG ANH

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY

CODE: 601410

Hanoi, 2012

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

I.1 Approaches to teaching writing 5

I.1.2 Product approach 6

I.2 Major elements of writing 8

I.3.1 Previous studies on error analysis 10

I.3.3.1 Intralingual and developmental factors 13

I.3.5 Importance of errors to teaching and learning writing 15

CHAPTER TWO: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 18

II.2 Instrumentation 18

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III.1.1 The students‟ attitudes towards learning writing 21

III.1.2 Students‟ perceptions of writing tasks in the textbook 24

III.1.3 Students‟ attitudes towards the teacher‟s writing lessons 25 III.2 Errors analysis of students’ writing papers 25

III.2.1 Errors in language 26

III.2 1 1 Grammatical errors 26

III.2.1 2 Lexical errors 32

III.2.2 Errors in organization 34

CHAPTER FOUR: MAJOR FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 37

IV.1 Synthesis of the findings and discussions 37

IV.2 Implications 39

PART THREE: CONCLUSION 41

1 Conclusions 41

2 Limitations of the study 41

3 Suggestions for further study 42

REFERENCES 43

Appendix 3: Verb- related errors IV

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Appendix 9: The students’ writing papers

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PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

This section devotes to five introductory parts: rationale, objectives, scope, method and design of the study

1 Rationale for the study

Basically, language learning involves the proficiency in the four language skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking The four skills are divided into receptive skills (listening and reading) and productive skills (speaking and writing)

It is undeniable that writing plays an important role in English language learning

As one is aware, language is learned Consequently, the ability to produce good writing pieces is not an innate skill but has to experience a set of teaching and learning practices

It is possible to regard the writing ability as a type of communicative competence Writing is to convey messages to readers, but the conveyance of information from the writer to the audience is not always smooth In other words, writing effectively is not an easy task to master In principle, language learners must

be provided with input data before they produce the results In the same vein, students‟ learning to write usually stick to accumulate amount of writing knowledge over time such as vocabulary, grammatical structure, writing styles and genres Learners‟ achievements in writing may be assessed in terms of their self-practice and writing products and many other criteria depending on different learners, situations and requirements

Writing as a skill should not be confused with the act of writing The skill does not include writing separate sentences simply, but is writing series of sentences which have intended meaning and connections Therefore, writing will be under learners‟ control as long as they are taught with and learn through comprehensive and effective methods

The importance of writing is undeniable in language teaching and learning There are a large number of benefits that students can receive from teaching and learning writing The first one is that learning is an effective way to enhance

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grammatical constructions, vocabulary, and idioms whereby learners can improve their capacity of producing native-like writing pieces Secondly, writing means that learners have to engage in using language and making effort to express ideas, which activates learners to explore their own way to write effectively Thirdly, as writing and thinking have close relationship, writing forms a valuable part of language course (Raimes, 1983) It is certain that there are more reasons for language leaner not to neglect writing no matter how the skill is difficult dry

In order to realize learners‟ proficiency in writing, it is hard to find another more effective way than examine their writing papers Assessing their writing products can help the teacher measure how far learners travel in their language learning and what remains for them to strive for Not only writing pieces which have good organization, clear expression of ideas and are free of errors but also those containing full of errors and incoherent ideas provide the teacher with valuable sources of reference for teaching writing

There have been various studies regarding analysis of students‟ writing papers For instance, Darus (2009) implemented the analysis of English essays written by secondary school students in Malaysia The researcher finds that learners often make mistakes in grammatical items such as verb tense, preposition, and subject-verb agreement Mungungu (2010) conducted a study regarding the analysis

of papers written by ESL Namibian graders 12 The researcher identifies the four main categories of errors committed by such learners: tense, articles, prepositions and spelling The results found out by Mungungu are similar to what explored by Azimah (2005) who also pointed out the most common types of mistakes committed by learners are concerned with tense and prepositions These studies are conducted on different learners and learning environments

As a teacher at a high school, I find that my students are weak at learning writing Many of them cannot write a paragraph; if some can write, their papers contain many errors I decide to conduct this study to fulfill the gap in the literature

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and to explore what stands behind students‟ difficulties and what are their specific errors in their writing pieces

2 Objectives of the study

The study is conducted to explore the problems that the high school students encounter whereby I can deal with such disruptions and find out the effective teaching methods to improve students‟ writing ability In order to realize the goals, the following research questions need to have their answers:

1 What are the students’ attitudes towards learning writing?

2 What are the types of errors made by the tenth graders in writing an English paragraph?

3 Scope of the study

This study is limited to the exploration of students‟ errors in writing short paragraphs because in the English textbook 10, the highest requirement on them is

to write a short paragraph The researcher will classify types of mistakes by the learners and trace the root of their committing such errors I will analyze grammatical, lexical and mechanical errors Based on such analysis, I will figure out the solutions for the problems

4 Method of the study

The writer will conduct a research to examine which writing errors tenth graders often make and the causes of such errors A questionnaire is designed to elicit information of the students‟ attitudes towards learning writing The questions

in the questionnaire are both close and open-ended Based on the students‟ answers,

I will make some statistical data and do the analysis of such data In addition, students will do a writing test so that I can determine the real writing problems facing the students The requirement of the test is that learners write two paragraphs

of about 100 words I will collect and analyze errors in these papers

This is intended to be a quantitative and qualitative research study using compositions as a technique of eliciting data for the analysis, statistical counting as

in detail as the main part of the research

In chapter one, some of the issues related to writing and errors in writing will

be reviewed Regarding writing, main approaches to teaching writing and components of teaching writing will be reviewed Some of the main views regarding writing errors such as types, causes and contribution of errors to learning writing will be presented

In chapter two, the method of the study is presented It includes the thoroughly descriptions of subjects, instrument and data collection

The next chapter presents data analysis and discussions In this part, questionnaires and writing samples collected from students are analyzed to find out students‟ typical errors and their causes in order to recommend effective strategies for teaching paragraph writing

In the last chapter, major findings will be summarized and some discussions,

limitations, and suggestions are also presented

I.1 Approaches to teaching writing

I.1.1 Process approach

According to Trible (1996), process approaches lay emphasis on “writing activities which move learners from the generation of ideas and the collection of data through to the „publication‟ of a finished text.” However, the final product should not be the central focus, and the teachers play the role of facilitating students

to brainstorming ideas, plan, revise, and edit Badger and White (2000) supposes that writing in process approaches is mainly concerned with linguistic aspects such

as revising, editing, knowledge of grammar, vocabulary and text structure

Kroll (1990) affirms that student writers have to undergo a cyclonical approach during their writing tasks There are different views on the cyclonical process, for example, Trible (1996) proposes four typical stages that students have

to go through, which are: prewriting, composing/drafting, revising, and editing In this process, student writers may go back to the first stage of prewriting after they revise and edit their papers According to Steele (2004), there are eight stages for students to experience during their creation of writing pieces

 Brainstorming: Students may discuss to work out as many ideas as possible

to meet the requirements of the writing tasks

 Planning/structuring: Students figure out the most appropriate qualities of their ideas

 Mind mapping: Students arrange their ideas into a mind map, which reveals the hierarchical relationship of ideas and helps students to shape the text structure

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 Writing the first draft: Students produce the first draft based on the ideas they filter and organize Writing the first draft in the class can be done in pairs or groups

 Peer feedback: Students exchange their drafts with each other, and to some extent they can improve their own writing pieces

 Editing: Students will improve their own drafts based on peer feedback

 Final draft: Students produce the final draft after editing

 Evaluation and teacher feedback: Teachers will assess and provide feedback

on students‟ writing papers

As the process approach pays attention to linguistic knowledge and skills, it

“promote the development of language use” (Hasan, 2010) In addition, the approach offers students chances to release their potential to deal with rhetorical concerns of writing (Bazerman, 1980) However, there remain drawbacks with the process approach As the approach regards writing process the same irrespective of

“what is being said and who is writing…and may ignore the context in which writing happens” (Badger and White, 2000) Another disadvantage is that the process approach does not provide enough amount of input of academic discourse that can satisfy students‟ academic writing needs (Bizzell, 1982)

I.1.2 Product approach

Gabrielatos (2002) defines product approach as “a traditional approach in which students are encouraged to mimic a model text, usually presented and analyzed at an early stage.” Pincas (1982) has a more specific view when they consider writing in the product approach mainly concerning linguistic knowledge of vocabulary, grammar, syntax and cohesive devices In addition, Pincas suggests that

in the product approach students have to experience four stages in learning writing: familiarization (some features of a text become known to students), controlled writing, guided writing (students practice writing with more freedom) and free writing (they can write about authentic tasks) Steele (2004) also shares the view when affirming that the product approach is made up of four stages:

 Stage 3: students organize their ideas and are ready for free writing

 Stage 4: students use their own knowledge of vocabulary, structures, and syntax to produce their own pieces of writing

Summarizing, in the product approach, students are provided with model texts so that they can imitate and then produce their own writing pieces

I.1.3 Genre approach

There are various definitions of genre instruction, for example, Swales (1990) sees it “as a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes.” Hyland (2003) defines genre approach as

“abstract, socially recognized ways of using language.”

According to Badger and White (2000), although genre approach sees writing mainly related to linguistic aspects, the genre instruction also takes into account the social context in which writing happens In their view, the central focus

of genre approach is purpose, which means each type of writing is produced for different types of purposes This type of approach is impacted by some factors such

as the relationships between the writer and the readership, the organization pattern, and even the subject matter This is similar to the view that genre instruction lays more emphasis on the reader and the writing conventions acceptable to the audience (Munice, 2002)

There are three stages learners go through in the genre approaches:

 Stage 1: Learners are provided with a genre model for analysis

 Stage 2: They do the tasks with related language forms

 Stage 3: They create a short text

The genre approach remains some disadvantages, the first of which is that it overemphasizes on the reader while nearly neglecting learner expression (Swales,

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2000) Another drawback is that the genre approach in the combination of both knowledge of text and knowledge of culture, which is difficult for learners to comprehend (Paltridge, 2001) In short, genre-oriented approaches are not only concerned with language use but also the social context in which writing occurs

I.2 Major elements of writing

I.2.1 Cohesion

The purpose of a writer when writing a text is to make readers not only understand what the text is about but also make them realize how well the text is organized and how logical smaller units in the text are linked Cohesion is linguistically explicit and signals underlying semantic relationships between text elements Cohesion is represented by grammatical, logical and lexical bonds between elements of a text or discourse which give the readers the perception of clear compression of the given text or discourse

According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), cohesion is regarded as one of the most influential techniques in text analysis in terms of its current appeal in applied linguistics De Beaugrande and Dressler (1981) state that the presupposition of coherence is the basis of cohesion In order to make a text understandable and logically perceived there must be cohesive devices such as conjunctions, ellipsis, substitution, reference and lexical cohesion We can see that the explicit cohesive devices in texts can not only help a writer to express ideas clearly, but also to help a reader understand a text more easily If we strike out these cohesive ties in any text, the meaning of the text will not be changed, but the organization of the text will be less efficient, leading, in turn, to difficulties for the reader to achieve understanding

Halliday and Hasan (1976) classify cohesion in terms of reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexicon Nguyen Hoa (2000) has a different approach to cohesion when he categorizes it into grammatical, logical and lexical cohesion Though the way of categorization is diverse, the elements of cohesion are fully mentioned in their works

Cohesion contributes to the comprehension of discourse but it is inadequate

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Receivers may draw on their background knowledge to extract inferences to comprehend a discourse The main source of the background knowledge is taken from real experience, so it involves common procedures and activities social interactions, and spatial settings It is admitted that cohesion facilitates the interpretation of discourse; its combination with coherence is the necessary and sufficient condition for the total comprehension of discourse

I.2.2 Coherence

According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), coherence is an underlying

organizer that makes the words and sentences into a unified discourse that conforms

to a consistent world picture A coherent text is meaningful, unified, and gives the impression of "hanging together" Cutting (2002) suggests that coherence refers to the rhetorical devices, to ways of writing and speaking that bring about order and unity and emphasis The term coherence also reveals the relationship of the ideas in

a text or a discourse that link together to create a meaningful discourse This will help the reader to move easily from one sentence to another without feeling that there are gaps in the thought Therefore, the interconnection of ideas in the text, rather than the individual sentences, is crucial in the production of a coherent text Let us consider the following example:

John killed two children He was sentenced to death

In this example, there is no cohesive device but we can still understand due

to its coherence The second sentence is the consequence of the first one: because John killed people, he received the capital punishment

There have been various interpretations of coherence Some researchers

apply the term coherence to the concepts and relations underlying meaning of a text

or discourse Therefore, coherence represents both the interrelation between

elements of the discourse and the unity and continuity of meaning and context Linguistic messages are the necessary condition for our understanding of a discourse, but it will be a misconception to interpret discourse with total dependence on literal input (Brown and Yule, 1983)

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I.3 Errors in writing

I.3.1 Previous studies on error analysis

There were a good number of papers related to error analysis were published during 1970s and 1980s Error analysis is the identification, description and explanation of errors either in its spoken or written form The structuralist linguists view language as a set of mechanistic habits, and suppose that errors can be avoided

at the beginning of learning stage With the emergence of the generative- transformational theory, researchers, scholars and educators were more open to error committing, supposing that errors are natural part of learning process This positive attitude towards errors is especially important in the wake of the Communicative Language Learning and Teaching There had been many studies in language teaching and learning done by scholars like Corder (1967), Richard (1971) and Selinker (1992) By classifying errors that learners made, researchers could learn a great deal about the second language acquisition process by inferring the strategies that the learners were adopting For learners themselves, errors are

„indispensable‟ since the making of errors can be regarded as a device the learner uses in order to learn (Selinker, 1992)

In Vietnam, there has been an attempt made by researchers to contribute to the treasure of error analysis Binh (2002) conducted a study on the error analysis

on the use of cohesive devices in writing by the first-year English major students at Thang Long University She presented a large number of errors regarding the use of cohesive devices; in her view, the most significant outcome of the study is that she was aware of students‟ difficulties in using cohesive devices to create their own writing contexts Ninh (2008) investigated into errors regarding multi-verbs in English commonly made by students at Nguyen Hue gifted High school She pointed out a great number of errors related to verb phrases and phrasal verbs committed by her students; and she also suggested error corrections as one of the effective way to deal with the problem Contributing to the picture of error analysis

is the study conducted by Anh (2009) on common errors in the use of English

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articles made by first year students at Hung Yen Industrial College In her study, she claimed that lack of preposition is one of the most common errors; other than that, her students often used articles wrongly In general, many of the studies conducted by Vietnamese researchers focus on a grammatical aspect such as cohesive devices, articles, or verb use

I.3.2 Errors vs mistakes

The distinction between “errors” and “mistakes” has been given by many linguists though it is impossible to indicate any sharp differentiation According to Klassen (1991), the term “error” is used to refer to a form of structure that a native speaker deems unacceptable because of the lack of language competence Chomsky (1965) initiated the distinction when he suggested that there were two types of errors: one resulting from verbal performance factors, the other from inadequate language competence Later, Corder (1967) named the former mistakes and the later error Mistakes are said to be unsystematic in nature and correctable when attention

is drawn to its producers Errors, on the other hand, refer to any systematic deviations from the rules of the target language system In short, errors are caused

by lack of knowledge about the target language or by incorrect hypothesis about it; mistakes are caused by temporary lapses of memory, confusion, and carelessness and so on If we are uncertain whether one of the learners has made an error or a mistake, the crucial test must be: can he correct himself when challenged? if he can, probably it is a mistake; if not, it is an error

I.3.3 Types of errors

The achievement of language learning and teaching may not be flawless as thought The imperfection derives from the difference between the expected output

of the language learning and the real result of such process The teacher often requires and expects learners to make as few errors as possible, or even no errors In fact, learners commit errors of different extent and levels Due to the variety of errors, it is need to classify errors in specific groups

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The categorization of errors is based on various criteria and aspects If the learner commits errors due to the first language interference, interlingual errors will occur In the mean time, intralingual errors are made irrespective of first language interference Corder (1973) has a different way to classify errors In his view, it is the expressive and receptive behavior in language learning that cause expressive and receptive errors He also asserts that teachers often hold the belief that learners tend to make more productive errors than receptive errors

On the basis of linguistic levels, errors can be categorized into grammatical, discourse, phonological and lexical errors Grammatical errors lay emphasis on grammatical accuracy rather than fluency, which may be obstacles for communication proficiency The immediate teacher correction is not necessary if the purpose of the language course is to provide communicative proficiency Discourse errors are those related to the non-observance of the target language conventions and they are the manifestations of the leaner cultural and pragmatic knowledge of language use Phonological errors are related to incorrect pronunciation, word stress, and intonation Lexical errors occur when learners use wrong word class or inappropriate words

According to Touchie (1986), there are two types of errors: performance errors and competence errors Learners commit performance errors when they are hasty or careless Errors of this type are usually not so serious and learners can correct themselves with some attempt On the contrary, competence errors are committed due to inadequate learning These errors are more serious because learners will take time to accumulate and improve their language knowledge

Burt and Kiparsky (1974, cited in Touchie, 1986) differentiates between local errors and global errors Local errors include noun and verb inflections, the use of grammatical items Local errors do not have negative impacts on the communication process as well as the comprehension of the meaning of utterances

or statements Therefore, local errors are not very serious Global errors involve the

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use wrong word order and meaning; therefore, they may cause obscurity and unintelligibility, which may disrupt and hinder communication

I.3.4 Sources of writing errors

I.3.3.1 Intralingual and developmental factors

It is natural that language learners make errors during their learning process Errors may derive from various sources There have been many explanations for errors committed by errors Richards (1974) proposes five causes of errors: 1) overgeneralization, 2) incomplete application of rules, 3) false concepts hypothesized, and 4) ignorance of rule restriction To make it clear, the four classifications above are explained briefly below

Overgeneralization

In case of overgeneralization, learners apply strategies they have learned to new learning situations More specifically, they base on their past learning experience to produce deviant structures in the target language There are two main reasons for overgeneralization; the first one is that learners want to diminish linguistic complexities, and the other one is the superficial similarities of structures

in the target language

Overgeneralization is also linked with redundancy reduction This happens when learners find that some grammatical aspects are unimportant in conveying meaning This occurrence is popular in descriptive writing which learners often use simple present tense instead of past tense though the actions happen in the past

Incomplete application of rules

The ability to produce acceptable utterances and statements represents the extent to which learners apply rules to doing so One of the common difficulty facing learners is the use of question forms; a statement is sometimes a question Responses to questions require grammatical rules Foreign and second language learners may pay attention to communicative aspects of language, so they often ignore grammatical forms In other words, the leaner needs to communicate in other languages may exceed the needs to produce grammatically correct sentences

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An example of incomplete application of rules can be seen in the question forms Teachers‟ use of questions in classroom is not to find out something but to elicit sentences The use of question may also be unrelated to the skills it is meant to establish

False concepts hypothesized

There are errors arising from faulty comprehension of distinctions in the target language In other words, learners cannot distinguish different grammatical forms There are two main explanations for errors of this type The first one is the leaner‟s‟ poor gradation of teaching items The other is connected with a contrastive approach to language teaching Instead of introducing language structure as a whole for learners to follow, the contrastive approach lays excessive emphasis on points of difference, which may confuse learners Effective ways to minimize learners‟ confusion are choosing non-synonymous contexts for related words and phrases and not using excises based on contrast and transformation

Ignorance of rule restriction

Another cause of error is the non-observance of restrictions of existing structures In this case, learners produce deviant structures with inappropriate application of rules The omission of rules is a type of generalization because leaners apply their previously acquired rules to new situation There are two main reasons for rule restrictions errors The first one is analogy (the creation of deviant structures from previous experience of English), and the other one is the rote learning of rules

Teaching materials and methods

Errors made by learners can sometimes be caused by teachers themselves Errors appear during the teaching process is the representation of ineffective teaching methods In particular, teachers‟ hypercorrection and presentation order during their teaching prompts learners to make errors It is interesting that some teachers are influenced by learners‟ errors during long teaching process (Touchie, 1986) In the case that teachers select inappropriate teaching materials with little

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care, learners will be exposed to materials containing incorrect knowledge

I.3.3.2 Interlingual transfer

Language transfer, also called linguistic interference, is the influence of the learner‟s first language in the second language There are two types of transfer; if the result of transfer is correct expressions in the target language, it is positive transfer On the other hand, if the linguistic transfer leads to incorrect production in the target language, it is negative transfer

Language learners can make errors due to interlingual transfer Interlingual errors, also called transfer or interference errors, are caused by learners‟ first language Error analysis does not consider interlingual errors as “the persistence of old habits, but as signs that the learner is internalizing and investigating the system

of the new language” (Erdogan, 2005) In his view, interlingual errors may appear

at phonological, morphological, grammatical, and lexical levels

At any levels, Touchie (1986) supposes that hypercorrection is a cause of learners‟ errors In his view, the teacher‟s considerable efforts to help learners to write and speak correctly happen to become learners‟ obsession For example, the teacher wants learners to pronounce the sound /p/ correctly; learners may make errors with the sound /b/ in the long run due to lasting and regular practice of pronouncing the sound /p/

I.3.5 Importance of errors to teaching and learning writing

Corder (1973) affirms that there are two main schools of thought regarding language errors in the area of teaching methodology The first school is that the teaching method is the decisive factor that governs learners‟ possibility of making errors If our goal is to achieve a perfect teaching method, then there will be no chances of learners‟ committing errors; it is the ineffectiveness of teaching methods that result in the occurrence of errors The other view is that making errors is a natural thing and is unavoidable in language learning In practice, the second thought seems popular or even ubiquitous in language learning setting Thus, if

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making errors is natural, the question of seriousness of the action is not as important

as the significance that such errors bring about

Contributions of error analysis to pedagogy

According to Richards (1974), researchers conduct studies related to errors to find out strategies employed by learners in language teaching, to identify the causes

of errors, and to explore learners‟ common difficulties to facilitate language learning and teaching process In fact the third aim is the consequence of the first two aims Learners‟ errors provide the evidence of the language they are using at some particular point in the course (Corder, 1973) Therefore, learners‟ errors have been in the interests of teachers, syllabus designers, and test developers As a result, the contribution of error analysis to language teaching and learning can be regarded from the aspects of language teachers and syllabus designers (Erdogan, 2005)

Contribution of error analysis to foreign language teachers

The teacher is the one who is well aware of types, causes and frequency of errors that their learners make The analysis of such errors in a systematic way will tell the teacher the learner‟s progress in the learning process and the remaining jobs

to be done (Corder, 1973) Based on what the learner has achieved, the teacher will

be able to explore the needs and weaknesses of learners whereby appropriate teaching strategies are employed Though errors are representation of learners‟ performance, the teacher should notice that errors are signs to measure the adequacy

of teaching methods Consequently, the teacher needs to adapt the teaching styles in

accordance with learners‟ capacity to minimize the chances of making errors

Contribution of error analysis syllabus designers

Syllabus design should not be done arbitrarily but based on studies related to specific criteria and factors such as age group, needs, and learner goals The importance of syllabus design in language course cannot be denied Errors are the source of evidence for researchers to explore “how language is learned or acquired, what strategies or procedures the learner is employing in his discovery of the language” (Corder, 1973) The analysis of learner errors will help to indentify

17 learners‟ linguistic difficulties and their needs at some stage of language learning process; therefore, it assists to construct materials suitable to learners

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CHAPTER TWO: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter describes the participants, instruments of data collection,

procedure of data collection, and methods of data analysis of the study in detail

II.1 Participants

The number of participants in the study is fifty; they were chosen randomly from five classes; each class has ten students taking part in the study Below is the

specific information of the participants

Information of students Number of responses Percentage

Table 1: students’ general information in the survey

The number of students participating in the survey is fifty; the age of the participants in the study are regarded as homogenous in with 44 students at the age

of 15 (88%), and the rest at the age of 16 They all study in the same class in which female students account for 62%, nearly double the number of male students Until the time of the survey, they all have been studying English for nearly five years Although those students have been studying English for nearly five years, their

English is at the pre-intermediate level

II.2 Instrumentation

II.2.1 Survey questionnaire

The questionnaire is designed to explore students‟ attitudes towards learning writing skill The questionnaire is divided into three parts The first part contains questions to find out the students‟ general interests in learning writing The second

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part will focus on the consideration of students‟ perceptions of writing tasks in the English textbook 10 The last part of the questionnaire is intended to find out students‟ attitudes towards the writing teacher

II.2.2 Writing tests

In the English text book for grader 10, there are sixteen units; each unit contains a writing section From unit 1 to unit 12, writing sections mainly focus on grammatical exercises and sentence completion The last four units require the students to write a short paragraph based on the given instructions Consequently, writing paragraph is the last and highest requirement for the graders 10 to fulfill I

have decided to ask my students to write about the following topics:

 Describe one of the most favorite films you have seen

 Describe Hanoi capital city

The students are given 45 minutes to write the two topics; the length of each paragraph is about 100 words The reasons I choose the two topics are that these are topics in the textbook they find interesting and appropriate, and that they have more chance to select the topic they prefer The both topics contain hints and organization It means that the students only need to follow the organization given

in the textbook and produce their ideas As a consequent, I will analyze the students‟ writing papers focusing both on language errors and organization errors Language errors will be examined in terms of grammatical errors, lexical errors and mechanical errors

II.3 Data collection procedure

 Firstly, the questionnaire is piloted the first time to see if there is any unexpected problem It will be given to 20 students to fill in

 The questionnaire is then adapted and officially given to the 50 tenth graders

to finish

 A 45-minute writing test is designed for the students to complete

 The survey questionnaire and the writing papers will be collected and analyzed

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II.4 Methods of data analysis

This research was conducted as both a quantitative and qualitative study Regarding the exploration of students‟ attitudes towards learning writing in English,

I will deliver questionnaire to them to fill in The answers given by the students will

be counted and subject to comparison so that real problems can be determined As for analysis of students‟ writing errors, the errors will measured in terms of the frequency of occurrence in various categories and percentages of the different kinds

of errors in the total number of errors were established from this occurrence frequency The techniques employed in the analysis process are: identifying, labeling, classifying, and transferring to indexes The procedure was carried out with four steps First of all, all of the papers will be read carefully, errors in the writing papers will be identified and marked Then, an interpretation will be retrieved to reconstruct what the subjects intended to express in their writing in order to decide if the form or structure was really erroneous Finally, occurrence frequency counting is to be made for each type of errors The outcomes will be

compared with each other

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CHAPTER THREE: DATA ANALYSIS

This chapter will present the results of the study and the analysis of the data collected

III.1 Survey Questionnaire Analysis

In order to find out the learners‟ attitudes towards learning writing skill, a survey questionnaire was designed concerning three aspects: learners‟ general interests in writing skill, their feelings of tasks in the English textbook 10, and their

attitudes towards the writing teacher

III.1 1 The students‟ attitudes towards learning writing

It is necessary to find out how the students perceive learning writing as their attitudes can affect their learning activities Five questions were designed for that purpose

Question 1: Is writing skill important to you?

Item Very important Important Not so important Unimportant

Table 1: the students’ perceptions of the importance of writing skill

As can be seen from the table, more than half of the students considered writing an important skill, with 54% The percentage of those who suppose that writing is of great importance to them accounts for 28% This percentage is double the percentage of the students who regard writing not so important Only two students saw writing unimportant As such, more than two thirds number of students realized the importance of writing to themselves It can be inferred from the table that only a few students ignore the importance of writing skill

Question 2: How much time do you usually spend practicing writing at home?

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Item 0 hour About 1 hour About 2 hours More than 2 hours

Table 2: Amount of time students spent learning writing at home

The table shows that more than half students spent about one hour to do writing tasks at home Up to 38% of the students paid no attention to writing homework Only two students “worked hard” as they spent about two hours fulfilling the writing tasks at home It can be inferred from the two tables that students consider learning writing about one hour at home to be important It would

be hard to explain why many students (38%) do not learn to write at home whilst more than 70% of the students admit the importance of writing skill It is possible that students suppose writing is important to someone else, not to themselves

Question 3: Are you focused in writing lessons?

Table 3: Students’ extent of focus in writing class

The table shows that half the class tried to listen to the teacher in writing lessons The rest seemed not to pay much attention to learn this skill in class It seemed that those students who are focused in writing lessons find writing skill important and spend a certain amount of time learning writing at home

Table 4: Number of students raising their voice in writing class

Only nearly one thirds of the students expressed their ideas in writing lessons The common reasons that these students explain are that they find it interesting to learn writing, they felt it not very difficult to write, and they wanted to gain oral marks More than 30 students sitting silent in writing class is a noticeable number The implication of this is that only the writing teacher and a few students take part in writing activities Most of the students explained that their silence traced back to the fact that they knew little of writing It can be inferred from the tables 2 and 3 that those students who make little effort in writing class hardly any express their ideas in writing lessons

Question 5: Which writing components do you find most difficult?

Item Contents Grammar Organization Punctuation Vocabulary

Table 5: The most difficult components facing the students

As can be seen from the table, grammar and vocabulary are the most difficult components to the learners Contents, organization, and punctuation are also the concerns of the students As the students are allowed to choose only one item from table, it would be hard to determine components the students find difficult other than the most challenging one

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III.1.2 Students‟ perceptions of writing tasks in the textbook

The writing tasks in the textbook are assessed based on the four main criteria: students‟ interests in the tasks, authenticity of the tasks, complexity of the tasks, and variety of the tasks

Strongly Disagree

Table 6: Students’ perceptions of the writing tasks in the textbook

As can be seen from the table, more than half the students found writing topics in the textbooks interesting, only 10% of them are not interested in such writing topics In terms of authenticity, only about 20% of the students perceived writing tasks as real life topics; nearly half of them showed their hesitation in determining the authenticity of writing tasks When assessing the complexity of writing tasks, nearly 60% of the students agreed that writing tasks in the textbook are complex In terms of writing task variety, there are three groups with relatively similar percentage

The table also shows that the interest and complexity of the writing topics emerge as the two noticeable factors It is not paradoxical that writing tasks are both interesting and complex because some students may find it interesting, others find it complex It can be inferred that students are focused in writing class because the writing tasks are interesting and authentic to some extent and that many students did not raise their voice in writing lessons as a result of complex writing tasks

Q 11: I want my papers to be read and

corrected by the teacher 8% 24% 42% 26%

Q 12: I am anxious about writing after

corrections if there are so many mistakes 20% 18% 38% 24%

Q 14: I feel more confident after getting good

Table 7: Students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ writing lessons

The table shows that teacher guidance is very effective in helping the students to write: nearly 80% of the learners express their agreement This implies that current teaching techniques are appropriate to most of the students and that the students have positive attitudes towards learning writing However, only 32% of the students were willing to submit their writing papers to the teacher for reading and corrections Others were hesitant to ask for teacher comments possibly because they found it unimportant to do so or they have not completed their assigned writing tasks From the question 11 and question 12, it can be inferred that teaching and learning writing activities are not interactive It is warning that up to more than 60%

of the students are afraid to continue their writing in case their writing papers contain a large number of errors

III.2 Error analysis of the students’ writing papers

After the students finished the two exams, I collected and analyzed errors they committed in those papers The errors then were identified and categorized and the most typical and common errors were presented In general, the students made errors both in using language and organization