An investigation the common errorrs in paragraph writing made by the second year students at vinh universite and some suggested solutions

vinh university Foreign language department= =   = = Phạm Thị Quyên An investigation into the common errors in paragraph writing made by the second year students at Vinh University an

vinh university Foreign language department

= =   = =

Phạm Thị Quyên

An investigation into the common errors in paragraph writing made by the second year students at Vinh

University and some suggested solutions

(một cuộc điều tra về lỗi của sinh viên năm thứ hai ở

tr-ờng đại học vinh trong việc học viết đoạn văn

và một số gợi ý)

graduation thesis Field: methodology

Vinh, May 2010 Introduction I.1 Reasons of the study

English has been considered as an international language It is widely used and it isbecoming a more and more important subject in schools and colleges However, it is noteasy to learn English; students usually face errors in using it, especially in writing skill.The author chooses the topic “An investigation into the common errors in paragraphwriting made by the second year students at Vinh University and some suggestedsolutions” because of the some following reasons

Firstly, among four basic language skills, writing plays a very important role inlearning and paragraph writing is the first main part in the curriculum of students in

university The study is chosen to investigate the attitudes of students towards writingskill and paragraph writing as well

Secondly, the structure of entrance University tests is focused much on grammaraspects, so that students have few opportunities to practice writing paragraphs Moreover,writing skill is not really paid attention to in many schools in Vietnam Therefore,students do not have much experience in writing skill They feel confused and makeerrors in writing paragraph In this thesis, the author points out the errors rate in eachcategory

Thirdly, writing has been considered as a difficult and boring subject by secondlanguage learners The entrance quality of university students is lower and lower in therecent years It takes much time to make progress in this skill The author wants to dosomething to help students overcome and avoid making some common written Englisherrors by giving out some suggested solutions

Last but not least, the author herself will be a language teacher in the future Theauthor considers this study as a good opportunity to improve her written English and getsome useful experience for her teaching job

The above reasons have encouraged the author to carry out the survey titled “Aninvestigation into the common errors in paragraph writing made by the second yearstudents at Vinh University and some suggested solutions” The author hopes that it maycontribute to the quality of teaching and learning writing skill in general and paragraphwriting in particular

I.2 Aims of the study

The study is conducted with the following aims:

 Investigate the attitudes of students toward writing skill and paragraph writing

 Analyze the types of errors occurring in paragraph writing of second year students

The aims of this study are to find out the answers to the three following researchquestions:

1 What are students’ attitudes towards writing skill in general and paragraphwriting in particular?

2 What is the current situation of errors in paragraph writing of the second yearstudents at Vinh University?

3 What suggestions can be made in the learning and teaching process in order tohelp students improve their paragraph writing?

I.4 Methods of the study

To complete this study, the following methods were employed:

 Analytic and synthetic methods

 Comparative and contrastive methods

 Descriptive methods

Firstly, the author used analytic and synthetic methods to review the theoriesrelated to the matter concerned to form a framework for the analysis, and then collectedbooks and materials to find and select necessary information

Secondly, the data collected from the survey were analyzed and sorted to make aclear distinction about the students’ attitudes towards writing skill and paragraph writing.Besides, the results of collected data were also used to analyze the students’ commonerrors of paragraph writing

Finally, descriptive methods were used to make a description about some suitableways for improving the teaching and learning of paragraph writing

I.5 Scope of the study

The focus of the study is to investigate common errors in paragraph writing made

by second year students at Vinh University So the scope is limited to the teaching andlearning of paragraph writing only The subjects of the study are the 2nd year EFL students

of writing at FLD, Vinh University

I.6 Design of the study

Apart from acknowledgements, tables of contents and appendices, this paper isstructured in three main parts: introduction, investigation and conclusion

The first part ‘Introduction’ presents the rationale, aims, objectives, researchquestions, scope of the study and also its design.

The second part ‘Development’ includes three chapters Chapter I reviews the

related literature which includes some discussions on paragraphs, errors and error

analysis Chapter II is the main part of the study (the survey) that includes the description

of the subjects, setting, data collection instruments and procedures It also presents the

results collected from the questionnaire and the analysis of errors made by students fromtheir homework papers and midterm tests in the form of tables and figures This is

followed by the discussion and analysis of the data Chapter III includes the implications

and suggestions for teaching paragraph writing

The third part “Conclusion” summarizes the main points and the achievement ofthe study Recommendations for further research are also made in this part

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW1.1 Paragraphs

definition of a paragraph by Rook G.M (1889) is: “a paragraph is a group of sentenceswhich logically develops one subject”

Alice Savage and Masoud Shafiei (2007) consider a paragraph as a group ofsentences about a topic A paragraph is a self-contained unit of a discourse in writing

dealing with a particular point or idea Paragraphs consist of one or more sentences Thestart of a paragraph is indicated by beginning on a new line Sometimes the first line isindented A written work - be it an essay or a story - is about an idea or concept An essayexplains it; a story narrates it To help the readers understand and enjoy it, the explanation

or narration is broken down into units of text, the paragraph In an essay, each paragraphexplains or demonstrates a key point or thought of the central idea, usually to inform orpersuade In fiction, each paragraph serves to advance the plot, develop a character,describe a scene or narrate an action - all to entertain the readers All paragraphs supporteach other, leading the readers from the first idea to the final resolution of the writtenwork

1.1.2 Parts of paragraph

According to Alice Savage and Masoud Shafiei (2007), a paragraph has three mainparts: the topic sentence, the supporting sentences and the concluding sentence

1.1.2.1 The topic sentence

Every good paragraph has a topic sentence, which clearly states the topic andcontrolling idea of the paragraph It is a complete sentence It is usually (not always) the

first sentence in the paragraph

A topic sentence is the most important sentence in the paragraph It brieflyindicates what the paragraph is going to discuss For this reason, the topic sentence is ahelpful guide to both the writer and the reader The writer can see what information toinclude and what information to exclude The reader can see what the paragraph is going

to be about and is, therefore, better prepared to understand it

There are three important points to remember about the topic sentence:

(i) A topic sentence is a complete sentence; that is, it contains a subject, a verb, and

complement Eg: The advantages of living in a big city (not a complete sentence)

(ii) A topic sentence is the most general statement in the paragraph because it gives only

the main idea It does not give both any specific details and too general ideas Eg: Living

in a big city is good for you (too general)

(iii) A topic sentence has two essential parts: the topic and the controlling idea The topic

names the subject or the main idea of the paragraph The controlling idea makes a specificcomment about the topic, which indicates what the rest of the paragraph will say about thetopic

Ex: There are three main advantages of living in a big city.

Controlling idea Topic

In this example, the topic is named: living in a big city A specific comment is

then made about the topic: they should be optional for three advantages From thissentence, the reader immediately knows that the rest of the paragraph will discuss threeadvantages of the living in a big city, (good education, health service, )

1.1.2.2 The supporting sentences

Supporting sentences add information about the topic and the controlling idea The

writer must develop that subject so that the reader understands your ideas There are

different ways to develop and clarify a topic sentence:

(i) Example: is a specific instance that explains a more general idea The writer

can remind their readers that they are giving examples by using signal words or phrases

such as: for example, for instance, like, such as…so on.

(ii) Detail: is a particular or characteristic of a whole thing or a whole idea Details

are frequently used in a description

(iii) Anecdote: is a short, entertaining account of some happening It is usually

personal

(iv) Fact: is something which is objectively verifiable A statistics is a numerical

fact which presents significant information about a given topic

1.1.2.3 The concluding sentence

The concluding is like the topic sentence because both are general statements.However, the topic sentence is usually the first sentence, a general statement that

introduces the topic to be discussed in the paragraph The concluding sentence is also ageneral statement, but is the last sentence and ends the paragraph

A concluding sentence is not absolutely necessary; in fact, a concluding is notcustomary for every paragraph in a multi-paragraph essay However, in a singleparagraph, a concluding sentence is helpful to the reader because it signals the end of theparagraph and because it is the reminder of the important points In facts, the concluding

sentence can be written like the topic sentence but in different words E.g In conclusion, gold is treasured not only for its beauty but also for its utility.

In addition to restating the main idea, the concluding sentence may warn thereader, make a prediction, or give an opinion about the topic

The concluding sentence serves three purposes:

(i) It signals the end of the paragraph

(ii) It summarizes the main points of the paragraph

(iii) It gives a final comment on your topic and leaves the reader with the mostimportant ideas to think about

The writer should begin the concluding sentence with a signal phrase that tells the

readers that the paragraph is completed such as: finally, in conclusion, in summary, therefore, thus, as a result, indeed, so on.

1.1.3 How is the English Paragraph developing?

According to Carol Pemberton (2000), in English two types of paragraphs arelogical and direct: Inductive paragraph and deductive paragraph

A deductive paragraph has three parts that provide direct logical development.These three parts appear in the paragraph as shown in figure 1:

Figure 1: The three parts of a deductive paragraph

Inductive pattern paragraphs place the topic sentence at the end The body

of the paragraph introduces first one, then two, and often more pieces of relatedinformation Together, these ideas share common concepts that lead to a usuallypredictable conclusion or observation at the end This conclusion or observationconstitutes the topic sentence The three parts of an inductive paragraph are shownthe following figure:

(i) Descriptive paragraph: the writer describes a person, or thing, or a place so that

the reader can picture it in his or her mind

(ii) Example paragraph: the writer gives examples so that the reader clearly

understands the writer’s idea about a topic The effective example should bespecific and relate clearly to the controlling idea

(iii) Process paragraph: the writer explains how to do something step by step The

reader should be able to follow the steps to get a desired result

(iv) Opinion paragraph: the writer presents an opinion and tries to persuade readers

that the opinion is a good one

(v) Narrative paragraph: the writer tells a story that sets the background for an

event, describes the event, and often comments on the event

(vi) Cause and effect paragraph: the writer attempts to show how events are

influenced by or caused by others factors

(vii) Comparison and contrast paragraph: the writer develops a topic by examining its

similarities or differences to another thing, process, or state Comparisonemphasizes the similarities, and contrasts the differences

1.3 Errors in language learning process

1.3.1 Definitions of errors

Errors play an important part in English process because they are analyzed toprovide learners with a notice and a try to avoid making them So far, definitions of errorare not the same among different researchers

The answers to the question “what is an error in language learning?” can be understood more fully when the comparison between “an error” and “a mistake” is

made

Though both errors and mistakes are something wrong in learning process of alanguage, there are differences between them which are helpful for us to understand thedefinition of error better

Edge (1989:9-11) claimed that there are three types of mistakes including errors.They are slips, errors and attempts:

(i) Slips are caused by carelessness The learners can self-correct them ifpointed out and give the chance

For example: *She left school two years ago and now works in a factory.

(ii) Errors are wrong forms that the students can not self-correct even ifthese wrong forms are pointed out However, “the teacher can organize what thestudents wanted to produce and think that the class is familiar with the correctform”

For example: *although the people are very nice, but I don’t like it here.

(iii) Attempts are almost incomprehensible mistakes, and the students have noideas how to structure what they want to mean or their intended meaning andstructure are not clear to the teacher

For example:*this, no, really, for always my time and then I happy.

(Edge, 1989:11)

In his opinion, the learners themselves can self-correct as slips are caused bycarelessness not by the lack of knowledge of a language In contrast, the learnersthemselves can not correct errors and attempts since they are caused by the lack ofknowledge

To distinguish errors and mistakes, H D Brown (1994:2000) defined that an error

is “noticeable deviation from the adult grammar of a native speaker, reflecting the language competence of the learner” And mistake is defined as “a performance error that is either a random guess or a “slip” in that it is failure to utilize a known system correctly”.

inter-Ellis Rod (1997) shares the same point of view: “errors reflect gaps between learner’s knowledge” They occur because the learner does not know what is correct Mistakes reflect occasional lapses in performance They occur because in a particular instance, the learner is unable to perform what he or she knows”.

As stated in the definitions above, both errors and mistakes are deviations in theusage They are incorrect use in target language made by the second language learners.However, errors and mistakes differ in the cause If errors are caused by lack ofknowledge, mistakes are caused by lack of intention, fatigue, and carelessness Thusteachers do not usually need to correct mistakes, errors are more serious, especially errors

in language already learnt in class

There are many ways of classifying the types of errors In this study, errors arecategorized into six types:

(i) Grammatical error: can be the learners’ wrong use of structures, tenses, articles,

nouns, and so on

e.g.: That morning, when I was asking my mother for 5 VND someone rings the bell.

I can meeting some idols or visiting famous football grounds

(ii) Lexical error: (1) the student used wrong word or word choice in a paper, (2)

the student could not find out a correct word to express ideas

e.g.: I can watch some idols or see famous football grounds

(iii) Punctuation error: refers to the case: the students use punctuations wrongly or

writing paragraph without punctuations

e.g.: “otherwise, USA is famous for many beautiful places”

(iv) Spelling error: refers to students write the words incorrectly as the original

ones

e.g.: Moreovere, people are very friendly

It is cetain that the poor are alway unhappy

(v) Content error: refers to reader’s refusal to the meaning of the students’

writing about irrelevant information

(vi) Style and culture error: refers to the case that students (1) use the spoken style

in written style and (2) students’ writing is not accepted in other culture environment

e.g.: Come here, first of al, I want to say about people (My data)

(vii) Form error: refers to the case that student use the wrong structure of a paragraph

1.3.2 The significance of learners’ errors in the process of teaching and learning

Corder (1981) states that learners’ errors are significant to teachers, researchersand especially to learners

“A learner’s errors, then, provide evidence of the system of the language that

he is using (i.e has learned) at a particular point in the course (and it must berepeated that he is using some system, although it is not yet the right system).They are significant in three different ways First to the teacher, in that they tellhim, if he undertakes a systematic analysis, how far towards the goal the learner

has progressed and, consequently, what remains for him to learn Second, theyprovide to the research evidence of how language is learnt or acquired, whatstrategies or procedures the learner is employing in his discovery of thelanguage Thirdly (and in a sense this is their most important aspect) they areindispensable to the learner himself, because we regard the making of errors as

a device the learner uses in order to learn It is a way the learner has of testinghis hypotheses about the nature of the language he is learning The making oferrors then is a strategy employed both by children acquiring their mothertongue and those learning a second language.”

(Corder, 1981:11)

Learners’ errors tell the teacher whether their students have progressed or not,which level or stage their students at and learners’ errors are also helpful for the teacher todecide what he should teach in the course Moreover, to the learners, their own errors are

really useful for them to develop their target language as “making errors as a device the learner uses in order to learner” (Corder, 1981:11)

1.3.3 Errors analysis

Error analysis, a branch of applied linguistics, emerged in the sixties, is the studyand analysis of errors made by second language learners Its primary focus is on theevidence that learners’ errors provide with an understanding of underlying process of

second language study Corder (1974) says, “By describing and clarifying his errors in linguistics terms we build up the picture of the features of the language which are causing him learning problems” Therefore, error analysis plays an important part in improving

the learning and teaching quality

Error analysis is carried out in five successive stages as mentioned by Corder(1974) These are:

- Identification: to recognize an error, one should first of all know what “error” and

“mistake”

- Classification: classifying errors can help us to diagnose learner’s learning

problems at any stage of their development

- Explanation: in this step, we have to explain why learners make errors and the

causes of errors

- Evaluation: basing on the data of survey, we will know how many percents of

students do well or badly

- Correction: how should the teacher correct the students? What kinds of feedback

should they give? Does each of error need to be treated?

Error analysis has an important role in finding these answers to the questions

1.3.4 Causes of errors

There are many causes leading to errors in foreign language learning According toRichard (1974:174), errors produced by learners can be inter-lingual, intra-lingual anddevelopment errors The inter-lingual errors are errors caused by the interference of thelearner’s mother tongue The intra-lingual errors are those which reflect the generalcharacteristics of rule learning, such as faulty generalization, incomplete application ofrules and failure to learn condition under which rules apply And the developmental errorsillustrate the learner attempting to build up hypotheses about the English language fromhis limited experience of it in the classroom or textbooks He claims that there are 5 main

causes of errors They are mother tongue interference, over-generalization, ignorance of

rule restriction, incomplete application of rules, false concepts hypothesized, and errorcorrection

1.3.4.1 Mother tongue interference

All second language learners have already acquired their language This helpsthem have ideas of how language works and form the habit of learning it However,mother tongue or first language not only has great effect on second language learning butalso is the major cause leading to errors

Although young children seem to be able to learn a foreign language quite easilyand to produce new sounds very effectively, almost older learners experienceconsiderable difficulty The sound system (phonology) and the grammar of the firstlanguage impose themselves on the new language and this leads to the wrong choice ofvocabulary and grammatical patterns

E.g.: John is ill for four days.

These sentences were clearly translated from the learner’s own language He usedthe features of his previous mother tongue experience in his attempts to write in theforeign language Thus, the learner has committed errors since the correct sentences mustbe:

- John has been ill for four days.

According to Lado (1957: 2), “Individual transfers the forms and meanings and this distribution of forms and meanings of their native language and culture to foreign language and culture” James Carl, (1998: 179) claim that in the case that both L1 and L2

are similar, the learners benefit from their positive transfer However, if there aredifferences between the two languages, he is encumbered by negative transfer orinterference And errors are generated from negative transfer

1.3.4.2 Over-Generalization

The mentalist theory claims that errors are inevitable because they reflect variousstages in the language development of the learner This claims that the learner processesnew language data in his mind and procedures rules for its production, based on theevidence Where the data are inadequate or the evidence only partial, such rules may wellproduce the following pattern:

Where you went yesterday?

Where you did go yesterday?

She drinked the lemonade.

The correct answers should be:

Where did you go yesterday?

She drank the lemonade.

Richard (1974) defines over-generalization as “the use of previously availablestrategies in new situation…in second language learning…some of these strategies willprove helpful in organizing the fact about the second language, but other, perhaps dues tosuperficial similarities, will be misleading and inapplicable.” Over-generalization coversinstances where learners create a deviant structure on the basic of their experience ofother structures in the target language

e.g.: It is occurs

W e are not work

The correct answers should be:

e.g.: It occurs.

We do not work.

1.3.4.3 Ignorance of rule restrictions

The situation is a failure of learners to observe the restrictions of existing structure

It means that the application of rules to contexts where they do not apply Ignorance ofrule restrictions happen since the learner is making use of a previously acquired rule in anew situation

e.g.: The man who I saw him.

Some rule restriction errors may be accounted for in terms of analogy or may resultfrom the rote learning of rules Analogy seems to be a major factor in the misuse ofprepositions The learner attempts by analogy to use the same preposition with similarverbs

e.g.: He show me the book (leads to) He explained me the book.

Ask him to do it ( produces) Make him to do it

1.3.4.4 Incomplete application of rules

This cause contrasts to over-generalization which is also called generalization Learner has applied only some rules in new situations

Richard (1974) also illustrated errors caused by incomplete application of rules:

e.g.: Nobody knew where was Barbie (where Barbie was)

Incomplete application of rules involves a failure to learn the more complex types

of structure because the learner finds he can achieve effective communication by usingrelative simple rules

1.3.4.5 False concepts hypothesized

This cause derives from faulty comprehension of distinctions in the targetlanguage These are sometimes due to poor gradation of teaching items

e.g.: He is speaks French.

‘is’ may be understood to be the responding marker of the present tense.

One day it was happened

‘was’ interpreted as a marker of the past tense.

Richard (1974) has traced errors of errors of this sort to classroom presentation,and to presentation which is based on contrastive analysis of English and anotherlanguage or on contrasts within English itself E.g.: many students can not distinguish

between too and so As a result; they make errors when using them

1.3.5 Error correction

Error correction is said to be an argumentative part in the process of teaching andlearning The following questions posed by Hendrickson (1978) can be helpful for theteachers when deciding how to treat to students’ oral errors:

1 Should learner errors be corrected?

2 If so, when should learner errors be corrected?

3 Which learner errors should be corrected?

4 How should learner errors be corrected?

5 Who should correct learner errors?

For the first question “should learner errors be corrected?” Some researchers say

that teachers should not make a point of error correction because it is considered to be akind of criticism or punishment, and errors would be self-corrected by learners

On the contrary, discussing error correction, some famous error linguists such asJames (1998) and Edge (1989) suggest that it is necessary to correct errors because it isuseful for both teachers and learners In his book “Mistakes and Correction”, Edge(1989:20) argues that “teachers decide to correct our students and we have to be sure that

we are using correction positively to support learning” Sharing Edge’s point of view,James (1998) claims that learners want all their written errors corrected and correctionwill help them improve He also adds that correction is essential in the cases where thelanguage processing task is difficult, because in such cases learners will be unable to self-correct

It is hoped that error correction will help learners be aware of their errors morefully And their subsequent writing will carry less errors of the same type

The next question that the language should consider achieving the best reaction to

learners’ errors is “when learner errors should be corrected?” Teachers should choose

only particular errors to concentrate on a time of making corrections so as not to depresslearners In fact, if all errors are selected, students will feel bored and as a result, this willdecrease their motivation It is also advisable that teachers should make learners pay moreattention to the errors which have been repeated by many members in class, or toimportant errors which affect clear communication.

When accuracy is the aim of the activity, students are involved an accuracy worksuch as the study of a piece of grammar, pronunciation exercise or some vocabulary work

It is essential of the teachers to point out and correct students’ errors (Harmer, 2001:105).Moreover, students should given sufficient time and should be encouraged to correct theirown mistakes It is also found that increasing wait-time by an extra second or two enableslearners to self-correct 50-90 percent of their errors (Walz 1982)

When the aim of the activity is fluency, the teachers in this case should delay thecorrective feedback until the end of the activity (Huge, 2000)

Besides the aims of activity, the language teachers should also notice the stage ofthe activity, the types of errors and the students’ expectation of assistance

Another question is “which learner errors should be corrected?” It is necessary

that teachers should know how to correct learners’ errors effectively and avoid usingcorrection strategies that might embarrass or frustrate learners Some error analysis andmethodologists like Allwright (1975) and Hendrickson (1977) suggest that there are fivetechniques for correcting written errors:

a The teacher gives the sufficient dues to enable self-correction to be made

b The teacher corrects the script

c The teacher deals with errors through marginal comments and footnotes

d The teacher explains orally to individual students

e The teacher uses errors as an illustration for the class explanation

Allwright (1975) makes a conclusion that any error correction process includessome of the following general features: indication that an error was committed;identification of the type of error, location of the error, mention of who made the error,selection of a remedy, provision of a correct model, the furnishing of an opportunity for anew attempt, indication of improvement and the offering of praise

One more question is “how should learner errors be corrected?” The teachers

should decide how to decide how to correct learners’ errors in order not to embarrasslearners The techniques for correction are various However, it seems to be impossible todecide which one is the most effective technique

James (1998) suggests some opinions and principles for error correction asfollows:

- First, that is “correct effectively”, teachers’ correction techniques help learners

to progress in accuracy and fluency

- Second, correction should be sensitive and non-threatening form

- Third, correction must be matched to student preferences

- Fourth, the correction should have two stages: form-focused correction at thepractice phase and function-focused correction in the production phase

The last question is “who should correct learner errors?” In classroom, the

teacher, the student who makes the error or other students can correct errors Most oflanguage teachers expect the learners to self-correct their errors Once students can self-correct, they can recognize the wrongness in his/her cognition In fact, students areencouraged to self-correct but not all of them succeed, so teachers should increase thewait-time for them

Edge (1989) indicates the benefits of peer-correction as follow:

Firstly, when a learner makes an error, and another learner corrects it, both ofthem are involved in listening to and thinking about the language

Secondly, when a teacher encourages learners to correct each other’s errors, theteachers get a lot of essential information about the students’ current TL competence

errors and are finally encouraged to express them more accurately For effective errorcorrection, teacher should write on the blackboard the most important errors fromlearners’ pieces of writing in class for discussion.

Chapter 2: The SurveyIntroduction

In this chapter, the author presents the overview of the survey, which includes theaims, the description of the subjects, research setting, and the ways to carry out the study

The results of the study are presented followed by the discussion and analysis of the data.The results are statistically presented in the forms of tables, or charts

2.1 The overview of the survey

2.1.1 Aims of the survey

The data has been collected from the students’ questionnaire and the analysis ofthe students’ written papers These are used to answer the following research questions:

1 What are students’ attitudes towards writing skill in general and paragraphwriting in particular?

2 What is the current situation of errors in paragraph writing made by the secondyear students at Vinh University?

The results from the survey questionnaire and the analysis of the students’ errorshelped the researcher make some implications and suggestions for improving the teachingand learning of paragraph writing

of them have been studying English for 5 or 6 years They are almost at the same level:intermediate

2.1.4 Instrumentation

The procedure of the study is as follows: First, a survey questionnaire wasdistributed to second year students to investigate their attitudes towards the teaching andlearning of writing skill in general and paragraph writing in particular Second, 200written papers of the students were analyzed to find out the common errors in paragraphwriting Then these were followed by the data discussion and error analysis of collecteddata to find out the current situation of writing paragraph of the second year students atFLD at Vinh University

2.1.4.1 The description of the survey questionnaire

The survey is conducted with a questionnaire which consists of 9 questions 118students at FLD, Vinh University were invited to complete the questionnaire Short andclear explanations about the aims of these questionnaires were given before handoutswere distributed Questions No.1 and No.2 are aimed at investigating the students’attitudes towards writing skill in general and paragraph writing in particular QuestionsNo.3 and No.4 are designed to get to know what the students really think about writingskill and paragraph writing Question No.5 is to get the students’ difficulties in writing aparagraph in English Question No.6 shows the students’ opinions on the order ofimportance of four skills Question No.7 surveys the amount of time that the studentsspend on practicing writing at home Question No.8 investigates if the students studiedparagraph writing much at their high schools For Question No.9, the students are free togive their opinions and suggestions for the teaching and learning writing skill in generaland paragraph writing in particular

2.1.4.2 The description of the analysis of the students’ papers

In the framework of the third term at FLD at Vinh University, students havestudied many types of paragraphs However, due to the limitation of time, the researcheronly chose 4 major types of paragraphs to analyze errors They are:

-Descriptive paragraphs.,

-Narrative paragraphs

-Opinion paragraphs

-Cause and effect paragraphs

The topics of these types of paragraphs are presented in the following table:

1 Descriptive The country I like to visit the most

3 Opinion Advantages and disadvantages of living in the city

4 Cause and effect The causes and effect of watching television

Table 1: The topics of four types of paragraph

The data were collected from two sources (the first source is from the students’homework and the other is from the students’ mid-term tests) For each type of

paragraphs, the author only selected randomly 50 tests to analyze errors so that they could

be truly representative samples for the given population In this study, the errors made bythe students in their written homework and midterm tests were mainly classified into 6major types of errors as follows:

- Style and form error

2.2 Results and Data Analysis

2.2.1 Attitudes of students toward writing skill and paragraph writing

Attitude plays an important role in second language learning The students whohave more positive attitudes are more likely to succeed in second language learning thanothers This part is the investigation into the students’ opinions about learning writingskill and paragraph writing as well as the amount of their practicing time at home

The following tables and charts are the summaries of the students’ responses to thequestions in the questionnaire

Surprisingly, many of students are not interested in writing skill and paragraphswriting

45.835.618.6

2 How do you find paragraph writing

lesson?

B Interesting

C Very interesting

4425

37.221.5

Table 2: Second year students’ attitudes towards writing skill and learning paragraph

Figure 3: students’ opinions about degrees of difficulty of writing skill and paragraph

10 20 30 40 50

Grammar spelling cultural and

style

Grammar punctuation spelling vocabulary cultural and style other types

Figure 4: The students’ difficulties in writing a paragraph

As shown in the bar chart, 46% of the students think that using grammar correctly

is the most difficult aspect of writing The difficulty which is at the second rank with 32%

is the choice of correct words (i.e the lack of sentence structures and vocabulary).Therefore, most of the students think that writing skill is very difficult and boring, theystill consider that it is not as important as other skills such as: speaking, listening, readingskill

Figure 5: The students’ attitudes of importance of writing skill in comparison with others

As we can see from the bar chart, a lot of them (46%) choose speaking skill as themost important skill In addition, listening is considered as an important skill (28%) Only14% of them confirm that writing is the most important skill in the learning process of aforeign language

Because many students are not well-aware of the importance of writing skill, they

do not spend much time practicing their writing paragraphs at home

%

<1 hour 1 hour 2 hours >2 hours

Figure 6: Students’ amount of time for practicing writing skill at home

Unexpectedly, only 15% spend 2 hours and 27.3% spend 1 hour practicing it Bycontrast, more than a half of these students do not care about improving their writingability (50.5%) They said that they did not really focus much on writing school whenthey were at high schools

77%

8%

7% 8%

very little quite often often very often

Figure 7: Students’ frequency of practicing writing at high schools

The above bar chart shows that before entering Vinh University, only some ofthem studied writing skill very often (5%) or quite often (8%) 77% of the students didnot study English writing much at their high schools When they were at high schools,their teachers only focused on teaching vocabulary, grammar, and a little readingcomprehension to prepare the students for their entrance exams As a result, the studentswere not good at writing skill