Rationale for the study
In recent years, the teaching and learning of English have become a great concern in Vietnam English is now taught not only at all universities and colleges but also as a basic and compulsory subject at all upper secondary schools, including TG2USS Writing is one of four skills in language learning process and it is seen as the most difficult and complex language skill because it requires widely perception and needs good understanding on grammar and structures
Along with language knowledge and other three skills, writing is often required and evaluated as a part of the total assessment of tests in two terms of the academic year of upper secondary school But there is a fact that students usually have a large number of difficulties in expressing their ideas in their English writing They normally translate word by word, vocabulary, idiomatic expressions and especially grammatical rules of their first language (L1) into the target language (TL) As a result, they do not often get good marks or have good paragraph writings These problems cause a lot of grammatical errors in students‟ writing works In other words, the students negatively transfer features of L1 into the TL, and consequently they may encounter difficulties in learning English
The better understanding of students‟ errors in EFL writing will help the students recognize the negative effects of the mother tongue (MT) interference in L2 acquisition and then avoid errors It will also help students improve their accurate and fluent writing and their English learning in the future
All the above-mentioned reasons have inspired the researcher to carry out a study entitled
“ The Interference of the Mother Tongue in the Writing Skills of the Grade 10 Students at Tinh Gia 2 Upper Secondary School”
Aims of the study
This study is primarily targeted at helping to improve the grade 10 students‟ writing skills by reducing the negative interference of the L1 (Vietnamese) on their writing To achieve this aim, the researcher attempts:
- To find out the most frequent L1 interference errors students committed when doing paragraph writing
- To identify causes of the students‟ writing errors – the interference of the L1
Research questions of the study
The study just focuses on writing errors caused by MT interference, the following research questions are proposed:
1 How much does L1 interfere with the students‟ writing?
2 What are the most common L1- related grammatical errors committed by the students in their writing?
Scope of the study
The study was carried out with four classes (10C1, 10C6, 10C7 and 10C11) consisting of
182 students of TG2USS in their second term, the academic year 2010-2011 Due to the fixed curriculum and limited time, the study only centred on the L1- related grammatical errors committed by students in their final writing test papers and based on the analysis of their writing papers, some suggested solutions were provided.
Significance of the study
The study attempts to bring about some benefits theoretically and practically to the readers and researchers, especially to the secondary school teachers of English
In terms of theoretical benefits, the study could provide the information on the students‟ errors in paragraph writing in teaching and learning process
In terms of practical benefits, the researcher hopes that the study could be the references for teachers of English and the readers as well
- The result of this study could provide the information and evaluation for the students‟ knowledge of grammar, so they would avoid the same errors next time
- It would be useful for the teachers to improve the students‟ writing skills.
Organization of the study
The study consists of three parts: introduction, development with three chapters and conclusion
Part A, INTRODUCTION presents an overview of the study with the rationale, aims, the research questions and scope of the study Besides, the significance of the study and organization of the study are presented
Part B, DEVELOPMENT includes three chapters:
Chapter 1 presents literature review relevant to the study
Chapter 2 consists of research questions, participants of the study, data collection instruments and procedures of data collection
Chapter 3 displays the major findings of the error analysis and discussions from the collected data analysis It also provides some suggestions for further teaching strategies
Part C: CONCLUSION presents a summary of the study It also provides some limitations of the study and suggestions for further study The REFERENCES and APPENDIXES are at the end to the study
LITERATURE REVIEW
The interference of L1 in L2
Many language teachers and linguists have considered L1 interference as an barrier of L2 learning Lightbown and Spada (1993:54) found that in the 1960‟s various studies indicated that most of mistakes L2 learners made due to their L1 interference As a result, numerous researchers have paid attention to errors which demonstrate the influence of one‟s L1 on L2 Brown (1994:89) believes that SLA is strongly influenced by the learners‟
L1 He states “native language interference is surely the most immediately noticeable source of errors among second language learners”
Like Brown, Ellis (1995:19) points out:“It is a popular belief that second language acquisition (SLA) is strongly influenced by the learner‟s first language (L1)”
In the article „„The Effect of The Use of L1 in a Multimedia Tutorial on Grammar Learning: An Error Analysis of Taiwanese Beginning EFL Learners' English Essays‟‟ Li- Ling Chen (2006) points out that the L1 usage in CAI (computer assisted instruction) on grammar did not yield a significant effect on grammar learning However, by doing an EA and CA between Mandarin and English, a number of grammar errors found were due to L1 interference Chen identified eight error categories where the greatest number occurred in his study: (1) verbs, (2) punctuation, (3) lexicon, (4) syntax, (5) capitalization, (6) subject omission, (7) prepositions, and (8) articles
Actually, in the process of learning a new language, the learners are often affected by their
MT MT interference is due to the fact that learners convert the features of their native language, for example, Vietnamese, into the TL - English They tend to apply the grammatical rules of their native language into the target ones In her thesis Binh,T.T.H
(2005:9) writes that learners tended to think in the L1 and attempted to put the idea in the
In his reference book (1990), Buu, H.V states that students‟ mistakes were originated from Vietnamese interference All the common errors of the Vietnamese learners of English occurred in four areas: grammar ( parts of speech), word usage, sentence structures and pronunciation He also gives little explantion of how the errors arose or how far the learners‟ poor English was influenced by their Vietnamese.
Errors in foreign language learning process
Mohideen, H (1996, cited in Maniam, M, 2010) agrees that MT interference is viewed as one of the main causes of errors in writing among Malaysian students He says that there is
MT interference in the areas of syntax, grammar, lexis and pronunciation
"When learning a foreign language an individual already knows his mother tongue, and it is this which he attempts to transfer The transfer may prove to be justified because the structure of the two languages is similar - in that case we get 'positive transfer' or 'facilitation' - or it may prove unjustified because the structure of the two languages are different - in that case we get 'negative transfer' - or 'interference'
In other words, the influence of MT on L2 learning is manifested by the positive or negative transference.This study does not explore the positive impact of the Vietnamese language (MT) in learning a foreign language (English) It only concentrates on investigating the negative effects of the MT in learning writing skills
1.3 Error in foreign language learning process 1.3.1 Definition of error
In the history of English language teaching, numerous definitions of errors have been proposed by many linguists and reseachers in terms of their differences Corder (1973:259) refers to errors as breaches of the code Errors deviate from what is regarded as the norm
In his research in 1998, James defines a languge error as an successful bit of language
Dulay, et al (1982:138) stress that errors are seen as “the flawed side of the learner speech or writing, they are parts of conversation or composition that deviates from selected norms” Rechards, et al share the view that:
“ An erros in the speech or writing of a second or foreign language learners is the use of a language 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”
Chun, A et al (1982:538) also adorse this point that “an error is the use of a linguistic item in a way which, according to fluent users of the language, indicates faulty or incomplete learning”
Similarily, other linguists have said that “an error occurs where the speakers fail to follow the pattern or the manner of speech of educated people in English speaking countries today” (Liski and Puntanen 1983:227) From these definitions, it is clear that an error is the unsuccessful use of the TL in speech and writing by the learners in comparision with that by the native speakers
Nevertheless, Lennon (1991) states that such denitions are often ambiguous, because even educated language teachers and native speakers often believe perfectly correct sentences to contain errors (see also Hughes and Lascaratou 1982) Therefore, Lennon (1991:1982 ) claims to offer a more cautious definition, describing an error as:
“…a linguistic form or combination of forms which, in the same context and under similar conditions of production, would, in all likelihood, not be produced by the speaker‟s native speaker counterparts.”
In short, based on the above discussion, the researcher hopes to identify errors in the study in the clearest way
Norrish (1983: 7) made a clear distinction between error and mistake He states errors as a
„„systematic deviation when a learner has not learnt something and consistently „gets it wrong‟.‟‟ Cunning Worth (1987) defines error as systematic deviations from the norms of language being learned It seems that the phrase “systematic deviation” in these two definitions is a key word which can be interpreted as the deviation which happens repeatedly Chaudron (1986) reviews error as (i) “linguistic forms or content that differed from native speaker norms or facts”, and (ii) “any other behaviour signaled by the teacher as needing improvement” George (1972: 2) gives a definition of “error” as “an unwanted form, specifically, a form which a particular course designer or teacher does not want”
Johansson (1975) believes that “If native speakers hesitate about the acceptability of a word or construction it should not be considered an error”
However, it is necessary to differentiate between error and mistake Corder introduced the distinction between systematic and non-systematic errors Unsystematic errors occur in one‟s native language; Corder calls these "mistakes" and states that they are not significant to the process of language learning He keeps the term "errors" for the systematic ones,
9 which occur in a L2 According to Corder (1974: 29), errors are typically produced by people who do not yet fully command some institutionalized language system A mistake is also a deviation of the norms of the language but is not systematic It means that the use of the norm of the language in the sentences is sometimes right and sometimes wrong
Norrish (1983:7) also says that a mistake is an inconsistent deviation that is sometimes the learner „gets it right‟ but sometimes wrong For example, if a learner has not yet been taught a certain correct form and he uses one form sometimes and another at other times quite inconsistently, „the inconsistent deviation‟ is called mistake According to Richards, et al (1992:127), a difference between an error and mistake is that error results from incomplete knowledge, whereas a mistake made by a learner when writing or speaking and which is caused by lack of attention, fatigue, carelessness, or some other aspect of performance
From the linguists‟ opinions above, it can be concluded that a mistake is a non systematic deviation from the norms of language A mistake refers to the failures to use the language system correctly caused by some factors such as carelessness, memory lapses, and physical condition while error refers to the failure to use the system correctly caused by the lack of the learners‟ competence, ignorance of appropriate rule and interference of the learners‟
MT and the general characteristics of the rule learning
Error is a complicated concept by nature However, for the purpose of this study, the definitions by Norrish and Cunning Worth are adopted because these two definitions are adequate to reveal the errors showing up in the written texts
According to James (1998:129), errors can be classified based on three criteria: modality, medium and level
Modality indicates whether the learners‟ behaviour is receptive or productive By this reference, there are receptive errors in listening and reading and productive errors in speaking and writing
Contrastive analysis
CA (Contrastive Analysis, Benjamin Le Whorf 1941 ) is also termed as CLA (Contrastive Linguistic Analysis, Fries 1945) or CAH (Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis, Brown 1980)
A number of fundamental and applied objectives have traditionally been attributed to CA
The first one is to discover similarities and differences between languages The second is to explain and predict problems in L2 learning The third objective is to develop course materials for language teaching
During the last decades, a systematic CA has been advocated as a means of predicting the difficulties in learning a foreign language It is now realized that CA should be used to explain difficulties In other words, CA should be used as part of the explanatory stage in
EA It can help explain some of the errors actually committed by learners after these errors have been observed
CA is the basic approach used to study L1 interference According to Richards and Schmidt (2002), CA focuses on the comparison of the linguistic systems of the two languages, especially the sound and grammar systems of L1 and L2, to find solutions to L2 instruction problems CA was developed and practiced in the 1950s and 1960s, as an application of structural linguistics to language teaching It is based on the following assumptions: (i) the main difficulties in learning a new language are caused by interference from the L1 or „language transfer‟, (ii) such difficulties can be identified by
CA, and (iii) teaching materials can make use of CA to eliminate the interference effects
CA stressed the native language as the main factor affecting L2 learners‟ errors In other words, CA emphasizes the interference of the MT in learning a L2 in phonological, morphological, lexical and syntactic level It holds that L2 would be affected by L1 Here, language is taken as a set of habits and learning as establishment of new habits, a view sprung from behaviorism, under which language is essentially a system of habits In the course of language learning, L1 learning habits will be transferred into L2 learning habits
Therefore, in the case of L1 transfer into L2, if structures in the MT have their corresponding structures in the TL and L1 habits can be successfully used in the L2, learners would transfer similar properties successfully and would result in positive transfer
Contrastingly, in the case of negative transfer or interference, certain elements of the MT
14 have no corresponding counterparts in the TL, L1 habits would cause errors in the L2, and learners would transfer inappropriate properties of L1.
Error analysis
Error analysis (EA) is a type of linguistic analysis that focuses on the errors committed by learners According to Richards, et al (1992:127), the study an analysis of errors made by the L2 learners is called EA, which is carried out in order to identify strategies learners use in language learning, try to identify the cause of learners‟ errors, and obtain information on common difficulties in language learning, as an aid to teaching or in the preparation of teaching materials
James (1998:1) says that EA is the process of determining the incidence, nature, causes, and consequences of unsuccessful language learning Cook (1993: 22) points out, EA is “a methodology for dealing with data, rather than a theory of acquisition” The data can be taken by conducting a test with the students as the respondents Brown (2000:218) gives a complete definition of EA in the following way:
“the fact that learner do make errors and that these errors can be observed, analyzed, and classified to reveal something of the system operating within the learners, led to surge of study of learners‟ errors, call error analysis”
It seems this concept is the same as the one proposed by Crystal (1987:112), EA is a technique for identifying, classifying and systematically interpreting the unacceptable forms produced by someone learning a foreign language, using any of the principles and procedures provided by linguistics
EA developed as a branch of applied linguistics in 1960s, and set out to demonstrate that learners‟ errors were not due to the learners‟ MT but reflected universal learning strategies
EA, therefore, offered as an alternative to CA, has its value in the classroom research CA, which may be least predictive at the syntactic level and at early stages of learning languages (Brown, 1994:214), allows for prediction of the difficulties involved in acquiring a L2 (Richard, 1974:172) whereas EA emphasizes “the significance of errors in learners‟ inter-language system” (Brown, 1994:204), may be carried out directly for pedagogic purposes (Ellis, 1995:51)
EA does not focus only on the interface between MT and L2, but also on other sources of errors EA became distinguished from CA by its examination of errors attributable to all possible sources, not just those which result from negative transfer of the native language (Brown & Douglas, 1994:206)
Various researchers in the field of linguistics have attempted to establish their own models for EA procedures One of the most frequently mentioned models by numerous other authors in the same field such as Richards, et al (1992), Ellis (1995:51-52), Brown (2000:207-211) is Corder‟s model (1967 & 1974) Corder identified a model for EA which included three stages: (i) Data collection: Recognition of idiosyncracy; (ii) Description: Accounting for idiosyncratic dialect; (iii) Explanation (the ultimate object of EA)
In 1984, Van Els, et al propose a model for EA procedures including six steps: A corpus of language is selected, the errors in the corpus are identified, the errors are classified, the errors are explained, the errors are evaluated, prevention or correction of errors
James (1998) suggests a more detailed model for EA procedures Basically, his model follows the same steps as Van Els, et al (1984) However, Jame‟s model emphasizes detailed description of errors His description of errors in three levels of errors mentioned in section 1.3.3, namely modality, medium and level They seem very useful and easy to understand for many studies, including the researcher
According to Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005), there are five steps in conducting any EA study:
(i) Collection of a sample of learner language; (ii) Identification of errors; (iii) Description of errors; (iv) Explanation of errors, and (v) Error evaluation
The models for EA procedures mentioned above, in which the model by Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005) is selected for this study because it is described in a very easy way to follow Nevertheless, the last step - error evaluation is not carried out due to the limited time and the scope of the study The other steps are described and discussed as follows
(i) Collection of a sample of learner language
The first point in EA is the collection of a sample of learner language Van Els, et al (1984) states the the sample of learner language ( or corpus of language) should involve deciding on the size of the sample, the medium to be sampled and the homogeneity of the sample (by taking into account the learner‟s characteristics: age, stage of development, motivation, etc) Corder (1974) proposes four points to pay attention to when collecting samples as follows:
First, it is necessary to identify the size of the sample Researchers have identified three broad types of EA These types are: massive, specific and incidental samples
Second, it is very vital to collect well-defined samples of learner language so that clear statements can be made regarding what kinds of errors the learners produce and under what conditions The reason for this matter lies in that the errors that learners commit can be influenced by a lot of factors For example, they may commit errors in speaking, not in writing, as a result of the different processing conditions involved
Third, the researcher decides the manner in which the samples are to be collected In these samples, learner language either reflects natural, spontaneous language use or is elicited in some ways Natural samples are generally preferred but learners often do not produce much spontaneous data Therefore, elicited data is argued to be the case The research identified two kinds of elicitation:“Clinical elicitation” and “Experimental methods”
However, the identification of error elicitation stated above is not strong enough to clarify which data collection instruments to be used for the research James (1998) suggests three kinds of elicitation techniques: observational techniques, experimental techniques and introspection Observational techniques are believed to reside mainly in naturalness while experimental techniques reside in manipulative nature
Observational techniques are conducted with such classroom activities as role play, information gap activities, simulations, involving pairs and groups of learners
Classroom observation is also one of the observational techniques, using observation sheet
Experimental techniques are used by contrast interventionist They take the learners aside and give them tasks to do, the sole purpose of which is to elicit targeted forms which the error analyst is interested in Experimental techniques include simple imitation, stimulus
METHODOLOGY
Research questions of the study
As mentioned in part A.3, the researcher sets the aim of the study to seek answers to the following research questions:
1) How much does L1 interfere with students‟ errors?
2) What are the most common L1- related grammatical errors committed by the students in their writing?
Participants of the study
Due to time limitation, it is impossible to conduct the study with all grade 10 students
Therefore, the study was carried out with four classes (10C1, 10C6, 10C7 and 10C11) consisting of 182 students of Tinh Gia 2 Upper Secondary School in their second term, the academic year 2010-2011 Each class had about 50 students (45 from class 10C1, 46 from class 10C6, 46 from class 10C7 and 45 from class 10C11) both male and female at the age of 15-16.
Data collection instruments
The test paper is one research instrument used to investigate errors and explain the causes of these errors The test chosen for this study is the final test
2.3.1 Introduction to a test in general and description of the final test used in the study
- Periodic tests (45 minute test and the final test within 60 minutes ) include the following parts:
- Language use (grammar and vocabulary) (25%)
- Regarding the actual conditions, the teacher designing the test can adjust the proportion but the difference between the proportion of skills must not exceed 10% (Ministry of Education and Training, 2009-2010) and Listening is often omitted due to the poor facilities of schools in Thanh Hoa in general as well as in Tinh Gia 2 Upper Secondary School in particular In writing, the length of a writing is within 100-120 words
The final test chosen in this study was a final test of the academic year 2010-2011 The test was administered at the end of the second term after the students had finished the textbook
Three reasons why the researcher chose this kind of test: first, the researcher wished to help students get over the difficulties in their final term test through EA; second, the final term test can reveal more types of errors relating to their basic knowledge of the English curriculum than any of other kinds, and third, students can show the MT interference in L2 learning when doing paragraph writing
This test was based on the goals of the new English textbook “Tiếng Anh 10”( the standard set) by Hoang Van Van, et al The test consisted of four parts as mentioned above:
Listening, Reading, Language use and Writing within 60 minutes Listening, reading and Language use were ignored because the L1- related grammatical errors in writing paragraph are investigated in this study as the researcher stated in the introduction
The students were asked to choose one of the following topics to write about (within 100 -
- write about your father‟s or mother‟s daily routine
- write a description of a place (a city / a town / a village…) in Vietnam you know well
- write short paragraphs about advantages and disadvantages of the mass media (computer/television/radio )
- write about your most memorable thing in your life
The procedures of data collection from the test in this study were conducted in accordance with the key procedures of error analysis presented in chapter 1, section 1.5.2
The tests were delivered to each class During the time, the supervisors of the four classes worked seriously to ensure that the students did the tests by themselves, not consulting any dictionaries, grammar books, or copying their friends A massive sample of 182 test papers was collected right after they were done As these test papers need marking for scores and giving back to the school, they were copied The copies of the test papers were examined by the researcher before they were given back to the school
Errors in the test papers were identified and then classified into different error sub- categories These errors were then analyzed for possible causes.
Coding the writtings
Coding is the process of assigning codes to groups of data collected with an aim to simplify and standardize the data for analytical purposes (Hughes, B and Tight, M, 1996:
184) Coding is important to the success of the research since how coding wil be influential to how the data are analyzed, thus determing what may be concluded in the research
Coding data collected in this study is coding 10C1: from 1-45, 10C6: from 46-91 , 10C7:
In summary, this chapter has presented in detail the study‟s methodology including research questions, participants of the study Then data collection instruments and procedures of data collection were also described The next chapter will present major findings and discussion based on the analysis of data from the test papers
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Data Analysis and discussion
The EA in this study is conducted in accordance with the key procedures of EA that the researcher chooses to discuss in chapter 1, section 1.5.2 The collection of a sample of learner language has been presented in chapter 2, section 2.3.2 The following steps of identification, description and explanation of errors are dealt with in the next sub-sections
In this step, the researcher identified the errors in the collected test papers of students seriously A score sheet with error types and symbols in detail to mark in the test papers was created by the researcher For example, errors in the use of verbs were symbolized with number 1 The researcher used the completed score sheets to calculate error rate in percentage and on average The number of errors students committed in each class was indicated in the score sheets
The errors were also identified by reference to the reliable and validated publications The first one is “A University Grammar of English” by Quirk and Greenbaum(1976) and the second one is “English Grammar in Use” by Murphy (1994)
The written test papers obtained from the final-term test examination were done by 182 test-takers After idenfifying and calculating the number of the errors, the researcher came to conclusion that there were totally 2120 errors found in the test papers
3.1.1.2 Description and discussion on the five most frequent types of errors
The error classification was based on the discussion presented in chapter 1, section 1.3.3
The found errors were classified into three types according to types of errors by James (1998:129) The details of the classification are shown in appendix 2 The table below shows the results of the error classification obtained from the test papers, which illustrate the number of errors and the kinds of errors the students committed in their final test
Error Types Error frequency/ No of errors Error rate (%)
Table 2 Total number of errors from the test papers Note: Error rate or percentage of each error = number of errors of each categories/ total number of errors of all categories x 100%
From the table, lexical errors and misspellings occurred in the test frequent with 280 errors and 197 errors respectively Some errors found in the test papes are both types of spelling and grammar or grammar and lexical ones But in the study, the researcher only discussed in detail the grammatical error categories as stating in the aim of the study
By calculating the frequency of each error, the researcher can identify the most frequent error and the least frequent error made by the students In calculating the frequency of each error, the researcher employed the following formula: n1
P = × 100% in which: P : percentage of each error ΣN n1 : number of errors per category ΣN: total of the whole errors
Of the errors committed by the students, it can be seen that there are verb errors rating 32.3%, noun errors (14.2%), lexical errors (13.2%), word order errors (11.7%),
25 misspellings (9.3%), article errors (8.4%), prepositional errors (5.2%) These errors form the seven most frequent categories Due to the limited time and the aims of the study, the analysis on five typical grammatical error categories will be focused on Each category of errors is accompanied with examples, then the disscussion and explanation are dealt with
Verb errors in this study had the highest error rates with 685, constituting 32.3% of the total that students committed in their final tests The following are the errors of this kind
Errors in subject-verb agreement: Misuse of plural verbs / singular verbs was found in test papers The students forgot to conjugate the verbs The plural verbs are used instead of singular ones regardless the subject The following are examples:
1 E S: The city cover an area of 3.344,7 square kilometrers
C S: The city covers an area of 3.344,7 square kilometrers
2 E S: My mother often go to work at 6:30 a.m every day
C S: My mother often goes to work at 6:30 a.m every day
3 E S: Almost everyone enjoy watching TV
C S: Almost everyone enjoys watching TV
4 E S: Besides its advantages, television also have some disadvantages
C S: Besides its advantages, television also has some disadvantages
Errors in the use of tenses: These errors, which are basic and persistent in writing in grade 10, were found to be the most common of verb errors One of the reasons is that narrative writing is mainly used the simple past tense to describe the events happening in the past, other tenses are rarely used Students used other tenses instead of using the simple past tense
1 E S: Last summer, I spend my holidays in Sam Son
C S: Last summer, I spent my holidays in Sam Son
2 E S: When I am small, I often swim in the river with my friends
C S: When I was small, I often swam in the river with my friends
Omission of infinitive “to”omission: One of the most persistent errors made by Vietnamese learners of English is the incorrect use of the simple form of a verb in utterances which requires an infinitive with “to” For example:
1 E S: We decided break a door to save him
C S: They decided to break a door to save him
2 E S: They agreed give me some money
C S: They agreed to give me some money
Omission of verbs: Verbs are misused in form of passive or predicative For example:
1 E S: I ỉ at the beach with them all evening
C S: I was at the beach with them all evening
2 E S: When I ỉ in the room, I smelt smoke from the next room
C S: When I was in the room, I smelt smoke from the next room
The 2 nd highest error rates in this study occurred within the error category of nouns, with
302 errors, accounting for 14.2 % of the total Errors in the use of nouns are mainly morphology errors of plural –s
Omission of plural-s: Singular nouns are preceded by numerals and other qualifiers or plural-s is omitted where it should be available Most students made this kind of errors when using many countable nouns for writing paragraph
1 E S: Ha noi is famous for many thing
C S: Ha noi is famous for many things
2 E S: There are a lot of good programme on the television
C S: There are a lot of good programmes on the television
Addition of plural-s: Plural-s follows an uncountable noun This type is caused by overgeneralization, so it is not discussed in the study
(iii) Errors in word order
This category of errors had the 3 rd highest level with 247 and 11.7 % of the total The following are illustrative of these errors
1 E S: It covers an area of 3.344,7 kilometres square
C S: It covers an area of 3.344,7 square kilometres
2 E S: I was born in a village small beside a river
C S: I was born in a small village beside a river
Articles are used in large quantities in English Therefore, errors in the use of articles occurred often in the test papers 179 errors made up 8.4% of the total
Omission of articles: is the most common errors Students tended to focus on the meaning of the nouns and seemed to forget about the following articles For example:
1 E S: The city has ỉ population of about 6 million
C S: The city has a population of about 6 million
2 E S: It increases ỉ popularity of sports and games
C S: It increases the popularity of sports and games
3 E S: When we got to the outskirts of ỉ city, the road to ỉ beach was full of cars
C S: When we got to the outskirts of the city, the road to the beach was full of cars
Addition and misuse of articles: are errors caused by overgeneralization Therefore, they were not discussed in the study
The fifth highest error are the ones in the use of prepositions with an error rate of 5.2%
The main errors are the wrong use of prepositions
1 E S: It was ỉ the winter when I received a letter from my parents
C S: It was in the winter when I received a letter from my parents
2 E S: People can listen ỉ the radio at any time
C S: People can listen to the radio at any time
Addition of prepositions: is errors caused by overgeneralization or ignorance of rule restrictions Therefore it was not discussed
1 E S: The girl walked under the rain
C S: The girl walked in the rain
2 E S: Computers have brought benificial changes for human life
C S: Computers have brought benificial changes to human life
3.1.2 Discussion and explanation on the grammatical errors (i) Errors in Verbs
Errors in subject-verb agreement: Many times students failed to give the correct subject
– verb agreement MT interference could be offered to explain this category of errors
In Vietnamese language, there is no differences between verbs in the third person singular and plural, but it is on contrary in English The Vietnamese students tend to apply Vietnamese language rules into English language rules, so students‟ errors of this kind are more or less normal In other words, English verb conjugation reflects in subject-verb agreement as well, while Vietnamese verbs remain unchanged regardless of persons The following examples in which “go” changes into “goes” in English whereas the Vietnamese
- English I often go to work at 7.00 a.m
Vietnamese Tôi thường đi làm lúc 7 giờ sáng
- English They often go to work at 7.00 a.m
Vietnamese Họ thường đi làm lúc 7 giờ sáng
- English He often goes to work at 7.00 a.m Vietnamese Anh ấy thường đi làm lúc 7 giờ sáng
Errors in the use of tenses: The MT interference can be explained as a reason that causes this category of errors
Major findings
Interlingual and intralingual transfers are no doubt to have the greatest effect on error- making
The difference between English and Vietnamese is seen as one the most influential factors in interlingual transfer Students at TG2USS like other students at other schools in Thanh Hoa as well as in Vietnam, may often transfer English words into Vietnamese to find equivalents Consequently, they make errors unconsciously
From 1643 grammatical errors, Vietnamese language influenced 1019 errors, accounting for 61.9 % This rate is higher than the one caused by intralingual transfer (624 errors with 38.1%) Of grammatical errors caused by the MT interference, verb errors make students embarrassed the most 395 errors of this kind with 24.0 % were found in the test papers
The reveal of the cause of errors relating to the use of L1 may help students avoid re- making these errors
In addition, many intralingual errors are traceable to overgeneration, incomplete application of rules and ignorance of rule restriction These kinds of errors may be overcome by practising and doing exercises repeatedly
3.2.2 Major findings on the most frequent grammatical errors
The study yielded a corpus of 2120 errors from four classes (10C1,10C6, 10C7 and 10 C11) consisting of 182 students Lexical errors and misspelling errors were not discussed in the study because they did not belong to grammatical errors Of grammatical errors, verb errors accounted for 32.3% (685 errors), - noun errors 14.2% (302 errors ), - word order errors 11.7% (247 errors), - article errors 8.4% (179 errors), - prepositional errors 5.2%
(110 errors) The above mentioned errors are the five most frequent grammatical error categories in the test papers
As usual, learners of English often commit more grammatical errors than lexical ones And it is not an exception for our students The result of this study have proved that grammatical points should be considered as language focus together with vocabulary.
Suggestions for further teaching strategies
The findings have demontrated that exploiting EA and CA as pedagogical techniques is dicovering the errors of L2 learners and pinpointing the causes of such errors have been effective The findings of the study have also enabled us, teachers, to isolate the errors students made The most frequent error categories were ranked, which can be a good suggest for TG2USS teachers to better understand what types of errors their students often make and provide suitable instructions thereby Through this study, a considerable number of errors made by TG2USSstudents are proved to be the result of their attempt to apply Vietnamese language rules to the English system From these findings, the researcher suggests some strategies as: Teachers‟ dentifying students‟ learning difficulties, reducing the negative interference of the MT, dealing with L1 interference errors, encouraging students to use English
3.3.1 Teachers’ dentifying students’ learning difficulties
Identifying learning difficulties can be the first step that helps students master English As language interference is apprarently a common problem for them, English teachers should help students to reduce language interference by specifying the differences between Vietnamese (L1) and target language (English) in order to make them avoid making mistakes while writing
3.3.2 Reducing the negative interference of the MT
The fact that the students tend to negatively transfer the L1 rules to the TL is unavoidable
It may be because the MT is firmly originated in their mind while their knowledge of the
TL is inadequate, and because the learning environment is the classroom setting in their homeland, where the teachers and other learners are from the same L1 background It is clear that language interference is not easy to prevent; however, there are some ways to minimize it First, the students should be exposed to the TL as much as possible and need to learn the English way of writing through “models” Therefore, the teacher should provide a lot of authentic materials of different text types for them to read Second, there is a widely held belief that in order to be good writers, students need to write a lot Moreover, teachers should create a natural language learning environment in the classroom and the learners use English as much as possible In other words, the learners can experience the
TL as a real language According to Lightbown and spada (1993: 83), when the learners are given the opportunities to participate in conversation, they are compelled to express and clarify their intentions, thought, opinions, etc in a way which permits them to reach a mutual understanding The negotiation of meaning, in turn lead the learners to acquire the language forms, the words and grammatical structures Conversational interaction enables students to gain fluency and accuracy in writing
In short, reading, writing, speaking and listening to the TL a lot may prevent the learners from strongly influenced by the MT
Some of the strategies for correcting interference errors should be presented as follows:
First of all, in the researcher‟s opinion, enabling the students to understand their L1 interference is the most important thing in effective error correction The teacher needs to analyze how a certain interference error occurs by explaining carefully the difference of
41 the particular feature in L1 and L2 in terms of: Morphology; Semantics; Syntax depending on the specific problem involved In other words, the comparative technique (L1-L2) has to be adopted The teacher should choose only particular errors to focus on at one time of making corrections so as not to depress the learners Teacher should provide reinforcement exercises of various types Peer correction is a good form of correction which helps lesrners cooperate and develop their ability to see their own mistakes
3.3.4 Encouraging students to use English
In order to avoid L1 interference in writing, it is better to encourage students to use L2 teachers need to show respect for the learners‟ L1 and avoid doing things that make the L1 seem inferior to English At the same time, it is the English teacher‟s job to help learners develop their proficiency in English Therefore, a balance aproach is needed which sees a role for the L1 but also recognizes the importance of maximizing L2 use in the clasroom
Nation (1997) suggested that in classes where learners all share the same L1, teachers need to use a range of options to encourage learners to use the L2 as much as possible The following range of options is based on reasons why learners use L1 when they should be using L2 These reasons include low proficiency in the L2, shyness in using L2, or simply a lack of interest in learning L2
This study has covered three parts of a full analysis of errors committed by students at Tinh Gia 2 Upper Secondary School The study is carried out on various theoretical bases of EA and CA The models for EA by Corder (1974) and James (1998) are applied in this study; especially, the error classification model by James helps the researcher much in identifying and classifying Theories of the explanation of errors at the end of chapter 1 lay a foundation on the researcher‟s statement about the possible causes of errors in the following chapter The analysis of the test papers has provided some suggestions
Verb errors, noun errors, word order errors, article errors and prepositional errors are the five most frequent grammatical errors in students‟ writing
Although the students are often reminded of correctness, appearance of MT interference errors in students‟ written English is frequent and systematic This may be taken as a proof of the negative effect of MT interference in foreign language learning process
This study reveals that various errors made by the students and ranks the most frequent error category, which can serve as an indication for teachers to better understand what errors their students could make and provide suitable instructions thereby The study proves the great significance to EA as it helps teachers understand more about students‟ errors and the difficulties they are encounting to get over these errors
While it is impossible to remove interference errors from the Vietnamese learners‟ English writing, it is quite logical to think that errors of this source will quantitatively be decreased with the increase of the learners‟ mastery of the TL The teacher of EFL writing should, therefore, expose students to lots of real or authentic writing, explain carefully the meanings and usage of new words and structures, and also teach them the target cultures
To deal with interference errors, the teacher has to adopt the comparative techniques (L1- L2) and provide reinforcement exercises of various types
By creating a “natural” language teaching environment, the communicative language teaching together with the use of pair work and group work can help promote an effective process of learning the English language, particularly written English
2 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies
Due to the limited time as well as the scope of the study, this study has not covered all errors found in the test papers and every aspect of Vietnamese interference in the English language In addition, this sudy just concentrates on words and stentence structrures
Hence, more research needs implementing on the organization of ideas Motivation, language proficiency or gender of the learners may also be used to find out the relationship between errors and their influential factors Lexical errors and misspelling should be analyzed in detail to have better explanation for the cause
Limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies
Due to the limited time as well as the scope of the study, this study has not covered all errors found in the test papers and every aspect of Vietnamese interference in the English language In addition, this sudy just concentrates on words and stentence structrures
Hence, more research needs implementing on the organization of ideas Motivation, language proficiency or gender of the learners may also be used to find out the relationship between errors and their influential factors Lexical errors and misspelling should be analyzed in detail to have better explanation for the cause
Moreover, the emphasis of the researcher‟s study is on the interference of the L1, which hinders the L2 learning What is the role of the MT in L2 acqusition? This question may suggest a research topic of great interest
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APPENDIX 1: PART: WRITING OF THE FINAL TEST
Choose one of the following topics to write about (within 100 - 120 words)
- write about your father’s or mother’s daily routine
- write a description of a place (a city / a town / a village…) in Vietnam you know well
- write short paragraphs about advantages and disadvantages of the mass media (Internet/computer/television/radio )
- write about your most memorable thing in your life
APPENDIX 2: DETAILS OF ERROR CLASSIFICATION
Levels Categories of errors Types of errors from the test papers Examples of errors
Substance Misspellings Misspellings Many young people like listeninh to music on radio (listening)
Lexical errors Lexical errors I always miss that event (remember)
Verbs Subject-verb agreement He often go to work at 7:00 a.m every day (goes)
Errors in the use of tenses When I was small, I often swim in the river alone (swam) Infinitive “TO”omission We decided return home (to return )
Omission of verbs Watching TV ỉ good or bad (be)
Omission of past tense or past participle –ed Last summer, I spended my holidays in Sam Son (spent)
Nouns Omission of plural-s There are many good programme on the television (programmes) addition of plural-s Computers can keep large amounts of informations in a small space (information) Word order Word order of noun modifiers I was born in a village small beside a river.(a small village)
Articles Omission of articles There was ỉ blocked door.(a)
Addition and misuse of articles I don’t forget an event when I spent my holidays in Hue (the) Preposition Omission of prepositions ỉ the morning, my mother usually gets up early to prepare breakfast (in)
Addition of prepositions Watching TV can benefit for us if we make good use of it
Misuse of prepositions We sat under the shade of a big tree to take a short rest (in)
Adverbs Word form They were dancing and singing happy (happily)
Adjectives Word form My mother often goes to bed lately (late)
Conjunctions Misuse of conjunctions Although internet has some bad effects, but more and more people use it
Pronouns Incorrect of personal pronouns Television helps we to learn more about the world.(us)
Omission of pronouns Watching TV can benefit us if we make good use of ỉ (it) Missing possessive Hanoi is special because of ỉ historic features (its)