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THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH FACULTY - - GRADUATION PAPER TOPIC: COMMON MISTAKES IN WRITING COVER LETTERS AND BUSINESS REPORTS MADE BY THIRD-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS Supervisor : HA THI VU HA, M.A Student : BUI THI BICH NGOC Class : K54N7 Student code : 18D170328 Hanoi, 2021 ABSTRACT In the last few decades, Vietnam has seen its expanding relationship with many other nations in economics, scientific and technical fields; English language as an international language, therefore, has been widely used in every field, especially in business communication in general and business transaction in particular The issues of business communication as well as business transaction thus should be unsurprisingly a big problem for everybody It cannot be denied that business correspondence plays an important role in business communication Business correspondence is a written means through which information or views are communicated in business operations; each business letter has a specific purpose Currently, cover letters and business reports play an important role in business communication A cover letter is commonly submitted with a job application explaining the applicant's credentials and interest in the position A business report is an official document that contains factual information, statistical data, research findings, or any other form of information relevant to the course of the job This report is a formal document written to-the-point to convey information in a concise yet clear manner Knowing how to write effectively cover letters and business reports is really a challenge for many people My own observation shows that even the students of business have limited knowledge and experience in writing cover letters and business reports not only in English but also in Vietnamese It is true that students of English Faculty at Thuongmai University are all aware of the role of cover letters and business reports writing but not everyone can write them easily Therefore, after years of learning this major, having experienced a wide range of difficulties in studying cover letters and business reports, the researcher decided to choose the research topic "Common mistakes in writing cover letters and business reports made by third-year English-majored students at Thuongmai University and some suggested solutions" In the hope of working out some solutions to help Vietnamese people as well as students of English Faculty at Thuongmai University, to some extent, overcome their difficulties in writing cover letters and business reports, the study is an attempt to analyze some common mistakes in writing cover letters and business i reports made by third-year students majors in English at Thuongmai University After that, some suggestions will be drawn out to improve the studying and teaching of writing cover letters and business reports in English The real data is collected by the researcher through two data collection instruments: questionnaires and interviews Research results show that students majoring in English appreciate the importance of writing cover letters and business reports in English, the mistakes they often make when learning to write, and the need to improve this skill Therefore, improving students' writing of cover letters and business reports requires time for practice and appropriate methods The new findings of the study hopefully are useful not only for English majors but for all those who have a great interest in learning English ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In fact, it always shows that success is associated with the support and help of those around us, whether that help is more or less, directly or indirectly During the time from the beginning to the present of the graduation paper, I have faced up with many problems with apology strategy in English, as well as the way to express my ideas However, with the great help, assistance and encouragement from this people who are teachers, family and friends, I have overcome these difficulties and completed this graduation paper successfully I would like to express my deepest and most sincere gratitude to the people to help me during the conduct of the research First and foremost, I would like to send my heartfelt gratitude towards my supervisor Mrs.Ha Thi Vu Ha for her constructive and timely feedback as well as her constant and assistance which were decisive factors to the completion of my study She has not only given me many suggestions and comments but also provided me with valuable materials Second, for all lecturers at TMU, I would like to express my sincere thanks to the effort of them who taught me valuable knowledge and experiences Last but not least, I would like to send my appreciation for the cooperation from participants who gave support to me with the surveys Without their help, my graduation paper could not be successfully completed Because of limited time, knowledge and practical experience, this graduation paper certainly contains some shortcomings Therefore, I honestly look forward to receiving more comments and suggestion from teachers All of the feedbacks and recommendations are warmly welcome and this will make the graduation paper be more perfect Thank you sincerely! Hanoi, 25th December 2021 Bui Thi Bich Ngoc iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii TABLE OF CONTENT .v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .vi LIST OF TABLES, DIAGRAMS AND FIGURES vi CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY .1 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Previous studies 1.3 Aims of the study 1.4 Research Subjects 1.5 Scope of the study 1.6 Research methodology 1.7 Organization CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .8 2.1 Overview of cover letters and business reports 2.1.1 Cover letter 2.1.2 Business report 11 2.2 Common mistakes in writing cover letters and business reports 15 2.2.1 Vocabulary mistakes 15 2.2.2 Grammar mistakes .27 2.2.3 Content mistakes 24 2.3 Factors affecting cover letters and business reports writing process .27 2.3.1 Influence of the mother tongue 28 2.3.2 Little vocabulary 29 2.3.3 Grammatical structures 30 2.3.4 Little writing practice 30 2.3.5 Context .31 2.4 Summary 31 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS 32 3.1 Description of the Respondents 32 iv 3.2 Results from the survey questionnaires 32 3.2.1 Students’ perception towards cover letters and business reports writing skills .32 3.2.2 Discovery of common mistakes in writing cover letters and business reports made by third-year English majored students at TMU 37 3.2.3 Causes and suggested solutions for the students 42 3.3 Results from the interviews 46 3.3.1 Interview question 1: What are the common mistakes in writing cover letters and business reports often encountered by third-year students majoring in English? .46 3.2.2 Interview question 2: How to help the students get rid of their common mistakes in writing cover letters and business reports? 47 3.4 Summary 48 CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 49 4.1 Limitation .49 4.2.Recommendations 49 4.2.1 For Thuongmai University 49 4.2.2 For lecturers 50 4.2.3 For students 51 4.2.4 Recommendations for further studies 53 CONCLUSION 54 REFERENCES APPENDICES v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS TMU Thuongmai University LIST OF TABLES, DIAGRAMS AND FIGURES FIGURES Figures Page Figure 3.1: Student’s preference for English 32 Figure 3.2: The importance of cover letters and business reports 33 Figure 3.3: The importance of learning to write cover letters and 34 business reports Figure 3.4: The cover letters and business reports writing ability 35 Figure 3.5: The difficulty of writing cover letters and business reports 35 Figure 3.6: The student's score for writing cover letters 36 Figure 3.7: The student's score for writing business reports 37 Figure 3.8: The frequency of making mistakes 38 Figure 3.9: Type of mistakes in writing cover letters and business 38 reports students encounter most vi Figure 3.10: Mistakes you noticed when the teacher commented on 39 writing cover letters Figure 3.11: Mistakes you noticed when the teacher commented on 40 writing business reports Figure 3.12: The frequency of making vocabulary mistakes 41 Figure 3.13: The frequency of making grammar mistakes 41 Figure 3.14: The frequency of making content mistakes 42 Figure 3.15: Causes affecting on writing cover letters and business 43 reports of students Figure 3.16: Solutions for writing cover letters and business reports vii 45 CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale According to the opinion of Chester Barnard (1983), communication processes are the central point in an organization Katz and Kahn (1966), in their study with the title “The Social psychology of organizations”, emphasize: “The nearest anyone comes to the centre of decision making, the clearest the emphasis is given to information exchange and communication” They also believe that it works as a positive psychological motivation for performance A successful corporation depends not only on individual communications but also on effective communication throughout the organization Corporate excellence consists of eight characteristics One of these is the communication strategy of listening and responding to workers, to customers, to suppliers, to the organization’s publics (specialized subgroups or a larger national or international population) It is necessary to be in touch with all segments of an organization in order to manage it effectively And the only way to be in touch is through effective communication People in organizations must communicate both internally (with people inside the organization) and externally (with people and organizations outside the company) Common modes of business communication are business meetings, business presentations and business correspondence Business communication, especially correspondence among people with organizations or between those people and their clients or customers, is essential to the success of individuals and businesses Business correspondence in commerce plays an extremely important role This is one of the simple and easy ways to negotiate, which is used as a means of exchanging information in the business field Especially, in the context of the current Covid pandemic, when face-to-face communication becomes difficult, business correspondence is an indispensable thing Business correspondence reflects the professionalism as well as the ability of the writer or the image representative of a company When you communicate effectively by business correspondence, it helps to promote a good relationship between the two businesses On the contrary, if the communication by mail is not effective, it will cause many problems such as: leading to misunderstandings, delaying in business as well as in individual and collective relationships Business correspondence is written for the fulfillment of several purposes, so they are divided into different types such as: enquiry letter, order letter, complaint letter, cover letter, business report,…Each of these types, besides the characteristics of a business letter, also carries some specific characteristics Among the types mentioned above, cover letters and business reports are one of the most common forms of business correspondence They are now widely used in commercial communication Faculty of English with 14 years of establishment and development, specializes in training bachelors of English who are able to work effectively in professional fields using English Graduates of the Faculty can get jobs related to the use of English in businesses, economic and financial institutions; teach English after adding pedagogical knowledge and skills; translator and interpretor in the field of economics and commerce According to the annual survey conducted by the Faculty, 95% of graduates majoring in Business English have a job within months, of which the percentage of students working in the right major is 80% With experience and high efficiency in training human resources to meet the labor needs of society, the faculty always innovates and develops teaching methods Recognizing the importance of business correspondence, the school has included in the program the subject of business correspondence as one of the compulsory subjects of students In the English Faculty at Thuongmai University, in particular, students study commercial correspondence subject to write good business letters It is necessary for students to write good business letters Business letters are the cheapest and most extensive form of communication all over the world For starters, it can help you network more efficiently, allowing for better communication among peers and potential employers Once you’ve graduated, you’ll be sending hundreds of professional business emails hoping to land an internship or a decent job However, the reasons may come from cultural differences, knowledge and writing skill of each individual, it seems quite complicated for students to write perfect business correspondence in general and cover letters and business reports in particular Regarding the remaining methods, the group of two methods “Rewrite” ( students strongly agree, 22 students agree, 19 students neutral) and “Expand social knowledge” (20 students strongly agree, 16 student agree) are less preferred than the group of methods analyzed above Through data collected from this question, it can be seen that there are many methods to assist students in enhancing their cover letters and business reports writing skills 3.3 Results from the interviews In addition to collecting information by the questionnaires, the researcher also used a method of interviewing The number of people interviewed is and each person will be asked same questions This face-to-face interview is intended to reinforce the results of the questionnaires 3.3.1 Interview question 1: What are the common mistakes in writing cover letters and business reports often encountered by third-year students majoring in English? When asked about the most common mistakes in writing cover letters and business reports, Nguyen Thi Tuyet of K55N5 class said that the mistake she often repeats is using informal language Tuyet said this error is due to daily routine, she often texts and chats with friends with intimate words This is also the mistake that Tuyet wants to fix most because she knows that writing great cover letters and business reports requires both attention to detail and formal English It can be easy to mess up a cover letter or a business report if students are not careful Another student from K55N4 class, To Thi Yen, said that the most common mistakes in writing cover letters and business reports she often encountered was using incorrect tenses in the article Yen said that when she was in secondary school and high school, teachers taught students a lot of knowledge about tenses, but English has more tenses than other languages which makes it difficult for her to distinguish them The last person participating in the interview is Vu Minh Hieu (K55N2) He said he does not have too much trouble with the mistakes that the third-year students often encounter However, in some articles about cover letters and business reports because of his carelessness, he often has a few spelling mistakes Spelling mistakes can make 46 writing look unprofessional Luckily, they are very easy to fix He is trying to make himself a habit of re-reading his writing before sending them In short, even though they are students of the English department, they still face many mistakes in writing cover letters and business reports However, most of them realize the importance of cover letters and business reports and wish to improve those mistakes This is a positive signal, contributing to upgrade the quality of students' writing about cover letters and business reports 3.2.2 Interview question 2: How to help the students get rid of their common mistakes in writing cover letters and business reports? This question is intended to gather information on how to approach which help them correct their mistakes Regarding Tuyet's fault which is influenced by her habits, she thinks that the regular practice writing based on samples of cover letters and business reports Imitation helps her absorb gradually and improve over time In a cover letter or a business report, she will try to use formal or polite language As for Yen, she will add more knowledge about tenses She signed up for an English grammar training course The course will also strengthen her not only knowledge of tenses but also other knowledge of grammar Yen said that she could not be able to improve if she just stayed at home and learned how to correct her mistakes Furthermore, her laziness would not allow her to study seriously at home Meanwhile, at the English center, she practiced regularly with her instructors and other friends Besides, the tutor's attention and supervision also motivated her to learn harder and overcome laziness The last is Hieu He expressed hope to train herself to be careful Typos and misspellings are easy to check, so when people see these errors, they often discredit the entire message A lack of editing or proofreading shows that you are not serious about the content of your letter However, this is a mistake that is easily avoidable He believes that when he is more careful, he will have good cover letters and business reports 47 Overall, there are countless ways to improve cover letters and business reports writing skills Students must be aware of the negative effects of mistakes and find a suitable solution for themselves 3.4 Summary Based on the data obtained from the survey and analysis above, the researcher summarizes the main points of the research findings In terms of assessing the importance of cover letters and business reports, the majority of students are aware of and appreciate the role as well as the value of them However, students still make a lot of mistakes when writing cover letters and business reports Regarding the score, the majority of students only achieve 7-8 points This score is not high and needs to be improved In the process of gathering information, the researcher also discovers the most common mistakes the students face, the causes that affect the writing of cover letters and business reports, as well as drawing out the most feasible solutions for the students Even so, to progress, the prerequisite factor is depending on them 48 CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 4.1 Limitation Although the research has its strengths in data collection methods, due to the limited time and knowledge, shortcomings in the thesis are unavoidable Moreover, this study specializes in studying common mistakes in writing cover letters and business reports of third-year English major students, so other skills are not mentioned and solved In addition, the materials and techniques used are obtained from reputable sources but are still limited Despite these limitations, the researcher hopes that the graduation paper can contribute to help English majored students identify the mistakes, causes and how to fix them, to improve the quality of teaching and students and lectures of the English Department at TMU 4.2 Recommendations After this study, the researcher recommends some suggestions in the hope of helping the students refer and find a suitable solution for their situation, shorten the progress of learning writing skills to confidently write cover letters and business reports 4.2.1 For Thuongmai University Firstly, continuing to invest financial resources in building infrastructure, teaching and learning conditions, and supporting teaching for lecturers In which, classrooms need to have an internet connection to serve high-quality and effective exchange, discussion or skill practice sessions; easily assist teachers in finding concrete and practical illustrative examples on the internet Second, renewing the curriculum towards practical content Currently, although the school's curriculum has been renewed and updated, it is still heavily theoretical, academic, or the content is too heavy, too specialized in the field of specialization While, graduate students not seem to apply these knowledge in real work Therefore, the duration and frequency of knowledge in the curriculum need to be researched and adjusted to be more suitable with the change of socio-economic context 49 Third, organizing sessions to exchange and gain experience on modern teaching methods with domestic and foreign universities Especially, in the context of financial autonomy of some universities today, it is necessary to focus on methods of dialogue, communicate and exchange of online teaching experiences to both save costs and bring high efficiency 4.2.2 For lecturers Firstly, building learning motivation for students Accordingly, at the beginning of class, teachers have a strategy to introduce the importance of learning English in general as well as the importance of cover letters and business reports in particular We not only give a general analysis, but a very specific analysis of the benefits of students when learning English, cover letters and business reports If teachers know how to analyze deeply and give practical examples, students will be ready to learn English passionately, because they really know that English is very much needed for intellectuals Some examples are: If you want to integrate and exploit advanced knowledge sources in the world, if you have good expertise and good English, you will be a good candidate for admission to positions Besides, carefully written letters can provide good business opportunities and stimulate business Many managers write goodwill letters, for example, to their colleagues or customers on different occasions such as promotions, thanks, congratulation on a wedding, condolence on a death, etc These are appropriate occasions to strengthen existing relations or develop new business opportunities through correspondence with net added value At the internal level, this endeavor creates a motivating work environment, trustful and friendly relations and encourages personnel to work towards achieving the company’s goals Second, developing a method to learn business correspondence in general and cover letters and business reports in particular for students In developing learning methods for students, teachers need to first teach apprentices how to study, how to access online and social media resources, in which focus on building ways to self-study through social networks because currently the rate of using smart devices and the internet among young Vietnamese is at a high level In addition, although each student has his/her own learning method, the lecturer should suggest methods for learning 50 vocabulary, grammar and good business letter writing skills; train students to guess words in context; build a way to practice a lot in pairs, in groups The teacher asks students to exchange their thoughts on a question or topic in pairs or small groups, and then asks the group representative to share their thoughts with the class After listening to different answers/thoughts, students vote for the best answer In addition, teachers can also organize new activities and games to help students take the initiative in learning and become the center of the class From there, the teacher will be the observer, coordinator, and manager of the activities, and the classroom atmosphere will always be lively, exciting and comfortable Third, renewing the lecture content associated with problems in life For example, in the sessions, lecturers can choose a topic about the impact of the US - China trade war on the global financial - monetary market With this topic, lecturers can get a lot of articles and analysis videos of experts in international newspapers By using these materials, it not only creates excitement about the content because this is a hot issue, but also helps students develop listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, acquiring more economic and financial knowledge, and especiallyBy using these materials, it not only creates excitement about the content because this is a hot issue, but also helps students develop listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, acquiring more economic and financial knowledge, and especially access to a lot of newly updated derivative words that are not in the dictionary This is essential in learning to write cover letters and business reports Fourth, focusing on using information technology, social networks, achievements of the Industrial Revolution 4.0 in teaching The use of modern technologies and methods of technology support by direct interaction will not only help students learn quickly and easily, but also teachers will not have much pressure on the lesson plan 4.2.3 For students a) Attitude The findings show that learning attitude is one of the factors that has a great impact on writing cover letters and business reports skills Actively studying and hardworking will help people achieve their goals in all fields, not just writing cover letters and business reports Therefore, whether cover letters and business reports 51 writing skills can be improved or not depends on the learners' attitude towards that subject If the learner tries hard enough, they will reap the fruits b) Learning methods From the survey results, choosing the wrong methods is the second biggest reason that makes cover letters and business reports writing skills become a barrier for English-majored students These results demonstrate the importance of choosing the right method, so the students should consider a practice method that is suitable for them The following are the most potent methods suggested by the researcher based on personal experience and the findings • Making writing a daily habit If you want to improve your cover letters and business reports writing you need to start practicing daily Start by writing for 10 minutes a day Then adjust the time as needed According to author Vivian M.R in "Reading, Writing and Thinking": "Learning to write is like learning to swim, no one can it for you You have to get up and down yourself You have to get up and down yourself.” A lot of practice will help you get used to writing cover letters and business reports From there you remember the structure of cover letters and business reports, know how to edit the article to suit each situation You feel more confident when you write cover letters and business reports • Strengthening vocabulary, structure and grammar To be able to build a good article, what students need to pay most attention to is the background knowledge in the textbook so that they can overcome errors in the use of tenses, structures, sentences, words, punctuation, spelling… Students should learn from simple to complex knowledge carefully Whenever you are unsure about the usage of a word, phrase, or punctuation, you should use editing tools There are so many free resources that you can use to improve your writing Online dictionaries and thesauruses will help you with spelling and word choice Online grammar tools or simply just “googling” grammar rules will help you with run-on sentences, fragments, and comma splices • Asking for feedback 52 If you get so frustrated with your practice of writing cover letters and business reports that you want to crawl back into your writer’s turtle shell, start by sharing your piece with someone you trust Ask them for their opinion and what they thought of your piece As you start to build up your confidence and learn how to accept constructive criticism, challenge yourself to share your writing with an expert Once you view critiques as opportunities to grow, then you’ll start asking for feedback all the time Here is a helpful way to help you recognize your mistakes and fix them Students can seek help from friends, lecturers or people who are experienced in writing cover letters and business reports • Expanding social knowledge Read for knowledge and inspiration You should practice reading regularly Before you start writing, you must read some books because it will help you to better your writing skills and know-how others write to communicate or express themselves with writing and vocabulary Students should get into the habit of reading a lot of newspapers, magazines or Internet bulletin boards Creating a habit of reading newspapers in free time is necessary but students should read carefully and intensively This reading will help them learn English words, sentence structure, expressions and writing style In addition, students can strengthen their cultural, social and economic knowledge In particular, cover letters and business reports always require students to have an understanding of economics, students should read a lot of economic knowledge to supplement specialized words for themselves • Proofreading your writeup before sending Before you send your writeup for editing, you must proofread it once Poor spelling or grammatical mistakes can spoil an impressive piece to read 4.2.4 Recommendations for further studies Due to the time constraint and references mentioned above, this study could not cover all aspects of the study Therefore, to have more accurate and comprehensive results, it is necessary to have studies that require more participants and use more research support tools Overall, the research is not immune from its shortcomings So, all contributions from this research will be served further studies 53 CONCLUSION Strong writing is a powerful tool Every day you communicate with people through texts, emails, or on the phone You communicate information through blogs, articles, and reports Our attention span is limited and everyone and everything is trying to be the focus of it To ensure that your voice is getting heard, you need to make an impact and cut through all of the noise Having strong written skills will help you effectively convey your ideas, capture the attention of your audience, relay information, and most importantly connect with others Cover letters and business reports are very important in today's developed society If you write a good cover letter and business report, you will have more strength at work Improving your writing is a process It will take time so be kind to yourself Don’t stress over getting your first draft perfect or nailing each one of these techniques Be patient and keep practicing With this research, the researcher hopes it makes small contributions to help English major students overcome their problems in particular and improve the quality of writing cover letters and business reports of students at TMU in general 54 REFERENCES Phạm Thị Anh Đào (2015), “Lỗi diễn đạt viết sinh viên tiếng Anh năm thứ số đề xuất chữa lỗi”, Tạp chí khoa học ngoại ngữ, (số 42), trang 90-100 Frendo, Evan (2012), How to Teach Business English, England: Pearson Education Limited Johan, Rita (2014), Business English, Jakarta: Grasindo Norrish, J (1983), Language learners and their errors, The Macmillan Press, London Daniela, Popescu (2014), Teaching English to Students in Economics, Economy Series, Issue 4/2014 Constantin Brancusi University in Targu Jiu Hourani, T Mohammed (2008), “An Analysis of the Common Grammatical Errors in the English Essay Writing Made by 3rd Secondary Male Students in the Eastern Coast of the UAE”, A Dissertation, Institute of Education, British University in Dubai Sycandone, Nokthavivanh (2016), “Comparative Error Analysis in English Writing by First, Second, and Third Year Students of English Department of Faculty of Education at Champasack University”, Postgraduate Thesis, Muhammadiyah University Surakarta Harris, J (1993), Introducing writing, Penguin English Byrne, D (1988), Teaching Writing Skills, Longman Group Ltd, London Website: https://publikasiilmiah.ums.ac.id/bitstream/handle/11617/8844/E1.pdf https://blog.harwardcommunications.com/page/11/ https://authority.pub/common-grammar-mistakes/ https://www.theguardian.com/careers/2017/apr/03/how-to-avoid-common-cvmistakes https://library.unimelb.edu.au/ data/assets/pdf_file/0005/1924160/Business_Re ports.pdf https://thebusinesscommunication.com/importance-of-business-letter/ i APPENDICES APPENDIX 1: Questionnaires TOPIC: COMMON MISTAKES IN WRITING COVER LETTERS AND BUSINESS REPORTS MADE BY THIRD-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJORED AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS Hi guys! I am a senior of the English Faculty at Thuongmai University I am carrying out a study on the topic "Common mistakes in writing cover letterd and business reports made by third-year English-majored students at Thuongmai University and some suggested solutions" I would like to ask for your help with this questionnaire which was designed for my thesis Your help will be valuable contribution for my data collection All your information will be secured Thanks for your kind help! I PERSONAL INFORMATION Full name: Gender: o Male o Female II.STUDENTS' PERCEPTION Student's preference for English? Really like Like Normal Dislike Students' perception of the importance of cover letters and business reports Very important Important Normal Not important Students' perception of the importance of learning to write cover letters and business reports Very important Important ii Normal Not important Students' evaluation of their own cover letters and business reports writing ability Very good Good Normal Not good Student's assessment of the difficulty of writing cover letters and business reports Very difficult Difficult Normal Not difficult How many points you usually get when writing a cover letter? More than points 7-8 points 6-7 points 5-6 points Less than points How many points you usually get when writing a business report? More than points 7-8 points 6-7 points 5-6 points Less than points 10 How often you make mistakes when writing cover letters and business reports? Always Regularly Sometimes Rarely iii Never 11 What type of mistakes in writing cover letters and business reports you encounter most? Vocabulary mistakes Grammar mistakes Content mistakes 12 Mistakes you noticed when the teacher commented on writing cover letters (You can choose more than one option) Not following instructions Using the wrong format Using the same cover letter for every application Writing without first researching the company and position Failing to highlight your strongest or most relevant skills Discussing irrelevant work experience or a lack of experience Others (Please specify): 13 Mistakes you noticed when the teacher commented on writing business reports (You can choose more than one option) Writing a report without a clear structure Writing a report that is too short Writing in a literary way Excessive usage of colors and graphs Grammar & Stylistic mistakes Others (Please specify): III MISTAKES IN WRITING COVER LETTERS AND BUSINESS REPORTS The purpose of this section is to identify more clearly mistakes in writing cover letters and business reports by third-year English-majored students at Thuongmai University 14.Vocabulary mistakes Never Rarely Sometimes Regularly Always iv Word choice mistake Spelling mistake 15 Grammar mistakes Never Rarely Sometimes Regularly Always Misuse of verbs Misuse of nouns Misuse of tenses Word collocation Misuse of prepositions Misuse of synonyms Misuse of punctuations 16 Content mistakes Never Rarely Sometimes Regularly Always Expression mistake Style mistake Article structure Digression mistake IV CAUSES AND MEASURES Please answer the following sections according to the following orders 1-Strongly disagree 2-Disagree 3-Neutral 4-Agree 5-Strongly agree 17.Causes of students' writing mistakes in cover letters and business reports 17.Causes Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly disagree Practicing writing less The influence of mother tongue Little vocabulary and structure Grammar is uncertain Context v agree Carelessness The teacher's teaching method is not suitable 18.Measures to improve students' ability to write cover letters and business reports 18 Measures Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly disagree agree Practice writing more Check for errors after writing Rewrite Ask your teachers, friends or experienced people to correct your writing Strengthen vocabulary, structure, grammar Expand social knowledge APPENDIX 2: Interview questions INTERVIEW QUESTIONS: What are the common mistakes in writing cover letters and business reports often encountered by third-year students majoring in English? How to help the students get rid of their common mistakes in writing cover letters and business reports? Thank you for your co-operation! vi ... implementing change in the… - During my time at (company), I studied part-time for an MBA, which I completed in 2 0- Since then I have gained more management experience in… - As part of my degree course... for further training and experience in- - I was offered the post of Senior Technician by (company) in (date), and therefore left (company) in order to… - I joined (company) in (date) as part... in 2 0-, where I gained a degree/ diploma/ certificate in - (Mention any parts of your studies relevant to the post.) During my employment with – my work was specifically concerned with - (Mention