Undergraduate thesis difficulties and common grammatical and mechanical errors in academic essay writing of english majored sophomores at an giang university

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HO CHI MINH CITY AN GIANG UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES UNDERGRADUATE THESIS DIFFICULTIES AND COMMON GRAMMATICAL AND MECHANICAL ERRORS IN ACADEMIC ESSAY WRITING OF ENGLISH-MAJORED SOPHOMORES AT AN GIANG UNIVERSITY NGUYEN HOANG HAI SON AN GIANG, 6-2022 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HO CHI MINH CITY AN GIANG UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES UNDERGRADUATE THESIS DIFFICULTIES AND COMMON GRAMMATICAL AND MECHANICAL ERRORS IN ACADEMIC ESSAY WRITING OF ENGLISH-MAJORED SOPHOMORES AT AN GIANG UNIVERSITY NGUYEN HOANG HAI SON I.D No DTA187157 ADVISOR: M.A, HUYNH CHI XUAN HUYEN AN GIANG, 6-2022 Thesis Title: DIFFICULTIES AND COMMON GRAMMATICAL AND MECHANICAL ERRORS IN ACADEMIC ESSAY WRITING OF ENGLISH-MAJORED SOPHOMORES AT AN GIANG UNIVERSITY By: NGUYEN HOANG HAI SON Field of Study: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS Advisor: M.A, HUYNH CHI XUAN HUYEN Accepted by the Faculty of Foreign Languages, An Giang University on … June 2022 ………………………………………… (Dr Tran Thi Thanh Hue) Dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages Examination Committee ………………………………………………Advisor (M.A HUYNH CHI XUAN HUYEN) ……………………………………………… Faculty Examiner (Ph D PHAN THI THANH HUYEN) ………………………………………… … Faculty Examiner (Ph D NGUYEN DUC HANH) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to extend my deepest thanks to individuals and institutions for all the support they have given me and my undergraduate thesis First and foremost, I would like to express my genuine appreciation to my respectful supervisor as well as mentor – Ms Huynh Chi Xuan Huyen Throughout the time at An Giang University, it was my luck as well as pleasure to have a chance to be instructed by Ms Huynh Chi Xuan Huyen in many courses Her professional manner in teaching has led me to wonderful achievements in academic records With this thesis, not only did she inspire me to register for it in the first place but also share her valuable insight into Research Methodology to me During the time of conducting this thesis, she – despite being occupied by her hectic working schedule – was giving me her endless support whenever I was in need Her direct supervision has made an invaluable contribution to the development and completion of my undergraduate thesis Secondly, I would like to give a special thank to Ms Nguyen Thi Anh Guong, Mr Nguyen Duc Hanh, Ms Ly Thi Minh Trang, Ms Nguyen Thi Anh Nguyet, Ms Truong Nhu Ngoc, and my beloved supervisor Ms Huynh Chi Xuan Huyen for their important assistance in helping me gather data for the thesis They were so kind to give me access to valuable sources of data from the courses and classes under their supervision Moreover, they also showed me their passionate enthusiasm of a teacher in encouraging English-majored sophomores to help me fill in the questionnaire Without their help, my undergraduate thesis will not go this far i Thirdly, I want to send my best regards to Mr Le Do Thai who was in charge of the course on Research Methodology He had imparted me with inspiring lessons from the course as well as instructed me on using SPSS for data analysis Moreover, I also want to express my gratitude to Mr Nguyen Tien Ngo who is my admiring teacher for offering me materials for referential purposes Lastly, I would like to thank all the participants who took part in this study Your cooperation is an indispensable part of the completion of this thesis ii DECLARATION  I hereby declare that the thesis entitled “Difficulties and Common Grammatical and Mechanical Errors in Academic Essay Writing of English-Majored Sophomores at An Giang University” represents my own work and that has not been previously submitted to any other university or institute in application for admission to degrees or other qualifications _ June 2022 Nguyen Hoang Hai Son iii ABSTRACT English is gradually becoming an indispensable language in the modern world Out of the four skills in English, writing is the most difficult one Especially, the difficulty of writing mostly lies in academic writing Hence, this study is carried out with an aim to help students come to be aware of the difficulties, and grammatical and mechanical errors in academic writing, especially essay writing Moreover, this study also aims at providing teachers with useful information about the status quo of students, especially sophomores in writing essays so that they can make good use of such information in their teaching This quantitative study uses the questionnaires and error analysis of writing samples to figure out the difficulties, and common grammatical and mechanical errors in writing essays of students with the participation of 156 English-majored sophomores at An Giang University and a collection of 20 essays from those students After surveying students’ perception on five categories of difficulties using a questionnaire, the findings reveal that all the difficulties listed in the questionnaire are encountered by students The most common difficulty among those is time restriction The linguistic category is the most common category of difficulties in which three most recognized difficulties are vocabulary restriction, mother tongue’s influence, and limited paraphrasing ability The commonly committed types of grammatical errors from students are singularity/plurality, verb forms/tenses, sentence structures, prepositions, articles, word classes, and conjunctions Three types of mechanical errors often made by students can be listed as punctuations, spelling and capitalization iv The study also reflects its shortcomings and makes recommendations for changes and further studies Keywords: difficulties, grammatical errors, mechanical errors, academic writing, essay writing v CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i DECLARATION iii ABSTRACT iv CONTENTS vi LIST OF TABLES ix LIST OF FIGURES xi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xii CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study 1.2 Statement of the problem 1.3 Research aims and research questions 1.4 Significance of the study 1.5 Structure of the thesis CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Academic writing 2.2 Academic essay types 2.2.1 Exposition 2.2.2 Argumentation 2.2.3 Description 2.2.4 Narration 2.3 Criteria for essay writing evaluation 2.4 Difficulties in essay writing 11 2.4.1 Linguistic problems 12 2.4.2 Cognitive problems 13 2.4.3 Psychological problems 13 2.5 Errors 14 2.5.1 Errors classification 14 2.5.1.1 Linguistic category taxonomy 14 2.5.1.2 Surface strategy taxonomy 15 2.5.1.2.1 Omission 15 2.5.1.2.2 Addition 16 2.5.1.2.2.1 Double marking 16 2.5.1.2.2.2 Regularization 16 2.5.1.2.2.3 Simple addition 17 2.5.1.2.3 Misformation 17 vi 2.5.1.2.3.1 Regularization errors 17 2.5.1.2.3.2 Archi-forms 18 2.5.1.2.3.3 Alternating forms 18 2.5.1.2.4 Misorder 18 2.5.1.3 The comparative taxonomy 18 2.5.1.4 Communicative effect taxonomy 18 2.5.2 Source of errors 19 2.5.2.1 Interlingual interference 19 2.5.2.2 Intralingual interference 20 2.5.2.2.1 Overgeneralization 20 2.5.2.2.2 Ignorance of rule restrictions 21 2.5.2.2.3 Incomplete application of rules 21 2.5.2.2.4 False concepts hypothesized 22 2.5.3 Grammatical errors 22 2.5.4 Mechanical errors 26 2.5.4.1 Capitalization 26 2.5.4.2 Punctuation 26 2.5.4.3 Spelling 26 2.6 Related studies 27 2.6.1 Difficulties in essay writing 27 2.6.2 Common grammatical s and mechanical errors in essay writing 29 2.7 Summary 30 CHAPTER RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 31 3.1 Research design 31 3.2 Research participants 31 3.3 Research instruments 33 3.3.1 Questionnaire 33 3.3.2 Analyzing sophomores’ essay samples 34 3.4 Data collection procedures 34 3.5 Data analysis 35 3.6 Validity and reliability 35 CHAPTER FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 37 4.1 Findings about the difficulties in essay writing 37 4.1.1 Linguistic difficulties 38 4.1.2 Psychological difficulties 42 4.1.3 Pedagogical difficulties 44 4.1.4 Cognitive difficulties 46 vii APPENDIX D: WRITING SAMPLES P1 P2 119 P3 P4 120 P5 P6 P7 121 P8 122 P9 P10 123 P11 P12 124 P13 P14 125 P15 126 P16 P17 127 P18 128 P19 129 P20 130 131 APPENDIX E: PLAGIARISM CHECK BY TURNITIN 132 133