Investigating errors related to english subject verb agreement a case study at tay ninh teacher training collegle submitted to the faculty of enghlish linguistics literature in

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY –HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE INVESTIGATING ERRORS RELATED TO ENGLISH SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT A CASE STUDY AT TAY NINH TEACHER TRAINING COLLEGE Submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL By PHAM THI HONG DAO Supervised by DOAN HUE DUNG, Ph.D HO CHI MINH CITY, JANUARY 2014 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I have been longing to write the acknowledgements I would like to express my sincere gratitude for those who helped me to survive all the hardship to complete the thesis I sincerely thank Dr Doan Hue Dung, my supervisor, for her patience in reading, commenting on all the drafts of this thesis and giving me advice on the collection of data Her comments and guidance have helped me to complete this study I am greatly grateful to my colleagues and my friends for their care and encouragement, as well as to all the lecturers of the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature of the Ho Chi Minh University of Social Sciences and Humanities for their lectures I wish to thank my students for their willingness to fulfill the tests, the questionnaires and the interviews Finally, my deepest gratitude goes to my Grandmother and my parents, who have been giving me unspoken care and great encouragement Their optimism, encouragement and concern for me have strengthened me to continue my thesis i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP This thesis is submitted for the Master’s degree of TESOL in the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City National University Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis contains no materials published elsewhere or extracted in whole, or in part from a thesis by which I have been awarded with another degree or diploma No other author’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the thesis This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any diploma in any other tertiary institution TAY NINH, VIET NAM, 2014 PHAM THI HONG DAO ii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, PHAM THI HONG DAO, being the candidate for the degree of Master of TESOL, accept the requirement of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction of theses TAY NINH, VIET NAM, 2014 PHAM THI HONG DAO iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the study 1.2 Rationales 1.3 Aims of the study 1.4 Overview of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Error analysis 2.2 Error analysis in language teaching 2.3 Error and mistakes 2.4 Source of errors 10 2.4.1 Interlingual transfer 11 2.4.2 Intralingual transfer 12 2.5 Account of subject- verb agreement errors 12 2.6 The influence of Vietnamese on the acquisition of subject-verb agreement 19 2.6.1 Plurality of noun in Vietnamese 19 2.6.2 Plurality of noun in English 20 2.6.3 Verb inflection 23 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 27 3.1 Research question 27 3.2 Research design 27 3.2.1 Subjects 27 3.2.2 Research instrument 28 3.2.2.1 The diagnostic test 28 3.2.2.2 The questionnaire 30 3.2.2.3 The interview 32 3.3 Research procedure 32 iv 3.4 Method of data analysis 33 3.5 Summary of the chapter 34 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 35 4.1 What types of subject-verb agreement errors are commonly made by the Non-English majored students at Tay Ninh Teacher Training College? 35 4.1.1 SVA with the subject containing irregular nouns 37 4.1.2 SVA with the subject containing indefinite expression of amount 40 4.1.3 SVA with the subject containing intervening expression 43 4.1.4 S VA with the subject having correlative conjunction “either…or”, “neither…nor” 44 4.1.5 SVA with the subject containing noun of amount as single units 46 4.1.6 SVA with the subject joined by “and” 47 4.1.7 SVA with the subject modified by a prepositional phrase 49 4.1.8 SVA with the subject as a collective noun 55 4.1.9 SVA with the subject as the 3rd person singular subject 57 4.1.10 SVA with the subject modified by a relative clause 59 4.2 What are the main causes to subject-verb agreement errors made by Non-English majored students at Tay Ninh Teacher Training College? 63 4.3 Summary 74 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION 75 5.1 Conclusion 75 5.2 Implication 76 5.3 Contribution of the study 81 v 5.4 Limitation and suggestion for further study 81 REFERENCES 83 APPENDICES 88 APPENDIX 1: Diagnostic test 88 APPENDIX 2: Questionnaire for students 91 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviation Meaning AE error analysis SLA second language acquisition TG target language L1 the first language L2 the second language NP noun phrase SVA subject-verb agreement SS singular-singular PL plural-singular SP singular-plural PP plural-plural Sg singular Pl plural vii LIST OF TABLES Table page Table 1: Common rules of plural formation in English 21 Table 2: The Formation of Plurals in Vietnamese and English 23 Table 3: Percentage of students committed errors on categories of SVA 36 Table 4: Students’ performance on the SVA with the subject containing irregular nouns 39 Table 5: Students’ performance on SVA with the subject containing indefinite expression of amount 42 Table 6: Students’ performance on SVA with the subject containing intervening expression 44 Table 7: Students’ performance on SVA with the subject having correlative conjunction either…or”, “neither…nor” 45 Table 8: Students’ performance on SVA with the subject containing noun of amount as single units 46 Table 9: Students’ performance on SVA with the subject joined by “and” 48 Table 10: Students’ performance on SVA with the subject modified by a prepositional phrase 50 Table 11: Students’ performance on sentence 31, 32 54 Table 12: Students’ performance on SVA with the subject as a collective noun 56 Table 13: Students’ performance on SVA with the subject as the 3rd person singular subject 58 viii Table 14: Students’ performance on SVA with the subject modified by a relative clause 61 Table 15: Causes of the difficulties with English SVA 63 Table 16: The influence of Vietnamese on the acquisition of English SVA 64 Table 17: The case in which the students commit errors 66 Table 18: Some difficulties the students have in dealing with English SVA 67 Table 19: Students’ opinion on the teaching of SVA 72 ix analysis of such texts can help learners who are already familiar with prescriptive grammar rules but still have problems understanding and appropriately using grammatical rules Text analysis can also benefit learners with mostly implicit knowledge of grammar rather than explicit rule-based knowledge Vietnamese also plays a considerable role in causing students to make error in SVA The findings of the study show that students were also influenced by their L1 in their process of learning English SVA It is recommended that the teacher should include the differences between grammar rules in the students’ L1 and L2 so that they are aware that there are such differences and they will not transfer their L1 grammar to the L2 This helps students understand the differences of both English and Vietnamese and make use of the unique features of the two languages to produce good and acceptable sentences In addition, the students’ way of learning is also worth discussing Most of the students not invest enough time to their studies They have not realized the importance of English so they are not self-motivated to study English It is time they had an innovation approach to the studying of language in general and grammar in particular They should engage in self-practice and self-assessment It is believed that the students must be asked to give presentations on grammar lesson with the teacher’s guidance so that they can have opportunity to explore and assess the language they are learning It is high time for them to have a sense of the importance of self-studies As far as the students are concerned and the best to study and practice all tasks they can master the English SVA 80 5.3 THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE THESIS It becomes evident that the simple rule of SVA hides the difficulty that it is not always easy for the learners This helps the teacher identify in a systematic manner the specific and common language problems students have, so that they can focus more attention on these types of errors Such an insight into language learning problems is useful to teacher because it provides information on common troublespots in language learning which can be used in the preparation of effective teaching materials Also, by being able to predict errors to a certain extent, teachers can be well-equipped to help students minimize or overcome their learning problems This study, hopefully, gives some insight into the students’ grammatical problems as a clue for the teachers, that they know not only the students’ errors in general but also what to focus in their attempt to help their students see and avoid making the same errors in their grammatical performance Consequently, this helps students increase their confidence and linguistic competence in their writing as well 5.4 LIMITATION AND SUGGESTION FOR FURTHER STUDY It is clear that the number of the student subjects supported the study is rather small, hence it is not irrelevant to regard the student subjects as representatives for all the learners However, the thesis hopes to reveal a real picture of a number of selected students in one of the training sections held at Tay Ninh Teacher Training College The error analysis done in this thesis has just looked into the interlingual and intralingual sources of errors, which are only two internal factors Other external 81 factors such as social factors, input and interaction etc also negatively affect nonnative learners’ acquisition of English SVA are left unmentioned Beside that, because of limited time and the complex procedure of analyzing the students’ errors, the researcher is unable to let the teaching implication put in real experiment to make them more convincing Nevertheless, strong hope has been paid to further researches and subsequent applications the valid foundation of which is the very findings and suggestions of this thesis done for the sake of better teaching activities and more efficient learning results in the small scope of English SVA 82 REFERENCES Adrews, L (2007) The effects of implicit and explicit instruction on simple and complex grammatical structures for adult English language learner TESLEJ Ancker, W (2000) Errors and corrective feedback: Updated theory and classroom practice English Teaching Forum Bhatia, A (1974) An error analysis of students’ compositions IRAL 12/4 Bo, 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language production Cognitive Psychology, 1-46 Valette, M (1997) Modern language testing (2nd Ed) New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc Vongthieres, S (1974) A pedagogical study of selected English grammatical difficulties of advanced Thai students The Ohio state University Wallace, J (1998) Action research for language teachers Cambridge: Cambrige University Press Wei, X (2008) Implication of Fossilization in second language acquisition English Language Teaching Journal 86 Weireesh, S (1991) How to analyze interlanguage Journal of Psychology & Education Wiener, S (1981) The writing room: a resource book for teachers of English Oxford: Oxford University Press Wilkins,A (1972) Linguistic in language Massachussets : Institute of Technology 87 teaching The MIT Press, APPENDICES APPENDIX DIAGNOSTIC TEST Choose the correct form of the verbs in the following sentences My feet (hurt/hurts) Cattle (need/needs) a lot of looking after The children (read/reads) their reports in the class The news (are/is) always bad nowadays Gymnastics (look/looks) difficult, and it is difficult Each of the job applicants (type/types) sixty words per minute Each individual (need/needs) education in their life Plenty of errors (were/was) found in this writing A lot of people (have/has) complained 10 All of the books, including yours, (are/is) on that shelf 11 All of the money (are/is) reserved for emergencies 12 The number of books in the library (have/has) risen to over five million 13 A number of refugees (have/has) been returned back at the border 14 Some of the fruit (were/was) going bad 15 The majority of these students (like/likes) playing basket ball 16 The president together with his advisors (are/is) preparing the report 17 The boy, as well as his classmates, (are/is) being punished 18 The printer along with two software programs (are/is) included in the package 88 19 The house, including four rooms, (face/faces) the South 20 Paul, not his parents, (buy/buys) a new horse 21 Either my sister or my friends (are/is) going to it 22 Either the teachers or the principle (are/is) blamed for the accident 23 Neither John nor the twins (are/is)at the party 24 Neither the employees nor the manager (are/is) on time 25 Neither my father nor my mother (smoke/smokes) 26 Fifteen dollars in a week (are/is) not much 27 Three years (are/is) a long time to wait 28 Ten kilometers (are/ is) too far to walk 29 Sixty percent of the plastic (are/is) recycled 30 Two-fifth of cars on the road (are/is) unsafe 31 Bread and water (have/has) traditionally been considered the standard meal in prison 32 Cereal and milk (are/is) a typical choice for breakfast 33 The boys and their father (run/runs) every day 34 My attorney and my accountant and my husband and I (are/is/am) invited to the meeting 35 Her sons and my daughter (go/goes) to school by bus 36 The baby of the young couple (cry/cries) all night 37 The paintings of the famous artists (are/is) stolen 38 The leaves of the tree (are/is) falling in the garden 89 39 The pigs of the farmer (eat/eats) a lot of food 40 The key to all the doors (are/is) missing 41 The label on these bottles (are/is) pretty 42 The audience (are/is) very large 43 The audience (were/was) laughing their heads off 44 My family (are/is) always quarrelling 45 The family (are/is) the basic of most societies in the world 46 The committee (are/is) having their lunch 47 Tom usually (get/gets) up early in the morning 48 My mother (write/writes) to me times a month 49 Her sister (run/runs) very fast 50 Even the tall girl (are/is) unable to reach it 51 Robert is one of the teachers who (have/has) been through the training program 52 The monkey who imitates the boys (climb/climbs) up the tree 53 The children who help the dancers (are/is) very lovely 54 The key which is used to open all the doors (are/is) missing 55 The ribbons which decorate the gift (are/is) nice 90 APPENDIX QUESTIONNAIRE Dear students, We are carrying out a research on English subject-verb agreement (SVA) This study concerns the difficulties which students encounter in learning SVA We would be grateful if you could spend your time on answering the following questions Thanks for your co-operation I PERSONAL INFORMATION Age: ……… Gender :……… How long have you been studying English? .years II QUESTIONS In your opinion, what can cause difficulties in acquiring English SVA? a There are many SVA sub-rules that students cannot remember b The SVA sub-rules are too difficult to master c Students not practice English SVA regularly d Students are under the influence of Vietnamese grammar e Other ideas ………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………… If Vietnamese has an influence on students’ acquisition of English SVA , the reason is …………… 91 a There is no SVA in Vietnamese b In Vietnamese language, the noun does not change its form when it denotes plural meaning c There is no verb inflections (no singular or plural verb form) in Vietnamese language d Other ideas ………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………… Students usually commit errors in SVA when…………… * Students can stick more than one option in this question a The sentence subject is an irregular noun b The subject is modified by a prepositional phrase c The subject includes indefinite expression of amount d The subject is a collective noun e The head of the subject is separated from the verb by intervening expressions f The sentence subject joins by correlative conjunction “either….or” and “neither…nor” g The subject contains fraction and plural unit word h The subject is a third person singular subject i The subject joined by “and” j The subject is modified by a relative clause 92 k Other ideas …………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………… What difficulties students have in dealing with English SVA exercises? a Students not know how to make the verb agree with the subject b Students cannot get the real subject in a sentence c Students cannot decide the number of the subject in a sentence d Students apply the grammatical sub-rules of English SVA wrongly e Students have no difficulties f Other ideas ………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………… What students expect in the teaching of English SVA so that students can master this issue? * Students can stick more than one option in this question a The teacher explains SVA structures more clearly and deeply b The teacher gives more drill exercises for students to practice SVA c The teacher pays more attention on the SVA structures which students usually make mistakes d The teacher corrects the students’ mistakes on SVA 93 e The teacher provides more interesting speaking activities to help students practice SVA in class f Other ideas ………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………… 94