Difficulties in writing of english majored freshmen at tay do university

TAY DO UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE A research proposal on DIFFICULTIES IN WRITING OF ENGLISH MAJORED FRESHMEN AT TAY DO UNIVERSITY Student’s name: Supervisor: Phan Thi Minh Uyen, M.AVo Tieu Phung Code: 14D220201040 Class: English May 2018 COMMENT I ACKNOWLEDGEMENT During the process of doing this study, I have received useful help from my teachers of faculty of English linguistics especially of supervisor Phan Thi Minh Uyen, my friends, my family I would like to express my deep gratitude to all of them who always willing to help and ready to give me valuable advicesand supervision to complete this study Thank you so much! II TABLE OF CONTENT COMMENT ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TABLE OF CONTENT ABSTRACT CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Significance of study 1.3 The organization of study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 The definition of writing 2.2 The importance of writing 2.3 Factors affecting writing skill 2.3.1 Vocabulary 2.3.2 Grammar structure 2.3.3 Orthography 2.3.4 Background knowledge 2.3.5 Idea organization CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH AIMS- RESEARCH QUESTIONS- HYPOTHESIS 3.1 Research aims 3.2 Research questions 3.3 Hypothesis CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 4.1 Design 4.2 Participants 4.3 Instruments 4.4 Proceduce III CHAPTER 5: EXPECTED OUTCOME 5.1 Vocabulary 10 5.2 Grammar structure 10 5.3 Idea organizing 10 5.4 Orthography 10 REFERENCES 11 IV ABSTRACT The aim of study is to investigate the difficulties in writing of English majored freshmen at Tay Do University Besides that, the paper purpose to find out some ways in other that students improve their knowledge of vocabulary and grammar in use This is descriptive survey with thirty questions of questionnaire To collect research data, the sample of study includessixty students of majored freshmen studying class 12A, course 2017-2020 at Tay Do University are selected using a simple random sampling procedure and data of study are collected within 12 weeks via questionnaire for another students The study aim was identify the errors and mistakes made by the students The collected information of questionnaire showed that over eighty percent of students have problems in writing English It is distinctly proved that lack of vocabulary, grammatical structures and ideas organization are the most common difficulties Key words: difficulties in writing, writing problem V CHAPTER INTRODUCTION In this chapter, the researcher would like to present the rational, significance and organization of the study 1.1 Rational In Vietnam, English is taught widely as a foreign language in order to help students meet their own purpose Certainly, English is one of the necessary requirements for those who want to get a good job or continue to study in higher education When learning English, students often concentrate on four basic skills, they are speaking, listening, reading and writing Among these skills, writing is an important skill that needs to be developed.Writing is vital skill need to be developed As Rogers (2005) stated that “Writing is one of the important skills because writing is the tool to express ideas and record the important document” Hedge (1988:5) also stated that one supplementary reason that is “a good deal of writing in English language classroom is undertaken as an aid to learning” Boonpattaporn (2005) also commented the vital of writing He said that “writing is one of the necessary means for people to express their thinking or emotion and to communicate precisely” Moreover, writing is also appreciated highly in comparison with reading, listening and speaking Writing is one of the most difficult tasks because writing techniques requires the writer to master and complex combination of language skills including vocabulary and spelling to the ability of ideas organization logically In addition, it can also reflect the competence of thinking, organization and expression Moreover, writing skill is an essential part of communication because “Good writing skill allows you to communicate your message with clarity and ease to a far larger audience than through face-to-face or telephone conversation” ([Cited 2015 January], www.skillyouneed.com) To study writing well, the students should try to study and practice regularly Although English majored freshmen students at Tay Do University are taught writing skills from the first semester, they still complain that they face difficulties when applying these skills in their writing It is complained that it is not easy for them to write in English.By those realities, the research “Difficulties in writing of English majored freshmen at Tay Do University” is carried out to find out difficulties relating writing that English majored freshmen at Tay Do University 1.2 The significance of study Writing is not only a fundamental content in learning process at school, but also a necessary skill working in the future The study shows a clear and specific view about the problems and difficulties in writing English confronted by English majored freshmen at Tay Do University The results will give a general view to instructors about problems students are facing in writing process as well as help students to have the perception on their problems themselves On other words, the finding of this study will hopefully be beneficial for instructors in their teaching and for students in learning writing English Besides finding the problems, the study also gives some suggestions for students to help them overcome their problem, improve their writing skill, and finally achieve their academic success 1.3The organization of study The research consists of five chapters Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Literature review Chapter 3: Research aims-research question-hypothesis Chapter 4: Research methodology Chapter 5: Expected outcome CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter presents the definitions of writing skill, its importance and what factors affect the process of practicing it 2.1 The definitions of writing Writing, particularly in a foreign language, is one of the most complicated skills in learning and practicing in language Sokolik (2003) describes “writing as a combination of physical and mental acts It is a physical act of committing ideas to message and the mental act of generating and organizing ideas into paragraphs” Writing is also viewed as a process as Hyland (2003, p.23) explains writing as “a socio-cognitive activity which involves skills in planning and drafting as well as knowledge of language, context and audiences” Besides, writing involves many difference aspects They are handwriting, spelling, punctuation, sentence construction, organizing a text and paragraphing, text cohesion and style All aspects are carefully considered by the writers To be master a language as English, students need to have an excellent writing skill, it is one language skills that is very essential to be mastered in learning English as a foreign language Tribble (1996, p.3) considers writing as “language skill involving not just a graphic representation of speech, but the development and presentation of though in a structured way” And Byrne (1988, p.1) considers writing as “the act of forming graphic symbol only such as letters or combination of letters” It means that writing requires writer to commit words or ideas and to convent ideas, think about how to express them, and organize them into statements and paragraphs Besides, writing is a process and product, and writing aims at expressing and impressing The writers have to generate ideas, organize, draft, edit, read, re-read to produce a product-a paragraph, an essay or a report and writers try to express their ideas, feeling, to impress their readers in certain ways Therefore, good writing skills are demanding for effective communication The better we write, the more easily readers will understand us Learning to write well takes time and practice White and Arndt (1991, p.3) define “ writing is a form of problem-solving which involves such process as generating ideas, discovering a voice to write, planning, goal setting, monitoring and evaluating what is going to be written and search with language to express exact meanings” Besides, writing is a means of communication made possible through graphics symbols, arranged according to certain conventions to form words which are arranged to form sentences The sentences are logically and grammatically connected to form a piece of writing 2.2 The importance of writing Writing is considered the most important language skill that should be writers require for their personal development and academic success (Mukulu et al.2006) Similarly, Rao (2007) points out that “writing strengthens students’ learning, thinking and reflecting on the English in their academics” In addition, Ahmed (2010) notes that “competence in writing helps students perform well in their academic programmes” Moreover, being proficient in writing in English will enable students to be professionals and action researchers in the future Firstly, students with good writing abilities have an edge over the others They generally score better than the other students as they can effectively convey what they have learnt in the written examination Secondly, whichever course you pursue in college, the importance of writing well cannot be undermined For e.g an engineering students should have knowledge of technical writing as he/she may be required to write technical documents- in college, while training and after joining a job Similarly, a science student might be required to write research papers For writing research papers, it is necessary that you are able to put forth the right facts and information Also, the research paper should be free from spelling and grammar errors If you are not a good writer, then you will not be able to accomplish this task properly Last but not least, good writing skills are also demanded for getting a job, be it a summer job, part-time job or regular job after completing college These days, the employers look for good verbal and writing abilities in the candidates Every jobs also askes effective communication, and good-writing skills are must They are necessary for making presentations and reports effectively for communicatin g through e-mails In short, if yours writing skills are not good, then you must learn these skills, it would prove very useful for your studies and future professions From these reasons above, students can realize clearly about the roles of writing skill in learning English As Soven (1996) stated that “writing plays an important role in all profession and it is no exception” 2.3 Factors affecting writing skill In learning English as a foreign language, it is not easy to be a good learner in four basic skills, especially writing skill For the freshmen majoring in English at Tay Do University, they have already faced some difficulties In this research, the researcher would like to analyze four common reasons that most of students meet in their writing skill 2.3.1 Vocabulary In writing skill, the first problem is vocabulary As Rarab’ah (2003) points out “the students often lack the necessary vocabulary when they are engaged in authentic communicative situation such as writing” In fact, lack of vocabulary is a reason why the students cannot show what they are thinking they just keep it inside because they not have enough vocabulary to express ideas, thoughts and emotion In addition, they also meet difficulties in the way to choose appropriate word in particular context Some words may have many meanings in variety of situations mentioned In using vocabulary to write essays, students often male mistakes about formal and informal form The word can be used in speaking, but it is inappropriate in writing For example, students write the word “really” in their essays instead of “very” The word “really” is considered as an informal word in writing skill Moreover, students also forget some words they have learned because they not review old words regularly This is a reason why they make mistake in spelling Therefore, vocabulary seems to be a main cause that make student feel difficult to express their ideas in English writing 2.3.2 Grammar structure Poor writing skill will create first poor impression to the readers because it is an effective instrument in human life Besides vocabulary, grammar structure is an important factor affecting writing skill According to James (2005:2) “grammar is a study of the structure of the language and describes the ways of putting words together to make meaningful sentences” However, students usually make grammatical errors in their writing such as tenses, word order and punctuation Their sentences are like translating word-by-word from Vietnamese They not know how to write the sentence with correct tense Therefore, they make some mistakes in their essay because of bad grammar 2.3.3 Orthography Punctuation, spelling and contraction are the difficulties that the students face First, according to Pakir (1815-1896, p.75), “punctuation is the pragmatics of written language” Punctuation is one of the most vital things of written English Punctuation is used to create sense, clarity and stress in sentences The students use punctuation marks to structure and organize their writing Use of wrong marks of punctuation or even wrong placement of mark of punctuation can change the meaning of the sentence The paragraph without any punctuation will make the readers unclear Therefore, the students need to use punctuation exactly Second, spelling is as linguistic process of phonemic orthography (correct writing) with the necessary letters and diacritics present in a comprehensible order, usually with some degrees of standardization; according to Coulmas, F (1996) it is “the conventions which determine how the graphemes of writing system are used to write a language” If the students want to create a good impression in their writings and make sure they get their meanings across clearly, it is significant to get their spellings right English spelling is incredibly inconsistent and this makes it really tricky for the students Third, contraction forms are not used in writing, they are mostly occur in speech and informal writing Especially, “they avoided in formal writing types such as academic prose, business reports and journal articles, therefore, most teachers discourage their use in academic essays” (Biber, Johansonn, Leech, Conrad and Finegan 1999) Contractions in English have two types: negative contractions (isn’t, haven’t, doesn’t) and verb contractions (I’m, they’ve, that’s) As the students develop their writing, they need to think carefully about our choice of words A contraction is another area with a great number of difficulties for the students In short, the reason those difficulties is not only their lack of English knowledge but also their bad habits of carelessness 2.3.4 Background knowledge Background knowledge considered as the key to success for most students in their English writing Anderson (1999) says that “background knowledge includes all of the experiences that a readers brings to a text: life experience, educational experiences knowledge of how texts can be organized rhetorically, knowledge of how one’s first language works, knowledge of how the second language works, cultural background and knowledge.In addition, students meet difficulty to show their opinions because lacking of general knowledge So, background knowledge is essential to have a good writing With poor background knowledge, students not know how to express what they want to say because lack information about the new topics so they cannot build good ideas to attract readers Moreover, students rarely read some materials to enrich the knowledge about various topics in real world, when they face unfamiliar topics, they are confused to show their thoughts because of not having enough background knowledge in their writing 2.3.5 Idea organization Idea arrangement is also a problem for students learning English as a foreign language Actually, they often make mistake in the way to organize their ideas in the paragraphs and essays They not know how todistinguishbetween topic sentence and supporting idea By this reason, they cannot construct a paragraph with logical argument Furthermore, their ideas are usually translated into Vietnamese sentences because they are influenced by mother tongue (Vietnamese) They write a lot of sentences which are redundant and unnecessary in the passage William (2005) states that “writing involves for more than just linguistic knowledge It is also entails gathering ideas and information, analyzing and organizing this information and presenting it in a way that effectively communicates those ideas to the reader.” In conclusions, although their essays are very long, they cannot receive good marks Therefore, students need to pay attention to idea organization in English writing CHAPTER III RESEARCH AIMS-RESEARCH QUESTIONSHYPOTHESIS 3.1 Aims of the study The research aims at investigating the difficulties in writing skill of English majored freshmen at Tay Do University to help them recognize their own difficulties Moreover, the most significant purpose of this research showed that students could reduce their difficulties and improve their writing skill positively 3.2 Research questions The research is required to answer the following research questions: “What are the difficulties in writing skill of English majored freshmen at Tay Do University?” 3.3 Hypothesis According to most of English majored students at Tay Do University, writing is the most difficult skill They have faced some difficulties in English writing Through the literature review and the research questions, it is hypothesized that the students would be improve their writing skill thanks to find out the difficulties that they have been facing CHAPTER IV RESEARCH METHODOLOGY This research methodology describes in detail the research design, the participants, this instruments, the questionnaire and the procedure to collect data for the research 4.1 Design The research is carried out to find out the difficulties that the freshmen have faced in writing subject The reliable and the validity of the research results are based on the instruments To achieve the above mentioned purposed, the freshmen majoring in English are chosen as the sample to the survey The questionnaire was used to collect data from the participants This research will be analyzed to investigate the difficulties in essays writing of English majored freshmen 4.2 Participants The participants in this study was 60 English majored freshmen studying class 12A at Tay Do University Most students are at the age 20 to 22 The reasons for choosing these participants were based on the subject they are learning, the length of their English learning, their competence in English as a foreign language, and their psychological age Their age and learning process are nearly the same, so they have the same ways of thinking and have faced some similar difficulties; therefore, it is easier during the process of collecting data Students will be given questionnaires in order to get information about the difficulties in writing skill of English majored freshmen at Tay Do University 4.3 Instruments The instruments used in this research are the questionnaire The participants are English majored freshmen, so the materials are suitable to them All of the statements uses in the questionnaire which is designed originally in English Questionnaire was chosen as an instrument because it provides an easy and practical way for collecting data from the quantity of people in a short time Questionnaire The questionnaire includes 10 questions and 20 statements The information in questionnaire written in English careful and clear instructions to make sure that the students could easily understand and give answer to the statements were carefully prepared to English majored freshmen It is classified into the following groups: Group Summary of the content of the question group Part 1,2,…10 Students’ background Part 11,12,13,14 The importance of writing Part From 15 to 18 Students meet difficulties in vocabulary Part From 19 to 22 Students meet difficulties in grammar structure Part From 23 to 26 Students meet difficulties in idea organization Part From 27 to 30 Students meet difficulties in orthography 4.4 Procedure The implement of the research was presented It was done about 14 weeks to fulfill this study and the process was divided into steps All the activities of carrying out the research were listed in the following table: Duration (12 weeks) Activities in study process Step From the 1st to 4th week • Designing the outline of the research • Designing questionnaire Step From 5th to the 7th week • Delivering the questionnaire • Conducting to collect information by delivering questionnaire to students in order to figure out their difficulties Step From the 8th to the 12th week • Analyzing the data • Completing the research CHAPTER V EXPECTED OUTCOME Writing plays a central role in learning a language English majored freshmen usually face many difficulties when practicing it The research aims to find out difficulties in writing of English majored freshmen at Tay Do University 5.1 Vocabulary Students can get some new words and review old words by writing They will have enough vocabulary to clearly explain ideas, feelings and thoughts Student also know the way to choose appropriate words in particular contexts Moreover, students will know how to word choices in a particular context Thus, the increase vocabulary efficiently can support students in writing skill 5.2 Grammar structure English learners can recognize some grammatical structures such as: tenses, sentences, clauses and so on Students also can choose the suitable tense to make their writing clearly In addition, students can realize mistakes in using part of speech When encountering multiple function words in sentences, students will not be confused 5.3 Idea organizing Students can also learn how to recognize their ideas suitably in writing Moreover, students are not affected by Vietnamese literature style, instead of, they can learn writing style of English people to construct their thinking Furthermore, students will know how to make the sentence not redundant 5.4 Orthography They can learn how to use the punctuation, spelling and contraction effectively in writing They can write good essays when they have good spelling On the other hand, they can learn how to use correct punctuation marks to write more clearly 10 References References from books Ahmed A H (2010) Students’ problems with Cohesion and C coherence in EFL Essay Writing in Egypt: Different Perspectives, Literacy Information and Computer Education Journals Literacy Information and Computer Journal (LICEJ), (Issue 4) Anderson (1999) Text Types in English Melbourne: Macmillan As Rogers (2005) Using clustering technical toward students’ writing skill in recount text (Vol 09 No.03, September) Biber, et all (1999) Second language teaching and learning Boston: Heinle and Heinle Publishers Boonpattanaporn, P (2005) Comparative Study Of English Essay Writing Strategies and Difficulties as Perceived by English Major Students: A Case Study of Students in the School of Humanities, The University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce Byrne, Donn (1988, p.1) Teaching writing skill London: Longman Group Uk Coulmas, F (1996) Transition (2nd ed.) USA: McGraw-Hill James, D W (2005) The Teacher’s Grammar Book Soka University Lawrence Erlbaum Association, Hedge (1988:5) Promoting vocabulary learning with interactive world wall Middle School Journal 40(3), 58-63 10 Hyland, Ken (2002) Teaching and Researching Writing Harlow: Pearson Education 11 Hyland, Ken (2003) Second Language Writing New York: Cambridge University Press 12 Mukulu, E., Indangasi, H., Mwangi, P., Gecaga,C &Okanga, N (2006) KCSE revision English Nairobi.Kenya Literature Bureau 13 Pakir (1815-1896, p.75) A vocabulary size test of controlled productive ability Language testing 16, 33-51 14 Rao, Z (2007) Training in brainstorming and developing writing skills ELT Journal, 61 (2) 15 Rarab’ah (2003) Assessing vocabulary United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press 16 Savage, A (2006) Effective Academic writing Oxford: Oxford University Press Syllabus of English Major (2010) Can Tho University 17 Sokolik, M (2003) Writing In David Nunan (Ed.), Practical English Language Teaching (Pp 87-108) Singapore: McGraw-Hill Education 18 Soven (1996) Gateways to Academic Writing White Plains: Pearson Education 19 Tribble, C (1996) Writing Oxford: Oxford University Press 20 White & Arndt (1991, p.3) Process writing London: Longman 11 21 William, J (2005) Teaching writing in second and foreign language classroom Boston: McGraw Hill References from the internet British Council (2006) Error correction Retrieved January 6, 2006, from http:/www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/methodology/error_correct.sh mtl Carroll, R T (1990) Students Success Guide: Writing Skills Retrieved August 14 th, 2013, from http:/www.skepdic.com/refuge/writingskills.pdf Wang, W & Wen, Q (2002) L1 Use in the L2 Composition Process: An Exploratory Study of 16 Chinese EFL Writers Journal of Second Language Writing Online, 11, Retrieved July 30, 2005, from http:/logos.unh.edu./jslw/vol11.html 12 QUESTIONNAIRE Dear friends, My name Vo Tieu Phung and I am currently a senior majoring in English I am very grateful to you for spending your valuable time helping me Now I am carrying out a research entitled “Difficulties in wring of English majored freshmen at Tay Do University” This is the questionnaire used to collect the necessary information for you, so please take your time to finish these questions carefully because your answers are very important and helpful to my research Thank you so much! Student’s full name: Age: ……………… Gender: Male Female Class: ……………………… Part 1: Please read the following question and circle the appropriate answer for each questions Give specific answers if needed How long have you studied English? years Which subject did you learn when you were in high school? a Listening b Speaking c Writing d Reading Which subject you like best? a Listening b Speaking c Writing d Reading What you think about writing? a Very important b Important c Normal d Not important How is your writing skill? a Very good b Quite good c Average d Bad e Very bad What is difficulties that you face in the writing? a Vocabulary 13 b Grammar structure c Ideas organization d Orthography What is your vocabulary difficult in writing? a Lacking words b Words choices c Lacking practicing vocabulary d Others………………………… What is your grammatical difficulty in writing? a Tense of sentence b Part of speech c Word order d Others………………………… What is your idea organization difficulty in writing? a Organize ideas b Affected by Vietnamese literature style c Redundant sentences d Others……………………… 10 What is your orthographic difficulty in writing? a Punctuation b Spelling c Contraction d Others……………………… Part 2: This below table is about your difficulties in writing English Please read the statements and mark ( ) in suitable column to express your opinion Statement Strongly Agree No Disagree Strongly agree ideas disagree (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) 11 Learning English writing subject is not easy for me 12 I have to encounter with the difficulties when studying writing 14 13 Writing is an essential component in the process of second or foreign language acquisition I have faced difficulties in writing 14 I have faced difficulties in writing 15 I lack the vocabulary to clearly explain my ideas, feelings and thoughts 16 There are many words that I can remember because I not review old words 17 I meet difficulties in the way to choose appropriate words in particular contexts 18 I have faced words choices in a particular context 19 I often make grammatical errors in my writing such as tense, part of speech and word order 20 I not understand how to write sentences using the correct tense 21 I often make mistakes in using part of speech 22 I meet difficulties when encountering multiple function words in sentences 23 Idea organization is not easy for me to build my ideas in writing 24 I often translated from Vietnamese sentences because they are affected by Vietnamese literature style 25 Sometime I write redundant sentences 26 I can write an outline to logically organize my ideas before writing 15 27 I meet difficulties in punctuation 28 I use punctuation marks to structure and organize my writing 29 Spelling is another difficulty that I face in writing 30 I usually have habits to use contraction forms in writing THANKS FOR YOUR HELP! 16