Some difficulties in writing essay of english majored sophomores at tay do university

TAY DO UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE A research proposal on SOME DIFFICULTIES IN WRITING ESSAY OF ENGLISH MAJORED SOPHOMORES AT TAY DO UNIVERSITY Supervisor: Nguyen Hiep Thanh Nga, Ph.D Student: Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan Code: 1652220201058 Class: English 11B May 2020 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT It is sure that my research could not be completed without the support of many people I would like to express gratefulness to the following people who guided and supported me to finish this research Firstly, I am thankful to the teachers of the Faculty of Linguistics of Literature They brought me to extensive knowledge about English and gave me opportunities to conduct my research Secondly, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs Nguyen Hiep Thanh Nga, Ph.D for her support, guidance, and devotion during my study Actually, she instructed, commented and provided me useful references and materials so that I could complete my research proposal Be supervised by her, I am not only instructed carefully, but also learnt many valuable things from the method of doing research, the way to consider and solve problems independently Thirdly, I am thanks to English 13A at Tay Do University for giving me the information to complete my proposal Lastly, I want to give my whole heartedly thankful words to my parents for their mental support and love They always encouraged and motivated me to overcome all the difficulties in completing the research In addition, I would like to say “thank you” to my friends, thanks for their being side by side with me i COMMENTS ii ABSTRACT This study was conducted to examine the reasons why students met the difficulties in writing essays Especially, it investigated the difficulties of English majored sophomores at Tay Do University and aimed to help students overcome difficulties relating the writing essays 50 majored sophomores English 13A (2018 – 2022) at Tay Do University are examined The study figured out difficulties about vocabulary, grammar structure, idea arrangement and background knowledge in writing essays faced by English majored sophomore at Tay Do University Besides, this study also helps students realize their difficulties and improve their writing essay iii TABLE OF CONTENT ACKNOWLEDMENT i COMMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENT iv CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rational 1.2 The significance of study 1.3 The organization of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Definition of writing skill 2.2 The importance of writing 2.3 Definition of essay writing 2.4 Difficulties of essay writing skill 2.4.1 Vocabulary 2.4.2 Grammar structure 2.4.3 Idea arrangement 2.4.4 Background knowledge CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH AIMS-RESEARCH QUESTIONS HYPOTHESIS 3.1 Aims of the study 3.2 Research questions 3.3 Hypothesis CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 4.1 Design 4.2 Participants 10 4.3 Instruments 10 4.4 Procedure 12 CHAPTER 5: EXPECTED OUTCOME 12 5.1 Vocabulary 12 iv 5.2 Grammar structure 13 5.3 Idea arrangement 13 5.4 Background knowledge 13 REFERENCE 15 APPENDIX 16 v CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rational Nowadays, language is an important tool because it is one of the main ways to communicate and interact with other people around It is most widely used in communicating around the world Also it is spoken as the first language in many countries English is playing a major role in many sections like education, medicine, tourism, engineering, business and so on In Vietnam, English is widely taught in most schools as a compulsory subject for students to meet their own purposes Surely, English is one of the necessary requirements for those who want to get a good job with high salary or continue to study in higher education In English learning, the writing is considered as one of the most significant problems that affect not only native English speakers, but also millions of students that are learning English as a second or foreign language around the world As Graham, Harris & Mason, (2005) stated that “Writing is considered very difficult, complex and challenging skill to master” To study writing subject well, the students should try to study and practice regularly However, English majored sophomore at Tay Do University still meet difficulties because of many reasons Firstly, lack of vocabulary is a big problem for them Students not have enough vocabulary to express their ideas, feeling and thoughts Secondly, grammatical errors made their essays lacking in coherence They had many interesting ideas but they did not know how to organize ideas that led to long and redundant essays In addition, when faced with unfamiliar topics, they felt confused due to a lack of background knowledge in many fields In writing, essay writing is difficult because it requires writers to have basic necessary knowledge and skills The essay is also considered as the standard form of writing Essay writing is not an easy work, and it is sure that essay writing is harder to writers who use English as the second or foreign language countries like Vietnam Students think that they have difficulty about grammar and vocabulary in writing essay Beside that, they also have faced difficulties idea arrangement and background knowledge For the reasons above, the study about “Difficulties in writing essay of English majored sophomores at Tay Do University” The research is carried out done to help the sophomores majoring in English at Tay Do University recognize some difficulties in writing essays, then they can improve their writing ability in learning English 1.2 The significance of study This study shows that writing essay is not only an important content in learning process at school, but also a necessary skill in working process in the future Problem in writing essays lead to many problems in different fields The research is conducted to help the English major sophomores at Tay Do University realize the difficulties that they are facing and then they find out solutions to improve their writing essays by themselves 1.3 The organization of the study The research consists of five chapters: Chapter I: Introduction: presents the rationale, the significance and the organization of the research proposal Chapter II: Literature review is about the definition of the writing skill and the importance of writing This section also mentions to the definition of essay writing and the difficulties in essay writing skill Chapter III: The research aim, the research questions, and hypothesis are presented Chapter IV: Research methodology consists of design, participants, instruments and procedure for data collection Chapter V: Expected outcomes: presents the expected outcomes for the research proposal CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Definition of writing skill “Writing as a productive skill is one of the four basic skills of English language Writing is a comprehensive ability involving grammar, vocabulary, conception, rhetoric, and other parts of the language” according to Zhang and Chen (1990) Therefore, in the process writing, the writer focuses on producing language output rather than receiving it Writing is the creative ability of students in forming a message through creating some signs (comas, slashes, quotation marks, etc.), forming letters and words, and then linking them together to create sentences in an essay Just like speaking, writing is a way of communicating a message to others; however, when writing, writers can edit the text many times according to their thoughts until they feel satisfied and not under pressure as when speaking Writing is a means of expressing thoughts, ideas, and feelings into written form Thanks to writing, writers can relieve sadness, thereby finding empathy from readers and give their thoughts, ideas, share experiences or feelings Writing is considered an act of coding ideas, thoughts, reflections, it is a process of converting thoughts into words This skill requires the writers to arrange ideas and words with the aim of exactly conveying their messages In addition, writing is more rigorous than speaking because it required for learners to practice and experience The writers also have to know how to construct sentences in an essay so the essay becomes coherent and linked through rhetoric measures Brown (2001:335) stated “Written products are often the result of thinking, drafting, and revising procedures that require specialized skills, skills that not every speaker develops naturally”, and also drew conclusions, “Students should learn how to generate and organize ideas coherently, how to revise text for clearer meaning, and how to edit text for appropriate grammar” Hence, it is considered as a difficult skill to acquire for students Furthermore, Richards and Renandya (2002:309) said that “written language is complex at the clause level”, it includes many components such as content, organization, originality, style, fluency, accuracy, or using appropriate rhetorical In summarize, writing is a means of conveying messages into written form through vocabulary, grammar structure, idea arrangement, and background knowledge 2.2 The importance of writing Writing is an important part of communication Good writing skills allow you to communicate your message with clarity and ease to a far larger audience than through face-to-face or telephone conversations In addition, Ahmed (2010) notes that competence in writing helps students perform well in their academic programs Moreover, being proficient in writing in English will enable students to be professional and action researchers in the future For English majored students, writing is a basic tool to take note of students learning English because they can write down what they learned on their papers Rao (2007) points out that writing strengthens students learning, thinking and reflecting on the English language in their academics Lastly, good writing skills allow you to get a good job Nowadays, every profession requires effective communication, good-writing skills are a must If you have ever struggled to write a cover letter, resume, or anything related to your career you should know the importance of good writing Every career path requires its workers to write notes, memos, emails, and reports, all of which require good writing skills to effectively communicate a certain set of ideas Poor writing skills can be a red flag to employers that you not fit for management positions, read as signs of lower intelligence In short, writing skill is the ability to express ideas, emotions and thoughts by written form using grammar strictly, appropriate word choice and logical idea arrangement Therefore, students need to understand clearly the importance of writing and improve their writing skill 2.3 Definition of essay writing An essay has been defined in a variety of ways Langan (2004) showed a more simple definition of “essay” by comparing between “paragraph” and “an essay”; the author claimed that “an essay does the same thing a paragraph does” However, the difference that a word often has more than one meaning and many synonyms, so students are easily confused in choosing words to write correctly The meaning of the word sometimes depends on the situation so it is very important to choose the right words for each context The wrong choice of words can lead to misunderstandings or not express the author's thoughts clearly The choice of words will make the sentence a beautiful one Besides, the students have to keep in mind collocation According to Martynska (2004), “combination of words associated with each other” A collocation is made up of two or more words that are commonly used together in English such as “get a job”, “make a promise” Using collocations in writing makes the sentences more natural and easy to understand There are many collocations to remember the meaning and they have no clear rules and no specific regulation to follow Therefore, students not know exactly what the collocations mean, the way words go together and the meaning This is one of the difficulties that students often faced In short, having a large vocabulary is a good way to express ideas more attractive and the essay will be understandable and successful 2.4.2 Grammar structure Grammar is an important element in writing Grammar makes written content more readable and in turn more interesting According to James (2005:2) “grammar is a study of the language and describes the way of putting words together to make meaningful sentences” In addition, we cannot write sentences if we not know grammar The use of grammar reasonably will help us have a quality essay Students often make grammatical errors in writing such as tenses, part of speech, and subject - verb arrangement As Harmer (2001), the grammar of language can be defined as the description of rules through words that can be formed and that can change their meaning In addition to the possible ways of their construction into sentences English tenses are tools helping the writers to express time in the language There are three main tenses: past tense, present tense and future tense It is necessary to determine various aspects in terms of English verbs, such as the state of being, continuing action or completed action Using appropriate tenses helps to express ideas clearly and effectively and allow the readers to comprehend accurately what they have written using tenses It is necessary to know how to conjugate verbs properly by focusing on the structures of tenses and modal tenses to create exact and effective sentences When students are weak grammar, their sentences can be ambiguous that makes readers unable to understand what they want to write or the sentence can be changed of the meaning Moreover, part of speech is a grammar structure that students were always mistakenly such as, noun, pronouns, adjective, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, verbs and interjection in the sentence If students not know the functions and rules of part of speech, they can misuse the function of the word that makes the readers cannot understand or the sentence is wrong meaning Therefore, this is a common mistake of students in the process writing Finally, the subject-verb arrangement is also a difficulty for students The subject-verb agreement simply means the subject and verb must agree in number This means both need to be singular or plural However, students often not know that the subject is singular or plural so there is no subject-verb arrangement that leads to their sentences are ungrammatical Some words when acting as subjects can confuse students such as Compound Subjects, Collective Nouns, Inverted Subjects, Indefinite Pronouns, etc Thus, students should pay attention to grammar because grammar is important in writing skill 2.4.3 Idea arrangement Idea arrangement is also a problem for students in essays writing Actually, it is not easy for to build ideas in writing essays They usually make mistake in the way to organize their ideas in the essays Besides, developing ideas and arranging information in a certain way can help to keep the readers centered on the focus of the essay Students not know how to arrange ideas logically or lack the main idea or topic sentence in paragraph and essay In addition, sometimes they have too many ideas when writing that lead to sentences that are long, redundant or unnecessary Thus, the essay uses the correct grammar, rich and natural vocabulary is not enough because if students make mistakes about how to organize and develop the ideas, the essay will be long, confused and unattractive 2.4.4 Background knowledge According to Bransford, Brown, and Cocking (2000) “All learning involves transfer from previous experiences Even initial learning involves transfer that is based on previous experiences and prior knowledge” Background knowledge is an essential component in writing that helps us understand a situation or problem or make sense of new ideas and experiences The most obvious being that it improves the flow of the essay, creates interest and helps readers understand the points to express If students want to have a good essay, they need to have a rich knowledge of various fields Poor knowledge makes them unable to understand the topic or unable to organize their ideas well They will feel nervous when they face unfamiliar or hard topics because they not have practical experiences in social life For example, the essay requires students to talk about the most important aspect of a job is the money a person earns Therefore, students need to have information when facing with a new topic If not, they cannot write anything Therefore, background knowledge includes both a writer’s real - world experiences and their information which are the reasons why English majored not have many experiences in social life, that makes difficulty in writing process CHAPTER RESEARCH AIMS-RESEARCH QUESTIONS-HYPOTHESIS 3.1 Aims of the study The research aims at investigating the difficulties in writing skill of English majored sophomores at Tay Do University The main purpose of the study is to help them recognize their own difficulties Moreover, the most important purpose of this research showed that students could overcome their difficulties and improve their writing skill positively 3.2 Research questions This study is carried out to answer the following research question: “What are the difficulties in writing skill of English majored sophomore 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, especially essays writing Through the literature review and the research questions, it is hypothesized that the students would find out the difficulties they have faced CHAPTER RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 4.1 Design This study was performed to investigate the difficulties in essay writing of English majored sophomores at Tay Do University The research is to find out the difficulties that the sophomores have faced in writing subject The reliability and the validity of the research results are based on the instrument To achieve the above mentioned purpose, the questionnaire was used to investigate the difficulties in essays writing of English majored sophomore 4.2 Participants The participants in this research was 50 English majored sophomores studying class 13A at Tay Do University Most students are at the age 20 to 22 They are taught “writing 3” designed by Ms Wa Thai Nhu Phuong member of the Faculty of Linguistics of Literature - 2018 including four chapters (in 30 periods) They get difficulties in vocabulary, grammar structure, idea arrangement, and background knowledge They were divided into group from two to three members and wrote the given topic in class Length of essay is about 250 words (in 60 minutes) Besides, they are also given the topic to write at home Then the teacher corrected errors for groups at class 4.3 Instruments The instruments used in this research are the questionnaire All of the statements used in the questionnaire is designed originally in English Questionnaire was chosen as an instrument because it provides an easy and practical way for collecting information from the quantity of people in a short time Questionnaire The questionnaire includes 10 questions and 17 closed 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 sophomores In general, the questionnaire was classified into the following sections: Summary of the question’s/ statement’s Questions/ statements content Students’ background Part From to 10 10 Part From 11 to 14 The importance of writing skill Part From 15 to 18 Difficulties in vocabulary Part From 19 to 21 Difficulties in grammar structure Part From 22 to 24 Difficulties in idea arrangement Part From 25 to 27 Difficulties in background knowledge 4.4 Procedure It was done about 12 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 Activities in study process (12 weeks) Step - Getting the teacher’s guidance From the 1st to the 4th week - Designing the outline of the research - Designing questionnaire 11 Step - Writing chapter and chapter From the 5th to the 7th week - Editing chapter 1,2 and the questionnaire Step - Writing chapter - Writing chapter 4,5 and getting the teacher’s guidance From the 8th to the 12th week - Editing chapter 3,4,5 and temporary completion of the main content in the research proposal - Editing the whole research proposal - Completing the study CHAPTER EXPECTED OUTCOME English majored sophomores usually face many difficulties when practicing it, especially in writing essays The research also hopes that the study can helps students find out their difficulties and then find appropriate learning methods to improve their writing skills 5.1 Vocabulary Students have difficulties in lacking words, word choices, collocation Lack of vocabulary is a reason why the students cannot show what they are thinking They just 12 keep it inside because they not have enough vocabulary to clearly explain ideas, feelings and thoughts The students also not know how to choose appropriate words in contexts It is easy to see that a word often has more than one meaning and many synonyms, so students are easily confused in choosing words to write correctly Besides, students not know exactly what the collocations mean, the way words go together and the meaning This is one of the difficulties that students often faced 5.2 Grammar structure Students often make grammatical errors in writing such as tenses of sentences, part of speech, and subject-verb arrangement There are three main tenses: past tense, present tense and future tense It is necessary to determine various aspects in terms of English verbs, such as the state of being, continuing action or completed action Students not know how to use writing tense logically Part of speech is a grammar structure that students were always mistakenly such as, noun, pronouns, adjective, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, verbs and interjection in the sentence The subject-verb agreement simply means the subject and verb must agree in number This means both need to be singular or plural However, students often not know that the subject is singular or plural so there is no subject-verb arrangement that leads to their sentences are ungrammatical 5.3 Idea arrangement Students have difficulties in having no ideas, redundant words, and lack of main ideas and topic sentence The students have no idea or not understand the topic clearly, they may be getting out the topic or failing to convey the main message Moreover, students not know how to arrange ideas logically or lack the main idea or topic sentence in paragraph and essay In addition, sometimes they have too many ideas when writing that lead to sentences that are long, redundant or unnecessary 5.4 Background knowledge Students have difficulties in lack of background knowledge in topics or in various fields and lack of practical experiences Being lack of background knowledge, students cannot build good ideas Poor knowledge makes them unable to understand the topic and they 13 not have a rich knowledge of various fields They feel nervous when they face unfamiliar or hard topics because they not have practical experiences in social life 14 REFERENCES References from books Ahmed, A H (2010) Students’ Problems with Cohesion and Coherence in EFL Essay Writing in Egypt: Different Perspectives, Literacy information and Computer Education Journal Literacy Information and Computer Education Journal (LICEJ), (Issue 4) Bransford, J D., Brown, A L., & Cocking, R R (Eds.) (2000) How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school Nation Research Council Washington, DC: Nation Academy Press Brown (2001: 335) Teaching by PRINCIPLES An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy Longman Graham, Harris & Mason, (2005) Problems and practical Needs of Writing Skill in EFL Context An Analysis of Iranian Students of Aligarh Musshim Unniversity James D, William (2005:2) The teacher’s Grammar Book Soka University Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Harmer (2001) seventh impression, How to teach English, Longman Publishers Langan, J (2004) College Writing Skills Sixth Edition New York: MCGrawHill Companies Martynska, M (2004) Do English language learners know collocations Investigations linguisticae, 11, 1-12 Richards, J C., & Renandya, W A (2002) Methodology in language teaching: an anthology of current practice New York: Cambridge University Press 10 Rao, Z (2007) Training in brainstorming and developing writing skills ELT Journal, 61 (2) 11 Thornbury (2002, p.33) The importance of vocabulary in language learning and how to be taught 12 Zhang, X, and Chen, J.(1990) The techniques to teaching writing 15 APPENDIX QUESTIONNAIRE My name is Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan and I am currently a senior of English major Firstly, I would like to give my thanks to you for spending your valuable time on helping me This is he questionnaire for my research about "Difficulties in writing skill of English majored sophomore at Tay Do University" It used to collect important information from you Thus, please take your time to fulfill these below questions carefully because your answers are really significant and helpful to my research Part 1: Student’s full name: Age Gender: Male Female Class: How long have you studied English? …… years In your opinion, learning English is: a Very important b Important c Normal d Not important at all What you think about writing skill? a Very difficult b Difficult c Normal d Easy How is your writing skill? 16 a Excellent b Good c Average d Bad How often you spend on practicing writing at home? a Usually b Sometimes c Rarely d Never What is difficulties that you face in the essay writing? You can choose more than one answer a Vocabulary b Grammar structure c Idea arrangement d Background knowledge What are your vocabulary difficulties in writing? a Lacking words b Word choices c Collocations What are your grammatical difficulties in writing? a Tense of sentences b Part of speech c Subject-verb arrangement What are your idea arrangement difficulties in writing? a Having no ideas b Redundant words c Lack of main ideas and topic sentence 10 What are your background knowledge difficulties in writing? 17 a Lack of background knowledge in topics b Lack of background knowledge in various fields c Lack of practical experiences Part 2: For each of the statement below, please mark agreement or disagreement in the appropriate box to make clear your opinion Strongly Statements 11 disagree Writing is an essential component in the process of second or foreign language acquisition 12 Learning writing is not simple for you 13 You have to encounter with the difficulties when studying writing 14 You have faced difficulties in the essays writing 15 Lack of vocabulary makes it impossible to express thoughts clearly and easily 16 The meaning of the word is large and not easy, you not know 18 Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly agree clearly the meaning and understand how to use it 17 You face difficulties in word choices, the words not match the contexts 18 You not know exactly what the collocations mean, the way words go together 19 You not know how to choose the appropriate tense in the essay 20 You not understand clearly the functions and rules of part of speech leading you to misuse the function of the word making the readers unable to understand or the sentence is wrong meaning 21 Your sentences are ungrammatical because you lack of the knowledge subject -verb arrangement 22 Your writing is not good enough because you have poor ideas or few ideas 23 You sometimes write redundant words in the essay 24 You often lack of the topic or main idea sentence when writing 19 25 Poor background knowledge makes you unable to organize ideas well 26 You feel confused when facing unfamiliar topics because you not have enough knowledge in different field 27 You have no real experience in life THANK YOU VERY MUCH! 20