An investigation into grammatical errors in essays written by vietnamese efl high school students

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY MAI THI THUY LINH AN INVESTIGATION INTO GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN ESSAYS WRITTEN BY VIETNAMESE EFL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 8140111 SUPERVISOR: Assoc Prof TRUONG VIEN, Ph.D HUE, 2020 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ MAI THỊ THÙY LINH KHẢO SÁT LỖI NGỮ PHÁP TRONG CÁC BÀI LUẬN TIẾNG ANH ĐƯỢC VIẾT BỞI HỌC SINH KHỐI TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG VIỆT NAM LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 8140111 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: PGS.TS TRƯƠNG VIÊN HUẾ, 2020 STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP The words contained in this thesis have not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, my thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself Signed: Mai Thi Thuy Linh Date: 18/12/2020 i AN INVESTIGATION INTO GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN ESSAYS WRITTEN BY VIETNAMESE EFL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ABSTRACT It has been widely accepted that grammatical knowledge plays an indispensable role in language use In hopes of describing the grammatical errors committed by Vietnamese EFL high school students, this research was conducted rigorously using both quantitative and qualitative methods The data in this study were collected from 45 English essays, written by grade-ten students at Tran Phu high school - Phu Yen, Viet Nam Results from students’ essays revealed that the most common grammatical errors included: word choice, plurality, verb tense and form, prepositions, articles, subject-verb agreement, to be verb, word order, and relative clauses Furthermore, interviews with 20 students were conducted to dig deeper into the triggers for students’ errors The result showed that most of these errors were due to language transfer, lack of knowledge of the grammar points and meanings, students’ carelessness, overgeneralization of target language rules and lack of practice Data from the interview with high school teachers showed that the teachers often involved their students in self-assessment and peer-assessment activities to let them have a reflection upon their errors In addition, frequent language testing and immediate feedback were given to prevent students from internalizing such errors The study puts forward implications for developing the English language proficiency among Vietnamese EFL high school students ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A significant number of people contributed to the success of this thesis, and I would like to express my sincere thanks and appreciation to them all Particularly, I would like to express my gratitude to my prominent supervisor, A/Prof Truong Vien, Ph.D for teaching me knowledge that supported a lot for my research He inspired me to pursue this topic and gave me the confidence and tools I needed to it Without his direction and constant encouragement I would not have learned so much and would not have been able to complete this research project I appreciate his talent and patience, he has always been a great inspiration for me, and his words and thoughts always motivate me to attain my goals I would like to express my appreciation to the English teachers who are working at Tran Phu High school, Phu Yen Province Without their support and assistance, I would not have fulfilled my master study on time Last but not least, I would like to convey my thanks to all of the students who enthusiastically supported my process of collecting data, making my study become successful and meaningful iii TABLES OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii LIST OF TABLES vi LIST OF FIGURES vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims and objectives 1.2.1 Aims 1.2.2 Objectives 1.3 Significance 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Research questions 1.6 Organization of the study CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Communicative Competence 2.1.1 Grammar and Grammatical Competence 2.1.2 Sociolinguistic competence 2.2 Error Analysis 2.3 Distinction between Errors and Mistakes 11 2.4 Errors made by Vietnamese learners of English 12 2.5 Grammatical errors 14 2.6 Causes and Sources of Errors 15 2.7 Review of previous studies 17 CHAPTER 24 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 24 3.1 Research approach 24 iv 3.2 Population and sampling 24 3.3 Procedure of data collection 24 3.4 Data collection 25 3.5 Data analysis procedures 26 3.6 Reliability and Validity 26 3.6.1 Reliability 26 3.6.2 Validity 27 CHAPTER 28 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 28 4.1 Findings 28 4.1.1 Common grammatical errors in essays written by Vietnamese EFL high school students 28 4.1.2 Causes of the errors 35 4.1.3 Feasible measures to alleviate students’ grammatical errors 40 4.2 Discussion 42 CHAPTER 45 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 45 5.1 Conclusion 45 5.2 Implications and Recommendations 46 5.2.1 Implications for EFL teachers 46 5.2.2 Implications for Vietnamese EFL students 48 5.2.3 Limitations and Further research 49 REFERENCES 51 APPENDICES 54 v LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1 Analysis of Errors produced by grade-10 students……………… 28 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4.1 Total of Grammatical Errors……………………………… …… 29 Figure 4.2 Causes of the errors………………………………….……… 35 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CA: Contrastive Analysis EA: Error Analysis EFL: English as a Foreign Language ESL: English as a Second Language FL: Foreign Language GRW: Guided Research Writing L1: First Language L2: Second language vii CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale Learning English as a foreign language in Viet Nam has been witnessing a spectacular increase in demands due to a wealth of opportunities it provides to the learners in many fields However, the challenging and often complicated process of studying English needs to be kept in mind especially by Vietnamese speakers To some extent, Vietnamese grammar rules are fairly different from English ones This on its own leads to a large potential of errors when Vietnamese students produce written or spoken English Therefore, there has been a growing body of research investigating errors committed by Vietnamese EFL high school students It has been widely accepted that students are the ones who would undertake the mission of conquering the world; therefore, they should have a good competence in all language skills in order to be good English language users They should not only become an expert in listening and speaking, but also in reading and writing Moreover, it was found in many prior research papers that writing is one of main obstacles that ESL and EFL learners encounter There are many factors that exert huge influences on foreign language acquisition, namely environment, age, motivation teacher, learners’ attitude, or parents’ attitude Hourani (2008) stated that grammatical problems, both errors in word order and sentence construction, were usually found in the written works of students Similar to those of students in Malaysia, syntactic errors such as connecting words and sentence structures were often countered According to Brown (2004), “a mistake refers to a performance error in that it is a failure to utilize a known system correctly, while an error is a noticeable deviation from the adult grammar of a native speaker, reflecting the interlanguage competence of the learner” What is more, Harmer (2003) said that grammar is the description of the ways in which words can change their forms and can be combined into sentences in that language Grammar is one of the most crucial aspects in translation In order to make a well structured translation, one should be mastered in grammar As suggested by Brown (2004, p.298) “before the learner becomes familiar with the system of the second language, the native language is the only linguistic system upon which the learner can draw Therefore, not having enough knowledge in this sense will lead learners to use their own system of syntax in the target language and this interference makes them Erroneous.” Hence, it seems impossible to learn a language without learning its grammar CHAPTER CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 5.1 Conclusion This study aimed at identifying, describing, categorizing and diagnosing the type of grammatical errors and made by Vietnamese EFL high school students The sample in this study was forty-five students who are in grade ten at a high school in Phu Yen Province These students were required to write a short essay approximately 150-200 words about their hobbies Furthermore, twenty out of those forty-five students were involved in the interview to figure out the causes that led to their making grammatical errors Five teachers who are in charge of different grades in high school also participated in another interview to shed more light on the measures they often apply in their classes to reduce students’ errors As a result, a number of different grammatical errors, together with a couple of causes and solutions are drawn as follow: Regarding Research Question 1, it has been found from the essays that grade-ten students at Tran Phu High school were subject to nine major errors: word choice, plurality, verb tense and form, prepositions, articles, subject-verb agreement, to be verb, word order, and relative clauses The most predominant error was word choice with 54 (23.68%) places The second most predominant error was plurality with 46 times of occurrence (20.18%) Next came verb tense and form with 38 (16.67%), prepositions with 34 (14.91%), articles with 19 (8.33%), subject-verb agreement with 12 (5.26%), to be verb with 12 (5.26%), and word order with (3.95%) The least popular error in this study was relative clause with just (1.75%) It is noticeable that relative clause was not commonly used by most of the participants In brief, the findings of this study support the claim that Vietnamese EFL high school students commit many grammatical errors when writing essays in English In terms of Research Question 2, the interview with twenty students revealed that the students make grammatical errors for five main causes: language transfer (interlingual transfer), the lack of knowledge of the grammar points and meanings, students’ carelessness, overgeneralization of target language rules and the lack of practice Most of the incorrect grammatical sentences found in students essays were ascribed to the lack of knowledge and the students’ carelessness Although some previous studies indicated that language transfer (interlingual transfer) is the main cause which enables students to encounter grammatical errors in their English language use, this study showed that L1 interference is not the major problem of students’ mistakes 45 Concerning Research Question 3, since the errors in grammar require more attention than the others, teachers should then be more aware of these types of errors and provide the necessary follow up work to check the problem areas as discussed earlier The teachers involving in the interview subscribed to the view that they often let students the tests regarding the knowledge of the grammar rules that they frequently make errors This way, the teachers can remind students of the grammatical structures and help them to avoid the mistakes Likewise, providing immediate feedback to students when they produce errors is the key to effective teaching for EFL teachers However, in dealing with errors, it is vital for teachers to establish what the error is, to establish the possible sources of errors, to explain why they happen because a full knowledge of the causes of an error allows the teacher to work out a more effective teaching strategy to deal with them and to decide how serious the mistake is to have a remedial work 5.2 Implications and Recommendations 5.2.1 Implications for EFL teachers The teachers should be aware of students’ grammatical errors; hence they can recognize their learners’ troubles in English language use, especially in writing so they will pay more attention to the errors made by the students and the causes of the errors Having a grasp of the problem makes it possible for teachers to solve the problem more easily Thanks to the investigation on the frequency of participants’ grammatical errors, the study can enable the teacher to teach the point of error and to emphasize more on those errors where the error frequency is higher Based on the findings of this study a number of issues are pointed out, together with related suggestions: The first issue is related to the types of grammatical errors made by Vietnamese EFL students Most of the students suffered grammatical problems in English writing, namely word choice, plurality, verb tense and form, prepositions, articles, subject-verb agreement, to be verb, word order, and relative clauses The data told that a large number of students use inappropriate vocabulary in English composition The majority of these errors derive from misunderstanding and misspelling of words Furthermore, Vietnamese students often fail to use the right form of the verbs which followed prepositions or modal verbs, and the tenses most commonly misused were present continuous and past simple Here are some implications and recommendations which are of significance to EFL teachers as follow: What teachers should do, first and foremost, is to provide students with the comparison of grammatical structure differences between Vietnamese 46 language and English language, especially the ones that students struggle with A telling example in this study is adjective position and the appearance of to be verb in English sentences, which are incorrectly used by many students as it has a totally different structure in Vietnamese language In this case, teachers are suggested to emphasize the divergence of those grammar points between the first language and the target language To reduce students’ errors in word choice, plurality, verb tense and form, teachers should provide students with a quantity of assignments regarding those grammar structures so that students would practice grammar with collocation exercises, hence they would become familiar with English words/ phrases, reducing their proneness to producing errors Furthermore, teachers can suggest tenses exercises and tests that would help the students become more accurate in applying appropriate tenses in various situations or contexts Secondly, while the findings have also indicated a number of causes leading to students’ errors, the lack of knowledge of the grammar points, the students’ carelessness, interlingual and intralingual transfer are the main triggers for such grammatical errors Therefore, it can be suggested that: Teachers are definitely advised to adapt themselves and their curriculum to students’ needs It means they should figure out appropriate methods to teach students the grammatical structures and adjust the curriculum such as adding or omitting inappropriate tasks to boost their understanding of the target language grammar Moreover, teachers need to draw their students’ attention to the target language use, raise their awareness of the pitfalls of English grammar so that the students can be more careful and use the language much more effectively Teachers should give the presentation of contrastive comparisons of the two languages (L1 and L2) to make the learners aware of the differences and similarities between them This technique is believed to be helpful in that the learners will know when to transfer from their native language and when not to With respect to the results from the interview with teachers to discover their resolutions of reducing students’ errors, some recommendation can be raised as follow: 47 It is advisable that teachers should give immediate feedback to students’ written or spoken assignments on regular basis In English writing learners expect, value, and want teachers’ feedback, and to provide immediate feedback on students’ performance is the most essential way of improving their language proficiency What is more, teachers should involve students in self-assessment and peer assessment activities for the sake of which the students could have a thorough reflection upon their errors and the others’, stimulating their awareness of the grammatical errors, from which they will try to avoid making mistakes Similarly, if teachers implement team work in class and get the students to work in groups on their projects, students will have the opportunity to practice English with their friends to develop the writing skill as well as their speaking skill This way, they would, hopefully, correct each other’s errors To be more specific, in the writing lessons, teachers can require students to work in group of three or four, in collaboration with each other on the writing task so that they can raise their ideas when their mates produce any grammatical mistakes Furthermore, frequent language testing is highly recommended to teachers with the aim of helping students revise grammatical structures that they often make errors with, therefore they can consolidate their grammatical knowledge, reducing their proneness of making mistakes Teachers are also advised to increase the number of assignments for the sake of which the students would have to a lot of writing or speaking performance during their free time, hence they would be reading a lot of English material and thinking in English 5.2.2 Implications for Vietnamese EFL students It is more beneficial for EFL students to know about this study, particularly related to grammatical errors in English language use The results of this research are about to allow the learners to see which aspect of grammar is difficult for them By taking notice of the common grammatical errors, the EFL students are anticipated to broaden their horizon on the English grammar, thus they will be aware of the errors they made and causes of the errors, then try to avoid encountering grammatical errors when using English language The findings of this study are beneficial not only for EFL teachers, but also for Vietnamese EFL students Here are some related suggestions: As can be noticed from the result, the categories for severe errors are word choice, plurality, verb tense and form, prepositions, articles, subject-verb 48 agreement, to be verb, word order, and relative clauses Therefore, EFL students should be recommended to take notice of those grammatical structures in English writing or speaking, especially word choice which stands out as the leading position with 23.68% The majority of students confirmed that they encountered such errors mostly due to their lack of knowledge of the grammar points For instance, a couple of students said it is their misunderstanding of the meaning of many adjectives and nouns that leads to their errors in some grammar aspects such as word choice and word order For this reason, it is necessary that students should enhance their knowledge of vocabulary and grammatical points so that the errors can be remedied efficiently In other words, having a good grasp of the mentioned grammatical structures could enable students to avoid generating errors, ameliorating their English language use 5.2.3 Limitations and Further research As mentioned previously the purpose of this study is to examine the grammatical errors and their causes in essays written by Vietnamese EFL high school students At the beginning, the students were told about the purpose of the writing Because of the lack of time at school, students were asked to write the essay at home and hand in the following week, therefore, the writing process was not under scrutiny and the time to write an essay was not equal amongst students The next limitation is that the study had also to revise the number of errors in each essay for accuracy then the frequencies of errors were counted and tabulated so it took a lot of time to the task In addition, it is the limited population of the study that might not boost the generalizability of the results This study tackled a limited number of participants and grammatical aspects involved in English language use due to the limitations of space and time Only 20 students could be interviewed to figure out the reasons why students often encounter the errors found from the essays, which is also not representative of all Vietnamese EFL students Furthermore, just English language teachers participated in the second interview to discover some solutions for the sake of alleviating students’ grammatical errors, making the results more or less insufficient Analyzing a larger set of papers and interviewing a larger number of participants would help to deal with the research’s aims Moreover, since this study was conducted on grade-10 students at Tran Phu comprehensive high school whose writing competencies might be 49 different from those with higher level of English or those in gifted schools, it should be noticed that the findings might not be applicable in gifted schools’ context The study just collected data of grammatical errors in written essays without focusing on speaking, thus the results might be more or less different in speaking context It is expected that the result of the study can give an informative input about grammatical error analysis or other topics related to errors Future research is needed to shed more light on other aspects of the English language use such as speaking skill Furthermore, research is also needed to proliferate the number of participants to enhance the level of accuracy of the findings 50 REFERENCES Abbasi, M., & Karimnia, A (2011) An Analysis of Grammatical Errors among Iranian Translation Students: Insights from Interlanguage Theory European Journal of Social Sciences, 25(4), 525-536 Akbary, M H (2017) Analysis of grammatical errors in English writing made by senior and junior students in English Department, languages and 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Today I am so happy and I will tell you about my hobby I love playing volleyball I have started this hobby in the school team and with my friends in the neighborhood for years ago After school, I usually spend my free time in playing volleyball Playing volleyball also helps me to relax and helps me make many new friends When I play volleyball I feel healthy and stronger I not only like playing volleyball but I also enjoy watching volleyball on TV It really helps me to improve my health as well as my height and it is a pretty good sport to keep my body in shape For me, volleyball is a part of my life In the future I will continue this hobby I love volleyball so much • Sample There are countless things that I love in this world, but the thing I love most is listening to music I started this hobby when I was very little I love listening to all kinds of music the doing the housework, sometimes I not have anything to or even when I have meals I like many kinds of music, especially I am interested in the Kpop or Korean pop There are many Kpop bands like BTS, Blackpink, Twice, Golden Child, etc I like listening them because they bring me energy to clean my soul and they have good melody, beautiful choreography You can dance to the beat You will enjoy it Most of time, I love listening to music to relax my mind The music can make everything funnier Listening to some new song is awesome You can see the life is more beautiful • Sample In my free time I love to relax myself by listening to music and watching my favorite films I study all day so after p.m is the only time that I can use for myself I already have my own phone so I can download my favorite music The songs make me more relaxed after the exhausting lessons Instead, I can wach the most popular movies on the site Watching movies doesn’t require me to pay much attention, and sometimes I just sit there in front of the 54 screen without really knowing how the movies is going Having free time for myself is great, and I appreciate those times a lot • Sample Hi, my name is Toan I am a student of Tran Phu high school and I’m 16 years old I want to tell you about my hobby My favorite is listen to music Music help me entertainment, release stress I was study music age I’m fan of Jack, BTS,… Beside, I hobby is sports I can play soccer, volleyball, badminton Because I have a feeling happy with friends My favorite footballer are Messi, Ronaldo, Pogba,… and I like playing a game It helps me entertainment and release stress • Sample My hobby is listen to music I like rap, hip hop music because it makes me feel happy, have more inspiration to anything better It doesn’t just a kind of music, it could be thoughts, inmost feelings of the artist My favorite artist is Rhymastic because he is a rapper, poetry, producer talented He has a lot of music make people get high When I listen to him’s music, I don’t think it just a song to listen I think people discover themselves, have more energy and can think about society, about the life My hobby makes me feel better and I have a lot of inspiration • Sample I have many hobbies, but I like reading most, especially science book In my free time, I always read book I started to read book when I was a child I feel completely relax when I it In addition, reading book helps me improve my vocabulary by exposing many new book By reading I get better at concentration, it require me to focus on what I am reading for long periods of time Reading book tell me about the world history and I am very interested in Egyptian history Reading books let me see the structure of the human body, how the world works, understand the phenomenon or bring me the interesting stories Books are always a good friend to me Clearly, without books life would be very boring, so we should encourage people to read book • Sample My favorite is listen to music When I feel tired, I often listening to music to relax and it insprires for me Sometimes I listen music of singer Huong Giang, Huong Ly,… because they very famous and sing well However, listening music doesn’t best my hobby My hobby is watching TV, because it has very program interesting, useful,… One of my favorite programs are Giong going ai, Thach thuc danh hai, Sieu tri tue Viet Nam,… and a lot of film as: Gao nep gao, Bo gia,… Beside, watching TV make me comfortable after time doing homework and love life • Sample Hello, my name is Luu I’m 16 years old and I’m a student of Tran Phu high school Today, I want to tell you about my hobby 55 My hobby is play sport Because sport help me physical healthy It’s also help me release stress after lessons at school I play sport when I was years old and I can play soccer, play volleyball and swimming Swimming is the best sport I really like playing sport, so I often play sport six time a week Besides, I also enjoy listening to music I usually listen to music of Duc Phuc singer, because he is my favorite singer That hobbies make my life is very interesting • Sample 10 In my daily life, I have some hobbies such as listening to music, watching movies, travelling and sleeping However, I enjoy listening to music most To me, music are always a good friend Listening to music makes me feel relaxed after many long stressful hours at school I often listen to music of BTS group from Korea The MV are elaborately invested with well-built scripts and great choreography In MV of BTS always try to say things, sensitive stories that no one dares to say Thanks to that, I know how to love myself more, dare to speak up for myself, make me more comfortable and relaxed after the days of fatigue and stress Also watching movies is one of my hobbies I’m crazy about love movies, in my free time I often watch them It helps me to have more sweetness in life These interests have made my life much more cheerful and meaningful • Sample 11 Hello, my name is Phuc Anh I’m 16 Hobby is one of the most important things we should have in our lives Of all hobbies in the world, I like music the most I love listening to all kind of music when I my housework, when I don’t have anything to or even when I have meal I love all kind of music I am interested in hearing them because all songs bring me back my lovely memories and they bring me energy to clean my sold Most of the time, I love listening to music to relax my body The music can make everything funnier Listening to some new songs is awesome You can see the life is more beautiful I always listen to music How about you? What’s you hobby? • Sample 12 My hobbies is listening to music, and I consider it the best active to in my spare time I listen to it when I am on the bus, when I am talking shower and whenever I feel I need it I like many kinds of music, from Kpop to ballad and classical I feed completely relaxed when listening to ballad songs Each of them gives me different feeling, so I choose the songs to listen to according to my current mood I have some of my favorite singers, but especially I like Alan Walker the best I usually download their whole album to my phone Music makes me comfortable, peaceful, and ease my nerves after a long exhausting day • Sample 13 Hobbies are those things that we can indulge ourselves in and not feel guilty about using time for it Hobbies can help us to relax and they also further stimulate our creative and intellectual growth And my hobby is 56 reading I enjoy reading a book when I am free and it really makes me feel peaceful I keep the hobby of reading at least one hour every day I usually read books at home, in my own room, at café or at the school library On my free time I can spend hours reading and thinking about fact described in each kind of books My favorite author is Nguyen Nhat Anh For me books are always a good friend It’s a good way to improve my vocabulary by exposing many new words Reading also makes me feel relaxed and calm It helps me relieve stress and fatigue after a long day However, it gives me unlimited imaginations and a lot of useful knowledge In conclusion, the reading of books contributes to the moral and intellectual formation of a man Love reading and I love books I wish I can write my own books in the future and I also hope that people have the same hobby as me • Sample 14 In the daily life, people will have at least one hobby and I must have to say that’s so right I have many hobbies such as watching movies, listening to music, travelling and so on However, I enjoy watching movie most, movie is always a big part of my life I am really fond of watching movies It makes my life useful and relax I love many kinds of movie, for example: romantic, action, horror,… In my free tim I usually spend hours on watching movie I am crazy about romantic films because I find myself more emotional when I watch these films If you want, I can recommend some movies On the other hand, I’m interested in watching film because it makes me reduce stress after school time In conclusion, my hobby will help me learn many things, it helps me have a better life and improve my personality a lot • Sample 15 My favorite sport as well as my hobby is football I love playing football and I can watching it all day without getting bored I think it is a great sport, because it is a team game, but there is also a place for great individualities in it The players must get on well and understand the others in the team very well They must ignore individual success and have to be a real team to achieve a real success For example, some body is near to the opposing team and he can pass the ball to the another and make up the ball, but instead of that the shoots in unfavorable situation and misses, this is not good example of “team spirit” Football is very popular all over the world You need only a ball and a field, that’s all It’s so easy for you to play football For me, I play football several times a week on a football field close to my school I play with my classmates and sometimes older boy play with us We usually play for an hour or one hour and a half After the matches, I feel so tired but also happy and no pressure after stressful lessons • Sample 16 Hi, I’m Linh In my free time I often listen to the songs I like or I’m going to eat In addition, I also like to watch movies The movies I watch often have a humorous nature, not much romance I only watch Vietnamese movies 57 or movies in any other country That’s what I find myself so special compared to other girls My life is a bit boring, so every time I find something that makes me happier like dancing, singing,… Although I know it’s not my forte I also love reading love stories and sometimes I don’t know what to Many times I also learn English compared to people I want study and my parents want me to read books, but I think I should what I actually love to make myself comfortable • Sample 17 I have many hobbies I like watching movies because watching movies helps me relax, through watching movies I learned a lot of useful things In addition, I also like listening to music at times The mood is not good, the music of BTS has brought me joy, dispelling sadness It is not simple the senseless lyrics, it is also the motivation to help me love myself The song is as if it contains the soul, words that cannot be said directly You have put those words into the lyrics, which have a deep but no less exciting, beautiful melody, bring a sense of enjoyment to the listener I love my life and music of BTS • Sample 18 In addition to working time at school, I often use my free time to useful things The most essential thing is to homework for parents My usually job is cleaning the house, washing dishes, wash clothes, wipe the table,… I also like to hand out, shop, play game on my phone with friends,… but when there was nothing else to do, I would my homework or take my dog for a walk On weekends, I often went to play football with my friends ot went to visit my grandparents Although I have a little free time, it partly makes me feel less tired as well as bring laughter • Sample 19 Hello everyone, my name is Hue Today I will tell you about my hobbies I have any hobbies such as listening to music, reading books online, traveling with my family,… all day which I don’t fell tiring and boring One of my hobbies is reading books online I read wherever, whenever and whatever kinds of books from short story, comic to novel and many more by my phone It helps me to relax after a long day at school In addition, it helps me improve my vocabulary and my knowledge It’s a free form of entertainment that helps me perfect my writing Reading is healthy habit so you should read books instead of playing video games or being lazy in your free time From books you will find interesting life lessons The books is a good friend • Sample 20 I have many hobbies but food is my favorite I like learning about specialties in neighboring countries I like to watch, taste them with a satisfied mood and filled with happiness Eating is not my main purpose In fact I want to acquire knowledge and can make a dish myself I often watch online foods shows like Food heaven,… Additionally, I enjoy traveling and exploring new 58 places with plentiful cuisines, especially walking along the beach in the dust That really make me feel comfortable and peaceful Interviews’ questions • Interviews’ questions for the students What are the causes of the grammatical errors made in your essays? What cause exerts more influences on your grammatical errors? • Interviews’ questions for the teachers Do your students often make grammatical errors in their writing tasks? What solutions you apply to alleviate your students’ grammatical errors? To what extent your solutions improve students’ writing skill? 59