(Luận văn thạc sĩ) common errors made by the 10th graders in writing english paragraphs at a high school in hanoi

VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Đinh Quang Lượng h COMMON ERRORS MADE BY THE 10TH GRADERS IN WRITING ENGLISH PARAGRAPHS AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN HANOI M.A THESIS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE HANOI, 2021 VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Đinh Quang Lượng COMMON ERRORS MADE BY THE 10TH GRADERS IN WRITING ENGLISH PARAGRAPHS AT A HIGH SCHOOL h IN HANOI Field: English LanguageCode: 8.22.02.01 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Hoàng Tuyết Minh HANOI, 2021 DECLARATION BY AUTHOR I hereby certify that the thesis titled: “Common errors made by the 10th graders in writing English paragraphs at a high school in Hanoi” is the result of my own research paper for the Master’s Degree in English Studies at Faculty of Foreign Language, Graduate Academy of Social Science, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts and that this thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other universities or tertiary situations Author’s Signature h Đinh Quang Lượng i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis is accomplished after many long working hours, together with the help of numerous people with their attempt, enthusiasm and assistance; and this thesis is earnestly devoted to them I would like to thank many people for their invaluable help during the time of conducting the research First and foremost, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Hoàng Tuyết Minh for her critical and timely feedback, her constant understanding and her unfailing encouragement, without all of which I would not have been able to complete this paper I would like to take this opportunity to express my special thanks to Mr Đặng Nguyên Giang, Ph D, from Faculty of Foreign Languages, Graduate Academy of Social Sciences for his interesting and precious suggestions that h encouraged to carry out this study In addtition, I would love to thank all of the lecturers from the Faculty of Foriegn Language, Graduate Academy of Social Science who have provided me with invaluable sources of knowledge and instructions during my study at this Institute I also offer my sincerest thanks to the students from grades 10 who have enthusiastically participated in the study Their participation is greatly important to the completion of the research Last but never least, I must express my sincere gratitude to my family and friends whose support has been a great significance to the success of my thesis ii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION BY AUTHOR i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii ABSTRACT vi LIST OF TABLES vii LIST OF FIGURES viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ix Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims and Objectives of the Study 1.3 Research Questions 1.4 Scope of the Study h 1.5 Significance of the Study 1.6 Research Methods 1.7 Structure of the Study Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Writting and paragraph writing 2.1.1 Definition of writing 2.1.2 Teaching paragraph writing 2.2 Errors 11 2.2.1 Definition of errors 11 2.2.2 The differences between Errors and mistakes 13 2.2.3 Error classification 14 2.2.4 Causes of errors 17 2.2.5 Error correction and significance of error correction 23 2.3 Previous studies on error analysis 25 iii 2.4 Chapter Summary 27 Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY 29 3.1 Context of the Study 29 3.2 Participants 31 3.3 Instruments 33 3.3.1 Students’ writings 33 3.3.2 Interviews 34 3.4 Data collection and procedure 35 3.5 Data analysis 39 3.5.1 Student writing analysis 39 3.5.2 Interview analysis 40 3.6 Chapter summary 40 Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 41 4.1 Common errors made by 10th grade students at DCHS 41 h 4.1.1 Findings 41 4.1.2 Discussion 46 4.2 Causes of errors made by 10th grade students DCHS 52 4.2.1 Findings 52 4.2.2 Discussion 54 4.3 Suggesting some implications for writing teachers 56 4.3.1 Methods to give feedback 56 4.3.2 Techniques for error correction 63 4.4 Chapter summary 66 Chapter 5: CONCLUSION 69 5.1 Recapitulation 70 5.2 Concluding Remarks 71 5.3 Implications 73 iv 5.4 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Studies 75 5.4.1 Limitations 75 5.4.2 Suggestions for Further Studies 75 REFERENCES 77 Appendix 1: writing topics, time allowance 45’ I Appendix 2: Some typical errors collected II Appendix 3: Samples of students’ writing V Appendix 4: Samples of students’ writing VI Appendix 5: Transcript of the interviews VII h v ABSTRACT This paper studies the common written errors in paragraph writing created by tenth-grade students at Dai Cuong high school and the reasons for those errors To attain the specified aims of the present study, the author combined both qualitative and quantitative methods, besides the two main instruments analyzing students’ writing analysis and private interviews The subjects who participate in the research are 19 tenth grade students at Dai Cuong high school in Hanoi Research results reveal that the most popular types of errors that 10th graders commonly commit include: Verb tense errors, Article errors, Prepositions errors, Subject-verb agreement errors, Verb form errors, mostly because of the short vocabulary and problems with understanding primary grammatical rulings in English The major causes of these errors are the interference of mother tongue, carelessness, h overgeneralization, incomplete application of the rules, and ignorance of rule restriction, in which interference from the first language is the primary cause vi LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Error classification 17 Table 3.1: The topics, forms of writing periods in the new Tieng Anh 10 29 Table 3.2: Students' general information 30 Table 3.3: Error marking symbols 34 Table 3.4: Error classification 36 Table 3.5: Identification of error causes 37 Table 4.1: Number of frequency of errors in paragraph writing by types & by groups 40 Table 4.2: Frequencies of each error type 42 Table 4.3: Number of errors per cause 52 Table 4.4: The popularity of each kind of causes to students’ common written h error .52 Table 4.5: Symbols of error coding .60 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4.1: Prequency of errors in paragraph writing by group 41 Figure 4.2: Frequency of each error type 43 Figure 4.3: The popularity of each type of causes to students’ common written errors 53 h viii the relevant rules However, for correcting written works, it's higher that the lecturers wouldn't correct the students’ errors directly, however, ought to place marks demonstrating there's one thing wrong after each sentence, word or punctuation Moreover, team work in class is implemented so that students would have to practice together for their presentations in groups on their tasks and correct each others’ errors In addition, students are also expected to take responsibility for their own learning and become aware of their own strategies They are also often encouraged to carry out self-evaluation in order to further their learning and regulate their language learning and language using skills To sum up, knowledge of error analysis is helpful for language performance It also improves the process of teaching and learning writing It is apparent that students’ capability to interact in writing will be better if they notice how to avoid errors adequately and how to organize information h reasonably It is hopeful that the results of this thesis will help not only for students to be fully aware of the importance of writing in English so that they can improve their writing skills, but also for teachers of English to take effective measures for teaching English writing skills 5.3 Implications Exploring the tenth graders’ common errors as well as causes towards writing skill is an important step to gain comprehensive views on difficulties that the learners face during writing learning It is certain that learners’ errors and causes of errors are found by three main factors: learners, learning and teaching materials, and the teacher On analyzing students’ reasons, errors, in learning writing English paragraphs, the writer found that most of them realized the importance of writing skill but they could not focus on writing lessons and spent little of their time on learning the skill This implies that there were negative factors affecting the students Moreover, many of them 72 said that they found it easier to write thanks to teacher guidance As such, their autonomy in learning may not reach to the spectrum of efficacy Another noticeable thing is that the students tend to like good marks for their writing papers, the implication of which is the teacher can encourage or discourage their students by marking the papers The analysis of errors in the students' writing papers revealed that there remained flaws in their products The students committed a great number of and a various type of errors regarding language use and organization The causes of such errors were also pointed out The key thing is how to reduce the number of errors in the students’ papers maximally So far three approaches to teaching writing have been mentioned: product, process, and genre approach The main principles of the product approach are as follows: The teaching of second language writing often goes with the instruction of grammar and structure At more advanced h levels, students can learn to write about an essay Correct sentence structure is an important component of writing, and grammatical skills receive much emphasis Errors in writing can be avoided if learners are provided models to follow Learners not usually learn from their mistakes Such characteristics and the findings of the study point out that product approach may be an effective approach to writing instruction In fact, my students’ writing skill is not at high levels; they often work with sentence structures and sometimes write short paragraph Therefore, product approach can be a suitable solution to my teaching situation Teaching language structures and correcting errors regarding language use may be acceptable to the situation Perhaps one of the most frustrating tasks of language teachers is correcting errors, and then seeing the repeated occurrence in the students’ writing Despite error corrections consumes a great deal of teacher' time, there is often a feeling that the same errors are being corrected again and again Thus, 73 whether the error correction is beneficial in students’ learning is a big question to many writing teachers Error correction can be implemented via teacher correction, self-correction and peer correction 5.4 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Studies 5.4.1 Limitations Although the researcher has made great efforts to carry out the study, the study has got certain restrictions due to the shortage of time, lack of reference materials as well as the limited knowledge of the researcher Firstly, the study just collected 19 papers from 19 students, tenth grade at DCHS for error analysis and 60 errors interviewed, which is only a small number Therefore, the results of the research may be not completely convincing Secondly, it is rather complicated for the criteria to be classified errors and causes of errors How to classify one error correctly? In some cases, one error can belong to h one or more causes Yet, for the research objectives, the author categorizes one error in one particular sort according to teachers’ marking Thirdly, the study could not be conducted on the same students at their disparate period of their learning process 5.4.2 Suggestions for Further Studies Although the findings are useful in some ways as indicated, it is important to continue the investigation of errors with larger number of students, not only 10th graders with 19 students, but also with 11th, 12th form students in the future under the following communicative domains: First, it is unavoidable to commit errors in the learning process and every teacher applies his/her own technique for error corrections Consequently, errors and error correction are consistently new objects for our research Second, as in the research, the subjects are writings of 19 tenth grade students at DCHS, it would be clearer 74 if we study errors made by the same students who come from other graders and so on Thirdly, the researcher could not study the errors made by the same students in their different periods of their learning process (from the beginning of schoolyear to the end) Hence, it would be more interesting to see their errors in their different periods of their learning process and further research should be on other interesting skills such as listening, and speaking errors as well h 75 REFERENCES Foreign authors Bartels, N (2003) Written peer response in L2 writing English Teaching Forum, 41(1) pp.34-37 Brown, H D (2000) Principles of language learning and teaching (4th ed.) 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(1989) Error Analysis: Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition London: Longman Sardegna, V G., & Slutsky, J (2009) The practiced business writer: An ESL/EFL handbook Briefings Media, LLC Tribble, C (1996) Writing Oxford: Oxford University Press Tidyman, & Willard, T (1959) Teaching the Language Arts Lodnon: 78 McGraw-Hill Book Company, inc Vann, R J., et al (1984) Error gravity: A study of faculty opinion of ESL errors TESOL Quarterly, 18(3), 427-440 Verma, G K., & Mallick, K (1999), Researching education: Perpective and techniques, Falmer Press (London and Philadelphia, PA) Walz & Joel, C 1982 Error Correction Techniques for the Foreign Language Classroom Washington: Center for Applied Linguistics, p 35 White, E M (1994) Teaching and assessing writing: Recent advances in understanding evaluating, and improving student performance 2nd ed San Francisco: Josscy-Bass Publishers Wishon & Burks (1980) Analysing the students‟ errors in using simple present A case study at Junior High School in Makassar Wood, N M (1993) „Self-correction and Rewriting a Student h Composition‟ Teaching Forum July-September, 1977 Vol.31 No.3 Pp 38 Vietnamese authors Đinh Thị Phương Anh (2009) Common errors in the use of English articles made by first- year students at Hung Yen Industrial College University of Foreign Language and Studies, Hanoi Đặng Thị Hoàng Lan (2016) An Investigation into the Errors in VerbTense Forms Found in Paragraph-Writing by the 10th-Form Students at Kim Thanh Upper-Secondary School Vietnam National University, Hanoi 79 Appendix 1: writing topics, time allowance 45’ Full name: Grade 10 Write a paragraph about one of the following five topics, your writing should be about 100 -120 words in length Topic 1: Write a paragraph about living in your house or living or in the hostel, which place is better? Topic 2: Write a paragraph to describe the most unforgettable day in your life Topic 3: Write a paragraph about a bad habit you have made Topic 4: Write a paragraph to tell about a favourite film that you’ ve watched recently Topic 5: Write a paragraph about the ways you learn English that you think it is effective h I Appendix Some typical errors collected in students’ writing papers NO Type of Code Error sentences errors (1) [13-3] When I arrived at Sa Pa, I was very happy Vt because my relatives warmly welcome me “Nhung Ngay Khong Quen” is the most (2) [18-2] (3) [15-15] When I want to meet my parents, I went home (4) (5) interesting film I see [16-4] My mother teach us work good matter [9-11] Smokers has to spend on amount of money Vt vt agr agr (6) [3-15] My mother help me understand about the life (7) [10-2] After finish two important exam, my class vf (8) [3-5] I’ m a student live far from home vf (10) h (9) [10-9] In Ha Long there are a big casino I wish I can enter it [5-3] I have many chances to improve my knowledge agr vf Pl in every fields (11) [16-6] There are four peoples in my family Pl (12) [4-2] Pl One of the bad habit I have is sleeping late (13) [15.14] The main character name is Anh thu (14) [2.4] (15) 110.5] When I live in˄ hostel, I feel a few comfortable After a hour of sitting on the bus, finally we poss art art Arrived (16) [17-8] I spend for hours a day listening˄English (17) [2.8] (18) [17-15] (19) [2-5] prep I lived in the hostel ˄2 years prep He gave to me some new CDs prep It is different with living in a house II prep (20) 114-12] The cat alway finds way to catch Jerry sp (21) [15-6] She is a beutifun girl sp (22) [17-6] I like readinh books at my room sp (23) [2-11] I fell a few uncomfortable wc (24) (25) [13-5] We concentrated at the school gate and waited for the bus [6-12] A country wants to develop it economy It must pro (26) [7-16] She told the wallet is her pro (27) [8-7] wo (28) [8-16] He lives a family poor (29) [4-9] (30) the family of bring Jackson [6-16] The aim of it tile first; entering universities exp (31) [8-14] After, they takes up love each other exp (32) [14-1] One of the film I love best is Tom and Jerry this film was written by William Hanna and made in Ro Romeo is a man very strong and intelligent Jackson is a collection of children children in we wo exp h (33) (34) Hollywood USA [18-7] Hung is the young boy was bom in rich family [18-1] I have seen many film, I like best “Nhung Ngay p Cs Khong Quen” It’s very good and the most interesting, the film was made in Viet nam It is a daily life story film about life of peoples in the city and countryside, it tell life’s of “Mr Son’s family with daughter” as the epidemic season disease Covid 19 occur (35) [11-3] After several years wind and waves (36) [9-5] Smoking is bad habit which I hate the best Because, it can make smoker's health get worse (37) [18-10] She live with step, mother III frag frag p This film was written by William and made in (38) [12-3] (39) [2-7] (40) [3-2] (41) [2-181 After working hard a day we were all tired (42) [2-16] The living condition in your house is more English grammar is very strange, which is [6-10] different from in Vietnamese [6-15] I feel very tired and I want to return my house (43) (44) holly wood Although living in the hostel is very noisy, sometimes I feel uncomfortable The weather is not awesome very much Cap Conj Wo wo exp exp conj (45) So I like living in my house [6-19] Sometimes, we can talk about life, study, love conj (46) [12-1] There is few kinds of movie that all people like agr (47) [2-8] There is few interesting books found in the agr ww (49) [13-11] People here are very useful ww h (48) 110-12] We should give some measures to avoid it (50) (51) (52) (53) (54) (55) [13-3] [1-10] Last week I visited Da Lat The weather here was cool during four seasons Although living in the hostel very noisy, sometimes I feel uncomfortable [1-19] When I was sick or sad, my parents as a god makes me happy [9-11] Smokers have to spend on amount of money to [6-15] My English improve much thanks to learn with foreign teachers [7-4] My English progress better thanks to practice English everyday IV vt We We exp Vf Vf Appendix 3- Students’ writings - sample h V Appendix 4- Students’ writings - sample h VI Appendix 5: Transcript of the interviews Researcher = R Student = St R: Hello, how are you this morning? St: Hi, oh I am good R: (give the student the writing paper) Do you recognise what’s wrong with the underlined parts in your writing? St: Oh ,yes, I see several errors in my paragraph writing R: Could you please tell the reasons why you made these common errors when writing? St: There are many reasons Firstly, I always interfere from Vietnames as I write an English paragraph or I write Vietnamese paragraph, then translate word by h word into English Secondly, I think it is similar to Vietnamese The third reason is I didn’t remember the rules exactly or I read these sentences on the Internet and so on R: Thank you very much for your share, good bye! St: Good bye, VII