Academic writing problems encountered by english major seniors of banking academy

BANKING ACADEMY OF VIETNAM FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES GRADUATION THESIS: Academic writing problems encountered by English-major seniors of Banking Academy Student: Đào Hoàng Quân Student ID: 22A7510066 Class: K22ATCC Supervisor: Bùi Thị Minh Thu PhD Hanoi, May, 2023 Tai ngay!!! Ban co the xoa dong chu nay!!! 17014125813521000000 Acknowledgement Acknowledgement Writing this has been quite a strenuous mental activity It had literally taken a toll on me mentally and physically However, I had seen it through, though not without the help of other people For that I would like to extend, in no particular order, my thanks to Ms Bùi Thị Minh Thu for her exceptional guidance that has helped me through all of this ordeal, Ms Trần Thị Thu Thủy and Ms Trần Thị Thanh Giang for giving me advice and input to help me better my thesis I would like to give my thanks to my friends: Hoàng Linh for providing me with the expertise in statistics and probability to make this happen, and Hà Phương for sharing her experience in writing her own thesis Lastly, I want to thank my family, for without them, I would not have been here today, and would not make the choices that define who I am For that, I am grateful i Acknowledgement Statement I hereby certify that this thesis is the product of my own work It has not been used for any other degrees or purposes All resources used have been properly cited down below Đào Hoàng Quân II Table of Contents Table of Contents Acknowledgement i Statement ii Table of Contents iii Table of Figures v Abstract vi I Introduction 1 The rationale of the Research Research Aim Research Questions Scope and Scale II Literature Review Writing 1.1 The Nature of Writing 1.2 Writing as a Form of Communication 1.3 Problems in Writing Academic Writing 2.1 The Nature of Academic Writing 2.2 Types of Academic Writing 2.3 Academic Writing Problems 10 III Methodology 18 Research Subject 18 1.1 Banking Academy’s English major 18 iii Table of Contents 1.2 Banking Academy’s English language seniors 19 The Questionnaire 20 The Interviews 21 IV Results 23 Results 23 1.1 General information 23 1.2 Writing Information of the Students 24 1.3 Academic writing difficulties 28 1.4 Causes 35 Discussion 40 2.1 Language difficulties 40 2.2 Content difficulties 43 2.3 Structure difficulties 45 2.4 Possible outside-of-class causes 46 2.5 Classroom causes 47 V Conclusion 50 Conclusion 50 Limitations 51 Suggestion for later studies 52 Recommendations 53 References 54 Appendix I 60 Appendix II 70 IV Table of Figures Table of Figures Graph 1: The framework for academic writing difficulties visualized 17 Graph 2: Respondents’ experience with English 24 Graph 3: Students' weekly average of time spent practicing academic writing 25 Graph 4: Students' confidence in their academic writing 26 Graph 5: Students' difficulty in writing thesis statements (scale 1-5) 32 Graph 6: Outside-of-class causes for academic writing difficulties 36 Graph 7: In-class causes for academic writing difficulties 39 Table 1: Reliability analysis of items to 28 Table 2: Means and medians of students' academic writing difficulties in content 29 Table 3: Means and medians of students' academic writing difficulties in structure 31 Table 4: Means and medians of students' academic writing difficulties in language 33 Table 5: Students' opinion on the causes for their writing difficulties 36 v Abstract Abstract This thesis aims to investigate the difficulties faced by fourth-year English language students when writing academically English is a global language, used by many countries in the world and is the de facto language of the scientific community Writing is arguably the hardest of the four skills to master and academic writing is required for Banking Academy English major students to graduate The two main questions of this research inquire about the specific difficulties faced by seniors in academic writing and the causes surrounding the above difficulties Previous research studies have been conducted with first- and second- year students and even postgraduates; however, little work has been done in the context of senior Vietnamese university students, wherein they must write either a thesis or a report in order to graduate This study used a mixed-method approach for gathering data including a questionnaire for student self-assessment and interviews to gain additional insight on the volunteered students The results found were that the students mostly have trouble with ideas, including coming up with ideas and writing about new and unfamiliar topics This is reflective in both the questionnaire results and the interviews Students also have problems with their vocabulary and sentence structuring Most of the seniors seemed to have an idea of their own shortcomings, but did not anything to fix these problems The cause of students not correcting these problems can be attributed to the time-consuming nature of writing itself, which can take up a lot of time and concentration of the students out of class This research also found that generally, the seniors prefer being given a predetermined writing structure or form by their lecturers to follow Keywords: academic writing, difficulties, vocabulary, ideas VI I Introduction I Introduction The rationale of the Research English is currently the most popular language in the world with more than 1.5 billion speakers worldwide (Breene, 2019) Unsurprisingly, English is usually one of the default languages for international communication; for example, English is one of the official languages of the United Nations, the International Red Cross, and the World Economic Forum English is often used as a common language for people of different countries, cultures, and languages This is English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) Knowing English is considered a key to success in the age of globalization English is also the most common language used to write scientific articles Three-fourths of all scientific articles are estimated to be written in English, and for many fields, this number could go up to ninety percent (Montgomery, 2013) This thesis is also written in English In Vietnam, English is one of the mandatory second languages and the most common one taught in primary and secondary educational institutions To graduate, Vietnamese university students are also required to achieve at least an intermediate level in English (or any other secondary language available to their school) Government positions and other public sector jobs also require proof of English proficiency Thus, English plays a pivotal role in various aspects of life This is then further exemplified by the increasing globalization happening all over the world It is hence knowing English is extremely important, and knowing English well is even more so Writing as a skill is very important As a form of communication, it is special, in certain ways that would be discussed further in Chapter Furthermore, due to some unique quirks, such as detachment from space and time, writing is irreplaceable as a form of communication It is therefore all the more imperative that English users hone their writing skills I Introduction There has been international research on this subject before But little work has been done in the context of Vietnamese students And fewer in the context of Banking Academy’s English students This is a problem because, in addition to learning English, they must also learn finance and banking Thus, less time can be spent on refining their English skills Furthermore, in order to graduate, these seniors must write a report or a thesis, which is English academic writing Thus it is crucial for them to know how to write academically and properly Given these specific reasons, I decide to conduct this study Research Aim This research was ultimately conducted to contribute to the body of knowledge on the problems faced by English as a Second Language students in academic writing Furthermore, this thesis would hopefully provide both students and teachers with the other parties’ insight into the difficulties Research Questions This study aims to address two research questions:  What are some academic writing difficulties faced by Banking Academy’s English-major students?  What are the causes to have prevented the above-mentioned students from correcting these difficulties? Scope and Scale The targets for this research are senior (fourth year) students of the Banking Academy of Vietnam’s Bachelor of Banking and Finance English program The population size is about 150 students The reason is that they are in a period where most of them would be close to graduating For the students to graduate, they must write either a thesis or a report on their internship Both require an extensive grasp of academic writing in English