Difficulties facing english majored students during essay writing courses in banking academy

BANKING ACADEMY OF VIET NAM FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES GRADUATION THESIS DIFFICULTIES FACING ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS DURING ESSAY WRITING COURSES IN BANKING ACADEMY Student : Nguyễn Khánh Vi Student ID : 21A7510145 Class : K21ATCA Academic year : 2018 – 2022 Supervisor : Dr Nguyễn Ngọc Ngà Hanoi, May 2022 Tai ngay!!! Ban co the xoa dong chu nay!!! 17014126219011000000 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I declared that the graduation thesis entitled “Difficulties facing English-majored students during essay writing courses in Banking Academy” is the result of my original research The thesis has not been published on any site All sources of information used in the thesis are appropriately listed in the reference part Hanoi, May 2022 Author Vi Nguyễn Khánh Vi i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to send my sincere gratitude to all of the people who helped me finish this thesis First, I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Nguyễn Ngọc Ngà, who has provided me with careful guidance and knowledge Without her help, I would not be able to finish this graduation paper Second, I would like to thank all English-majored students who participated in my survey and interview Their participation has helped me to collect statistics and information Finally, I would like to thank my family, who encouraged me when I did this thesis Their encouragement has cheered me up and given me motivation ii TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v LIST OF TABLES vi LIST OF FIGURES vii ABSTRACT viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the study 1.2 Objectives of the study 1.3 Significance of the study 1.4 Research questions 1.5 Scope of the study 1.6 Structure of the thesis CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Writing and Academic writing 2.2 Challenges in academic writing 2.3 Possible solutions to the difficulties facing students in academic writing 2.4 Previous research on academic writing 2.4.1 Research on academic writing in ESL and EFL contexts 2.4.2 Research on academic writing in Vietnam 10 iii CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODS 12 3.1 Research questions 12 3.2 Data collection instruments 12 3.4 Data collection 14 3.5 Participants 14 3.6 Data analysis 15 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS 17 4.1 Difficulties in EW courses 17 4.4 Reasons for the difficulties in EW courses 25 4.5 Possible solutions to the difficulties in the Essay writing courses 33 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION 38 5.1 Difficulties in the Essay writing courses 38 5.2 Reason for the difficulties in the Essay writing courses 40 5.3 Possible solutions to the difficulties in the Essay writing courses 42 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION 44 6.1 Summary of findings 44 6.2 Conclusion 45 REFERENCES 46 APPENDIXES 50 Appendix A: Survey questionnaire 50 Appendix B: Interview question 56 iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS No Abbreviation EFL ESL EW Meaning EFL is the abbreviation for "English as a Foreign Language" English is taught to students who not have English as the first language or the native language ESL is the abbreviation for “English as a Second Language” Essay writing v LIST OF TABLES Table Name Page Table 3.1 Sample question in the survey 13 Table 3.2 Sample question in the interview 14 Table 3.3 Data analyzed in Microsoft Word 16 Table 4.1 Difficulties in Essay writing courses 18 Table 4.2 Reasons for the difficulties in the Essay writing courses 26 Table 4.3 Solutions to the difficulties in the Essay writing courses 33 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure Name Page Figure 3.1 Data collected from Google Form 15 Figure 4.1 Students’ attitudes toward the courses 17 Figure 4.2 Vocabulary Difficulties 19 Figure 4.3 Word limit difficulties 20 Figure 4.4 Academic style difficulties 21 Figure 4.5 Time-related difficulties 22 Figure 4.6 Grammar difficulties 22 Figure 4.7 Cohesion and coherence difficulties 23 Figure 4.8 Idea conceptualization and development difficulties 24 Figure 4.9 Background knowledge and information sources difficulties 24 Figure 4.10 Insufficient learning material difficulties 25 Figure 4.11 Reasons relating to the lack of writing skill 28 Figure 4.12 Students’ attitudes and approaches 29 Figure 4.13 Lecturer-related reasons 31 Figure 4.14 Learning material-related reasons 32 Figure 4.15 Solutions relating to lecturers 34 Figure 4.16 Solutions relating to students 35 Figure 4.17 Solutions relating to learning materials 36 vii ABSTRACT Nowadays, English is an international language To be fluent in English, one needs to be proficient in four primary skills: reading, speaking, listening, and writing At the Banking Academy of Vietnam, Essay writing (EW) courses are designed to improve the academic writing skills of English-majored students However, during these courses, many students may have faced difficulties in their learning Therefore, this study set out to investigate the problems and propose some feasible solutions to these problems Data for this study were collected from both quantitative and qualitative sources First, a survey questionnaire was delivered to 96 English-majored students in the university Then five students were invited for follow-up interviews The findings showed that the English-majored students encountered difficulties such as vocabulary, word limit, academic style, time, grammar, cohesion and coherence, idea conceptualization and development, background knowledge and information sources, and learning material The findings also indicated three major factors relating to students, lecturers, and learning materials as the reasons for these difficulties Practical solutions are proposed to help students overcome the difficulties they face in EW courses viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the study Nowadays, to be proficient in English, a person needs to understand and be competent in the four primary skills: reading, speaking, listening, and writing Among the four skills, people consider that writing skill is essential in many aspects (Gautam, 2019) Being proficient in writing skills helps one to communicate and express one’s ideas through the act of writing It also assists with the thinking ability, for writing is a method of portraying your thought Additionally, writing skill is one of the requirements for future careers, as prospective jobs demand fundamental writing skillsets (Davies, Birbili, 2000) According to Monica-Ariana (2010), writing could be considered the hardest skill to master for students It is a skill requiring dedication, concentration, and proficiency The process of mastering writing skills is considerably long and arduous One can not spend little time and effort learning how to write effectively To educate and prepare the students, the Banking Academy of Vietnam provides the essay writing (EW) courses as a mandatory course after the Writing I and Writing II courses In the module, students learn how to compose an academic essay There are three types of essays taught in the course: Argumentative essay, Cause and Effect essay, and Problem and Solution essay Students learn about essay structures, essay organization, and formal writing After the courses, students are expected to understand and be able to write a completed academic essay In reality, many students reported having problems with their writing of academic essays However, there have been very limited research attempts to investigate this issue Thus, this study is one of the first studies conducted to discover this problem among this group of students In conclusion, it is essential to conduct the study to discover what kinds of obstacles an English-majored student might experience, the reasons, and possible solutions