AN INVESTIGATION INTO ABILITY TO DISTINGUISH “WILL” AND “BE GOING TO” OF THE FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS AT TAY NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

AN INVESTIGATION INTO ABILITY TO DISTINGUISH “WILL” AND “BE GOING TO” OF THE FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS AT TAY NGUYEN UNIVERSITY 1.1State of the problemEnglish is an international language and furthermore it is a compulsory subject in Vietnam. Learning a foreign language like English, learners have to learn a variety of linguistic points such as vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation etc. Among these linguistic points, grammar is considered indispensable to any learners of English. Grammar, as it is, covers a lot of different factors like noun, adjective, tense… etc. One of these varied factors is tenses, which may cause substantial difficulties for learners to put verbs in the correct form, is tenses. There are three main types of tense in English, including present tense, past tense and future tense, each of which has its own characteristics that should be analyzed for choosing a correct usage of verb for a certain action or thing. However, at a small scale of study, the researcher’s focus is put on the future tense. It is obvious that different actions occurring in the future can be expressed by the different forms of verbs, e.g. simple present, simple future, present continuous, etc. According to John Eastwood (1992:33), English simple present can be used to express a future scheduled plans, simple future expresses a promise or present continuous expresses an arrangement. However, one action can be expressed by more than one form of a verb, e.g. a plan by simple present, present continuous, simple future or a prediction by “Will” and “Be going to”. This judgment on the variation of using forms of verbs for future actions can, to some extent, be supported by the statement: “When the speaker is making a prediction, either will or be going to is possible.” by Betty SchrampferAzar (1999:66). This fact indicates the existence of differences and similarities among different forms of verbs in terms of usage. These differences and similarities could cause confusion for learners of English when choosing a correct form of a verb to express a specific action in the future if they cannot distinguish them. Therefore, the researcher decided to carry out a study to identify how well learners of English can understand those differences and similarities. Due to limitation of time and the capacity of the researcher, the scope is limited to the two verbs forms: “Will” and “Be going to” in expressing prediction and intention.

TAY NGUYEN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES STUDIES

-GRADUATION ASSIGNMENT TITLE:

AN INVESTIGATION INTO ABILITY TO DISTINGUISH

“WILL” AND “BE GOING TO” OF THE FIRST- YEAR

ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS AT TAY NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

Student : Nguyễn Thị Thúy Nga Class : English Course 2010 Supervisor :Tống Thị Lan Chi

ĐắkLắk, April,2014

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to mysupervisor, Mrs Tong Thi Lan Chi, M.A, a lecturer of faculty of foreign languagesstudies at Tay Nguyen University for her valuable advice Her guidance helps me in allthe time of research and writing of this study

Secondly, I would like to give my sincere thanks for the teachers of the faculty offoreign languages studies, Tay Nguyen University for their useful lectures andsuggestions and my classmates for their support for my graduation assignment

Thirdly, I would like also to express my special thanks to the first year Englishmajor students at Tay Nguyen University for their enthusiastic cooperation in mysurvey Without their help, this study would have been impossible

Last but not the least, I would like to thank my family and my friends: myparents, for giving birth to me at the first place and supporting me spirituallythroughout my life In addition, my friends are always beside me to give supports andencouragement to me They helped me in the successful completion of my study

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

TABLE OF CONTENTS ii

LIST OF TABLES iv

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 State of the problem 1

1.2 Objectives of the study 2

1.3 Significance of the study 2

1.4 Scope of the study 2

1.5 Outline of the study 2

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 Form of “Will” and “Be going to” for expressing future actions 4

2.1.1 Form of “Will” for expressing future actions 4

2.1.2 Form of “Be going to” for expressing future actions 5

2.2 The usages of “Will” and “Be going to” for expressing future actions 6

2.2.1 The usages of “Will” for expressing future actions 6

2.2.2 The usages of “Be going to” for expressing future actions 6

2.3 The similarities between “Will” and “Be going to” in expressing prediction and intention 7

2.3.1 The similarities between “Will” and “Be going to” in expressing intention 7

2.3.2 The similarities between “Will” and “Be going to” in expressing prediction 7

2.4 The differences between “Will” and “Be going to” in expressing prediction and intention 7

2.4.1 The differences between “Will” and “Be going to” in expressing intention 7

2.4.2 The differences between “Will” and “Be going to” in expressing prediction 8

CHAPTER 3: CONTENTS AND METHODOLOGY 10

3.1 Contents of study 10

3.2 Methodology of the study 10

3.3 Subjects of the study 11

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 12

4.1 The differences between “Will” and “Be going to” in expressing prediction and intention 12

4.1.1 The students’ ability to use “Will” 12

4.1.2 The students’ ability to use “Be going to” 14

4.2 The similarities between “Will” and “Be going to” in expressing prediction and intention 16

4.3 Discussion 17

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 18

5.1 Conclusion 18

5.2 Recommendations 18

REFERENCES 20

APPENDICES 21

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Students’ responses in the multiple-choice exercise 12

Table 2: Students’ responses in the sentence completing exercise 13

Table 3: Students’ responses in the multiple-choice exercise 14

Table 4: Students’ responses in the sentence completing exercise 15

Table 5: Students’ responses in the multiple-choice exercise 16

Table 6: Students’ responses from the two exercises 17

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 State of the problem

English is an international language and furthermore it is a compulsory subject

in Vietnam

Learning a foreign language like English, learners have to learn a variety oflinguistic points such as vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation etc Among theselinguistic points, grammar is considered indispensable to any learners of English.Grammar, as it is, covers a lot of different factors like noun, adjective, tense… etc.One of these varied factors is tenses, which may cause substantial difficulties forlearners to put verbs in the correct form, is tenses There are three main types of tense

in English, including present tense, past tense and future tense, each of which has itsown characteristics that should be analyzed for choosing a correct usage of verb for acertain action or thing However, at a small scale of study, the researcher’s focus is put

on the future tense

It is obvious that different actions occurring in the future can be expressed bythe different forms of verbs, e.g simple present, simple future, present continuous, etc.According to John Eastwood (1992:33), English simple present can be used to express

a future scheduled plans, simple future expresses a promise or present continuous expresses an arrangement However, one action can be expressed by more than one form of a verb, e.g a plan by simple present, present continuous, simple future or a

prediction by “Will” and “Be going to” This judgment on the variation of using forms

of verbs for future actions can, to some extent, be supported by the statement: “Whenthe speaker is making a prediction, either will or be going to is possible.” by BettySchrampferAzar (1999:66) This fact indicates the existence of differences andsimilarities among different forms of verbs in terms of usage These differences andsimilarities could cause confusion for learners of English when choosing a correctform of a verb to express a specific action in the future if they cannot distinguish them.Therefore, the researcher decided to carry out a study to identify how well learners ofEnglish can understand those differences and similarities Due to limitation of time

and the capacity of the researcher, the scope is limited to the two verbs forms: “Will” and “Be going to” in expressing prediction and intention.

1.2 Objectives of the study

The study is aimed at identifying the ability of the 60 the year English majoredstudents at Tay Nguyen University to distinguish “Will” and “Be going to” in terms ofusage.

1.3 Significance of the study

The thesis, as a whole, is considered to be significant on the two aspects First ofall, theoretically, it provides learners of English, not excluding the researcher, with the

useful knowledge relating to “Will” and “Be going to” which will help them avoid

confusion when applying them for expressing intention and prediction Second,practically, the findings reported by the study offers students the clear picture of how

they identified the differences between “Will” and “Be going to” in terms of usage

1.4 Scope of the study

It is essential for the study to be carried out with the involvement of all the Englishmajor students at Tay Nguyen University, including the second year and last yearstudents Doing so will help ensure the accurate and convincing result of the study aswell as the success of the researcher in his study However, in this study, the focus isput on the first year English major students’ ability to distinguish “Will” and “Begoing to” because of the limitation of time as well as of the researcher’s ability

1.5 Outline of the study

The assignment is divided into 4 chapters:

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION This chapter provides the background informationfor the whole assignment: state of the problem, objective the study, signification andscope of the study

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW In this chapter, the literature related to

“Will” and “Be going to” will be presented The first section is about the form of

“Will” and “Be going to” for expressing future actions The second section explains the usage of “Will” and “Be going to” for expressing future actions The third and fourth section are to respectively present the similarities and differences between “Will” and

“Be going to” in expressing prediction and intention.

Chapter 3: CONTENTS AND METHODOLOGY This chapter describes themethod used to carry out this study It is composed four main parts: Contents of thestudy, methodology of the study, subjects of the study and procedures

Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS This chapter reports and discussesthe result from this study

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS This chapter presentssome suggestions after the findings of the study and gives a summary of theassessment

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, the literature related to “Will” and “Be going to” will be presented The first section is about the form of “Will” and “Be going to” for expressing future actions The second section explains the usage of “Will” and “Be

going to” for expressing future actions The third and fourth section are to respectively

present the similarities and differences between “Will” and “Be going to” in expressing prediction and intention.

2.1 Form of “Will” and “Be going to” for expressing future actions.

2.1.1 The forms of “Will” for expressing future actions.

According to Elsworth (2000), the formsof “Will” and “Be going to” for expressing

future actions are presented as follows

stay

- Question

Will

IHeSheItWeYouThey

stay?

You

They

Are(‘re)

- Question

going topay?

SheIt

YouThey

- Negative

I Am not

They

Are not(‘re not)

2.2 The usages of “Will” and “Be going to” for expressing future actions.

2.2.1 The usages of “Will” for expressing future actions.

• According to Elsworth (2000), “will” can be used to express an intention when

this intention is made at the time of speaking:

- Example :

A: There isn’t any milk left

B: Oh, isn’t there? I’ll get some in town I’m going there later on

(Elsworth, 2000:56)

• According to Cullen (2007), “will” can be used to make a prediction about the

future based on opinion

- Example : One day people will travel to Mars

(Cullen, 2007:39)

2.2.2 The usages of “Be going to” for expressing future actions.

According to Eastwood (1992), the usage of “Be going to” for expressing future

actions is presented as follows:

• We can use “Be going to” express an intention The speaker had the intention

before the time of speaking:

- Example : Emma is going to do an experiment this afternoon

(Eastwood ,1992:60)

• We can use “Be going to” for a prediction based on the present situation, when

we can see that something is going to happen

- Example : The ladder is moving, so David is going to fall

(Eastwood,1992:60)

2.3 The similarities between “Will” and “Be going to” in expressing prediction

and intention.

According to A.J.Thomson and A.V.Martinet (1960), the similarities between

“Will” and “Be going to” in expressing prediction and intention are stated as follows:

2.3.1 The similarities between “Will” and “Be going to” in expressing

intention.

When the intention is neither clearly premeditated nor clearly unpremeditated,

either “be going to” or “will”may be used:

- Example : I will/ am going to climb that mountain one day.

(A.J.Thomson and A.V.Martinet ,1960:205)

2.3.2 The similarities between “Will” and “Be going to” in expressing

prediction

“Will” and “Be going to” are rather similar to express what the speaker thinks,

believes, hopes etc Therefore, often either form can be used:

- Example : I think the weather will be nice this afternoon.

I think the weather is going to be nice this afternoon

(A.J.Thomson and A.V.Martinet ,1960:207)

2.4 The differences between “Will” and “Be going to” in expressing prediction and intention.

2.4.1 The differences between “Will” and “Be going to” in expressing

intention.

As in Elaine Walker Steve Elsworth (2000), the differences between “Will” and

“Be going to” in expressing intention are stated as follows.

WILL BE GOING TO

The intention is unpremeditated The

decision is made at the time of speaking

or writing.

- Example:

There’s a postbox over there I’ll

post these letters

 You still haven’t put those

shelves up, Trevor

- OK, I’ll do it tomorrow.

Trevor is deciding now.

(Elsworth ,2000,58)

The intention is premeditated The decision was made before the time of speaking or writing and plans have probably already been made.

As stated in Elsworth (2000), the differences between “Will” and “Be going to”

in expressing prediction are stated as follows.

WILL BE GOING TO

We can use will for a prediction to base

on our opinions or our past experiences

- Example :

 I think United will win the game

 I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourself

 This bag isn’t very strong

It’s going to break.

(Elsworth, 2000,62)

CHAPTER 3: CONTENTS AND METHODOLOGY

Chapter 3 serves as a brief description of the overall study’s approach; thesubjects, instruments and procedures of the surveys

3.1 Contents of the study

This assignment concentrates on distinguishing between “Will” and “Be going

to” in expressing prediction and intention in terms of usage

3.2 Methodology of the study

The main method used in the study is the questionnaire that has been delivered

to 60 first-year English majored at Tay Nguyen University

The researcher decided to use a questionnaire to collect information because ofits advantage According to Gillham (2000), the advantage of using questionnaires isthat there is less pressure for an immediate response Instead, the respondents cancomplete the questionnaire at a relaxing pace when it suits them; they are not “underpressure interview bias”

And the data for this study is a synchronic collection taken in the first-yearEnglish majored students at Tay Nguyen University The researcher gave out theexercise papers to the students, who were expected to do the exercise in 25 minutesand then returned the papers back to the researcher

The exercises are designed in two types, a multiple choice exercise and asentence completing exercise For the multiple choice exercise, the students have tochoose the best answer in order to fill in the blanks This type of exercises consists of

17 sentences The sentence completing exercise includes 8 sentences with 11 blanks.Sentences 2, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 22, 24, and 25 relate to the usage of “Will”for expressing future actions

Sentences 1, 4, 7, 8, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 23, 24, and 25 relate to the usage of “Be

going to” for expressing future actions

Sentences 3, 5, and 6 relate to the similarities between “Will” and “Be going to”

in expressing prediction

The participants are 60 first year English majored students at Tay NguyenUniversity The subjects were informed about the general purpose of the study andasked to fill out a questionnaire

3.3 Subjects of the study

Aiming at looking into English student’s ability to distinguish “Will” and “Be