Common errors in the use of English articles made by first-year students at Hung Yen industrial college = Những lỗi phổ biến trong sử dụng mạo từ tiếng Anh của

ABSTRACT This study focuses on the analysis of errors in the use of English articles made by first-year students at Hung Yen Industrial College with an aim to recommend some selected imp

ABSTRACT

This study focuses on the analysis of errors in the use of English articles made by first-year students at Hung Yen Industrial College with an aim to recommend some selected implications for better teaching of English articles The analysis was based

on the data collected from two tests: a free-response test, writing a composition and

a multichoice test provided by 90 non-major first-year students of Hung Yen Industrial college Errors were described and classified according to linguistic category and strategies employed by the students The greatest frequency of errors occured in the definite article in both tests The omissions of both definite and indefinite articles were most found in the compositions but the wrong selections of definite article instead of the indefinite in the multi-choice test Explanations for the causes of the errors were done: interlingual or intralingual and developmental causes Suggestions for improvement in teaching English articles are offered based

on the findings

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Summary of English articles (p.5)

Table 2: Bickerton’s semantic table for noun phrase reference (p.9)

Table 3: General information of the writing corpus (p.25)

Table 4: Frequencies of articles supplied in the written work by article type (26) Table 5: Non-pass and pass students of Test 2 (p.26)

Table 6: Distribution of choices by the students in Test 2 (p.27)

Table 7: Distribution of explanations on the right choices by the students in Task 1 (p.27)

Table 8: Errors classified according to linguistic categories (p.29)

Table 9: Errors classified according to the strategies employed by the students (p.30)

Table 10: Strategies and causes of errors (p.36)

Table 11: Interlingual versus intralingual and developmental errors (p.37)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS iv

LIST OF TABLES v

TABLE OF CONTENTS vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale for the study 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Research questions 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Methods of the study 3

6 Significance of the study 3

7 Design of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 An overview of English article system 4

1.1.1 Definitions of English article 4

1.1.2 Types of English articles 4

1.1.2.1 Definite article 5

1.1.2.2 Indefinite articles 6

1.1.2.3 Zero article 7

1.1.3 Usage of English articles 8

1.2 The determiners in Vietnamese language 10

1.3 Error and error analysis 12

1.3.1 The notions of errors in language learning 12

1.3.2 Classifications of errors 13

1.3.3 Error analysis 14

1.3.3.1 Definitions 14

1.3.3.2 Significance of error analysis 15

1.3.3.3 Stages in error analysis 16

1.4 Causes of errors in second language learning 17

1.4.1 Causes of interlingual errors 17

1.4.2 Causes of intralingual and developmental errors 18

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 2.1 Setting of the study 21

2.2 Participants 22

2.3 Instruments of data collection 23

2.4 Data collection procedures 23

2.5 Methods of data analysis 24

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS, DISCUSSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 3.1 Findings and discussions 25

3.1.1 General evaluation of the students’ performance 25

3.1.2 Recognition of errors 28

3.1.3 Description of errors 28

3.1.4 Explanation of errors 31

3.2 Recommendations 37

3.2.1 Recommendations for instructional materials 37

3.2.2 Recommendations for teachers’ presentation 38

PART C: CONCLUSION 1 Conclusions 40

2 Limitations and suggestions for further study 41

REFERENCES 42 APPENDIX VIII MULTI-CHOICE TEST VIII

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY

The English article system is one of the most difficult aspects of English grammar for students of English as a second language to understand English articles occur very frequently and incorrect use may affect communication negatively Also an L2 writer may prefer to be accurate, when he/she has to write Master (2002) attributes this

difficulty to three facts about the article system: First, the English articles, the, a and zero, are the most commonly used words in English, making constant rule application

difficult over a long discourse; Second, function words are often spoken with such weak stress that they are inaudible and consequently are very difficult for non-native speakers to discern, which affects the availability of input in the spoken mode; and third, the article system stacks multiple functions onto a single morpheme, which constitutes a considerable burden for the learner who usually looks for a one-to-one correspondence between form and function, especially in the early stages of language learning

In addition, because they rarely carry significant information, they can usually be deleted in telegraphic speech, including telegrams and newspaper headlines Thus, unlike content words, function words are generally overlooked by learners when processing language primarily for meaning According to Pienemann (1998), the difficulty of the meaning expressed by an article is determined by the novelty and abstractness of the concept, not to mention learners’ changing hypotheses about article usage at different stages in interlanguage development and the potential influence of the native language which may further complicate the task

The idea of doing my research came from the following reasons First, researchers such

as Newman (1977, cited in Master, 1988) and Barry Lush (2002) analyzed the composition errors of EFL learners and found that of all error types, the most common were related to definite and indefinite articles

Second, the English article system is so difficult to acquire for students with article-less languages like Vietnamese as their first language It is also understood that these errors are mostly caused by the fact that no such independent grammatical category as the article exists in Vietnamese on which the learners could lean when learning the use of the English article system This, of course, holds true generally, but we still come up against the problem of which parts of the English article system are especially difficult for Vietnamese learners to understand and learn

2 AIMS OF THE STUDY

This study is carried out with the aims:

 To identify the students’ common types of error in using English articles

 To find out the causes of error committed by Hung Yen Industrial College’s students when learning and using English articles

 To work out possible solutions to the problems identified

4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The research will deal with errors in the use of English articles on the first-year student writings at Hung Yen Industrial College The subjects selected for this study are 90 general EFL learners

5 METHODS OF THE STUDY

In order to complete the paper, the main research methods employed are:

- Statistical methods are used to find out and classify the learners’ errors

- Descriptive methods are used to describe the actual errors committed by the learners

6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The study will be useful not only to the author and her colleagues in improving the teaching quality, but students will also benefit from it The result of the study will serve

as a foundation for the possible solutions to students’ errors in using English articles Furthermore, the study will make some contribution to the field of teaching methodology

7 DESIGN OF THE STUDY

The study has three main parts as follows: Part A provides a brief introduction to the issue and an overview of the paper Part B includes three chapters, namely Literature Review (Chapter 1), Research Methodology (Chapter 2) and Data Analysis and Discussion (Chapter 3) In greater details, Chapter 1 reviews the theoretical backgrounds to English article system, error and error analysis in second language learning Chapter 2 describes the methods used to carry out the study It also includes

an overview of the context of the study Chapter 3 presents and analyzes the data collected, and offers possible solutions to errors made by students at Hung Yen Industrial College Some suggestions for the betterment of teaching and learning English article system are also provided Part C summarizes the main issues so far touched upon in the research, the limitations of the research and some suggestions for further studies Following the chapters are the references and one appendix

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 An overview of English article system

The article in English has always been considered one of the most formidable problems to overcome in teaching English grammar to foreigners and its misuse is one of the most evident grammatical signs that a person is not a native speaker of English In this part, I will present an overview of English article system

1.1.1 Definitions of English article

An important subset of adjectives in English is the determiner, a category of words that indicate which noun is being discussed The determiner in English consists of articles (a/an, the), possessives (my, your, their, etc), demonstratives (this, that ), numerals (three, first…) and a few quantifiers (some, many…)

According to Richards and Schmidt (2002), determiner is a word which is used with a noun and which limits the meaning of the noun in some way The most common kind of determiner in English is the article And Alexander (1998) defines that “articles are determiners which affect the meaning of the noun, and make it clearer by showing which particular thing we are referring to” (p.55)

1.1.2 Types of English articles

In Thomson and Martinet (1986:15-22), English articles are classified into two types:

definite article the and indefinite article a/an However, Quirk and Greenbaum (1987) adds one more type, that is zero article Ø Yotsukura (1970) seems to be the first person who suggests adding another category beside the zero article. So English articles include a/an, the and Ø (the null or zero marker) The two categories of the article are traditionally called indefinite and definite articles Singular count nouns take a or an as indefinite articles

Plural nouns and non-count nouns take as their indefinite article All categories of nouns

take the as the definite marker This system is summarized in the following table:

INDEFINITE ARTICLE DEFINITE ARTICLE

Count noun

Table 1: Summary of English articles

According to Whitman (1974), “thinking about the articles in such terms as: A/an is the indefinite article and the is the definite article” (p.253) is considered a misunderstanding or

misconception He also explains that

The misconception involved lies in thinking that a/an and the are essentially the

same thing (that is, “articles”), differing only along a dimension of “definiteness/

indefiniteness” or “specificity/ nonspecificity” A/an and the are, in fact, entirely

different syntactic entities, quite unrelated to each other except for that fact that

both occur within the same general structure (p254)

However, for reasons of conformity with other grammarians and textbooks, the terminology “indefinite” or “definite” will be kept For example, if we say, ‘I have a book you may be interested in,” we are referring to a definite, specific book Nonetheless, we

use the indefinite article a to signal that the book is not known by the listener

1.1.2.1 Definite article

“The definite article the never varies in form whether it refers to people or things, singular

or plural” (Alexander, 1998:55)

(1) a Ann is in the garden (the garden of this house)

b Please pass the wine (the wine on the table)

(Thomson and Martinet, 1998:19)

According to Halliday and Hasan,

The definite article has no content It merely indicates that the item in

question is specific and identifiable; that somewhere the information

necessary for identifying it is recoverable (1976:71)

The definite article indicates a referent that familiar in the general knowledge shared by the speaker and the listener (s), whilst the zero article refers to something generic The generic use

of the noun leaves out the definite article

(2) a I don’t like surprises

b The surprises they had were fantastic.

In the example above, the noun surprises in the first sentence is referring to generic

surprises as the speaker does not designate what kind of surprises Consequently, the noun

surprises does not involve a definite article the In the second sentence, the noun surprises

is referring to specific ‘surprises” Thus, the noun does require a definite article

1.1.2.2 Indefinite articles

Quirk et al (1985:272) give this definition:

The indefinite article is notionally the “unmarked” article in the sense that it is used (for

singular count nouns) where the conditions for the use of the do not obtain That is, a/an X

will be used where the reference of X is not uniquely identifiable in the shared knowledge

of speaker and hearer

The indefinite article (a/an) occurs in an indefinite singular noun phrase environment to denote the countability of the noun phrase This special syntactic distribution of a, however,

signals an important conceptual meaning such as individuating or particularising The basic

core function of a can be stated as: to introduce a single indefinite, individuated entity to the wider general set of entities denoted by the head noun The use of a indicates that there

must exist other referents of the same general set that are not included in the particular act

of reference This function is often called its instantial use or specimen of a category use

(3) a I need a visa

b A car must be insured (Thomson and Martinet, 1998:15)

A more process-oriented definition is that “the indefinite article acts as an instruction to the listener not to bother to search for that referent-for a variety of reasons” (Gallaway, 1987, cited in Beaumont and Gallaway, 1994:163)

1.1.2.3 Zero article

Although the term “zero article” traditionally refers to any instance in which a noun requires no article, the researchers (Yotsukura, 1970; Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999) divide the zero article into two types: zero and null To Yotsukura, there is distributional evidence suggesting a form other than the zero article By using a post-modifying restrictive relative clause test, she discovered that the second zero form is found before singular proper nouns and some common nouns Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman also found that the zero article occurs with nonspecific or generic noncount and plural

nouns, such as water and cats The null article occurs with certain singular count and proper nouns, such as Chicago and lunch Quirk et al (1985: 246) describe a proper noun like Marjon as having “no article” and a common noun like music as having a “zero

article”

Chesterman suggests using the term the null form for the second zero article Let us

consider examples such as the following from Chesterman (1991:17)

(4) a * I like London that the tourists see

b I like the London that the tourists see

c I like cheese that is made of goat’s milk

(5) a Word has come that the Pope has died

b *Word that came yesterday was that the Pope has died

c The word that came yesterday was that the Pope has died

(6) a What about question seven?

b *What about question seven you answered before, then?

c What about the question seven you answered before, then?

(7) a Breakfast is ready

b *Breakfast you asked for is ready

c The breakfast you asked for is ready

Through a post-modifying restrictive clause test, it can be seen that there is a difference

between a proper noun such as London (with a presumed null article) and a common noun such as cheese (with a presumed zero article) A noun with a zero article can be used with a

restrictive clause, but a noun with the null form cannot In order to ‘identify’ the proper

nouns in (4b), (5c), (6c), and (7c), the should be used instead Master (1997) supports

Chesterman when he regards the null form as the null article To him, the null article is the

most definite of the articles

1.1.3 Usage of English articles

“Articles are the most commonly used words in English, and yet their usage is in fact surprisingly complex Part of the complexity can be attributed to the fact that the English article system does not consist of one-to-one form and meaning relationships This complexity poses a number of challenges for L2 learners of English” (Andersen 1984, cited in Butler, 2002:452)

Hok, R (1970) summarizes the rules for using the article as follows:

“1 Count nouns in the singular must use the or a

2 Non-count nouns and plural count nouns may use the or Ø

3 The choice between the, a, Ø depends on the speaker’s position (i.e., the

category he is working from)” (p.234)

The English article system has long been a subject of interest for linguists, given its complex usage and the difficulty involved in analyzing it According to Bickerton (1981, cited in Liu & Gleason, 2002),

The use of the English articles—a, the, and zero—is governed by the semantic

function of the noun phrase (NP) in discourse The classification of the semantic function of an NP is then determined, he argued, by two binary discourse features: (a) whether a noun is a specific referent (±SR), and (b) whether the hearer knows the referent (±HK) Based on such an analysis, NPs fall into four major semantic types (p.2).

The classification is summarized in the following table

Noun phrase reference Article usage

2 [+SR, +HK] Unique, previously mentioned, or

physically present referents

Table 2: Bickerton’s semantic table for noun phrase reference

This classification illustrates clearly that the four semantic types of NPs each have different discourse and referential constraints and thus call for the selection of a specific article or articles from among a, the, and zero to mark these constraints It is the knowledge

of the semantic types of NPs and the article (s) used with each type that enables English speakers and writers to mark the NPs in discourse with the appropriate articles

Quirk and Greenbaum’ s classification of usage types (1987) has been well known and

been frequently cited Their classification is based on notions of reference and genericity: specific reference and generic reference From a language teaching perspective, this classification has produced lots of ‘detailed rules’ which can be generalized and re-categorized

According to Quirk and Greenbaum (1987:67-80), the three basic functions of the article are to express: (a) specific reference, (b) generic reference, and (c) unique reference

Specific reference deals with the most important aspect of the article, since it includes the functions of the articles as a discourse referent (e.g A lion and two tigers are sleeping in the cage) The reference is specific, since we have in mind specific specimens of the class

“tiger” (Quirk and Greenbaum, 1987:68-76) New information is introduced to the reader

in sentence-final position in English New information is thus marked with an indefinite article, and when the information has been introduced to the reader, the given information

is placed in sentence-non-final position and marked with the definite article

Quirk and Greenbaum (1987:68) states that generic reference is used to denote what is normal or typical for members of a class (e.g Tigers are dangerous animals) The reference

is generic, since we are thinking of the class “tiger’ without special reference to specific tigers

Whitman (1974) makes a clear distinction between generic uses of a/an and the “Generic a/an refers to a singular examples”, while “generic the calls forth an abstract median, the

mid point of the entire class” He illustrates with the following examples:

(8) A mouse is smaller than a rat

The mouse is smaller than the rat

A mouse is going to be fairly representative of all mice The mouse in (8) is the abstract average mouse The generic the is abstract, while a/an is not The researcher also

concludes that “generic articles may be used only with countable nouns” because “a representative sample and a median point both imply differentiability, which is not a characteristic property of mass and abstract nouns” (p258)

Generic sentences are individual, contextually independent They are a way of making generalizations, a way of expressing general truths The definite generic article refers to a whole class and the indefinite and zero articles refer to the individuals within a group

Names possess unique reference Quirk and Greenbaum (1987:76) maintain that “names have unique reference”, because they do not share the characteristics of common nouns, lacking article contrast in particular The difference between common and proper nouns is that the unique reference of names has been institutionalized (e.g during Easter, during the Easter of that year, Shakespeare, the young Shakespeare) When the names have restrictive modification to give a partitive meaning to the name, proper nouns take the definite article Unique reference requires the shortest scope of investigation, because it can be easily studied as a part of proper name formation

1.2 The determiners in Vietnamese language

With respect to Vietnamese determiners, linguists have been inclined to agree that Vietnamese has an article system which can partly be compared to that in English (Nguyễn Tài Cẩn 1975; Đinh Văn Đức 1986) According to Nguyễn Tài Cẩn (1975) and

Đinh Văn Đức (1986), Vietnamese has four determiners: những, các (plural markers), một

(=a/one), null-form and zero article However, some other linguists do not agree on categorizing những and các as articles, but consider them numerals Cao Xuân Hạo (1999) still considers một, zero, những, and các quantifiers In this study, I will use the term determiner for what some linguists call articles This presentation will reveal some

difficulties Vietnamese learners may encounter when acquiring the English article system

Một

Một (a), derive from the numeral một (one), is an indefinite determiner in Vietnamese Một

is quite similar to a in English in terms of non-definite and specific use

A/one cup coffee

“A cup of coffee.”

However, một N does not seem to be an equivalent of a+ N in English with respect to predicate nominative constructions and generic use

(10) Ông ấy là chính trị gia

Ông ấy là một chính trị gia

He is a politician

Hence, the use of the indefinite article in a predicate nominative construction is expected to

be a potential difficulty for Vietnamese learners

Zero article

(11) Ở chợ trời đang có bán Ø đồ đạc và Ø quần áo đấy Ø Đồ đạc thì giá cũng phải chăng còn Ø quần áo thì rất rẻ (Ø Furniture and Ø clothing are being sold at the flea market The

furniture is reasonably priced, and the clothing is cheap.)

In example (11), the uncountable nouns furniture and clothing when first mentioned are

not preceded by a determiner When they are repeated the second time, they must be preceded by the definite article The Whereas, in Vietnamese, no determiner is used in both cases

Những/ Các

Những and các are literally plural markers They are used with count nouns to mark

plurality

(12) Những vì sao (the stars)

Các vì sao (the stars)

However, they are a little different from the

(13) Phía sân khấu là một nhóm các nhạc công Những nhạc công đó chơi nhiều loại nhạc

cụ phương đông (Behind the screen was a group of Ø musicians The musicians played

various oriental instruments.)

In the above example, the first time the word musicians appear, they are not preceded by

determiners, because the thing referred have not been mentioned previously The second

time the word musicians appear, they are preceded by the, since the thing have already been mentioned However, in Vietnamese, Những/ Các appear whenever nouns are plural

Both English and Vietnamese have count and non-count nouns, but English must mark for plural whereas Vietnamese does not Hence it can be expected that there is some systematicity to the errors made by Vietnamese learners, but that problems may occur with all articles in English

1.3 Error and error analysis

1.3.1 The notions of errors in language learning

A number of experts in linguistics have presented numerous notions of error Norrish (1992:7) calls “a systematic deviation when a learner has not learnt something and consistently gets it wrong, an error”, while Corder (1992) maintains that errors are systematic and consistent deviances characteristic of the learner’s linguistic system at a given stage of learning “The learner’s errors are themselves systematic” (p.24)

“Systematic deviance” is the key word in these definitions The phrase can be interpreted that when a learner of English as second or foreign language makes an error systematically,

it is because he has not learnt the correct form The systematic errors may be looked upon

as rule-governed for they follow the rules of whatever grammar the learner has

Richards and Schmidt (2002) has a clearer definition that “error is the use of a linguistic item (e.g a word, a grammatical item, a speech act, etc) in a way which a fluent

or native speaker of the language regards as showing faulty or incomplete learning” (p.184) it means that errors show what strategies the learners are using to acquire a language

There is a common consensus of opinion between Norrish (1992) and Jain (1992)

on the role of errors in teaching and learning a language Norrish views “the error itself may actually be a necessary part of learning a language” (p.6) Jain assumes that “the second language learners’ errors are potentially important for the understanding of the processes of second language acquisition” (p.189) and “errors would help determine which areas in the learner’s English need more attention and what type of attention” (p.207)

1.3.2 Classifications of errors

Learners’ errors are usually classified in different categories Burt (1975) made a distinction between “global” and “local” errors Global errors hinder communication and they prevent the learner from comprehending some aspects of the message Local errors only affect a single element of a sentence, but do not prevent a message from being heard (pp56-57) The global/ local distinction is the most pervasive criterion for determining the communicative importance of errors

According to Tomiyana (1980), “Errors can be categorized into three different types: 1) omission of the item where it is obligatory (e.g ‘Put book on table’), 2) insertion

of the item where it should not occur (e.g ‘He lives in the Manchester), and 3) wrong choice of the item (e.g ‘Choose the cake from the plate’)” (p.72) Although the types of errors identified by Tomiyana can provide an idea of the problems that students have encountered in using the articles, the way of categorizing the errors (i.e a surface strategy taxonomy) gives little information on the noun phrase environments where learners make errors nor how learners acquire the articles

Richards (1992:173) proposes a three-way classification of errors:

(1) interlingual errors (2) intralingual errors

(3) developmental errors

The interlingual errors are those caused by the influence of the learner’s mother tongue on his production of the target language in presumably those areas where the languages clearly differ

The intralingual errors are those originating within the structure of English itself Complex rule-learning behavior is typically characterized by overgeneralization, incomplete application of rules, and failure to learn conditions for rule application When the complexity of English structure encourages such learning problems, all learners, regardless of background language, tend to commit similar errors

The developmental errors reflect the strategies by which the learner acquires the language These errors show that the learner—oftentimes completely independent of his native language—is making false hypotheses about the target language based on limited exposure to it A major justification for labeling an error as developmental comes from noting similarities to errors produced by children who are acquiring the target language as their mother tongue

The author finds Tomiyana’s classification the way to categorize or describe the errors and Richards’ the way to explain causes of errors made by the learners Because

Richards’ does reflect the process of making errors

1.3.3 Error analysis

1.3.3.1 Definitions

In the late 1960s, error analysis emerged and subsequently became the optimal choice over contrastive analysis This does not imply a complete rejection of contrastive analysis; it remains foundational since it gave way to error analysis But error analysis reveals a wider dimension of likely errors rather than monopolizing it in one dimension as

in contrastive analysis

Brown (2000:166) states that error analysis is the fact that learners do make errors and that these errors can be observed, analyzed and classified to reveal something of the

system operating within the learners The purpose is to show some problems faced by the students It is a key to understand the process of second or foreign language acquisition

According to Richards and Schmidt (2002), “error analysis is the study and analysis

of the errors made by second and foreign language learners.” “Error analysis may be carried out in order to (a) find out how well someone knows a language, (b) find out how a person learns a language, and (c) obtain information on common difficulties in language learning, as an aid in teaching or in the preparation of teaching materials” (pp.184-185)

From the above definitions, error analysis can be understood as a methodology to identify, classify and interpret or describe the errors made by someone in speaking or in writing in English

1.3.3.2 Significance of error analysis

Whenever a language is learnt or acquired one is faced with the problem of errors Errors are an inevitable feature of learning.According to Corder (1992a), errors reveal the knowledge of the learner of the target language at any point in its development “The learner’s errors are evidence of this system” (p.24) and the investigation of the language of second language learners would rely heavily on error analysis (1992b:165) “There could

be no reason to engage in error analysis unless it served… to elucidate what and how a learner learns when he studies a second language” (Corder, 1992b:169)

The study of errors takes on great significance in the field of second language learning Corder (1992a:25) gives three reasons for this significance First, errors committed by learners should not be viewed as evidence of failure They should, on the contrary, be viewed as a sign of their learning progress Second, they serve as insights into how a language is learnt Third, they are seen as devices by which learners can find out the rules of the target language, which can be deduced from feedback on their errors

Having the same view on the importance of error analysis, Norrish (1992:80) assumes that “an error analysis can give a picture of the type of difficulty learners are experiencing If carried out on a large scale, such a survey can be helpful in drawing up a curriculum For the class teacher, an error analysis can give useful information about a new

class” It provides valuable insight into the language learning process It helps the teachers infer how much the students have learnt It also gives an indication as to whether they are ready to learn what the teacher wants to teach them next Thus a lack of fit between the learner’s needs and the items taught could be avoided By analyzing their errors one could build up a picture of the features of language which cause the learning problems Once their problems are understood in the right perspective remedial measures could be thought

of An important part of the teachers’ job is to undertake a systematic analysis of learners’ errors Error analysis helps reconstruct stages in language learning, design teaching method and individualize language instruction

It can be concluded that in the field of methodology, “the study of learners’ errors would assume the role it already plays in the study of child language acquisition” (Corder, 1992a:24) Thus, error analysis is hailed as more practical and realistic, and more capable of revealing the learners’ actual errors and difficulties It might well help language teachers in the organization and proper ordering of language teaching material and in choosing which grammar rules to make explicit

1.3.3.3 Stages in error analysis

In order to analyze learners’ errors in a proper perspective, it is crucial to make a distinction between “mistake” and “error” According to Brown (2000), 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 learners This recognition process is followed by the error description process We compare learners’ sentences with the correct sentences in target language, and find the errors Then we come to the next step—explanation stage, finding the causes of errors

Similarly, the method which Corder (1992b) suggests to conduct an error analysis research also consists of three stages The first stage in error analysis is recognition of errors This is the data on which the second stage- description, accounting for a learner’s errors, is based The third stage and ultimate object of error analysis is explanation

Whereas the two previous stages have been linguistic, the third stage is psycholinguistic It attempts to account for how and why the learner’s error of the nature it is (pp.166-169)

1.4 Causes of errors in second language learning

Errors are unavoidable for second language learners As mentioned earlier, the focus of the present study is on errors which stem from linguistic sources, namely errors due to transfer from the native language and those due to the complexities within the target language Those errors can be interlingual, intralingual or developmental ones basing on Richards’ classification (1992) The possible causes of different types of errors are as follows:

1.4.1 Causes of interlingual errors

Norrish (1992:128) in Glossary defines L1 transfer as “use of what the learner knows about his first language to try and assist expression in the target language Skinner’s (1957, cited

in Norrish, 1992:22) definitive statement of the behavourist theory of language learning held that if language is essentially a set of habits, then when we try to learn new habits the old ones will interfere with the new ones This is what is called “mother tongue interference” In the similar line, according to Nunan, D (2001:89), “where L1 and L2 rules are in conflict, errors are likely to occur which are the result of interference between the two languages

Richards (1992:173) states that the interlingual errors are those caused by the influence of the learner’s mother tongue on his production of the target language in presumably those areas where the languages clearly differ This influence may have positive or negative effects on the learner’s language If the native language of the learner is similar to the target language, learning may be enhanced or even impeded However if the two languages

do not have equivalent systems this may impair target language acquisition Specifically,

on the basis of the contrast between Vietnamese and English, interlingual errors are errors caused by negative correspondences between the two languages in terms of the lack of the grammatical category concerned and of the finer semantic distinctions made among the members of that category, and in terms of the optionality in the substitutional use of different grammatical devices

As shown previously, Vietnamese uses the numeral one + classifier as a substitute for the indefinite article a and the demonstrative pronouns this/that + classifier for the definite article the if specificity is required Another device to indicate definiteness is word order

A noun phrase in a preverbal position tends to have definite reference while one in a verbal position has indefinite reference, unless the noun phrase is explicitly modified by indefinite numeral expressions or by demonstratives Thus, the absence of the articles, the optionality in the use of Vietnamese equivalents, and the use of word order to indicate indefiniteness are instances of negative correspondences which constitute sources of interference from Vietnamese Errors made that can be attributed to these sources will be considered as interlingual errors The most common article errors due to language transfer are omission errors The following are typical examples:

post-They go to park for walk

I am student of high school

He is reading _newspaper

Errors are made by the learners because Vietnamese counterparts do not require articles

The influence of mother tongue on the learner’s language may also vary according to the sociolinguistic situation (Richards and Sampson, 1992:8) Sampson (1971, cited in Richards and Sampson, 1992:8) suggests varying situations evoke different kinds of errors

in varying quantities when children are trying to use the target language Mackey (1962, cited in Richards and Sampson, 1992:8) notes that in describing interference one must account for variation according to the medium, style or register in which the speaker is operating

1.4.2 Causes of intralingual and developmental errors

Intralingual errors are found to involve overgeneralization, ignorance of rule restrictions,

incomplete application of rules and semantic errors (Richards, 1992:174) According to Brudhiprabha (1972, cited in Richards and Sampson, 1992:6), many intralingual errors represent the learning difficulty of what are often low level rules in the target language

Developmental errors derive from faulty comprehension of distinctions in the target

language In other words, as Richards writes, they “illustrate the learner attempting to build

up hypotheses about the English language from his limited experience of it in the classroom or textbook” (1992:174) Thus, a rule may be elicited from the date he/she learnt and accordingly he/she hypothesizes another rule which may not coincide with the second language In the case where it corresponds with one of the two languages, this correspondence can be called ‘positive developmental concept’ Richard points out that the paramount reason for developmental errors is a deficiency in the process of teaching

Richards (1992:173) assumes that intralingual and developmental errors are frequent, regardless of the learner’s language background They “reflect the learner’s competence of

a particular stage, and illustrate some of the general characteristics of language acquisition Their origins are found within the structure of English itself, and through reference to the strategy by which a second language is acquired and taught

Besides, quantifying and particularizing, the indefinite and definite articles also generalize, identify and name a class The heavy semantic load carried by these two articles results in

an inevitable overlapping of form and semantic function Thus, in the following sentences, the generic function of the article system is conveyed in five different forms

Ø Fur is thick hair covering certain animals

On the other hand, one form can convey several semantic functions In the sentences below,

the article “the” can be anaphoric, generic, presuppositional and conventional

Did you feed the dog?

The dog is the man’s best friend

While I was doing the dishes, the phone rang

He listens to the radio

The moon is full tonight

It is evident that the distinction between anaphoric, generic, and presuppositional or conventional uses of “the” in the above sentences is a semantic one, since syntactically they share the same form This overlapping of form and function together with the finer semantic concepts underlying each form makes the tasks of determining the use or non-use

of the articles a difficult and a confusing one

George (1971, cited in Richards and Sampson, 1992:5) found that one-third of the deviant sentences from second language learners could be attributed to language transfer The proper focus of such study were errors conceived as “intralingual” or developmental errors, evidence of a process of creative construction in a learner’s interlanguage

Despite all these differences, by and large, one thing is clear: second language learners unavoidably make errors during the process of language acquisition, some of which are due to transferring rules from the mother tongue and others only show that they are processing the second language in their own ways Both language transfer and intralingual errors confirm the traditional notion of transfer of training, that is, previous learning may influence later learning

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

2.1 Setting of the study

Hung Yen Industrial College was found in 1994 It provides seven training programs for all kinds of students as: finance and banking, accounting, business administration, information technology, Information system for management, electronics and electric engineering, garment technology The students have full-time training for two years at secondary level and three years at college level After that they go out for work The English course book is Life-lines (elementary) The students learn the course book in two semesters Each semester consists of 75 lectures Students study from unit 1 to 7 in the first semester, from unit 8 to 14 in the second semester There is a mid – term test for students in every semester For final examinations, students participate into testing four basic skills: speaking, listening, reading, and writing

The number of students in each class is from fifty to sixty The students are all from different provinces in Northern part of Vietnam such as: Hung Yen, Hai Duong, Bac Ninh, Bac Giang, Thai Binh, etc Most of the students are diploma The large population have just graduated from high schools; the others left school some years ago Their English proficiency levels are mixed Most of them are from rural areas so their proficiency of English is limited

There are eight teachers of English at Hung Yen Industrial College and they all graduated from English Department, Vietnam National University, Hanoi University of Foreign Languages and International Studies for already five to ten years They are energetic and are willing to devote their time and energy to teaching One of them has acquired an M.A degree and one is following a postgraduate course