Linguistic errors in writing a paragraph of 10th form students at Nguyen Trai high school in Hai Phong and some solutions = Những lỗi về ngôn ngữ khi viết đoạn

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM THỊ BÍCH NGỌC PHẠM THỊ BÍCH NGỌC LINGUISTIC ERRORS IN WRITING A PARAGRAPH OF 10TH FORM LINGUISTIC ERRORS IN WRITING A PARAGRAPH OF 10TH FORM STUDENTS AT NGUYEN TRAI HIGH SCHOOL IN HAI PHONG AND STUDENTS AT NGUYEN TRAI HIGH SCHOOL IN HAI PHONG AND SOME SOLUTIONS SOME SOLUTIONS (NHỮNG LỖI VỀ NGÔN NGỮ KHI VIẾT ĐOẠN VĂN CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TRƯỜNG THPT NGUYỄN TRÃI – HẢI PHÒNG VÀ MỘT SỐ BIỆN PHÁP KHẮC PHỤC) (NHỮNG LỖI VỀ NGÔN NGỮ KHI VIẾT ĐOẠN VĂN CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TRƯỜNG THPT NGUYỄN TRÃI – HẢI PHÒNG VÀ MỘT SỐ BIỆN PHÁP M.A KHẮC PHỤC) MINOR THESIS M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10 Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10 HANOI - 2012 HANOI - 2012 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM THỊ BÍCH NGỌC LINGUISTIC ERRORS IN WRITING A PARAGRAPH OF 10TH FORM STUDENTS AT NGUYEN TRAI HIGH SCHOOL IN HAI PHONG AND SOME SOLUTIONS (NHỮNG LỖI VỀ NGÔN NGỮ KHI VIẾT ĐOẠN VĂN CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TRƯỜNG THPT NGUYỄN TRÃI – HẢI PHÒNG VÀ MỘT SỐ BIỆN PHÁP KHẮC PHỤC) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10 Supervisor: Cao Thúy Hồng, M.A HANOI - 2012 TABLE OF CONTENT Page PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale Objectives of the study Research questions Scope of the study Method of the study Organization of the study PART II: DEVELOPMENT Chapter I: Literature review I.1 Teaching writing I.1.1 Reasons for teaching writing I.1.2 Principles of teaching writing I.2 Teaching paragraph writing I.2.1 Definition of Paragraph I.2.2 Classifications of paragraph I.3 Writing errors I.3.1 Definitions of errors I.3.2 The role of “errors” in English Language Teaching I.3.3 Classifications of writing errors I.3.4 Error correction 10 I.3.5 Teacher‟s role in error correction 10 I.4 Previous studies 11 Chapter II: Methodology II.1 The situation of teaching and learning English at N.T.H.S 12 II.2 Subjects 13 II.3 Research method 13 II.3.1 Method of data collection 13 II.3.2 Method of data analysis 14 II.4 Research procedure 14 Chapter III: Data analysis and discussions III.1 Students‟ perception of their linguistics errors in writing a paragraph 15 III Students‟ feeling when making errors in writing 15 III.3 The causes of students‟ linguistic errors in writing a paragraph 16 III.4 Teacher‟s errors correction in students‟ paragraphs 16 III.5 Students‟ revision on their errors 17 III.6 Kinds of linguistic difficulties 18 III Grammar difficulties 18 III.8 Vocabulary difficulties 21 III.9 Linking words difficulties 23 Conclusion 23 Chapter IV: Suggestions IV.1 Fostering students‟ knowledge of grammar, vocabulary and linking words 27 IV.1.1 Fostering students‟ grammar knowledge 27 IV.1.2 Fostering students‟ vocabulary knowledge 28 IV.1.2 Fostering students‟ knowledge of linking words 31 IV.2.1 Self - correction and peer – correction 33 IV.2.2 Teacher‟s correction 35 PART III: CONCLUSION 37 References 39 PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale Teaching and learning a foreign language aims at providing the learners with means of communication To acquire the communicative competence, four language skills (reading, speaking, listening and writing) are taught regularly at schools and universities, among which writing skill is very important because it helps learners to learn other skills better “First, writing reinforces the grammatical structures, idioms, and vocabulary that we have been teaching our students Second, when they write, they have a chance to be adventurous with the language, to go beyond what they have just learned to say, to take risks Third, when students write, they necessarily become very involved with the new language; the effort to express ideas and constant use of eye, hand and brain is the unique way of expressing their idea They discover a real need for finding the right word and the right sentence The close relationship between writing and thinking makes writing a valuable part of any language courses” (Raimes, 1938: 3) Due to the importance of writing skill, it is part of the English syllabus at high school However, from the writer‟s teaching-experience at Nguyen Trai high school, not enough attention has been paid to the teaching and learning of writing skill at high school Writing is both dismal and neglected: many students never get a writing assignment, and many writing exercises in the textbook are abandoned Besides that, teachers are also afraid of teaching writing skill They think that teaching writing is really a challenge The ignorance of writing skill at high school has resulted in students‟ poor writing skill: they have a lot of mistakes and many of them are unable to write an understandable paragraph One of the most serious problems that the writer has identified from her experience teaching paragraph writing to students is linguistic difficulties For example students often use wrong verb tenses in a paragraph, they confuse the meaning of the words or they can‟t create the coherence in the paragraph by linking words Therefore, the researcher would like to this research to find out common linguistic difficulties in writing a paragraph of 10th form students and suggest some solutions to help students to avoid the linguistic errors and improve their paragraph writing Objectives of the study As just mentioned, students at Nguyen Trai high school face many linguistic difficulties in writing a paragraph Therefore, the ultimate goal of the research is to find out the real situation of students‟ linguistic difficulties in writing Research questions Specifically, the research aims at finding out the answers to the following questions : - What are students’ perceptions of their linguistic errors in writing paragraph? - What are common linguistic errors (in terms of grammar, vocabulary and linking words) made by students in writing a paragraph? Scope of the study The study is about paragraph writing of 10th form students at Nguyen Trai high school However, due to the limited scope and time, it is confined to finding out the students‟ linguistic errors in paragraph writing Specifically, only mistakes in grammar, vocabulary and linking words will be taken into consideration Method of the study In this study, the writer adopted the quantitative research approach Specifically, survey questionnaires and model analysis were two methods employed to collect data for the research study Questionnaires were conducted among 60 students to find out students‟ perceptions of their linguistic difficulties in writing a paragraph Sixty paragraphs on three different topics from 60 students were collected Mistakes were identified and classified into different categories Statistical counting was carried out to bring about the real picture of students‟ linguistic difficulties Organization of the study In order to achieve the above mentioned aims, this paper is divided into three parts: The first part is the Introduction, which points out the rationale, aims, and scope of the study Research questions are also specifically defined to serve as guidelines for the whole paper The second part is the Development In this part, three chapters are presented In chapter one, literature related to teaching writing, paragraph writing and writing errors is reviewed In chapter two, the method of the study is presented It includes careful descriptions of the subjects, sampling method, instrument and method of data collection and analysis The last chapter presents data analysis and discussion In this part, questionnaires and writing samples collected from 10th form students at Nguyen Trai high school are analyzed to find out students‟ typical errors in order to recommend effective strategies for teaching paragraph writing The last part of the study is the Conclusion, which points out what has been addressed as well as what has not been completed and offers recommendations for further study PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW I.1.Teaching Writing I.1.1 Reasons for teaching writing I.1.2 Principles of teaching writing I.2 Teaching paragraph writing I.2.1 Definitions of Paragraph I.2.2 Classifications of paragraph I.3 Writing errors I.3.1 Definition of errors I.3.2 The role of "errors" in English Language Teaching I.3.3 Classification of written errors I.3.4 Error correction I.3.5 Teacher‟s role in error correction I.4 Previous studies CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY In this chapter, the author describes the situation of teaching and learning English at N.T.H.S, the subjects of the study, data collection instruments, research method and the research procedure II.1 The situation of teaching and learning English at N.T.H.C When these students enter N.T.H.S, they have to take part in exams in three subjects: Maths, Literature, and English at the beginning of the school year They often gain high scores in Maths and Literature but most of them get low scores in English All students at lower secondary schools have learned English for four years but most of them have not paid any attention to learning it Thus, it is very difficult for teachers at N.T.H.S to teach them English because the new English textbooks at high schools now are written based on the English textbooks at lower secondary schools Teachers have no time to re-teach all the English knowledge students have learned at lower secondary schools They have to follow the syllabus Day by day, both teachers and students feel tired and bored when having to teach and learn English During the teaching period at N.T.H.S, the researcher sees that, among four language skills, writing is the most difficult for students She often hears students rumbling, teachers avoiding such meticulous task of teaching and learning writing Linguistic difficulties in writing a paragraph is one of the big problems in writing skill II.2 Subjects The subjects of the study consist of 60 students of 10th form at N.T.H.S Because of time limitation, it is impossible to carry out the study with all students who are in grade 10th at N.T.H.S individually Therefore, the data collection in the study is derived from a subset of the population by means of cluster sample 60 students from classes 10C1, 10C4, 10C9, and 10C10 were randomly selected from 450 the tenth form students at N.T.H.S Obviously, it was difficult to select a random sample of individuals because the tenth form students have already been assigned to different classes from 10C1 to 10C10 and classified into two groups according to their choice of favorite subjects (students from 10C5 to 10C10 are interested in natural science subjects whereas 10C1 to 10C4 are basic classes) Therefore, the researcher decided to randomly choose four classes from two groups to study The result, thus, could be more reliable The 10th form students at N.T.H.S are learning basic English with the new text book TIENG ANH 10 by Hoàng Văn Vân – Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa - Đỗ Tuấn MinhNguyễn Thu Phương - Nguyễn Quốc Tuấn This text book is theme- based, which includes 16 units and Test Yourself sections Each unit has its own topics and is divided into sections: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing and Language Focus In the first term of the school-year, in comparison with other subjects, students‟ English results were not good: only 4% students got excellent mark (9-10), 12% got good mark (7-8) , 57% got average mark (5-6) and 27% students got bad marks (