Những lỗi phổ biến trong việc sử dụng giới từ chỉ nơi chốn tiếng Anh của sinh viên không chuyên tiếng Anh tại Trung tâm Ngoại ngữ, Đại học Hải Phòng và một số g20150227

2.1.1 Description of the school 2.1.2 Description of the program 2.1.3 Description of the course 2.2 Methodology and data collection 3.2.1 Common errors in the use of English prepos

Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 An overview of methodology in teaching English

1.1.1 Importance of grammar in language teaching

1.1.2 Pedagogical grammar

1.1.2.1 What are pedagogical grammars ?

1.1.2.2 Aims of teaching grammar

1.1.2.3 How can pedagogical grammars be used in the classroom?

1.1.3 Methodology of teaching English grammar

1.1.3.1 Definition of methodology

1.1.3.2 Two main approaches to teaching English grammar

1.2 Methods and techniques in teaching English grammar

1.2.1 Listening and responding

Chapter 2 : DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

2.1 Description of the setting

2.1.1 Description of the school

2.1.2 Description of the program

2.1.3 Description of the course

2.2 Methodology and data collection

3.2.1 Common errors in the use of English prepositions of place

3.2.2 Reasons for making errors

3.3 Teachers’ and students’ difficulties

3.3.1 Teachers’ difficulties

3.3.2 Students’ difficulties

Chapter 4 : PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

4.1 Techniques used in teaching English prepositions of place

4.1.1 Listening and responding

4.1.2 Using the classroom

4.1.3 Using text- completion exercises

4.2 Recommendations

4.2.1 Suggestions for learning English prepositions of place

4.2.2 Suggestions for teaching English prepositions of place

Part 3 : CONCLUSION

Summary of the study

Recommendations for further research

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

It is clear that English is an international language It has also become one of the main subjects at school in Vietnam Therefore, teaching English in general and English prepositions

of place in particular is so important

Techniques are always mentioned in the process of teaching and learning English Each aspect of language has its own techniques and there are individual techniques in teaching grammar Applying the techniques in teaching different fields of grammar is different For example, techniques in teaching tenses are quite different from the ones in teaching quantifiers Thus, the writer would like to only focus on techniques in teaching English prepositions of place in this study Moreover, “Common errors in the use of English prepositions of place” is an issue which has made many researchers interested in Although there are many studies on this topic, it has been left open and has remained high practicality Learners have still difficulties in accessing the prepositions and made errors when using them Because of the above reasons, this topic was chosen The contents of the study were not based on the professors’ suggestions but also selected and studied further

1 2 Aims and Scopes of the study

This study is aimed at:

- Finding common errors made by non – major students at Hai phong foreign language center when using English prepositions of place

- Giving suggestions for teaching and learning English prepositions of place effectively

Generally, this study aims to help teachers improve their methods in teaching English prepositions of place and students understand more deeply and avoid mistakes when using them

In the frame of the thesis, this study only focuses on common errors in the use of some prepositions of the place and pairs of prepositions which learners often make confused when using them such as: at, on, in, between, under – below, over – above, after – behind

1.3 Research questions:

The research is carried out to find out the following research questions:

- What are the common errors in the use of English prepositions of place made by students at Hai phong foreign language center?

- What are the difficulties that teachers and students at Hai phong foreign language center have to face d learning English prepositions of place, some suggestions?

- How to teach English prepositions of place effectively?

1.4 Design of the study

This study consists of 3 parts with 4 chapters, references and appendix

Part 1, INTRODUCTION with rationale, aims, scope of the study, method and design of the

study

Part 2, DEVELOPMENT

Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW includes an overview of methodology in teaching

English, methods and techniques in teaching English grammar and an overview of errors

Chapter 2: DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS, consists of description of the setting,

methodology and data collection, methods and procedures

Chapter 3: RESULTS of the data

Chapter 4: PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

Part 3: CONCLUSION

The references and Appendix put an end to the study

Part 2: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 An overview of methodology in teaching English grammar

1.1.1 Importance of grammar in language teaching

Grammar plays an important role in teaching and learning any languages But, before its role is addressed, the nature of grammar is dealt with

Linguists define grammar as a set of components: Phonetics (the production and perception of sounds), Phonology (how sounds are combined), Morphology (the study of form, how elements are combined to create words), Syntax (how words are strung together into sentences ), and Semantics or meaning Because all the languages are characterized by these components, by definition, they do not exist without grammar However, grammar has not always been defined in these terms Originally, the term grammar, referred to the art of writing, as compared to rhetoric, the art of speaking As need today by many teachers and learners, grammar is understood to be a set of rules that govern language, primarily its morphology and syntax In detail, grammar may be defined as the way a language manipulates and combines words in order to form longer units of meaning It is an active system built up by the mind for dealing with all the sentences that it hears

To linguists, grammar is also the mental system whish relates sounds and meaning in the mind, it is the vital component in the human mind that allows us to use language for any purpose that we like It is not just a static and prescriptive study but the core of what allows human beings to be human beings Hence the modern interpretation of grammar rejects the earlier notions of prescriptive grammar that told people what to say, of traditional grammar that analyzed parts of speech, and of structural grammar that look at substitutions of items within structures and patterns

In general, there is no doubt that knowledge of grammatical rules is the essential foe the mastery of a language , you can not use words unless you know how they should be put together After knowing the role of grammar in language teaching, teachers and learners can avoid misunderstanding and get more experience

1.1.2 Pedagogical grammar

It can be affirmed that grammar exists to enable learners to mean, and without grammar it

is impossible to communicate beyond a very rudimentary level In terms of methodology, the debate has been over the procedures though which learners attain mastery, whether and to

what extent they should undertake exercises with a deliberate focus on form, or whether they should pick up the grammar in the process of meaningful interaction Information about the target language which may be used by teachers and students of the language for learning

purposes is presented in pedagogical grammars

1.1.2.1 What are pedagogical grammars?

Pedagogical grammars are intended to provide those involved in language teaching with information on the grammar of the language for the purposes of teaching and learning, syllabus construction materials development and so on While they may reflect current theories of grammatical description and analysis, pedagogical grammars do not necessarily follow particular grammatical theory or school of thought

Rutherford (1980) suggests that the development of some pedagogical grammars involves the principled selection of items which reflect pedagogical experience as well as linguistic theory

He points out that since the development of communicative approaches to language teaching, the selection of structural elements is often constrained by the prior selection of semantic and functional elements

In addition, in a book on teaching grammar, McKay (1987) suggests that there are three different views on what it means to teach grammar The first view is that teaching grammar entails the formal explanation of grammatical rules While learners who receive a great deal

of grammatical explanation will end up knowing quite a lot about the language, they will not necessarily be able to put the language to communicate effect The second view is that teaching grammar is basically a matter of providing learners with practice in mastering common grammatical patterns through a process of analogy rather than explanation The third view is that teaching grammar is a matter of giving students the opportunity to use English in

a variety of realistic situations The disadvantage of this approach is that learners will not be able to provide explanations of grammatical rules of target language

1.1.2.2 Aims of teaching grammar

Aims of teaching grammar should be ensured that students are communicatively efficient with the grammar they have at their level Teachers may not teach them the finer points of style at the intermediated level, but they should make sure that students can use what they know Moreover, teaching grammar provides the means by which students can build up the computational system in their minds

Generally, the goal of language learning in the communicative classroom is for learners to acquire the grammar of the second language in its broadest sense, to enable them understand and make meaning, that is, to become proficient users of the second language

1.1.2.3 How can pedagogical grammar be used in the class?

Ur (1988) raises the issue of whether or not grammar should be explicitly taught She argues in favor of explicit teaching in the belief that mastering the individual elements of a language be lexical, phonological or grammatical, is a valuable means toward eventual abilit y

to communicate in the language She makes a point that learning to do something need not necessarily consists of repeated attempts at the target performance Ur advocates a fairly traditional four – stage approach to the teaching of grammar items:

1 Presentation: Making the structure salient through an input text in which the item appears

2 Isolation and Explanation: Ensuring that the students understand the various aspects of the structure under investigation

3 Practice: Getting students to absorb and master the language

4 Test: Getting the learners to demonstrate mastery

On the other hand, Frank and Rinvolucri in their book (1987) attempt to provide a range of classroom exercises and activities which, while providing learners with intensive practice a number of basic morph syntactic items, do so within a context which stresses communicative rather than linguistic competence, language in action rather than language as sets of symbols

to be manipulated an ability rather than knowledge They describe their approach in terms of awareness, suggesting that an awareness activity provides control over the students’ response

to the extent that it is not possible to do the task without having understood the structure being practiced, but not the content, which is left up to the learners In other words, the learners control what is said while the teachers provide direction on how it is said

In conclusion, teachers should master characteristics of pedagogical grammars and apply a variety of methods as well as techniques to help our students learn and acquire grammar

1.1.3 Methodology of teaching English grammar

1.1.3.1 Definition of methodology

The more important grammar is, the more necessary methodology in teaching it is Before the methodology in teaching English grammar is studied, its concept is examined In the Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics (p.177), methodology is defined as follows: (1) …… the study of the practices and procedures used in teaching, and the principles and beliefs that underline them

1.1.3.2 Two main approaches to the teaching English methodology

In teaching, there are many theoretical approaches that have been developed to promote the students’ success in learning new information Teaching English as a second language, there are two main theoretical approaches for the representation of new English foreign grammatical structures or functions to English foreign language students, inductive approach and deductive approach The more traditional of the two theories is deductive approach while the emerging and modern theory is the inductive approach

1.1.3.2.1 The deductive approach

The deductive approach represents a more traditional style of teaching in which the grammatical structures or rules are dictated to the students first Thus, the students learn the rule and apply it only after they have been introduced to the rule In this approach, the teacher

is the center of the class is responsible for all of the presentation and explanation of the new material

1.1.3.2.2 The inductive approach

The inductive approach represents a more modern style of teaching whether the new grammatical structures or rules are presented to the students in a real language context The students learn the use of the structures through the practice of the language in context, and later realize the rules from the practical examples The teacher would then provide many examples which use students and items from the classroom, famous people, or anything within the normal daily life of the students, to create an understanding of the structure With this approach, the teacher’s role is to provide meaningful contexts to encourage demonstration

of the rule, while the students evolve the rules from the examples of its use and continued practice

1.1.3.2.3 Combination of two approaches

In both approaches, the students practice and apply the use of the grammatical structure, yet, there are advantages and disadvantages to each in English foreign language classroom The deductive approach can be effective with students of a higher level who already know the basic structures of the language, or with the students who are accustomed to a very traditional style of learning and expect grammatical representations The deductive approach, however, is less suitable for lower level language students, for presenting grammatical structures that are complex in both form and meaning, and for classroom that contains younger learners Understanding the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches may help the teachers to vary and organize the English Foreign Language in order to keep classes interesting and motivating for the students

1.2 Methods and techniques in teaching English grammar

In the part 1.1, general knowledge of methodology in teaching English grammar has been mentioned Readers start to access pedagogical grammar and main approaches to teaching them through this part However, in order to get high effectiveness in teaching, teachers need

to research techniques in detail Therefore, in the part 1.2, methods and techniques used in teaching English grammar will be focused on These techniques are rooted in experiences in the classroom and from books

1.2.1 Listening and responding

The techniques of listening and responding seem to be well suited to both presentation and focused practice of grammatical structures According to researchers, most students learn second and third language more effortlessly than adults They appear simply to listen, then, after a while, the new language begins to emerge naturally However, not all students are willing or able to observe a silent period A very good way of achieving the kind of compromise is for the language teachers to speak only the target language in class and out They encourage learners to make a match between structure and meaning while observing a silent period

1.2.2 Telling stories

1.2.2.1 Teacher – generated stories

Everyone loves a story, including ESL students Stories used in teaching are to promote communication and expression in the classroom Teachers are also considered good storytellers in foreign language teaching

Stories can be used for both eliciting and illustrating grammatical points Telling stories is

an useful way to include both main approaches in lesson planning It is also the technique that holds students’ attention best Students can help create stories and impersonate characters in them Stories should last from one to five minutes and the more exaggerated and bizarre they are, the more likely students will remember the teaching points they illustrate

1.2.2.2 Students – generated stories

Students are marvelous storytellers as well as excellent listeners One effective procedure

is that teachers first have to model a story and then direct students to tell their stories to their partners Students usually find teachers’ story almost as interesting as their own, and modeling the activity seems to break the ice It also gives students an opportunity to hear the grammatical structure in context once more before they produce it In general, story telling is traditional in most culture A story provides a realistic context for presenting grammatical points holds and focuses students’ attention in a way that no other technique can

1.2.3 Role playing

One of the familiar dramatic activities is role playing According to Rosenweig (1974)

“Role playing is the dramatization of a real – life situation in whish the students assumes roles It presents the students with problems, but in stead of reaching a group consensus in solving it, the students act out their solution”(p.41) Role playing is an excellent technique for communicative practice of structures sensitive to social factors

The general procedure he suggests is first to hand out the problem to the students and answer questions Next, introduce and explain the vocabulary and structures necessary for the task, divide students into groups, in which they discuss and practice how they are going to do the role play During this step the teachers should allow students to communicate freely and not interrupt for correction However, the teachers should take notes on grammatical, cultural, and phonological errors for subsequent treatment The last step is to assign a writing exercise based on the role play or a related question

assist students who are having problems The teacher should not remain uninvolved during such activities but oversee as many of the pairs or groups as possible and response or intervene as needed When circulating, the teacher should take notes on the errors made by students, especially the systematic errors Working in pairs or groups is considered an effective technique that helps students understand grammatical structures more easily and faster

1.3 An overview of errors

There are a lot of definitions of mistakes and errors Generally, it can be known that an error is a deviation of a measurement, observation or calculation from the truth The deviation can be small and inherent in the structure and functioning of the system and be within the bounds or limits specified It is also said that errors are the difference between the approximate result and the true result

In detail, when mentioning the errors made in studying language, N John (1983, p.1) said

“there are basically two different attitudes to mistakes and errors made by people learning languages other than their own Probably most teachers regard mistakes as undesirable, sign

of failure either on the students’ part to pay attention or to listen properly, or else on the teachers’ part to make their meaning clear or to give sufficient time to practice what they have been taught He also pointed out the difference between mistake and error “When a learner has not learnt something and consistently gets it wrong, an error Sometimes, a learner will see one form and sometimes the other quite inconsistently This inconsistent deviation will be called a mistake” (N.John, 1983, p.7,8 ) It seems to be easier to distinguish mistakes and errors In other words, learners can find out their mistake as soon as finishing their sentences while it takes them to much time to see their errors and find the way to correct Moreover, it is believed that one of the strength of language teaching is “tolerance of errors” Harmer (2003, p.107)

Clearly, it is so important for learners to realize their mistakes and errors However, it is often said that practice makes perfect, so all of the difficulties can be overcome if learners have great determination

1.4 Summary

In this chapter, we can understand the basic knowledge in teaching English grammar Firstly, methodology in teaching English grammar is mentioned with the aim to clearly show the two main approaches, the deductive and inductive approach Secondly, some basis and useful techniques in teaching English grammar are given There are techniques helpful for using grammar in communication such as listening and responding, telling story and role

play Each of the technique brings both teachers and learners favorable conditions in accessing grammatical points A good teacher is the one who masters the approaches, combines the techniques in teaching skillfully and applies them suitably Through this chapter, it is hoped that teachers can have a framework of classroom activities and exercises and the above suggestions will encourage teachers to create their own activities for teaching grammar

CHAPTER 2 : DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS 2.1 Description of the setting

2.1.1 Description of the school

Hai phong foreign language centre is located in the center of Hai phong seaport city, it belongs to Hai phong university It is said to be the biggest foreign language center in Hai phong city The teaching staff composes of more than one hundred teachers, of whom two- third is young, creative and well – trained whereas the others are experienced and enthusiastic Every year with the innovation in new training programs, Hai phong foreign language attracts thousands learners

At present, there are more than one hundred teachers currently working in Hai phong

foreign language center Among them, one – third studied at Hai phongUniversity, another two – third graduated from universities in Ha noi and Ha noi Foreign Language Teacher Training College Although, some of them used to be the teachers of Russian and they have certain limitations in the target language but most of them have a great desire to acquire

knowledge and apply it in their teaching English

2.1.2 Description of the program

The course book chosen is Streamline English Departures (Bernard Hartley & Peter Viney) which has been specifically designed for students who are beginning to learn as a foreign language The course covers the elementary structures and vocabulary of English with emphasis on developing speaking and writing skills The learners are given a practical command of simple spoken English, so that they can communicate at a basic level in an English-speaking environment

Streamline English Departures consists of 80 units Each unit provides a fifty-minute lesson and is clearly laid out on a separate page There is a student’s book, a workbook and a

CD containing recording all of the dialogues and texts

2.1.3 Description of the course

Courses for elementary learners take place from four or six months depend on the total number of a class If the students are about 20 to 30, the course will last in four months and it will finishes after six months when the students in class are more than 30

Students have three lessons per week, each lesson lasts 90 minutes and includes four skills however, exercises in the course book are often quite simple Moreover, students often don’t have enough time to practice all the exercises related to the grammar that teachers give Therefore, many students confuse when they do exercises, especially, exercises on prepositions of place

2.2 Methodology and data collection

2.2.1 Participants

Hai phong learners are not good at English, most of them are at elementary level of English They have no chances to practice English everyday, but English grammar at school Learners themselves choose the course that is suitable with their level and schedule That is the reason why there are many learners at different ages at the same class Almost all of the learners at Hai phong foreign language centre voluntarily attend class, so both teachers and students do not have to work under any pressure English is not obligatory or compulsory like

a subject at schools Learners join English lessons because of their certain different aims English is really important for them; they study harder than at school and become friendlier and well-behaved with their teachers This is a very good chance for both teachers and students to make good relationship However, if the teacher is not really good, fewer learners want to attend his/her class That is why it is not easy to interest learners at English centre

2.2.2 Methods

Quantitative is considered to be of one the most effective methods used to carry out any researches In this method, the results will be collected, analyzed and criticized through certain figures This creates the accuracy as well as the objective of the study According to the quantitative, the researcher used a pre – test and two questionnaires to collect the data in this study

- A pre-test is aimed at finding out the common errors in the use of English prepositions o f place

- Two questionnaires (one for teachers and one for students), are used to find out the common errors in the use of English prepositions of place, the main reasons and suggestions

2.2.3 Procedures

The pre-test comprises 3 exercises, in which exercise 1 and 2 included 10 sentences of each and exercise 3 has 15 sentences (see Appendix) Students have to finish the pretest for 45 minutes at 4 classrooms The three exercises with three different orders are typical kinds of the exercises in English prepositions of place Besides, the researcher only used familiar words and basic structures in order to make it easy to find out errors made by the students The exercise 1 consists of 10 sentences with 40 multiple – choice answers The students are asked to circle the best answer to complete the sentence This exercise aims to check the students’ ability to distinguish the prepositions of place similar in meaning Sentences included are typical structures with English basic prepositions of place

The exercise 2 asks the students to complete sentences by filling the correct prepositions into the blank In this exercise, the writer gives 5 prepositions to finish their task The reason for giving this exercise is to explore how the students use specific English prepositions of place

In the exercise 3, the researcher gives a picture and ask students to complete sentences describing positions of things in the picture In order to do this exercise, the students have to use appropriate prepositions The differences between the exercise 2 and 3 is that the prepositions are not available It means that the number of prepositions is not limited This kind of exercise seems to be more difficult than the above two exercises as it requires the students to know more prepositions of place Through this exercise, the writer would like to examine students’ creativity when using English prepositions of place Although each exercise has it own aim, the common purpose is to explore students’ quality in learning English prepositions of place and gives solutions helping them overcome difficulties in learning the prepositions

The pre-test was copied and delivered students through their teacher It is thought that students would do the pretest responsibly when receiving it from their teacher Students did the pretest themselves at their class for 45 minutes If they do at home, results will have low reliability With the help of teacher, the pretest was collected and 40 responses were sent back After that, the researcher began to gather date and gave results classified them, showing them in tables

The two questionnaires are set of closed and open questions so that the researcher can collect useful information from respondents More important, through two questionnaires, the research showed difficulties that teachers and learners have faced in teaching and learning English and some suggestions They are consist of 12 questions for 10 teachers and 9 questions for 120 students from 4 classes

CHAPTER 3 : RESULTS 3.1 Presentation and analysis of the data

3.1.1 Results of the pre - tests

Table 1: Errors made by students at Hai phong foreign language centre when using English prepositions of place similar in meaning

For correct answer

Most of the prepositions used in each sentence of the exercise are familiar with students However, the percentage of correct answers is quite low It shows that there are students not doing exercise perfectly For example, none of the students can choose the correct answer in sentence 8 In the sentence 3, the correct answer only accounts for 12.5 % Moreover, in some sentences such as the sentence 5 and 9, the percentage of correct answer is only 45 %, which indicates that more than a half of the students chose the wrong answers Besides, in some sentences such as the sentence 1, 3, 4 and 5, the average percentage of the students who give

no answer accounts for 3 % In general, the exercise is suitable for the students but the average percentage of correct answers reaches 60% and the percentage of wrong answers is

40 %, which is rather high and the percentage of errors in each sentence is not equal

Table 2 : Errors when using English specific prepositions of place

in At on under between Ø Total number of

For correct answer

The average percentage of correct answers in the exercise 2 reaches 72.5 %, which is higher than that in exercise 1 Most of the students chose right answer There are only two sentences that have the rate of correct answers under 50 % There are still some students who gave no answer; however, the number of the students is few The result shows that the students began getting accustomed to experiment exercises It can be a positive sign

Table 3 : Errors when using English prepositions of place to write complete sentences

Sentence number Percentage of correct

answers

Percentage of wrong answers

The above tables show specific figures of errors made by students at Hai phong foreign language centre when using English prepositions of place However, in order to analyze the errors more exactly, the researcher also presents basic theory of errors

3.1.2 Questionnaire for the teachers

It can be seen from table 4 that teachers of English at Hai phong foreign language centre are

of different ages The teachers aged from 24 to 40 make up 70 %, only 10 % of teachers asked are above 50 and 20 % between 41 and 50 The data shows that the teachers here are mainly

in the middle age with a lot of teaching experience as well as living experience

According to the response to question 5, 40 % have from 10 to 19 years of teaching experience, 10 % have experience of teaching from 20 to 25 years, 50 % have from 5 to 10 years It is concluded that the teaching staff are quite experienced in their profession

3.1.2.2 Teachers’ opinion on methodology in teaching English

Table 5

3 What do you think about the role of grammar in language teaching? %

a Grammar is important because it helps people understand what makes

sentences and paragraphs clear and precise

80 %

b Grammar is the vital component in the human mind that allows us to use

language for any purpose that we like

80 %

c Grammar may be defined as the way a language manipulates and

combines words in order to form longer units of meaning

90 %

d Knowing the role of grammar in language teaching, teachers and

learners can avoid misunderstanding and get more experience

100 %

e Grammar is the most important factor in language teaching 30 %

4 Which approach do you applied in grammar lesson? %

As indicated in table 5, most teachers said that grammar is very important in language teaching According to them, knowing the role of language teaching, teachers and learners can avoid misunderstanding and get more experience However, there are 30 % teachers believed that grammar is the most important factor in language teaching Therefore, methods they used

in teaching focused on finding and correcting mistakes which their students made

As regards the response to question 4, 50 % teachers applied the deductive approach in grammar lesson, a more traditional style of teaching in which the grammatical structures or rules are dictated to the students first Thus, the students learn the rule and apply it only after they have been introduced to the rule Only 30 % teachers said that they used the inductive approach, with this approach, the teacher’s role is to provide meaningful contexts to encourage demonstration of the rule, while the students evolve the rules from the examples of its use and continued practice Especially, 20 % teachers used combination of two approaches

in their grammar lessons

3.1.2.3 Teachers’ opinion on their students’ errors in the use of English prepositions

of place

Table 6

b are made by students when they lack of pay attention to the lesson 90 %

c can be indeed be regarded as an essential part of learning 60 %

d show that students are not interested in learning English 50 %

6 Common errors in the use of English prepositions of place made

by non – major students at Hai phong foreign language are

%

The response in table 6 shows that 90 % teachers agreed with the idea errors are made by students when they lack of pay attention to the lesson and 50 % told that students made errors because they are not interested in learning English In contrast, 60% teachers believed that errors are undesirable, unexpected and they can be regarded as an essential part of learning English

Regarding the common errors in the use of English prepositions of place, 40 % teachers affirmed that their students made errors in misusing the pairs of preposition, the other 40 % showed that students often have errors of using fixed- prepositional phrases The rest (20 % ) assumed that their students have both of the above errors

3.1.2.4 Teachers’ difficulties in teaching English prepositions of place

8 On your view, exercises on English prepositions of place in

the book Streamline English Departures

%

c are too simple and not sufficient for the students to practice 60 %

9 What are difficulties you faced in teaching English in general

and in prepositions of place in particular?

%

Statistics from table 7 revealed the fact that teachers have to face with various difficulties in teaching One of the biggest problems is large sized – class 70 % teachers have to teach in large classes, from 25 to 40 students 60 % confirmed that exercises on English prepositions

of place in the book Streamline English Departures are too simple and not sufficient for the students to practice In addition, there are many other important factors affect to teaching process, such as: learner’s low English proficiency, interference of mother- tongue, lack of learning environment The majority of the subjects (70 %) accepted that mixed – ability class was a constrain for them Also, most of the teachers (70 %) agreed that their classes lack of authentic materials was caused that prevented them from teaching

3.1.2.5 Teachers’ solutions to their difficulties in teaching English prepositions of place

Table 8

10 Which activities do you often use to teach prepositions of place? %

e Looking at the picture and use appropriate prepositions to complete

c Practice every period until the students can use prepositions of

place correctly

20 %

12 What do you often do when your students make mistakes? %

b Encouraging them complete the sentences and then correct the

at the picture and use appropriate prepositions to complete sentences are applied but not often

because they are quite difficult

According to the response to question 11, only 20 % teachers let students practice every

periods until they can use prepositions of place correctly Besides, 20 % sometimes remind

them through extra exercises The number of teachers uses two periods to teach prepositions

makes up 30 % and there are 30 % teachers only practice when students ask From this result

we can see that the time location for preposition lesson as well as exercises is too short This

may become an obstacle in teaching and learning prepositions of place

Moreover, there are 30 % teachers correct the mistakes immediately when their students

make mistakes and 10 % teachers requiring them to stop and ask another Correcting mistakes

is necessary but if we do it whenever we see, our students will feel lack of confident

In these cases, 50 % teachers choose the way of encouraging them complete the sentences and

then correct the mistakes or other way

3.1.3 Questionnaire for the students

3.1.3.1 The students’ background of foreign language

Question 13 relates to the students’ background of English before they study at Hai phong

foreign language center The results are presented as follows:

There are 40 % students have been learning English for from 1 to 3 years There are 60 %

students have been learning English for 4 or more than 5 years Although most of learners at

Hai phong foreign language center are students at high schools, colleges and universities in

Hai phong cities but they have no chances to practice English everyday, so there are many

learners at different ages at the same class

3.1.3.2 Their attitude to English learning

Table 10

a Learning English to get good mark, pass the exam 60 %