PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Background to the study English has become one of the most popular languages in the world. As an effective means of international communication, it is used as the official language in many fields of life such as economics, politics, science, technology, sports and many others. Therefore, there is a great demand for teaching and learning English throughout the world. There are more and more people who learn English and consider it an inevitable factor in their work and life. In Vietnam, English has been brought into the school curriculum as a compulsory subject, and the teaching and learning of the international language has been recently paid great attention to. When teaching English, the teacher teaches his learners not only the English language but also its usage. It means that his aim is to train learners with a good control of English skills and to teach them to put the language into use in real communicative situations: either writing or speaking. This learners competence is assessed in terms of how comprehensibly and accurately a message is conveyed. If a message is unsuccessfully conveyed, the teacher will consider the reason why it is so, and the answer often is the means that causes it. What lessens the effectiveness may be that there are something wrong with the meanings of the sentences i.e. what is usually called error in foreign language learning.
I APPENDICES Appendix SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS This questionnaire is designed for my research into "Possible causes of common English written errors made by 12th- form students at Thanh Ha High School, Hai Duong and some possible solutions" Your assistance in completing the survey is appreciated All the information provided by you is solely for the study purpose, and you can be confident that you will not be identified in any discussion of data Thank you in advance for your cooperation! Instructions: The questionnaire has two parts, please put a tick () in the appropriate box or give short answers in the space provided I Your personal information Your gender: £ Male £ Female Your age: ………… How long have you been teaching English?: ……………… year(s) How long have you been teaching writing skills in English? : year(s) II Your opinions How often your students make written errors on the following items? (Write one number in the 1-5 continuum in the row provided.) Frequency Often Usually G r a Items of errors Lexical Incorrect spelling Word choice/ items Wrong word Preposition Article mistakes Noun number Wrong conjunction/ Never Sometimes connective Wrong verb tense Subject-verb agreement Verb form In your opinion, what are the major causes to students' written errors? Always II (Please rate them from (most significant) to (least significant) in correspondence with these five choices.) A Mother tongue interference: Students carry the characteristics of their first language into the target language B Overgeneralization: Students use the available strategies to apply in new situation C Ignorance of rule restriction: Students apply rules to irrelevant context D Incomplete application of rules: Although students have been taught that language rules many times, they fail to apply them E Carelessness Your rating: What have you done to reduce and prevent these errors? (Please put a tick () at your answers You can tick more than one.) £ Teaching grammar rules £ Giving corrective feedback £ Asking students to have peer-correction £ Eliciting students' vocabulary and structures before writing £ Giving samples £ Asking students to collect the samples £ Using warm-up activities (games, quizzes, etc) £Others Thank you very much! Appendix ENGLISH 12- UNIT 9: WRITING THE SAHARA DESERT III Study the information in the table below and write a composition about the Sahara Desert General information Location - largest desert in the world - in northern Africa - extends from the Atlantic Ocean eastward past the Red Sea to Iraq - lies largely in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Mauritania, Area Mali, Niger and Sudan - total area: more than 9,065,000 sq km Natural - 1,610 km wide and about 5,150 km long from east to west - arid land, dry climate (moisture is almost totally absent), very hot in features summer and very cold in winter - few oases exist - sandy land and large dunes of sand - tableland with a average elevation from 400 to 500m and - few forms of animal and vegetable life Trees animals - main trees: cactus, the date palm, and a form of acacia - main animals: gazelle, antelope, fox, jackal, camel Appendix ENGLISH 12- UNIT 10: WRITING Task 1: Work in pairs Suggest possible measures that should be taken to solve the following problems • People not know much about the need to protect rare and endangered animals IV • Projects to save endangered animals not have sufficient funds • The habitats for endangered animals are being seriously damaged and polluted • People who live in or near endangered animals' habitats have poor living conditions and rely mostly on wildlife products for their livelihood • Some countries not have laws to protect endangered animals • People keep buying fashionable wildlife products • There are not enough wildlife habitat reserves Example: People not know much about the need to protect rare and endangered animals We should organize different activities to raise people's awareness of the need to protect these animals Task 2: Write a paragraph about measures for protecting endangered animals using the ideas discussed in Task Begin your paragraph with: " There are a number of measures that should be taken to protect endangered animals." Appendix ENGLISH 12- UNIT 16: WRITING Task 1: Complete the letter of recommendation with the missing sentences in the box I'm sure you will have a wonderful time here in Ha Long Bay I would like to recommend a well-known places in Vietnam to you V The beach is an ideal place fro swimmers People here are very friendly and hospitable It is about 170 km from Hanoi 17th May 2005 Dear Linda, I'm pleased to hear that finally you have decided to spend your summer vacation in Southeast Asia (1) It is Ha Long Bay Ha Long Bay is in the north of Vietnam (2) It has attracted thousands of tourists from all over the world It has many big and small islets and mountains with spectacular caves and grottoes The weather and the sea are very beautiful (3) There are a lot of hotels and restaurants near the beach, which serve excellent seafood There is a famous entertainment centre there- Tuan Chau Island (4) They can speak English and they are helpful too I think you should come and see it (5) I'm looking forward to hearing from you soon Yours sincerely, Thu Ha Task 2: David, your pen pal, is going o spend his summer vacation in one of the ASIAN countries You want him to visit Vietnam Write a letter to him recommending a significant place you are familiar with Use the outline below: Outline • Date • Salutation • Body - location - natural features - entertainment - places to visit - food - people VI - • Closing • Signature