A study on common grmmatical errors in essays written by third year english major at hai phong technology management university

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUẢN LÝ VÀ CƠNG NGHỆ HẢI PHỊNG - ISO 9001:2015 KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP NGÀNH : NGÔN NGỮ ANH – ANH Sinh viên : Bùi Thị Minh Ngọc Giảng viên hướng dẫn: Th.S Nguyễn Thị Thu Hương HẢI PHÒNG 07– 2020 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUẢN LÝ VÀ CÔNG NGHỆ HẢI PHÒNG - A STUDY ON COMMON GRMMATICAL ERRORS IN ESSAYS WRITTEN BY THIRD YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR AT HAI PHONG TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT UNIVERSITY KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP ĐẠI HỌC HỆ CHÍNH QUY NGÀNH: NGƠN NGỮ ANH - ANH Sinh viên : Bùi Thị Minh Ngọc Giảng viên hướng dẫn: Th.s Nguyễn Thị Thu Hương HẢI PHÒNG 07 – 2020 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUẢN LÝ VÀ CÔNG NGHỆ HẢI PHÒNG NHIỆM VỤ ĐỀ TÀI TỐT NGHIỆP Sinh viên: Bùi Thị Minh Ngọc Lớp : NA2001 Ngành : Ngôn ngữ Anh Tên đề tài: Mã SV: 1612753031 A study on common grmmatical errors in essays written by third year english major at Hai Phong Technology Management University NHIỆM VỤ ĐỀ TÀI Nội dung yêu cầu cần giải nhiệm vụ đề tài tốt nghiệp ………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… Các tài liệu, số liệu cần thiết ………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… Địa điểm thực tập tốt nghiệp ………………………………………………………………………………… CÁN BỘ HƯỚNG DẪN ĐỀ TÀI TỐT NGHIỆP Họ tên : Nguyễn Thị Thu Hương Học hàm, học vị : Thạc sỹ Cơ quan công tác : Trường Đại học Quản lý Cơng nghệ Hải Phịng Nội dung hướng dẫn: A study on common grmmatical errors in essays written bythird year english major at Hai Phong Technology Management University Đề tài tốt nghiệp giao ngày 30 tháng 03 năm 2020 Yêu cầu phải hoàn thành xong trước ngày 30 tháng 06 năm 2020 Đã nhận nhiệm vụ ĐTTN Đã giao nhiệm vụ ĐTTN Sinh viên Giảng viên hướng dẫn Hải Phòng, ngày 01 tháng 07 năm 2020 HIỆU TRƯỞNG CỘNG HÒA XÃ HỘI CHỦ NGHĨA VIỆT NAM Độc lập - Tự - Hạnh phúc PHIẾU NHẬN XÉT CỦA GIẢNG VIÊN HƯỚNG DẪN TỐT NGHIỆP Họ tên giảng viên: Đơn vị công tác: Họ tên sinh viên: Chuyên ngành: Nội dung hướng dẫn: Tinh thần thái độ sinh viên trình làm đề tài tốt nghiệp Đánh giá chất lượng đồ án/khóa luận (so với nội dung yêu cầu đề nhiệm vụ Đ.T T.N mặt lý luận, thực tiễn, tính tốn số liệu…) Ý kiến giảng viên hướng dẫn tốt nghiệp Được bảo vệ Không bảo vệ Điểm hướng dẫn Hải Phòng, ngày … tháng … năm Giảng viên hướng dẫn (Ký ghi rõ họ tên) QC20-B18 CỘNG HÒA XÃ HỘI CHỦ NGHĨA VIỆT NAM Độc lập - Tự - Hạnh phúc PHIẾU NHẬN XÉT CỦA GIẢNG VIÊN CHẤM PHẢN BIỆN Họ tên giảng viên: Đơn vị công tác: Họ tên sinh viên: Chuyên ngành: Đề tài tốt nghiệp: Phần nhận xét giáo viên chấm phản biện Những mặt hạn chế Ý kiến giảng viênchấm phản biện Được bảo vệ Không bảo vệ Điểm phản biện Hải Phòng, ngày … tháng … năm Giảng viênchấm phản biện (Ký ghi rõ họ tên) QC20-B19 TABLE OF CONTENT Page CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Methods of the study 1.6 Significance of the study 1.7 Design of the study CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Theoretical backgrounds of writing 2.1.1 The definition of writing skill 2.1.2 Writing process 2.1.3 Problems in Writing 2.2 Theoretical backgrounds of academic essay writing 2.2.1 The definition of an academic essay 2.2.2 Classifications of academic essay 2.2.3 Organization of an academic essay 2.2.4 Characteristics of an academic essay 10 2.2.5 Problems in academic essay writing 11 2.3.Theoretical backgrounds of errors in writing 13 2.3.1 Definition of errors 13 2.3.2 Significance of errors 13 2.3.3 Types of errors 14 2.3.4 Causes of errors 15 2.3.5 Analysis of composition errors 16 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY 3.1 Sample and sampling 19 19 3.2 Instruments 19 3.3 Data collection 20 3.4 Data analysis 21 CHAPTER IV: DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS 4.1 Data analysis and findings 22 22 4.1.1 Demographic information 22 4.1.2 Grammatical errors in essays 24 4.2 Suggested solutions 32 4.2.1 Suggested solutions for students 33 4.2.2 Suggested solutions for teachers 33 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION 34 5.1 Summary of major findings and discussion 34 5.2 Suggestions for further studies 34 REFERENCES 35 APPENDIX 36 ACKNOWLEDGMENT During the process of doing this graduation paper, I have received many necessary assistances, precious ideas and timely encouragements from my teachers, family and friends This paper could not have been completed without the help, encouragement and support from a number of people who deserve my sincerest gratitude and appreciation First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to show my sincere thanks to all my teachers at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Hai Phong Management and Technology University who have handed me basic knowledge to complete this study Secondly, I wish to express gratitude to my supervisor – Mrs Nguyen Thi Thu Huong, the English teacher of Faculty of Foreign Language, who has always been willing to give me valuable advices and suggestions in order that I can complete this study successfully Thirdly, I am equally indebted to my classmates for their suggestions and encouragements in the process of my study Last but not least, my particular thanks are given to my parents for their encouragement and support which played an important role in my graduation paper Hai Phong,June 20th 2020 Student Bui Thi Minh Ngoc In terms of error correction, 50 % of the students hoped that all their errors were corrected by teachers, 36% of the students liked peer-correction with the teacher’s help There were students, representing 9% of the sample, thought that errors should be corrected by students themselves with the teacher’s help However, only student (5%) said that errors should be marked for self-correction and the teacher gave feedback Subjects (45%) preferred their teacher to revise grammar in class and many of the sample (68%) liked to be provided with more grammatical exercises at home to reduce common errors in their next writings 4.1.2 Grammatical errors in essays Table 2: Types of errors made in the guided essays and the student-developed essays Guided essays Student - developed essays (GE) ( SDE) Types of Number of Number of grammatical Percentage Percentage students students errors % % making errors making errors Verb tenses 17 77% 20 91% 2.Determiners 16 73% 18 81% 3.Agreement 12 55% 15 68% 4.Prepositions 15 68% 17 77% 5.Pronouns 10 45% 12 55% 6.Posessive and 14% 23% attributive 7.Word Order 41% 15 68% Incomplete 12 55% 16 73% structures Negative 27% 41% constructions 10.Parallel 41% 13 59% structures 11.Conjunction 18% 32%  Verb tenses The highest error rates in the study occurrs within the error category of verbs tenses, with 17 students (77%) in GE and 20 students (91%) in SDE This finding shows that the use of English verbs is a major learning difficulty for all HPU third25 year students The misusages of verb tenses are commonly in the simple past tense, future simple tense, past perfect tense and present simple tense *Simple past tense: - Some people said that they smoke every day (smoked) In this example, the student confused between the use of simple past tense and simple present tense There was a kind of language interference - Many people didn't smoked (smoke) The student overgeneralized the use of negative past tense, instead of adding the infinitive form after didn't In the following sentences below, the students failed to put the verbs in the past form - On 23rdApril, it means the last day we studied together, was hold a farewell party (meant) - I have an unforgettable experience and it happened when I was inelementary school (had) *Future simple tense: - You will loosing your life (lose) In this example, the student tried to express futurity by using "will" but he formed the tense in a wrong way, instead of using infinitive after “will”, he added the –ing - They will be tidy their rooms quickly and save time to another activities (will tidy) *Past perfect tense: - After they knew the importance of part-time job in getting more their experience , they decided to have one.( had known) - We told a lot of stories before he came ( had told) *Present simple tense: - Doing household tasks help children more independent (helps) - All family members doing household together (do) - It is help to prepare for their lives in the future (helps) 26  Determiners The second type of grammatical errors made by third-year students is determiners including articles, quantifiers, and demonstratives In GE, 16 students ( 73%) have had those errors in their essays and in SDE, the rate is higher, with 18 students ( 81%) *Articles: The wrong use of article is another frequent problem in students’ writings Thus, to be able to use an article properly, the students had to be sensitive in differentiating the use of definite article, indefinite article and even using no article at all Some errors as follows: Redundant use of the article 'the" and the absence of indefinite article "a": - The smoking is bad habit (zero article) The student in the example added “the” before the gerund where it was not necessary Misuse of the article "a, an" before words with vowel or consonant sounds: - A hard working person will be an good example for children to learn.(a) In the example above, the student added “an” instead of “a” before a word that began with a consonant Omission of article: One of major problems is lack of money (one of the major problems) *Quantifiers Examples of quantifier errors: - The most students are eager to learn because they like their teacher (most students) - All of members in family need to share problems with each other.( all of the members) - Each jobs is useful for a person to get more experience.( each job) * Demonstratives For example: 27 - For that reasons, they decided to go have gap year (those) - If you follow this tips, you can enrich your experience much in real life.( these) - To sum up, there are two main ways to achieve success This ways are not difficult to (these)  Agreement One of the common grammatical errors made by the sample is agreement In both kinds of the essays, the rates are high (55% in GE and 68% in SDE) Their problems are mainly : *Subject – verb agreement Plural subject does not agree with singular verb - The people thinks those smoke cigarettes are adult (think) - Although many people knows about smoking dangerous ( know) Singular subject does not agree with plural verb: - It encourage smokers to smoke ( encourages) - The cigarette company have the major roles ( has) - The more dangerous results is famine and diseases ( are ) - We ought to stand in line because there was many patients in there ( were) - We were very confused because the walls were glass and the houses was dark ( were) *Noun-pronoun agreement - The problem is the most difficult for students to succeed in his learning process (their) - Most of the successful students know the tips and use it in write their essays ( them)  Prepositions With high rates (68% - 15 learners in GE and 77% - 17 learners in SDE), preposition is considered as one of the common grammatical errors seen in students’ essays For instance: 28 - Diseases can be caused of smoking (by) - Many people die from smoking (of) - It was very crowded by tourists of many countries ( from) - On last Saturday, after I followed an English course, my mother asked me to take her to the bank by motorcycle ( no preposition)  Pronouns As can be seen from the table 2, pronoun accounts for 45% (10 students) in GE and 55% (12 students) in SDE Therefore, it is only the common grammatical error in SDE For examples: - It is undeniable that we should give up smoking because of it’s serious harm on our health (its) - The problems are really terrible so everyone must aware of it (them)  Possessive and Attributive Possessive and attributive is clearly not common grammatical errors in both GE and SDE Only students (14%) and students ( 23%) faced with this problems in writing *Possessive Here are some examples: - If you want to have a good health, you should follow some tips written in you handbook (your) - They can deal with there problems easily (their) *Attributive - I saw an alone woman (She was alone that evening) - The step give at the end was the most important one (given) - The idea at the beginning of the meeting is main (The main idea is at the beginning of the meeting.)  Word Order 29 Word order is the sixth highest error occurrence (41% - students) in GE while it is the fifth highest one (68% - 15 students) in SDE According to the statistics, word order is a type of common errors in SDE while it is not popular in the other Some examples: - Smoking is a habit bad ( a bad habit) - How we can stop smoking? (can we ) The first example shows that the student used his mother tongue in producing the sentence since in Vietnamese the adjective follows the noun while in English the adjective precedes the noun Thus, error in word order occurs In the second example, the student’s overgeneralization in forming the right question in English makes him to commit the error - Parents also are so proud of their children (are also)  Incomplete Structures In both GE and SDE, the number of grammatical errors “incomplete structures” found are high 55% of the sample (12 English majors) in the first kind of essay and 73% of the sample (16 English majors) in the second kind claimed that they had made a lot of sentences having incomplete structures For examples: - After I planned my summer holiday I decided to some shopping first “After I planned my summer holiday” is an example of a dependent-word fragment because this group of words cannot stand alone - I plan on working overtime To get this job finished Otherwise, my boss may be angry with me “To get this job finished” is a fragment and can be corrected by adding it to the preceding sentences - I love to cook and eat Chinese food Especially spaghetti and lasagna I make everything from scratch “Especially spaghetti and lasagna” is a certain fragment as neither subject nor object can be found in this group of words This error can be corrected by attaching the fragment to complete thought that precedes it 30  Negative constructions Although negative constructions is not common grammatical errors in both kinds of essays, the number of the errors in two essays are quite different In GE, there are students ( 7%) and in SDE, there are students ( 41%) Here are some examples of this kind of error: - The boys don’t invited no one to their party ( invited) - I not have a bike so I decide to go on foot.( don’t have) - Finally, we no went to anywhere ( didn’t go)  Parallel structures The table shows that parallel structure is the common grammatical error in SDE while it is not the common one in the other kind of essay 41% of the sample in GE made it and 59% of the sample in SDE had it Some examples of errors in parallel structures: - Attaining a college degree is neither cheap nor will it be easy (easy) - I plan to walk the dog, write a letter and going to bed ( go) - I found cleaning supplies in the closet, under the sink, but not the garage (in the garage) -There are three main reasons for having a part-time job including earning money, getting experience and build relationship with people.(building)  Conjunction Conjunction is the last error that accounts for the lowest rates (only 18% in GE And 32 % in SDE) The errors are as follows: - Besides that, most of them live in one place or never moved to another city (Besides) - And then, family can have more time to talk, watch TV and enjoy happy moments together (Then) - My mother often takes me to the park, so every time we go there I feel very happy ( and) - Because he was very hungry so he went to the kitchen to find food to eat.(,) 31 Graph 1: The grammatical errors committed by the third-year students in writing the two essays As can be seen from the graph 1, HPU third- year English majors have made all eleven grammatical errors in their essays and the number of the errors is different in most of the types of errors The largest number of errors is made in the area of verb tenses (77% of the errors in GE, 91% in SDE) While, possessive and attribute accounts for the lowest number of the errors (14% in GE and 23% in SDE) The number of other errors deceases gradually from determiners (73% in GE, 81% in SDE) to conjunction (14% in GE, 23% in SDE) According to the chart, the number of errors found in SDE is higher than in GE in all kinds Additionally, the common grammatical errors committed by the students in GE and SDE are not similar In GE, the common grammatical errors are of verb tenses, determiners, prepositions, incomplete structures and agreement While, in SDE, the common ones are of types including verb tenses, determiners, prepositions, incomplete structures, agreement, word order, parallel structures and pronouns Therefore, it is undeniable that the essays with guidance of the teacher have fewer errors and it is very important for students to be guided before writing to minimize their grammatical errors in their essays 32 Table 3: Frequency of errors in the guided essays and the student-developed essays Types of grammatical errors Verb tenses 2.Determiners 3.Agreement 4.Prepositions 5.Pronouns 6.Posessive and attributive 7.Word Order Incomplete structures Negative constructions 10.Parallel structures 11.Conjunction Total Guided essays (GE) Number Average of error/ an Number students essay of errors making errors 17 30 1.8 16 17 1.1 12 14 1.2 15 20 1.3 10 12 1.2 Student - developed essays ( SDE) Number Average of error/ Number students an essay of errors making errors 20 36 1.8 18 21 1.2 15 19 1.3 17 28 1.6 12 14 1.2 1.3 1.6 11 1.2 15 16 1.1 12 13 1.1 16 16 1.0 1.2 10 1.1 10 1.1 13 15 1.2 143 1.3 192 1.3 The table shows that the frequency of errors committed by students in GE is lower than that in SDE In total, the number of errors in GE is 143 (nearly 6.5 errors per essay) Meanwhile, in SDE, the number is 192 (8.7 errors per essay).Verb tense is the most frequent error in both kinds of essays ( 1.8 error per essay) Meanwhile, the lowest frequency of error comes with incomplete structures ( 1.1 error per essay in GE and error per essay in SDE) 4.2 Suggested solutions 33 Based on the findings, some solutions are suggested for both students and teachers to help learners minimize their grammatical errors in essay writings 4.2.1 Suggested solutions for students There will be reduction of errors in the future writing if a student:  Actively take part in various activities provided in both pre- writing step and post-writing step  Actively work in pairs and groups more to learn from each other and to remember grammar better  Try to follow all steps in the writing process, especially make outline before writing  Revise and edit the composition carefully before submitting it  Practice more grammatical exercises at home, attent more to common grammatical errors such as verb tenses, determiners, prepositions, incomplete structures, agreement, word order, parallel structures and pronouns 4.2.2 Suggested solutions for teachers It is clear that the errors in grammar require more attention than the others Therefore, teachers should be more aware of these types of common errors and help students to avoid them by:  Increasing students’ aweareness of the importance of grammar in writing skill, which enhances instinct motivation of students in learning grammar  Having more interesting, flexible and suitable methods in teaching writing  Varying writing activities in classroom for both pre-writing step and postwriting step  Dividing students into pairs or groups to learn writing essay better  Guiding essay writing carefully  Encouraging students to have peer-correction before checking and correct errors for them  Giving more writing exercises related to grammar to the students 34 CHAPTER IV: CONCLUSION 5.1 Summary of major findings and discussion The study has attempted to study the essays written by third year students to find out common grammatical errors made Both guided essays and studentdeveloped essays were collected to examine students’ errors After analyzing the data, it has been found that there are the two main findings: Firstly, all of the students made a lot of different errors in their writings in both two kinds of essays Additionally, the number of the errors is different Verb tense is the most common error while the least common is possessive and attributive In GE, the grammatical errors are verb tenses, determiners, prepositions, incomplete structures and agreement In SDE, the errors are verb tenses, determiners, prepositions, incomplete structures, agreement, word order, parallel structures and pronouns Secondly, the frequency of grammatical errors committed by students in SDE is higher than that in GE The frequency of errors differs in most of the categories The most frequent error is found in verb tense and the least frequency is incomplete structures in both types of essays 5.2 Suggestions for further studies It is expected that the result of the study can give an informative input about grammatical error analysis or other topics related to errors The researcher believes that there are still many phenomena that can be revealed in this research study The researcher expects that this result of study can inspire other researchers to conduct the research related to grammatical errors analysis to enrich the existing study 35 REFERENCES Agee, A & Kline, G (1985) The basic writer’s book New Jersey: Prentice Hall Corder, S.P (1967) The significance of leaners’ errors Error analysis London: Longman Edge, J (1989) Mistakes and correction London: Longman Hall, D ( 1985) Writing well Boston: Little, Brown and Company Harris, J.(1993) Introducing writing London: Penguin Books Ltd Hedge, T (1988) Writing UK: Oxford University Press Hendrickson, J (1983) Error analysis and error correction in language teaching Singapore: RELC Hogue, A (1996) First steps in academic writing New York: Longman Lien, Tran Thi Ngoc (2010) Essay writing A generic approach Hai Phong: HPU 10 Oshima, A & Hogue, A (1996) Writing Acedamic English USA: AddisonWesley Publishing Company 11 Palmer, F (1990) Grammar New York: Penguin Group 12 Thomson, G (1996) Introducing functional grammar London: Arnold 13 Tribble, C (1996) Writing Oxford: Oxford University Press 14 Ubol, C (1980) An error analysis of English composiions by Thai students Singapore: RELC 36 APPENDIX SURVEY QUESTIONAIRE (for students) This survey questionnaire is designed for the study on common grammatical errors in essays written by third year English majors at Hai Phong Management and Technology University Your assistance in completing the following items is highly appreciated All the information provided by you is of great use and solely for the study purpose Thank you very much for your cooperation Please put a tick (v) or number the boxes or write the answer where necessary You can use English and Vietnamese language I Personal information: * Your gender: Male Female * Your age:…………… * How long have you been learning English:………… year(s) * Your average mark in writing skill in the fifth semester:……………… II Your opinion on writing in English What you think of the importance of writing? Very important Important Not important How difficult you find writing essays for academic purposes? Very difficult Difficult Not very difficult Not at all difficult 37 Which criterion you think is the most important for evaluating a writing task? Accuracy (correct grammar and usage, spelling and pronunciation) Variety of sentence patterns and vocabulary Content (specifics, overall clarity, and interest) Organization (thesis statement, development paragraphs, concluding paragraph, logical sequence, unity) Which of the following activities you in the writing classes? (Tick (v) as many as it may apply) Choosing a topic Discussing the topic of writing in class Generating ideas Outlining before writing Planning and organizing the essay Developing only one main idea in a paragraph Using appropriate transitional devices Writing the first draft Revising the essay Final editing Summarizing Do you think your teacher has interesting and flexible methods in writing skill? Yes No Which you like most in a writing lesson? Work individually Work in pairs ( with your partner) Work in groups ( of 4-5 students) How often you make grammatical mistakes in your essay writing? Always Often 38 Seldom Never What would you like your teacher to to help you avoid grammatical mistakes before writing? (Tick (v) as many as it may apply) Give various pre- writing activities related to grammar Provide a lot of homework of grammar before writing lessons Guide your writing Other: …………………………………………………………… How would you like correct your grammatical errors? Self – correction with your teacher’s help Peer-correction with your teacher’s help Your errors are marked for your self-correction and your teacher gives feedback All your errors are corrected by teachers Other (please specify) …………………………………………… 10 What would you like your teacher to to help you reduce your common grammatical errors in later writings? (Tick (v) as many as it may apply) Revise grammar Provide more grammatical homework Other: …………………………………………………………… 39 ... that situation, the researcher chose the topic ? ?common grammatical errors in essays written by third year English majors at Hai Phong Management and Technology University? ?? for the graduation paper... QUESTIONAIRE (for students) This survey questionnaire is designed for the study on common grammatical errors in essays written by third year English majors at Hai Phong Management and Technology University. .. observed and interviewed third- year English majors to get more reliable information for the study 20 3.3 Data collection The data was collected in May, 2020 Information regarding data collection was