An investigation into errors made by ethnic minority students in using present and past participles as adjectives

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES - o0o - NGUYỄN THỊ HUẾ AN INVESTIGATION INTO ERRORS MADE BY ETHNIC MINORITY STUDENTS IN USING PRESENT AND PAST PARTICIPLES AS ADJECTIVES (Một số lỗi học sinh dân tộc thiểu số sử dụng phân từ phân từ khứ làm tính từ) M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10 HA NOI, 2011 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES - o0o - NGUYỄN THỊ HUẾ AN INVESTIGATION INTO ERRORS MADE BY ETHNIC MINORITY STUDENTS IN USING PRESENT AND PAST PARTICIPLES AS ADJECTIVES ((Một số lỗi học sinh dân tộc thiểu số sử dụng phân từ phân từ khứ làm tính từ) M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10 Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Vượng, M.A HA NOI, 2011 iv LIST OF ABBREVIATION E.P.Adjs: English Participial Adjectives P.Adjs: Participial Adjectives -Ed adjs : Past participial adjectives -Ing adjs: Present participial adjectives v LIST OF TABLES Table 1………………………………………………………………22 Table 2………………………………………………………………23 Table 3………………………………………………………………24 Table 4………………………………………………………………26 Table 5………………………………………………………………28 Table 6………………………………………………………………30 Table 7a…………………………………………………………… 30 Table 7b…………………………………………………………… 31 Table 8a…………………………………………………………… 31 Table 8………………………………………………………………31 Table 9………………………………………………………………32 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1…………………………………………………….22 Figure 2…………………………………………………….24 Figure 3…………………………………………………….25 Figure 4…………………………………………………….27 Figure 5…………………………………………………….29 vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration Acknowledgements Abstract List of abbreviation List of tables List of figures Table of contents PART A : INTRODUCTION Rationale Scopes of the study Aims of the study Methods of the study Research questions Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 An overview of English Participial Adjectives 1.1.1 The formation of the Participial adjectives 1.1.1.1 Definitions of the participles 1.1.1.2 Participial Adjectives 1.1.2 Syntactic functions of Participial Adjectives 1.1.2.1 Attributive 1.1.2.2 Predicative 1.1.2.3 Participle as an adjective or adverb element 1.1.3 Semantic Features if Participial Adjectives 1.1.3.1 Stative/ Dynamic 1.1.3.2 Gradable viii 1.1.4 Participial Adjectives in collocation with nouns 1.1.5 The meaning of Participial Adjectives in English and their Vietnamese equivalents 1.2 Learners’ errors 1.2.1 Definitions of error 1.2.2 Errors and Mistakes 1.2.3 Types of errors 1.2.3.1 Interlingual Errors 1.2.3.2 Intralingual Errors 1.2.4 Sources of errors 1.2.4.1 Interference of the mother tongue 1.2.4.2 Overgeneralization 1.2.4.3 Ignorance of rule restriction 1.2.4.4 Incomplete application of rul 1.2.4.5 False concepts hypothesized 1.2.5 Error Analysis in second language acquisition CHAPTER 2: THE METHODOLOGY 2.1 The objectives of the study 2.2 The participants 2.3 Procedure of data collection 2.4 Data analysis and discussion 2.4.1 Statistical analysis of grammar exercises 2.4.1.1 Errors in E.P.Adj formation (Grammar exercise 1) 2.4.1.2 Errors in the choice of -ing or -ed P.Adjs (Grammar Exercise 2) 2.4.1.3 Error identification of P.Adjs ( Grammar Exercise 3) 2.4.1.4 Errors in sentence transformation (Grammar Exercise 4) 2.4.1.5 Errors in Vietnamese-English translation (Grammar Exercise 5) 2.4.2 Results of the interviews ix 2.4.2.1 The most challenging type of exercise 2.4.2.3 Incorrect comprehension in the use of -ing and -ed 2.4.2.4 Causes of errors in using participial adjectives CHAPTER 3: MAJORS FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN MOUNTAINOUS AREAS 3.1 Major findings and discussion 3.1.1 Common types of errors 3.1.2 Causes of errors in using -ing and -ed adjectives 3.1.2.1 Negative language transfer 3.1.2.2 Overgeneralization 3.1.2.3 Incomplete application of rules: 3.2 Recommendations for teaching 3.3 Conclusion 3.4 Suggestions for further study REFERENCES APPENDIX A : SURVEY EXERCISES APPENDIX B: STUDENT INTERVIEW APENDIX C: SUGGESTED EXERCISES APENDIX D: KEY TO SUGGESTED EXERCISES PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale English has been playing an important role in the world‟s social life In Vietnam, English is widely used by not only foreigners but also Vietnamese people as a language of work and business There have been an increasing number of people desiring to know English with the hope of keeping up with the latest modern technology in the world English has now been taught not only at all universities and colleges, but also at almost every senior high school and it is considered as a compulsory subject at secondary school In the last decade, methods of teaching English as a foreign language in Vietnam have attracted much attention However, a lot of controversial problems have still existed in teaching and learning English Vietnam, especially in secondary schools The fact is that the curricula of teaching English in Vietnam base mainly on the textbooks and language teachers have not really changed their teaching methods, therefore; although the teachers focus more on grammar than communicative skills and students learn more knowledge of grammar than language skills, the secondary students tend to make more grammatical errors There are such a lot of types of grammatical errors as errors of verb form, errors in the use of English articles, preposition, etc Among those typical errors, students‟ confusion in using English Participial Adjectives is worth discussing Why the students find it difficult to acquire the uses and meaning of present and past participles as adjectives A lot of reasons for this are assumed In my opinion, one of the causes for this confusion is that the term “Participial Adjectives” does not exist in Vietnamese grammar Another reason is that Participial Adjectives, with two subclasses of -ing and -ed Participial Adjectives and different meanings The fact that the -ing participial adjectives convey active meaning while the -ed Participial ones convey passive meaning makes Vietnamese learners confused whenever dealing with them I have chosen the topic of errors in using English participial Adjectives in the hope of supplying Vietnamese learners, especially secondary students with a general view on Participial adjectives I also expect that the analysis of the actual errors and the causes of the errors may help our secondary students avoid mistakes when using the participial adjectives Scope of the study The study focuses on basic syntactic and semantic features of English Participial Adjectives In addition, our attention will be paid to the analysis of errors committed by Vietnamese learners in learning English as a foreign language in general and in acquiring English Participial Adjectives in particular Within the scope of a minor thesis, we intend to restrict our study to the analysis of errors made by Minh Dai Secondary School students in using English Participial Adjectives in two positions; pre-attributive and predicative Their problems are the basis to give practical suggestions in both teaching and learning English in secondary schools Aims of the study The study aims at: a) Identifying the errors committed by Minh Dai Upper Secondary School students when learning and using English participial Adjectives b) Finding out the sources of errors in using English participial Adjectives by Ethnic Minority Students Methods of the study In order to realize the above aims, the methods used are mainly statistical and quantitative In the first state, I am going to analyze some features of English Participial Adjectives and the rules of uses and then take these a basis to analyze students‟ performance on survey exercises Moreover, qualitative method issued based on the interview given to some of participants about their reasons for committing errors Research questions 34 overgeneralization, ignorance of rule restrictions, incomplete application of rules and false concept hypothesized 3.1.2.1 Negative language transfer After conducting the study of errors in using English participial adjective by the grammar test and the interview, it come across my mind that language transfer is one of the typical causes of committing errors In the process of learning a new language, the learners are often affected by their mother tongue Mother tongue interference is due to the fact that learners carry the characteristics of their native language - Vietnamese, in to the target language - English They have the trend of applying the grammatical rules of their native language into the target one In this case, the fact that they use the same adjective, of -ing or -ed, to convey both active and passive meaning 3.1.2.2 Overgeneralization Overgeneralization is another cause of making errors by Minh Dai school Actually, students overgeneralize the rule that every expression of quality belongs to -ing adjectives meanwhile -ed ones express emotions and fealings The interview result show clearly that most of students keep in their mind that overgenerlized rule 3.1.2.3 Incomplete application of rules: As stated in chapter one, incomplete application of rules has much to deal with students' inability to apply rules into contexts although they have been taught that language item many times The meaning of participial adjectives seems to be problematic to students Although they have been taught that the -ing adjective convey its active meaning That means it is the cause of the feeling expressed in the participial adjective On the contrary, the -ed adjective conveys its passive meaning; that means the subject is affected by that feeling Let‟s take a question in the exercise as an example As analyzed previously, the students fail to completely apply the uses Here, the participial adjective aims to describe the subject “His lesson” The meaning of the sentence is supposed either “ His lesson interests the 35 students so much” or “ His lesson has the feeling of interest” Obviously, the former with the active meaning is suitable, thus -ing adjective is a correct answer 3.2 Recommendations for teaching From the findings in the previous chapter, it can be seen that ethnic minority students at Minh Dai High School are not sufficient in English Participial Adjective usage Therefore, the teachers should pay much attention to these issue In my opinion, during the process of teaching, teachers should adequately inform students the related aspects of English Participles To that, the teachers had better: - Start the teaching of this grammar point by systematically showing the formation of present participles and past participles - Explaining the active and passive meaning of participles with a variety of specifis examples and distinguishing the difference between two participial adjectives deprived from two kinds of root verbs: transitive and intransitive - Offering practice exercises with an increase in difficulty level It is suggested to for the teachers to give exercises in the form of word choice first and continue with another kinds of exercises later on - Giving more examples and practice to help the students avoid their frequently made error, especially the thought that -ing adjectives are used for inanimate nouns and -ed adjectives for animate ones - If students make errors at high frequency, teachers should correct systematically the most frequent errors committed by the students in their performance On the other hand, teachers can mark the errors and let students peercorrect or correct themselves It is essential for teachers to notify the type and source of errors because, only when students get to know „why‟, will they be able to avoid such errors 3.3 Conclusion The study has given an overview of how to use active and passive English adjectives which is useful to both teachers and students in teaching and learning English language It is carried out with the participation of the students of ethnic 36 minorities whose living condition is rather low; they have no chances to improve their studying in general and their learning foreign language in particular; therefore, their proficiency in English is at a rather low level The analysis of these errors makes clear the two main research questions of the study The first question deals with the types of error In fact, the errors of using English participial adjectives made by upper secondary students are of both interlingual and intralingual ones They make errors not only by using their mother tongue rules for target language but also by wrongly using the rules within the target language in the learing process Moreover, overgeneralization, ignorance of rule restriction, incomplete application and the mother tongue interference are presented as the sources of errors by the students In my opinion, if ethnic minority students are given more opportunity to learn English language, their English will certainly be improved in the future Suggestions for further study As mentioned in the scope of the study, the research has been an attempt to investigate syntactic and semantic features of E.P.Adjs and frequencies as well as causes of errors made by secondary students when using E.P.Adjs in two positions: Attributive and Predicative However, participles play different roles with different positions in a sentence or clause in English So far, little attempt has been made to study E.P.Adjs in the post-attributive as well as reduced relative clauses Therefore, further study of the topic, if possible, should be the semantic features of P.Adjs in reduced relative clauses - errors made by secondary school students in using P.Adjs in reduced relative clauses with finite perfect tense 37 REFERENCES Alexander, L.G (1992), Longman English Grammar Longman Azar, B.S (1980), Undestanding and Using English Grammar Prentice Hall Regents Azar, B.S (1980), Undestanding and Using English Grammar Prentice Hall Regents (Workbook) Brown, H Douglas (1980), Principles of Language Learning and Teaching New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc Chaudron, C (1986) Teachers' priorities in correcting learners' errors in French immersion classes In R R Day (Ed.), Talking to learn: Conversation in second language acquisition (pp 64-84) Cambridge: Newbury House Publishers Corder, S.P (1981), Error Analysis and Interlanguage Oxford: Oxford University Press Cunningsworth, A (1987) Evaluation and Selecting EFL Teaching Materials London: Heinemann Education Book Doff (1988) A Teaching English CUP Eastwwod (1994), Oxford Guide to English Grammar, Oxford University Press Hill, Inc 10 Ellis, R 1994 Language Two, Oxford: Oxford University Press 11 Ferris, C (1993), The Meaning of Syntax - A Study in the Adjectives of English, Longman 12 French, F.G (1996), Common Errors in English, London, Oxford University Press 13 George, H.V (1972), Common errors in learning English Rowley, MA: Newburry House Publishers Edge, J (1989) Mistakes and correction London: Longman 14 Harmer, J (2001), The Practice of English Language Teaching London: Longman Group Limited 38 15 Hendrickson, J M (1980) Error correction in foreign language teaching: Recent theory, research and practice In K Croff (Ed.), Reading in English as a second language: For teachers and teacher trainees (2nd ed., pp 153-173) Cambridge: Winthrop Publishers, Inc 16 James, C (1998), Errors in Language Learning and Use: Exploring error Analysis London and New York: Longman 17 Norrish, J (1983), Language learners and their errors Mc Milan Publisher Ltd 18 Nunan, D.(2001), Second Language Acquisition//Carter, R & Nunan, D., eds The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages[C] Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 87-92 19 Quirk, R and Greenbaun, S (1976), A University Grammar of English Australian Government 20 Quirk, R., Greenbaun, S., Leech, G &Svartvik, J (1980), A Grammar of Contemporary English, Longman 21 Quirk, R., Greenbaun, S., Leech, G &Svartvik, J (1985), A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, Longman London 22 Richards,J.C., Platt, J & Platt, H (1992), Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, Longman 23 Richards, J.C (ed) (1973), Error Analysis London: Longman.DC: Center for Applied Linguistics 24 Richards,J.C., (1992), Error Analysis - Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition, Longman 25 Swan,M (1995), Practical English Usage, Oxford 26 Walz, J C (1982), Error correction techniques for the foreign language classroom I APPENDIX A GRAMMAR EXERCISES The aims of this survey is to find out actual errors committed by upper secondary students The result of the survey is very important to the success of the study Therefore, your participation is valuable Thank you for your participation Please fill in the following gap: Full name: ………………………………………………………………………… Class : …………………………………… Number of years of learning English: ………years Ethnic minorities : YES/NO Exercise Use either -ing form or -ed form of the verb to complete the sentences a) His lesson was so _(1) _ We were _(2) _ in the way the teacher explained everything b) (3) _short films are shown at the animated film festival c)_(4) _listeners tended to fall asleep d) (5) people can sign up for the 2-day class e)My bath was so (6) I felt (7) f) How to get the cheese was so (8) The mouse was (9) CONFUSE g) Her weight loss from the diet was (10) ENCOURAGE Exercise Choose the correct answer After he said „goodbye‟ to her, she had a breaking/broken heart The movie, King Kong, was terrifying/terrified He heard a strange sound and was concerning/concerned II Micheal Phelp‟s Olympic game win was exciting/excited John is an annoying/annoyed person He seems to make other people go mad He finds science fiction rather frustrating/frustrated You look exhausting/exhausted, so you had better take a rest My angry father‟s words were upsetting/upset I am very satisfying/satisfied with my study result this term 10 Falling/fallen trees have lay on the street Exercise Identify errors in the text Line I had never been embarrassing in my life but last Sunday was My friend invited me to go to the movies He was so exciting to meet me at my house and took me to the theatre A comedy with such an interested name as “Henry gets married” was going to be shown on the screen in a minute We felt concerning and hoped that the comedy would be entertained and it was as we expected However, the I fell previous night I stayed up very late to complete my home assignment, so in asleep at the beginning of the film My friend asked me if I liked Henry the film I told him “ Oh, I like that kind of man I find him so interested He is tail, handsome and generous” My friend laughed and said “And he has a long 10 doesn‟t he?” Exercise Rewrite each sentence so that its meaning stays the same Collecting stamps is one of Jane‟s interests INTEREST → Jane is ………………………………………………………………… She wasn‟t amused by our funny story → AMUSE She didn‟t find ………………………………………………………… III I am bored with washing the dishes everyday BORE → Washing ………………………………………………………………… Despite his dissatisfaction, he still bought that product to help the poor boy → Although he …………………………………………………………… To my surprise, he got away when he saw me SURPRISE → I was……………………………………………………………………… Exercise Translate each sentence into Vietnamese using either active or passive participial adjectvives Đó phim hay Tôi mua thực phẩm lạnh siêu thị Những người tẻ nhạt thí thấy ngữ pháp tiếng anh nh chán Tôi cảm thấy thất vọng trượt kỳ thi Bát đĩa vỡ nằm ngổn ngang nhà IV APPENDIX B: STUDENT INTERVIEW This interview is designed for my research entitled “an investigation into errors in using present and past participles as adjectives made by ethnic minority students” Your assistance in completing items is very important to my research You can be confident that you will not be identified in any discussion of the data After doing the grammar test, please put a tick (√) on the answer you choose (you can choose more than one answer in some questions) Which type of exercise in the test you find the most challenging? Exercise Exercise Exercise Exercise Exercise In the question “ His lesson was so_(interest), the verb conveys The active meaning The passive meaning The sentence “We were _(interest)in the way the teacher explained everything” means a We interested the way the teacher explained everything b The way the teacher explained interested us Ing Adjectives are use to describe: a inanimate nouns b animate nouns c both inanimate and animate nouns V -Ed Adjectives are use to describe: a inanimate nouns b.animate nouns c both inanimate and animate nouns What are your reasons for committing the errors in the test? a I use Vietnamese rules for English b I have paid no attention to the rules although they have been learned before c I use either -ing or -ed adjectives which comes into my mind that they seem “farmiliar” to me d I think that animate nouns or subjects deal with present participial adjective and inanimate nouns with the past participial adjectices Thank you for your participation VI APPENDIX C: SUGGESTED EXERCISES Exercise Complete the sentences with the present or past participle of the verbs in italics The class bores the students It is a class The students are bored by the class They are _ students The game excites the people It is an _ game The people are excited by the game They are _people The news surprised the man It was news The man was surprised by the news He was a _ man The children were frightened by the strange noise The child sought comfort from her father The strange noise frightened the child It was a sound Exercise Complete the sentences with participles as adjectives, using the verbs in the box The verbs with adverbs should be used to form compound adjectives Dry, change, act well, break, relax, steal, boil, embarrass, bring up well, keep beautiful, continue, build well It was a very restful holiday so I felt much more _now It was a very _ play I kept calling her by the wrong name, it was very The _ kettle filled the kitchen with steam She is a very child; she always behaves herself well I think he may have died of heart Her hair is always very _ The increase in divorce reflects a _ attitude to marriage and relationships The house is old but it is very _ 10 I need some fruit to put in the cake Exercise Complete the conversation using a ward ending in ing or ed VII David: I am surprised how warm it is for March Melanie: Yes, all this sunshine is quite surprising Vicky: I am not very fit I was pretty tired after climbing the mountain Natasha: yes, I think everyone felt tired Trevor : Laura : Vicky : Emma : C Mark: Daniel: Rachel: Mathew: Emma: Rachel: Vicky : Vicky : Mark: VIII APENDIX D KEY TO SUGGESTED EXERCISE Exercise Complete the sentences with the present or past participle of the verbs in italics The class bores the students It is a _boring_ class The students are bored by the class They are _bored students The game excites the people It is an _exciting_ game The people are excited by the game They are _excited_people The news surprised the man It was _surprising_news The man was surprised by the news He was a _surprised_ man The children were frightened by the strange noise The _frightened_ child sought comfort from her father The strange noise frightened the child It was a_frightening_ sound Exercise Complete the sentences with participles as adjectives, using the verbs in the box The verbs with adverbs should be used to form compound adjectives Dry, change, act well, break, relax, steal, boil, embarrass, bring up well, keep beautiful, continue, build well, change It was a very restful holiday so I felt much more relaxing now It was a very well-acted play I kept calling her by the wrong name, it was very embarrassing The boiling kettle filled the kitchen with steam She is a very well-brought up_ child; she always behaves herself well I think he may have died of broken heart heart Her hair is always very beautifully kept The increase in divorce reflects a changing attitude to marriage and relationships The house is old but it is very well-built IX 10 I need some dried fruit to put in the cake Exercise Complete the conversation using a ward ending in- ing or -ed David: I am surprised how warm it is for March Melanie: Yes, all this sunshine is quite surprising Vicky: I am not very fit I was pretty tired after climbing the mountain Natasha: yes, I think everyone felt tired Trevor : Laura : Vicky : Emma : C Mark: Daniel: Rachel: Mathew: Emma: Rachel: Vicky : Vicky : Mark: ... think that “interest” in this case conveys passive meaning Active meaning Passive meaning Table 7a Active meaning or passive meaning Moreover, to further examine the students? ?? understanding in. .. -ing adjectives for inanimate nouns and -ed for animate ones 3.1.2 Causes of errors in using -ing and -ed adjectives According to the literature and the process of analyzing errors committed by. .. UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES - o0o - NGUYỄN THỊ HUẾ AN INVESTIGATION INTO ERRORS MADE BY ETHNIC MINORITY STUDENTS IN USING PRESENT