High school students’ errors in using english articles as shown in their written exercises

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES  - - MAI THI NGAN M.A MINOR THESIS High school students’ errors in using English Articles as shown in their written exercises Những lỗi việc sử dụng mạo từ Tiếng Anh viết học sinh Trung học phổ thông Field: Methodology Code: 60.14.10 Hanoi – 2011 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES -  - MAI THỊ NGÂN M.A MINOR THESIS High school students’ errors in using English Articles as shown in their written exercises (Những lỗi việc sử dụng mạo từ Tiếng Anh tập viết học sinh Trung học phổ thông) Field: Methodology Code: 60.14.10 Supervisor: Dr Hà Cẩm Tâm Hanoi – 2011 i ABSTRACT In the process of learning English as a foreign language, Vietnamese high school students have to face a lot of problems English article is considered as one of the most troublesome problems for every learner because of its complex uses This MA minor thesis is an attempt to point out some problems in using English articles of students in writing It is hoped that the study would be useful for teachers and students in teaching and learning English at high schools In order to achieve the goal, two data collection instruments were used including exercises and interviews While the exercises were designed to collect information reflecting real problems in using English articles, the interviews following that were developed to find out the problems in using articles and some possible causes as well Results of the study show that Articles in English are complicated words which cause a lot of difficulties for Vietnamese students Seven problems: substitution errors, indefinite article forms, deletion of the articles, problems in using indefinite article with marked and unmarked plurals, problems in using indefinite article with uncountable nouns, problems in covering the uses of definite articles and overusing articles were committed in the process of learning and using Articles Besides, this research also found out that it is the interference of mother tongue, avoidance, overgeneralization and the conditions of learning / training that have great influence on students’ foreign-language learning It is hoped that from this study, teachers and students would be more aware of the problems to be solved and from the identified problems, they would develop teaching and learning methods accordingly TABLE OF CONTENTS ii ABSTRACT…………… ………………………………………………………………….i TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………………… ii LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………………………………iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………… v PART I: Introduction 1.1 Rationale……………………………………………………………………………… 1.2 Aims of the study……………………………………………………………………… 1.3 Research question………… …………….……………………………………………2 1.4 The scope of the study………………………………………………………………… 1.5 Methods of the study………………………………………………………………… 1.6 Organization of the study………………………………………… ………………… PART II: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Literature review 1.1 Basic concepts………………………………………………………………………….4 1.1.1 Articles in English…………………………………… 1.1.2 Classification of English articles ……………………………………… …… 1.1.2.1 Indefinite articles……… … ……………………………………………… 1.1.2.2 Definite articles 1.2.3 Articles in noun phrase………… ……………………………………………… 1.3 Review of previous studies ……………………………………………………… … CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 2.1 Research questions………………………………………………………………… 13 2.2 Data collection instruments………………………………………………………… 13 2.2.1 Exercises………………….……………………………………………………….13 2.2.2 Interviews……………….……………………………………………………… 14 iii 2.3 The participants……………………………………………………………………….14 2.4 Analytical framework…………………………………………………………………15 2.5 Data analysis………………………………………………………………………… 16 2.5.1 Uses of articles……………………………………………………………………16 2.5.2 Types of exercise………………………………………………………………….20 2.5.3 Interviews…………………………………………………………………………23 2.6 Discussion………………………………………………………………………… 23 PART III: Conclusions 3.1 Major findings ……………………………………………………………… 28 3.2 Implications for teaching and learning English Articles…………………………… 28 3.3 Limitations of the study……………………………………………………… 29 3.4 Suggestions for further studies………………………………………………… 30 REFERENCES Appendix 1……………………………………………………………………………… .I EXERCISES……………………………………………………………….……… I Appendix 2……………………………………………………………………………… IV STUDENT INTERVIEW…………………………………………………………IV LIST OF TABLES Pag e iv Table 1: The Uses of English Articles………………………………………………… 14 Table 2: Results by the issues/ exercises……………………………………………… 17 Table 3: Results by the types of exercises……………………………………………… 20 CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT I hereby certify that the thesis entitled: v High school students’ errors in using English Articles as shown in their written exercises is the result of my research for the Degree of Master of Art at College of Language and International Studies, Ha Noi National University, and the thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or tertiary institution Signature: Mai Thi Ngan ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vi The largest debt of all is to my supervisor, Dr Ha Cam Tam, who has given me much invaluable advice and careful instructions since the very beginning and has always been my frequent secure grateful to for her many for invaluable reading and insights helping me I am also make the necessary changes I am indebted to all the lecturers of the Post-Graduate Department, College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their valuable teaching and assistance during my study at the College I must in particular thank Assoc Prof Dr Le Hung Tien, the Head of the Post- Graduate Department, and the lecturer of Scientific Research for his useful and precious instructions during the course My sincere thanks are due to the students and teachers at Thach Thanh High School No.3, Thanh Hoa, who have provided me with the valuable data Finally, I am grateful my family and my friends for their great support this study and encouragement in the accomplishment of PART I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale English as native language or second language is the most widely used throughout the world Since English has become an effective means of international communication and it can be instrumental to personal and professional success, it has been the first choice of most Vietnamese learners of foreign languages But in the process of learning, Vietnamese learners have to face a lot of problems English article is considered as one of the most troublesome problems for every learner because of its complex uses The English articles “a(n), zero, the” are quite difficult to acquire not only for ESL / EFL learners but also for children learning English as a first language Articles are believed to be a source of difficulty for learners (and teachers) of English as a second / foreign language, especially for those whose native languages not have articles English articles are hardly crucial communication devices, which are supported by the fact that they are dropped in telegraphic exchanges They are generally overlooked by learners when processing language primarily for meaning According to Pienemann (1998), the difficulty of the meaning expressed by an article is determined by the novelty and abstractness of the concept, not to mention learners' changing hypotheses about article usage at different stages in interlanguage development and the potential influence of the native language which may further complicate the task Articles not impede understanding, for in oral communication, they are generally unstressed and almost inaudible Nevertheless, given the fact that they are among the most frequently used words in English (Master, 2002), it is significant that students have some control of their usages When you learn English articles, you are learning one of the easier components of this language But if you want to master articles, one of the first things you must perfect is your understanding of their nuances However, if the very concept of articles does not exist in your native language – as is true of many Asian countries including Vietnam, then it can be quite a daunting task to learn English articles and use them appropriately Most Vietnamese learners defined that the definite (the) and indefinite (a, an) are presented and the different cases where they are applicable But many of them can’t explain why is it correct to say "a horn" and not "an horn"; but "an hour" and not "a 26 (vi)Problems in using the indefinite article with uncountable nouns Overgeneralization or hypercorrection is probably the source of this error For instances, “I had a fish [fish] and a meat [meat] for dinner.”(No.1 -exercise 3) The learners could be erroneously extending the use of the indefinite article with singular unidentified countable nouns to uncountable ones on the grounds of structural similarity, or they could be overusing the indefinite article to avoid errors of deletion (vii)Overusing articles The occurrence of the overuse of articles or other determiners, was such as in sentence ‘It a waste of the time.’ became particularly significant in where the post-lesson data, possible examples of hyper-correction were observed From the problems analyzed above, there are some possible causes as followings: Firstly, mother tongue can obviously interfere a lot in the process of learning English articles According to Brown, in early stages of learning a second language, before the system of the second language is familiar, the native language is the only linguistic system in previous experience upon which the learner can draw (Brown, 1994, p213) The behaviorist theory of language once stated that if language is essentially a set of habits, then when we try to learn new habits, the old ones will interfere with the new ones (Norrish, 1983 : 22), we can assure that the interference of the first language into second language acquisition is inevitable For this reason, mother tongue interference has been considered one of the major causes of problems in using articles made by most Vietnamese students because the Vietnamese system is quite different from English and there isn’t Articles in Vietnamese as well Abbort, G and Wingard, P (1981, p230) assumed: “wherever the structure of the L1 and the language differed, there would be problems in learning and difficulties in performance, and that the greater the differences were, the greater the difficulties would be” Basing on this theory and considering the differences between Vietnamese and English, Vietnamese students certainly have some problems in using English Articles Secondly, the avoidance in speaking also leads to this problem In speaking, when students find it difficult to use certain features of language, they often avoid using them as a 27 strategy in their language learning For example, articles (a, an, the) may be left out of the utterance when the students are not sure whether the use of that article is correct or not As a result, he chooses to avoid using it rather than running the risk of selecting the wrong one Spada and Lightbown (1999: 75) stated that this “avoidance” may lead to “absence of certain errors, but it also leaves the analysts without information about the learners’ developing interlanguage”, so that leads to confusing the uses of articles and omission of articles in writing for most students Besides, learning environment is an external cause of students’ errors Vietnamese students not have real environment to practice English Finally, the overgeneralization is one of the language learning strategies as learners inappropriately use their previously acquired knowledge of the second language Overgeneralization is a phenomenon in which students apply their existing second language rules to another area where it does not apply and thus causes language errors to appear And to make it clearer, Corder (1973) also explained that in the process of language learning, we often allocate items to categories On the basis of these categories, we construct “rules” which predict how the different items will behave Based on his theory, to limit errors of overgeneralization, teachers should always remember to supply students with the irregularities or exceptions of each rule and ask them learn by heart these rules 28 PART III: CONCLUSIONS 3.1 Major findings First of all, the results by issues and exercises indicate that high school students made lots of mistakes in using English articles in writings In which, using definite article (the) is the most problematical (see Table 2) Students seem to feel difficult to remember all usages of the definite article As a result, they usually encounter problems in using it, such as, not using the definite article before a noun (which by reason of locality can represent only one particular thing, or which has become definite as a result of being mentioned a second time), before superlatives and first, second…, before the object or group of objects is unique or considered to be unique The use of the vs Ø also caused many problems Students tend to use the before general things / persons instead of Ø and Ø before specific things / persons instead of the Besides, students seem to feel less confused while learning indefinite articles, they still face many difficulties in using Firstly, they tend to make mistake between two forms a and an Secondly, they have problems in using the indefinite articles with unmarked plurals, uncountable nouns… Secondly, the results by types of exercises show that the highest number of errors was collected in mistake correction exercise (see Table 3) Many students wrote articles in incorrect positions in this exercise Finally, other errors were found based on the results by issues and by types of exercises in this study For example, substitution errors, deletion of the articles, overusing articles and misusing articles These problems can be caused by the interference of mother tongue, avoidance, overgeneralization and the conditions of learning / training Implications for teaching and learning English Articles As indicated in the finding obtained concerning the errors in using of articles via types of exercises, the first implication is that, the teacher could probably try to teach articles via 29 many types of exercises This would enable the teacher not to interfere so much with the process of abstraction taking place in the learner's interlanguage system The findings of this study suggest that it is necessary for teachers and learners of English at High School to be aware that English articles are very important elements, teachers could design more exercises in variable types for learners Learners should pay more attention to the exercises relevant to the articles especially in correction exercise Besides, one reason for less success in learning and using articles was the role learners played in abstracting out rules in the present study This would perhaps direct our attention to the second implication from learners' perspectives; in the sense that, instead of using teachers' correction, self-correction is perhaps, in addition to teacher correction, a better alternative for focusing on the correction of regular forms That is, by doing this, the teacher could involve the learner with the process of hypothesis forming and testing of the correct form The sequence of learning followed by learners seems to be the definite article first and indefinite articles next We must take this sequence into consideration in both classroom teaching practices such as error correction and instructional material writing One possible explanation for the fact that the definite article was learned better than the indefinite article was that the latter is taken both as a marker for showing singularity of a noun and as an article for showing non-specificity of a noun Teachers must try to clarify the double function of the indefinite article as well as the different semantic functions of the English article system for second language learners 3 Limitations of the study In spite of the researcher’s considerable efforts, certain limitations are unavoidable such as, the number of students directly get involved in this research is still limited, all problems in using English Articles haven’t been checked due to limited time, the study ment ioned on problems in using English Articles in writings only… 30 Suggestions for further studies Since identifying problems is an inevitable part in the learning process of second language learners of all ages, it offers other researchers large room to conduct further studies relating to this research topic Firstly, those who are concerned about this topic can choose other participants for their studies For example, they can carry out researches about article problems made by the tenth form students, or eleventh form students, or university students, etc Some may compare with the results from this research to see whether students’ article problems have been reduced much or raised according to students’ ages Besides, other researchers can also concentrate on identifying problems in using articles in speaking, or in idioms The results from these researches will be very useful because the researchers will have chance to be deeper and larger into a certain type of problems that students usually make To sum up, there are many alternatives for other researchers to choose from to further studies relating to this topic 31 REFERENCES Abbort , G., & Wingard, P (1981), Teaching English as an International Langguage Collins E.L.T Bataineh, R F (2005) Jordanian Undergraduate EFL Students' errors in the Use of the Indefinite Article Retrieved June 11, 2008 from Asian EFL Journal: http://www.asian-efljournal.com/march_05_rfb.php Berry, R (1993) Articles London: Harper Collins Brown, H D (1994) Principles of Language Learning and Teaching (Third Edition) Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents Carroll, J., Davies, P., & Richman, B (1971) The American Heritage World Frequency Book Boston: Houghton Mifflin Claire, E & Greenwood, R (1988) Three Little Words: A, An, and The Dundee, IL: Delta Systems Co Corder, S.P (1973) Introducing Applied Linguistics Penguin, Hamondsworth Dulay, H & Burt, M (1974) Errors and Strategies in Child Language Acquisition TESOL Quarterly 8, 129-36 Li-Ling Chen (2006) The Effect of L1 and CAI on Grammar Learning: An Error Analysis of Taiwanese Beginning EFL Learners' English Essays Retrieved January, 2006 Article from http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/pta_January_06_plc.php Matthews, P (1997) The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics Oxford: Oxford University Press Nicholas K Farrow (2008) Learning to Use the Articles, A and The in One Lesson from http:// www.asian-efl-journal.com/pta_April_08_nf.php Norrish, John (1983) Language Learners and Their Errors London: The Macmillan Press 32 Quick, R., Greenbaun, S (1976) A University Grammar of English London; Longman Sattayatham, A., & and Honsa, S (2007) Medical Students’ Most Frequent Errors at Mahidol University, Thailand Asian EFL Journal Retrieved August 19, 2007 from http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/June_07_as&sh.php Susanne Tayfoor (2004) Common Mistakes at the Certificate…and How to Avoid Them Cambridge University Press Strunk, Jr (1918) The Elements of Style from the Uvic Writer's Guide Swan, M & Walter, C (1997) How English works Oxford: Oxford University Press Swan, M & Walter, C (2001) The Good Grammar Book Oxford: Oxford University Press Turton, N (1995) ABC of Common Grammatical Errors London: MacMillan Witherspoon, A (1943) Common Errors in English and how to Avoid Them New York: Doubleday I APPENDIX EXERCISES I am doing my MA thesis on the topic “Problems in using English Articles in writing of the students at Thach Thanh High School No 3” This is the exercises about the topic Please fill in necessary information then complete the following exercises Your assistance completing the survey exercises is highly appreciated Thank you for your cooperation! Name:……………………………………………………………………………… Male: …………………… Female: ……………………………………………… Age:……… School:……….……………………………………………………… Years of studying English:…… …………………………………………………… Exercise 1: Circle the correct underlined phrase in the following sentences * A or An The dishwasher quit his job because he was making only four dollars a hour / an hour He bought a haft gallon / an half gallon of milk and a box of a hundred envelopes A objection / An objection was raised because it was such a unacceptable idea / an unacceptable idea She was upset when a honest mistake / an honest mistake was made Does wearing a uniform / an uniform have a special meaning to students? * The or Ø I’m afraid of dogs / the dogs Look at apples / the apples on that tree They are very big men Many studies showed that women / the women live longer than men / the Don’t stay at that hotel It’s very noisy and beds / the beds are very uncomfortable 10 What make people / the people violent? II * A or The 11 This house is very nice Has it got a garden / the garden? 12 We had dinner in a very nice restaurant / the very nice restaurant 13 She had a French name / the French name, but in fact she’s English, not French 14 There isn’t an airport near where I live A nearest airport / The nearest airport is 70 miles away 15 Excuse me, please Can you tell me how to get to a hospital / the hospital? Exercise 2: Put in each blank with the suitable article: week Gary has a part-time job He works three mornings…………………… hours Our flight was delayed We had to wait at…………… …airport for 3 What ……………….…beautiful garden! Would you like to be ……………….actor? I saw …………….……accident this morning ………… ….… car crashed into ……………tree ………….driver of … …… car wasn’t hurt, but ………… car was badly damaged He took…………….…trip on…….…… ….Snake River He had ……………….best grade in the class on the exam The trip that I took last year to the Bahamas was ……….…… only vacation I had all year 10 The bicycle is………….…….excellent means of transport Can you play……………… piano? Exercise 3: Choose the best answer by circling the letter A or B, C, D : A a / a I had ………….…… fish and …… ……… meat for dinner B the / … C the / the I’m on …………………diet No……………… sugar for me D…./ … A a /… A a / the B the / the C the / a D …./ a I’m staying at ……………… hotel on……… … Hudson River B the / the C a/ a D a /… III …………… …friend of mine is coming to visit next week A the B a C some D … It’s true that ……… ………rich lead a different life from ………… ……poor A a / a B the / a B an C the D…… ……………… examinations always make him nervous A a D a / the She hopes to go to……………………university next year A a C the / the B an C the D…… We go to………………… cinema twice a month A a B an C the D some Which language is spoken by ………….people from every nation? – It is English A a B the C… D these 10 I saw …… ……bird ……… bird had a red tail ………….red tail was beautiful A a / a / the B the / a / a C a / the / the D a / the / a Exercise 4: Correct the mistakes in each sentence by rewriting the correct one: Sun is star The sun is a star Moon goes round an Earth every 27 days ………… ………………………….……………………………………… ……… It was a hot day It was hottest day of year …… ………………………………….…………………………………… ……… I don’t usually have lunch, but I always eat big breakfast How often you go to dentist? ………………………………………………………………………………… …… There’s supermarket at an end of street I live in ……………………………………………………………………………………… Thank you very much! IV APPENDIX STUDENT INTERVIEW How you feel when you learn Articles in English? Do you have any difficulties in understanding and using Articles? What are they? In your opinion, what makes learning English Articles so difficult? Do you have any suggestions for teachers to make it easier for learners to learn English Articles? Thank you for evaluating AnyBizSoft PDF Merger! To remove this page, please register your program! Go to Purchase Now>> AnyBizSoft PDF Merger  Merge multiple PDF files into one   Select page range of PDF to merge Select specific page(s) to merge Extract page(s) from different PDF files and merge into one  ... things, errors in using articles for definite or indefinite meaning, errors in misusing articles (as in using the for generic plural or uncountable noun phrases, abstract nouns, mass nouns, using. .. found in exercise Of these errors, errors in using a instead of an or vice versa for special cases (such as, errors in using a before words beginning with a mute h or using an before words beginning... in using the English articles in the writings, but within a limited time, results of the study will be taken based on the following usages; the uses of articles including errors in using definite