Mother tongue interference in learning english writing of first year english majors students at vinh uiniversity

VINH UNIVERSITY FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT ********** L£ THÞ MAI HOA MOTHER- TONGUE INTERFERENCE IN LEARNING ENGLISH WRITING OF FIRST- YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS STUDENTS AT VINH UNIVERSITY (¶nh hëng cđa tiÕng mẹ đẻ việc học viết tiếng anh sinh viên năm thứ chuyên ngữ trờng đại học vinh) GRADUATION THESIS Field: Linguistics Vinh 2009 VINH UNIVERSITY FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT ********** MOTHER- TONGUE INTERFERENCE IN LEARNING ENGLISH WRITING OF FIRST- YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS STUDENTS AT VINH UNIVERSITY (¶nh hởng tiếng mẹ đẻ việc học viết tiếng anh sinh viên CHUYÊN NGữ năm THứ trờng đại học vinh) GRADUATION THESIS Field: Linguistics Student: Lê Thi Mai Hoa, K46B Supervisor: Ngun ThÞ Têng, M.A Vinh 2009 ACKOWLEDGEMENTS For the completion of this work, I have been fortunate to receive invaluable contributions from many people First of all, I should like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Nguyen Thi Tuong, M.A for her absolutely indispensable assistance, excellent suggestions, useful advice and detailed critical comments, without which the work would not have been complete I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all my lectures of Foreign Languages Department at Vinh University for their constant support and encouragements I repeat my thanks to all the first-year students of Foreign Languages Department at Vinh University in the academic year: 2008- 2009 for their enthusiastic participation in answering the questionnaires and, to all my friends for their various kinds of help and encouragement My warmest thanks are due to my loving parents, my older brother and my older sister for their love, support and encouragement Vinh, May 6, 2009 Le Thi Mai Hoa ABBREVIATIONS & SYMBOLS ESL: English as Second Language L1: first language / language L2: second language / language MT: mother tongue TL: the target language : correct answer TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i ABBREVIATIONS ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii LIST OF TABLES v PART I: INTRODUCTION 1.Justification of the Study …………………………… Aims of the Study …………………………………………….2 Methods of the Study………………………………….………2 Scope of the Study………………………………….…………2 Design of the Study …………………………………….…… PART II: CONTENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Error and Error Analysis………………………………….… 1.1.1 Definition of Error………………………………… 1.1.2 Error Analysis…………………………………… 1.2 Mother- Tongue Interference……………………………… 1.3 Classification of Mother- Tongue Interference…………… 1.3.1 Morphological Mother- Tongue Interference…….…6 1.3.2 Semantic Mother- Tongue Interference………….….7 1.3.3 Syntactic Mother- Tongue Interference ………… CHAPTER 2: MOTHER- TONGUE INTERFERENCE ERRORS 2.1 Morphological Interference Errors ……………………….… 2.1.1 Tense- Marker Omission ………………………… 2.1.2 Plural-Marker Omission ………………………… 10 2.1.3 Suffix Problems…………………………………….11 2.1.4 Incorrect Use of Pronoun Forms ……………….….12 2.1.5 Omission of the- ER Comparative Adjective/ Adverb Ending………………………………………… 13 2.1.6 Omission of the -ING Verb Ending……………… 14 2.2 Semantic Interference Errors…………………………….… 14 2.2.1 Incorrect Use of Preposition …………………… 14 2.2.2 Incorrect Use of Pronoun………………………… 20 2.2.3 Incorrect Use of Verbs ……………………………22 2.2.4 The Countable/ Uncountable Non- Distinction… 24 2.2.5 Omission of Articles……………………………….25 2.2.6 Tense Problems ……………………………….… 26 2.2.7 Faulty Passivization……………………………… 27 2.3 Syntactic Interference Errors……………………………… 28 2.3.1 Word- Order Problems …………………………… 28 2.3.2 “Be” Omission ………………………………… 32 2.3.3 Infinitive “To” Deletion………………………… 33 2.3.4 Confused Expressions: “There be” versus “Have” 34 2.3.5 Relative Pronoun Omission…………………… ….35 2.3.6 Subject Ellipsis ……………………………….… 36 2.3.7 Impersonal “It” Problems ……………………….…37 2.3.8 Misuse of Conjunctions……………………………38 2.3.9 Incorrect Use of Subject Clauses………………… 39 2.3.10 Other “VietEnglish” Structures……………….… 40 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS, FINDINGS AND SUGGESTIONS 3.1 Results………………………… ……………………45 3.2 Major Findings……………………… ………… ….48 3.3 Suggestions ……………………… ……………… 53 3.4 Suggested Exercises……………………… ……… 56 PART III: CONCLUSION……………………… …………………….60 REFERENCES APPENDIX: STUDENT QUESTIONNAIRE LIST OF TABLES Chapter Page Table 1.3: First year students’ ideas about learning ESL writing……… 46 Table 2.3: First- year students’ ideas about the level of difficulty of some problems in writing………………………………………… 48 Table 3.3: First year students’ ideas about the difficulty of writing task…52 Part I: INTRODUCTION Justification of the Study We all know that writing is a basic skill in four skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) of ESL learning The better you learn writing, the better you learn other skills According to Raimes (1983: 03); Bello (1999: 01); Phu (1993: 05), “Writing helps to foster the other skills.” However, it is not easy for Vietnamese learners of English to learn writing skill well due to a lot of the grammatical dissimilarities between the MT (Vietnamese) and the TL (English) That is the reason why there can be found a lot of errors in their English writings One of the most popular errors is MT interference error As a matter of fact, the negative effects of MT in learning a second language is an undeniable problem, especially in writing skill Brown (1994: 90) maintains, “It is clear from learning theory that a person will use whatever pervious experience he or she has had with language in order to facilitate the second language learning process” Besides, the first- year students had little chance of practicing English writing skill before studying in university In addition, writing skill is especially important to the first year students of English because writing is a key skill which may lead to success or failure in the second , third and fourth year when they are expected to write more and more in English More importantly, the thesis is made in order to help the learners realize the negative effects of the MT interference in L2 acquisition then avoid errors and improve their writing skill All above-mentioned reasons have inspired the author to choose the topic: “Mother - Tongue Interference in Learning English Writing of First- Year English Majors Students at Vinh University” Aims of the Study With the ambition of helping the learners overcome the MT interference problems when learning English writing, the study aims at: - Identifying possible causes of Vietnamese learners’ MT interference in learning English writing - Pointing out particular interference errors in three grammatical categories: morphology, semantics and syntax; and explaining why and how the errors are made - Suggesting ways limit the negative effects of MT, correct interference errors and improve the learning of ESL writing in English Methods of the Study - Descriptive method - Statistic and classifying - Analytic and synthetic method - Qualifying the materials Scope of the Study The study deals with particular interference errors in three grammatical categories: morphology, semantics and syntax Design of the Study The thesis consists of three parts: Part I: Introduction This deals with the Justification, Aims, Methods, Scope and the Design of the Study Part II: Content This part consists of three chapters: Chapter 1: Theoretical Background Chapter 2: The Mother- Tongue Interference Errors Chapter 3: Results, Findings and Suggestions Part III: Conclusion References Appendix : Student Questionnaire 10 have not dared to think directly in English when writing due to their lack of the TL’s knowledge It is obvious that translation is harmful to students’ writing, especially at sentence- level Writers will get stuck if they use translation However, the fact is that they are so proficient in Vietnamese while they not have enough English structures and vocabulary, students tend to think in Vietnamese then translating into English Consequently, unnatural English expressions (in terms of structures as well as vocabulary) occur Once having been used to the habit of translating from one’s MT, students are badly affected by the MT in the foreign language writing process, because negative transfer is inevitable With regards to how the learners’ MT affects their English writing, 80% of the students know they are writing incorrect and clumsy English (compared to standard English) Besides, 76.25% of the students think that in a certain level, they will think directly in English when writing in English It means they are conscious that the effects of the L1 (MT) are negative and that thinking directly in English when writing is significant It may be inferred from the students’ responses that the Vietnamese language is always available in their mind and automatically appears and gets in the way or interferes with the learning of English, especially when the learners have difficulties in the L2 use Thus, we all cannot deny the role and effects of MT in learning a second language It is also undeniable that the transfer of patterns from the native language is a natural phenomenon- a conscious or unconscious habit- in the learning of the new language As a matter of fact, the use of Vietnamese is to some extent inevitable in English writing hours It is not at all easy to make the students think in English instead of Vietnamese They have been using Vietnamese for so long a time (since they first could speak a human language) that it is deep56 rooted in their mind The authors of the Headway series have pointed out: “you might be able to stop students speaking L1 (MT), but you can’t stop them thinking and writing in it.” The findings confirm what many linguists and researchers argue in their books They all accept MT interference is evitable DIFFICULTY LEVEL TASK EASY DIFFICULT Selecting and ordering 11(13.92%) 9(13.24%) 13 15 12(15.79%) 17(23.61%) paragraph based 9(11.39%) 9(13.24%) 13 16 20(26.32%) information Writing a 57 11(15.28%) on a conversation Writing a paragraph 7(8.86%) 13(19.12%) 10 13 12(15.79%) 20(27.78%) based on visual information Writing topic and concluding 21(26.58%) 14(20.59%) 14 12 9(11.84%) 3(4.17%) 16(20.25%) 10(14.7%) 10 11(14.47%) 11(15.28%) 15(18.99%) 13(19.12%) 11 12(15.79%) 15(20.83%) 76 72 sentences Writing a paragraph based on a given outline Writing a paragraph based on a topic sentence TOTAL 79 68 71 71 Table 3.3: First year students’ ideas about the difficulty of writing task According to table 3, there are not many differences among the students’ assessment of levels of difficulty of these exercises Thus, some kinds of these practical writing exercises have been suggested to help students train more and more In addition, the author hopes to help the Vietnamese learners improve their writing skill after reading the thesis The readers can review their task by looking back to each part's examples of chapter 3.3 Suggestions 58 Although the learners make every effort to limit the negative effects of the MT, interference errors are unavoidable These errors are not considered a failure in L2 acquisition but “reveal the patterns of learners’ developing interlanguage systems- showing where they have inappropriately transferred a first language rule to the second language” (Lightbown and Spada 1993: 114) Therefore, how to correct the interference errors effectively is my great concern However, hardly has any specific research been done on interference error correction Whether the errors are traceable to L1 (mother tongue) interference or independent of L1, error correction will work on the basic principle that correction must not aim to criticize learners, but to support them by giving information or feedback (Edge 1989: 16) First of all, the learners should understand their L1 interference is the most important in effective error correction They should be conscious of the difference of the particular feature in L1 (mother tongue) and L2 (the target language) in term of morphology, semantics or syntax, depending on the specific problems involved In other words, the comparative technique (L1-L2) has to be adopted They are, obviously, aware of their own errors; subsequent pieces of writing will carry less errors of the same type However, this must be a process to improve their writing skill gradually Specifically, students should devote more investment in writing skills In fact, many students not pay due attention to writing because they think it is not as important as the other skills like speaking and listening or that is difficult to learn However, it is nowadays widely accepted that e-mail is becoming popular, writing is increasingly necessary Because the fact is that good writing skills promise not only future advantages but also immediate benefits in the educational setting: it can foster the other skills, especially reading Moreover, it is actually not so difficult if students have sufficient patience and efforts By this way, 59 students can improve their writing day by day and can avoid the errors after correcting carefully Other way is that student should read more in English in order to be exposed to the written form of the language There is no doubt about the significance of reading toward writing nowadays It is widely recognized that there is a very positive interaction between the two skills reading and writing Infrequent reading would cause a bad result: the students have difficulty in knowing what and how to write Many other things can only be effectively absorbed through extensive and intensive reading such as cultural values or stylistic choices Good writers may all have the experience that they learn many practical and concrete things about how they should write and about the subject matter that they have already read about before Moreover, reading will accustom the writer to the habit of thinking in English, an essential requirement for advanced writers and a good way to avoid the interference errors The most important requirement that the Vietnamese learners should memorize and review repeatedly is that translation must be kept at an arm’s length If the writer starts from Vietnamese, he may soon end up with being stuck The difficulty is due to differences between the lexicalization and grammaticalization between the two languages Even worse, the difficulty is more serious when the writer encounters structures or concepts, which are peculiar to the Vietnamese and the Vietnamese culture only In other word, it leads the interference errors Therefore, if someone wants to be able to write effectively, his determination to write without translation should be consistent and constant In fact, it would be demanding and impractical to ask first-year students to think in English, for their English is not good enough for them to think in the language Although thinking in English eliminates grammatical errors and yields in more natural expressions, thinking in Vietnamese can facilitate idea60 generating The writer will then be able to have plentiful and better ideas, but it is the very problem Nevertheless, the subjects of this study are firstyear students and their English is still limited, the MT can help to clear away misunderstandings quickly and efficiently Vietnamese, therefore, is permissible, but as was said, to some extent only The last is the practical method for error correction For error correction to work positively, the learners should be involved in judgments about correctness The more the students are involved in correction, the more they become accurate in their own use of the language (Edge 1989: 50) Lightbown and Spada (1993:115) also assert, “L2 learners can provide each other with corrective feedback in group work interaction if this is carefully planned” Therefore, we think, “peer correction” is a good form of correction, which helps learners cooperate and develop an ability to see their own mistakes Indeed, the students learn a lot from peer-correction In short, a great deal of practice on reading, writing, speaking, and listening in the TL may prevent the learners from being strongly influenced by the MT [[[[ 3.4 Suggested exercises To help the learners overcome these problems when learning English writing, some types of useful exercises are suggested 3.4.1 Find errors in the following sentences and correct them It was the happiest time in my life The science teacher seem to think we were lazy Why you laugh? Trees help to create a peaceful surrounding There are a lot of stars on the sky Goods are attractive displayed in the window Clean your teeth regularly is very important 61 Nobody is allowed to use the computer but I 10 This building is large than that one 11 The boat sailed under the river 12 You look busy What you do? 13 She is blind with her own faults 14 She will come with that grandfather 15 The baby is on bed 16 His story led me to laugh loudly 17 The meeting in January was very important 18 My mother, her hair has turned white 19 He is working here for almost 12 years 20 His wife was died in a car accident 21 Until after midnight, I only went to bed 22 My house is far from school five kilometers 23 Yesterday afternoon you met whom? 24 Think that everything is heaven’s will 25 She sent for us a letter 26 Yesterday morning at seven o’clock they met each other 27 Listening to the radio while you are driving often very dangerous 28 The doctor advised him work moderately 29 Pollution becomes a problem where has many industrial factories 30 John progressed in his study pleased his parent 31 The chairman declared open the meeting 32 I find strange that she doesn’t want to travel 33 Though/ even if it rained hard, I would also come 34 They are looking for a key car 35 The letter came this morning alarmed her 36 English are fond of sports 62 3.4.2 Find the errors in using prepositions in the following sentences and correct them He walked under the rain He devoted himself for a noble cause He sits on an armchair He is always asking money They meet in Monday morning You could smell the paint in the whole building She refuses to talk with me She is blind with her own faults It’s no good for her 10 I shall contact with you again as soon as the dates of the trip have been confirmed 11 They usually meet in a.m 12 She sits under the shape of a big tree 13 She is proud about her son 14 There are a lot of answers for the matter 15 Children need friends to play 16 John drove with a very slow speed 17 We will be discussing about the role of television in education 18 When he arrived home, his mother opened the door and smiled with him 19 They were surprise about the news 20 The woman asked me a cigarette 21 After dinner, she entered into the room 22 She brought me a chair to sit 23 As the teacher approached near the class, the children were silent 24 He waited me at the street corner 25 I apologized her for arriving so late 63 26 Someone was knocking the door slightly 27 Children need friends to play 3.4.3 Find errors in using verbs in the following sentences and correct them Mr Smith asked butler to open the air- conditioner She said the doctor that she was unable to sleep I listened to someone say/saying that the driver was drunk They let the car in the garage I remember her a lot whenever I am far away The boy has never spent difficulties Bring these books away He has come home from his office He learned at Oxford 10 We have to work hard in order to overcome the examination 11 I wonder what he was working She forgot her umbrella on the bus 12 He robbed my purse 13 He usually sees the newspaper during breakfast 3.4.4 Find errors in using pronoun forms in the following sentences and correct them Don’t talk to I like that I often ask me why I work so hard Nobody is allowed to use the computer but I I glanced at I (me) in the mirror This book is of I The girl accepted the invitation of I 3.4.5 Find errors in using pronoun in the following sentences and correct them 64 I don’t agree with that uncle about it I saw sister working all day long When cross the bridge, he saw a fisherman under She washed face and clean teeth He changed address The boy hit head against the door We learn the English language because we like that language She will come with that grandfather John bought the book before left the shop 10 The car ran off with three robbers in the car 11 He read an English story and told us 3.4.6 Find errors in using nouns in the following sentences and correct them The fields were full of crows and sheeps You cannot leave the country without a special permission They couldn’t give me a detailed information Part III: CONCLUSION The thesis has examined the negative effects of MT in learning English writing of first- year students majoring in English at Foreign Language Department of Vinh university, in the academic year: 20082009 The study has identified what first- year students’ the MT interference errors are and what should be done to limit the negative effects of MT, to deal with the MT interference error and to improve the learning of ESL writing The interference errors has been classified and analyzed in term of morphology, semantics and syntax Each part has indicated the incorrect use of vocabulary and sentence structures that the first- year students often 65 cause when writing in English With the purpose of correcting those errors, the thesis has not only indicated, showed the right answers but also explained how the errors are made to help the learners avoid those errors The author also identified the possible causes of first- year students’ the interference errors basing on the responses of the questionnaires delivered to the first year students majoring in English at FLD in Vinh university One of the most important reasons for the first year students’ errors is their habits of thinking directly in MT (Vietnamese) then translating into TL when making any piece of writing It proves almost three types of interference errors, not all because of a limited number of students’ writings Therefore, it is clearly that, suggestions how to deal with the interference errors is essential for the first-year students For that reason, suggestions were made In addition, some suggested exercises and the keys for those exercises were given, with the purpose of helping the learner practise some basical types of writing exercises, certainly, improve their writing skill as well To sum up, due to shortage of time, experience and resource materials, the study has not been able to cover every aspect of Vietnamese interference in the English language However, the problems presented in this study are common to the Vietnamese learners of English writing not only in Vinh University but also in other universities The study has provided some ideas that can be put to use in the learning of English writing in Vietnam, a non- native speaking environment and that can be considered as foundations in future work This thesis only focuses on word and sentence structures Therefore, another research that needs to be implemented is on the organization of ideas The implication of this study is that students majoring in English as a foreign language will need to study and to practice the thought patterns of English as expressed in written 66 text, if they want to produce logical and coherence pieces of writing in English Furthermore, the emphasis of the study is on the interfering effects of the L1, which hinder the L2 learning What are the facilitating effects of the native language? This question may suggest a research topic of great interest REFERENCES A FOREIGN AUTHORS Bello, T (1997) Improving ESL Learners’ Writing Skills, [Online, Internet] Available: (http://www.cal.org/ncle/digest) Accessed March 20, 2009 Blanchard, K & Root, C (1994) Ready to Write: A First Composition Text Addison- Wesley PublishingCompany Bloomfield, L (1984) About Foreign Language and Teaching In: Smolinski F., Ed Landmarks of American Language and Linguistics Washington, D.C.: United States Information Agency 67 Brown, H.D (1994) Principles of Language Learning and Teaching Third edition New Jersey: Prentice Hall Regents Byleen, E (1986) Advanced Writing for Vietnamese ESL Students, [Online, Internet] Available: (http://www.gsu.edu/~wwwwesl/issue/bytitle.htm), accessed March 1, 2009 Dyvid, H.J (1984) Subject or Topic in Vietnamese Czechoslovakia: University of Bergen Edge, J (1989) Mistakes and Correction London and NewYork: Longman Ellis, G (1996) “Contributions of Cross- Culture Research in the Transfer of Western Teaching Styles to Vietnam” in EA Journal Fitikides, T J (1976) Common Mistakes in English London: Longman 10.Kaplan, J P (1989) English Grammar- Principle and Facts USA: Prentice- Hall Inc 11.Lightbown, P B & Spada, N (1993) How Language are Learned Oxfoxd: Oxford University Press 12.Raimes, A (1983) Techniques in Teaching Writing Hong Kong: OUP 13.Richards, J C.,Platt, J & Platt, H (1992) Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistic London: Longman 14.Shiach, D (1996) Basic Written English John Murray Publishers Ltd 15.Turton, N D (1995) Abc of Common Grammatical Errors London: Macmillan Education Ltd B VIETNAMESE AUTHORS Hà Văn Bửu, (1994) Common Mistakes in English Made by Vietnamese HCMC: HCMC Publishing House Ngun L¬ng Ngäc (1997) A Constrastive Analysis of Vietnamese and English,Ph.D., thesis at the University of Mysore, India 68 Ngun BÝch H¹nh (1991) The Expression of Number in English and Vietnamese and Its Implication for Teaching MA thesis at the University of Canberra Nguyễn Thái Hoà, (2001) Bài Tập Luyện Thi Viết TiÕng Anh Hanoi: National University Publishing House Ngun §øc Dân (1997) Kiến Thức Ngày Nay: Tiếng Việt Lý Thú Nguyễn Thợng Hùng (1992) Ngôn ngữ: Tỉnh Lợc Chủ Ngữ Trong Câu Tiếng Việt Và Tiếng Anh Trơng Quang Phu (1993) College Writing HCMC: Tre Publishing House Uỷ Ban Khoa Học XÃ Hội (1983) Ngữ Pháp Tiếng ViÖt Hanoi: Nxb KHXH APPENDIX 1: STUDENT QUESTIONAIRE I am focus on the negative effects of the mother- tongue (Vietnamese language) in learning English as second language Your response to this questionnaire will help me get useful information on my graduation thesis topic: “Mother - Tongue Interference in Learning English Writing of First- Year Students at Vinh University.” Please read carefully and tick (√) your answers Sex:  Male  Female How long have you learned English before studying in university? …………………………………………………………………… … How you like to learn English writing skill? …………………………………………………………………… … How much you learn English writing per week at university? …………………………………………………………………… … 69 In your opinion, the levels of difficulty of these following problems are: (Organize from the most difficult to the least according to the order: 1, 2, 3…)  Write the grammar correctly  Choose the correct words  Organize the sentences in paragraph, the paragraphs in a writing  Express the ideas well and naturally in English  The necessary knowledge of a given topic Other difficulty……………………………………………………… When you not have enough vocabulary and sentence structures to express your ideas, you often use that words and structures from your mother tongue and try to translate them into the target language?  Yes, often  Yes, sometimes  No, never In process of writing, if you not find suitable words to express an idea, you often:  Look up dictionary  Find in books  Try to express in other way  Ask another (teachers, friends ) Otherway: ………………………………………………… ……… If you looked up dictionary, which one did you use?  Vietnamese- English  English-Vietnamese  English- English If you used Vietnamese- English dictionary, how often did you use?  Very often  Sometimes  Rarely  Never In your opinion, the levels of difficulty of these Writing exercises are: (please organize from the least difficult to the most according to the order: 1, 2, 3, …)  Selecting and ordering information  Writing a paragraph based on a conversation  Writing a paragraph based on visual information  Writing topic and concluding sentences  Writing a paragraph based on a given outline  Writing a paragraph based on a topic sentence When writing, you often:  a Think directly in English 70 ... choose the topic: ? ?Mother - Tongue Interference in Learning English Writing of First- Year English Majors Students at Vinh University” Aims of the Study With the ambition of helping the learners.. .VINH UNIVERSITY FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT ********** MOTHER- TONGUE INTERFERENCE IN LEARNING ENGLISH WRITING OF FIRST- YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS STUDENTS AT VINH UNIVERSITY (ảnh... interference in learning English writing of English first- year students, ideas from first- year students themselves are necessary The target students of this study are all English first- year students at