MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY TRAN THI MINH CHAU AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE DIFFICULTIES IN THESIS WRITING PERCEIVED BY VIETNAMESE TESOL MA STUDENTS AND SUPERVISORS AT ONE VIETNAMESE UNIVERSITY MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Hue University of Foreign Languages HUE, 2019 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY TRAN THI MINH CHAU AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE DIFFICULTIES IN THESIS WRITING PERCEIVED BY VIETNAMESE TESOL MA STUDENTS AND SUPERVISORS AT ONE VIETNAMESE UNIVERSITY MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 8140111 SUPERVISOR: NGUYEN THI BAO TRANG, PhD. HUE, 2019 BỌ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ TRẦN THỊ MINH CHÂU NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ SỰ KHÓ KHĂN KHI VIẾT LUẬN VĂN DỰA TRÊN QUAN ĐIỂM CỦA HỌC VIÊN CAO HỌC VIỆT NAM NGÀNH LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP GIẢNG DẠY BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH VÀ GIÁO VIÊN HƯỚNG DẪN TẠI MỘT TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC Ở VIỆT NAM LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 8140111 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: NGUYỄN THỊ BẢO TRANG, TIẾN SĨ HUẾ, 2019 STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP The work contained in this thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, my thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself. Hue, October 16th, 2019 Tran Thi Minh Chau i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research has been so difficult to me without people helping and staying with me on this long journey.
First, I would like to give a deep appreciation to my supervisor, Mrs. Nguyen Thi Bao Trang for her constant help, advice and encouragement throughout the research. She has been very helpful and kind to me even when everything seemed to go wrong during the research. Second, I would like to give a sincere gratitude to all the participants in this research.
Without these postgraduate students and lecturers who voluntarily participated in the questionnaire and interviews, I could not complete this study and have good results. Finally, I would like to give my deep appreciation to my family and close friends who constantly support and encourage me to keep going forward. ii ABSTRACT This study examined the difficulties Vietnamese TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) Master (MA) students encountered while writing a thesis at one Vietnamese university. The data were collected through the use of a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire from 29 TESOL MA students who completed their thesis in the academic year 2015-2017.
Fifteen of these students and three supervisors participated in a subsequent semi- structured interview. The study found that English language proficiency, the genre of thesis writing and plagiarism were the key challenges in thesis writing perceived by students and supervisors. The study also found that students had difficulty in relation to organization, critical thinking and access to the relevant literature when writing their thesis. The findings revealed that writing the Introductory, the Literature review and Findings and Discussion chapter were the most challenging for students.
In particular, students mainly found it difficult to find the knowledge gaps in the Introductory chapter. When writing the Literature review chapter, students had much difficulty in presenting and evaluating related theoretical frameworks, classifying literature coherently, evaluating previous studies, synthesizing results of related studies and establishing a connection among studies reviewed. When writing the Findings and Discussion chapter, students found it difficult to link results back to the literature, analyze, interpret and discuss the findings. It was found that lack of language proficiency, motivation and research experience were major factors causing their difficulties.
This study contributes to an understanding of Vietnamese TESOL MA students‟ difficulties in writing a thesis and has useful implications for the teachers of MA program and MA students. Keywords: Vietnamese TESOL MA students, difficulties, thesis writing, the perceptions of supervisors and students. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS.
iv LISTS OF TABLES. vii LISTS OF CHARTS. viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .2 Significance of the study .3 Research aims and questions .5 Organization of the research.
3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 Academic writing in English .1 Academic writing difficulties international students encounter while studying overseas .2 Difficulties MA students encounter in thesis writing in different disciplines while studying overseas .3 Academic writing difficulties TESOL students encounter when studying overseas .4 Difficulties TESOL MA students encounter in thesis writing in their home countries .5 Vietnamese TESOL MA students and thesis writing in Vietnam .4 Gaps in the literature .1 Data collection tools .2 Data collection procedures .4 Validity and Reliability. 20 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .1 Participants‟ background information .2 Students‟ perceptions of difficulties before writing a thesis .3 Students‟ perceptions of difficulties while writing a thesis .1 Student‟s perceptions of general difficulties when writing a thesis .2 Difficulties related to writing the abstract .3 Difficulties related to writing the Introductory chapter .4 Difficulties related to writing the Literature review chapter .5 Difficulties related to writing the Methodology chapter .6 Difficulties related to writing the Findings and Discussion chapter .7 Difficulties related to writing the Conclusion and Implications chapter .1 English Language Proficiency (Grammar and Vocabulary) .2 The genre of thesis writing .6 Access to the relevant literature .7 Factors causing difficulties when writing thesis perceived by the students .1 Lack of English language proficiency .2 Lack of motivation .3 Lack of research experience. 52 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS .1 Summary of key findings .1 Implications for teachers of TESOL programs and supervisors.2 Implications for students .3 Limitations of the present study and recommendation for future research 55 5. 55 REFERENCES APPENDIX A APPENDIX B APPENDIX C vi LISTS OF TABLES Table 3.3 Description of the second part of the questionnaire .1 The reliability of the questionnaire .1: Students‟ perceived writing difficulties before thesis writing.2 Students‟ perceived difficulties with the function of each thesis chapter .3 Students‟ perceived difficulties with the content of each thesis chapter .4 Students‟ perceived difficulties with the organization of each thesis chapter .5 Students perceived difficulties while writing a thesis .6 Students‟ perceptions of general difficulties related to thesis writing .7 Students‟ perceptions of general difficulties .8 Difficulties related to writing the abstract .9 Difficulties related to writing the abstract .10 Difficulties related to the Introductory chapter .11 Difficulties related to the Introductory chapter .12 Difficulties related to writing the Literature review chapter .13 Difficulties related to writing the Literature review chapter .14 Difficulties related to writing the Methodology chapter .15 Difficulties related to writing the Methodology chapter .16 Difficulties related to writing the Findings and Discussion chapter .17 Difficulties related to writing the Findings and Discussion chapter .19 Difficulties related to writing the Conclusion and Implications chapter.
42 vii LISTS OF CHARTS Chart 4.1 General difficulties in thesis writing .2 Difficulties related to writing the abstract .3 Difficulties related to the Introductory chapter .4 Difficulties related to writing the Literature review chapter .5 Difficulties related to writing the Methodology chapter .6 Difficulties related to writing the Findings and Discussion chapter 38 Chart 4.7 Difficulties related to writing the Conclusion and Implications chapter. 41 viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS TESOL: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages MA: Master EFL: English as a Foreign Language ESL: English as a Second Language ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This chapter discusses the rationale for why the present study was conducted, followed by the research aims and research questions. The scope and organization of the study are also presented.1 Rationale There has been an increasing number of Vietnamese teachers of English or those working in English-related fields who pursue an MA course in TESOL in Vietnam (Nguyen & Pramoolsook, 2015). Hence, TESOL MA programs have been developed across the country to meet the demand.
In order to enroll in this program, candidates are required to have an undergraduate degree in Applied Linguistics/TESOL and an entrance examination with 3 components: Methodology in English Language Teaching; level of English language proficiency (listening, reading and writing) and another level of language proficiency (candidates can choose one of these languages except English: Japanese, Chinese, French and Korean). In order to complete this MA degree, students must pass 18 core units which are Philosophy, Research in Language Education, Professional Development, Academic Writing, Language , Culture and Society, Principles and Methods in English Language Teaching, English for Specific Purposes, Discourse Analysis, Methods of English Language Teaching, Second Language Acquisition, Materials Development, Language Testing and Assessment, Methods of English Language Teaching to Young Learners, Contrastive Linguistics, Language Assessment for Young Learners, Pragmatic Competence Development, Application of IT in Language Teaching, Foreign Language, and MA thesis. The assessments of each unit include one or two assignments of a minimum length of about 2.000 words each and also group presentations or small research projects. Academic writing is an important component in the program as students are required to write assignments and their thesis in English.
Many previous studies found academic writing was a major obstacle for not only graduate students but also postgraduate students (Al Badi, 2015; Al Fadda, 2012; Ankawi, 2015). Yet anecdotal stories among current and past TESOL MA students seem to show that thesis writing is one of the greatest challenges (Al-Zubaidi, 2012; Arkoudis & Tran, 2007; Singh, 2016). Also, Nguyen (2017) stated that writing a thesis was a challenge for not only native English speaking students but also non-native English speaking students. Hence, it is important to investigate what difficulties TESOL MA students encounter in thesis writing.
1 Recently, there has been growing interest in investigating challenges of writing theses among postgraduate students in both ESL (English as a Second Language) and EFL (English as a Foreign Language) contexts (Bushesha, Mtae, Msindai & Mbogo, 2012; Ekpoh, 2016; Komba, 2015; Matin & Khan, 2017; Wang & Li, 2008). The findings of these studies found that in both ESL and EFL context postgraduate students faced a variety of difficulties while writing their thesis such as lack of knowledge, fund, experience, lack of confidence and the impact of postgraduate students‟ cultural background in the thesis writing process. Additionally, there have been a number of studies exploring the challenges of students writing particular sections of the thesis, rather than the thesis as a whole (Bitchener & Basturkmen, 2006; Qian & Krugly-Smolska, 2008). Nguyen and Pramoolsook (2014a,b, 2015) studied how Vietnamese TESOL MA students write their thesis through mainly text- based analysis of 24 written theses to identify the move-step in their theses.
Hence, the difficulties perceived by these students were neglected in thesis writing. Also, little attention has been paid to thesis supervisors‟ perceptions in relation to difficulties in thesis writing faced by MA students in Vietnam. Every year tens of students enroll in the MA TESOL program at the Vietnamese institution where this research was conducted, no research, to the best of the researcher, has been conducted on the challenges they encounter while writing their theses. The present study filled this gap.
It explored difficulties related to thesis writing from both MA students and supervisors‟ perspectives in a TESOL program at this university.2 Significance of the study This current study explores the difficulties related to thesis writing Vietnamese TESOL MA students encountered in Vietnam. The findings of the study can contribute to raising awareness of teachers of TESOL programs, program developers and coordinators of the challenges their students face while writing a thesis. The study has valuable pedagogical implications for the design and implementation TESOL programs. It is followed that workshops formal training sessions conducted by teachers of TESOL program and supervisors can assist students to minimize their challenges.