AN GIANG UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES LÊ LONG THUẬN DTA151105 DH16TA UNDERGRADUATE THESIS THE DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING WRITING SKILLS OF THE FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT AN GIANG UNIVERSITY SUPERVISOR: TÔ NGUYỄN PHƯƠNG LOAN, M. An Giang, May 2019 AN GIANG UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES LÊ LONG THUẬN DTA151105 DH16TA UNDERGRADUATE THESIS THE DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING WRITING SKILLS OF THE FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT AN GIANG UNIVERSITY SUPERVISOR: TÔ NGUYỄN PHƯƠNG LOAN, M. An Giang, May 2019 DECLARATION I hereby declare that the thesis titled "THE DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING WRITING SKILLS OF THE FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT AN GIANG UNIVERSITY" represents my own work and that it has not been previously submitted to any other university or institute in application for admission to degrees or other qualification. ___________________________________________________ May 2019 Le Long Thuan.
i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my thankfulness to my supervisor, Mrs. To Nguyen Phuong Loan, M.A, for her accommodating advice, steady help and thorough direction for the duration of the time I conducted my study. I appreciate all instructors in the Faculty of Foreign Languages at An Giang University for their knowledge transmission to me. Second, I show my unique gratitude to instructors of English classes as well as the students of DH19TA and DH19AV classes at An Giang University for their enthusiastic support during my data collection for the study.
Third, I really would like to give my gratefulness for what my best friends have done for me. They all supported me a lot while I did the investigation. Last but not least, I am extremely obligated to my family, especially my dearest sister, for their encouragement and whole-hearted help. Without their encouragement, I could not have completed this thesis.
Le Long Thuan. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .1 Rational of the research .2 The research aims and research questions.3 Scope of the thesis .4 Significance of the study .5 Limitations of the study.6 Organization of the study. 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 The definitions of writing.2 The difficulties in writing skill .3 Approach to teach writing .1 Product-based approach .2 Process-based approach .3 Genre-based approach. 14 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .1 Questionnaire for students .2 Questionnaire for teachers .1 The interviews for teachers .2 The interviews for students .5 Validity and reliability .1 The results from the questionnaires .1 The results from the questionnaire for students.1 The common difficulties in learning English writing skill of the freshmen English majors at An Giang University .2 The solutions for the freshmen English majors at An Giang University to develop their writing skill .2 The results from the questionnaire for teachers.1 The attitudes of students to English writing .2 The knowledge of their students about students’ grammar, structures and creativity .3 The recommendations of teachers to develop English writing for freshmen English majors at An Giang University .2 The results from the informal interviews for teachers and students .1 Data gathered from interview for teachers .2 Data gathered from interview for students.
45 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS .1 Introduction of the discussions.1 The common difficulties in English writing of the first year English majors at An Giang University.1 Discussion about the questionnaires for teachers .2 Discussion about the questionnaires for students .2 The solutions to make English writing better for the freshmen English majors at An Giang University.1 Discussion about the questionnaires for teachers .2 Discussion about the questionnaires for students .3 The recommendations for improving English writing in pairs and community.1 Suggestions for students .2 Suggestions for teachers .4 Suggestions for the further research. 56 APPENDIX 1: Questionnaire for Students (English version). 60 APPENDIX 2: Questionnaire for Students (Vietnamese version). 63 APPENDIX 3: The questionnaire for Teachers.
66 APPENDIX 4: Interview questions for Students. 68 APPENDIX 5: Interview questions for Teachers. 69 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Teachers’ length of senior.
Having poor organization in writing. Lack of vocabularies. Using sentence structure incorrectly. Using linking words incorrectly.
Having difficulties in checking spelling. Having difficulties in expressing words in English. Having difficulties in writing thesis statements. Writing simply and clearly.
Practicing writing in leisure time. Making outlines before writing any article. Spending less time cultivating vocabulary. Lacking knowledge about tenses.
Lacking creativity in using words. Using sentence structures is not good. Translating words by words. Having difficulties in using the linking words.
Working in pairs and sharing experiences to others. Joining in writing community to improve English writing. 51 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Gender of students.
Reliability statistics of the questionnaires for students. Using tenses incorrectly. Having difficulties in using passive voice in writing. Checking spelling of words takes a long time.
Having difficulties in defining what items related to the topic. Cannot write the appropriate sentences to support the topic sentence. Using the simple words in writing. Reading more English articles helped to improve vocabularies and grammar.
Practicing with favorite topics. The opinions of students about writing down all ideas that come to mind. Reliability statistics of the questionnaires for teachers. The attitudes of students to English writing.
Cannot write the appropriate sentences to support the topic sentence. Encouraging students to read many English books. Brainstorming helps students improve their vocabulary and ideas for writing. Getting students to correct their drafts in pairs.
Giving favorite topics for students. 42 vii ABSTRACT Four important skills that are indispensable for English learners are listening, speaking, reading and writing. In particular, students think the most difficult is English writing. To help students overcome difficulties in English writing, the researcher would like to conduct the study with the hope that its results would find the common difficulties in English writing and positive solutions on English writing improvement of the freshmen English majors at An Giang University.
The participants of the research are 68 students who are the first year English majors from two classes DH19TA and DH19AV at An Giang University and five instructors who are teaching English writing. In the process of the research, the data is collected from two sources, which are the questionnaires and the interviews for both teachers and students. The findings of the research show the popular difficulties in English writing that the freshmen English majors often face. Moreover, the results of the research expose the attitudes of the freshmen to English writing.
Finally, from the findings of the research, some effective solutions and recommendations have been made for improving English writing skills of the first year English majors at An Giang University. viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Chapter one includes six main sections. The first section 1.1 is about the rational of the study.2 presents the research aims and research questions of the study. The scope of the study is discussed in section 1.4 explores the significance of the study.The limitation of the study will be shown in section 1.
And the last section 1.6 describes the organization of the study.1 Rational of the research Learning a second language includes the treatment of four basic abilities: listening, speaking, writing and reading. Writing is a definitive proficiency that students should control and practice. It is a fundamental communication skill that should be gained. It can be socially transmitted or can be learned through formal teachers.
In contrast with speaking skill, there is no quick feedback in written collaboration. The writer needs to envision the readers’ association, and makes a content which stays close to principles. According to Grice (1975), the writer should attempt to write an evident, related, honest, instructive, fascinating, and important content. Writing both in common sense and in the informative sense involves one of a kind of highlights that result in particular commitments to speaking language learning in general.
Writing anything helps students to rehearse, practice the material and store it in long-term memory. Writing in social orders because of social changes that made new informative needs. Writing is important because it is a basis clear communication. The advancement of writing ability is a complex and dynamic psychological procedure since it requires more than the authority of vocabulary and linguistic ability.
Writing is considered a method for learning language frames and a method for communication. Writing ability must be rehearsed and learned through understanding. It also additionally includes forming which infers the capacity either to tell or retell pieces of data in the type of accounts or depiction, or change data into new messages, as in explanatory writing. 1 One of the points of instructing English is to build up the capacity to convey.
The capacity includes the four abilities: listening, speaking, reading and writing. One of the abilities that are the most difficult and confused to be educated is writing because writing needs hard reasoning to create thoughts, words, sentences, section, and organization. Harmer (2001) expressed that the students can turn out to be extremely baffled when they do not have the words or the punctuation they have to express in writing. The students likewise experience issues when they are asked to write about the themes that they do not have enthusiasm to do, maybe in new types, and without the fundamental data.
Writing invigorates students to focus on proper language uses, they can experience what they know in their brain or even counsel the word reference, sentence structure book and another reference (Harmer, 2004). It implies that writing is not just around a thought; however, it is progressively complex in picking vocabulary and using proper structures. It is the manner by which the author introduces and communicates these thoughts in powerful writing. Unfortunately, in reality students realize writing is the most difficult skill, and they do not recognize their weakness in writing.
Besides, because the studying environment at university is different from high school, students may be like a fish out of water, and they can get troubles when acquiring the knowledge as well as writing an essay or paragraph. Studying skills at university is necessary for students especially freshmen to improve and develop their skill and writing. Therefore, the researcher study about the common difficulties in learning writing freshman English majors and give solutions to improve students’ writing skill. Consequentially, thanks to the investigation, English teachers and students will find out what are the most common mistakes students made and offer some solutions on the English writing improvement for students, especially the first year English majors at An Giang University.2 The research aims and research questions The study mainly aims at: Investigating the importance of writing skill.
Finding out the common difficulties in writing skills which students meet with, especially freshmen. Exploring the attitudes of students and teachers towards writing skill. Giving some solutions and recommendations to improve students’ writing ability. 2 The research questions of the study are as follows: What are the difficulties of the first year English majors in learning English writing? What are some solutions making writing better for the freshmen English majors at An Giang University? 1.3 Scope of the thesis The primary aim of the research is to investigate the common difficulties in English writing of the first year English majors at An Giang University.
In addition, the researcher will also explore the solutions developing students’ skill afterward. The ultimate target of this research is to find out the popular difficulties in English writing on students.4 Significance of the study It is certain that English writing is a significant subject in most colleges and universities since it can encourage different abilities, for example, listening, speaking and reading which are additionally critical subjects. Thus, teachers and students should find out mistakes to fix them in teaching and learning English writing. That is the reason why we have to find the normal difficulties.
The researcher expects that this survey will show the common difficulties in writing that the students have to face when starting to write a topic and how important improving writing skill is for them.