TABLE OF CONTENTS Content Page SUB-COVER PAGE STATEMENTS OF THE AUTHORSHIP ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS .1 LIST OF TABLES .4 LIST OF FIGURES. JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY. AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY. Aims of the Study.
Objectives of the study. SCOPE OF THE STUDY. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY .10 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Definition of error.
Error and Mistake. Types of errors. Causes of making errors. Teachers‟ and students‟ roles in error correction.
DATA COLLECTION METHODS .37 Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. DATA ANALYSIS OF STUDENT‟S SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE. The frequency of making errors in students‟ writing. The common errors students make in their writing.
The difficulties with students‟ English writing. The necessity to correct students‟ written errors. The satisfaction of students in their teacher‟s correction techniques. The techniques that teacher often use to correct students‟ written errors.
Techniques students want their teacher to correct their errors. The types of correction techniques that students like. The means of self – correction students often use. The frequency of using of pair / group work in peer correction.
The frequency of teacher correction used in students‟ written errors. The frequency of peer correction used in students‟ written errors. The frequency of self - correction used in students‟ errors. The usefulness of the current technique that teachers use to correct students‟ errors.
The most effective technique to correct written errors. DATA ANALYSIS OF TEACHER‟S SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE. The frequency that students make errors. The common errors students make in students‟ writing.
The difficulties that students have with their English writing. The written errors should be given priority in correction. The necessary for teacher to give written errors correction. The common techniques.
The frequency of using of pair / group work in peer correction. The frequency of using correction techniques in student‟s written errors. The helpful of teacher‟s current written error correction. The most effective technique to correct written errors.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .3 THE RESULTS OF THE STUDY. LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES.66 APPENDICES 3 LIST OF TABLES Tables Page Table 4.1: Common errors students make in their writing .2: The techniques teacher use to correct their students‟ errors .3: The frequency of correction techniques used in student‟s written errors.53 4 LIST OF FIGURES Figures Page Figure 4.1: The frequency of making errors in students‟ writing .2: The difficulties with students‟ english writing .3: The necessity to correct students‟ written errors .4: The satisfaction of students in their teacher‟s correction techniques .6: Techniques students want their teacher to correct their errors .7: Types of correction techniques that students like .8: Means of self – correction students often use .9: The frequency of using of pair / group work in peer correction .10: Frequency of teacher correction used students‟ written errors.11: Frequency of peer correction used students‟ written errors .12: The frequency of self - correction used in students‟ written errors .13: Usefulness of the current technique to correct students‟ errors .14: Most effective technique to correct written errors .15: Common errors students make in students‟ writing .16: Difficulties that students have with their english writing.17: The written errors should be given priority in correction .18: Frequency of using of pair / group work in peer correction .19: The helpful of teacher‟s current written error correction .54 5 ABSTRACT Many language educators and researchers claim that matching the expectations of teachers and students is important for successful language learning. Accordingly, it is beneficial for teachers to discover their students‟ written errors and teacher‟s techniques to correct student‟s errors. This study investigates the effective errors correction techniques in writing classes at Nguyen Hue high school in Hue city.
The participants included 15 teachers of English and 100 students in Grade 11. The data were collected from survey questionnaires for students and the interview for teachers. The results show that there is a slight mismatch between students‟ ideas and teacher‟s various features of writing, in term of error correction techniques. Also, it is important for teachers to be aware of the impact of their correction techniques in their students‟ writing.
On this basis, the study recommends a number of directions for teachers to help them improve their techniques to correct writing mistakes more effectively. RATIONALE Nowadays, English is more common. It is a widespread and important language in the world. English is seen as a connection which is used to be connected many different countries all over the world.
English has become a second language which is taught in most classes in any levels in Vietnam. It is one of the most indispensable subjects in a learners‟ semester. Writing is one of the four main skills in learning English; writing is one of the most challenging skills to the learners. If the learners want to write effectively, it demands a good grammar, vocabulary and structure.
Writing skill is seen as language skill which is most difficult because it requires profound perception and involves thinking process and requires a good understanding on grammar and structures. For many English learners learning to write fluently in English is much more challenging than learning to speak fluently. Even for advanced level learners, written communications can come much slower in English than spoken communications. There are a number of reasons for this: written communication is more formal; spoken communication allows for more 'mistakes'; less reflection goes into spoken English than written English; expectations are much higher for formal written English.
Among writing, reading, speaking and listening in English, writing is the most complex aspect but it is a crucial skill for students to learn. Students who have the ability and competency in writing English will be able to express themselves effectively. The ability to write effectively in English is becoming increasingly important in our global community as communication across language becomes 7 ever more essential. But writing is a complex process which demands cognitive analysis and linguistic synthesis.
It is even harder to learn to write in a foreign language, and it takes considerable time and effort to become an adept writer. Therefore, many learners find it hard to express their ideas in English because they have not enough vocabularies resource, do not know clearly or correct the grammar construction (structures). The learners often feel worried about their writing. Most of them are not self-confident in writing.
Because the learners often write or translate anything they want to write from Vietnamese to English word by word, they do not have enough grammar structures to write a right sentence in English. Writing in some classes in Viet Nam is a challenge with both the learners and the teachers. The language in writing is often formal; the learners will have some trouble with their writing and they often use the normal ways in speaking to write. This leads to some errors in their writing, so they are usually afraid and feel confused when writing.
Furthermore, I do this research with the purpose of finding what factors that cause the errors in writing and find out the useful way to overcome those errors. The errors that students make in high school will cause the reasons why they always make it in upper classes or the college. According to Bartle (2007), a few of the common errors in writing hinder good communication. I hope that by knowing and understanding the students‟ errors, it is expected that teachers are able to improve their teaching skill and the instructional process and I also suggest some appropriate ways (teaching methods) for English teachers to correct written errors effectively and the learners will find out the best way to write well without any errors.
JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY I hope the completed study will be able to help our students reducing errors in their English writings. Besides, the study may change negative attitudes of some 8 teachers toward students‟ errors and make them notice the importance of error correction in teaching processes. AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 1. Aims of the Study This research is designed to explore students‟ written errors and their teacher‟s written correction techniques of grade 11 at Nguyen Hue high school in Hue city.
Objectives of the study The study is expected to achieve the three primary aims: - to investigate the students‟ errors in writing classes. - to investigate the techniques that the teacher use to correct their student‟s errors in writing. - to find out which techniques are effective for both the teacher and students in correcting the written errors as well as to propose some recommendations and suggestions for the teachers to improve their correction techniques in correcting their students‟ errors in writing classes. SCOPE OF THE STUDY In this research, I would like to focus on the use of the correction techniques in writing classes at grade 11.
The environment for the study is at Nguyen Hue high school in Hue city. I would like to mention the non English major students and the reasons why I chose this grade are these students are suitable for me to do the research. Because students in grade 10th are new students in high school, they will have made many errors and they are still young so that the making of research many this kind of students will not have enough information for errors and error correction. Grade 12th students are those who are getting prepared for their 9 graduated examination and the entrance exam to university, so they will have not enough time to answer the questionnaires for this study.
This is the reason why I choose grade 11th students to be the participants in my research. The research is carried out with the hope that the results of the study will provide significant insights into both what teachers have actually done in the use of the correction techniques in writing for their students. This may lead to suggestions for improving teacher‟s written correction techniques and helping the students to utilize it more successfully in their writing. RESEARCH QUESTIONS With the aims and objectives of the study, we try to seek the answers to the following questions: 1.
What are the common errors in English writing committed by the eleventh form students at Nguyen Hue high schools in Hue city? 2. What kinds of correction techniques does the teacher often use to correct students‟ written errors? 3. What are effective techniques for writing correction? 1. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY The thesis consists of five chapters: Chapter 1: Introduction In this chapter, we would present the rationale for choosing the area for studying, the objectives, the significance, the scope and the research questions.
The organization is also included here to serve as an outline of the study. Chapter 2: Literature Review This chapter concerns the theoretical background with some previous studies, the definitions of key terms and the techniques used to correct errors used in this research 10 Chapter 3: Research Methodology In this chapter, the research uses both qualitative and quantitative methodology. It also presents the participants, the tools and whole procedure of data collection and analysis. Chapter 4: Findings and discussions The data collection and main results from the questionnaires, the interviews are analyzed and discussed.
Chapter 5: Conclusion This chapter presents the summary of the study. The conclusion at the end gives a summary of the main issues that have been discussed so far in the study and suggestions for further research. 11 Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2. INTRODUCTION This chapter focuses on some of the most important issues in the theories of feedback in general and the teacher‟s correction techniques in particular.
Two main features will be concerned, namely, theoretical background of written errors and the focus on teacher‟s errors correction techniques.