VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES -------------***------------- NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG A STUDY ON SENTENCE ERRORS IN THE ENGLISH COMPOSITIONS OF THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS AT DIPLOMATIC ACADEMY OF VIETNAM (NGHIÊN CỨU LỖI VỀ CÂU TRONG CÁC BÀI VIẾT CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI HỌC VIỆN NGOẠI GIAO VIỆT NAM) M. Minor ProgrammeThesis Supervisor : Prof. Dr Hoàng Văn Vân Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 10 Hanoi, 2013 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES -------------***------------- NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG A STUDY ON SENTENCE ERRORS IN THE ENGLISH COMPOSITIONS OF THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS AT DIPLOMATIC ACADEMY OF VIETNAM (NGHIÊN CỨU LỖI VỀ CÂU TRONG CÁC BÀI VIẾT CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI HỌC VIỆN NGOẠI GIAO VIỆT NAM) M. Minor ProgrammeThesis Supervisor : Prof.
Dr Hoàng Văn Vân Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 10 Supervisor : Prof. Hoàng Văn Vân Hanoi, 2013 i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 1. The frequency of sentence structure errors Table 2. The frequency of fragments Table 3.
The frequency of run-on sentences Table 4. The frequency of stringy sentences Table 5. The frequency of “the sentence structure errors of the other types” Table 6. The sources of errors iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Pages Statement of authorship.
iii List of tables. iv Table of content. 5 Chapter 1: Literature review .1 What is an error? .2 Errors and mistakes .4 Causes of errors in language learning .1 Mother tongue interference .4 Errors due to the effect of teaching .5 Errors due to carelessness. 9 Chapter 2: Findings and discussion.
13 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.3 Report on the results about the kinds of sentence errors .3 Run-on sentences .4 “The sentence errors of other types” .4 Report on the results about the frequency of the sentence errors .1 Frequency of fragments .2 Frequency of run-on sentences .3 Frequency of stringy sentences .4 Frequency of the other sentences .5 The explanation of the errors .1 The explanation of fragments .2 The explanation of stringy sentences .3 The explanation of the “sentence errors of other types” .4 The explanation of run-on sentences. 34 2 The major findings of the research. 34 3 Pedagogical implications and recommendations .1 To the syllabus .2 To the learners .3 To the teachers .4 Limitations and suggestions for further study. 44 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale In this part of the study, the research background and the motivation for the study implementation would be presented. As for the research background, this study is one among the studies in the field of error analysis which has been a part of language pedagogy for a long time. In Vietnam in general and in University of Language and International Study- National University of Vietnam in particular, there have been many studies on the field of error analysis in English language teaching. Some of the studies have tried to investigate errors in writing skills such as Nguyễn Thị Hương, (2007), Nguyễn Văn Lợi, (2007), Nguyễn Thị Duyên, (2007).
Some others have also examined the writing errors but in the specific terms such as articles Mai Thị Ngân, (2011) or errors in using cohesive devices Trần Thị Hải Bình, (2007) and errors in many other word classes of English language such as prepositions, two-word verbs, auxiliary verbs and so on. There have been the studies which investigated the errors in speaking such as Lê Thu Hương, (2011), An Thị Ngà, (2011). Thus, the errors in both types of learning outputs – writing and speaking have been investigated. Together with the investigation into the errors sentence constituents such as prepositions, kinds of verbs, articles and so forth.
This research is intended to gain insights into the errors in term of sentence structure with the hope to contribute to the findings of grammatical errors in writing by Vietnamese students. As for the motivation of carrying out this research, there are three elements inspiring the author to implement this study. First, it was observed that there have been many sentence errors especially the errors in sentence structures in the writings of the second year students at Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam (DAV). In the process of checking the writings, the author saw that almost all the students made the errors.
This actually exerted a bad influence on their writing performance. Secondly, the students‟ demand of limiting the errors they make in writing is another reason for doing this research. After writing tasks, some students ask the 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com author “How can I limit my errors? Could you please give us some ways to do so?” Actually, the students knew they were making errors. They have tried to get rid of doing this.
They however, have tried in vain because there were still a lot of errors in their writings. Lastly, one more motivation for carrying out this study is the demand of effective and interesting writing teaching. It can be said that writing is one of the most difficult skills in English learning. It is either boring or exhausting.
Analyzing the errors to prevent making them is assumed one of the good ways to make the teaching more efficient. This is because good writing performance with no error will give students interest to learn and learn effectively. Aims The present study has two main goals. The first one is to find out the sentence errors made by the second year students at Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam.
There is a wide range of sentence errors in the students‟ writings. To get an insight into the errors, the author should know what kinds of sentence errors they are. Actually, there are a number of sentence errors which have been found by many other scholars and researchers. This study needs to find out if the participants of this institution made the entire sentence errors mentioned in the literature review.
Beside, this minor thesis also needs to find out if there are any other sentence errors only made by these students. One more question concerning sentence errors this study need to clarify is how frequent these errors are. The second aim of this minor thesis is to find out the causes of the sentence errors made by the students. There must be reasons why the errors came into existence.
Actually, in the field of error analysis, many causes of errors have been offered. This research should also consider if all the causes for the errors the students made are the same as the causes which have been reviewed. Finally yet importantly, the present study is also aimed to see if there are any other causes else leading to sentence error existence. In deed, the overall goal of this study is to improve the students‟ academic writing skill.
The specific ways to help may vary depending on the errors and the 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com causes which were found out. There may be some changes in the teaching process or in the design of the writing syllabus. By doing so, the students‟ academic writing skill will be improved in more than one ways. The first way is that they will not make such kinds of sentence errors.
The second one is that the students will be able to put more ideas into their writing. This, in turn, will make students to organize better their essays and thus the coherence and cohesion are all improved then. Methods In order to achieve the aim of the study, the researcher applied both descriptive and analytic research methods as follows: As for the data collection, the author collected the primary data which was the participants‟ writings. Firstly, the students were given the writing tasks in their class-time learning.
After that, the researcher randomly selected a certain number of the writings (More details would be presented in the next part). Thirdly, the sentence errors were found and marked to stand out on the writings. As for data analysis, basing on the types of sentence errors which were reviewed in the literature review and the features of the sentence errors the author then classified them into small types. Next, the author analyzed the features of the errors in term of sentence structures.
After that by employing quantitative analysis, the author did the calculating to see the frequency of the errors. Then, basing on the social and linguistic contexts, the sources of these errors were explained. Finally, some suggestions for preventing the sentence errors were made. Actually, this error analysis research was carried out according to the procedure of an error analysis which consists of the steps as being suggested by Corder (1981: 36): 1) identification of errors, 2) description of errors, and 3) explanation of errors.
What are sentence errors made by the second year students at Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam? 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. What are the causes of the sentence errors made by the second year students at Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam? 5. The significance The study was supposed to have a great deal of significance. The first one is for the students.
This research will help to improve one of the most significant English skills for the students. That is because the students will be noticed what mistakes, errors they are likely to make. They are also given more knowledge about English and then they will not write the sentence errors causing by their lack of knowledge about English. To the teachers, the research also helps them in their writing teaching.
With the results found out, their academic writing teaching will be more effective and more straightforward. That is because the teachers at the Academy would know what their students know already and what they do not. Beside, the teachers would not try many ways in vain to prevent the errors because they have known the causes already. The present study also contributes its findings to the field of error analysis to confirm the already found findings.
Furthermore, the study affirms that error analysis is crucial in writing teaching. 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW As the title suggests, this study is concerned with the sentence errors made by the second year students at Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam. In order to carry out this research, this chapter attempts to provide the background related to error analysis terms and studies which have been stated and done by various scholars. It will first examine the notion of error and its characteristics.
Then it will reexamine the notion of error analysis. This will be followed by another part in which the author presents the causes of errors in language learning. The final section is devoted to sentence errors found out by previous researchers.1 What is an error? First, the author would like to find out what is an error. To answer the question, the author is going to look at some definitions of errors by some scholars.
For Halliday, McIntosh and Strevens (1964:119), a mistake or an error in English can be described as complete inaccuracy being reference solely to the description of English without taking any account of the students‟ native language. For them each mistake stated is also a specific deviation from described English feature. This is because; it deals with how language is grammatically structured. According to Richards (1974), “the only sentences in anyone‟s speech which could be called erroneous are those which result from some failure of performance.
These may contain what often called slips of the tongue, false starts, mind changes and so on” (p.