MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY AND TRADE INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITY OF HO CHI MINH CITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------ GRADUATION THESIS SOME COMMON ERRORS OF ENGLISH-MAJORED FRESHMEN AT INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITY OF HO CHI MINH CITY IN WRITING PARAGRAPHS STUDENT : NGUYỄN TUYẾT NGÂN ID NUMBER : 17029081 CLASS : DHAV13C COURSE : 2017-2021 SUPERVISOR : PHAN THI BICH NGOC, M. HCMC, 06/2021 MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY AND TRADE INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITY OF HO CHI MINH CITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------ Student’s name : NGUYỄN TUYẾT NGÂN Student’s ID : 17029081 Class : DHAV13C Course : 2017 -2021 Supervisor : PHAN THỊ BÍCH NGỌC, M. Student’s declaration: I declare that this graduation report is entirely my own work and does not involve in plagiarism or collusion. It also has not been accepted as part of a submission to another purpose else where.
I accept heavy penalty for any cheating or plagiarism. Date submitted : June 20th, 2021 Signed : ……………………. Word length : 14973 SOME COMMON ERRORS OF ENGLISH-MAJORED FRESHMEN AT INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITY OF HO CHI MINH CITY IN WRITING PARAGRAPHS ABSTRACT Writing is considered one of the four indispensable skills in learning English or any other language in the world. Writing is an important skill but it is also a complicated one compared to other skills because it requires learners have not only a thorough understanding of background knowledge (Grammar and Vocabulary) but also skills to write.
Thus, writing is regarded as a difficult skill for students in learning English. The research was entitled “Some common errors of English-majored freshmen at Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City in writing paragraphs” to figure out common errors and the causes of the errors in writing paragraphs for improving students’ writing skills. The participants for the research were English-majored freshmen from the Faculty of Foreign Language at IUH. The survey was administered by means of using a questionnaire to collect data from 211 students.
The research was divided into five chapters consisting of Introduction, Literature Review, Research Design, Findings and Discussion, and Conclusion. To be more specific, in chapter I, the content included the aim of the study, research objectives, research questions and scope of the study. Chapter II contained the two main items of definitions of key terms including (1) definitions of writing, (2) definitions of academic writing, (3) definitions of paragraph, (4) definitions of errors and (5) types of error in paragraph writing and another one was theoretical framework involved (1) relevance of errors and (2) errors in writing paragraphs. Chapter III covered (1) research setting, (2) participants, (3) research methodology and research methods, (4) Procedures and (5) Data analysis.
Chapter IV presented the results of students’ responses to the questionnaire and the discussion of the findings. Lastly, chapter V stated the conclusion of the research, suggested some recommendations and assessed limitations of the research. The objectives of the research were to figure out popular errors and the causes of the errors that students often have trouble in writing paragraphs. Additionally, the researcher also offered some solutions through the findings to help students improve their writing skills for better in the future.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT During the period of internship, I received a plenty of enthusiastic help and support that guide and encourage me to overcome all difficulties and finish this hard but meaningful time. Firstly, I would like to express thanks to the School Board of Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City and the Faculty of Foreign Languages creating favorable conditions for me to complete my thesis. Secondly, I sincerely thank to Ms. Phan Thi Bich Ngoc, my supervisor who gave me useful guidance and advice that help me to finish my graduation thesis successfully.
She also gave me professional guidance and insightful comments that considerably help me gain a lot of experiences in the period of writing my thesis. From these advices, I can improve my English skills and strategies greatly. Thirdly, I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to teachers who taught Writing I subject gave me chances to collect data from their classes. Furthermore, I would like to thank my group member, Pham Thi Thao Nguyen who often shared my difficulties and gave me timely advice during the process of writing graduation thesis.
Last but not least, I am grateful to all of lovely students of Writing I classes who contributed to help me complete the questionnaire. In short, I really thank to all people helping me to finish this graduation thesis. Keywords: Common errors, IUH, English-majored freshmen, paragraphs, writing TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION. Scope of the study.
3 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW. Definitions of key terms. Definitions of writing. Definitions of academic writing.
Definitions of paragraphs. Definitions of errors. Types of error in paragraph writing. Relevance of Errors.
Errors in writing paragraphs. 12 CHAPTER III: RESEARCH DESIGN. Research methodology and research methods. 18 CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.
Student’s responses to the Questionnaire. Student’s attitude towards their writing skills. The common errors that students face difficulty in writing paragraphs. The causes of the common errors.
42 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4. Students’ self-evaluation towards their writing skills. Students’ attitudes towards writing skills. The difficulties in the process of writing paragraphs.
The students’ frequency of making errors in writing paragraphs. The students’ frequency of making grammatical mistakes in writing paragraphs. The students’ frequency of making vocabulary mistakes in writing paragraphs. The students’ frequency of making mistakes related to ideas in writing paragraphs.
The students’ frequency of making mistakes related to paragraph structures in writing paragraphs. The topics which often faced difficulties in writing paragraphs by freshmen. The students’ frequency of practicing writing paragraphs after school. The reasons causing errors when writing paragraphs.
The ways to recognize students' mistakes when writing a paragraph. The students’ solutions to improve their writing skills. 32 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS IUH: Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City FFL: Faculty of Foreign Languages Submitted by Nguyen Tuyet Ngan Student ID number: 17029081 CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION Page | 1 Supervisor: Phan Thi Bich Ngoc, M. Submitted by Nguyen Tuyet Ngan Student ID number: 17029081 1.
Rationale Nowadays, Viet Nam is one of the developing countries which have good cooperation with other countries around the world. Therefore, this created opportunities for people in Viet Nam to have a good job with a high salary in working in foreign companies inside and outside the country. In order to reach achievement, English is the main instrument that brings people to come to success quickly. English is considered as the most popular language in the world, it is used widely not only in daily life but also in international business.
With the integration of the world and foreign companies' penetration into the Vietnamese market, the importance of English is even more evident. English becomes an essential factor that employees must have when they want to apply to a company with a lucrative job. For this reason, nowadays, many people from old to young started to study English in order to achieve great success in work. Especially, English is seen to be a subject that has a range of troubles for all students.
Studying English includes 4 skills: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. Among these skills, writing plays a significant and indispensable role in studying English. In English, writing is not the same as speaking skills because it is not a skill that we naturally acquire, even in our native language, it needs to be practiced regularly. Writing is a great capacity or ability of each person to perform the act of writing in order to achieve an effective communication goal.
In fact, students often spend more time on learning other skills than writing skills such as speaking or listening skills because they just focus on communication. Many students think that writing is not necessary to learn so they do not habitually practice their writing. Consequently, when taking the exams of writing, students often make a variety of remarkable errors in the test. Therefore, to make a success in English, students need to focus on writing by means of practicing writing skills regularly.
Writing is a learned skill that requires learners to take the initiative to approach every day so that in the process of writing, learners can discover their own mistakes and correct them promptly. Therefore, if students want to be mastered at writing, they have to spend much time on practicing. Similarly, students at Industrial University, especially the English-majored freshmen of the Faculty of Foreign Language face many difficulties when studying writing subjects in general and writing paragraphs in particular. This problem stems from lack of vocabulary, background knowledge, grammar, and ideas influenced by Vietnamese style, etc.
In addition, students have a passive way of learning, they just complete all homework from the teacher instead of actively searching or Page | 2 Supervisor: Phan Thi Bich Ngoc, M. Submitted by Nguyen Tuyet Ngan Student ID number: 17029081 reading information, articles, magazines, etc. Unfortunately, this problem currently does not much be noticed by students. Consequently, this research was conducted to figure out the common errors in writing paragraphs of English-majored freshmen at IUH and the causes of the errors.
Since then, students can comprehend common mistakes, avoid typical errors in writing paragraphs and improve their writing ability. Research Objectives This study was conducted in an attempt to: (1) Find out some common errors in paragraph writing made by English-majored freshmen at IUH (2) Find out causes for the common errors 1. Research Questions The research was conducted to deal with the two main following questions: (1) “What are some common errors faced by English-majored freshmen at IUH in writing paragraphs?” (2) “What are the reasons for the common errors?” 1. Scope of the study Writing is a skill that is expected to use fluently by foreign language students.
The main purpose of this study is to find out some common errors in writing paragraphs and the causes of the errors. The study focused on a number of English-majored freshmen at IUH and because of the large number of students of FFL, this study would be carried out by using the questionnaire to make sure the validity and reliability of the research. Page | 3 Supervisor: Phan Thi Bich Ngoc, M. Submitted by Nguyen Tuyet Ngan Student ID number: 17029081 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW Page | 4 Supervisor: Phan Thi Bich Ngoc, M.
Submitted by Nguyen Tuyet Ngan Student ID number: 17029081 2. Definitions of key terms 2. Definitions of writing Writing is the fourth of the four language skills, which are Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing and it is considered as one of the indispensable skills in the process of learning for English learners. Writing is a means of communication from person to person in relation to the performance of a language with written symbols such as letters of the alphabet, punctuation and thoughts in a written form.
There are a variety of definitions of writing. In the Cambridge dictionary, writing is defined as “the skill or activity of producing words on a surface”. According to Florian Coulmas (1999), a German linguist and author said that “A set of visible or tactile signs used to represent units of language in a systematic way, with the purpose of recording messages which can be retrieved by everyone who knows the language in question and the rules by virtue of which its units are encoded in the writing system.” It indicates that it is crucial to comprehend the basic system of a language in order to write obviously. To make a good background of writing, it requires the writer to understand the knowledge of grammar, punctuation and sentence structure, correct spelling and especially vocabulary.