BINH DUONG PROVINCIAL PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY COMMON ERRORS IN THE USE OF ARTICLES AMONG NON-MAJOR ENGLISH FIRST – YEAR STUDENTS AT THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY: PROBLEMS AND SUGGESTIONS A thesis submitted to the Faculty of foreign languages In partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in English By BÙI THỊ NGỌC AN Supervised by NGUYỄN THỊ CHÂU ANH, Ph. BINH DUONG, MAY 2023 BINH DUONG PROVINCIAL PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY BÙI THỊ NGỌC AN COMMON ERRORS IN THE USE OF ARTICLES AMONG NON-MAJOR ENGLISH FIRST - YEAR STUDENTS AT THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY: PROBLEMS AND SUGGESTIONS MAJOR: ENGLISH LANGUAGE MAJOR CODE: 8220201 MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE Supervised By NGUYEN THI CHAU ANH, Ph. BINH DUONG PROVINCE - 2023 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my study supervisor, Dr. Nguyen Thi Chau Anh, for her valuable guidance, support, complement and patience throughout my study.
Without her assistance and useful contributions, this study would not have been completed. She also provided me with a great deal of support and encouragement throughout the year. She always made me feel comfortable whenever I felt confused and worried during my study. She set a good model of teacher for me not only her deep knowledge but also her characteristics.
I am grateful to the assistance and support from Dr. Tran Thanh Du, and the other teachers (T) and professors at TDMU. I also thank my co-teachers, my beloved non- English-major students, and the English program director at TDMU who were willing to become the participants in the study. I would like to express my gratefulness to all of my classmates in the MA program, in the academic years 2019-2021 at TDMU for their available friendship, support and continual assistance throughout the years.
Finally, I would like to show my greatest love to my beloved family. I would like to spend my special love to my parents for their love and invaluable support so that I could complete my study throughout the year. ii STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I declare that this study titled “Common Errors in the Use of Articles among Non-major English First - year Students at Thu Dau Mot University: Problems and Suggestions” is created by my own findings and I am the unique author of this thesis. To the best of my knowledge and understanding, with the indication of reference materials, this study is conducted by using author’s work and is submitted after a carefully checking progress from my supervisor in order to complete the requirements of the Master’s Degree.
Binh Duong, May 2023 Signature Bùi Thị Ngọc An iii ABSTRACT Articles in English are the grammatical points that seem to be simple but are easy to confuse when students use them. This study analyzes common errors in using English articles by first-year students at TDMU. The analysis was based on the data collected from the two tests: a free-response test, and a multichoice test provided by 194 non- major first-year students of TDMU and Ho Chi Minh City University of Food Industry. Data from two tests showed that 72 TDMU students in the experimental group received grammar lessons using English articles, while 122 TDMU and HUFI students in the control group did not.
The experimental group showed better English performance in learning activities, including paragraph writing and speaking English. Students with improved awareness of using English articles performed more effectively in these tasks. The study's results suggest that experimental grammar and lexical teaching can enhance four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Possible solutions for these errors were also proposed for improvement.
Moreover, the results also showed that students with improved awareness of using the articles in English could perform their paragraph writing tasks and speaking tasks more effectively, especially using the articles in English through some language materials (“Outcomes” – students’ book) and the activities focussing on using the articles (“a”, “an”, “the”), one of the important grammar points. Key words: grammar, articles, common errors, non-English major students iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS i. id est and means “in other words. exempli gratia and means “for example” TDMU Thu Dau Mot University Ø Zero article EA Error Analysis EFL English as a foreign language ELT English language teaching FL Foreign Language FLC Foreign Languages Center L1 First language L2 Second language M Mean MOET Ministry of Education and Training NP Noun phrases Q.
Questions SD Standard deviation SLA Second Language Acquisition TOEIC Test Of English for International Communication T Teacher Ss Students * The symbol * used to indicate the sentence is incorrect CA Contrastive Analysis SPSS Statistics Package for Social Sciences MTI Mother tongue interference OLP Other learning problems SFL Systemic Functional Linguistics G1 Control group G2 Experimental group v LIST OF TABLES Table 2. 1: Summary of English articles. 1: Statistical table determiner errors in noun phrase and errors of articles in writing – Preliminary – Servey. 2: Some examples of common errors in Writing test.
7: The length of time for students’ learning English before taking the course (G1). 8: The length of time for students’ learning English before taking the course (G2). 17: A rule of thumb for interpreting Cronbach’s Alpha Score. 20: The Mean of the items from 8.10 in Question 8 in experimental group.
3: Frequency of male and female in G1. 4: Frequency of male and female in G2. 5: Non – majored students learning English before in G1. 6: Non – majored students learning English before in G2.
9: Reasons for students studying English in G1. 10: Reasons for students studying English in G2. 11: Students taking in part-time jobs in G1. 12: Students taking in part-time jobs in G2.
13: Frequency of students using English at home in G1. 14: Frequency of students using English at home in G2. 15: Students’ attitude toward learning how to use articles in English grammar lessons in G1. 16: Students’ attitude toward learning how to use articles in English grammar lessons in G2.
18: Students’ evaluation of benefirs of the use of articles in noun phrase in learning English grammar in G1. 19: Students’ evaluation of benefits of the use of articles in noun phrase in learning English grammar in G2. a Result of the pre-test of 2 groups (G1 and G2) – Independent Samples T Test. b Result of the pre-test of 2 groups (G1 and G2) – Independent Samples T Test.
a: Reliability Analysis for students’ attitude towards learning how to use articles in English grammar lessons (N=140). b: Reliability Analysis for students’ attitude towards learning how to use articles in English grammar lessons (N=140). a: Reliability analysis of the scale “Students’ evaluation of benefits of the use of articles in noun phrase when learning English grammar”. b: Reliability analysis of the scale “Students’ evaluation of benefits of the use of articles in noun phrase when learning English grammar”.
a: Post-test scores of G1 and G2 – Independent samples T Test. b Post-test score of G1 and G2 – Independent samples T Test. a: The result of Pre-test and Post-test of group 1. b: Sig (2 -tailed) of Pre-test and Post-test of group 1.
a: Mean of Pre-test and Post-test scores in Pair 1 in G2 – Paired samples T Test. b: Mean of pre-test and Post-test scores in pair 1 in G2 – Paired samples T- Test. a: Statistics analysis of Pair samples in G1 and G2. b: Statistics analysis of Pair samples in G1 and G2.
c: Statistics analysis of Pair samples in G1 and G2. d: One way ANOVA .68 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3. 2 Pre-test, Post-test of experimental and control group design (adapted from Muijs, 2004). 1: Gender in two groups in Q.
2: Non – majored students in two groups learning English before taking the course. 3: The length of time for students learning English before taking the course (G1 and G2). 4: Reasons for students studying English in G1 (motivation). 5: Reasons for students studying English in G2 (motivation).
6: Students taking part in part-time job. 7: Frequency of students using English at home in G1 and G2. 8: Students’ attitude toward learning how to use articles in English grammar lessons in G1. 9: Students’ attitude toward learning how to use articles in English grammar lessons in G2.
10: Students’ taking part in learning activities in their classrooms in G1 (N= 68). 11: Students’ taking part in learning activities in their classrooms in G2 (N=72). 12: Statistics analysis of Pair samples in G1 and G2. 67 viii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.
ii STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS. v LIST OF TABLES. vi LIST OF FIGURES.
viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Rationale for the study. The aims of the study. The scope of the study.
The research methods. The significance of the study. The structure of the study. 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.
Definitions of terms (Extracted from Oxford Advanced Dictionary). Types of English articles. Usage of English articles. The determiners in Vietnamese language.
Definition of Determiner. 32 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Setting of the study TDMU and HUFI. Instruments of data collection.
Data collection procedure. Methods of data analysis. 47 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. Common Errors in the use of Articles in Writing Test.
Causes of the errors the students make in the use of English articles based on data analysis. Recommendations and solutions for the teachers to teach English articles effectively 56 4. Detailed analysis of the result of Pre-test and Post-test. Detailed analysis of ANOVA DATA of the result of Pre-test and Post-test.
Limitations, suggestions and recommendation for further study. lxxviii x CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This chapter of the study presents the seven parts of the research, such as (1) the rationale for the study, (2) the aims of the study, (3) the research questions, (4) the scope of the study, (5) the research method, (6) the significance of the study, and (7) the structure of the study. Rationale for the study English is becoming more and more popular, making learning it more important and necessary than ever. Through practice, students (ss) in general and students at Thu Dau Mot University (TDMU) in particular encounter many errors when using articles in English.
In writing tests, in Table 4.1 (chapter 4) students usually make some errors, such as spelling mistakes, tenses, determiners, punctuation marks,. Inside, determiners account for the highest percentage of errors (479 errors involving determiners and NP), especially the 272 errors involving articles (“a”/ “an”/ “the”), which take up 56. Beside that, through the process of teaching, through assessment tests, and through observation of writing tests, students often choose the wrong article more than others. The aims of the study are to (1) What are the common types of articles? (2) What are the possible causes of the errors the ss make in the use of English articles? (3) What are the solutions and recommendations for the teachers to teach English articles in noun phrase effectively? And the researcher decided to do a research paper on this issue.
That is the reason why the researcher choose “Common Errors in the Use of Articles among Non-major English First - year Student at Thu Dau Mot University: Problems and Suggestions” as the title of this research paper. ❖ The importance of articles in English language Articles are quite important in English, as they provide certain information about the nouns they precede. The absence or misuse of an article will make a sentence look and sound very strange to the English people.