STATE BANK OF VIETNAM BANKING ACADEMY OF VIETNAM FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES GRADUATION THESIS AN ANALYSIS OF COMMON WRITING ERRORS IN GRAPH/CHART DESCRIPTION AMONG ATC SENIORS AT THE BANKING ACADEMY Full name : Nguyen Thi Hong Tham Class : K20ATCB Student ID : 20A7510167 Supervisor : Ms. Tran Thi Thanh Giang (MA) Hanoi, May 2021 Nguyen Thi Hong Tham – Faculty of Foreign Languages DECLARATION The graduation thesis “An analysis of common writing errors in graph/chart description among ATC seniors at the Banking Academy” submitted to the Faculty of Foreign Languages at the Banking Academy in Vietnam is my personal work. This original research, which has not been published for any other organizations or universities before, is conducted under the supervision of Ms. Tran Thi Thanh Giang, an instructor of English at the Banking Academy.
Author of graduation thesis (Signature and Full name) Tham Nguyen Thi Hong Tham i Nguyen Thi Hong Tham – Faculty of Foreign Languages ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to say my heartfelt thanks to all the people who helped me during this thesis. First of all, I appreciate the valuable chance of doing graduation papers that the Faculty of Foreign Languages of the Banking Academy gave me. Second, I would like to express my thanks to all teachers of Foreign Languages Faculty, especially my supervisor Ms. Tran Thi Thanh Giang who always supports me, gives me useful advice and encourages me during the time I did this thesis.
Third, I am indebted to the participants who gave me the data to analyze for the study. The study is impossible without their help. The last thanks are given to my family members and my beloved ones who motivate me to complete my thesis work within the limited time frame. I would like to say my heartfelt thanks to all the people who helped me during this thesis.
ii Nguyen Thi Hong Tham – Faculty of Foreign Languages TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. v LIST OF TABLES. v LIST OF FIGURES.
vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Rationale of the study. Objectives of the study. Significance of the study.
For the ATC students & ATC seniors. For ATC lecturers & those who are in charge of report-writing skills. For other researchers in the relevant aspects. Scope and limitations.
List of key terms. 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Characteristics of report writing. Types of visuals in a report.
Description of graphs/charts in a report. Qualities of a good graph/chart description. Classification of graph/chart description. Theoretical framework and conceptual framework .2 Distinction between errors and mistakes .3 Classifications of writing errors.
Causes of writing errors. Past studies on writing errors in ESL/EFL language learning. 21 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Locale of the study.
27 iii Nguyen Thi Hong Tham – Faculty of Foreign Languages 3. Data gathering procedure. Population, Samples and Sampling technique. 29 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.
Types and frequency of writing errors in graph/chart description. Findings and discussion. Wrong word forms. Wrong word choice.
Wrong linking words. Tense-related errors. Wrong irregular verbs. Faulty sentence structure.
Wrong comparison structure. Wrong word order. 39 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS. Teacher correction and guide.
vi iv Nguyen Thi Hong Tham – Faculty of Foreign Languages LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviations Full form BA Banking Academy ATC (Anh Tai Chinh) Faculty of Foreign Languages ESL English as a Second Language EFL English as a First Language TL Target language L1 The First language L2 The Second language EA Error analysis LIST OF TABLES Table Page Table 2.1: Differences between error and mistake 18 Table 4.1: Types and frequency of errors in graph/chart description 30 LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page Figure 2.1: Three main types of graph/chart 9 Figure 2.2: Seven types of errors 26 Figure 4.1: Frequency of errors 31 v Nguyen Thi Hong Tham – Faculty of Foreign Languages ABSTRACT The study aims to identify the common writing errors in graph/chart description among ATC seniors at the Banking Academy and then giving suggestions for the students to eliminate these errors. The qualitative research method was adopted in the study to explore common error types in 29 writings of English major seniors in a report writing class at the Banking Academy. Their papers were taken from a midterm test on graph description. Then, the papers were coded to ensure the security of personal information for the study subjects.
After analyzing the students’ writings, the results show that there are seven common errors at both word and sentence levels: tense, faulty sentence, wrong words, wrong word form, preposition errors, passive voice, and word order. Some relevant suggestions to resolve these problems are offered in three aspects: self-correction, peer correction, and teacher correction. The recommendations focus on encouraging students to take advantage of the development of the Internet to the errors. Key words: common writing errors, graph description, chart description, writing report, seniors vi Nguyen Thi Hong Tham – Faculty of Foreign Languages CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale of the study In the workplace, people can communicate with each other in one way or another. One typical form is written communication that plays a vital role from organisations to organizations. A routine type of written communication in the bussiness settings includes emails, letters, memos and reports, which are written to exchange the information or to give out the solutions to deal with the problems. Of these workplace texts, reports have a significant degree of use and is a rather challenging task in writing (Keane & Gibson, 1999; Wu&Chin, 2010; Chan, 2014; Takino, 2020).
Reports can be presented by either formal or informal way; however, in a working environment, people tend to use the formal way to express their respect with their coworkers. Reports play an essential role because these are the summary of data from the company in a particular period of time. Basing on a considerable amount of information in the reports, managers and decision-makers can understand the situation of organizations and give the solutions if necessary. Report writing can be described as a career skill.
Not only is it a task that forms part of an increasing number of business jobs, but also it can make a huge difference to how writers are perceived and even how well they get on in their career. Today, good communication skills and the ability to write effective reports are essential competencies for every successful businessperson (Bowden, 2008). Understanding the importance of writing a report, many universities around the world have incorporated the subject “Report writing” in their curricula to familiarize students with the steps of writing a complete report. Although students study writing report skills in their universities, they may not apply everything they learn to their own writings.
Especially, to those who study English as a second language, challenges to writing this genre can be exacerbated by language barriers. They can face problems related not only to how to write a report but also to how to use the English language properly. Naturally, a variety of 1 Nguyen Thi Hong Tham – Faculty of Foreign Languages writing errors, though serious or minor, emerge as part of their learning process. The situation is also mirrored by Vietnamese learners when it comes to report writing.
Nowadays, there are many research papers on writing errors committed by ESL learners in general.218) focused on analysing the effects of interlanguage on errors. Then, Myles (2002) investigated the sources of errors. Next, Ferris (2011) emphasized the treatment of the errors to give feedbacks for learners. Finally, Chaudhary and Zahrani (2020) explored the types, frequency and sources of errors.
However, the number of reports on writing errors made in report writing, especially in graph/chart description remains limited. Given all the things mentioned above and the critical demand for mastering English, this report was conducted to investigate common writing errors made by English major seniors at the Banking Academy when it comes to graph/chart description. Objectives of the study In order to realise the research goal, this study focuses on examining the common types of writing errors made by English major seniors at the Banking Academy; recommending some measures to fix these errors. Significance of the study 1.
For the ATC students & ATC seniors This study will be an important basis for ATC students in general and ATC seniors in particular because it points out the common writing errors and possible causes of these errors, which can help students to avoid making them. Accordingly, students can reflect on essay writing during their writing process. Hourani (2008) commented that students can learn from the errors made by other students, which enables them to have a clear view about the writing errors and gain their target scores. 2 Nguyen Thi Hong Tham – Faculty of Foreign Languages Lastly, they are important for the learners themselves as they can learn about language accuracy.
For ATC lecturers & those who are in charge of report-writing skills Report-writing teachers can have an objective perspective about students’ errors. From that, they can figure out suitable teaching methods to improve student's performance in this subject. Hourani (2008) indicated that errors were important in three different dimensions. The first dimension is errors can demonstrate to teachers how much progress students made.
Moreover, Peng (1976) emphasized that error analysis helped teachers to conduct remedial teaching in teaching a foreign language. All things considered, although making errors is not desirable, it can be asserted that errors are regarded as valuable materials to be studied in the process of learning a foreign language. For other researchers in the relevant aspects This research plays a part in the contextualization of the research topic. Describing graphs/charts is not a new task, but currently, there is little research on it.
Thus, this research serves as a basis for future researchers to rely on and continue to develop new and more diverse dimensions of their study in the report writing genre. As stated by Hourani (2008), errors provide evidence for researchers on how language is learned or acquired and what strategies or techniques learners use in exploring the language. Scope and limitations 1. Scope The research centers on studying the types of common writing errors as well as solutions to the problems.
This study was conducted at the Banking Academy (Hanoi, Vietnam) among English major seniors for about 2 months from March 2021 to May 2021 according to the graduation thesis completion schedule set by the Faculty of Foreign 3 Nguyen Thi Hong Tham – Faculty of Foreign Languages Languages. There were 29 students who are fourth-year students in the same report writing class participating in the study by filling in the consent form and providing their personal writings. In graph/chart description, this research concentrates on some types of graph/chart that include: line chart, bar/column graph/chart, and pie chart (circle graph). The reason is the report writing skill module for English majors at the Banking Academy is mainly associated with these types of graph/chart.
Limitations The sample size of the study is 29 English major seniors in the same report writing class. It was difficult to take more samples because other student groups have different features regarding years of study and language levels. In fact, the sample size remains small, which poses a significant difficulty in making generalizations. The results from student writings which were analyzed by only an evaluator may be vulnerable to subjectivity.
List of key terms An error is “the use of a word, speech act or grammatical items in such a way it seems imperfect and significant of an incomplete learning” (Richard, 2002), whereas Ferris (2011) defines the term basing on three linguistic aspects: “errors are a morphological, syntactic, and lexical forms that deviate from rules of the target language, violating the expectations of literate adult native speakers”.