iii ABSTRACT This minor thesis was carried out with an attempt to improve the teaching and learning of writing skill of the teachers and the 12th form students at Thanh Ha High School, Hai Duong province. The purposes of the thesis were to investigate the types of errors that 12th form students at Thanh Ha High School often make in learning English, possible causes of common English written errors made by 12th form students and to offer some possible solutions to overcome these common English written errors. The subjects involved in the study were 130 students' actual writings in class and 8 teachers who are currently teaching and have taught writing skill before. Teachers were invited to answer the survey questionnaire and to participate in the interview.
The study reveals that in lexical and grammatical errors, students often commit errors in spelling, noun number, word choice/ wrong word, wrong conjunction/ connective, article and verb form mistakes. The common causes for these kinds of errors are mainly their carelessness, mother tongue interference, incomplete application of rules, overgeneralization and ignorance of rule restrictions. The study suggests that teacher should use some techniques in pre-writing stage and post- writing stage to reduce and prevent students' written common errors. In pre- writing stage, teacher can elicit students' vocabulary and structures, give students samples of the topic which students are required to write, and sometimes teach them grammar rules.
In post-writing stage, teachers can ask student to correct themselves, then correct in pairs and finally teachers give corrective feedback. TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENT Pages Declaration i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii Table of content iv Abbreviations vi Lists of tables vii Part A: Introduction 1 1. Background to the study 1 2. Aims of the study 1 3.
Methods of the study 2 5. Scope of the study 3 6. Organization of the thesis. 3 Part B: Development 4 Chapter I: Literature review 4 1.
Overview of writing 4 1. Definition of writing 4 1. Roles of writing 4 1. Overview of errors.
Error versus mistake. Errors in language learning process. First language and second language errors. Receptive errors and expressive errors.
Causes of errors in foreign language learning 8 1. Mother tongue interference 9 1. Ignorance of rule restriction 12 1. Incomplete application of rules 12 1.
Carelessness 13 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Review of previous studies. 13 Chapter II: The study 15 2. The setting of the study.
"Tiếng Anh 12" textbook 15 2. An overview of textbook 12 15 2. Data collection instruments 17 2. Data collection procedure 18 2.
Data analysis and discussion 19 2. Findings and possible solutions 32 2. Techniques in pre-writing stage 33 2. Techniques in post-writing stage 36 Part C: Conclusion 39 1.
Summary of the study 39 2. Possible solutions 40 References 41 Appendices I TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com vi ABBREVIATIONS CLT: Communicative Language Teaching L1: first language L2: second language FL: foreign language FLL: foreign language learning TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com vii LISTS OF TABLES Table 1: Errors of lexical and grammatical items of 12th form students at Thanh Ha High School synthesized from teachers' questionnaire Table 2: Written error of 12th form students at Thanh Ha High School as synthesized from document analysis Table 3: Components of grammatical errors Table 4: Typical examples of common grammar errors Table 5: Typical examples of lexical errors Table 6: Teachers' rating the significance of causes to students' common written errors Table 7: The popularity of each kind of causes to students' common written errors Table 8. Teachers' recommendations to reduce and prevent students' common written errors TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 1 PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Background to the study English has become one of the most popular languages in the world.
As an effective means of international communication, it is used as the official language in many fields of life such as economics, politics, science, technology, sports and many others. Therefore, there is a great demand for teaching and learning English throughout the world. There are more and more people who learn English and consider it an inevitable factor in their work and life. In Vietnam, English has been brought into the school curriculum as a compulsory subject, and the teaching and learning of the international language has been recently paid great attention to.
When teaching English, the teacher teaches his learners not only the English language but also its usage. It means that his aim is to train learners with a good control of English skills and to teach them to put the language into use in real communicative situations: either writing or speaking. This learners' competence is assessed in terms of how comprehensibly and accurately a message is conveyed. If a message is unsuccessfully conveyed, the teacher will consider the reason why it is so, and the answer often is the means that causes it.
What lessens the effectiveness may be that there are something wrong with the meanings of the sentences i. what is usually called 'error' in foreign language learning. In effect, learners often make mistakes when they produce English. When teachers find the learners' errors, they often give feedback by correcting or just pointing them.
However, this is sometimes not effective because learners still make the same errors the next time. Like many teachers and researchers, Vietnamese teachers have been always seeking for new and effective methods and techniques to improve their teaching with the hope of predicting and preventing errors before they appear. Nevertheless, they pay much more concern to why Vietnamese learners commit errors and how to prevent or reduce these errors, not students at high schools. Therefore, the situation encouraged the author to do the research on "Possible causes of common English written errors made by 12th- form students at Thanh Ha High School, Hai Duong and some possible solutions".
This study will be really useful for both teachers and students in teaching and learning writing skill. Aims of the study The researcher defines the major objectives of the study as: TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 2 to investigate the types of written errors that 12th-form students at Thanh Ha High School often make in learning English. to investigate possible causes of common English written errors made by 12th- form students. to offer some possible solutions to overcome these common English written errors.
This study is carried out with the hope that teachers can improve their writing teaching methods and students can define their common errors and adjust their way of learning this skill to obtain better results. Research questions In order to achieve the above aims, three research questions are raised: 3. What are the types of written errors that 12th- form students make in writing skills? 3. What are the major causes of these errors? 3.
What recommendations should be given to reduce and prevent these errors? 4. Methods of the study With the aim of finding out the causes of common written errors made by 12th- form students at Thanh Ha High School, Hai Duong, this study adopts quantitative and qualitative methods. To identify the problems, the study has been carried out with the data collected from different instruments: - Consulting related materials: For the sake of getting knowledge and useful ideas, I read many books and other materials in addition to earlier researchers about errors and causes of common English written errors. - Delivering survey questionnaire: To fulfill this thesis, one survey questionnaire for teachers was carried out to find out the teachers' attitudes toward causes of common English written errors and some possible solutions.
- Interviewing teachers who have been teaching writing to 12th form students to investigate what and how they do to prevent and reduce students' common written errors. - Using students' actual writings as a technique of eliciting data for the analysis and statistical counting as measurement of results. TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Scope of the study This study is limited to the area of teaching and learning writing in 12th-form at Thanh Ha High School, Hai Duong.
Specifically, this minor thesis deals with the possible causes of common English written errors made by 12th- form students, and based on these discussions of the findings, some possible solutions will be introduced. Organization of the thesis The thesis has three main parts: introduction, development and conclusion. The introduction presents the background to the study, aims and significance of the study, research questions, methods, scope and organization of the thesis. The development consists of two chapters.
Chapter One exposes literature review relating writing and causes of errors in foreign learning. Chapter Two is about the study which investigates possible causes of common English written made by 12th- form students at Thanh Ha High School from survey questionnaires on teachers and students' actual writings. It also contains findings of the study and some solutions for the problems. The conclusion gives a summary of what has been discussed so far in the thesis, the limitation of the study, and suggestion for further research.
TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 4 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Overview of writing 1. Definition of writing Writing is a significant and essential area of development in a native language and in a second language; therefore it has been studied by many researchers and defined in a variety of ways. According to Byrne, D (1998, p.1), writing can be seen as the "act of forming graphic symbols"; that is letters or the combination of letters or simply writing is like "making marks on the flat surface of some kinds" (p.9) points out that writing, in fact, is a far more complicated process than the production of graphic symbols.
It is "a process of transforming the material discovered by research inspiration, accident, trial and error, or whatever into a message with a definite meaning., a process of deliberate decision." From another view of writing, Brannon et al.2) defines writing as "a creative art, not as an assembly line operation of locking words together into sentences and bolting sentences together into paragraphs in accordance with a predefined plan". Byrne does not seem to share the same view with Brannon, Knight and Neverow Turk in stating that "writing is a sequence of sentences arranged in a particular order and link together in a certain way". Noticeably, language teachers have defined writing so differently. As for Tribble (1996, p.3), writing is "a language skill which is difficult to acquire".
He also stresses that writing "normally requires some forms of instruction" and that "it is not a skill that is readily picked up by exposure" (1996, p. From my personal experience as a classroom teacher, I agree with Rivers' definition (1981) that "writing is not a skill that can be learned or developed in isolation but it should be taught and developed in cooperation with other skills and aspects of the language studied. Roles of writing Writing emerges with its own functions and brings along communicative code of the writers. When making a piece of writing, the writer implies a message or a certain purpose.
In the modern world, writing (written language) serves a range of functions in everyday life. As Nunan (1991: 84) points out, writing is: TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 5 (i) Primarily for action: public signs (on roads and stations), product labels and instructions (on food, tools or toys purchased), recipes, maps, television and radio guides, bills, menus, telephone directories, etc. For social contact: personal correspondence, letters, postcards, greeting cards. (ii) Primarily for information: newspapers and magazines, non- fiction books including textbooks, public notices, advertisement, guidebooks and travel literature, etc.) (iii) Primarily for entertainment: light magazines, comic strips; fiction books; poetry and drama; film subtitles; games including computer games.
In classroom, the teaching and learning of writing also play an important role. Through writing we are able to share ideas, arouse feelings, persuade and convince other people.