VIETNAM NATIONAL UNNIVERSITY – HO CHI MING CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES TOWARDS TEACHING ADULTS: AN ANALYSIS OF THE WRITING PROBLEMS FACING EFL LEARNERS OF MIXED LEVELS IN LONG AN TEACHER’S TRAINING COLLEGE A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL) Submitted by NGUYEÃN HÖÕU LÖÔÏM Supervisor TOÂ MINH THANH, Ph. Long An, September 2005 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the Master’s Thesis submitted today entitled TOWARDS TEACHING ADULTS: AN ANALYSIS OF THE WRITING PROBLEMS FACING EFL LEARNERS OF MIXED LEVELS IN LONG AN TEACHER’S TRAINING COLLEGE in terms of the statements of requirements for Theses in Master’s Programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee. Long An, September 2005 NGUYEN HUU LUOM i RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, NGUYEN HUU LUOM, being the candidate for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL), accept the requirements of the university relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the University Library. I agree that the original of my Master’s Thesis deposited in the University Library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan and reproduction for theses.
Long An, September 2005 Signature ……………………. NGUYEN HUU LUOM ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, To Minh Thanh, Ph., who read my manuscript with great care and devotion, gave thoughtful and insightful comments and provided one with valuable support and relevant materials in the preparation and completion of this thesis, asserting her indispensable role as a wholehearted supervisor. I would not have finished my thesis without her enthusiastic guidance and constructive critical questions to help me think over the problems. I am also grateful to Dr.
Le Huu Phuoc, Head of the Department of Post Graduate Studies of Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities and Nguyen Huynh Dat, M., Dean of the Department of English Linguistics and Literature, who have created favorable conditions for my fulfillment of the thesis. I am as well greatly indebted to their staff members and all my instructors who have assisted me during the postgraduate courses. The thesis would have never been possible without the help of the teaching staff of English of Long An TTC and the learners of the standardizing program for primary school teachers from the two localities, Moc Hoa district and Tan An town. My heartfelt gratitude is expressed to all of them for their responsiveness to the survey questionnaires.
I also wish to thank Mr. Tran Quang Hien, Head of the Department of Foreign Languages of Long An TTC, who provided me with continual encouragement and eased my office workload so that I would be able to finish my thesis, and all my colleagues, who helped me with the distribution and collection of the questionnaires. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my family and my best friends for their help and support while I was doing this thesis. iii ABSTRACT This thesis investigates the current practices in teaching EFL, especially writing skills, to the learners of the standardizing program for primary school teachers at Long An TTC.
Its study is mainly based on the questionnaires delivered to 114 standardized learners of Tan An Town and Moc Hoa District, and 12 teachers of English at Long An TTC, who are experienced in teaching EFL to the learners in question. The thesis also bases its study on the results of the writing tests recently held at Long An TTC for the learners of the standardizing program. The purpose of this study is to search for (1) potential factors that hinder the learners from writing well-formed English sentences, (2) acute problems facing the teachers of the standardizing program, (3) possible effective measures that may be taken to better the teaching and learning EFL at Long An TTC in general and L2 writing in the standardizing program in particular. The significant results found from the data analysis of the thesis show that the learners’ poor quality in their learning L2 writing result from their problems of age and motivation, their low frequency of practice and the tense and poorly motivating classroom atmosphere.
Basing on these findings, the thesis makes some recommendations to (1) the teachers, (2) the learners and (3) the administrators of the standardizing program in the hope that some strategic changes should be made to better the current EFL teaching and learning to adult-age learners at Long An TTC. The thesis also suggests that the three should cooperate in carrying out those changes. Both the teachers’ and the learners’ active roles are indispensable to the real success in EFL teaching and learning. iv ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS CUP Cambridge University Press EFL English as a Foreign Language HCMC Ho Chi Minh City L1 First language/Mother tongue L2 Second language MA Master of Arts 0UP Oxford University Press TESOL Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages TTC Teacher’s Training College USSH University of Social Sciences and Humanities v LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES List of figures Figure 3.1 The learners’ age .2 The learners’ gender.
31 List of Tables Table 4.1 Learners’ views on their learning L2 writing .2 Learners’ views on their difficulties in writing L2 sentences .3 What the learners usually do when they start to write .4 Learners’ views on the influence of L1 proficiency on L2 writing skills .5 Learners’ views on of elements of an L2 well-formed sentences .6 Learners’ views on their ability in self-correction of mistakes/errors in L2 writing .7 Learners’ views on their teachers’ correction of mistakes/errors in L2 writing .8 Learners’ views on their other problems in L2 writing .9 Teachers’ views on their teaching L2 writing .10 Teachers’ views on their learners’ difficulties in writing L2 sentences .11 Teachers’ guidance for the learners’ L2 writing practice.12 Teachers’ views on elements of an L2 well-formed sentence .13 Teachers’ views on their explicit teaching elements of an L2 well-formed sentence .14 Teachers’ views on the learners’ self-discovery and self-correction of mistakes/errors in their L2 writing .15 Teachers’ mistake/error correction in teaching L2 writing .16 Teachers’ views on the learners’ other problems in L2 writing. 56 vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Certificate of originality Retention and use of the thesis Acknowledgements Abstract Lists of abbreviations Lists of figures & tables INTRODUCTION .1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM .2 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY .3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY .4 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY. 4 Chapter 1 BACKGROUND INFORMATION .1 SYLLABUS FOR ADULT NON-MAJORED LEARNERS OF ENGLISH AT LONG AN TTC .1 Aims of the syllabus .2 LEARNERS’ AND TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES TO TEACHING AND LEARNING L2 WRITING .3 EFL TEACHING AND LEARNING AT LONG AN TTC .4 SOME THOUGHTS ON THE PHASED PROGRESS TESTS RECENTLY HELD AT LONG AN TTC. 11 Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW .1 TEACHING ADULT EFL .1 How different is teaching adults from teaching younger learners .2 Some approaches to teaching adults .3 Problems of teaching adult EFL .1 What do adult learners bring to a language class? .2 Why is teaching adults a problem? .1 Nature of writing 2.1 What is writing? .2 Why is writing in general and L2 writing in particular difficult? .3 What is the role of grammar in L2 writing? .3 Previous research on teaching L2 writing .3 MISTAKES AND ERRORS .1 Mistake-error distinction .3 Mistake/Error correction .1 Traditional attitude to mistake/error correction.2 Communicative approach to mistake/error correction .3 Universal view on mistake/error correction .3 Data collection procedure.
36 Chapter 4 DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS .1 Learners’ views on writing skills .2 Learners’ views on their learning L2 writing .3 Learners’ difficulties in writing L2 sentences .4 Learners’ actual writing practice .5 Learners’ views on the influence of L1 proficiency on L2 writing .6 Learners’ views on elements of an L2 well-formed sentence .7 Learners’ views on the role of grammar in L2 writing .8 Learners’ self-discovery and self-correction of mistakes/errors in their L2 writing .9 Learners’ views on their teachers’ correction of their mistakes/errors in L2 writing .10 Learners’ views on their other problems in L2 writing .1 Teachers’ views on writing skills .2 Teachers’ views on their teaching L2 writing .3 Teachers’ views on the role of grammar in L2 writing .4 Teachers’ views on the learners’ difficulties in writing L2 sentences .5 Teachers’ guidance for the learners’ L2 writing practice .6 Teachers’ views on elements of an L2 well-formed sentence .7 Teachers’ views on their explicit teaching elements of an L2 well-formed sentence .8 Teachers’ views on the learners’ self-discovery and self-correction of mistakes/errors in their L2 writing .9 Teachers’ mistake/error correction in teaching L2 writing .10Teachers’ views on the learners’ other problems in L2 writing .2 EVALUATION ON WRITING TESTS .1 Some comments on current tests .2 Some comments on the learners’ mistakes/errors .1 Learners’ low ability to study a new language .2 Learners’ low frequency of writing practice .3 Poorly motivated classroom writing practice .5 Learners’ inability to self-correct their mistakes/errors in L2 writing. 63 Chapter 5 IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATION .1 To the teachers .2 To the learners .3 To the syllabus and the course books. 77 x Appendix 1 Learners’ questionnaire. 81 Appendix 2 Teachers’ questionnaire.
86 Appendix 3 Some techniques in teaching L2 writing. 92 Appendix 4 Recent tests for the standardizing program at Long An TTC. 100 xi Introduction INTRODUCTION The study reported in this thesis attempts to find out the problems facing adult EFL learners at Long An Teacher's Training College (abbreviated to TTC) in learning English in general and in learning L2 writing in particular, in the light of which appropriate approaches should be introduced to improve their writing products and better the language learning and teaching at Long An TTC 0.1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM Nowadays, there is an urgent need for any school in Vietnam to standardize its teaching staff. Such a need is undoubtedly real at any primary and junior secondary school in Long An Province.
Long An TTC is the institution carefully selected by the Board of Education and Training of Long An Province to carry out a standardizing program. In this program, all the teachers of the primary schools in Long An Province are required to take an English course which is supposed to provide them with some knowledge of the international language — an access to the world’s scientific progress later. There is no doubt that learners of no age limit always expect to get their best results at any school. The Vietnamese adult learners of English at Long An TTC are not an exception.
In spite of their familiarity with pedagogy as life-long teachers of a primary school, the learners encounter big problems in learning English. The problems are serious if they have never studied a foreign language before. Consequently, these adult learners of English often make a considerable number of mistakes/errors when they write in English at elementary level. Under such a circumstance there arises a great need, first of 1 Introduction all, to investigate the problems facing these learners and then to look for a way to solve these problems satisfactorily.
It is not difficult to identify the fact that neither the teachers nor their adult learners at Long An TTC pay adequate attention to EFL teaching and learning. Quite often, English is considered just as one of the requirements that all the learners must meet in order to be allowed to take the final examination the result of which is an official certificate. Consequently, the adult learners are poorly committed and motivated in EFL classrooms and, as you might guess, they usually have bad results in their tests of English. The current gloomy reality of teaching and learning English at Long An TTC has raised some issues that can also be regarded as the very research questions of this M.