PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE OF KHANH HOA PROVINCE UNIVERSITY OF KHANH HOA UNDERGRADUATE THESIS DIFFICULTIES IN WRITING ESSAYS IN THE GENERAL ENGLISH 5 UNIT FOR SENIOR ENGLISH MAJORS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KHANH HOA STUDENT’S NAME: TRẦN THÚY QUỲNH CLASS: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS K1 DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE SUPERVISOR: Dr. TRẦN THỊ ÁI HOA Khanh Hoa, June 2020 DECLARATION I hereby declare that the study titled “Difficulties in writing essays in the General English 5 Unit for senior English majors at the University of Khanh Hoa” was bona fide research work accomplished by me from September, 2019 to June, 2020 and conducted under the supervisor of Dr. Tran Thi Ai Hoa an instructor of English at Department of Foreign languages, the University of Khanh Hoa. This undergraduate thesis is not submitted to any other university or institution for the award of any degree, diploma or published any time before.
TRAN THUY QUYNH ACKNOWLEDGEMENT From the outset of this report, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to all those who have helped me in this study. Without their active guidance, cooperation, help, and encouragement, I would not have made headway in the study. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to the University of Khanh Hoa Board and all teachers in the Department of Foreign language for creating good conditions so that I could carry out and complete the graduate research, which will be a big milestone for my study at school and for career development in the future. I have special thanks to Ms.
Tran Thi Ai Hoa who was my supervisor during the research period with her friendliness and enthusiasm about supervising and supporting me in completing the research work. I am eternally grateful to my associate supervisor, Dr. Tran Thi Ai Hoa for extensive expertise and her tolerant perseverance with me in the world of combustion research. It was only reason that her initial valuable guidance and accurate judgement that I received to be able to drive my research work in a respectable manner.
In addition, I would like to thank Ms. Nguyen Hoai Trang who is a lecturer of the Department of Foreign language at the University of Khanh Hoa teaching General English 5 Unit and thank all students in class English Lingustics K1 for their support and encouragement me to complete the research work in a cheerful and in enthusiastic. Further on, I would like to express my thanks to my best friends, Huynh Thuc Khiem, Hoang Thi Thanh Huyen, Vo Thi Khuong Linh and Luu Thi Bao Khuyen for their offered support and motivation and for their precious friendship and strong faith in me through all the fluctuations of my study. Last but not least, I would like to give all my thanks to my family for their unconditional love and some my old friends who are the senior students in Ho Chi Minh city for giving me motivation and love.
TABLE OF CONTENT CONTENTS DECLARATION. 4 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. 1 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION. Significance of the study.
Aim and objective of the study. Aim of the study. Objectives of the study. Structure of the study.
4 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW. Definition of an essay. Structure of an essay. Types of essays.
5 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY. Research approach and design. Research participants and sampling. Data collection instrument.
Data collecting procedure. Test scoring records. Validity and Reliability. 13 CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.
Findings from Questionnaire. Students’ background in learning English at school. Students’ difficulties in writing essays. Students’ essay writing learning and practicing.
Students’ strategies to solve difficulties. Findings from Interview. Findings from Test scoring records. The score of 25 essays.
The sub-scores based on the Table of Evaluation according to the Rubrics for evaluating essays. The Rubrics consists of 5 criteria, which contains from 1 point to 4 points each (Appendix C). The points were divided into two groups such as 1-2 and 3-4 for analysis. 42 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION.
50 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CAE: Certificate in Advanced English GCSE: General Certificate of Secondary Education IELTS: International English Language Testing System EFL: English as a foreign language TOEIC: Test of English for International Communication TOEFL iBT: Test of English as Foreign Language internet Based Test UKH: University of Khanh Hoa LISTS OF TABLES Table 3. 1: Partcipants of the research. 1: Descriptive statistics of writing essay score explained. 2: Students’ difficulties in writing essays.
45 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4. 1: Students’ numbers of the years of having learned English. 2: Purpose of learning English. 3: How to answer questions relating to the topic to develop ideas for the essay.
4: How to construct an essay (including introduction, body and conclusion). 5: How to write topic sentences. 6: How to write supporting sentences. 7: Practical knowledge about topic.
14: Large words in the paper. 15: Writing sentence in context. 16: Coherence and cohesion. 17: Essay writing guidelines.
18: Interaction between the teacher and the student. 19: Unqualitied corrected-essays. 22: Short-term memories. 23: Spirits, mood and feelings.
25: Group work in class. 27: More time for practicing writing essays because of part – time jobs. 28: Learning writing essay in class at General English 5 Unit. 29: Learning writing in the General English 5 Unit at school.
30: The pie chart shows the percentage of students being given writing essays at homework. 31: The essay correction at school. 32: Frequency of practicing writing essays after school. 33: Frequency of practicing writing essays after school per week.
34: Frequency of practicing writing essays after schools per day on which students spent time for their practice. 35: Strategies to solve difficulties. 32 ABSTRACT It can be said that language is considered one of the important factors in all fields nowadays, especially diplomacy and communication. With the development of industrialization and modernization of the country and integration of globalization, learning foreign languages becomes more and more necessary.
Internationally, English is widely used all over the world. As we know, Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing are four important skills in English subject at high schools, in European- standard training programs at colleges or universities and in international standards - based assessments such as TOEIC for getting jobs, TOELF and IELTS for study and settling abroad. For English learners, writing skill is considered as one of the important skills of the English learning. Of which, writing English essays is very important for learners of English as a foreign language (EFL).
Writing essays are obligated in writing programs at colleges and universities such as writing in the final assessment tests, in the writing sections of the tests to assess English proficiency according to international standards. Through writing essays, it is possible to evaluate the ability to learn English. The essay is also considered as a basic of developing other advanced forms of writing such as thesis, blueprint, report, etc. However, it is not easy to write English essays well because learners are prone to making linguistic mistakes and encountering several obstacles.
1 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale As learners of English as a major at the University of Khanh Hoa (UKH), even though having learnt writing essays in General English 5 Unit following the textbook English at level C1 Advanced, the senior English majors still had difficulties in writing essays when learning and writing essays in final-term examinations. Actually, many students said that they were not skillful at writing essays, therefore, they did not make good or excellent points in their essays of the mid-term test and final exams. They found it problematic write good essays with high marks in the mid-term or final examinations.
Thus, this study aims at investigating difficulties that students encounter in writing essay and suggesting solutions to deal with the difficulties so that their essays can become better in their examinations. Significance of the study This study is significant in some aspects due to endeavoring contributions as follows. First, as a contribution to the EFL teaching methodologies, the result of the study can be used as a document for teachers to organize planning and teaching methods focusing on essay writing skill effectively, which helps to get high efficiency in teaching English language. For the EFL learning methodologies, the study will show considerations for difficulties in writing essays and give students some ways to cope with, which can help to develop students’ abilities of writing essays in specific and students’ writing skill in general.
Second, the findings of this study contribute to the process of promoting and developing English learning skill for English learners at the University of Khanh Hoa (UKH) who not only learn English for taking tests but also can use it in future jobs. Third, this study brings students some advantages in improving their self-study competence by raising their awareness of the importance of essay writing skill and providing them with strategies and methods to enhance their abilities to writing essays. 2 Third, the result of this study are also advantageous to English teachers in introducing reference materials and providing students with methods of integrating teaching essay writing skill in the General English 5 Unit, designing authenticity for teaching methods and materials to be suitable to students’ abilities of writing English essays. Finally, the study may be a reference material for those who would like to research to and develop the same the topic as this study.
Moreover, it is a good chance for student to have experience to carry out scientific research and improve English writing skill. Aim and objective of the study 1. Aim of the study The aim of this survey is to find out difficulties in writing essays that senior English majored students faced in the General English 5 Unit. This will help to recommend relevant solutions for the students in English Linguistics classes to advance essay writing skill.
Objectives of the study (1) To attain the opinions of the students and the teacher about difficulties in writing essays, methods of learning and teaching writing essays at school and the result of writing essays in general at school. Of which, finding difficulties that students faced in writing essays is the main objective in this study. (2) To cope with the difficulties senior English majors encountered in writing essays. (3) To grasp criteria and strategies for choosing and using the authentic materials appropriate for the next General English 5 unit in the future.
(4) To pursue methods and strategies to enhance students' essays writing skill. Research question Aim of this study is to answer the following question: 3 What are difficulties which the senior English majors at the University of Khanh Hoa (UKH) encountered in writing essays in the General English 5 Unit? To answer this question, there are two problems to find out: (1) Difficulties in writing essays (2) Errors in essays 1. Structure of the study The study consists of three major parts. They are introduction, development and conclusion.
The introduction (Chapter one) presents the study rationale, significance, aims and objectives and research questions. Next, the development includes three chapters. They are chapter two, chapter three and chapter four. Chapter two presents a review of literature with the issue regarding to writing essays and difficulties in writing essays in previous studies.
Chapter three shows the research methodology and procedure for data collection and analysis. Chapter four reports the results of findings and discussions. The final part is conclusion which carries sections of summary, implications for learning and teaching methods, limitations and recommendations for further study. CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.
Definition of an essay In general, an essay can be defined as a short piece of writing that expresses information as well as the opinion of the writer.