Hanoi National University-College of Foreign Languages
Post- graduate studies department
Bïi ThÞ Ph-¬ng Lan
The first year – language students’ difficulties in paragraph
Writing and some appropriate strategies to solve these
problems at the National Economics University
M.A minor Thesis
Field: English Language Teaching Methodology.
Course: 13
Supervisor: Lª ThÕ NghiÖp, MA
Hanoi, 2007
Abstract
Writing is a very important skill in teaching and learning English especially
paragraph writing. But for the first – year language students at National Economics
University (NEU), they still get many difficulties in paragraph writing. Understanding their
problems, I decided to do a research on teaching paragraph writing with the hope that I can
provide the teachers of English at NEW with the real situation about their students’
difficulties.
In the study, I try to find out the students’ common errors in language, idea
organization, and content. With these findings, I will recommend the best teaching
methodology to help teachers of English deal with their students’ problems like using
pictures and using readings with various activities such as working with the text using
copying, working with the text to examine cohesive links, working with the text to combine
sentence, etc. Moreover, I will mentions to teachers’ correction. How to deal with students’
errors? Which errors teachers should correct? When to correct? I myself also will design a
check - list of paragraph writing for students can check by themselves or check for their
partners.
With my findings and my suggestions for teaching paragraph writing for the first year
language students at NEW, I hope that the teachers of English at NEW will have a basic
background of students to apply a suitable way of teaching in order help them to overcome
their problems.
Table of contents
Page
2
Introduction
1.
Rational
(Introduction,
Conclusion)
NEU
students’
difficulties,
and
6
2. Objectives of the study
9
3. Scope of study
9
4. Method of the study
10
5. Contents of study
10
The Body
Chapter I: Literature review
I.1 Teaching writing
I.1.1. Definitions of writing
12
I.1.2. The reasons for teaching writing
13
I.1.3. Approaches to writing teaching
13
I.1.4. Principles of teaching writing
15
I.2. Teaching paragraph writing
I.2.1. Definition of Paragraph
17
I.2.2. Classifications of paragraph
18
I.2.3. Writing Process of paragraph
20
Chapter II: Methodology
II.1. Subjects.
23
II.2. Description of the course of English for writing paragraph
at NEU
23
II.3. Data collection
24
Chapter III: Data analysis and discussions
III.1. Questionnaire Survey Analysis
III.1.1. Students’ background and attitude
27
III.1.2. General Expectation of the course
29
III.1.3. The Choice on teaching methodology
32
3
III.2. Errors analysis of writing samples
III.2.1. Errors in the paragraph content
38
III.2.2. Errors in ideas organization
40
III.2.3. Errors in language
41
Chapter IV: Implications for teaching strategies and some
suggested activities and exercises
IV.1. Using pictures to teach paragraph writing
45
(Reasons, strategies for using pictures, suggested activities and exercises)
IV.2. Using readings to teach paragraph writing
53
(Reasons, strategies for using pictures, suggested activities and exercises)
IV.3. Correcting errors
57
Conclusions
Summary of the study
62
Recommendations for further research
63
Bibliography
64
Appendices
Appendix1: Questionnaires for students
66
Appendix 2: Error analysis in students’ writing papers
69
4
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor Mr. Le The Nghiep who
has enthusiastically helped and encouraged me during the period of writing this research
paper. Without his experienced guidance, valuable comments and tireless help, I cannot
complete the study on time.
My gratitude also go to all of the instructors in my MA. course at the Post-Graduate
Studies, College of Foreign Languages, Hanoi National University. With their precious and
professional lectures and tutoring, I can understand difficult basic concepts related to English
teaching methodology,
I am also grateful to all my friends and colleagues and my beloved family, who gave
me useful advice on writing process.
Finally, I wish to acknowledge the kind help of the first year language students at
NEU who helped me to collect data, and their valuable support for finishing the study.
Hanoi December, 2007
Bui Thi Phuong Lan
List of Abbreviations
5
NEU:
National Economics University
ESP:
English Specific Purpose
M.A:
Master of Arts
Introduction
6
1. RATIONALE
1.1. Introduction
The goal of teaching and learning foreign languages is providing the learners with a
means of communication or in other words, improving the communicative competence for
learners. To acquire the communicative competence, four language skills (reading, speaking,
listening and writing) are taught regularly at schools and universities, among which writing
skill is very important because it is a productive skill. It is also because of the fact that
besides speaking, people frequently have to communicate with each other in writing.
Moreover, writing helps learners learn other skills better. “First, writing reinforces the
grammatical structures, idioms, and vocabulary that we have been teaching our students.
Second, when they write, they have a chance to be adventurous with the language, to go
beyond what they have just learned to say, to take risks. Third, when students write, they
necessarily become very involved with the new language; the effort to express ideas and
constant use of eye, hand and brain is the unique way of expressing their idea. They discover
a real need for finding the right word and the right sentence. The close relationship between
writing and thinking makes writing a valuable part of any language courses” (Raimes, 1938:
3).
Due to the importance of productive skills, the course for the students at NEU pays
much attention to writing.
At NEU, paragraph writing is conducted for the first-year language students because
it is one of the fundamental and basic writing skills. Paragraph writing is the background for
students to learn other writing skills in the next terms. For example, they will learn to write
business letters, business e-mails, and contracts.
1.2. NEU students’ difficulties in paragraph writing
It is the fact that students at NEU in general and the first-year language students in
particular are very weak at paragraph writing. There are some reasons why English major
students face a number of problems when studying paragraph writing. First, most students
were not familiar with paragraph writing. When they were at high school, they only practiced
writing at a very low level like sentence-building, sentence-rewriting. Second, they just got
acquainted with very informal writing styles like close-letters and close-e-mails, in the first
7
semester. So when they write a paragraph, they make many mistakes of vocabulary,
grammar, organization as well as the way of idea expression.
As revealed in the questionnaire, each student has his own difficulties. But the most
serious ones are limitations of English vocabulary and grammar, weakness in expressing
ideas and using linking words.
The students’ paragraph writing revealed that students always make vocabulary and
grammatical mistakes. They use the wrong words when they write a paragraph because of
their misunderstanding the meaning of words so they face a lot of confusion in vocabulary
use. A student wrote: “My most difficulty in paragraph writing is to choose the right words”.
Obviously, mastering the usage of English vocabulary and structures is very difficult for
every student, so a new and appropriate teaching strategy needs applying soon in order to
help students enhance their knowledge of language.
Weakness in expressing ideas is also a big problem for the students. Students get
accustomed to the way of Vietnamese thought, so their ideas come out indirectly and
lengthily. They do not focus on the main point of the problem, they write a lot but the
sentences are not connected, so their writings are vague and illogical. The students
themselves feel very difficult to write a good paragraph in English.
Moreover, linking words cause some difficulties for students. As we all know, linking
words play an essential part in writing because they are used to link the ideas in paragraph to
make the writing transparent and understandable. Without linking words, the writing is
confusing and illogical because the ideas in the paragraph are unconnected together. And
without using linking words such as and, but, however, although, etc., the students cannot
compose a paragraph logically and clearly.
Last but not least, there are students who feel it very difficult to make a good topic
sentence. They cannot write a sentence which includes all the ideas they want to mention
later. So showing them the best way to write a topic sentence is also important element in
teaching paragraph writing because the writing is good or bad depends a lot on the topic
sentence.
1.3. Conclusion
Because of those difficulties, teaching paragraph writing is really a challenge. What
the teacher should do now is to develop effective teaching strategies that help students work
8
out the way of writing a paragraph and help them avoid mistakes. It is a big problem for
teachers of English at NEU.
To find the best answer, I would like to search for the common errors and the causes
of those errors that the students are likely to make. After that I recommend some appropriate
teaching strategies and useful exercises in my study with the hope that students at NEU can
only avoid their errors in writing paragraph but also improve their paragraph writing skill.
2. Objectives of the study
To be aware of the importance of paragraph writing and the weakness of
students at NEU in paragraph writing, I myself, a teacher of English at NEU want to
contribute a little part to improving students’ writing skill by studying the issues related to
the ineffectiveness in teaching paragraph writing at NEU.
The following questions are given to find out the students’ difficulties in paragraph
writing. Firstly, the study will find out the common errors that students are used to make,
students’ background and students’ recommendations though the students’ compositions and
the questionnaires. Secondly, based on data analysis and the students’ background some
appropriate strategies in teaching paragraph writing and some kinds of exercises are
recommended in order to help the students overcome their difficulties in paragraph writing.
And research questions of the study are:
- How important is the paragraph writing for students at NEU?
- What are common errors made by students in writing English paragraphs?
- What are the causes of the common errors?
- What are effective strategies for teaching writing English paragraphs?
3. Scope of The study
The study is about teaching paragraph writing for students at NEU, but due to the
limited scope and time, it is confined to finding out the students’ errors in paragraph writing
and suggesting some new teaching strategies to solve the students’ problems.
In the study, the author tries to find out the errors derived from writing tasks of the
first year language students at NEU. From these errors, the writer investigates the causes of
those problems before giving solutions to them as well. The focus will be placed on the form
9
of English such as grammatical, lexical errors and other errors related to paragraph writing in
order to help students learn how to write a paragraph well.
4. Method of the study
In this study, the writer chooses the quantitative research by using the students’
compositions as a technique of eliciting data for the analysis and statistical counting. The
writer will collect the students’ writing tasks to analyze the most typical errors that students
make. And the analysis of questionnaires information is also conducted to seek students’
background information, their difficulties, and their evaluation of effectiveness when the
teacher applies different teaching methods. On the basis of the data analysis, the writer will
has the right view on the students’ difficulties in writing paragraph and basing on their
difficulties provide some appropriate teaching strategies and exercises.
5. Contents of the study
There are three main parts in the study. The first one is introduction, the second is the
body and the last one is conclusion. And in each part, the issues related to the study are
included.
The
study
starts
with
an
introduction
that
gives
an
overview of teaching paragraph writing, the reason why the
issue
is
chosen
research.
After
presenting
the
for
research
and
introduction,
study
in
detail
the
there
as
way
are
the
to
conduct
three
main
part
the
chapters
of
the
research.
In chapter one, literature review related to teaching
paragraph writing is conducted in order to help students avoid
errors
of
style
in
their
writing;
the
difference
between
written and spoken texts and approaches in teaching English
writing are presented. Besides, writing paragraph is carefully
analyzed based on some theories to help students understand
more about the classifications of paragraph, the process of
paragraph writing. In chapter two, the method of the study is
10
presented. It includes the careful descriptions of subjects,
sampling, and instrument and data collection. The last chapter
presents
data
analysis
and
discussions.
In
this
part,
questionnaires and writing samples collected from students are
analyzed to find out students’ typical errors and their causes
in
order
to
recommend
effective
strategies
for
teaching
paragraph writing at NEU.
Finally,
the
study
closes
with
a
conclusion,
which
summarizes the whole study issue, and provides suggestions for
further study.
11
Chapter I
Literature review
I.1.Teaching Writing.
I.1.1. Researchers’ opinions about writing.
There are various opinions of writing given by different researchers. Each one has
their own idea about writing.
Tribble (1996: 3) considers writing as language skill involving not just a graphic
representation of speech, but the development and presentation of though in a structured way.
But Byrne (1988: 1) considers writing as the act of forming graphic symbol only such
as letters or combination of letters.
Besides, Sokolik (2003:88) defined writing as a physical and mental act. It means that
writing requires writers to commit words or ideas and to convent ideas, think about how to
express them, and organize them into statements and paragraphs. She also considers writing
is a process and product, and writing aims at expressing and impressing. The writers have to
generate ideas, organize, draft, edit, read, re-read to produce a product-a paragraph, an essay
or a report and writers try to express their ideas, feeling to impress their readers in certain
ways
Writing involves many different aspects. According to Roger, G, D. Phillips, and S.
Walters (1995: 113), writing involves seven aspects. They are handwriting, spelling,
punctuation, sentence construction, organizing a text and paragraphing, text cohesion and
style. All aspects are carefully considered by any writers.
I.1.2. The reason for teaching writing
According to Harmer, J, (1998: 79), teaching writing to students of English include
some reasons as follows.
Firstly, it is reinforcement. Most of students gain great benefits from seeing the
written language especially the visual demonstration of language construction is valuable for
both their understanding and committing the new language to their memory. So it is very
useful for them to write sentences using new language after they have just studied it.
12
Secondly, language development is also a reason for teaching writing. It seems that
the actual process of writing helps students to learn language better. The highest level of
writing skill involves critical thinking. To deal with their mental activities, students have to
construct proper written texts using all their learning experience.
Thirdly, the most important reason for teaching writing is that it is a basic productive
language skill. Obviously, students need to know how to write a letter, how to write a report,
etc. Therefore, they need to know some writings’ conventions such as punctuation, paragraph
construction, forms of paragraph.
I.1.3. Approaches to writing teaching
In the field of writing, product and process approaches are the most popular.
I.1.3.1. Product approach.
Product approach is a largely “prescriptive and product-centered” way of teaching
writing (Applebee, 1986).
Product approach pays much attention to the final outcome of a writing process and
supposes that students need to produce only one writing version of the task (Adapted from
Huong, T.T, Minh N.T.T.etal, 2007: 57).
In general, product approach focuses on the end result of the learning process - what
it is that the learner is expected to be able to do as a fluent and competent user of language.
With this approach, the favorite class activities are engaged in imitating, copying, and
transforming models of correct language.
Steel (2002) provides four steps as a model for this approach:
Stage 1: Students study a model text and mimic its highlighted features.
Stage 2: Students are involved in controlled practice of the highlighted features,
usually in isolation.
Stage 3: Students work to organize ideas.
Stage 4: Students choose from a choice of comparable writing tasks. Individually,
they use the skills, structures and vocabulary they have been taught to produce the product to
assess their English progress.
I.1.3.2. Process approach
13
Process approach encourages students’ communication of ideas, feeling and
experiences (Stanley, 2002).
Writing is now multistage process with teacher intervention as needed, and is
evaluated according to how well it fulfills the writer’s intentions (Reid, 1993).
Also teaching and learning writing focus on the process rather than the final product.
(Adapted from Huong, T.T, Minh N.T.T.etal, 2007: 58).
Process approach focuses more on the various class activities which are believed to
promote the development of skilled language use. With the process approach, writers are
encouraged to get their ideas on paper in any shape or form without worrying too much about
formal correctness. It also encourages collaborative group work among students as a way of
enhancing motivation and developing positive attitudes towards writing. Moreover, process
approach encourages the development of critical thinking skills, which help them to have
chances to challenge their social reality (Nunan, D, 1991: 87).
Roger, G, D. Phillips, and S. Walters (1995: 115) provide some guidelines for a process
writing activity.
Introduction: Teachers create a piece of writing for students to write by the way of
stimulating students’ interests through listening, speaking or reading activity. Then teacher
asks students to discuss the text type, definite the readers who are they and definite the
content that the writer is going to inform, etc.
Working with ideas: Using maps, picture or sketch, etc. to ask students brainstorm in
order to get ideas. After noting down, students need to decide which ideas can be kept and
which ones should be rejected and develop them before ordering them logically.
Planning: Teachers ask students to remind the typical feature and structure of the text
type they are writing, for example of paragraph: introduction to the topic with a topic
sentence, the supporting ideas for the topic sentence and the writer’s conclusion.
Drafting: The students start to write the first paragraph from their plans. They may
use dictionary to find words, grammatical structures if they need.
Editing: With the teacher comments, students correct and improve their first
paragraph by looking at content, language accuracy, organization, etc.
Re-writing: Students write out the final version and teachers have to decide to give
the final correction and responses to the students’ writings.
14
I.1.4 Principles of teaching writing
There are several principles of writing. But according to Huong, T.T, Minh
N.T.T.etal, 2007: 58), teachers should consider some following principles when teaching
writing.
First of all, teachers should provide many opportunities for students to write.
Students’ writing skills just improve when they practice writing a lot. So, just asking students
to practice in writing lesson is not enough. Teacher can create writing tasks from listening,
reading and speaking lesions with different style of writing such as letter writing, e-mail
writing, etc.
Then, teachers should make their feedback to students helpful and meaningful by the
way of giving comments in detail at the end of students’ writings. And teachers’ comments
should help students to be independent writers. It means that teachers’ comments should help
students to correct their errors instead of correcting their errors.
Moreover, to evaluate students’ writings clearly and exactly, teachers should make
criteria for each item such as spelling, accuracy of vocabulary, use of cohesive devices, etc.
Besides, as often as possible teachers should create the right conditions for students’
generation of ideas, and teachers always consider themselves as a resource for information
and language when necessary.
Lastly, teachers should provide students communicative writing activities. With this
kind of activities, students write with the answer to the three questions: What they are
writing? (genre), for whom? (audience) and why (purpose). This is useful for students
because these writing activities in the class tend to resemble communicative writing tasks in
the real life.
I.2. Teaching paragraph writing
I.2.1. Definitions of Paragraph
There are various definitions of a paragraph but in general a paragraph can be
understood including topic sentence and supporting sentences (if necessary) to make the
main idea clearer.
15
According to Oxford Advanced Genie (2002), a paragraph is “a section of a piece of
writing, usually consisting of several sentences dealing with a single subject. The first
sentence of a paragraph starts on a new line”
But Alice & H. Ann (1996: 2) think that “A paragraph is basic unit of organization in
writing in which a group of some related sentences develop one main idea. A paragraph can
be as short as one sentence or as long as ten sentences. The number of sentences is
unimportant. However, the paragraph should be long enough to develop the main idea
clearly”.
Besides, Feist (1996: 6) reckons that “A paragraph as a group of sentences that
develop a single idea. We write in paragraphs to make the organization of our ideas clear to
our reader. If you think about paragraph writing as a step-by-step process, it will help you
sort through the confusion. The first step of the writing process is to gather your ideas and
facts”.
In fact, besides elements of unity and coherence, a paragraph should have three main
parts. They are the topic sentence, supporting sentences and the concluding sentence.
What is a topic sentence?
A topic sentence is usually the first sentence that
summarizes the main idea of a paragraph. It states the most important thing that you want to
say about your topic. In the other words, a topic sentence must be the controlling idea of the
paragraph (Feist, 1996: 17). To write a good topic sentence, writer should put it in a complete
sentence.
What are supporting sentences? They are the sentences those include the ideas related
to the topic (Feist, 1996: 23). Supporting sentences may develop various aspects of the topic
such as causes, effects, reasons, example, etc. All the supporting sentences are connected
together by cohesive devices. What is a concluding sentence? It is usually a single sentence.
But some paragraphs may require more than one concluding sentence. The conclusion is
usually placed at the end of paragraph. It summarizes or restates the main point you made.
I.2.2. Classifications of paragraph
According to Feist, there are four main kinds of paragraph: informative, descriptive,
narrative and persuasive.
I.2.2.1. Informative paragraph
16
An informative paragraph is a paragraph that informs information. For example,
“Write a paragraph to inform your friend about your missing a date” To write a good
informative paragraph, writers need to ask themselves three questions:
1 What do I want to explain? (The answer is also the topic sentence)
2. What steps are needed to do this activity?
3. Who is my audience?
After determining the topic sentence by answering the question 1, students continue
with the answer to question 2 to give the support sentence in chronological order using signal
words such as: first, then, etc. in order to complement the topic sentence
Signal words for chronological order are:
First
Then
Before
To start
Second
Next
After
Finally
third
While
during
In conclusion
(Adapted from Feist: 43)
I.2.2.2. Descriptive paragraph
A descriptive paragraph tells what something or someone is like. For example:
“Describe your house” or “Describe your car”. It helps readers see, feel, taste, smell and hear
the things being described. The topic sentence gives the overall impression. Supporting
sentences include specific details about the person or thing being described. According Feist,
students may be guided to write a descriptive paragraph following necessary steps.
1. Observe the subject of paragraph carefully. Try to give sensory details. That is the
thing you can see, touch, feel, and taste.
2. Write a topic sentence that gives your overall impression of the subject.
3. Write supporting sentences that contain vivid details.
I.2.2.3. Narrative paragraph.
A narrative paragraph is a paragraph that tells about something that happened. For
example, “Write a paragraph that tells what happened to you last weekend”. This kind of
paragraph is used in newspapers, stories, and novels. A narrative paragraph is usually
arranged in chronological order. It answers following questions:
1. Who was involved?
17
2. What happened?
3. Where did it happen?
4. When did it happen?
I.2.2.4. Persuasive paragraph:
“Persuasive writing convinces the reader to take action or to support an idea” (Feist:
54). In this kind of paragraph, the main idea is your opinion on the topic. It is usually stated
in a topic sentence. The others support the opinion with reasons, evidence.
The tone of persuasive paragraph should be strong, but polite in oder to encourage the
reader to act.
I.2.3. Writing process of paragraph
To perfectly complete a paragraph, the writer needs to conduct four main stages. The
first is prewriting, the second is draft writing, the third is revising drafts and proofreading is
the last one.
There are different tables, charts or articles showing the paragraph writing process
like Ann Raimes, Alice & H. Ann. But in general, when a paragraph is written, the writer
needs to concern about some main steps that cannot be lacked. They are shown by the
following chart.
Start Here X
18
Proofreadi
ng
The graph of writing process
In the pre-writing stage, writers need to choose and narrow a topic to a specific focus
then they generate ideas. That is called brainstorming. This process can get them to start the
writing more easily and quickly. It means that if they conduct the stage, it helps them save
time in later stages of the writing process.
After brainstorming, listing step is conducted. Students think about their topics and
make a list of any words and phrases coming into their mind on a paper. They think of as
many ideas as possible in a very short time. “Don’t stop free flow of ideas by judging or
editing them before you write them down” (Alice & H. Ann. 1996:5).
The next step is free writing. Students can write any ideas about their topics to find
out a specific focus. While students are writing, their minds will come out other related ideas
from the ones that they have. Writers should write the ideas down as many as possible
without worrying about any mistakes. When they run out of ideas, they need to reread their
paper and underline the main ideas that they think will develop. All of these activities are to
ensure that whether writers are looking for a narrow topic or not because to find out a narrow
topic is very important. It helps them to choose an appropriate and adequate idea to develop.
Draft writing stage is the actual writing stage. It is just an extension of the prewriting stage. The students transfer the information or issues they have gathered and
organized them into a simple paragraph. Until this stage, they may not be exactly certain
which direction their ideas will go. However, this stage allows them to settle on the subject
the paper will take.
Revising or editing is usually the most difficult stage of the writing process,
especially for beginning writers. Revising can include adding, deleting, re-arranging and
substituting words, sentences, and even making transparency. Even the most excellent
authors also need to spend the majority of their time on this stage of the writing process to
read again and again in order to find out and edit their writings better, that will be easy for
them to remember the mistakes they make and avoid them in the next writings.
19
It is important to gain proofreading skills for students as this improves a student’s
writing over time. Proof-reading stage is a chance for the writer to scan his or her paper for
mistakes in grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
Chapter II
Methodology
II.1. Subjects:
Because of time limitation, it is impossible to carry out the study with all language
students who are in the first year in the population individually. So the data collection in the
study is derived from a subset of the population by means of cluster sample.
There are 43 students who are examined and questioned. They are at the same age of
19. They come from different parts of Vietnam, but most of them are from Northern
Vietnam. Their level of English proficiency is equal to intermediate that is shown by their
result of their English test in university entrance examination.
During the first part of the course, they themselves revealed that their attitude of
learning English is very positive and their English is rather good, especially their reading
skills. However, when they asked to write a paragraph, they still have different difficulties in
vocabulary, grammar, and content as well as idea organization.
II.2. The description of the course of English for paragraph writing.
NEU is one of the biggest universities in Vietnam and its Faculty of the Foreign
Languages was established in 1956. It used to open language program for non- major
students of English. But in 2006, a part from non-major programs, it started opening
language programs for major students of English. It means that the students in the study are
of the first course of major language program.
This is term 2 of the four- term- writing courses designed for the major students of the
Faculty of the Foreign Languages for Economics, whose level of English is intermediate.
They have completed period 1. In period 1, students learned sentence writing. The course in
period 2 takes students through the process of writing a paragraph, a group of sentences that
develop one central idea.
20
Learning writing a paragraph plays an essential part in writing task in general and is
an important step in writing an essay, which students will learn in the following section of
their major writing course. The course is fulfilled within in fifteen weeks. Each week,
students have three 45 minute writing periods. In total, the course of paragraph writing takes
45 periods.
In 45 periods, the course covers all the parts of paragraph writing, including
brainstorming a topic, narrowing the topic, writing a simple paragraph outline, writing a
proper topic sentence, writing supporting sentences, writing concluding sentence, developing
the topic in logical order, unity, coherence, using writing facilities like logical order,
transition signals, etc.
Besides, Portfolio method is also used in the course. Teachers always let students
practice writing in context and guide them step by step through the writing process. They
provide students with abundant opportunities for writing practice and review.
II.3. Data collection procedures
The collection of data was carried out through the following stages.
Stage 1: Choosing 45 language students who are in the first year at NEU randomly to
conduct the survey of the study.
Stage 2: Asking the subjects to answer the questionnaire. The questionnaire content
is divided into three parts. The first one is about background information of the respondent’s
English study. The second one includes questions about the respondents’ general
expectations from the course and the last one contains all questions on the respondents’
preference for the teaching strategies for English paragraph writing. In the last one, it is
further divided into methods of presenting knowledge, methods of sampling model
paragraphs, methods of choosing exercises, and methods of showing and correcting errors in
students’ writing.
For the first and the second parts, most of the questions are multiple-choice and openended questions but the questions in the third part mostly are scale questions that are ranged
according to high level, average level and low level of effectiveness. The multiple-choice
questions are chosen because they are easier to analyze while open-questions allow
21
respondents to clarify their ideas and expectations specifically. And the scale questions are
used for judging the effectiveness of different methods of teaching.
Stage 3: Asking the subjects to write a paragraph as the mid-term test to collect the
data. 43 exam papers of the achievement assessment are examined and the errors in the
answers for the paragraph writing are counted and categorized.
The students’ sample paragraph was a 45-minute test and the subjects were required
to write about one of the following topics:
a. Why do many people go to Australia to study?
b. The best place to visit in Vietnam
c. Write a paragraph about a good or country to visit.
d. A famous person.
e. Eagle animal
There are several reasons to choose the topics. Firstly, through the task, the teacher
can realize whether his students improve their writing or not in order to have necessary
timely adjustment to help students overcome their difficulties. Secondly, students have
chance to choose the topic that they are interested in, so they can write the paragraph with
their own ideas basing on the topic they like, which helps the writer of the study to see the
typical errors of their writings.
The answers for this exam will be analyzed as writing samples and the errors in these
papers will be collected, categorized so that those errors can be explained and the teacher can
help students avoid them.
The errors analysis of the students’ writings samples, together with the survey will
build up the data necessary for the study so that the writer can suggest certain strategies for
teaching paragraph writing. The analysis of these data will be presented in the following
chapter.
22
Chapter III
Data analysis and discussions
III.1.The Analysis Questionnaire Survey
III.1.1. Students’ background and attitude
There are 12 questions in the questionnaire (see a Appendix 1) being answered by 43
respondents; of which 4 respondents are male and 39 the others are female. The average of
years that they have been learning English is 10.2 years, ranging from 6 years to 14 years.
The figure in Chart 1 shows that most of them started learning English since they were at
lower secondary school but some started learning English sooner, from primary school.
During a long time of learning English, most students (90%) have finished the course
of sentence writing and letter writing, 69% students have learned e-mail writing and even
27% students have finished an essay writing-course. Besides, there are 20% students who
have taken the course of memos writing, report writing, and note taking, among which there
are 5% for memos writing, 8% for note taking and 7% for report writing. Remarkably, 60%
students have learned paragraph writing. But students revealed that it was not a course, it is
just some instructions of paragraph writing given by teacher.
100
%
80
60
90
40
90
69
60
20
27
0
sentence
writing
letter
writing
e-mail
writing
paragraph
writing
essay
writing
5
8
7
memos
Writing
taking
notes
report
writing
Chart 1: Percentage of students having taken different
Writing courses
23
With a large number of students who have already learn some basic writing courses
(sentence writing, letter and email writing). Students are not likely to have many difficulties
in writing a paragraph.
There are some students who did not answer the question of their motivation in
learning English. But in general, the language students have high motivation of learning
English, or in other words, they have a positive attitude toward studying English. 65.1 %
respondents choose English with the reason for having a good job in the future. And 18.6%
students decided to study English because of their passions. But there are only 5 out of 43
students, approximately 11.6%, who have a negative attitude toward studying English. They
think they had a wrong choice on learning English because after the first term they realize
that English is quite difficult for them. They hardly meet the course requirement. And 4.7
students have reasons of discovering the native speakers’ cultures. Chart 2 shows the
percentage of students with different views on learning English.
70
%
60
50
40
30
65,1
20
10
18,6
11,6
0
need for job
a passion
a wrong choice
4,7
others
Chart 2: Percentage of students with different views on English
Obviously, most students learn English because of their future job’s requirement so that apart
from improving their language knowledge, teachers should provide them with social
knowledge by asking them to write some topics related to work.
III.1.2. General Expectation of the course
III.1.2.1. The necessity of the paragraph writing course
There are 100% students answering “Yes” when they are questioned “Do you wish to
learn paragraph writing at NEU?” But each one has his own motivation. 30.2% students
confirm it is necessary to study paragraph writing because it is very useful for their essay
24
writing and their thesis writing in the future. The same percentage of students (30.2%) think
paragraph writing is good for their future career. The proportion of students who think it is
essential to conduct a paragraph writing course because it is a background writing course for
any higher writing course accounts for 18.6%. 6.9% students think it is the first step in
learning English to improve other language skills. There are only 2.3% students confirming
that they need to learn paragraph writing because their English is still very poor.
35
%
30
25
20
15
30,2
30,2
10
18,6
5
9,2
0
for thesis
for career
for higher
for other skills
writing course
Chart 3: The necessity of the paragraph writing course
In short, the number of students who think paragraph writing is necessary for their
thesis writing and their future jobs are the same (30.2%). It shows that finding an appropriate
strategy of teaching paragraph writing to help students overcome their difficulties is an
urgent task.
III.1.2.2. Students’ expectation of the course contents
Chart 4 presents the necessity of the paragraph writing contents. In general, students
highly appreciate the elements in the given course contents. Most elements get more rates 4
or 5 (high scale) than 1 or 2 (low scale). There are 38 out of 43 (88.3%) students who think
they really need to improve their vocabulary and grammar after finishing the paragraph
writing course. The proportion of students who are aware of high necessity of the paragraph
writing process account for 62.7%, and only 4.6% think it is low-necessary. For idea
organization, 62.7% students choose highly necessary scale but no one chooses low
necessary scale. Besides, ESP knowledge also plays an important role in their writings with
69.7% students who choose highly-necessary scale and 51% others choose necessary-scale.
25
But there are only 23.2% students highly appreciate the using visual-aids while 51.1% think
it
is
100%
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
necessary
for
paragraph
writing.
88,3
highly necessary
necessary
69,7
51,1
62,7
32,5
23,2
11,6
37,2
25,5
25,5
4,6
voc & gram
visual aids
low necessary
62,7
P.W.process
4,6
idea org.
ESP
knowledge
Chart 4: The necessity of the paragraph writing contents
In summary, most students highly appreciate the necessity of vocabulary, grammar
and ESP knowledge gaining after the paragraph writing course. It is understandable because
most of them revealed that they learn English for their future jobs.
III.1.2.3. Students’ difficulties
Although some of students have learned paragraph writing, most of them still face
many difficulties. All these difficulties are shown in Chart 5.
%
70
60
50
40
30
60,4
48,8
46,6
20
10
18,6
13,9
topic sen.
idea org.
0
voc & gram
idea exp
linking W.
Chart 5: The students’ difficulties
It can be seen that the number of students who have difficulty in vocabulary and
grammar is the highest, accounting for 60.4%. Then, the difficulty in idea expressing is
26
48.8%. A part from that, using linking word is also difficult for the students in paragraph
writing. It accounts for 46.6%. While there is 18.6% students who feel it difficult to write a
topic sentence, 13.9% do not know how to organize ideas logically. The detailed analysis is
mentioned later.
It is no doubt that the most difficulty of the students is vocabulary and grammar.
60.4% students make vocabulary and grammatical errors. It shows that it is necessary for
teachers to provide the students with different kinds of exercises that focus on grammatical
aspect besides improving other paragraph writing skills such as logical idea expression or the
use of linking words.
III.1.2.4. Students’ recommendations for the course
When being asked for recommendations to overcome their difficulties, many students
did not recommend anything, but 11.7% respondents gave different interesting ideas. The
students who are bad at vocabulary and grammar recommend teacher’s provision of
vocabulary according to topics, and teacher’s clarification or translation of difficult phrases
and structures into Vietnamese during the lesson.
However, 55.8% students think that in order to write a paragraph better and avoid
mistakes of linking words, idea expression, and so on, it is necessary for teachers to provide
them with some reference books, show them as many sample paragraphs as possible. And if
it is possible, teachers should design or change the current material because the material they
are using now contains so many verbose theories and complicated examples that it is too
difficult for them to understand.
Moreover, students desire to come in for the new method of teaching by using high
technology like projector, computer, and video. They also suggested some game activities to
motivate them to practice their knowledge that they have learnt during the lesson.
Finally, students expect their teachers to check and correct all kinds of mistakes
carefully and regularly in order to help them know how to correct their mistakes in order to
improve their writing skills.
III.1.3. The choice of teaching methodology
Concerning the choice of teaching methodology in the questionnaire, the writer of the
study wants to find out the most effective methodology of paragraph teaching from students’
27
needs. Three issues related to the teaching methodology are given for students to assess their
lesson understandability.
III.1.3.1. Teacher’s presenting the knowledge.
Chart 6 presents students’ preference for different ways of teachers’ presenting or
verbalizing knowledge during the lesson. Four ways of teacher’s presentation are given. They
are material reading and questions, lecture and questions, group discussion and use of visual
aid. Remarkably, a large number of students (60.4%) think teachers give some questions
during the lecture is rather effective. After that, using visual aids and group discussion are
also highly appreciated by students to be good ways to help them learn English successfully.
Both account for around 48.5%. But material reading and questions do not seem to be an
effective way for them for 34.8% students.
34,8
30,2
32,5
Material
Re&ques
5,1
60,4
lecture & ques.
low-effective
34,5
effective
16,2
group dis.
34,8
48,5
9,7
visual aid use
0
highly-effective
41,8
48,5
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
%
Chart 6: Students’ preference for of the teacher’s presentation
Obviously, the teacher’s role in lectures is really important. During the lessons the
teacher should use visual aids and make some questions for students brainstorming before
giving the answers. It is an effective way for students to understand the lesson. Besides, the
teacher should give them chances to discuss the questions with their partners.
III.1.3.2. Teacher’s analyzing sample paragraphs
To help students write a good paragraph, the first thing the teacher needs to do is to
care about students’ understanding of how to write through sample paragraphs. But how to
present the knowledge of language clearly and effectively is a big problem. Some ways of
28
presentation such as teacher’s translation, student reading, group discussion and the teacher’s
explanation are given in Chart 7 and its analysis may help teacher find out a good way of
teaching paragraph writing to the students at NEU.
44,1
translation
41,8
11,6
39,5
St. reading
48,8
11,6
low-effective
11,6
16,2
Group dis.
72
effective
highly-effective
48,8
T's explaination
51,1
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80%
Chart 7: Some different ways to analyze a sample paragraph
It is clear that a large number of students (72%) think group discussion of sample
paragraph is rather effective in the process of understanding how to write a good paragraph.
All students need the teacher’s explanation of the sample paragraph’s content: 51.1%
students highly appraise the teacher’s explanation and 49.9% think it necessary. For the way
of student self-reading, only 48% students think it is effective while 39.5% have an opposite
idea. And the sample paragraph translation by the teacher seems to be ineffective way for
44.1% students.
With above figures, we can see that the teacher should combine group discussion and
teacher explanation to give the best way of sample paragraph analysis for students. The
teacher should let students discuss to find out the features of a sample paragraph, and then he
or she can give some explanations if necessary.
III.1.3.3. Practicing
There are useful kinds of exercises to assist students in improving their paragraph
writing skills. It may be a filling-gap exercise, arranging sentences, or idea organization in a
paragraph. In Chart 8, those kinds of exercises are divided into 2 categories: language
exercises and familiar situation writing exercises. In familiar situation writing exercises,
students are asked to write paragraphs based on given familiar situations.
29
We can see clearly that a large number of students (53.4%) like practicing English
with familiar situations. They highly appraise this kind of exercises while there are only
20.9% students highly appreciate language exercises.
27,9
lang. ex.
48,8
low -effective
20,9
effective
11,6
highly-effective
30,2
fam iliar situation
53,4
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Chart 8: Students’ preference for different types of practicing
It can be seen that, although students think language exercises effective in improving
the language elements but they prefer to do familiar situation writing exercises because this
kind of exercises is highly effective. Besides providing language exercises in the class, the
teacher should provide them with different situations to write at home.
III.1.3.4. Correcting errors
Teacher’s error correction is also an important element to help students improve their
paragraph writing. The teacher has to know how to correct students’ writings to help them
avoid those mistakes in their next writings. To understand students’ desire for their teacher’s
error correction, we have a look at Chart 9.
all errors
11,6
86
76,7
common errors
low-effective
effective
highly-effective
16,2
2,3
remark only
88,3
2,3
4,6
67,4
1 type of errors
18,6
9,3
0
20
40
60
80
100 %
Chart 9: Students’ preference for teacher’s error correction
30
The chart shows students’ preference for the teacher’s error correction. It can be seen
that students highly appreciate all error correction given by teacher. The number of students
who like the teacher’s correction of all errors is up to 86%. On the contrary, 88.3% think it is
not effective if the teacher only chooses the common errors to correct, 67.4% students do not
expect the teacher to choose one type of error to correct. And 67.7% do not agree the teacher
just correct the common errors because 100% students (include 86% choose highly-effective
and 11,6% chose effective) think that correction all errors is the most effective for them to
improve their paragraph writing skill.
In fact, the more errors are corrected, the more students understand, but the teacher
cannot correct all kinds of errors for all students in the class because it wastes a lot of time.
So teacher should choose one type of errors or common errors to correct only.
III.2. Errors analysis of students’ writings
There are a lot of errors that are found and counted in 42 paragraph writings. But all
errors are divided into three categories that are clearly shown in Table 10. They are errors in
content, errors in organization and errors in language. First of all, errors in content are all the
errors that show the students’ lack of understanding the paragraph content and meaning.
These include the failures in expressing the meaning intended, lack of information, and the
text’s understandability which appear in topic sentence, supporting sentences and concluding
sentence of the paragraph. Second, all elements restraining the smooth flow of the paragraph
are called errors in organization. These include illogical arrangements of ideas, overlapped
parts or failures in the paragraph coherence or unity. Last, errors in language come out in
grammar errors, orthography errors (punctuation and spelling errors), vocabulary errors and
style errors.
Table 10 shows the results of the error categorization. As we can see from the table,
the most common errors belong to language, which appeared on all the analyzed papers.
Language errors accounted for 72.9% of all the errors counted. The next common errors are
content ones accounting for 31.4%. Errors in the organization seem to be fewer than the
others with only 17.5%. Table 10 is for further details about errors.
31
Content
Idea Organization
Language
Problem
4 topic sentences
11 logical order
131 grammar
areas
45 supporting sentences
18 coherence
64 vocabulary
6 concluding sentences
1 format
34 orthography
Number of
errors
Percentage
55
30
229
31,4%
17,5%
72,9%
Table 10: Students’ error analysis.
III.2.1. Errors in the paragraph content
In the writing sample, students are required to compose a paragraph with three main
parts: topic sentence, supporting sentences and conclusion sentence. Students must write a
logical and understandable paragraph about the given topics. However, some paragraphs
have been finished without some expected parts.
Firstly, there are four students who do not include a statement of purpose nor give a
clear one. In other words, these students do not know how to write a topic sentence when
writing a paragraph. For example, the topic sentence for the question “Why do many people
go to Australia to study?”: “Why do many people go to Australia to study? Because of
learning style, finding job easily and the people”. Obviously, the topic sentence is
unsatisfactory enough. The topic sentence is divided into two parts. One is a question and the
other is the answer. The student should not give a question in the topic sentence. It must be a
positive form to affirm his opinion about the given question. Or another example from paper
02: “Why do they choose Australia as their overseas study destination?. Indeed, Australia is
one of the best place for students from all over the world”. As can be seen, it is not a good
topic sentence because it does not include specific idea. The topic is too broad.
Secondly, a great number of supporting sentences are vague. There are 45 sentences
in 43 papers that are not really good supporting sentences for the topic sentence, which
resulted in illogical content ideas. One example of these is in paper 06, the student wrote:
“Nowadays, many people go to Australia to study because of its ideal studying conditions,
valuable living cost and career prospects in future. Australia provides a unique kind of
32
education and a learning style that encourage you…” We can see that studying conditions
and unique kind of education is two different terms. So in this context two sentences do not
modify each other. The second sentence which follows is not connected to the first one.
Finally, writing a conclusion sentence is also a big problem for the students. There are
six students’ conclusions which are weak in meaning expression and there is one without the
conclusion due to the poor understanding of how to write it. For instance, in paper 01 “It is
not surprising that so many people go to Australia to study”. It cannot be said that it is a good
conclusion sentence. It does not restate the above mentioned issues, nor reconfirm the
opinion again in the conclusion. Another example is quoted from paper 04 for further
illustration “You’ll be a lucky person if you have a opportunity to go to Australia to study”.
To sum up, in most of the cases, the errors are caused by lack of understanding of
how to write a paragraph. Therefore, one important task of the teacher is to familiarize
students with different paragraph writing activities for chance of practice.
III.2.2. Errors in idea organization
It seems that students do not master the logical idea organization of the paragraph.
There still adequately exist some problems out of 30 errors of idea organization, the number
of coherence errors is the biggest - 18 mistakes are counted in 43 writing papers. Most errors
are caused by students’ lack of understanding the use of linking words. They face many
problems in connecting the idea smoothly. The connection among different sentences is very
weak, so the ideas are unconnected. One of these is quoted from paper 05:
“… so it’s easy to find good jobs and help professional positions worldwide after graduating
from Australia. Wonderfully, Kangoroos’ country is very safe, dynamic, vibrant with
beautiful beaches; famous sports and its people are friendly, society, energetic. Moreover,
Australia offers …”
Obviously, the sentences in this part of the paragraph are not logically ordered
because of wrong use of linking words. The first and the second sentences are incoherent. In
this paragraph, the student should sequence the ideas more clearly using “firstly”, “secondly”,
etc. Another example is in paper 03 when the student is asked to write a paragraph about a
good city to visit: “Visitors to Hanoi can find any weather they like. For example, in the
summer, the hottest month, averages 36C; the coldest month, averages 20C. So, they can find
cool temperatures or warm weather in the winter”.
33
We can see that when reading the sentences, no one can understand what the writer’s
intention is. The sentences are unconnected and not clear enough to understand.
Beside coherence errors, the logical order errors are 11 mistakes. The students who
make this kind of errors do not have enough experience in arranging the ideas chronological
and logically. They write as many sentences related to the topic as possible without putting
them in the logical order. The ideas are arranged disorderly, that results in idea confusing in
the paragraph. For example, in paper 02, the student wrote:
“…. Second, you needn’t worry too much about studying and living costs because they
sound cheaper than other countries which are popular with international students, such as
UK or US. Therefore, this makes Australia a very economic choice, for instance study
abroad programs’ costs you around $ 6000 per semester.”
It is very difficult to understand the writer’s intention because the main idea and its
supporting example ($6000 per semester) are placed too far from each other and readers
cannot see the connection between the two sentences.
One more kind of mistakes is found, that is format mistake. However, the format of a
paragraph is very simple and there is only one student who made this kind of mistakes. He
does not keep the lines in one paragraph, but he skips them to create 2 different parts in the
paragraph.
III.2.3. Errors in language
Grammatical errors, vocabulary errors and orthographical errors are always the most
common for second language students in general and for language students at NEU in
specific because most of them learn foreign language by sentence transformation. In addition
to lack of native teachers, they do not have chance to practice, or in other words, the students
do not have a good environment to practice English regularly remember vocabulary and
structures they meet when reading books.
There are 229 language errors in total, out of which the number of article errors is the
biggest. Most students are still weak in using articles. They seem not to be sure of how to use
“the”. For example “Japan is the wonderful country for visitors" in paper 07. In this
sentence, the student used the wrong article “the”. It should be “a” because the sentence has
a general meaning, and it is about the truth at present. Or in paper 08, when the student wrote
34
about Hanoi – an interesting place to visit. He wrote “Some prominent places are: temple of
literature…” The student wrote Temple of Literature without using “the”. That is wrong
because in Vietnam, there is only one Temple of Literature, so “the” has to be used here.
Other common grammatical errors include those with verb forms (34 errors), plural
and singular nouns (31 errors). An example for verb form is quoted from paper 11 “… And
California coast, Long Beaches is known as the most beautiful place…” We can see that
“are” and “places” must be used. It cannot be “is” and “place” here. And some examples for
plural and singular noun: “10 year” in paper 12, or “Unlike the other colorful bird, eagle is
grey” is quoted from paper 13.
Errors in pronoun, word order, position, passive and active voice occur less often, but
they also show us the students’ weakness in the use of English language.
The analysis of students’ writing shows that vocabulary is also one of the students’
weaknesses. A great number of vocabulary wrong-choices (64 errors) occur in their writing.
For instance, “California has a vary temperatures” in paper 14. In this sentence, the student
should use “various” instead of “vary” because “vary” is a verb. Different from the errors
above, however, there are some mistakes of vocabulary that causes the vagueness of the
sentence even sometimes it changes the meaning of sentences and. For example: “they don’t
celebrate wedding in the church, only in two families” The sentence has wrong meaning
because the wrong use “only in two families” in this context. It should have been written:
“only at home” In short, the main reason of this kind of errors may be misunderstanding the
meaning of words.
Style is another area with a great number of errors. Most students do not understand
that academic writing that needs being formal. They always use contraction like: “I’m”,
“I’ll”, “don’t”, and etc, in their writings. The reason for those errors is not only their lack of
English knowledge but also their bad habits of carelessness.
Understanding the above analyzed errors, the instructor will realize the students’ lack
of knowledge and skills. This will lead to find an effective teaching strategy for writing at
NEU.
35
III.3. Conclusion
After collected data has been analyzed, it can be seen that the respondents are really
aware of the importance of learning paragraph writing and they have positive attitude toward
the paragraph writing course.
However, when comparing between questionnaire survey and the sample writings,
there is a confliction between the duration of English studying and students’ performances.
In the questionnaire survey, the students of the course affirm that they have studied
the English language for a long time – 10.2 years on average. But their performances in the
writing are still very poor. They make many kinds of mistakes and one of the most common
mistakes is the use of language.
The questionnaire survey for students also asks students to give their opinions about
some suggested methodology of teaching. Most of them prefer the teacher’s presentation and
explanation of language knowledge. The findings show that students’ suggestion for
designing a better paragraph writing course is their expectation of having more chances to do
homework.
Students do not highly appreciate the effectiveness of self-studying through reading
materials. In my opinion, it may be blamed for the inactiveness of Vietnamese students who
are used to listening to teachers and doing the dictation in the class. They also prefer the
teachers’ explanation of sample paragraphs and group discussion to students’ reading.
Moreover, they also revealed that they are longing to have lesson with some of
modern teaching and learning methods.
The findings are really significant in adjusting the content and teaching strategies for
paragraph writing at NEU. All these strategies will be discussed in the next chapter.
36
Chapter IV
Implications for teaching strategies and some suggested
exercises.
The analysis of students’ writings reveals some of students’ weakness in paragraph
writing. A large number of errors are in grammatical aspects. Areas of difficulty such as
prepositions, articles, passive voice, and vocabulary as well as structures should be the focus
of teachers’ attention during the teaching process.
IV.1. Using pictures to teach paragraph writing.
IV.1.1. The reasons for using pictures in teaching paragraph writing
Using pictures in teaching paragraph writing is very useful. It not only helps students
to enrich their vocabulary and sentence structures according to the topics but also helps them
to have more motivation during the lessons because pictures or paragraphs are very attractive
for every student.
Firstly, using pictures makes the lesson more vivid because pictures can bring the
outside world into the classroom and every student likes looking at pictures, which stimulate
students to pay more attention to the lesson. As a result, students are more interested in
paragraph writing.
Secondly, with a picture, student will immediately need the appropriate vocabulary,
idioms or sentence structures to write a paragraph about what they observe it.
Thirdly, pictures provide a shared experience for all students in the class to write a
paragraph. It is very difficult for a teacher who provides them with a personal topic like:
“Your last holiday”. It is not shared experience. Apart from preparing the use of the past
tense, teachers cannot help whole the class deal with the vocabulary and grammatical
structures that student writers will need. Because each student has different ideas so they
need different vocabulary, grammatical structures.
IV.1.2. Some suggestions for general strategies for using pictures in teaching paragraph
writing
Before giving some suggested exercises that can help teachers to conduct paragraph
teaching, some most useful strategies for using pictures are suggested.
37
Teachers can use many types of pictures, such as textbook pictures, magazine
pictures, posters and paste them around the wall or on the board. Students discuss the
pictures in small groups of four or five and each one has to write a paragraph about his
chosen picture. This strategy will help poor students learn idea generation, vocabulary and
sentence structures from the better students before they start writing a paragraph.
A paragraph writing task can be developed by using the classroom pictures that the
students themselves provide. There are two advantages when we apply this strategy. That is
the teacher is relieved of the task of finding a picture and the students have something that
has personal meaning for them to answer questions and write about what in the classroom.
Students can be asked to provide their favorite advertisements, their own drawings or their
family pictures.
Using different types of pictures in order to do the whole class discussion, which then
leads to paragraph writing can help students understand the meaning of the pictures. Students
can make inferences, predictions and suppositions about the world beyond the frame of the
picture. Students should be asked to use their imagination to visualize what happened just
before the moment in the picture and what will happen next, or to infer what caused the
situation and so on.
IV.1.3. Some suggested activities and exercises
IV.1.3.1 Using a sketch
Raims (1893; 30) suggests the following sketch (chart 11):
We can see, the sketch is very easy to draw on the board, and it can be clearly
understood by every student in the class. Looking at all the furniture from the sketch students
can realize an apartment floor plan. It is very easy for teachers to convey the language
elements through different series of exercises not just only though the mundane exercise:
“Write a paragraph to describe the picture”.
38
Bookcase
Desk
Chest
Chair
Bed
Closet
Door
W
i
n
d
o
w
W
i
n
d
o
w
Chart 11: A sample sketch in teaching paragraph writing
Using this picture, teachers can ask students to write a paragraph describing the
picture. Before writing, students are asked to provide related words and sentence structures in
order to help them enrich vocabulary, preposition (next to, on the right, etc.), articles (a, an,
the), and grammatical structures (there is, there are) to write a good paragraph.
Basing on this sketch, students can provide their room-arrangement to describe their
rooms or their houses using different sentence structures.
Obviously, it is a very simple picture, but students can learn and practice many
language elements, which can help them to reduce the errors of language remarkably.
IV.1.3.2 Paragraph writing basing on a paragraph model
A paragraph sample for the picture may be provided to provide students with a model
to describe their rooms:
Debbie Johnson’s bedroom in her home in Catskill is small but practical. The room is
only 10’x14’, but the furniture is conveniently placed. As you walk through the door, you see
the desk on the right side of the long wall. To the left on the desk, there is a bookcase with
four shelves. In the farther left corner of the room, there is a chest of drawers. The rest of the
short wall on the left is occupied by the bed. Then, on the wall next to the bed there is a big
39
closet with two shelves and space to hang clothes. It is next to the door. On the right hand
wall there are two windows, which make the room very light and airy.
(Adapted from Raims 1893: 32)
This kind of exercises attracts 72% students at NEU. According to the questionnaire,
they expect their teachers to provide a paragraph sample to consult. But to be frank, this
method is not highly effective because students will depend upon the sample, and they are
not creative while they are writing. A paragraph sample is useful for students when they want
to see the format of the writing task only.
However, the paragraph sample can be very useful for students if teachers design it
under different kinds of exercises as follows.
Teachers can ask students to complete the paragraph with linking words to help them
practice combine the sentences together.
Debbie Johnson’s bedroom in her home in Catskill is small ... (1) practical. The room
is only 10’x14’, … (2) the furniture is conveniently placed. As you walk through the door,
you see the desk on the right side of the long wall. To the left on the desk, there is a bookcase
with four shelves. In the farther left corner of the room, there is a chest of drawers. The rest
of the short wall on the left is occupied by the bed. …(3), on the wall next to the bed there is a
big closet with two shelves and space to hang clothes. It is next to the door. On the right
hand wall there are two windows, which make the room very light and airy.
Teachers can also ask students to complete the paragraph with articles to help them
reduce this kind of errors.
Debbie Johnson’s bedroom in her home in Catskill is small but practical. …(1) room
is only 10’x14’, but …(2) furniture is conveniently placed. As you walk through …(3) door,
you see the desk on the right side of the long wall. To …(4) left on the desk, there is a
bookcase with four shelves. In the farther left corner of …(5) room, there is …(6) chest of
drawers. The rest of the short wall on the left is occupied by …(7) bed. Then, on …(8) wall
next to the bed there is …(9) big closet with two shelves and space to hang clothes. It is next
to the door. On the right hand wall there are two windows, which make…(10) room very
light and airy.
40
Teachers also can ask students to complete the paragraph with prepositions to help
them reduce this kind of errors.
Debbie Johnson’s bedroom in her home …(1) Catskill is small but practical. The
room is only 10’x14’, but the furniture is conveniently placed. As you walk …(2) the door,
you see the desk …(3) the right side of the long wall. To the left …(4) the desk, there is a
bookcase with four shelves. In the farther left corner …(5) the room, there is a chest of
drawers. The rest of the short wall on the left is occupied by the bed. Then, on the wall …(6)
the bed there is a big closet with two shelves and space to hang clothes. It is next to the door.
…(7) the right hand wall there are two windows, which make the room very light and airy.
IV.1.3.3. Paragraph completion
Write a part of paragraph on the board, ask students to discuss how to end the
paragraph in small groups then write and compare their versions with each other’s and with
the model.
Debbie Johnson’s bedroom in her home in Catskill is small but practical. The room is only
10’x14’, but the furniture is conveniently placed. As you walk through the door, you see the
desk on the right side of the long wall. To the left on the desk, there is a bookcase with four
shelves. In the farther left corner of the room, there is a chest of drawers. The rest of the
short wall on the left is occupied by the bed. Then, on the wall next to the bed……
IV.1.3. 4. Paragraph assembly
Teachers prepare index cards with one sentence on each, which together form a
paragraph about the picture, hand out one index card to each pair or small group of students.
The task for the whole class is to put the sentences on the cards in order on the board so that
they form a paragraph.
1. ………………………………………………………………………………………………..
2………………………………………………………………………………………………
3………………………………………………………………………………………………
4………………………….……………………………………………………………………
5………………………….……………………………………………………………………
6………………………….……………………………………………………………………
7………………………………………………………………………………………………
8………………………….……………………………………………………………………
41
In the farther
left corner of
the room, there
is a chest of
drawers
To the left on
the desk,
there is a
bookcase
with four
shelves
The room is only
10’x14’, but the
furniture is
conveniently
placed
The rest of
the short
wall on the
left is
occupied by
the bed
As you walk
through the
door, you see
the desk on the
right side of
the long wall
Then, on the wall
next to the bed there
is a big closet with
two shelves and
space to hang
clothes. It is next to
the door
Debbie
Johnson’s
bedroom in her
home in
Catskill is
small but
practical
On the right hand
wall there are two
windows,
which
make the room very
light and airy.
After discussion, teachers ask students to put the correct order on the board by using
some questions: “Who has a sentence that could be the first/second/third… sentence of the
paragraph?” This kind of exercises makes students more interested in the class activities to
find the right order of a paragraph sample.
IV.1.3.5. Controlled composition.
Teachers ask students to imagine that they are Debbie Johnson. Now in her house,
every thing changed because she has just repaired, and she is writing a paragraph to describe
the old one using present simple and past simple tense. The paragraph starts with “The old
house was very small but the new one is bigger…” This exercise helps students practice
grammatical elements and stimulate their imagination when they describe the new house.
IV.1.3.6. Guided composition
Teachers ask students to widen the topic by using guided composition. It lets students
work in team effectively and stimulates their critical thinking.
Ask students to discuss in groups of five what they would write in a paragraph with
the beginning “Debbie John’s house is very colorful…” With the topic sentence, students
42
imagine every color to describe furniture in the room. Then students in groups write a
paragraph together including details that develop the main idea in the first sentence (Raims)
IV.1.3.7. Using a picture-topic
Using a picture as a topic can gives us the chance to develop many kinds of exercises,
which help students gather more vocabulary, idioms, sentence structures as well as
organizational skill. For example, the following picture can create different tasks.

Students discuss in small groups the question: “What is happening in the picture?”
The task of students is to write down all the possible answers and the words or
phrases to prepare the description.

Students write a paragraph in the same groups based on the given questions:
What are their jobs?
What are they discussing?
How do they work?
What does the picture infer to?
Students need to think of different words and phrases to answer the question or
describe the picture before writing.
IV.2. Using readings to teach paragraph writing
Besides using pictures or sketches, reading a short story, a part of newspaper or a
letter to lead paragraph writing helps students deal with different contents. Students will be
provided with real information from the reading when they write a paragraph.
43
IV.2.1. The reasons for the use of readings
Using readings lead to paragraph writing is very effective. Firstly, if students work
with variety of readings while they are writing, they will be dealing with different contents
and all the things they write will be authentic because the information that they get from the
readings is plenty and realizable. The readings taken from newspapers, magazines, textbooks,
etc. are various about the content. Secondly, when students read, they will become familiar
with the vocabulary, idiom, sentence patterns, organizational flow and cultural assumptions
of native speakers of the language, which can help students a lot when they begin to write a
paragraph. Lastly, students who read a text or interact with a text that belongs to someone,
they can learn his or her writing style, which positively affect students’ writings.
IV.2.2. Some suggestions for general strategies for using readings in teaching paragraph
writing
Teachers can ask students to read a short passage and pay attention to all the choices
that the writer uses, such as content, vocabulary, organization and examples.
Teachers can ask students to do different activities in the classroom. Ask them to
work with the text to examine the writer’s choices of linguistics, logical features, such as
cohesive links, punctuation, grammar, and sentence arrangement.
IV.2.3. Some suggested activities and exercises
IV.2.3.1. Working with the text using copying.
Copy gives all students practice with punctuation, spelling, capitalization, and
paragraph indentation. In the classroom, it is very useful for students to remember the words,
structures if a teacher asks students to copy down some information that they will really use.

The teacher writes new vocabulary words on the board while students are
discussing the reading. The students copy any new words into their book or
onto cards, and write a sentence for each new word in order to enrich their
vocabulary and sentence structures before writing a paragraph about anything
related to the text topic.
44

Students read a story at home and copy one sentence they like best. Then, in
class, they discuss with their classmates to analyze the idea of the sentence
before writing a paragraph.

A good piece of paragraph writing by one student is written on the board and
then all the students copy it down as a model. And then a student can use that
version to read to the class for practice in dictation or summary writing.

After reading, group discussion to write the answer for the given questions on
the board is conducted. All the students in the class copy these answers, so
that they can assembly chains of ideas before they begin to plan and organize
their paragraph writing.
IV.2.3.2. Work with the text to examine cohesive links.
Writing a paragraph is different from writing a series of sentences in an exercise. It is
a piece of connected sentences, or in the other words, there are logical and linguistic links
between sentences. So learning how to use these links is an important part of learning how to
write a language.
Obviously, students need to learn the way of using devices for a paragraph cohesive
such as personal pronoun and adjectives, demonstrative pronouns and adjectives, definite
article, and linking words. With 18 counted errors of linking words are counted, it seems that
students at NEU need to pay more attention to this area.

Students can examine a paragraph model. While they are reading the
paragraph model, the teacher asks them to underline the devices that the writer
uses to connect one sentence with another in order to make the text cohesive.
For example, students underline words or phrases to show sequence (firstly,
secondly, lastly, first, after that, then, next, finally), to show contrast
(however, on the other hand, but, on the contrast, nevertheless), to show the
result (so, therefore, consequently), to show addition (also, furthermore, in
addition, moreover, and).

Draw a line to connect the underlined words to the words they refer to. For
instance,
“The teacher called two students but they did answer her”
45

Teachers copy a paragraph and leave blanks for any connecting words, then
ask students to complete the paragraph with cohesive devices.

Students are asked to read a passage and underline the instance of “the”, then
determine in which cases “the” provide as a cohesive device. For example; “I
have a new house in New York. The house is very beautiful and comfortable.
Especially, there is a garden in front of the house…”
IV.2.3.3. Work with the text to combine sentence.
According the study’s findings, we can see that the students’ writings are illogical in
content. It is due to lack of using connectors to combine sentences. To help students write a
logical writing, it is necessary to provide them with sentence-combining exercises that can
improve their sentence structure, length of sentence and sentence variety. For example,
students are given the following pair of sentences taken from a student’s writing or text book
paragraph. Ask them to combine two sentences using different connectors
He did not meet her.
He missed the flight.
Students can discover the variety of sentence combining using the connectors like:
Since/As/Because he missed the flight, he did not meet her
He did not meet her because he missed the flight
He missed the flight, so he did not meet her
He did not meet her because of missing the flight, etc.
IV.3. Correcting errors
Correcting errors is part of the process of teaching paragraph writing but how to
correct them is still an argumentative question: correcting every error or some in students’
paragraph writings? Teachers should indicate where errors occur and let students correct
them or not? There are different questions related to the problem.
IV.3.1. Teacher’s correction and responding to students’ writings.
IV.3.1.1. Teacher’s correction
Obviously, students’ errors are so various that the teacher cannot correct all errors
because of limited time and numerous students. The teacher should decide to choose which
46
kind of errors to deal with. For example, the teacher just corrects errors in language or errors
in content in class. For other errors, the teacher can use circling or underlining and symbols
to indicate kinds of errors such as “sp” for spelling; “v” for error in verb form or tense; “gr”
for grammar error; “cap” for error in capitalization. This way can help the students to
identify and correct their own errors. Symbols for editing are suggested as follows.
Symbol
Vt:
Vf:
Modal:
Cond:
Ss:
Wo:
Conn:
Pass:
Unclear:
Sv:
Art:
Num:
Wc:
Wf:
Nonidiom:
Cap:
Coh:
Cs:
Dm:
Frag:
Lc:
P:
Pro ref/pro agree:
Ro:
Sp:-
Explanation
Incorrect verb tense
Verb incorrectly formed
Incorrect use or information of a modal
Incorrect use or information of a conditional sentence
Incorrect sentence structure
Incorrect or awkward word order
Incorrect or missing connector
Incorrect information or use of passive voice
Unclear massage
Incorrect subject-verb agreement
Incorrect or missing article
Problem with the singular or plural of a noun
Wrong word choice
Wrong word form
Non- idiomatic (not expressed this way in English)
Capitalization-capital letter needed
Coherence-one idea does not lead to the next
Comma splice-two independent clauses joined by a comma
dangling modifier
Fragment-incomplete sentence
Lower case-word(s) incorrectly capitalized
Punctuation incorrect or missing
Pronoun reference or agreement unclear or incorrect
Run-on-two independent clauses joined with no punctuation
Spelling error
(Adapted from Lane & Lange, 1993, XX-XXI)
Then teacher asks students to re-read their writing to correct the underlined errors and
mistakes. If students cannot correct errors themselves, the teacher determines the cause of the
errors, carefully explains the reason why students make certain errors, and how to correct
them. It is very useful for students because the more the teacher points out to students why
they are making errors, the more they will be able to avoid them.
47
With a typical error, the teacher should copy whole the sentence on the board, ask
them to make comments and correct it, which is very good to the writer because he can
realize his mistakes and how to correct it.
IV.3.1.2. Teacher’s responding to students’ writing.

Responding to content and organization:
It is necessary for the teacher to give students clear and direct feedback and instructions
about how to correct and improve their writing by way of writing comments in the margins
of papers or at the end of the writing. Ferris et al. (1997) provide several forms those the
teacher’s responses to students’ idea and organization should take:
(1) Asking for further information
(2) Giving directions, suggestions, or requests for revision
(3) Giving the student new information that will help him or her revise
(4) Giving positive feedback about what the student has done well.
These feedback types can be presented by questions, statements, imperatives, or
exclamations and can be softened by hedges such as “please”, “may be”, “ could”, might”…
(Adapted from Huong, T.T, Minh, NTT.etal, 2007: 78)

Responding to students’ grammatical and lexical errors.
As being mentioned above, the teacher should choose one type of error to correct. The
teacher can write some comments on the grammar, vocabulary, spelling, etc. in students’
early drafts before giving comments on content and organization. Furthermore, the teacher
should give students clear and direct instructions and comments for this kind of errors, too.
IV.3.2. Self - correction and peer – correction
Sometimes, teachers need to give students chances for self - correction and peercorrection because using self-correction or peer-correction can reduce the load of teacher’s
work of dealing with errors. It also provides students with a chance to improve their
language, their ability of analysis and their habits of coordinative-working, so the better
students can help the weaker ones. Some researchers like Bate, Lane, and Lange, 1993;
Ferris (1995), Fathman & Whalley (1990) suggested a variety of indirect, self-discovery
techniques which can help students learn to monitor and self-correct their own errors. This
48
method can be applied with errors caused by carelessness of accuracy and orthography due to
their limited knowledge of English.
Self-correction and peer-correction should be guided by a checklist that aims at
checking overall correctness of the paragraph writing exercises. One strong point of using
checklist is capacity of finding out a variety of errors at a time, so it can save time for
revising and give students a view on the requirements of a well-written paragraph. The
checklist must include items that are easy to be judged. Teachers can provide each student
with a checklist for each paragraph writing exercise so that students can use it to check their
partner’s paragraph writings’ errors. Here is a sample checklist that I myself designed for my
students:
Name:
Topics
Issues
Paragraph Main issue is identified at the beginning
Adequate paragraph format (indentation,
line run continuously
Ideas in supporting sentence:
- Relevant
- Consistent, easy to understand
- Clear presented, sufficiently developed
- Give adequate attention to all aspects of
topic
Conclusion
Summarizes the main point
Message Ideas relevant to the topic
Clarity
Text:
- Easy to understand
- Logically organized
- Contains appropriate cohesive devices
Errors have minimal effects on message
Syntax
Varied and accurate set of vocabulary
Varied and accurate set of grammar
structure
Spelling
Good
Bad
In general, there are different methods of correcting students’ errors. But with
different levels of students and time allowance in class, the teacher should choose the most
suitable method to help students recognize and correct errors effectively.
49
Conclusions
1. Summary of the study
The study aims at finding out the more effective strategies to help students at NEU
overcome their difficulties in paragraph writing.
First of all, the study provides an overview of writing and paragraph writing. In this
part, readers will see different opinions about writing skill of well-known researchers. Then
the questionnaire survey for students is analyzed to find out the students’ background and
attitude toward their English study, their expectations of the course, and their evaluation on
the current teaching methodology. Finally, students’ sample paragraph writings are also
analyzed to discover their common errors of language, content, and idea organization.
After analyzing the questionnaire and students’ sample paragraph writings several
conclusions have been made. Firstly, students have highly positive attitude to paragraph
writing during the course because most of them consider English as a key to find a good job.
Secondly, students have far more difficulties in paragraph content, idea organization, and
language than I expected. A lot of errors of grammatical structures, vocabulary appeared in
their writings. Lastly, the students’ answer of their preference for the way of the teacher’s
presentation and writing exercises are very useful for me to suggest or design the suitable
class activities and exercises to improve students’ paragraph writing skills better.
The study focuses on finding practical strategies based on students’ common
difficulties. There are different strategies of paragraph teaching for the students. But it seems
that using pictures and texts leads to writing seems the most effective strategies for them
because various exercises can be designed from pictures and readings. Besides suggestions
of teaching strategies and various exercises, the checklists to aid peer-correction and selfcorrection are provided to deal with the common errors. In conclusion, the study partly dealt
with students’ difficulties in paragraph writing.
2. Recommendations for further research
With a view to coping students’ difficulties of paragraph content, idea-organization
and language elements, in the study I recommended some appropriate strategies and
exercises that can deal with students’ difficulties in writing paragraph. I hope that the
50
findings might bring about certain changes in the teachers’ strategies of teaching paragraph
writing at NEU in order to help students overcome their difficulties.
The result of the study is also useful for any researches on the field of teaching
writing to language students at NEU and for language students at other Universities.
With the findings of the study, I hope that I will continue to study new methods of
teaching business report-writing
for students in the near future and help them avoid
difficulties when they learn business-report writing.
51
Bibliography
1.
Alice, O. & H. Ann. Writing Academic English. Addison-Wesley Publishing
Company, 1996.
2.
Brown, H. D. Priciples of Language Learning and Teaching. San Fransico State
University, 2000.
3.
Byrne, D. Teaching Writing Skill. London: Longman, 1988.
4.
Dana, F. & John, S.H. Teaching ESL Composition. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
publishers, 1998.
5.
Feist, B. Applied Communication Skills: Writing Paragraphs. Cambridge Adult
Education, 1996.
6.
Fowler, W.S. Progressive Writing Skills. Nelson, 1988.
7.
Harmer, J. How to Teach English. Malaysia: Longman, 1998
8.
Hornby, A. S. Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary of Current English. Oxford
University Press, 2002
9.
Huong, T.T, Minh,N.T.T. etal. ELT Methodology II-Course book. VNU: CFL, 2007.
10.
Lane, J. & Lange, E. Writing Clearly. Boston: Heinle & Heinl, 1993.
11.
National Economics University-Faculty of Foreign Languages. Writing a Paragraph.
Hanoi, 2007.
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Nunan, D. Designing Task for the Communicative Classroom. Cambridge University
Press, 1989.
13.
Nunan. D. Language teaching Methodology. GB: Prentice Hall, 1991.
14.
Patsy, M. L. & Nina, S. How Languages are Learned. Oxford University Press, 1999.
15.
Penny, Ur. A Course in Language Teaching. Cambridge University Press, 1996.
16.
Raimes, A. Techniques in Teaching Writing. Oxford University Press, 1938.
17.
Robert F. Sommer. Teaching Writing to Adults. Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1989.
18.
Roger, G., D. Phillips, and S. Walters. Teaching Practice Handbook. China:
Macmillan Heinesnann, 1995.
19.
Sokolik, M. Writing. In D. Nunan (Ed). Practical English Language Teaching.
China: McGraw-hill Companies, Inc and Higher Education Press, 2003.
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Steele, V. (2002) Product and Process Writing. Retrieved from the World Wide Web
30 December 2007 at: www.teachingenglish.org.uk/thinking/writing/approach.shtml.
21.
Stephen W. Wilhoit. A Brief Guide to Writing from Readings. Allyn and Bacon, 2002.
22.
Tomlinson, B. Materials Development in Language Teaching. Cambridge University
Press, 1998.
23.
Tripple, C. Writing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
24.
Walker, M. A Norton Guide: Writing Research Paper. W.W. Norton Company, 1993.
25.
Wasyl, C. & Ron, A. The Practice of Foreign Language Teaching. David Fulton
Publisher, 2000.
53
Appendices
Appendix1
Questionnaire for students
The students’ needs when they have a paragraph writing course
Introduction:
- You are major language students at NEU, you are learning
paragraph writing as scheduled
- I want to know your needs when you write a paragraph. So
with your honest answers, we can enhance the quality of the
course of teaching paragraph. Thank you very much.
______________________________________________________________
____
Circle the best answer or fill words in the blanks to answer
the following questions:
Sex: Male/ Female.
The General information
1. Choose the best answer:
a. I would not have learned English as a major subject.
b. I learn English to get a good job in the future.
c. I like English very much.
d. Other reasons (give the
details)……………………………………………………….……………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………
2. How long have you been learning English?
………………………………………………
3. Which skills have you ever learned before?
a. Sentence building
b. Letter
c. e-mail
d. Paragraph
- finished a course of paragraph writing
- to be guided to write a paragraph in some periods
54
3. Others: ………………………………………………………………………….
About paragraph writing skill
4. Do you think it necessary to learn paragraph writing course
in the BA program at NEU?
Why?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………….
5. What do you expect after the course? Point out the
necessity for the following items.
1. not
2. low
3.
4. very
necessary
necessary
necessary
necessary
5. extremely
necessary
- Vocabulary, sentence structures using in paragraph writing
1
2
3
4
5
- Visual aids
2
3
4
1
5
- Paragraph writing process
1
2
3
4
5
- Idea organization
2
3
4
1
5
- Social information to write a paragraph
1
2
3
4
5
6. What are your difficulties in paragraph writing?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………….
………………………………………………………………………………………………
7. What are your recommendations?
…….……………………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………….
55
Teaching method
Point out the effectiveness of given methods of teaching by
circling the numbers.
1. not
2. low
3.
4. very
5. extremely
effective
effective
effective
effective
effective
9. The way of teacher’s presenting:
- While teachers are presenting, he provides students with
some
questions to
brainstorm.
1
2
4
5
3
- Read materials and books of reference and discuss problems
with classmates or the teacher
1
2
3
4
5
- Discuss questions given by teachers
1
2
3
4
5
- Teachers use visual aids in teaching
1
2
3
4
5
10. Method of content analyzing:
- Read materials yourself and make conclusion
1
2
3
4
5
- Discuss with partners in pairs or in small groups.
1
2
3
4
5
- Teachers’ explanation
2
3
4
1
5
- Translate the paragraph model into Vietnamese
1
2
3
4
5
11. Practicing and exercises.
- Work with a text (gap filling, word or sentence order….)
1
2
3
4
56
5
- Provide familiar
issues or problems with students to think of the ideas and
write a paragraph.
1
2
3
4
5
12. The teacher’s method of correcting errors.
- Correct some remarkable errors only
1
2
3
4
5
- Ignore all errors but the errors of language and content.
1
2
3
4
5
- Give a comment at the end of the paragraph only.
1
2
3
4
5
- Correct all errors
3
4
- Others:
4
1
2
2
3
5
………………….. ………………………………
1
5
End of the
questionnaire
57
Appendix 2
Error analysis in students’ writing papers.
Students choose one of three following topics to write a paragraph:
a. Why do many people go to Australia to study?
b. The best place to visit in Vietnam
c. A good or bad city or country to visit.
d. A famous person.
e. Eagle animal.
Type 1: Errors in content or meaning
Subtype 1: topic sentence
01: vague topic: “Why do many people go to Australia to study? Because of learning
style, finding job easily and the people” (Paper 01)
02: broad topic: “Why do they choose Australia as their overseas study destination?.
Indeed, Australia is one of the best place for students from all over the world” (Paper
02)
03: too long topic sentence: “Nowadays, many Vietnamese people go to abroad to study.
So they must choose carefully which country they’ll go. Beside America. UK,
Japan,…Australia is one of the bes choice for Vietnamese students because of fours
main reasons” (Paper 38)
04: too long topic sentence: “Over five million people go to study eacher. The most
importance is that they have chance of reaching a good condition for study and
opportunity to tavel in such a beautiful country” (Paper 42)
Subtype 2: Supporting sentence
01: unclear sentence: “You study valuable skill to give you an advantage academically,
personally and professionally” (Paper 01)
02: irrelevant supporting sentence: “Multicultural Australia is a safe, friendly and
harmonious society in which students can learn and travel in an English speaking
country” (Paper 01)
03: unnecessary sentence: “Secondly, you needn’t worry too much about studying and
living costs because they sound cheaper than other countries which are popular
58
with international students, such as UK or US. Therefore, this makes Australia a
very economic choice, for instance, study abroad programs’ costs you around...”
(Paper 02)
04: unclear sentence: “Visitors to Hanoi can find any weather they like. For example, in
the summer, the hottest month, averages 36C; the coldest month, averages 20C. So,
they can find the cool temperature or warm weather in the winter” (Paper 03)
05: no explanation: “First of all, Australia has a wonderful weather and cheap livingcost”. (Paper 04)
06: bad supporting sentence: “Thirdly, the population in Australia is very small” (Paper
04)
07: unclear expression: “So it’s very easy to find good jobs and help professional
positions worldwide after graduating” (Paper 05)
08: unclear expression: “Living expenses and tuition cost in Australia are value for
money” (Paper 05)
09: no comparison: “… living cost in Australia are considerably less expensive than
UK and USA. (The average international student in this country spends about $335
per week on…)” (Paper 06)
10: unclear sentence: “… Australia offers an education experience that makes a real a
difference” (Paper 06)
11: irrelevant supporting sentence for the topic sentence: “Australia provides a unique
kind of education and a learning style” (Paper 06)
12: unclear sentence: “most Australian institutions have ties with international
universities, sharing research and staff” (Paper 10)
13: Vietnamese expression: “California has any weather you like”(Paper 11)
14: unsuitable supporting sentence: “... And the lake of the Restored Sword is also a
popular place. Its old temple and red bridge is worth visiting and if you get there
early enough you can see people doing Tai Chi as the sun-rises” (Paper 12)
15: No explanation: “It was occupied briefly by the French in 1873 and passed to them
10 years later. In 1940 it occupied by Japanese and was liberated in 1945. A proud
history makes Hanoi…” (Paper 12)
16: wrong expression: “One story said” (Paper 13)
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17: bad expression: “eagle is always the symbol of strength and independence for me to
become” (Paper 13)
18: unclear sentence: “Vietnamese wedding has picking bride festival, after this event
the bride will become a main member of the groom’s family” (Paper 14)
19: unclear sentence: “Vietnamese wedding has picking bride festival, after this event
the bride will become a main member of the groom’s family” (Paper 14)
20: unclear and too long expression: “this isn’t the only reason that many people choose
to study here is that the standard of living of Australian is very stable. Their income
is about 6000 USD for a year. This number is not high but…” (Paper 15)
21: supporting sentence is off the topic: “you can find that Australia is not only a
wonderful place for studying but also for travel” (Paper 17)
22: not support to the point he made before: “He was very honest and generous. He
refused to work for people who were very powerful at his time” (Paper 19)
23: incomprehensible sentence: “He gives up a humane reason: It’s love. Because of
love, the couple in “The afterlife” can realize each other” (Paper 20)
24: supporting sentence give a new idea that did not mention in topic sentence:
“Besides, Australia is famous for beauties and peace”
(Paper 21)
25: unclear supporting sentence: “Australia forward-looking education impresses
people who want to research into their faculties” (Paper 21)
26: poor expression: “It was year of her 18 years old, she left her countryside” (Paper
22)
27: incomprehensible sentence: “everything seemed very mood and she seemed to be
the luckiest single in the world” (Paper 22)
28: Vietnamese expression: “In the end, her attempt has had the result” (Paper 22)
29: unclear sentence: “Her name is told as well as her songs like ‘I still believe’”
(Paper 22)
30: unnecessary sentence: “Nhat ky trong tu is renowned with Vietnamese and
foreigners as well. His political discussions were powerful weapons to enemies”
(Paper 24)
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31: poor expression:
“There will never have enough words to talk about…” (Paper
24)
32: unclear expression: “There are many well-known universities and colleges with
hundreds of professors, master and vice master”
(Paper 26)
33: No comparison of two parts (North and South) before giving the details: “The North
and Middle of Vietnam has four seasons a year: spring, summer, autumn and
winter. Whereas the South just has only one season: it is hot…” (Paper 28)
34: poor expression: “Beside the peace, clean air is an important element helping
tourists want to visit Hanoi”. (Paper 29)
35: unclear sentence: “…especially, “Nhat ky trong tu”, a famous collection of poems.
His works had not only humani culture but also dramatiacl education”. (Paper 32)
36: bad expression: “He played an important role in helping the Vietnamese get
freedom from the war with the French and American” (Paper 32)
37: incomprehensible sentence: “His first Paris choice was Jacques Fats” (Paper 33)
38: incomprehensible sentence: “When he has been offered the French equivalent and
after discuss with his parents, he decided to…”
(Paper 33)
39: vague sentence: “ Cheachu’s known for its romantic scenery, especially suitable for
honeymoon” (Paper 36)
40: irrelevant sentence: “Beside that, he is also famous for his private life. He looks
handsome and manly so a lot of girls liked him” (Paper 40)
41: irrelevant sentence: “He was the captain of English football team for 5 years and
has played for national team for over 300 times. He is one of the footballer who are
admired most in English and all over the world” (Paper 40)
42: vague sentence: “Nhat ky trong tu was one of the most writing. His arguments were
powerful weapons”. (Paper 40)
43: unclear expression: “It is usually said that when an enterprise is opened, it must
accept that the first one or two years will bring a loss”. (Paper 41)
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44: unclear expression: “The way he did things was to prepare every thing for
VietComs. carefully and professionally-human sources seeking and training, market
surveys, seeking partners and so on” (Paper 41)
45: unclear sentence: “There are also fewer periods on class which contain
less theory and makes learner be active in their subject” (Paper 42)
Subtype 3: Concluding sentence
01: Not a good concluding sentence: “It is not surprising that so many people go to
Australia to study” (Paper 01)
02: Not restate the main idea of the paragraph: “In general, studying in Australia will
provide you with now and wonderful opportunities and experience, not to mention
exiting and progressive globally education program” (Paper 02)
03: Not a real concluding sentence: “You’ll be a lucky person if you have a opportunity
to go to Australia to study” (Paper 04)
04:
“So in some countries, Australia is the first choice, attractive destination of many
people” (Paper 05)
05: “It is true to say that Australia is the best place to study” (Paper 21)
06: No concluding sentence (Paper 38)
Type 2: Errors in idea organization
Subtype 1: Errors in logical order
01: There is no logical order among ideas (02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 11, 12, 13, 15, 21, and 38)
Subtype 2: Errors in coherence (18)
01:
There is no any coherence among parts of the paragraph, sentences or ideas (02, 03,
04, 05, 12, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 24, 25, 27, 38, 39, 41, and 42)
02:
wrong use of relative clause: “that” instead of “which” (20)
Subtype 3: Errors in format
01:
No conclusion is given at the end of paragraph, (21)
Type 3: Errors in language
Subtype 1: Errors in grammar
62
01:
articles (03*3, 04, 07*3, 09*3, 11, 13*2, 14*6, 18, 20, 24, 25*3, 27*2, 28, 29*3, 32,
35*4, 36*2, and 37)
02:
Preposition (05, 09, 22, 12*3, 14, 15, 19, 23, 25*2, 28, 34, 37, 39, 40
03:
Singular and plural Nouns (02, 03*2, 07*2, 10, 11, 13*4, 14, 15*2, 16*3, 17*2, 18,
19, 25, 28, 36, and 42*4)
04:
Adjective possessive pronoun (13*3)
05:
Verbs (04, 07*3, 10*4, 11*2, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20*4, 21*2, 22*4, 28*2, 29*4, 25*2, 31,
35*2, 36, 38, 39*2, 40*4, and 41)
Subtype 2: Errors in vocabulary
Here are the number of writings remaining vocabulary errors:
(05*6, 08*5, 09*2, 10*3, 11, 12, 13, 14*5, 14*4, 15*6, 16*2, 17, 18*4, 19, 20, 21,
22, 23, 25, 26*2, 27*2, 29*3, 33, 35*2, 36*2, 37, 38, 39*2, and 40)
Subtype 3: Errors in orthography
01:
Spelling (02, 08, 14, 17, 22, 29, 30, 41*2, 40, and 42)
02:
Punctuation & Capitalization (12*2, 14, 16, 17, 20*2, 22*2, 27*3, 31, 36*2, 37*2,
39*3, 40*2, and 42)
63