NGHIÊN CỨU ỨNG DỤNG
AN ANALYSIS OF COMMON ERRORS IN OPINION PARAGRAPH WRITING MADE DY FIRST-YEAR
ENGLISH NON- MAJORING STUDENTS FROM ULIS, VNU
Bui Th! Hang*
* KhoajTieng Anh, Đại học Ngoại ngừ, Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội
!I
ABSTRCT
Writing is a productiveskill. It is one ofthe mostdifficult and therefore frustrating subjects to teach particularly in an ESL/EFL programme. This paper isanoutcome of teachers’concerns andefforts to identify 're as of difficulty’ in writing an academicparagraph among English non-majoringstudents and to work out remedial procedures to help them overcome their weaknesses. Thestudy examines 40 opinion paragraphs abouta certaintopic ofsecond year universitystudents. A standardformatfor paragraphwriting consisting of 10 criteria was usedfor evaluating thetypesof errors. Thefrequency of errors was calculated as percentage.
Thestudents’errors were groupedandanalyzed. The studyconcludeswith pedagogical recommendations.
Keywords: Paragraph writing, error and error analysis Received: 6/1/2022; Accepted: 15/1/2022; Published:16/2/2022
! I. INTRODUCTION 1 .1.Rationale
Writing is always one of the most problematic skills that challenge every student even in their first language and are “magnified [...] in a second or foreign language” (Enginarlar, 1990). Inthis sense, it is more difficult to repah the lack of coherence in writing than in speaking because the opportunity to asK for clarification or to flashback for background information in spoken interaction do not exist in written discourse(Zor,2006).
In theresearcher’s teaching context,coherence is undoubtedly among the most challenging issues to copewith in every type ofparagraph.This problem is even moreburdeningas itcomesto opinion paragraphs whan students are asked to support their ideas with relevantarguments andlogicalreasoning. They often reflect thatthey cannot provide relevant support that explains, describes, or exemplifies theirideas, leading to their failure inachievingcoherence intheirwritten production and negative feedback from theteacher.
Thereality mentioned above hasinspired the author to carry out a small researchnamed: “An analysisof common errors in opinion paragraph writing madeby first-yearEnglish non-majoringstudents fromULIS, VNU”
1. 2. Aims and researchquestions
The study aims to investigate common errors which ULIS first year students commonly make in their opinion paragraph writing. Besides, the researcher would also like to analyzethem in the hope ofpreventing students from making the same mistakes over aperiod of time.
1.3 . Scope ofthe study
This studyfocuses mostly on frequently-committed errors among 40 non-majoringEnglishstudents from ULIS in writing an opinion paragraph about a certain topic. Also, the sample size is limitedto 40 entities only. This small sample size obviously affects the study results, which, to some extent, reduces the internal reliability of the research
1. 4. Methodologyof the study
To complete the study, the following method is applied. 40 ULIS students are required to write an opinion paragraph on a certain topic. On the basis of given categories of coherence errors, the researcher can analyze and find out the most common errors madeby those students in opinion paragraph writing.
I L MAIN PARTS IL LLiterature Review
II. 1.1. Opinion paragraph writing
The main focus of this research is expressing opinionsatthe paragraph level.Therefore, paragraph writing or the organization of a paragraph is of primary importance. Rajatanun (1988:95) said that a paragraph is aunit of writing whichexpresses one
TẠP CHÍ THIẾT BỊ GIÁO DỤC - số 259 KỲ 2 - 2/2022 •
59
II NGHIÊN cứu ỨNG DỤNG
central ideaand consists of two kinds ofsentences: a topic sentence and a number of supportingstatements.
O'Donnell and Paiva (1993:2-4) provided more details about the essential parts for paragraphwriting which include a topic sentence, supporting sentences, details,logical order, logical connectors, a concluding sentence, unity and coherence. The ideas in the paragraph must bepresentedin logical order by using transition words orconnecting words which indicate the relationship between the ideas (chronological, causal, etc.). Unity and coherence are also main components of a paragraph, together with the main idea and the supporting details. Coherence means
“to stick together.’’ One way to achieve coherence iswith the use of connectors called transition words or phrases that link one sentence to another (Wyrick
1999:211).
IL J. 2 Errors in Writing
We can conclude that writing is of course, not easy and in some way, more difficult than speaking (Noirish 1983:63). Writing is more complex inthat it tests a person’s ability to use a language and the ability to expressideas.Thisdifficulty of writing leads students to be more susceptible to producing errors.
Thisstudywasdesigned toidentifyimportantfeatures of students’ errors, the causes of their errors, and categorize those errors. Errors in language learning, therefore, play an importantroleinthis study.
Corder (1971 :152) stated that errors are ‘the result ofsomefailure ofperformance’. Norrish (1983:7), like Corder, defined ‘an error’ as a systematic deviation thathappens whena learner hasnotlearnt something and consistently ‘get(s) itwrong’. James(1998:1)also identified a language erroras an unsuccessful bit of language. Errors are significant in threedifferent ways.
First to the teacher, errors tellhim how farthe learner has progressed and, consequently, what remains for himto learn. Second, errorsprovide researcherswith evidence onhow language is learnt or acquired,what strategies or procedures the learner are employing in his discovery of the language. Thirdly, errors are indispensable to the learner himself, because errors canbe regarded as a device the learner uses in order to learn.Norrish(1983:21-42) described the causes of language learners’ errors as arisingfromcarelessness, interference from the learner’s first language, translationfromthe first language, contrastive analysis, general order of difficulty, overgeneralization, incomplete application of rules, material-induced errors and a part of language creativity.
II. 2. Methodology I 1.2.1. Participants
The participants were 40 non-majoring English students in their second year of study at ULIS, VNU. They had had little previous English-writing experience in their secondary and high schools, since writing is not emphasized at these levels. In basic writing lessons, the objectiveswere todevelop students’ writing abilities beyond sentences and also tofamiliarize them with variousstyles ofwriting, such as description, narration andargumentation.
II.2.2. Writing sampleand Instrument
Following Halliday and Hassan (1976) who stated that writing allows writers to demonstratetheir ability toconstruct a stringof well-connected sentences that are grammaticallyand logically correct, the students were asked to state their opinion about studying abroad. Thus, the writing sample for the study was 40 paragraphs written in English by PPA students.
The ten criteriafor analysis wereused which areas follows.
1. Inability to perform the assignedtask becauseof not understanding thequestion
2. No introduction 3. Lack of main ideas
4. Notopic sentencestating the main points 5. Lack of development of the main ideas (adding details and facts aboutthemainpoint)
6. Lack of organization
7. Accumulation of errorsinsentence structure and / orusage
8. Notransitional words 9. Incoherence
10. Noconclusion
All the tencriteria were gathered fromthe survey and the principles ofgood paragraph writing from many books such as TOEFL criteria for correcting paragraphs (Mahnke & Duffy, 2002), Writing Academic English (Oshima & Hoque, 2006), Logic, Language, and Composition (Willis, 1975). The frequency of errors found in the opinion paragraph writing of the students was calculated using the followingformula:
Percentageof errors=number oferrors (for each criteria) X 100/total number of subjects(40)
I 1.2.3. Dataanalysis
The analysis of written essays will be derived from Corder’s (1967) method on error analysis.
Thismethod hasthree steps: (1)collection of sample errors, (2)identification of errors and (3) description
60 •
TẠP CHÍ THIẾT BỊ GIÁO DỤC - số 259 KỲ 2 - 2/2022NGHIÊN CỨU ỨNG DỤNG
II
of errors
II. ỉ. Results
The following are the results that the researchers obtained. Errors were found in the writing ofmost students. The distribution of type of error was quite similarfor allgroups. Ahigh percentage of errors was found in nine out often criteria. Thetop fourcriteria (or causes)oferrors were: no transitionalwords, lack oforganization, lack of main ideas and noconclusion.
(See Table 1)
II. 4. Discussion
Order Criteria Analysis Level of error Amount % 1 Inability to perform the assigned
task because of not understanding the question
5 12,5
2 No introduction 20 50
3 Lack of main ideas 33 82,5
4 No topic sentence stating the main points
22 55
5 Lack of development of the main ideas (adding details and facts about the main point)
30 75
6 Lack of organization 35 87,5
7 Accumulation of errors in sentence structure and / or usage
25 62,5
8 No transitional words 38 95
9 Incoherence 24 60
10 No conclusion 32 80
In evaluating the students’ opinion paragraph writing, the researchers found that most students cid notpresent a reasonable connection or relation,
□etween ideas in their paragraphs which causes
“coherence breaks” (Wikborg, 1990). They did not use transitionalwords to linkthe ideas together.Also, thesentences bin the paragraphs did not directly relate to the main idea. They only put the content into the paragraphwithout expanding on their ideas, so their paragraphs were short and unclear. They only paid atention to content which prevented them from Ỉriting a detailed paragraph. In addition, it seemed at most students from ULIS did not have proper ganizational skills. That is to say their ideas were rely organized in logical order, which made the ader find it hard to understand.Also, the participants paid little attention tosupportingideas. These are the areas that should beexplainedtostudentssothatthey keepinmind when writingaparagraphinEnglish.
III. CONCLUSION
Only a small percentage ofULIS first-year English non-majoringstudentsknow howto write a standard paragraph. Most of them lack the skills of writinga coherent andwell-organizedparagraph. They cannot organize their ideas logically and systematically by using transitional words. This reflects the need to improve their ability in English paragraph writing.
Therefore, all ULIS students should be taught to write a standard opinion paragraph. Furthermore, transitionalwords shouldbe taughtandemphasized.
These findings will be used as a reference point for developing materials appropriate to whatthe students need. Moreover, the error correction technique to improve the students’ ability in writing a standard opinion paragraph should be further investigated in order to prepare and to develop language skills, especially Englishnon-majoring students. Given the results of thisstudy, a number ofrecommendations for furtherresearch are suggested.First, it is recommended thatfurther research be undertaken to investigate the errors madeby studentsmajoring in English. Second, further investigation into intra-lingual errors is stronglyrecommended.
REFERENCE
Corder, s.p. (1981). Error Analysis and Interlanguage. Oxford: Oxford
UniversityPress.
Ellis, R. (1995) Understanding SecondLanguage Acquisition.(10thed.)
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Halliday, M.A.K.. & Hasan, R. (1976) Cohension in English. Landon: Longman
Hart, A.w. & Reinking, J.A. (1990) Writingfor College and Career.(4thed.)
New York: St. Martin’sPress
Liu, M.& Braine, G.(2005) Cohesive Features in ArgumentativeWriting.
Produced byChinese Undergraduates.System, 33:
623-636.
Mahnke, M.K.& Duffy, B.c. (2002) TOEFL Preparation Course. New Jersey:
Mackmillan Heinemann.
O’Donnell, T.D. & Paiva, J.L. (1993)Independent Writing. (2nded.)
Massachusetts: Heinle & Heinle Publishers.
Norrish, J. (1983)Language Learners and Their Errors. London: Macmillan Press.
Reid,J.M.(1994) TheProcessofParagraph
TẠP CHÍ THIẾT BỊ GIÁO DỤC - số 259 KỲ 2 - 2/2022.61
