Academic writing problems encountered by English-major seniors of Banking Academy

BANKING ACADEMY OF VIETNAM

FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

GRADUATION THESIS:

Academic writing problems encountered by English-major

seniors of Banking Academy

Student: Đào Hoàng Quân

Student ID: 22A7510066

Class: K22ATCC

Supervisor: Bùi Thị Minh Thu PhD

Hanoi, May, 2023

Acknowledgement

i

Acknowledgement

Writing this has been quite a strenuous mental activity. It had literally taken a toll

on me mentally and physically. However, I had seen it through, though not without

the help of other people. For that I would like to extend, in no particular order, my

thanks to Ms. Bùi Thị Minh Thu for her exceptional guidance that has helped me

through all of this ordeal, Ms. Trần Thị Thu Thủy and Ms. Trần Thị Thanh Giang

for giving me advice and input to help me better my thesis.

I would like to give my thanks to my friends: Hoàng Linh for providing me with

the expertise in statistics and probability to make this happen, and Hà Phương for

sharing her experience in writing her own thesis.

Lastly, I want to thank my family, for without them, I would not have been here

today, and would not make the choices that define who I am. For that, I am grateful.

Acknowledgement

II

Statement

I hereby certify that this thesis is the product of my own work. It has not been used

for any other degrees or purposes. All resources used have been properly cited

down below.

Đào Hoàng Quân

Table of Contents

iii

Table of Contents

Acknowledgement................................................................................................... i

Statement................................................................................................................ii

Table of Contents..................................................................................................iii

Table of Figures ..................................................................................................... v

Abstract ................................................................................................................. vi

I. Introduction......................................................................................................... 1

1. The rationale of the Research......................................................................... 1

2. Research Aim................................................................................................. 2

3. Research Questions........................................................................................ 2

4. Scope and Scale.............................................................................................. 2

II. Literature Review .............................................................................................. 3

1. Writing ........................................................................................................... 3

1.1. The Nature of Writing............................................................................. 3

1.2. Writing as a Form of Communication .................................................... 4

1.3. Problems in Writing ................................................................................ 5

2. Academic Writing .......................................................................................... 7

2.1. The Nature of Academic Writing............................................................ 7

2.2. Types of Academic Writing.................................................................... 9

2.3. Academic Writing Problems................................................................. 10

III. Methodology .................................................................................................. 18

1. Research Subject .......................................................................................... 18

1.1. Banking Academy’s English major ...................................................... 18

Table of Contents

IV

1.2. Banking Academy’s English language seniors..................................... 19

2. The Questionnaire........................................................................................ 20

3. The Interviews ............................................................................................. 21

IV. Results............................................................................................................ 23

1. Results.......................................................................................................... 23

1.1. General information.............................................................................. 23

1.2. Writing Information of the Students..................................................... 24

1.3. Academic writing difficulties ............................................................... 28

1.4. Causes................................................................................................... 35

2. Discussion .................................................................................................... 40

2.1. Language difficulties ............................................................................ 40

2.2. Content difficulties ............................................................................... 43

2.3. Structure difficulties ............................................................................. 45

2.4. Possible outside-of-class causes ........................................................... 46

2.5. Classroom causes.................................................................................. 47

V. Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 50

1. Conclusion ................................................................................................... 50

2. Limitations................................................................................................... 51

3. Suggestion for later studies.......................................................................... 52

4. Recommendations........................................................................................ 53

References............................................................................................................ 54

Appendix I ........................................................................................................... 60

Appendix II.......................................................................................................... 70

Table of Figures

v

Table of Figures

Graph 1: The framework for academic writing difficulties visualized................ 17

Graph 2: Respondents’ experience with English ................................................. 24

Graph 3: Students' weekly average of time spent practicing academic writing .. 25

Graph 4: Students' confidence in their academic writing .................................... 26

Graph 5: Students' difficulty in writing thesis statements (scale 1-5) ................. 32

Graph 6: Outside-of-class causes for academic writing difficulties.................... 36

Graph 7: In-class causes for academic writing difficulties.................................. 39

Table 1: Reliability analysis of items 5 to 7......................................................... 28

Table 2: Means and medians of students' academic writing difficulties in content

.............................................................................................................................. 29

Table 3: Means and medians of students' academic writing difficulties in structure

.............................................................................................................................. 31

Table 4: Means and medians of students' academic writing difficulties in language

.............................................................................................................................. 33

Table 5: Students' opinion on the causes for their writing difficulties ................ 36