THE FIRST YEAR – LANGUAGE STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN PARAGRAPH WRITING AND SOME APPROPRIATE

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

Introduction

1. Rational (Introduction, NEU students’ difficulties, and Conclusion) 6

2. Objectives of the study 9

3. Scope of study 9

4. Method of the study 10

5. Contents of study 10

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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

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

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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

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.

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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

NEU: National Economics University

ESP: English Specific Purpose

M.A: Master of Arts

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Introduction

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

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