THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines iSTRATEGIC, LEXICAL AND SYNTACTIC COMPETENCIES IN ENGLISH
OF FRESHMAN STUDENTS IN THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY:
BASIS FOR A PROPOSED DRILL EXERCISES

A Dissertation
Presented to
The Faculty of Graduate School
Batangas State University
Batangas City, Philippines

Republic of the Philippines ii

ABSTRACT

Title :Strategic, lexical and syntactic competencies in
English of freshman students in Thai Nguyen
university: Basis for a proposed drill exercise.
Author : Nguyen Thi Thanh Hong
Course :Doctor of Philosophy major in English language and
literature.
Year : 2014
Adviser : Dr Amada G. Banaag Summary

The main focus of this study was to determine the strategic,
lexical and syntactic competencies in English of freshman student Thai
Nguyen university.
This study made use of the descriptive method and utilized
researcher-constructed questionaire and teacher made test. For
objective interpretation and analysis of the study, the data were
subjected to the following statistical treatment: frequency, percentage,
ranking, independent t-test and standard deviation.
THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This dissertation wouldn’t have been possible had it not been for the
support, love, patience, and generosity of many people, who have
helped me in their own incredible way to deal with myself while trying to
find my voice in what I do.
I would especially like to acknowledge and thank Dr. Amanda G.
Banaag, who as a major professor and director of my dissertation
opened my eyes to see the details in the “big picture”. I highly admire
her scholarship, dedication, efficiency in decision-making, valuable
advice, to Dr. Maltida H. Dimaano, who has enormously helped me to
keep on moving. Had it not been for her constant administrative and
academic support, I doubt I would have finished the Program and my
dissertation in such a timely manner. There isn’t a quantifier in the
English language that can express how grateful I am for everything that
she has done for me during the past four years. I would also sincerely
like to thank Dr. Corazon Cabrera, who has always been full of new

my sons. My husband’s patience and high level of tolerance to all my
academic queries, intellectual quests, and unpredictable mood swings
have been more than highly appreciated. My son’s well-being, love, and
encouragement have been my guiding light. Finally, I am entirely
indebted to all my friends for their spiritual generosity and for being my
friends. Thank you!

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE I
TABLE OF CONTENTS ii
LIST OF TABLES v
LIST OF FIGURES vii
CHAPTER
I. THE PROBLEM 11
Introduction 11

Data Gathering Instrument 82
Data Gathering Procedure 83
Statistical Treatment of Data 84
IV. PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA
85
V. SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 143
Summary of Findings 143
Conclusions 153
Recommendations 154
APPENDICES
A. Questionnaire for Students 164
B. Questionnaire for Teacher’s -Part 1 175
C. Questionnaire for Teacher’s - Part 2 180
D. Validation Letter of the Questionnaire for Students 186
F. Letters of Request to the Head of Institution 189
H. Documents for Validation of Questionaires in Batangas State
University 194
K: Photographs of the Research Sites 195

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines


2 Strategic competencies of Freshman students 85
3 Student skills according to the frequency of use as strategic
competencies 90
4 Degree of importance of strategic competency 93
5 Performance of student on Lexical Competence 94
6 Performance of student on Syntactic Competence 98
7 Student's t-test comparison of the mean scores for each
lexical test 104
8 Student's t-test comparison of the mean scores for each
syntactic 105
9 Student's t-test comparison of the mean scores for lexical vs.
syntactic test 106
10 List of student skills validated by 60 teacher respondents as
lexical and syntactic competencies of Freshman students 108
11 Students’ frequency of lexical and syntactic skills 111
12 Mean scores of student lexical and syntactic skills 113

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines vi

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam

BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM
Introduction
English language is considered a significant tool for
communication in the 21
st
century as the world becomes global
business and communication such as news and information, business,
finance, entertainment, maritime and air traffic communication. It is also
the language that plays an important role in government diplomacy,
science, medicine and other profession. In the world also connected by
bits and bytes, English language is also important as it emerged as a
common vehicle for communication.

As an international language, English is spoken in many countries
both as native and as a second or foreign language. It is the world’s
dominant language because aside from being designated as an official
among sixty two nations, it has the greatest number of speakers. It
most international organization, English is the official and working
language aside from being the most taught foreign language across the
globe. People with knowledge in English language has better career
and pay as well as communication with the outside world. Their desire
to learn the language is unsatiable.
Further, often referred to as the world’s language, English is
widely spoken. In a number of jobs, professions and fields, a working
knowledge of English becomes a need. Knowledge also of the English
language to enhance educational attainment through improved
communication ability is also important.
English as the lingua franca of the modern times of business and
of popular culture is also the language of computers and internet aside
from being the language of globalization of international business,

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines 14

proficiency close to Thailand that is 39.41. This EF EPI is the first of its
kind index comparing the English proficiency of non-native English
speaking countries calculated from 2,368,730 test takers across 42
countries and two territories, accumulated from 2007 to 2009. In the
following year that is in 2012, Vietnam showed and EF EPI of 52.14 or
low proficiency, an improvement from the previous year in comparison
with Thailand which got a value of 44.36 or very low proficiency.
Vietnam issued the Government Decision 1400 in 2008 whose
goal is to “renovate thoroughly the tasks of teaching and learning
foreign languages within the national educational system” and through
its Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) National Foreign
Language 2020 Project, or Project 2020 aims to embark on an
ambitious education reforms where all school levels will be required to
have a minimum level of English by 2020. Under this program, Vietnam
does not only want majority of its students to be able to use a foreign
language, especially English, confidently in their study, daily
communication and work in an integrated, multi-cultural and multi-
lingual environment, making foreign languages a comparative
advantage of development for Vietnamese people in the cause of
industrialization and modernization for the country by 2020, but
demands that its high school teachers are competent on the second


As an applied component of language, communicative
competence is the ability of the speakers to use different functioning
rules of the system. It involves speaker’s grammatical knowledge of
syntax, morphology and phonology. It also includes the social
knowledge of the speaker in the appropriate use of language. Knowing

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines 16

English involves speaking, writing, listening and reading. Producing the
language correctly as well as using the language for a particular
purpose is part also of communication in English when speakers are
able to perform the needed communicative functions, they achieve
communicative competence in the language.
It was further stated that competence aside from being referred to
as an idealized capacity, it is also the ideal speaker-hearers knowledge
of his or her own language and it is the “mental reality” which is
responsible for all those aspects of language use which can be
characterized as linguistics (Kroy, 1994). The grammar or set of

ethical reasoning, teamwork and leadership, creative thinking, computer
literacy and entrepreneuraship, all these competencies in English will
help learners become ready for the task aheadof them. It will serve
them a better place in the academic and professional world as the
communicative competency expected of them include interpersonal
skills through effective listening, establishing rapport, monitoring non-
verbal signals and expressing awareness of and respect for sel and
others using a variety of written, oral and non-verbal communication
media.

Thus, the objective of the Vietnamese L2 learners is to achieve a
certain level of communicative competence in the areas of grammatical,
socio linguistic, strategic competence and discourse competence.
Thai Nguyen university (TNU) is known as one of the three regional
universities in Vietnam, and a unique university in the Northern Mountainous
Area of Vietnam. Since its establishment in 1994, TNU has become one
of Vietnam’s leading regional Universities. It is a conglomeration of
colleges which were established earlier as separate institutions of
learning. The unification of these colleges into a university system
continues the long history of Thai Nguyen being a centre of learning in
the region. For 20 years, TNU has grown and blossomed in the
performance of its functions with a vision to move towards the future

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines 19

conversation in English because students learn basic grammar at
school level for the purpose of passing only in the tests and in the
examinations and not to face any real life situations. They pay more
attention on other subjects for entrance exammination to enter
universities. Therefore, based on the researcher’s observation and as
an English teacher teaching the subject for several years, most of the
students encounter difficulties along grammar and vocabulary as well as
their inability to use varied communication strategies.
For the English teachers, it is also very difficult to teach as well as to
improve the English proficiency of their students. These students have a
lot of difficulties in learning English including their different background
knowledge, different learning styles, different learning speeds and a
variation in motivation. According to the national foreign language 2020
project, all students who graduate from university have to get B1 level in
six levels of the Common European Framework of Reference for
Languages (CEFR). However, to help students to get English
proficiency according to the reqirement of the MoET is not a simple duty

2. What is the level of students’ lexical competence relative to:
2.1: Vocabulary;
2.2: Idioms;
2.3: Word formation; and
2.4: Antonyms/synonyms?
3. What is the level of students’ syntactic competence in terms of:
3.1: Subject verb agreement
3.2: Verb tenses
3.3: Direct and indirect speech
3.4: Phrases and clause

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines 21

3.5: Pronoun references
4. Are there significant relationships between each pair of students’
lexical and syntactic competencies?
5. Are there significant relationships between lexical and syntactic
competencies?

22

teacher respondents also include those who are currently teaching
freshman English courses.
Significance of the Study
This study is significant in at least three levels namely the
students, the teachers and the administrators.
The Students. Being one of the respondents of this study,
students will largely benefit from the findings of this work as it will
establish their current level of lexical and syntactic competencies and
thus identify their areas of handicap which will be used as basis for the
design of remedial strategies.
Teachers. They will be provided with a rationale and
understanding as to why the students language performance is such
and would instill in them a deep appreciation of the remedial strategies
that will be designed. This is also important to the students and the
teachers as this will generate awareness and sensitivity to the specific
lexical and syntactic standards of the English language.
Administrators and Policymakers. This study is important to
them as they will appreciate the need to institute teaching reforms and
insure the implementation of innovative strategies towards the
improvement of English language teaching that is geared towards
generation of personal benefit. THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam

(1965) first used the term competence to account for the unconscious

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines 24

knowledge speakers have of their language and considered it the “ideal”
language system that makes it possible for speakers to produce and
understand an infinite number of sentences in their language and to
distinguish grammatical sentences from ungrammatical sentences.
This unconscious knowledge was elaborated by Fromkin and Rodman
(1981) to constitute as “what someone knows about the languages and
the mental representation of the language”. Thus, the English language
competency is broadly subdivided into two areas, namely, linguistic
competence and communicative competence. Kroy (1974) stated that
competence aside from being referred to as an idealized capacity, is
also the ideal speaker-hearer’s knowledge of his or her own language
as well as the “mental reality” which is responsible for all those aspects
of language use which can be characterized as linguistics.
Further, the grammar as set of language rules that is represented