VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
PHẠM THỊ BÍCH NGỌC

LINGUISTIC ERRORS IN WRITING A PARAGRAPH OF 10
TH

HANOI - 2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
PHẠM THỊ BÍCH NGỌC

LINGUISTIC ERRORS IN WRITING A PARAGRAPH OF 10
TH
FORM
STUDENTS AT NGUYEN TRAI HIGH SCHOOL IN HAI PHONG AND
SOME SOLUTIONS

(NHỮNG LỖI VỀ NGÔN NGỮ KHI VIẾT ĐOẠN VĂN CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP
10 TRƯỜNG THPT NGUYỄN TRÃI – HẢI PHÒNG
VÀ MỘT SỐ BIỆN PHÁP KHẮC PHỤC)
M.A. MINOR THESIS


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
PHẠM THỊ BÍCH NGỌC

LINGUISTIC ERRORS IN WRITING A PARAGRAPH OF 10
HANOI - 2012 1
TABLE OF CONTENT
Page
PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale 1
2. Objectives of the study 2
3. Research questions 2
4. Scope of the study 2
5. Method of the study 2
6. Organization of the study 2
PART II: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter I: Literature review
I.1. Teaching writing
I.1.1. Reasons for teaching writing 4
I.1.2 Principles of teaching writing 5
I.2. Teaching paragraph writing
I.2.1. Definition of Paragraph 5
I.2.2. Classifications of paragraph 6
I.3. Writing errors
I.3.1. Definitions of errors 7
I.3.2. The role of “errors” in English Language Teaching 8
I.3.3. Classifications of writing errors 9
I.3.4. Error correction 10
I.3.5. Teacher‟s role in error correction 10
I.4. Previous studies 11


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PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Teaching and learning a foreign language aims at providing the learners with
means of communication. 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
helps learners to 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 writing skill, it is part of the English syllabus at high
school. However, from the writer‟s teaching-experience at Nguyen Trai high school,
not enough attention has been paid to the teaching and learning of writing skill at

The study is about paragraph writing of 10th form students at Nguyen Trai
high school. However, due to the limited scope and time, it is confined to finding
out the students‟ linguistic errors in paragraph writing. Specifically, only mistakes
in grammar, vocabulary and linking words will be taken into consideration.
5. Method of the study
In this study, the writer adopted the quantitative research approach.
Specifically, survey questionnaires and model analysis were two methods employed
to collect data for the research study.
Questionnaires were conducted among 60 students to find out students‟
perceptions of their linguistic difficulties in writing a paragraph.
Sixty paragraphs on three different topics from 60 students were collected.
Mistakes were identified and classified into different categories. Statistical counting
was carried out to bring about the real picture of students‟ linguistic difficulties.
6. Organization of the study

5
In order to achieve the above mentioned aims, this paper is divided into three
parts:
The first part is the Introduction, which points out the rationale, aims, and
scope of the study. Research questions are also specifically defined to serve as
guidelines for the whole paper.
The second part is the Development. In this part, three chapters are
presented. In chapter one, literature related to teaching writing, paragraph writing
and writing errors is reviewed. In chapter two, the method of the study is presented.
It includes careful descriptions of the subjects, sampling method, instrument and
method of data collection and analysis. The last chapter presents data analysis and
discussion. In this part, questionnaires and writing samples collected from 10
th
form
students at Nguyen Trai high school are analyzed to find out students‟ typical errors

I.3.2. The role of "errors" in English Language Teaching
I.3.3. Classification of written errors
I.3.4. Error correction
I.3.5. Teacher‟s role in error correction
I.4. Previous studies

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CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY
In this chapter, the author describes the situation of teaching and learning
English at N.T.H.S, the subjects of the study, data collection instruments,
research method and the research procedure.
II.1. The situation of teaching and learning English at N.T.H.C
When these students enter N.T.H.S, they have to take part in exams in three
subjects: Maths, Literature, and English at the beginning of the school year. They
often gain high scores in Maths and Literature but most of them get low scores in

to study. The result, thus, could be more reliable.
The 10th form students at N.T.H.S are learning basic English with the new text
book TIENG ANH 10 by Hoàng Văn Vân – Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa - Đỗ Tuấn Minh-
Nguyễn Thu Phương - Nguyễn Quốc Tuấn. This text book is theme- based, which
includes 16 units and 6 Test Yourself sections. Each unit has its own topics and is
divided into 5 sections: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing and Language Focus.
In the first term of the school-year, in comparison with other subjects, students‟
English results were not good: only 4% students got excellent mark (9-10), 12%
got good mark (7-8) , 57% got average mark (5-6) and 27% students got bad marks
(<5).
II.3. Research method
II.3.1. Method of data collection: In order to conduct the study, the researcher
employed quantitative method including questionnaires and students‟ writing
analysis.
a. Questionnaires:
The questionnaire is designed to find out students‟ perception of their
linguistic errors in writing a paragraph, the causes of the errors, the
correction of the errors, the students‟ revision on the errors.
The questionnaire helps the researcher gather information quickly and
objectively and gather information from a large portion of a group.
b. Students’ writing analysis:
The analysis of students‟ writing aims at finding the real situation of the
linguistic errors in students‟ writing. This analysis helps the researcher
classify the major linguistic errors in students‟ writing, compare them with
the result from the questionnaire to come to an agreement of the linguistic
errors students often make.
II.3.2. Method of data analysis
Data from questionnaires was calculated and summarized to identify the
general trends of students‟ linguistic errors when writing a paragraph
Students‟ writing samples were carefully studied. Errors were classified into

This section discusses students‟ perception of their linguistic errors, the
causes of the errors, the correction of the errors, the students‟ revision on the errors
and a classification of difficulties based on the students‟ writing and the
questionnaire.
III.1. Students’ perception of their linguistics errors in writing a paragraph.
Students themselves recognized their weaknesses in writing a paragraph and
they were aware of the linguistic errors they often make when writing.
III. 2. Students’ feeling when making errors in writing

10
After making errors when writing a paragraph, the proportion of students who
were disappointed with their English seemed to be equal to those who consider
making errors the chance to know what they have lacked and to get experience. In
other words, 10th form students at N.T.H.S had a positive attitude towards learning
English. There were only 4 out of 60 students who had negative attitude toward
learning English, they had no feeling when making errors.
III.3. The causes of students’ linguistic errors in writing a paragraph
The percentage of the carelessness cause was the least, then came to teaching
methods cause. The percentage of students who thought that difficult topics cause
the errors was slightly higher. A large number of students thought that the lack of
necessary knowledge was the main cause of the linguistic errors in their writing.
III.4. Teacher’s errors correction in students’ paragraphs
Most teachers chose the common errors to correct. Besides, it was unexpected
that there were many teachers who only gave comment at the end of the paragraph.
A small portion represented those who corrected all errors.
III.5. Students’ revision on their errors
The portion of students who looked carefully the errors and self-corrected
them and those who compared the work with the others and corrected the errors
together were too small, in comparison with those students who had a look at the
remarks given by the teacher - with highest portion. Furthermore, 23% of students

said that they often made errors in using article. Preposition usage and verb tenses
also caused many difficulties for students. Both account for about 24%. Subject-
verb agreement did not seem to be difficult for students with 9%.
III.8. Vocabulary difficulties
The table shows differences between the vocabulary errors that students made
in their paragraphs and their perceptions of those errors. In the students‟ writing, the
number of spelling errors was the biggest - 31 mistakes were counted in 60 writing
papers (38%). It was followed by errors in word order, word choice and word form.
However, in students‟ answers in the questionnaires, 46% of students said that word
form is the most difficult. Besides, 33% of students found spelling of the words

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difficult and 13% of students couldn‟t choose the correct words for their paragraphs.
At last, 8% of students had difficulties in arranging the words into the correct order
in a paragraph.
III.9. Linking words difficulties
The portion of students who often used linking words (11%) was too
small in comparison with the portion of those who sometimes used linking words
(85%). Moreover, a small percentage of students (4%) never paid attention to
linking words in writing a paragraph. In summary, the survey questionnaire revealed
that 10th form students at N.T.H.S did not use linking words regularly in their
paragraph.
Students perceive exactly the aspect of linking words they often make errors.
Nearly two third of students (61%) thought that linking word‟s meaning is the most
difficult and in their writing, most of the errors related to linking words is about
meaning. A small portion of students paid attention to the punctuation of linking
words (17%) and the usage of linking words (22%). Analysis of students‟ writing
shows roughly the same percentage (34% of the errors with linking words are those
related to usage of linking words).
Linking words are very important in writing a paragraph. Without linking

„
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CHAPTER IV: SUGGESTIONS TO THE PROBLEM
IV.1. Fostering students’ knowledge of grammar, vocabulary and linking
words.
IV.1.1. Fostering students’ grammar knowledge
Teaching verb tenses: Verb tenses challenge most students. When studied in
isolation, a given verb tense is clearly understood, but when put into actual use, one
verb tense is easily confused with others. Therefore, teacher should do a
comprehensive review of verb tenses for students. It can be particularly helpful to
show how all the tenses within one timeframe to highlight the relation of one verb
tense to the others.

peer-correction 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.
IV.2.2. Teacher’s correction
Obviously, students‟ errors are so various that the teacher cannot correct all
errors because of limited time and numerous students. Teachers need not to be an
over-corrector, that is, point outs and corrects all errors detected. Instead, they can
employ the following techniques to deal with errors.
Firstly, with each set of student papers, there is no point in trying to mark all
the errors. It is advisable that teachers decide in advance what kinds of errors they
are going to deal with.
Secondly, it is important for teachers to bear in mind that errors are to be
examined carefully. Careful analysis of the cause of errors is required in this case.
Thirdly, teachers should first and foremost search for what students have done
correctly.
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PART III: CONCLUSION
1. Recapitulation
In this study, the major issues concerning students‟ linguistic errors in
writing a paragraph have been taken into consideration and examined both
theoretically and practically. Of all grammar errors, errors in verb tenses are the
most common. Meanwhile in vocabulary use, spelling errors account for the highest
percentage. Besides that, students find it most difficult to understand the meaning of

3. Suggestions for further studies
This research only examined the most common linguistic errors, not all kinds
of errors in paragraph writing. Further studies, therefore, could continue with other
types of errors in paragraph writing. Besides, this research only focuses on
linguistic errors in the teaching and learning of writing. Problems in teaching and
learning other skills could be the topic for further research as well.