6 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Declaration
Abstract
Table of contents

Part 1 : INTRODUCTION
1.1 Rationale
1.2 Aims and scopes of the study
1.3 Research questions
1.4 Design of the study
Part 2: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1 An overview of methodology in teaching English
1.1.1 Importance of grammar in language teaching
1.1.2 Pedagogical grammar
1.1.2.1 What are pedagogical grammars ?
1.1.2.2 Aims of teaching grammar
1.1.2.3 How can pedagogical grammars be used in the classroom?
1.1.3. Methodology of teaching English grammar
1.1.3.1 Definition of methodology
1.1.3.2 Two main approaches to teaching English grammar
1.2 Methods and techniques in teaching English grammar
1.2.1 Listening and responding
1.2.2 Telling stories
1.2.3 Role playing
1.2.4 Group work

7
2.1.1 Description of the school
2.1.2 Description of the program
2.1.3 Description of the course
2.2 Methodology and data collection
2.2.1 Participants
2.2.2 Methods
2.2.3 Procedures
Chapter 3 : RESULTS
3.1 Presentation and analysis of the data
3.2 Discussion
3.2.1 Common errors in the use of English prepositions of place
3.2.2 Reasons for making errors
3.3 Teachers’ and students’ difficulties
3.3.1 Teachers’ difficulties
3.3.2 Students’ difficulties
Chapter 4 : PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS
4.1 Techniques used in teaching English prepositions of place
4.1.1 Listening and responding
4.1.2 Using the classroom
4.1.3 Using text- completion exercises
4.2 Recommendations
4.2.1 Suggestions for learning English prepositions of place
4.2.2 Suggestions for teaching English prepositions of place
Part 3 : CONCLUSION
Summary of the study
Recommendations for further research

11
11
8
PART 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Rationale
It is clear that English is an international language. It has also become one of the main
subjects at school in Vietnam. Therefore, teaching English in general and English prepositions
of place in particular is so important.
Techniques are always mentioned in the process of teaching and learning English. Each
aspect of language has its own techniques and there are individual techniques in teaching
grammar. Applying the techniques in teaching different fields of grammar is different. For
example, techniques in teaching tenses are quite different from the ones in teaching
quantifiers. Thus, the writer would like to only focus on techniques in teaching English
prepositions of place in this study. Moreover, “Common errors in the use of English
prepositions of place” is an issue which has made many researchers interested in. Although
there are many studies on this topic, it has been left open and has remained high practicality.
Learners have still difficulties in accessing the prepositions and made errors when using them.
Because of the above reasons, this topic was chosen. The contents of the study were not
based on the professors’ suggestions but also selected and studied further.

1. 2 Aims and Scopes of the study
This study is aimed at:
- Finding common errors made by non – major students at Hai phong foreign language center
when using English prepositions of place.
- Giving suggestions for teaching and learning English prepositions of place effectively.
Generally, this study aims to help teachers improve their methods in teaching English
prepositions of place and students understand more deeply and avoid mistakes when using

10
Part 2: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1 An overview of methodology in teaching English grammar
1.1.1 Importance of grammar in language teaching
Grammar plays an important role in teaching and learning any languages. But, before its
role is addressed, the nature of grammar is dealt with.
Linguists define grammar as a set of components: Phonetics (the production and
perception of sounds), Phonology (how sounds are combined), Morphology (the study of
form, how elements are combined to create words), Syntax (how words are strung together
into sentences ), and Semantics or meaning. Because all the languages are characterized by
these components, by definition, they do not exist without grammar. However, grammar has
not always been defined in these terms. Originally, the term grammar, referred to the art of
writing, as compared to rhetoric, the art of speaking. As need today by many teachers and
learners, grammar is understood to be a set of rules that govern language, primarily its

theories of grammatical description and analysis, pedagogical grammars do not necessarily
follow particular grammatical theory or school of thought.
Rutherford (1980) suggests that the development of some pedagogical grammars involves the
principled selection of items which reflect pedagogical experience as well as linguistic theory.
He points out that since the development of communicative approaches to language teaching,
the selection of structural elements is often constrained by the prior selection of semantic and
functional elements.
In addition, in a book on teaching grammar, McKay (1987) suggests that there are three
different views on what it means to teach grammar. The first view is that teaching grammar
entails the formal explanation of grammatical rules. While learners who receive a great deal
of grammatical explanation will end up knowing quite a lot about the language, they will not
necessarily be able to put the language to communicate effect. The second view is that
teaching grammar is basically a matter of providing learners with practice in mastering
common grammatical patterns through a process of analogy rather than explanation. The third
view is that teaching grammar is a matter of giving students the opportunity to use English in
a variety of realistic situations. The disadvantage of this approach is that learners will not be
able to provide explanations of grammatical rules of target language.
1.1.2.2 Aims of teaching grammar
Aims of teaching grammar should be ensured that students are communicatively efficient
with the grammar they have at their level. Teachers may not teach them the finer points of
style at the intermediated level, but they should make sure that students can use what they
know. Moreover, teaching grammar provides the means by which students can build up the
computational system in their minds.

12
Generally, the goal of language learning in the communicative classroom is for learners to
acquire the grammar of the second language in its broadest sense, to enable them understand
and make meaning, that is, to become proficient users of the second language.
1.1.2.3 How can pedagogical grammar be used in the class?
Ur (1988) raises the issue of whether or not grammar should be explicitly taught. She

13
Methodology includes:
(a) Study of the nature of Language Skills (e.g. Reading, writing, speaking, listening )
and the procedures for teaching them.
(b) Study of the preparation of Lesson Plans, materials, and text books for teaching
language skills.
(c) The evaluation and comparison of language teaching Methods (e.g. The Audio-
lingual method).
(2) Such practices, procedures, principles and beliefs themselves. One can, for example
criticize or praise the methodology of a particular language course.
(Richards. 1985.p.177)
In other words, methodology is concerned with the question of how to learn and teach. It
addresses everybody who aims at the teaching profession in foreign language education at
schools or in the field of continuous education.
1.1.3.2 Two main approaches to the teaching English methodology
In teaching, there are many theoretical approaches that have been developed to promote
the students’ success in learning new information. Teaching English as a second language,
there are two main theoretical approaches for the representation of new English foreign
grammatical structures or functions to English foreign language students, inductive approach
and deductive approach. The more traditional of the two theories is deductive approach while
the emerging and modern theory is the inductive approach.
1.1.3.2.1 The deductive approach
The deductive approach represents a more traditional style of teaching in which the
grammatical structures or rules are dictated to the students first. Thus, the students learn the
rule and apply it only after they have been introduced to the rule. In this approach, the teacher
is the center of the class is responsible for all of the presentation and explanation of the new
material.
1.1.3.2.2 The inductive approach
The inductive approach represents a more modern style of teaching whether the new
grammatical structures or rules are presented to the students in a real language context. The

second and third language more effortlessly than adults. They appear simply to listen, then,
after a while, the new language begins to emerge naturally. However, not all students are
willing or able to observe a silent period. A very good way of achieving the kind of
compromise is for the language teachers to speak only the target language in class and out.
They encourage learners to make a match between structure and meaning while observing a
silent period.
1.2.2 Telling stories
1.2.2.1 Teacher – generated stories
Everyone loves a story, including ESL students. Stories used in teaching are to promote
communication and expression in the classroom. Teachers are also considered good
storytellers in foreign language teaching.

15
Stories can be used for both eliciting and illustrating grammatical points. Telling stories is
an useful way to include both main approaches in lesson planning. It is also the technique that
holds students’ attention best. Students can help create stories and impersonate characters in
them. Stories should last from one to five minutes and the more exaggerated and bizarre they
are, the more likely students will remember the teaching points they illustrate.
1.2.2.2 Students – generated stories
Students are marvelous storytellers as well as excellent listeners. One effective procedure
is that teachers first have to model a story and then direct students to tell their stories to their
partners. Students usually find teachers’ story almost as interesting as their own, and
modeling the activity seems to break the ice. It also gives students an opportunity to hear the
grammatical structure in context once more before they produce it. In general, story telling is
traditional in most culture. A story provides a realistic context for presenting grammatical
points holds and focuses students’ attention in a way that no other technique can.
1.2.3 Role playing
One of the familiar dramatic activities is role playing. According to Rosenweig (1974)
“Role playing is the dramatization of a real – life situation in whish the students assumes
roles. It presents the students with problems, but in stead of reaching a group consensus in

approximate result and the true result.
In detail, when mentioning the errors made in studying language, N. John (1983, p.1) said
“there are basically two different attitudes to mistakes and errors made by people learning
languages other than their own. Probably most teachers regard mistakes as undesirable, sign
of failure either on the students’ part to pay attention or to listen properly, or else on the
teachers’ part to make their meaning clear or to give sufficient time to practice what they have
been taught. He also pointed out the difference between mistake and error. “When a learner
has not learnt something and consistently gets it wrong, an error. Sometimes, a learner will
see one form and sometimes the other quite inconsistently. This inconsistent deviation will be
called a mistake” (N.John, 1983, p.7,8 ). It seems to be easier to distinguish mistakes and
errors. In other words, learners can find out their mistake as soon as finishing their sentences
while it takes them to much time to see their errors and find the way to correct. Moreover, it is
believed that one of the strength of language teaching is “tolerance of errors” Harmer (2003,
p.107)
Clearly, it is so important for learners to realize their mistakes and errors. However, it is often
said that practice makes perfect, so all of the difficulties can be overcome if learners have
great determination.
1.4 Summary
In this chapter, we can understand the basic knowledge in teaching English grammar.
Firstly, methodology in teaching English grammar is mentioned with the aim to clearly show
the two main approaches, the deductive and inductive approach. Secondly, some basis and
useful techniques in teaching English grammar are given. There are techniques helpful for
using grammar in communication such as listening and responding, telling story and role

17
play. Each of the technique brings both teachers and learners favorable conditions in
accessing grammatical points. A good teacher is the one who masters the approaches,
combines the techniques in teaching skillfully and applies them suitably. Through this
chapter, it is hoped that teachers can have a framework of classroom activities and exercises
and the above suggestions will encourage teachers to create their own activities for teaching

18
CHAPTER 2 : DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
2.1 Description of the setting
2.1.1 Description of the school
Hai phong foreign language centre is located in the center of Hai phong seaport city, it
belongs to Hai phong university. It is said to be the biggest foreign language center in Hai
phong city. The teaching staff composes of more than one hundred teachers, of whom two-
third is young, creative and well – trained whereas the others are experienced and
enthusiastic. Every year with the innovation in new training programs, Hai phong foreign
language attracts thousands learners.
At present, there are more than one hundred teachers currently working in Hai phong
foreign language center. Among them, one – third studied at Hai phongUniversity, another
two – third graduated from universities in Ha noi and Ha noi Foreign Language Teacher
Training College. Although, some of them used to be the teachers of Russian and they have
certain limitations in the target language but most of them have a great desire to acquire
knowledge and apply it in their teaching English.
2.1.2 Description of the program
The course book chosen is Streamline English Departures (Bernard Hartley & Peter Viney)
which has been specifically designed for students who are beginning to learn as a foreign
language. The course covers the elementary structures and vocabulary of English with
emphasis on developing speaking and writing skills. The learners are given a practical
command of simple spoken English, so that they can communicate at a basic level in an
English-speaking environment.
Streamline English Departures consists of 80 units. Each unit provides a fifty-minute
lesson and is clearly laid out on a separate page. There is a student’s book, a workbook and a
CD containing recording all of the dialogues and texts.
2.1.3 Description of the course
Courses for elementary learners take place from four or six months depend on the total
number of a class. If the students are about 20 to 30, the course will last in four months and it
will finishes after six months when the students in class are more than 30.

2.2.3 Procedures
The pre-test comprises 3 exercises, in which exercise 1 and 2 included 10 sentences of
each and exercise 3 has 15 sentences (see Appendix). Students have to finish the pretest for 45
minutes at 4 classrooms. The three exercises with three different orders are typical kinds of
the exercises in English prepositions of place. Besides, the researcher only used familiar
words and basic structures in order to make it easy to find out errors made by the students.
The exercise 1 consists of 10 sentences with 40 multiple – choice answers. The students
are asked to circle the best answer to complete the sentence. This exercise aims to check the
students’ ability to distinguish the prepositions of place similar in meaning. Sentences
included are typical structures with English basic prepositions of place.

20
The exercise 2 asks the students to complete sentences by filling the correct prepositions into
the blank. In this exercise, the writer gives 5 prepositions to finish their task. The reason for
giving this exercise is to explore how the students use specific English prepositions of place.
In the exercise 3, the researcher gives a picture and ask students to complete sentences
describing positions of things in the picture In order to do this exercise, the students have to
use appropriate prepositions. The differences between the exercise 2 and 3 is that the
prepositions are not available. It means that the number of prepositions is not limited. This
kind of exercise seems to be more difficult than the above two exercises as it requires the
students to know more prepositions of place. Through this exercise, the writer would like to
examine students’ creativity when using English prepositions of place. Although each
exercise has it own aim, the common purpose is to explore students’ quality in learning
English prepositions of place and gives solutions helping them overcome difficulties in
learning the prepositions.
The pre-test was copied and delivered students through their teacher. It is thought that
students would do the pretest responsibly when receiving it from their teacher. Students did
the pretest themselves at their class for 45 minutes. If they do at home, results will have low
reliability. With the help of teacher, the pretest was collected and 40 responses were sent
back. After that, the researcher began to gather date and gave results classified them, showing

1

7.5 %

90 %
2.5 %
7.5 %
2
100 %

0 %
3
7.5 %
77.5 %

12.5 %
2.5 %
85 %
4
7.5 %
60 %
7.5 %
22.5 %
2.5 %
37.5 %
5
20 %

40 %

55 %
10
32.5 % 67.5 %

32.5 %

%
For correct answer

Most of the prepositions used in each sentence of the exercise are familiar with students.
However, the percentage of correct answers is quite low. It shows that there are students not
doing exercise perfectly. For example, none of the students can choose the correct answer in
sentence 8. In the sentence 3, the correct answer only accounts for 12.5 %. Moreover, in some
sentences such as the sentence 5 and 9, the percentage of correct answer is only 45 %, which
indicates that more than a half of the students chose the wrong answers. Besides, in some
sentences such as the sentence 1, 3, 4 and 5, the average percentage of the students who give
no answer accounts for 3 %. In general, the exercise is suitable for the students but the
average percentage of correct answers reaches 60% and the percentage of wrong answers is
40 %, which is rather high and the percentage of errors in each sentence is not equal.
Table 2 : Errors when using English specific prepositions of place 22

in

2.5 %
4a
2.5 %
2.5 %
95%
0 %
0 %
0 %
5 %
4b
97.5 %
2.5 %
0 %
0 %
0 %
0 %
2.5 %
5
0 %
0 %
0 %
7.5 %
92.5 %
0 %
7.5 %
6
42.5 %
7.5 %
17.5 %
32.5 %

25 %
5 %
0 %
0 %
37.5 %
10
32.5 %
0 %
67.5 %
0 %
0 %
0 %
67.5 %

Note
%
For correct answer

The average percentage of correct answers in the exercise 2 reaches 72.5 %, which is higher
than that in exercise 1 Most of the students chose right answer. There are only two sentences
that have the rate of correct answers under 50 %. There are still some students who gave no
answer; however, the number of the students is few. The result shows that the students began
getting accustomed to experiment exercises. It can be a positive sign.
Table 3 : Errors when using English prepositions of place to write complete sentences

Sentence number
Percentage of correct
answers
Percentage of wrong
answers

82.5 %
17.5 %
11
92.5 %
7.5 %
12
12.5 %
87.5 %
13
77.5 %
22.5 %
14
87.5 %
12.5 %
15
90 %
10 %

Actually, the exercise 3 is more challenging than the exercise 1 and 2 but it is still suitable for
students’ knowledge. Through the above statistic in the table 3, in some sentences 2, 3, 5, 6, 7
and 12, most of the students seem not to find the appropriate prepositions to write complete
sentences. Especially, in the sentence 2 and 12, the percentage of wrong answers respectively
makes up 95 and 87.5 %. There is no sentence that all students can do completely. However
there are nine sentences that have the rate of correct answers rather high. They are sentences
number 1, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, and 15 respectively make up from 77.5 % to 97.5 %. The
average percentage of correct answers in the exercise 3 is 64 %, higher than that in the
exercise 1 but lower than that in exercise 2.
The above tables show specific figures of errors made by students at Hai phong foreign
language centre when using English prepositions of place. However, in order to analyze the
errors more exactly, the researcher also presents basic theory of errors.

in the middle age with a lot of teaching experience as well as living experience.
According to the response to question 5, 40 % have from 10 to 19 years of teaching
experience, 10 % have experience of teaching from 20 to 25 years, 50 % have from 5 to 10
years. It is concluded that the teaching staff are quite experienced in their profession.
3.1.2.2. Teachers’ opinion on methodology in teaching English
Table 5
3. What do you think about the role of grammar in language teaching?
%
a. Grammar is important because it helps people understand what makes
sentences and paragraphs clear and precise.
80 %
b. Grammar is the vital component in the human mind that allows us to use
language for any purpose that we like.
80 %
c. Grammar may be defined as the way a language manipulates and
combines words in order to form longer units of meaning.
90 %
d. Knowing the role of grammar in language teaching, teachers and
learners can avoid misunderstanding and get more experience
100 %
e. Grammar is the most important factor in language teaching
30 %
f. Others
10 %

4. Which approach do you applied in grammar lesson?
%
a. The deductive approach
50 %
b. The inductive approach

d. show that students are not interested in learning English
50 %

6. Common errors in the use of English prepositions of place made
by non – major students at Hai phong foreign language are
%
a. errors in misusing the pairs of preposition
40 %
b. errors of using fixed – prepositional phrases
40 %
c. both of the above errors
20 %

The response in table 6 shows that 90 % teachers agreed with the idea errors are made by
students when they lack of pay attention to the lesson and 50 % told that students made errors
because they are not interested in learning English. In contrast, 60% teachers believed that
errors are undesirable, unexpected and they can be regarded as an essential part of learning
English.
Regarding the common errors in the use of English prepositions of place, 40 % teachers
affirmed that their students made errors in misusing the pairs of preposition, the other 40 %
showed that students often have errors of using fixed- prepositional phrases. The rest (20 % )
assumed that their students have both of the above errors.
3.1.2.4 Teachers’ difficulties in teaching English prepositions of place

26
Table 7

7. The average number students in an English class is
%
a. 15 – 20

f. Lack of learning environment
70 %

Statistics from table 7 revealed the fact that teachers have to face with various difficulties in
teaching. One of the biggest problems is large sized – class. 70 % teachers have to teach in
large classes, from 25 to 40 students. 60 % confirmed that exercises on English prepositions
of place in the book Streamline English Departures are too simple and not sufficient for the
students to practice. In addition, there are many other important factors affect to teaching
process, such as: learner’s low English proficiency, interference of mother- tongue, lack of
learning environment. The majority of the subjects (70 %) accepted that mixed – ability class
was a constrain for them. Also, most of the teachers (70 %) agreed that their classes lack of
authentic materials was caused that prevented them from teaching.

27
3.1.2.5 Teachers’ solutions to their difficulties in teaching English prepositions of
place
Table 8
10. Which activities do you often use to teach prepositions of place?
%
a. Describing pictures
60 %
b. Correcting mistakes
40 %
c. Making sentences using prepositions of place
20 %
d. Choose the best answer
30 %
e. Looking at the picture and use appropriate prepositions to complete
sentences
10 %

only create exciting learning environment but also give clear examples on differences
between prepositions. Sometimes, making sentences using prepositions of place and looking

28
at the picture and use appropriate prepositions to complete sentences are applied but not often
because they are quite difficult.
According to the response to question 11, only 20 % teachers let students practice every
periods until they can use prepositions of place correctly. Besides, 20 % sometimes remind
them through extra exercises. The number of teachers uses two periods to teach prepositions
makes up 30 % and there are 30 % teachers only practice when students ask. From this result
we can see that the time location for preposition lesson as well as exercises is too short. This
may become an obstacle in teaching and learning prepositions of place.
Moreover, there are 30 % teachers correct the mistakes immediately when their students
make mistakes and 10 % teachers requiring them to stop and ask another. Correcting mistakes
is necessary but if we do it whenever we see, our students will feel lack of confident.
In these cases, 50 % teachers choose the way of encouraging them complete the sentences and
then correct the mistakes or other way.
3.1.3. Questionnaire for the students
3.1.3.1 The students’ background of foreign language
Table 9

13. How many years have you been learning English?
%
a. 1 – 3 years
40 %
b. 4 – 5 years
30 %
c. > 5 years
30 %


c. Doing other exercises without asking anything
30 %
d. Others
20 %

According to the statistics of table 10, 60 % students asked learn English to get good mark
and to pass the exam because English is a compulsory subject in the school curriculum. About
20 % students learn English to get good job in future. Surprisingly, there are 10 % students
want to learn English to listen to songs, read newspapers and books in English as well as learn
English to communicate with foreigners. This approved that there are many students consider
English as a means of communication and want to broaden their knowledge of the world
through English.
Practicing exercises on prepositions is one of the most effective ways that help students
realize the difference between them but what will students do if the exercises are difficult.
Most of students asked ( 30 %) said that they will ask friends, some other ( 20 % )wait until
teacher explain and some ( 20 % ) do other exercises without asking anything. The data show
that the students are not interested in practicing or they always in passive way.
3.1.3.3 Students’ difficulties in learning English prepositions of place
Table 11
16. Which exercises on prepositions do you think are the most difficult?
%
a. Completing sentences with a suitable prepositions of place
20 %
b. Looking at the picture and use appropriate prepositions to complete
sentences
50 %
c. Choosing the best answer
20 %
d. Others
10 %

%
a. Only when we have lessons on prepositions
40 %
b. Once or twice a week
20 %
c. Whenever students have problems with prepositions
20 %
d. Others
20 %

How often students practice English prepositions is a very important thing helps them
improve knowledge in the use of different prepositions of place. However, most students (60)
said that they don’t practice frequently, only when they have lessons on prepositions or twice
a week . Only 20 % students are practiced whenever they have problems with prepositions.
Therefore, teachers should often give activities that require students review and apply
prepositions to do their exercises