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

1
INTEGRATIVE LEARNING EXERCISES IN MORPHOLOGY AND
SYNTAX
A Dissertation Presented to the
Faculty of the Graduate School
Batangas State University
Batangas City
i
APPROVAL SHEET
This dissertation entitled “INTEGRATIVE LEARNING EXERCISES IN
MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX ” prepared and submitted by Duong Thi
Hoa Lu in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy in English has been examined and is recommended for oral
examination. MATILDA H. DIMAANO, PhD.
Adviser
PANEL OF EXAMINERS
Approved by the Committee on Oral Examination with a grade of

……………………
Chairman ………………… ……………………
Member Member

…………………… …………………
Member Member

Accepted and approved in particular fulfillment of the requirements
for the Degree of f Philosophy English.
Comprehensive Examination:………….

affixes, pre-fixes, suffixes, word derivation, word formation and
compounding of words. Part also of this study is the level of syntactic
competency of student respondents relative to phrases, clauses,
sentences and functions. This also covered the assessment of teachers on
the students‟ morphological and syntactic competencies, the significant
difference on the level of this competency with the integrative language
exercise as the output to enhance the students‟ English language
competencies.
THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines iii
The study included the 400 first year college students and 70
teachers in Basic English Course in the Academic Year 2014-2015 in Thai
Nguyen University. This study tested the following hypothesis that there
are no significant differences on the levels of morpho-syntactic competency
of students and the assessment of the English language teachers. It made
use of the descriptive method of research with survey questionnaire and
teacher-made test as the main data gathering instruments. The data
gathered were statistically treated with the use of percentage, weighted
mean, standard deviation, independent t-test.

students‟ obtained a total rating of 61.15 percent with a verbal equivalent
rating of average in this morphology skill component which indicates that
the freshman students performed consistently and has developed skills in
compounding.
Relative to the levels of students‟ performance in the use of syntax
particularly in phrases, the total rating obtained for this component area is
51.95 percent or verbally equivalent to average which means that while the
students demonstrate a certain degree of proficiency in this syntax skill,
there are areas under this component that students do not know or
unfamiliar. As for clauses, results showed that the total rating obtained by
students is 47.30 percent or its equivalent of average which implies that the
student performance on clauses are average but below the 50 percent cut-
off value. For sentences, the total rating students obtained is 60.50 percent
or average which implies that the students find the test easier and have
demonstrated more advanced skill and competency in sentences as
compared to phrases and clauses. As regards functions the total rating of
THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines v
the students‟ performance is 49.95 percent or average which implies that
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and use these skills as often in the class. For the assessment according to
their degree of importance, result of assessment showed that all the 12
items had mean scores close to 4.0 or equivalent to moderately important
which means that the teachers regarded the 12 items as only moderately
important skills to be developed by the students as that there could be
more important topic for teaching than those items.
In terms of the difference on the levels of morpho-syntactic
competencies of the students and their performance as assessed by
English teachers, results showed that eight out of 11 component items had
a p-value that is below 0.05 which means that the teacher‟s assessment
and students‟ morpho-syntactic competencies along these areas are
significantly different which suggests that no relationship exist between the
treatment means being compared. Moreover, the integrative learning
exercises on morpho-syntactic competencies designed are based on some
criteria that are considered and used as concrete basis for the exercises to
be included to address the needs of the students.
The study recommended that teachers may be encouraged to attend
more trainings, seminars and workshops along the areas of morphology
and syntax to further enhance their teaching techniques; that output must
be reviewed and evaluated, and similar studies be conducted by future
researchers.
THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines viii
DEDICATION With pride and honor,
this piece of work is lovingly dedicated
to her nice daughters and son,
to her loving husband and to her family
D.T.H.L.


Introduction 1
Statement of the Problem 6
Scope, Delimitation and Limitation of the Study 8
II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE 11
Research Literature 43
Synthesis 49
Theoretical Framework 51
Conceptual Framework 53
Hypothesis 55
Definition of Terms 55
THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines x
III. RESEARCH METHOD AND PROCEDURE 58
Research Environment 58
Research Design 61
Subjects of the Study 61
Data Gathering Instrument 63
Data Gathering Procedure 65
Statistical Treatment of Data 66

4. Level of Understanding of Students in the Word Derivation 73
5. Level of Understanding of Students in the Word Formation 74
6. Level of Understanding of Students in the Compounding of
Words 76
7. Level of Students Performance in the Use of Syntax Relative to
Phrases 79
8. Level of Students Performance in the Use of Syntax Relative to
Clauses 81
9. Level of Students Performance in the Use of Syntax Relative to
Sentences 82
10. Level of Students Performance in the Use of Syntax Relative to
Functions 84
11. Relationships of the Student's Level of Morphological
Competencies and Performance in Syntax…………… ………………… 87
12. Students‟ skills employed in teaching the Basic English course…88
THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines xii
13 Student Skills and Their Frequency of Use 91
14. Students‟ Skills and Their Degree of Importance……………… ….92
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines 1
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM
Introduction
Nowadays English is considered as the international language of
communication, especially in the area of commerce, trade, media, culture,
arts and education.It is known as a key to open the door into the bustling
word of rapid changes and development.Teaching and learning English in
Vietnam has received special attention since the country implemented the
“open-door” policy.That is the reason why learning English is not only
interesting but is also a great and practical demand for many people
especially for those who want to advance in their careers and to achieve
their long term study goals.
English is a compulsory subject from the elementary school up to
senior school in today‟s Vietnam education system.It is considered a
difficult subject for the Vietnamese students because English is completely
different from Vietnamese language being looked at from the system of
structure, pronunciation and vocabulary.In the study of the English
language, it involves the four language skills namely listening, speaking,
reading and writing. Aspects such as grammar, structure, vocabulary,
spelling and pronunciation are the focus in English teaching and learning
process. For pedagogical reasons, specific skills may be focused on

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines 3
According to Crystal (2004), grammar is the structural foundation of a
person‟s ability to express oneself. The more one is aware as to how it works,
the more the meaning and effectiveness of the way language is used can be
monitored. It can help foster precision, detect ambiguity, and exploit the
richness of expression available in English. It can help everyone, not only
teachers of English, but teachers of anything, for all teaching is ultimately a
matter of getting to grips of meaning.
Further, for students to be functionally proficient in the classroom,
they must to be able to utilize these competences to perform these three
major functions such as to decode and understand both task expectations
and new information, to engage appropriately in completing tasks, with
high accuracy; and to obtain accurate feedback with relation to completing
tasks accurately.
In the study of English language, there are problems or difficulties
encountered by students.Among the four skills, speaking is the most
challenging as it involves a complex process of constructing meaning.The

lexical items.Morphology knowledge about word as the smallest element
that may be uttered in isolation and pragmatic content as well as
morpheme which is the smallest unit of meaning and the composition of
word which include single morpheme is very important to students who are
learning the language.
In morphology, students encountered difficulty in forming compound
word where they are going to add affixes to the root.Similarly, they can‟t
put together words in order to build larger elements of language such as
phrases, clauses and sentences.Further, there are also difficulties in
THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines 5
developing definition giving of synonyms of antonyms of certain words.So
language teachers must look for a way to help students improve their
language proficiency like utilizing instruction material fitted for the lesson
that would make conversation of students prior knowledge to the new
words so that students can make modifications of their existing framework
of knowledge and whenever they meet these words in their readings they
effectively construct meaning.
Language teachers must also give emphasis in the context of the

rules of language in order for them to grammatically correct sentences and
where and who to use these sentences and for whom.This indicates that in
all aspects in the study of language, they must learn the appropriateness of
its uses, communication with other people and culture as well as in
linguistic and situational context.
As an English language teacher teaching General English in Thai
Nguyen University, difficulties in morphology along the areas of word
formation, affixes, synonyms and antonyms as well as compounding and
word functions were observed among freshman college students. This
scenario, prompted the researcher to conduct a study along morpho-
syntactic competency of firstyear college students with integrative
language exercise as output to enhance students‟ morpho-syntactic
competence.
Statement of the Problem
This study aimed to determine the morphological competencies and
performance in syntactic of first year college students in English Language
at Thai Nguyen University.
THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines 7

Republic of the Philippines 8
6. What integrative learning exercises in morphology and syntax
may be proposed?
Scope, Delimitation and Limitation of the Study
The study covers the level of morphological and syntactic
competencies of first year college students in English language at Thai
Nguyen University. This included the level of morphological competency of
student respondents in terms of meaning of root words, affixes, pre-fixes,
suffixes, word derivation, word formation and compounding of words.Part
also of this study is the level of syntactic competency of student
respondents relative to phrases, clauses, sentences and functions.This
also covers the assessment of the teachers on the students‟ morphological
and syntactic competencies, the significant difference on the level of this
competency with the end view of proposing an integrative language
exercise to enhance the students‟ morphological and syntactic
competency.
The study covered the 400 first year college students and their 70
teachers in Basic English Course in the Academic Year 2014-2015 in Thai
Nguyen University. Students who are in their second year, third year and
fourth year respectively are not part of the study. Likewise, results of the
study are limited only on the data gathered from the respondents.
Significance of the Study
THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines 10
Present Researcher. Results of this study may contribute to
broaden his knowledge in providing recommendations to improve
morphological and syntactic competencies of first year college students
Future Researchers. Results of the study will be of use to other
researchers who wish to conduct a similar study.Future researchers may
use this study to enrich their own body of literature and substantiate their
own findings.
THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines 11