THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines
ENGLISH LANGUAGE GRAMMATICAL COMPETENCE AND
DISCOURSE COMPETENCE OF 3
rd
YEAR COLLEGE
STUDENTS OF THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY:
BASIS FOR INTERVENTION EXERCISES
A Dissertation Proposal
Presented to
The Faculty of Graduate School
Batangas State University
Batangas City, Philippines
In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Major in English
By:
NGUYEN THI HONG CHUYEN (JENNY)
THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
TITLE PAGE
TABLE OF CONTENTS i
Page i
CHAPTER I 1

Republic of the Philippines
BIBLIOGRAPHY 125
APPENDICES 133
Appendix A. Letter of Requests 134
134
135
136
137
138
139
Appendix B. Questionnaire 140
Appendix C . Documentations 149
Study sites 149
Thai Nguyen University of Education 149
149
Thai Nguyen University of Education 150
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THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines
LIST OF TABLES
Table Title Page
1.
Distribution of the Respondents of the Study 61
Level of Grammatical Competence of Students in Parts of Speech 68
Level of Grammatical Competence of Students in Morphology 69
Level of Grammatical Competence of Students in Syntax 71
Level of Grammatical Competence of Students in Vocabulary Meaning.72
Level of Discourse Competence of Students in Cohesive Devices 74

and Vietnam students either mentally withdraw or look for strategies that
will help them to learn the English language.
In the last decade, the use of English as the main foreign language
taught and employed in communication with foreigners, has dramatically
increased in Vietnam. According to the Ministry of Education, the number
of off-shore students exceeds 60,000 in Vietnam nowadays and
Vietnamese students who want to work and study abroad are increasing.
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THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines
However, English language teaching in Vietnam still utilizes the
traditional teaching model where students are taught English just for
passing examination purposes only and teachers just give lecture mainly to
help students achieve this goal. The result is that students do not have the
ability to communicate effectively with others in English. This is referred to
as dumb English or deaf English in Vietnam. Obviously students’ overall
skills are not enhanced, especially for students at the college and
university level.
In order to improve the situation based on need analysis, Vietnam
Ministry of Education states that the aims of Vietnam English Language
Teaching (ELT) at general educational level expressed in the new
curriculum are that at the end of the upper secondary level, students will be
able to use English as means of communication at a certain level of
proficiency in four macro skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing and
to be able to read materials at the same level of their textbook, using a
dictionary, to have a mastery of basic English phonetics and grammar, to
have acquire the minimum of around 2,500 vocabulary items of English; to
attain a certain level of understanding of English and American cultures, to

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines
In language teaching, the ability to communicate should be
cultivated. Students should learn how to use a language in their daily
communication in order to demonstrate their mastery of a language.
Different language skills included under communicative competence
are linguistic, socio-linguistic, discourse, strategic and pragmatic
competencies. The expression, interpretation and negotiation of meaning
between two interlocutors or between a text and its readers is referred to
as language learning.
It is believed that one of the main goals of both English language
teaching and communicative English teaching in Vietnam nowadays is to
develop students’ communicative competence, as more students will
regard English as a communicating tool after graduation. If students can
use the English knowledge, skills and cultural aspects they have learned to
communicate with people of different cultural backgrounds in real language
contexts, they are then using English as a communication tool.
The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has set a target of
boosting foreign language teaching in high schools. At the start of
Academic Year 2011-2012, students at specific schools will have to study
mathematics and information technology in English. Despite the
significance of English language, majority of the Vietnamese students
remain handicapped in the use of English. It was even reported by the
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THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines

struggle to keep up with the expectations of the school for them to
communicate in good English. For decades the university system in Thai
Nguyen worked to address the need of all students. But somehow, the
expected outcome has a very slow progress.
With this scenario, as college teacher teaching English subject in this
institution, the researcher is interested to determine the English language
grammatical and discourse competence of the Third year college students
of Thai Nguyen with the end view of proposing intervention exercises that
will enhance further their knowledge along the said competencies.
Statement of the Problem
This study is focused on determining English language grammatical
competence and discourse competence of 3
rd
year college students of Thai
Nguyen system.
Specifically, it sought answers to the following questions.
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THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines
1. How may the grammatical competence of student respondents be
described in terms of:
1.1 parts of speech;
1.2 morphology;
1.3 syntax; and
1.4 vocabulary?
2. What is the discourse competence of student respondents relative
to:
2.1 cohesive devices;

the grammatical and discourse competencies of 3
rd
year college students,
the comparison of the respondents’ grammatical and discourse
competencies and English teachers’ responses, the significant differences
on students’ grammatical and discourse competencies and teachers’
responses with the end view of proposing an innovative English language
teaching strategies to enhance students’ grammatical and discourse
competencies.
The study covered the three (3) Thai Nguyen Universities in Thai
Nguyen City and made used of the 40 teachers teaching English and
300 3
rd
Year College students who were enrolled in the Academic Year
2013-2014.
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THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines
This study is limited from the data gathered from the above
mentioned respondents. Third year college students and English teachers
from other Thai Nguyen University systems are excluded in the study.
Significance of the Study
The study is deemed beneficial to the Administrators of Thai Nguyen
University, English teachers, Third Year College students, Parents and
Future researchers.
Administrators of Thai Nguyen. This study can guide them in the
Curriculum development through evaluation of students’ English language
grammatical competence and discourse competence. This study will serve

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
This chapter presents the relevant conceptual and research literature
which have bearing to the present study. The literatures included are
found substantial to the study and gives the necessary background to
understand the present research. Further, this chapter also includes
synthesis, theoretical and conceptual framework of the study, and definition
of terms.
Conceptual Literature
The following concepts which focused on English language
competencies, grammatical competence, discourse competence and
intervention exercises were reviewed to substantiate the study.
English Language Competencies. It is a broad term which
includes linguistic or grammatical competence, discourse competence,
socio linguistic or socio cultural competence and what might be called
textual competence. The specific learning outcomes under language
competence deal with knowledge of the language and the ability to use that
knowledge to interpret and produce meaningful texts appropriate to the
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THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines
situation in which they are used. Language competence is best developed
in the context of activities or tasks where the language is used for real
purposes or in practical applications
(www.educ.gov.nb.ca/K12cur/language).
The basis for developing language competence should be the
classroom activities which focus on meaningful uses of the language and
on language in context. As for choosing tasks, students’ needs, interests,
and experience should serve as bases. Vocabulary, grammatical

person’s own understanding of acceptable usage in a given linguistic
idiom. Therefore, grammatical competence defines an innate knowledge
of rules rather than knowledge of items or relation. Phillips (2010) stated
that competence is regarded as innate knowledge because one does not
have to be trained to develop it and will still be able to apply it in an infinite
number of unheard examples.
The following are included in the speakers linguistic competence
namely: phonetics which deals with the physical production and perception
of the inventory of sounds used in producing language; phonology which
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THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines
refers to the mental organization of physical sounds, the patterns formed
by way sounds are combined in a language and the restrictions or
permissible social combinations as well as morphology which deals with
identification, analysis and description of units of meaning in a language.
Knowledge in inflectional or derivational morphology which is present in the
language consists of affixes of words.
Syntax on the other hand, which pertains to structure and formation
of sentences, enables a person to distinguish between grammatical
sentences from ungrammatical sentences while in semantics, this refers to
the understanding of the meaning of sentences. A user of the language is
able to understand and interpret the non-literal meaning in a given
utterance through these three distinctions namely; meaningful and non-
meaningful sentences, some structure but different meanings, and different
structure and still is able to relate the meanings.
Belinchon et al (1994) explained that competence as the main goal
in language learning is also referred to as linguistic competence, a set of

organizational competence which include grammatical and textual
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THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines
competence and pragmatic competence which includes illocutionary and
sociolinguistic competence.
Socio linguistic competence is the ability to interpret the social
meaning of the choice of linguistic varieties and to use language with the
appropriate social meaning for the communication situation.
(www.o1/silang.lingulink).
According to Wardlaugh (2005), there are several possible
relationships between language and society and one is social structure
which may either influence or determine linguistic structure of behavior. A
second possible relationship is directly opposed to the first. Linguistic
structure, a third possible relationship viewed influence as bi-directional;
that is language and society may influence each other.
Every language as Hudson (2000) stated accommodates such
differences as a non-discrete scale or continuum of recognizably different
linguistic levels or style termed as registers and every socially native
speaker, as part of learning the language, has learned to distinguished and
choose among the plans on the scale of the register. Chun (1998) on the
other hand pointed out that language and culture was closely tied up to one
another and had a profound influence on verbal and non- verbal
communication as well as in the significance of the length of pause or a
change in tone. Other components of communication such as the degree
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THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam

competence along with grammatical competence, sociolinguistic
competence and discourse competence constitute a framework for
determining a language learner’s proficiency in communication. Together
with the other competencies, they are considered mainstays of modern
theory on second language acquisition (Diaz, Rico and Weed, 2006).
Essentially, any speaker using techniques intended to preserve
communication, repair breakdowns in communication or prevent
miscommunication can be considered to be demonstrating strategic
competence. Some behaviors demonstrating strategic competence
include using synonyms to substitute for words the speaker cannot recall or
has not yet learned, resorting to physical gestures to convey meaning,
asking for clarification from the listener, raising one’s voice in order to be
heard and feigning comprehension in order to listen for context clues.
Maleki (2010) asserted that communication strategies help in
conveying unknown language between communication partners and assist
in maintaining conversational flow. The teaching of communication
strategies is beneficial and leads to strategic competence in language
learning. Strategic competence is best gained through the use of games
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THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines
focusing on communication with or without visual support, jigsaws,
monologues, and other activities that allow for language interaction.
Moreover, the four aspects of language learning consist of listening,
speaking, writing and reading. It is in this order that constitutes the
traditional top-to-bottom approach to language learning, however, it was
suggested that a bottom-up approach to language learning, which gives
emphasis to writing is best suited for teaching strategic competence. This

utterances it becomes an important concern for any second language
program.
Further, features and rules of language, vocabulary, word formation,
pronunciation, sentence formation to understand and express accurately
the literal meaning of utterances comprised grammatical competence. It
also referred to as the ability to recognize and produce the distinctive
grammatical structure of a language and to use them (www. o1sil.
Orglingualinks/ what grammatical competence html). It focuses on the
necessary skills and knowledge in speaking and writing accurately. In more
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THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines
advanced stages of language proficiency grammatical competence
becomes important to the English learner.
Grammatical competence calls for curriculum and instruction that
prepares students to incorporate and apply the language code (Herrera et
al, 2005). English language and grammar are bounded together. As
students travel through the stages of language proficiency, grammatical
competence becomes more important that Freeman et al (2004) suggested
that since grammar is a set of prescriptive rules taught to students in
school, it will serve as glue that binds the English language together.
Grammar as explained by Cruz et al (2001) deals with words, forms
of words, word combination and the relationship between words. In order
for students to reach higher levels of academic language proficiency,
teachers need to realize that grammatical forms need to be explicitly
taught. In the case of grammar, it should be taught in context. Larsen et al
(2001) pointed out that there is a need to pay attention to the three
dimensions of grammar: form, meaning and use and that simply teaching