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Tài liệu An investigation into common errors related to collocations with “make” and “do” by efl students at van lam high school in hung yen province.

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NGUYỄN THU TRANG VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Nguyễn Thu Trang AN INVESTIGATION INTO COMMON COVER PAGE 2 ENGLISH LANGUAGE ERRORS RELATED TO COLLOCATIONS WITH “MAKE” AND “DO” BY EFL STUDENTS AT VAN LAM HIGH SCHOOL IN HUNG YEN PROVINCE MA THESIS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE COURSE: 2016 – 2018 HANOI, 2018 VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Nguyễn Thu Trang AN INVESTIGATION INTO COMMON ERRORS RELATED TO COLLOCATIONS WITH “MAKE” AND “DO” BY EFL STUDENTS AT VAN LAM HIGH SCHOOL IN HUNG YEN PROVINCE Field: English Language Code: 8220201 Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phan Văn Quế HANOI, 2018 DECLARATION BY AUTHOR Except where reference has been made in the text, this thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person. I hereby state that this thesis is the result of my own research and the substance of the thesis has not, wholly or in part, been submitted for any degrees to any other universities or institutions Author’s Signature Nguyễn Thu Trang Approved by SUPERVISOR Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phan Văn Quế Date:…………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my sincere gratitude and deep appreciation to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phan Văn Quế, my supervisor, for his helpful and warm encouragement as well as his insightful comments on my work from the beginning to the end of my study. In addition, many thanks go to the teachers at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, GASS, for their interesting lessons from which I have benefited a lot for the accomplishment of the thesis. The completion of this thesis would not have been possible without the cooperation from the respondents (38 EFL students at Văn Lâm high school) who have been willing to take part in the study. I am very grateful to all of them for providing detailed information for the analysis of this study. I also offer my special thanks to my colleagues and friends whose support and encouragement help me to have this thesis accomplished. Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family for their patience, endless love, and devotion. Whatever choices I have made, they have always stood by me and believed in me. I am immensely thankful for all the assistance they have given me. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DECLARATION BY AUTHOR…………………………………….… I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………….…... Ii ABSTRACT…………………………………………………........…… V LIST OF TABLES……………………………….…………......……… Vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE THESIS ……………… Vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION……………………………………. 1 1.1. Rationale…………………………………………………………. 1 1.2. Aims of the Study………………………………………………... 2 1.3. Research Questions………………………………………………. 2 1.4. Scope of the Study……………………………………………….. 3 1.5. Significance of the Study…………………………………………. 3 1.6. Research Methods………………………………………………… 3 1.7. Structure of the Study…………………………………………….. 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………….. 5 2.1. Previous studies…………………………………………………… 5 2.2. Errors………………………………………………………………. 7 2.2.1. Definition of Error…………………………………………….. 7 2.2.2. Error Analysis…………………………………………………. 9 2.2.3. Problems of error classification……………………………….. 10 2.2.4. Error correction………………………………………………… 11 2.2.5. Errors and collocations………………………………………… 12 2.3. Collocations……………………………………………………….. 12 2.3.1. Defining Collocations…………………………………………. 12 2.3.2 Types of collocations…………………………………………… 15 2.3.3. Characteristics of colloctions…………………………………... 26 2.3.4. Collocations, free compounds, and idioms…………………….. 28 2.3.5. Collocations with the verbs MAKE and DO…………………... 30 iii 2.4. Summary…………………………………………………………… 36 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY…………………………………….. 37 3.1. Research Setting…………………………………………………… 37 3.2. Data collection……………………………………………………... 38 3.2.1. Data collection instruments…………………………………… 38 3.2.2. Data Collection Procedures……………………………………. 40 3.2.3. Data Analysis…………………………………………………... 41 3.3. Summary…………………………………………………………… 42 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS……………………... 43 4.1. Common errors ralated to “MAKE” and “DO” collocations commited by EFL students at Van Lam high school……………………. 43 4.1.1. Word choice errors…………………………………………….. 43 4.1.2. Redundant article and Missing article errors…………………... 47 4.1.3. Contextual errors………………………………………………. 50 4.2. Possible causes of “make” and “do” collocation errors……………. 53 4.2.1. Shortage of collocational knowledge...………………………… 53 4.2.2. Habit of learning individual word……………………………… 54 4.2.3. Misunderstanding the meanings of “make” and “do”…………. 55 4.3. Summary…………………………………………………………… 58 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION………………………………………… 59 5.1. Recapitulation……………………………………………………… 59 5.2. Concluding Remarks………………………………………………. 60 5.3. Implications……………………………………………………….. 61 5.4. Limitations and Suggestions for Further Studies…………………. 63 REFERENCES………………………………………………………… I APPENDIX 1: Test 1……….…………………………………………… V APPENDIX 2: Test 2…………………….……………………………… VIII APPENDIX 3: Test 3……………………………………………………. XI APPENDIX 4: Questionaire…………………………………..…………. XIV iv ABSTRACT This study is carried out to investigate the errors related to collocations with “make” and “do” by EFL students at Van Lam high school in Hung Yen province. There are 38 students from class 11A9 take part in this study. A questionnaire and tests are chosen as the data collection instruments. According to the results of the research, when the students use the verbs “make” and “do” in their combinations with other words, they commonly commit errors of word choice, redundant article or missing article, word form, and misunderstading the two verbs. In addition, the research has found out some possible causes of the common errors involving shortage of collocational knowledge, habit of learning individual words, and misunderstanding the meanings of “make” and “do”. After analyzing and synthesizing the statistics, the researcher discussed and recommended some implications along with suggestions for further research. Last but not least, it is much hoped that the results of the study could be useful for the development of teaching and learning English at Van Lam high school in Hung Yen province. v LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1: Data on the results of exercise 1 - Word choice error 43 Table 2: Data on the results of exercise 2 - Word choice error 44 Table 3: Data on the results of exercise 3 - Word choice error 45 Table 4: Data on the results of exercise 4 - Word choice error 46 Table 5: Data on the results of exercise 5 - Redundant article and Missing article errors 47 Table 6: Data on the results of exercise 6- Redundant article and Missing article errors 48 Table 7: Data on the results of exercise 7- Redundant article and Missing article errors 49 Table 8: Data on the results of exercise 8 - Contextual error 50 Table 9: Data on the results of exercise 9 - Contextual error 51 Table 10: Lack of collocational knowledge - Contextual error 53 Table 11: Habit of learning individual words 54 Table 12: Frequency of “make” and “do” used with collocations 55 Table 13: Difficulty of learning “make” and “do” collocations 55 Table 14: Factors making “make” and “do” collocations confusing 56 Table 15: Causes of errors ralated to “make” and “do” collocations 56 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE THESIS CALD: Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary CLT: Communicative Language Teaching EFL: English as a Foreign Language ESL: English as a Second Language ETL: English Teaching and Learning L1: The First Language L2: The Second Language OCD: Oxford Collocations Dictionary vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1. Rationale In the process of international integration and development today, improving students’ English communication skills, which are one of the most important competences for 21st century global citizens, has been given prominence in Vietnamese National Educational Curriculum. Thanks to the innovation in English textbooks and National exam policy, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) methods have been widely applied in Vietnamese high schools all over the country in recent years. In order to meet the requirement of the curriculum standards and achieve native-like competence in English, learners must concentrate on enhancing vocabulary, especially collocations. A collocation is simply any combination of words that are commonly combined to create a phrase in the English language. In fact, such phrases are so common in the language that using a synonym for one of the words in the phrase can lead to it sounding unnatural to a native speaker. For example, make an error and fatal error are two commonly used word combinations that qualify as collocations. The verb make and the adjective fatal recurrently co-occur with the noun error. In addition, it has been believed that knowing a word includes knowing its collocations (Lewis, 2000; Nation, 1990/ 2001). Many scholars have maintained that collocational knowledge is one important factor that contributes to the differences between native speakers and foreign language learners (Aston, 1995; Fillmore, 1979; Pawley & Syder, 1983). Particularly, failure to use collocations accurately for EFL learners is a major indicator of foreignness (McArthur, 1992; McCarthy, 1990; Nattinger, 1980). The strongest position held so far is that collocational competence is an indispensable component in the process of second/ foreign language acquisition (Lewis, 1997/ 2000; Nattinger & DeCarrico, 1992; Richards & Rogers, 2001). Accordingly, learners’ collocational knowledge is the essense of language knowledge. 1 Despite the benefits and usefulness of collocations for learners, learning how to produce them is actually quite challenging. Many students, especially those who live in rural areas, do not get the high results in the National exams and can use poor English after school. They often make collocational errors when they use spoken and written English. As a teacher of English at Van Lam High school in Hung yen province, the researcher feels rather concerned about students’ ability to use collocations in English. However, the knowledge of collocations is a vast area in linguistics so this study only focuses on the common errors related to collocations with the verbs “make” and “do” made by EFL students at Van Lam high school. I choose to do the research for two reasons. Firstly, many English learners feel confused and make mistakes when they use the two verbs collocating with other words although “make” and “do” are among the most common verbs in English. Secondly, the various ways of interpreting “make” and “do” collocations from English to Vietnamese may create difficulties for language students as the meanings of these collocational phrases depend on the elements after the two verbs. 1.2. Aims of the Study The study aims at: - Helping EFL students gain an insight into MAKE and DO collocations. - Examining the influenced factors to possible errors made by the students. - Improving my own teaching of English at Van Lam high school. 1.3. Research Questions To fully achieve the above aims, the study answers the following questions: - What are the common errors related to MAKE and DO collocations committed by EFL students at Van Lam high school? 2 - What are the causes of students’ errors related to MAKE and DO collocations? 1.4. Scope of the Study This study is confined to the investigation into a very small aspect of vocabulary issue - the common errors related to collocations with the two verbs “make” and “do” in English. The two verbs “make” and “do” are frequently used, yet they are among the most confusing words for English learners . In other words, it is easy to misunderstand and misuse the two verbs. Furthermore, they can be in many different collocations with different meanings. Both “make” and “do” can collocate with a noun, a preposition, an adjective or an adverb, etc. Within the framework of an M.A. thesis, the author has no ambition to cover all the kinds of collocation with the two verbs, only errors related to the uses of MAKE and DO collocations in the form of “verb + noun” pattern were taken into consideration. 1.5. Significance of the Study It is much to the author’s expectation that the research results will help students gain a more insightful look into English MAKE and DO collocations. And, on account of this, well-formed utterances containing MAKE and DO collocations might be produced. And, this constitutes the practical value of the research. 1.6. Research Methods This study is qualitatively and quantitatively conducted with the descriptive, analytical, synthetical, and inductive methods. A survey is conducted to study the common errors related to “make” and “do” collocations. The study is caried out with the hope to help learners avoid making mistakes when doing exercises and using the verbs “make - do” and their 3 combinations with other words. In addition, it is to investigate the usage of collocations with “make - do” so that the EFL students at Van Lam high school can get better knowledge of collocations with “make - do” 1.7. Structure of the Study The thesis consists of five main parts: Chapter 1 - Introduction: The first chapter gives reasons for choosing the thesis, scope and aims of the study as well as the research method and the structure of the study. Chapter 2 - Literature Review: This chapter both reviews some previous studies related to the research area of the thesis and provides theoretical background to the concerning matters. Chapter 3 - Methodology: In the third chapter, the methodology of the thesis including research-governing principles and research methods are introduced. Chapter 4 - Findings and Discussion: This part analyzes data collected from the students’ tests. Additionally, some significant findings of the study are written up and discussed. Chapter 5 - Conclusion: The last chapter concludes the main issues which dealt with in the previous parts. Accordingly, some concluding remarks a redrawn out. 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. Previous studies There are a large number of research studies, focusing on collocations with “MAKE” and “DO” that were conducted by both foreign and Vietnamese researchers. From the experiences and what the researcher has searched, few important studies particularly concentrate on errors related to collocations committed by EFL students. Following are some related articles and studies: Firstly, Martynska (2004) presented the level of collocational competence among intermediate learners of the English language in the paper entitled “Do English language learners know collocations?”. The researcher conducted the study of English collocation competencies among intermediate high school Polish students. To collect data, the researcher used different types of tests, for example, matching, a completion, circling the correct option, and identifying and correcting errors in underlined parts of sentences. The findings showed that the students performed poorly on all tasks. One important result was that their collocation competence did not depend on the length of time of learning English because the student studying English for a short time performed better on the English tests than those who studied English for longer time. Moreover, in comparison between two types of task, it was found that some students got higher scores on the multiple-choice tasks but lower scores on the completion tasks. This confirmed that the production of collocation among the students was much lower than their receptive skills. Therefore, more attention to collocations when teaching English should be paid in the teaching and learning process. Secondly, the research “The acquisition of basic collocations by Japanese learners of English” by Koyo Taeko (2005) identifies basic collocations for Japanese learners of English and examines the mechanism of collocational knowledge of Japanese learners of English. The findings were based on two types of analyses; a corpus-based analysis to identify basic collocations and 5 an empirical analysis to examine how Japanese learners develop knowledge of collocation. The researcher came to such a conclusion that there was a significant positive relationship between learners’ general knowledge of vocabulary and their knowledge of collocations. The knowledge of the learners’ on receptive collocation tasks was better than their productive ones, and the learner had difficulty with some collocation categories, such as adjective-noun collocations in comparison with others. Thirdly in “The acquisition of collocation by Turkish EFL learners”, Elyildirm (1998) examined the comprehension and production of the target collocations of the first language (L1) Turkish learners of English. By using three collocation tests: correct or incorrect test, translation test and a gap-filling test including two collocation categories, i.e. verb-noun collocations and adjective-noun collocations. The researcher found that the negative influence of L1 on the production of collocations was quite clear. In fact, participants tended to generalize unfamiliar combinations in reference to the familiar ones that learners frequently encountered in the textbook. Learners also have a tendency to incorrectly overgeneralize their L1 collocational knowledge with unknown collocations, which resulted in L1negative transfer. The researcher also confirmed that acquiring collocations that have L1 equivalent was easier than that of acquiring collocations that have no L1 equivalents. Additionally, comparing two types of test it was observed that the participants performed better on the adjective-noun collocation test than verb-noun-collocation test, which they found to be more difficult. The researcher recommended the teaching of common collocations and suggested learners to spend much time reading and listening to improve their knowledge of collocations instead of avoiding them. In Vietnam, Phạm Thị Ngà (2012) had a similar study for her unpublished M.A thesis. The study was directedly relevant to teaching and learning collocations at university. The survey was conducted at Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration. The thesis studied students’ errors 6 in using collocations with the verbs “do” and “make” and showed the difficulties in recognizing suitable words which can collocate with each verbs. Additionally it gave some suggestions to improve quality of teaching and learning English at university in Vietnam. Finally, in Hung Yen province and Van Lam district where the researcher has been working for more than 18 years, it has not been conducted any studies or articles related to the subject of improving English vocabulary, especially knowledge of collocations, for high school students. Therefore, this thesis hopefully will make a small contribution to teaching and learning collocations at a high school, so that students can get better results in their exams and enhance their ability in communication. 2.2. Errors 2.2.1. Definition of Error Making errors is the most natural thing in the world and it is evidently attached to the human beings. But there are different definitions of the word “error”. For the errors in the foreign language learning, the most common definition is "Errors are deviations from the standard or violations of the standard", but it can also raise further questions. Which standard applies in a pluricentric language as the standard for the foreign language teaching? An attempt to formulate by definition the criteria of the linguistic correctness, appropriateness, comprehensibility, connection to the lessons and learneroriented ability can be found in Kleppin (1998): a) "An error is a deviation from the language system. b) An error is a deviation from the existing linguistic standard. c) An error is a violation of the way a person within a speech community speaks and acts. d) An error is what a communication partner does not understand. e) An error is what a native speaker does not understand. f) An error is something contrary to rules in textbooks and to grammars. 7 g) An error is what a teacher refers to as an error. h) An error is what a native speaker in a particular situation would not say or do. i) An error is something contrary to the norm in the head of the teacher. j) Errors are relative. What is considered to be an error in a learning group in a particular teaching phase, is tolerated in another learning group in another phase." (Kleppin, 1998, p19) The term "error" is used to refer to a systematic deviation from a selected norm or set of norms. According to Lennon (1991) an error is "a linguistic form or combination of forms which in the same context and under similar conditions of production would, in all likelihood, not be produced by the speakers 'native speaker's counterparts". On one hand, it was considered to be a sign of inadequacy of the teaching techniques, something negative which must be avoided, and on the other hand it was seen as a natural result of the fact that since by nature we can't avoid making errors, we should accept the reality and try to deal with them. The error-as-progress conception is based on the Chomsky's idea that a child generates language through innate universal structures. So, using this symbolic code, one can have access to different pieces of knowledge not as something mechanically learned but as mentally constructed through try and error. The idea is now that the second language learners form hypotheses about the rules to be formed in the target language and then test them out against input data and modify them accordingly. There is an approach which concerns error as being the result of socialcognitive interaction. This means that the error implicitly carries a social norm as well as cognitive process. The error also carries a social and cultural component which makes it different in different societies. 8 2.2.2. Error Analysis The growing interest of investigating errors types led apparently to the rise of error analysis. Error analysis can be defined as an examination of those errors committed by learners in both spoken and written medium (Mohideen, 1996). It is worth noting that error analysis gives a picture of the type of difficulty learners are experiencing (Norrish, 1994, p80). Richards (1971) justifies the importance of error analysis as it functions as input to theoretical discussion. In the phase of evaluation, error analysis offers appropriate feedback to the design of remedial curricula. Similarly, Mohideen (1996) indicates that error analysis is useful in ESL/EFL because it reveals the problematic areas to language teachers, syllabus designers and textbook writers. In this regard, due to the fact that foreign language learners lack the automation of collocations which may result in errors that hinder their learning English, the analysis of collocation errors is strongly believed to be adopted in this study as an effective way to help English language students overcome difficulties. Various approaches to error analysis are formed basically for investigating errors. In 1974, Corder (pp. 158171) identified a representative model for error analysis. His model can be summarized as followed. The initial step requires the selection of a corpus of language followed by an identification of errors. The errors are then classified. The next step, after giving a grammatical analysis of each error, it is demanded to give an explanation of different types of errors. Gass and Selinker (1994, p. 67) add additional two steps: analyzing sources of error, and offering remedy for errors. In another attempt for analyzing errors, Norrish (1994, p. 81) states that there are fundamentally two main approaches to error analysis. The first one is to set up categories of errors, based on a set of preconceptions about the learners' most common problems. This approach has an advantage of being easier and quicker to carry out because errors are indicated on a list of categories. However, the drawback of this approach is that the issue is prejudged, since errors can be sorted out only in terms of predetermined error types. The second approach is to group the errors as they are collected in particular areas. Such 9 approach has the advantage of allowing the errors themselves to determine the categories chosen. By a process of sorting and re-sorting errors, the categories will eventually define themselves. From the standpoint of the researcher, it can be stated that Corder's approach (1974, pp. 158- 171) to error analysis matches with the second approach offered by Norrish (1983, p. 80) because both approaches basically tend to identify errors types and classify them from the corpus itself. 2.2.3. Problems of error classification Rein (1983:99) defines the error analysis as follows: “Error analysis is concerned with the registration (= error statistics) and the genetic analysis (= error analysis) of systematic errors occurring at different stages of language learning with the practical intention to develop objective standards of judgment (= error evaluation) or didactic measures in order to reduce or eliminate such errors (error = therapy)." Errors are classified according to the linguistic plains where they occur. According to the different linguistic plains there can be distinguished phonetic / phonological, lexical / semantic, morphological / syntactic and pragmatic errors. Although errors can not always be clearly assigned to one or the other level, the classification of the errors can be well handled according to the different linguistic levels. The other criterion in the classification of the errors is the cause of the error. While determining the reasons that could cause the error, there can be distinguished the intra- and the inter-linguistic causes, depending on whether the error was caused due to the influence of the mother tongue or due to the target languages. Interference errors are caused by the influence of the mother tongue. Overgeneralizations occur because of the influence of the target language. Errors are caused also by compensation strategies because learners tend to describe unknown words. Very often the learners have different hypotheses about the nature of the foreign language and therefore they commit really creative errors. 10 Sometime grammatically and lexically correct sentences can be considered as errors if they are socio-culturally inappropriate. Likewise, a correct statement can be considered as an error when the type of text used, is not appropriate. The lessons and the teacher can also be the cause of the error, if the explanations cause errors. A typical example of teaching generates errors is the application of the self-correction of the past tenses in German. The errors signal the lack of the knowledge on the use of the tenses. Another different distribution of the errors in performance errors and competence errors arises from the level of the knowledge of the language learner. Competence errors are understood as errors that the learner usually commits because he lacks on knowledge of the respective grammatical rules. Performance errors are caused by fatigue or lack of concentration, possibly stage fright. These are errors, that the learner can identify and correct itself. 2.2.4. Error correction Behind every error correction is the desire that learners make fewer mistakes. To correct written errors is relatively easy because while the teacher is correcting, he has time to think about how and what he should correct. During the oral correction, the procedure is much more complicated. Factors that dictate the error correction: - Type of the error depending on the linguistic level, - Phase of the lesson - in the communicative phase of the lesson the correction is done in a different way as in the practice phase, - Beginners are corrected in a different way as advanced learners are, - During the phase of communication, it makes more sense, to correct by the end of the sentence than to interrupt the flow of the speech of the learner, - Human factors: there are learners who have a correction demand and others who suffer from the correction. There are teachers who use different correction methods and teachers who always use the same method of correction. Another aspect of the error correction is the question whether the teacher should prefer 11
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