Tài liệu Luận văn ngôn ngữ anh common errors in reported speech made by 11th graders at an upper secondary school in ho chi minh city.

VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES GRADUATE OF ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Nguyễn Lê Văn COMMON ERRORS IN REPORTED SPEECH MADE BY 11TH GRADERS AT AN UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL IN HO CHI MINH CITY MA THESIS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE HO CHI MINH CITY, 2020 VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES GRADUATE OF ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Nguyễn Lê Văn COMMON ERRORS IN REPORTED SPEECH MADE BY 11TH GRADERS AT AN UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL IN HO CHI MINH CITY Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01 Supervisor: Lê Hương Hoa, Ph.D. HO CHI MINH CITY, 2020 DECLARATION BY AUTHOR I declare that this thesis “Common Errors in Reported Speech Made by 11th Graders at an Upper Secondary School in Ho Chi Minh City” is carried out by my own and I am the sole author of this thesis. To the best of my knowledge of Reported speech grammar, I use some other author’s works to give two minitests for my study, and this thesis is submitted after a carefully checking progress in order to fulfill the requirements of the M.A degree. Author’s signature Nguyễn Lê Văn Approved by SUPERVISOR Lê Hương Hoa, Ph.D. Date: ……………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis is completed with lots of working hours and is contributed by a large amount of enthusiasm, effort and assistance from many people. Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Lê Hương Hoa for the all support of my research, for her patience, motivation, and immense knowledge. Her guidance helped me in all the time of doing research and writing this thesis. I also would like to send my special thanks to Dr. Đặng Nguyên Giang, who gave me important help with some ideals and documents. Additionally, I am so grateful for Mai Lan Hương, who wrote wonderful books which are loved by millions of teachers and students in Vietnam. Her works are filled by deep feelings in the different ups and downs motions, especially during the process of my research. It is the source of inspirations for me to fulfil this task. Finally, I want to be grateful to my family for all, who are always supportive and enthusiastic during the progress of writing this thesis. Thanks to all. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DECLARATION BY AUTHOR ........................................................................... i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................. ii ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................... vi LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................. viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS USED IN THE THESIS ........ ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...................................................................... 1 1.1. Rationale......................................................................................................... 1 1.2. Aims of the Study........................................................................................... 2 1.3. Scope of the Study ......................................................................................... 2 1.4. Significance of the Study ............................................................................... 3 1.5. Research Questions ........................................................................................ 3 1.6. Research Methods .......................................................................................... 4 1.7. Structure of the Study..................................................................................... 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................... 6 2.1. Previous studies related to reported speech ................................................... 6 2.2. Errors .............................................................................................................. 8 2.2.1. Classification of errors ................................................................................ 8 2.2.2. Sources of errors ....................................................................................... 10 2.2.3. Error analysis ............................................................................................ 15 2.3. Reported speech ........................................................................................... 16 2.3.1. Definitions ................................................................................................. 16 2.3.2. Types of reported speech .......................................................................... 17 iii 2.3.3. Changes of direct speech when turning into reported speech................... 21 2.3.4. Summary of reported speech used in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 11” ........ 31 2.4. Chapter summary ......................................................................................... 34 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ........................................... 35 3.1. Research setting ........................................................................................... 35 3.1.1. An overview of Nguyễn Hiền Upper Secondary School ......................... 35 3.1.2. The teachers’ background and their teaching conditions.......................... 35 3.1.3. The students’ background ......................................................................... 36 3.2. Methodology ................................................................................................ 38 3.2.1. Research questions .................................................................................... 38 3.2.2. Subjects of the study ................................................................................. 38 3.2.3. Data collection instruments ....................................................................... 40 3.2.4. Data collection procedures ........................................................................ 45 3.2.5. Data analysis ............................................................................................. 45 3.3. Chapter summary ......................................................................................... 45 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ........................................... 46 4.1. Results and analysis from questionnaires .................................................... 46 4.2. Results and analysis from two written mini-tests ........................................ 55 4.2.1. Results and analysis from the first test ..................................................... 55 4.2.2. Results and analysis from the second test ................................................. 56 4.2.3. Results and analysis from two written mini-tests ..................................... 58 4.3. Chapter summary ......................................................................................... 84 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION......................................................................... 86 5.1. Recapitulation .............................................................................................. 86 iv 5.2. Concluding Remarks .................................................................................... 88 5.3. Pedagogical Implications ............................................................................. 89 5.4. Limitations and Suggestions for Further studies ......................................... 92 REFERENCES .................................................................................................. 93 APPENDIX 1: TEST 1 .......................................................................................... I APPENDIX 2: TEST 2 ....................................................................................... IV APPENDIX 3: QUESTIONNAIRES ................................................................VII APPENDIX 4: INTERVIEW.............................................................................XII APPENDIX 5: WEBSITES OF REPORTED SPEECH ................................. XIII APPENDIX 6: PERCENTAGE CHARTS FROM QUESTIONAIRES ......... XIV APPENDIX 7: RESULT TABLES OF TWO WRITTEN MINI-TESTS ........ XX v ABSTRACT English grammar is regarded as the most important factor to students’ learning English, in which reported speech grammar is one of the biggest points that is often used in tests and exams at schools, especially in entrance examinations. However, 11 graders’ ability still have many limitations and need much more instruction from their teachers at an upper secondary school. The findings of the study are concerned with recognizing common errors that students usually make when changing indirect speech statements into reported speech ones, and providing some solutions in order to help them avoid making errors in performing this kind of grammar point. Besides, the research also helps teachers give useful pedagogical implications in improving the quality of lectures included in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 11” as well as lessons on reported speech grammar. In addition, teachers can apply some suggested exercises in this study for their lessons. In this research, the researcher used two instruments, including the questionnaire and two written mini-tests for students. The subjects involved in this study were 23 students of a class including 14 school-girls and 9 schoolboys who are 11 graders at an upper secondary school in Hồ Chí Minh City. They were invited to participate in the survey questionnaire as well as doing two written mini-tests. Besides, some English teachers in the school also took part in to give best advices in an interview for learning reported speech. During giving the instruments, there were 23 participants handed in the questionnaire and the vi mini-tests to the researcher in total, and five teachers teaching English for 11 graders finished the questions in the interview. Hopefully, the findings of the research will help both teacher in giving effective teaching lessons and students in learning and mastering reported speech grammar point. vii LIST OF TABLES Page Table 9: Groups of students depending on their performing levels in English subject ........................................................................................................... 69 Table 15: Comparison between 5 groups through two written mini-tests .......... 77 Table 18: The order of ascending difficulty of changes ..................................... 84 viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS USED IN THE THESIS HCM.C : Hồ Chí Minh City % : Percentage ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1. Rationale These days, English is the language widely used in the world. English is not only the national or official language of some countries which have different cultures, but it is also the international language of communication in many fields including science, technology, business, entertainment and so on. Since when Viet Nam joined in international commercial organizations such as World Trade Organization (WTO), Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) and Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM), the need for learning English has been considerably increasing among Vietnamese due to their proficiency in English which can help them get good jobs. Therefore, learning English is very necessary. It, however, is not easy to master this language. In order to become good English learners, besides proficiency in speaking, listening, reading and writing skills, they must use grammar properly. Numerous studies show that the use of poor grammar in spoken and written statements negatively reflects on the speakers or authors, and those people, who use imperfect grammar, are instantly perceived as being less intelligent, reliable or trustworthy than people who use proper grammar. Consequently, it is essential for English learners to master grammar. Among the grammar points, reported speech is important but rather difficult now that it involves a lot of elements which causes students to feel confused and make a range of certain errors. Making so many errors of reported speech is not good because when someone reports incorrectly what others have said, it is difficult 1 for listeners to understand or it is even easy for them to misunderstand, causing serious consequences. In addition, reported speech often appears on common tests, final tests in classes and especially tests in the entrance exams to universities and colleges. Therefore, if students do not master this grammar point, they may lose marks relating to reported speech easily. For those above certain reasons, the researcher decided to study the topic “Common Errors in Reported Speech Made by 11th Graders at an Upper Secondary School in Ho Chi Minh City”. 1.2. Aims of the Study The overall aim of the study is to help 11th graders at Nguyễn Hiền Upper Secondary School avoid making errors in preforming reported speech grammar. With that aim achieved, the researcher will suggest appropriate teaching methods that meet students’ needs with the hope to enhance their ability of learning reported speech grammar point as well as quality of learning English grammar. To achieve the above aim, the following objectives are set for exploration: (1) To find out 11 graders’ common errors in using reported speech. (2) To suggest some solutions to help the students avoid these errors. (3) To improve the quality of teaching and learning English at the school. 1.3. Scope of the Study The study is about common errors of reported speech based on the exercises given by the researcher to 23 students who are 11th graders at Nguyễn Hiền Upper Secondary School. 2 1.4. Significance of the Study The findings of the study are focus on not only recognizing common errors that students usually make when changing indirect speech statements into reported speech, but also providing some solutions in order to help them avoid making errors in performing this kind of grammar point. Furthermore, the research also helps teachers give useful pedagogical implications in improving the quality of lectures included in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 11” as well as lessons on reported speech grammar. In addition, teachers can apply some suggested exercises in this study for their lessons. Hence, the findings of the research will help get deeper insights into students’ learning reported speech grammar towards the aforementioned solutions, which in turn stimulate the adjustment on the part of teachers to accord with students’ needs and wants. The suggestion of appropriate solutions made by the writer of this paper will significantly contribute to reported speech grammar teaching and learning outcomes. In short, valuable information from the questionnaires and the two written mini-tests will help shorten the gap between theory and practice at least in this context. 1.5. Research Questions The research is carried out to answer the three following questions: (1) What is the students’ attitude towards learning reported speech? (2) What are common errors that the 11th graders usually make when dealing with changing direct speech into reported speech? (3) What are some solutions to these problems? 3 1.6. Research Methods This study is qualitatively and quantitatively conducted with the descriptive, analytical, synthetic, and inductive methods. A survey with the questionnaires, interview and the two written mini-tests are carried out to investigate the common errors of reported speech made by 11th graders at Nguyễn Hiền Upper Secondary School. 1.7. Structure of the Study At this stage, it should be pointed out that in accordance with the research problems; the study is divided into five chapters: Chapter 1: “Introduction” presents the reasons for choosing the study, the aims, the research methods, and the scope of the study along with its design. Chapter 2: “Literature review” reveals the relevant literatures on reported speech grammar carried out by both foreign and Vietnamese researchers in the past. Besides, it also gives specific introduction about errors and research’s aspects on reported speech grammar such as definition of reported speech, types of reported speech, changes of direct speech when turned into reported speech and especially summary of reported speech used in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 11”. Chapter 3: “Research Methodology” presents and describes the research methodology that was used to carry out the study. Moreover, it presents the population of the study, the research design, and the procedures that were used for gathering and analyzing the available data. Chapter 4: “Findings and Discussions” analyses the data gathered to answer the research questions. 4 Chapter 5: “Conclusion” summarizes the findings of the study while trying to address its limitations, and proposes specific initiatives to improve the quality of teaching, and open the door for further research. 5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter, Literature Review, will present previous studies related to types of errors of indirect speech made in the context of foreign language teaching. The literature review will initially look at the terms concerned in the study. The pertinent literature will be reviewed and analyzed with the intention of providing a theoretical foundation to the current study. 2.1. Previous studies related to reported speech In the past time, many studies relating to reported speech have been carried out. For instances, the study “Teaching Reported Speech” done by Dan Raj Regmi was about the major mistakes made by the learners of Grade XII of Management stream in December, 2009. However, the researcher only gave suggestions for teachers to make clear how they teach their Nepalese students in order to help them understand and use reported speech precisely. Besides, Dr. Riskhi Anita Tirta Utama from Muhammadiyah University of Surakarta carried out a research on “An Error Analysis of Indirect Speech Made by the Second Year Students of Sma Negeri 1 Wonogiri 2007/2008 Academic Year” in 2008. In this research, the researcher made clear the types of errors of indirect speech made by the second year students and found the source of errors of indirect speech that helps students overcome the difficulties in working with Indirect speech sentences. Also, this research was given to the second year students and it just concentrated on copping with types of indirect speech, not specific aspects of changes in reported speech grammar. Another study is “Error Analysis of Transforming Direct Speech into Indirect Speech in Narrative Dialogues at the Second Year Classes of English 6 Department” carried out by Elyza Martiarini and Risa Mufliharsi at University of Indraprasta PGRI, Jakarta in 2017. Nevertheless, the findings errors of this research were classified into 4 aspects such as omission, addition, misformation, and misordering which differ with the classification that the writer uses for study at Nguyễn Hiền Upper Secondary School. In Vietnam, Lê Thị Thu Quỳnh, a student of Hồ Chí Minh University of Pedagogy did the research “Indirect Speech in English and Vietnamese: A Comparative Contrastive Analysis” in 2010. In this research, the researcher pointed out basic similarities and differences in indirect speech between Vietnamese and English as well as some major mistakes made by Vietnamese. Also, Nguyễn Thị Mỹ Hạnh, a fourth year of English class 2009A of Foreign Language Faculty at Đồng Tháp University gave a research “Common Errors of Reported Speech Made by Grade 11 Students at Doc Binh Kieu High School, Tien Giang Province” in 2013. In this research, the researcher gave result of usual errors that students made when turning direct into reported speech. The suggestion was that Vietnamese people have to pay more attention to grammar structure when they want to change an English indirect speech into the direct one. However, the researcher gave a general suggestion instead of specific ones to help learners avoid those errors and the subjects just for learners in Tiền Giang province, where students, generally, have lower levels at performing English grammar than those living in Hồ Chí Minh City (HCM.C), the biggest metropolitan in Vietnam. Until now, no research has been done on errors in reported speech made by 11th graders at an upper secondary school in HCM.C. For the purpose of 7 investigating the common errors in reported speech made by 11th graders, the researcher has decided to conduct this study. 2.2. Errors 2.2.1. Classification of errors When a learner develops his second or foreign language system, he makes errors. In first language learning, these errors are “lapses” or “slips of the tongue” due to physical or psychological reasons (Brown, 1980). However, in second language and foreign language learning, these errors are reviewed carefully. Corder (1973) introduces the distinction between systematic and nonsystematic errors. Non-systematic errors occur in one’s native language, Corder calls these "mistakes" and states that they are not significant to the process of language learning. They can be self-corrected when attention is called. He keeps the term "errors" for the systematic ones, which occur in a second language. He believes that errors are the evidence of the language system that the learner is using at a particular point in the course. Corder (1973) refers to three types of errors. These are: 1) transfer errors; 2) analogical errors and 3) teaching-induced errors. Chomsky classifies learners’ errors into: 1) performance error and 2) competence error. Competence is the ‘speaker-hearer’s knowledge of his language, while performance is the actual use of language in concrete situations. Heaton (1998) and Littlewood (1984) divide errors into two main types: global and local errors. Richard (1974) and some other researchers distinguish between interlingual errors and intralingual errors. Obviously, errors are classified differently according to perspectives. On the whole, the most popular classification of written errors that earns scholars' 8 consensus prevailingly is the division of errors into interlingual errors and intralingual errors. Because, two major factors that contributed to the presence of errors in students’ written work are interlingual transfer and intralingual transfer. The elaboration of these categories is illustrated as below: i) Interlingual Errors According to Brown (1980, p.173) the beginning stages of learning a second language are characterized by a good deal of interlingual transfer from the native language. Richard (1974, p.35) says that interlingual errors are errors due to transferring rules from the mother tongue. They are the incorrect elements under the influence of learners' native language. Therefore, interlingual errors are errors which are caused by interference from native language to the target language they learn. Therefore, before someone really master the concept of their target language they will always use the concept of their native language. When it happens all the time and they do not realize it, it can be called interlingual errors. Obviously, the understanding of intralingual and interlingual error enables teacher to perceive language teaching form a two-way perspective, which is different from traditional teaching which only emphasizes target language. This classification could help the teachers deal with the relationship between language 1 and language 2 in teaching practice, to trace the origin of errors, and to decide what language points need more attention. ii) Intralingual Errors After learning second language or foreign language for some time, learners’ 9