Tài liệu Strategic, lexical and syntactic competencies in english of freshman students in thai nguyen university bais for a proposed drill exercises

i THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines STRATEGIC, LEXICAL AND SYNTACTIC COMPETENCIES IN ENGLISH OF FRESHMAN STUDENTS IN THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY: BASIS FOR A PROPOSED DRILL EXERCISES A Dissertation 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 THANH HONG (ROSE) June 2014 ii THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines ABSTRACT Title :Strategic, lexical and syntactic competencies in English of freshman students in Thai Nguyen university: Basis for a proposed drill exercise. Author : Nguyen Thi Thanh Hong Course :Doctor of Philosophy major in English language and literature. Year : 2014 Adviser : Dr Amada G. Banaag Summary The main focus of this study was to determine the strategic, lexical and syntactic competencies in English of freshman student Thai Nguyen university. This study made use of the descriptive method and utilized researcher-constructed questionaire and teacher made test. For objective interpretation and analysis of the study, the data were subjected to the following statistical treatment: frequency, percentage, ranking, independent t-test and standard deviation. iii THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines The findings of the study revealed that majority of the freshman students of Thai Nguyen University employed strategic competencies to cope and promote their communication skills. Further, freshman students have poor performance in the areas of vocabulary, idioms and word formation but have better performance in synonyms and antonym; they demonstrate poor performance in the areas of verb tenses, direct and indirect speech, but have better or remarkable performance in the areas of subject verb agreement, pronoun references and phrases and clauses. In addition, There is no significant relationship exists between students’ lexical and syntactic competencies. There exists a relationship between teachers’ assessment and the level of students’ lexical and syntactic competencies. Students did not frequently used or practice their lexical and syntactic skills as indicated by their mean score of 3.0. The drill exercises formulated contains activities geared towards improving freshman students’ lexical and syntactic competencies in Thai Nguyen university. iv THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This dissertation wouldn’t have been possible had it not been for the support, love, patience, and generosity of many people, who have helped me in their own incredible way to deal with myself while trying to find my voice in what I do. I would especially like to acknowledge and thank Dr. Amanda G. Banaag, who as a major professor and director of my dissertation opened my eyes to see the details in the “big picture”. I highly admire her scholarship, dedication, efficiency in decision-making, valuable advice, to Dr. Maltida H. Dimaano, who has enormously helped me to keep on moving. Had it not been for her constant administrative and academic support, I doubt I would have finished the Program and my dissertation in such a timely manner. There isn’t a quantifier in the English language that can express how grateful I am for everything that she has done for me during the past four years. I would also sincerely like to thank Dr. Corazon Cabrera, who has always been full of new ideas and contagious enthusiasm and who has encouraged me to be respectful to the papers that I’ve written. I have a special thank for Dr. Remedios P. Magnaye as well, whose energy and resourcefulness have been inspiring. Finally, I a big “thank you” should go to the v THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines participants in this study and especially to a good friend and colleague of mine at Thai Nguyen University, who graciously helped me with collecting the data for the study. My greatest thanks go to my nearest and dearest – my family and my friends - whom I selflessly and unconditionally love, and I know they love me back. I thank my mother for giving me life, love, values, and belief that I can accomplish anything I set out to do. Thank you, Mum, for sacrificing so much to make this Possible for me! All I have ever wanted was to make you proud of me! And thank you to my sisters, who have always given me a lot of encouragement. I also don’t think it would have been possible to write this dissertation without my husband, and my sons. My husband’s patience and high level of tolerance to all my academic queries, intellectual quests, and unpredictable mood swings have been more than highly appreciated. My son’s well-being, love, and encouragement have been my guiding light. Finally, I am entirely indebted to all my friends for their spiritual generosity and for being my friends. Thank you! ii THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE ............................................................................................I TABLE OF CONTENTS..........................................................................ii LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................v LIST OF FIGURES................................................................................vii CHAPTER I. THE PROBLEM .................................................................................11 Introduction ..................................................................................11 Statement of the Problem............................................................20 Scope, Delimitation and Limitation of the Study ..........................21 Significance of the Study .............................................................22 II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE ..............................................................23 Conceptual Literature ..................................................................23 Competence in the English Language.........................................23 Research Literature .....................................................................70 Synthesis .....................................................................................78 Theoretical Framework................................................................82 Conceptual Framework ...............................................................86 Hypothesis ...................................................................................89 Definition of Terms.......................................................................89 iii THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines III. RESEARCH METHOD AND PROCEDURE....................................80 Research Design .........................................................................80 Subjects of the Study...................................................................80 Data Gathering Instrument ..........................................................82 Data Gathering Procedure...........................................................83 Statistical Treatment of Data .......................................................84 IV. PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA ...............................................................................................................85 V. SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION ..............143 Summary of Findings.................................................................143 Conclusions ...............................................................................153 Recommendations.....................................................................154 APPENDICES A. Questionnaire for Students ...................................................164 B. Questionnaire for Teacher’s -Part 1 ......................................175 C. Questionnaire for Teacher’s - Part 2.....................................180 D. Validation Letter of the Questionnaire for Students ..............186 F. Letters of Request to the Head of Institution.........................189 H. Documents for Validation of Questionaires in Batangas State University ...................................................................................194 K: Photographs of the Research Sites .....................................195 iv THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines L. Photographs of the Approval Test Administration of the Head of Institutions..............................................................................196 M. Photographs of the Teachers Respondents .........................197 N. Photographs of the Students Respondents ..........................198 P. Psychrometric Conversion Table ..........................................199 CURRICULUM VITAE ........................................................................201 v 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 ................................... 81 2 Strategic competencies of Freshman students .............................. 85 3 Student skills according to the frequency of use as strategic competencies ................................................................................. 90 4 Degree of importance of strategic competency .............................. 93 5 Performance of student on Lexical Competence............................ 94 6 Performance of student on Syntactic Competence ........................ 98 7 Student's t-test comparison of the mean scores for each lexical test ..................................................................................... 104 8 Student's t-test comparison of the mean scores for each syntactic ........................................................................................ 105 9 Student's t-test comparison of the mean scores for lexical vs. syntactic test ................................................................................. 106 10 List of student skills validated by 60 teacher respondents as lexical and syntactic competencies of Freshman students .......... 108 11 Students’ frequency of lexical and syntactic skills ........................ 111 12 Mean scores of student lexical and syntactic skills ...................... 113 vi THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam 13 BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines Student's t-test comparison of the mean scores for lexical and syntactic test ................................................................................. 115 14 Areas under lexical- syntactic competencies to be used as topics for the design of drill exercises and the basis of their choice ........................................................................................... 118 vii THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Title Page Research Paradigm...................................................88 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM Introduction English language is considered a significant tool for communication in the 21st century as the world becomes global business and communication such as news and information, business, finance, entertainment, maritime and air traffic communication. It is also the language that plays an important role in government diplomacy, science, medicine and other profession. In the world also connected by bits and bytes, English language is also important as it emerged as a common vehicle for communication. In globalization where English language and communication play a crucial role, the ability to communicate in English is now a necessity. People with different linguistic background who believe that if one communicates in English fluently and proficiently have an edge , study English as it is the language of the global village and serves as a neutral language to all. In many countries, English has become the language of power and prestige. As a gatekeeper to social and economic progress, many countries give importance to English language as it serves as a pathway towards progress and learning. Understanding and 12 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines communicating English is a factor for a person to learn and progress faster because most of the information is available in the English language and for that reason to be globally competitive, communicating effectively in that language is a must. As an international language, English is spoken in many countries both as native and as a second or foreign language. It is the world’s dominant language because aside from being designated as an official among sixty two nations, it has the greatest number of speakers. It most international organization, English is the official and working language aside from being the most taught foreign language across the globe. People with knowledge in English language has better career and pay as well as communication with the outside world. Their desire to learn the language is unsatiable. Further, often referred to as the world’s language, English is widely spoken. In a number of jobs, professions and fields, a working knowledge of English becomes a need. Knowledge also of the English language to enhance educational attainment through improved communication ability is also important. English as the lingua franca of the modern times of business and of popular culture is also the language of computers and internet aside from being the language of globalization of international business, 13 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam politics and diplomacy. BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines It enables people of different countries to converse and do business with each other. As a language that serves as a common link for international and inter cultural communication in a global society, its use minimizes cultural diversity and expands cultural convergence. The narrowing of cultural linguistic diversity, expansion of cultural and linguistic divergence as well as information and media advancement are some of the contribution of English language to globalization. One of the biggest advantage of a country in a global job market is the proficiency of the skilled workers in the English language. In the field of education, proficiency in the English language also improves academic performance of students. Proficiency in the English language has been identified as a requisite in the globalized economy; with countries having a large number of its population capable of communicating in English being rewarded with economic advantages. In Asian countries, this trend has been realized by both governments and individuals and are thus pushing the wide interest in English language study in the last ten years. Vietnam is no exemption to this trend considering that it is one of the non-native speakers of the English language. In the 2011 study of the organization EF Education First Ltd., Vietnam was shown to have an EF English Proficiency Index (EF EPI) of 44.32 or very low 14 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines proficiency close to Thailand that is 39.41. This EF EPI is the first of its kind index comparing the English proficiency of non-native English speaking countries calculated from 2,368,730 test takers across 42 countries and two territories, accumulated from 2007 to 2009. In the following year that is in 2012, Vietnam showed and EF EPI of 52.14 or low proficiency, an improvement from the previous year in comparison with Thailand which got a value of 44.36 or very low proficiency. Vietnam issued the Government Decision 1400 in 2008 whose goal is to “renovate thoroughly the tasks of teaching and learning foreign languages within the national educational system” and through its Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) National Foreign Language 2020 Project, or Project 2020 aims to embark on an ambitious education reforms where all school levels will be required to have a minimum level of English by 2020. Under this program, Vietnam does not only want majority of its students to be able to use a foreign language, especially English, confidently in their study, daily communication and work in an integrated, multi-cultural and multilingual environment, making foreign languages a comparative advantage of development for Vietnamese people in the cause of industrialization and modernization for the country by 2020, but demands that its high school teachers are competent on the second 15 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines highest skill level (C1), the elementary school teachers on the fourth highest level (B1) and middle school educators the third-highest (B2). According to Dudzik (2008), a senior fellow at an education ministry project on foreign language improvement, students who have studied English for seven years beginning in grade six are often not able to use English beyond simple greetings and questions such as “hello”, “good-bye” and “what’s your name?”. This problem is magnified when the students enter the tertiary level, as freshman students, when they definitely will be handicapped to tackle more advanced tasks in learning not only in the English language but in other subjects such as Science and Mathematics where English is the medium of instruction. Second language learners (L2) undergo developmental stages in their language process and are characterized to be longitudinal and sequential in nature. Only when the L2 leaner has completely undergone the stages and undertook the maturation process where communicative competence emerge. As an applied component of language, communicative competence is the ability of the speakers to use different functioning rules of the system. It involves speaker’s grammatical knowledge of syntax, morphology and phonology. It also includes the social knowledge of the speaker in the appropriate use of language. Knowing 16 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines English involves speaking, writing, listening and reading. Producing the language correctly as well as using the language for a particular purpose is part also of communication in English when speakers are able to perform the needed communicative functions, they achieve communicative competence in the language. It was further stated that competence aside from being referred to as an idealized capacity, it is also the ideal speaker-hearers knowledge of his or her own language and it is the “mental reality” which is responsible for all those aspects of language use which can be characterized as linguistics (Kroy, 1994). The grammar or set of language rules that is represented mentally and manifested based on the individual’s understanding of acceptable usage in a given idiom defines one’s competence (Evans et.al, 2006). The summation of all effort in builiding strategic, lexical and syntactic competencies in English is to enable students to communicate with others and acquire one of the best lifeskills a person can develop in the 21st century. It is because someone who can effectively communicate thought, ideas and feelings is better equipped for sucsess both on the job and in personal relationship. Together with all the learning competencies expected of a 21st century professional such as information retrieval and evaluation, 17 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines ethical reasoning, teamwork and leadership, creative thinking, computer literacy and entrepreneuraship, all these competencies in English will help learners become ready for the task aheadof them. It will serve them a better place in the academic and professional world as the communicative competency expected of them include interpersonal skills through effective listening, establishing rapport, monitoring nonverbal signals and expressing awareness of and respect for sel and others using a variety of written, oral and non-verbal communication media. Thus, the objective of the Vietnamese L2 learners is to achieve a certain level of communicative competence in the areas of grammatical, socio linguistic, strategic competence and discourse competence. Thai Nguyen university (TNU) is known as one of the three regional universities in Vietnam, and a unique university in the Northern Mountainous Area of Vietnam. Since its establishment in 1994, TNU has become one of Vietnam’s leading regional Universities. It is a conglomeration of colleges which were established earlier as separate institutions of learning. The unification of these colleges into a university system continues the long history of Thai Nguyen being a centre of learning in the region. For 20 years, TNU has grown and blossomed in the performance of its functions with a vision to move towards the future 18 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines with dynamism in the pursuit of excellence. TNU has seven universites with more than twenty thousand students coming from different remote provinces in the North of Vietnam. Under the program of the national foreign languae 2020 project, TNU also becomes one of the centres for human resource development for foreign language studies and has to face alot of difficulties and challenges in improving quality of English teaching and learning to enhance the language proficiency of the students. Those difficulties come from both teachers and students, and sometimes from some other factors such as, government’s policy on English in school education or facilities for English teaching and learning... First of all, it can be seen clearly that for most of students in Thai Nguyen university who are hailed from rural areas, English is always a really difficult subject and they do not often like English lessons. Although they have different back ground knowledge and different level of learning, they are arranged to learn English in large and mixed ability classes, normally with 60 or even up to 80 students in a class. More over, according to the policy of the Vietnamese Ministry of education and training, even though English has become a compulsory subject at secondary and high schools and has been one of three main subjects beside maths and literature, students have no competence for a simple 19 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines conversation in English because students learn basic grammar at school level for the purpose of passing only in the tests and in the examinations and not to face any real life situations. They pay more attention on other subjects for entrance exammination to enter universities. Therefore, based on the researcher’s observation and as an English teacher teaching the subject for several years, most of the students encounter difficulties along grammar and vocabulary as well as their inability to use varied communication strategies. For the English teachers, it is also very difficult to teach as well as to improve the English proficiency of their students. These students have a lot of difficulties in learning English including their different background knowledge, different learning styles, different learning speeds and a variation in motivation. According to the national foreign language 2020 project, all students who graduate from university have to get B1 level in six levels of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). However, to help students to get English proficiency according to the reqirement of the MoET is not a simple duty for the teachers, especially for the teachers in Thai Nguyen university where most all students have poor background knowledge of language and lack competency on all aspects of language such as, strategic, lexical, syntactic and discource.