VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* LÊ THU HẰNG AN ERROR ANALYSIS ON THE USE OF COHESIVE DEVICES IN THE WRITING BY THE STUDENTS AT CHU VĂN AN HIGH SCHOOL, THÁI NGUYÊN PROVINCE Phân tích lỗi cách sử dụng phương tiện liên kết văn viết học sinh trường THPT Chu Văn An tỉnh Thái Nguyên M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 Hanoi, 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* LÊ THU HẰNG AN ERROR ANALYSIS ON THE USE OF COHESIVE DEVICES IN THE WRITING BY THE STUDENTS AT CHU VĂN AN HIGH SCHOOL, THÁI NGUYÊN PROVINCE Phân tích lỗi cách sử dụng phương tiện liên kết văn viết học sinh trường THPT Chu Văn An tỉnh Thái Nguyên M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 SUPERVISOR: Assoc.Prof.Dr LÂM QUANG ĐÔNG Hanoi, 2014 DECLARATION This paper is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the field of English Teaching Methodology I certify that this thesis is the result of my own research, and that it has not been submitted for any other degree Hanoi, August, 2014 Signature Lê Thu Hằng i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without the assistance and support of many individuals I wish to acknowledge and express my appreciation of these people for their invaluable contributions Firstly and foremost, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Lâm Quang Đông, Dean of the Faculty of English-University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi (VNU) who has enthusiastically helped and encouraged me to finish the research project Without his experienced guidance and valuable comments, my research would still be far from finished I am also indebted to him for his substantial contributions in proofreading and helping me make necessary changes Secondly, I take this opportunity to show my gratitude to all of my instructors in my M.A courses at the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi Their precious and professional lectures and tutoring have helped me a great deal in understanding profound concepts of the field of English teaching methodology while I attended the courses I am also grateful to my colleagues at Chu Văn An high School for their continuous help and encouragement On the completion of this paper, I must acknowledge my debt to the authors whose works I used for my reference Last but not least, I wish to convey my thanks to my family for their understanding and supports ii ABSTRACT This study aimed at investigating common cohesive errors committed by the students at Chu Văn An High School as well as their sources An overall number of 50 students at pre-intermediate level participated in this study To achieve the objectives of the study, the participants were given three writing tasks requiring them to write a passage from 100 to 150 words for each task Then, the compositions were collected and read carefully to find out all cohesive errors The errors, after that, were classified according to the taxonomy developed by Halliday and Hasan (1976) Finally, the data were analyzed through the appropriate procedure using error analysis approach and quantitative research methodology Regarding to the frequencies and percentages of errors, it was found that the students‟ most frequent errors involved references (55.9%), followed by errors in conjunctions (22.8%) and collocation (21.2%) Surprisingly, no error was found in substitution, ellipsis and reiteration The errors seem to root from both inter-lingual and intra-lingual sources, in which the former is believed to contribute the greater proportion From the data analysis results, pedagogical implications were given to solve the problems iii LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figures Figure 1: Types of reference 14 Tables Table 1: Types of cohesion at linguistic level 12 Table 2: Types of Grammatical and Lexical Cohesion 13 Table 3: Personal reference 15 Table 4: Demonstrative reference 15 Table 5: Comparative reference 16 Table 6: Background information about the students 21 Table 7: The number of errors in the use of cohesive devices 24 Table 8: Errors in the use of demonstrative reference 25 Table 9: Errors in the use of the definite article 25 Table 10: Errors in the use of personal reference 29 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES iv TABLE OF CONTENTS v PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Objectives of the study Research questions Scope of the study Significance of the study Methods of the study Structure of the thesis PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Errors in language learning 1.1.1 Concept of errors 1.1.2 Types of errors 1.1.3 Errors v.s mistakes 1.1.4 Causes of errors in foreign language learning 1.1.4.1 First language interference 1.1.4.2 Causes independent from the first language 1.2 Error analysis 1.3 Cohesion 10 1.3.1 Conceptualization 10 1.3.2 Cohesive devices in writing 12 1.3.2.1 Grammatical cohesion 13 1.3.2.2 Lexical cohesion 18 1.4 Previous studies in Vietnam 19 1.5 Summary 19 v CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 21 2.1 Participants 21 2.2 Instrumentation 21 2.3 Methods of data analysis 22 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 24 3.1 Errors in the use of reference 25 3.1.1 Errors in the use of demonstrative reference 25 3.1.1.1 Errors in the use of the definite article 25 3.1.1.2 Errors in the use of demonstrative references: this,that,these,those 28 3.1.2 Errors in the use of comparative reference 28 3.1.3 Errors in the use of personal reference 29 3.1.4 Errors in the use of locative reference: here, there 31 3.2 Errors in the use of conjunction 31 3.2.1 Errors in the use of adversative conjunction 32 3.2.2 Errors in the use of causal conjunction 33 3.2.3 Errors in the use of additive conjunction 34 3.3 Errors in the use of lexical cohesion 35 3.4 Summary 36 CHAPTER 4: IMPLICATIONS 38 4.1 Teaching references 38 4.2 Teaching conjunctions 39 4.3 Teaching collocation 40 4.4 Teaching reiteration 41 PART C: CONCLUSION 43 Conclusions 43 Limitations 44 Suggestions for further studies 44 REFERENCES 45 APPENDIX I vi PART A: INTRODUCTION This part gives rationale, objectives, the research questions and methods, the scope of the study and the structure of the thesis Rationale As an effective means of international communication, English has been brought into Vietnamese school curriculum as a compulsory subject It is the great demand for teaching and learning English of the society that has encouraged educators to look for effective teaching methods with the aim to improve the learners‟ language competence The language competence is the ability to perform four language skills (reading, listening, writing and speaking) Amongst these skills, writing-a productive skill seems to be more difficult than the others as the learners need to use the language to convey their messages to readers, but the conveyance of information from the writer to the audience is not always smooth In other words, writing effectively is not an easy task to master During my process of teaching high school students, I come to realize that students often have difficulty in producing a logical and smooth essay The students‟ low writing competence may result from their lack of vocabulary and limited knowledge of grammatical structures However, one of the important reasons for this is the learners‟ inattention to the use of cohesive devices in their essay which are considered crucial elements that help the movement from sentence to sentence and paragraph to paragraph become logical and smooth Thanks to the cohesive devices, sentences and paragraphs stick together, making obvious and visible the writer‟s line of thought Consequently, the decisive motivation in doing this research derives from the extremely important role of cohesion in texts as well as the difficulties of my students who lack the ability to use cohesive devices in writing essays However, within limited time and knowledge, this research will focus on error analysis on the use of cohesive devices in writing at Chu Văn An High School and suggest possible solutions Objectives of the study Firstly, this study aims to help the teachers and students gain an insight into the use of cohesive devices in writing Secondly, its purpose is to investigate and find out the types and causes of errors in the use of cohesive devices in the writing by students at Chu Văn An High School in Thái Nguyên province Finally, the reseacher would like to offer some suggested error correction techniques to prevent and eliminate the errors in the use of cohesive devices in writing Hopefully, this study will be theoretically and practically helpful to both teachers of English and students at Chu Văn An High School Research questions In order to achieve the objectives stated, the study intends to find the answers to the following research questions: What are common errors in the use of cohesive devices in the students‟ writing in Chu Văn An High School? What are the major causes of these errors? What recommendations should be given to reduce and prevent these errors? Scope of the study It is believed that different types of learners committed different types of errors Also, the types of errors vary according to different stages in the learning process Within the framework of a minor M.A thesis, the study has confined itself to errors in the use of cohesive devices in the writing by the students at Chu Văn An high school in Thái Nguyên province The investigation and analyses have been based on the data in 150 compositions by 50 students in grade 10 A4 and 10 A5 in the school, which I presume to provide me with sufficient data Significance of the study Many studies on errors have been carried out in the field of teaching English in the world Researchers like Samuel (1983), Richard (1971) and Corder (1967) among others emphasized the importance of errors in theory as well as in practice of foreign language learning and teaching According to Corder (1967), the errors which are traced to their sources are beneficial in different ways Firstly, they help language teachers know how much progress a learner has made in the target language, in which language area he needs help and what sort of help he needs Secondly, they provide researchers with evidence in the language learning process; therefore, researchers through errors discover strategies applied in acquiring a language Apart from that, errors can serve as good feedback to learners for self-adjustment Despite these benefits, few studies on cohesion errors derived from Vietnamese learners have been made For these reasons, this study should be CHAPTER 4: IMPLICATIONS The understanding of students‟ common errors in the use of cohesive devices and their causes, which have been analyzed and discussed in Chapter 3, serve as background knowledge which helps teachers to build sufficient error correction techniques as well as teaching strategies to prevent and eliminate these errors To help the students reduce and prevent errors in the use of cohesive ties and achieve better cohesion in writing, the author would like to recommend several implications for teaching references, conjunctions, collocations, and reiteration It has been shown by teachers of writing and discourse that teaching the various types of cohesive devices in isolation does not help the learners to use them appropriately in their writing Therefore, there is a need for teachers to focus on the way cohesive devices are used in written papers by native speakers of English where a demonstration of all those devices is made manifest in writing to enhance students‟ awareness of cohesion It is essential to incorporate reading activities into writing classes This enhances the students‟ awareness of the characteristics of good writing, including cohesion In other words, each type of cohesive devices can be taught through both writing and reading activities 4.1 Teaching references As mentioned in the previous chapter, among the types of grammatical cohesive devices, the use of demonstrative reference, especially the definite article is the most troublesome for the students To help students get an insight on the use of the definite article, students, firstly, should be explained about the use of different types of articles After that, teachers can give students exercises of articles such as gap-filling, multiple choice to practise Another activity is mostly for making students become aware of reference pronoun Teachers choose a reading text which has repetition of key nouns, then asking students to replace the key nouns with a suitable pronoun wherever they think doing so would make the text more coherent, for example: In the following passage about gold, replace the key noun “gold” with an appropriate pronoun when necessary Gold, a precious metal, is prized for two important characteristics First of all, gold has a lustrous beauty that is resistant to corrosion Therefore, gold is suitable for jewelry, coins, and ornamental purposes Gold never needs to be polished and will remain beautiful forever… (Oshima and Hogue.1998) 38 Suggestion: Gold, a precious metal, is prized for two important characteristics First of all, it has a lustrous beauty that is resistant to corrosion Therefore, it is suitable for jewelry, coins, and ornamental purposes Gold never needs to be polished and will remain beautiful forever… Teachers can make this type of exercise more challenging for students by requiring them to replace the repetition of a word or a phrase by different types of reference, which helps texts become more coherent Another type of exercise to examine if students understand the use of different types of reference is finding a mistake in each sentence and correcting it This type of exercise can be changed into multiple choice one 4.2 Teaching conjunctions The second biggest problem facing the students in Chu Văn An High School is the inappropriate use of conjunctions which mostly stems from the interference of the first language Hence, the following techniques of teaching conjunctions are given to solve the problem First of all, it is suggested that teachers should give a list of different functions of conjunctions and encourage them to find more words for each list It is also necessary for teachers to help students know when to describe sequence, when to compare and contrast, when to show cause and effect Secondly, there are numerous types of exercises for teachers to teach students to use conjunctions such as multiple choice, gap-filling, sentence transformation, combining sentences The first kind is that teacher can supply a text with discourse markers omitted and replaced by gaps In each gap, put two or three markers and ask students to choose the most suitable one In gap-filling exercises, teachers can supply a text with the gaps and ask students to fill in each gap a suitable marker from a list of markers given in a box Similarly, students can be asked to find suitable markers themselves to fill in the blanks The aim of these exercises is to enhance students‟ ability in recognizing the context of the sentences or the text to choose the best words Additionally, sentence transformation exercises can be utilized to teach conjunctions in which students are required to rewrite sentences without changing their original meanings, using given conjunctions or students can rewrite as many sentences as possible without suggested conjunctions, for example: 39 Rewrite the following sentences so that they not change the meaning of the original sentences, using the given words We went out in spite of the heavy rain →Although He did not his homework, so he got a bad mark →Because of………………………………………………………………… What is more, teachers can ask students to combine two or more sentences with or without suggested words Look at the following example Join each pair of sentences, using suitable conjunctions I used a torchlight It was very dark by then She was late She had missed the bus We had waited for you for a long time You did not turn up at all With this type of exercise, students can rewrite the sentences in many ways using different conjunctions; they can improve their ability of paraphrasing as well as the ability of using conjunctions flexibly Lastly, translation exercises can be a good remedy in the first stage of learning the device 4.3 Teaching collocation As mentioned in the previous chapter, the interference of mother tongue and items between English are the main sources of errors in the use of collocation which is quite difficult for most of the students The lack of ideas is closely associated with the lack of ready-made collocations because they are the most precise and economical way of expressing ideas Consequently, when students are equipped with sufficient collocations, they will have many ideas to write One of the most useful methods to teach collocation is teaching collocation in contexts, in other words, teaching through reading It is very important for teachers to provide students a great deal of exposure to English texts written by native speakers which they can critically and analytically comprehend This technique also helps to prevent the negative transfer of the mother tongue into the target language through the students‟ habit of word by word translation For a reason, “ Words not exist in isolation A number of complex relations exist between them, which go to make the semantic structure of any language Words, therefore, should not be taught in isolation, but exercises should be devised to try to exploit their relationships with other words” (Kennedy and 40 Bolitho (1984:62) After students understand the use of a specific collocation from a context by themselves or through the teachers‟ explanation of its difference between the first and the second language, teachers should ask them to make up their own sentences with the collocation The aim of the activity is to test students‟ application of the collocation in real situations Besides, there are many kinds of exercises relating to collocation such as sorting, multiple choice questions, gap filling which are especially helpful for students to revise words that are partially known to them The exercises, especially gap-filling one can examine the students‟ ability to specify and reconstruct the appropriate combination of words so that they can identify the most suitable word to fill in the gap Besides, teachers can give students sentence completion exercises and sentence transformation ones in which a part of collocation is omitted, for example: Complete the sentences using given words -He/blame/ me/ break/ bike → He blamed me for having broken his bike Rewrite sentences without changing their original meanings, using the given words in bracket -She is tired of doing the same thing every day (fed) →She is fed up with doing the same thing every day 4.4 Teaching reiteration In the author‟s experience, students‟ writings are often dull due to the monotonous characteristics of the writings For example, they seem to use overemphasizing repetition rather than synonyms, super-synonyms and antonyms to describe the main points of their topics Therefore, to raise students‟ awareness about lexical cohesion, teachers could help them enlarge their choice of vocabulary by some vocabulary activities such as word association games in pre-writing stage To develop students‟ writing skill, students not only need to practise writing sentences in isolation, but also need to practise writing above sentence level-a paragraph or an essay In pre-writing stage, it is necessary to provide students an amount of vocabulary as well as structures or collocation relating to the topic so that students can produce a good writing The lexical items can be created by brainstorming or mind-map activities Students should be exposed to models of written texts before writing a paragraph or an essay By examining these models, students‟ awareness can be raised with regard to the way words 41 and structures of cohesive devices contribute to writing Once they notice the role and use of these cohesive devices in writing, they will prefer to apply more of the devices in their writing It is suggested that students should utilize a wide range of cohesive devices and avoid overemphasizing certain types and ignoring other types because over-reliance on one or two stratergies results in redundancy and misunderstanding Last but not least, self-correction should be encouraged; however, direct correction is sometimes necessary, especially for lexical cohesive errors To sum up, this chapter has just provided some suggestions drawn from the results of the study To prevent and eliminate errors in the use of cohesive devices, it is better to teach the items in context It is also recommended to teach cohesion through teaching reading and writing skills Besides, various types of cohesion exercises have been given in detail to treat with each type of cohesion errors The flexible combination of different types of cohesion will contribute to create a good writing These suggestions are hopefully useful for teachers of English when teaching cohesive devices and dealing with students‟ errors in this area 42 PART C: CONCLUSION Conclusions In conclusion, the research has found out some common types of errors in the use of cohesive devices in writing papers by the students at Chu Văn An High School It also pointed out some likely causes of these errors The most significant outcome of the study is that it gives an awareness of students‟ difficulties in using cohesive devices to create their own writing texts Thus, it can benefit both teachers and students majoring in English in general and those at Chu Văn An High School in particular With the aim of finding out common errors in the use of cohesive ties and their causes, the author has taken the theory of error analysis by different well known error analysts as Corder (1967, 1971) and Richard (1971), Gass & Selinker (2008) as a base to conduct the research The classification of cohesion by Halliday and Hasan (1976) was used as the framework of the study In order to achieve the objectives stated in the research, both error analysis approach and quantitative research methodology were utilized Although cohesion is very important in writing, the study has pointed out a number of errors when the students use cohesive devices in writing The findings showed that the students‟ most frequent errors were involved in references which accounted for more than half of the total errors (55.9%), followed by errors in conjunctions (22.8%) and collocation (21.2%) Surprisingly, no error was found in substitution, ellipsis and reiteration The errors seem to root from the interference of the mother tongue and between the items in the system of the target language (namely inter-lingual and intra-lingual source) However, the former is believed to contribute the greater proportion Besides, the mix of the two sources also poses an effect on the students‟committing errors, especially those in the use of lexical ties The findings of common cohesive errors as well as their sources are really beneficial for the teachers and the students of English at Chu Văn An High School because the teachers can know which of the cohesive devices the students need help and what sort of help they need for each type of the errors From the results of the research, error correction techniques as well as pedagogical implications for teaching cohesion were given to prevent and eliminate errors in the use of cohesive devices, both of which, finally, help the students achieve cohesion in their writings and contributing to developing the students‟ writing skill 43 Limitations The study merely investigates the errors in the use of cohesive devices in the writing by a small number of pre-intermediate students in Chu Văn An High School Apart from that, some of the important factors affecting students‟ writing skills such as their psychological factors, materials used, types of genre have not been dealt with In order to have a full picture of the learning problems of the learners of English, more studies should be conducted on the field as well as learners at different proficiency levels and errors Suggestions for further studies Together with the findings, some suggestions for error correction and prevention are raised Self-correction should be encouraged; however, direct correction is sometimes necessary, especially for lexical cohesive errors Preventing the errors needs language learning habit gradually formed since a new item is taught Other language skills are integrated in writing lessons, exercises are varied - these factors help to motivate students, raise their awareness on the item For the inter-lingual errors, the contrastive technique should be adopted at first to make the difference between English and Vietnamese visible to students, then drills on correct use are applied Written text models are recommended so that students can appreciate the use of cohesive ties in a text, be exposed to different cohesive ties and their use in contexts Drills, provided they are meaningful and communicative, are good remedy for these errors 44 REFERENCES Alice Oshima and Ann Hogue Writing Academic English.Paper Back 1998 Bacha, N.S and E.A.S Hanania Difficulty in Learning and Effectiveness of Teaching Transitional Words: A study on Arabic-speaking university students TESOL Quarterly Vol.14 1980 Bander, R G From sentence to paragraph Hoolt, Rinehart and Winston 1980 Bertono, S Language Acquisition and Learnability CUP 2001 Broadhead, G.J and J.A Berlin Twelve steps to using generative sentences and sentence combining in the composition classroom College Composition and Communication Vol 32 1981 Bloom, L Readings in Language Development John Wiley and Sons 1976 Boon, C.K Error Analysis and Composition Marking Guidelines Vol No June 1985 Brown, J.D & Rodgers, T S Doing Second Language Research OUP 2002 Brown, H D Principles of Language 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(Margaret Sanger) Nominal substitution -The Polar Bear is unaware Of cold that cuts me through: For why? He has a coat of hair I wish I had one too (Belloc, 1896) Verbal substitution A: Have the children gone to sleep? B: They must have done Clausal substitution -A: Teenagers‟ behavior is getting worse and worse B: I think so Reiterator John caught a snake underneath a bucket Repetition: The snake is going to suffocate if it stays there very long Synonym: The serpent is going to suffocate if he does not let it go Hyperonym (superordinate: The animal is going to suffocate if he does not let it go General words: The poor thing is going to suffocate if he does not let it go I APPENDIX B SAMPLES OF COHESIVE ERRORS IN THE STUDENTS‟ WRITING - Hanoi is largest city in my country - One of problems facing Vietnam is now environment pollution - Last year, I went to visit Hue with my parents City attracts thousands of tourists from everywhere in world every year… Every thing in ancient capital city seems quite, peaceful and very beautiful - Hanoi is a capital of Vietnam - Last year I went to Hue with my parents A city attracts thousands of tourists from everywhere in the world… Everything in an ancient capital city seems quite, peaceful and very beautiful - … First thing I will is that… - I tried last time to unlock the door - She was best in the class - Everybody can save energy by travelling by bike or public transports, turning off the lights when not necessary, and reusing bottles, cans and waste paper This activities are very meaningful for the environment - That people are my best friends - In the city there are a lot of high buildings than in the country - Living in the country is very quiet and healthy than in the city - … My grandmother lived alone The cat was the dearest one of her - … Fortunately, the passenger sitting next to me gave back the wallet of my - … He knew all information of us… - … We felt more happy when we came home … - … The ground was even more dirty… - ….He became more good… -… The passenger realized that the wallet on the chair was not her‟s -… I bought my father a history book It‟s content is about the lives of thirteen Kings -… He told me that the wallet was him… - My father gave me a bunch of flower… She told me… - My grandmother was sick, so I bought him drugs… - I think if a single woman live abroad, they will face many problems II - I went to a book shop in Hue capital city Here sold a lot of interesting books talking about thirteen “Nguyễn” dynasties - My family had prepared a party when we got home There had banana, moon cakes… - Despite we had some problems, we had a wonderful time together - Although we were tired after the trip, but all of us felt happy -According to the weather forecast, there was a great storm But we didn‟t delay our trip to Sầm Sơn beach - He worked hard all his life Despite of this, he couldn‟t buy a small house in Hanoi - We felt tired when we arrived at our house In spite this, we tried to sing some songs - He worked hard all his life Despite of this, he couldn‟t buy a small house in Hanoi - We felt tired when we arrived at our house In spite this, we tried to sing some songs - Many natural resources are exhausted So that we should save them by turning off electric appliances when not necessary, reusing or recycling plastic bags, cans and waste paper - The result of this, the environment is seriously polluted - They fell in love and went to many places together Consequence of that, they decided to escape on board - Because it rained all day, so we did nothing apart from staying in the hotel and watching TV - Because of people cut down trees, droughts and floods often happen - She is the best in the class In addition to she is very beautiful and kind - The government should ban destroying forests In addition to, it is necessary to grow trees so that we can protect the green lung of the earth - There are many tall buildings in the city - Scientists say that quick food is not good for your health - After eating breakfast, he drove a bike to the field to breath the fresh air in the countryside III APPENDIX C SAMPLES OF COHESION EXERCISES -In the following passage about gold, replace the key noun “gold” with an appropriate pronoun when necessary Gold, a precious metal, is prized for two important characteristics First of all, gold has a lustrous beauty that is resistant to corrosion Therefore, gold is suitable for jewelry, coins, and ornamental purposes Gold never needs to be polished and will remain beautiful forever… - Rewrite the following sentences so that they not change the meaning of the original sentences, using the given words We went out in spite of the heavy rain →Although He did not his homework, so he got a bad mark → Because of………………………………………………………………… - Join each pair of sentences, using suitable conjunctions I used a torch light It was very dark by then She was late She had missed the bus We had waited for you for a long time You did not turn up at all - Complete the sentences using the given words -He/blame/ me/ break/ bike → He blamed me for having broken his bike - Rewrite sentences without changing their original meanings, using the given words in bracket -She is tired of doing the same thing every day (fed) → She is fed up with doing the same thing every day IV APPENDIX D WRITING TASKS The environment is now seriously polluted What should you to protect the environment? Write a passage from 100 to 150 words, using the following suggestions How can we…  save energy?  reduce air pollution?  keep the water clean?  reduce the amount of garbage we produce?  keep the surroundings clean? … Write a paragraph (from 100 to 150 words) about your memorable holiday Answer the questions:  When was your holiday?  Where did you go? With whom?  What did you do? With whom?  What was special about the holiday? Compare life in the city and life in the country Where would you like to live in? Write a passage from 100 to 150 words V ... WRITING BY THE STUDENTS AT CHU VĂN AN HIGH SCHOOL, THÁI NGUYÊN PROVINCE Phân tích lỗi cách sử dụng phương tiện liên kết văn viết học sinh trường THPT Chu Văn An tỉnh Thái Nguyên M.A MINOR PROGRAMME... transfer forms and meanings, and the distribution of forms and meanings of their native language and culture to the foreign language and culture” (1957:1) Beardsmore (1982) suggests that many... by the students at Chu Văn An high school in Thái Nguyên province The investigation and analyses have been based on the data in 150 compositions by 50 students in grade 10 A4 and 10 A5 in the school,