THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines PURSUING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS IN TEACHING THE BASIC ENGLISH COURSE AT THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY (TNU) SYSTEM 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: LUU THI HUONG (JULIA) December 2014 i THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE CHAPTER I 5 THE PROBLEM 5 Introduction 5 Statement of the Problem 12 Scope, Delimitation and Limitation 13 Significance of the Study 14 REVIEW OF LITERATURE 17 Conceptual Literature 17 Research Literature 33 Synthesis 39 Theoretical Framework 43 Conceptual Framework 46 Hypothesis 48 Definition of Terms 48 RESEARCH METHOD 51 Research Design 51 Subjects of the Study 52 Data Gathering Instrument 53 Data Gathering Procedure 54 Statistical Treatment of Data 56 PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA 57 SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 88 Summary 88 Findings 90 Conclusion 99 Recommendations 101 BIBLIOGRAPHY 102 APPENDICES 109 CURRICULUMN VITAE 159 i THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines LIST OF TABLES Table Title Page Table 1 53 Distribution of Sample Respondents 53 Table 2 58 Teachers’ Respondents Awareness of the Seven Functions of the English language 58 Table 3 59 Seven Functions of the English Language according to the 59 Degree of Importance 59 Table 4 62 Frequency of Students’ Use Based on the seven functions of English language in Reading 62 Table 5 65 Frequency of Students’ Use based on the seven functions of English language in Writing 65 Table 6 68 Level of students reading performance in the seven functions of language. .68 Table 7 69 Level of students writing performance in the seven functions of language 69 Table 8 71 Student's Language Performance in Reading and Writing 71 Teaching the Basic English Course based on the seven functions of language in Reading 73 Table 9(b) 73 ii THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines Teaching the Basic English Course based on the seven functions of language in Writing 73 Table 10 (a) 74 Frequency of Students’ Use based on seven functions of English language. 74 Table 10 (b) 75 List of seven functions of the English language in reading and writing and their frequency of use according to the respondents 75 Table 11(a) 77 Degree of Importance in Reading based on seven functions of language 77 Table 11(b) 77 Degree of Importance in Writing based on seven functions of language 77 Table 12 79 Comparison of the Assessment of Teachers and Students’ Performance in Reading and Writing 79 Table 13 81 Bases in the design of functional activities for students and teachers 81 LIST OF FIGURES iii THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines iv THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM Introduction The increasing use of the English language globally has had a large impact on many other languages, leading to language shift and even language death, and to claims of linguistic imperialism. English itself has become more open to language shift as multiple regional varieties feed back into the language as a whole. English is a global language. People hear it on television by politicians from all over the world and whenever people travel, they see English sign and advertisement. A language achieves a genuinely global status when it develops a special role that is recognized in every country. These points add to the complexity of the present day world situation, but they do not alter the fundamental point. Because of the three pronged development of first language, second language, and foreign language speakers, it is inevitable that a global language will eventually come to be used by more people than any other language. English has already reached this stage. English is the dominant business language and it has become almost a necessity for people to speak English if they are to enter a global 5 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines workforce. Research from all over the world shows that cross-border business communication is most often conducted in English. Its importance in the global market place therefore cannot be understated, learning English really can change people’s life. During the last decades, the world has witnessed lots of cultural, social, political, economical and technological changes. In this new, global world, people have had to meet the needs brought about by these changes in order to keep up with them. One of the most important needs is language learning. By the help of the developments in technology and science, people all over the world have to communicate with people from other countries, which require the learning of different foreign languages. The most commonly used language in the world is English. In fact English is known as a key to open the door into bustling world of rapid changes and development. Everyday an increasing number of people are trying to learn English for different purposes with the hope that they can use it effectively. One of the main goals of language teachers is to provide students with the tools to be effective communicators in the teaching language. Often when students are assigned projects and assignments their lack of practical tools to produce the actual language becomes evident. In these cases, students might very well have the necessary resources to 6 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines accomplish the task, but teachers might need to consider a communicative approach to teaching the language, focusing on the functions of language, to properly equip students to complete assigned tasks. Those functions are namely: Instrumental showing the way an individual satisfies the need by asking for something like “May I use your phone?”; Regulatory stating controlling another’s behavior such as the teacher requests students “stand up!”; Interactional used for maintaining interpersonal like wishing a friend a merry Christmas; Personal is considered as where one talks about oneself “I feel so happy today”; Heuristic is used to find out the world in general, for example: “is there any solution for environment pollution?”; Imaginative focuses on where one talks about one’s imagination like telling stories and jokes; Representational refers to seeking and giving varied types of information like “ How many survivors were there in the terrorism in France last week?”. Many people believe it’s important to have knowledge on the functions of language for specific purposes. Whether they are apologizing, expressing a wish or asking permission, they use language in order to fulfill that purpose. Each purpose can be known as a language function. Savignon (1983) describes a language function as the use to which language is put, the purpose of an utterance rather than the particular grammatical form an utterance takes. By using this idea to structure 7 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines teaching, the instructional focus becomes less about form and more about the meaning of an utterance. In this way, students use the language in order to fulfill a specific purpose, therefore making their speech more meaningful. The basic communication goals can be expressed in terms of situations, functions and topics. It is up to the teacher to plan the situations within which students will be able to use their language for a purpose in the classroom context. By creating a situation the teacher is providing the necessary context students need to use the language for a function. Language functions have two categories: micro functions which refer to the specific individual use and macro functions which serve more overall aims according to Finch (1998). Micro functions consist of seven functions such as physiological function in terms of releasing physical and nervous energy, phatic function for sociability, recording function, identifying function, reasoning function, communicating function, and pleasure function. Macro functions refer to the ideational function, interpersonal function, poetic function, and textual function. In the study of language, it is of significant importance that students develop their language skills. These language skills are vital tools for complete communication. These are reading, writing, listening and speaking. 8 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Socialist Republic of Vietnam BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY Republic of the Philippines Writing is one among the basic skills in learning a language. It is both social and cognitive process. Students view writing as a necessity. They are aware that this can improve thinking as well. Students find writing as most difficult among the language skills because of its complexity. Their writing skill is one way to know their academic success or performance and it is also a basic requirement to participate in any endeavor in their personal life as well as in the global economy. The basic level of writing required by colleges or universities for incoming students who want to study is not met since there are large number of adolescent graduates from high school who are not equipped with the basic literacy skills needed like lacking the ability to write to meet the growing demands of the college curriculum. Students who have poor writing skills are also referred to as low performing writer. They are those students whose writing skills do not meet the adequate demands of the class. Writing difficulties like all other learning problems can be frustrating on the part of the students’ education and self -esteem. A student who has problem in writing would experience interference in his learning. He is unmotivated and lacks enthusiasm to write because of his inadequacy of the skill. 9 [...]... knowing of few basic words and phrases in the students’ language; speaking slowly; teaching of all four skills; repeating commands; and chill, relax, be calm, and avoiding stress as well as building a strong rapport with students (busy teacher, org/ 4793-top -8- tips –on- teaching- absolute- beginners html) English Language Functions Language is a system of arbitrary symbols used by members of a society... expect that an assessment will be completely authentic In the evaluation of reading performance, students must meet standards or criteria The following are the features of students who exceed standards: a strong comprehension of texts beyond their grade level is demonstrated; word meanings and shades of meaning using contextual support are identified by students; knowledge of synonyms and antonyms to make... Games can also serve as ways to review and practice structures A process in which learners develop their receptive and expressive language skills is called language enrichment It provides learners with strong foundational skills that benefit the acquisition of higher level literacy skills (www speech and language where house Com/ what –is-htm) Hands-on active learning is an opportunity that is offered