THE FIRST YEAR – LANGUAGE STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN PARAGRAPH WRITING AND SOME APPROPRIATE STRATEGIES TO SOLVE THESE PROBLEMS AT THE NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY

Hanoi National University-College of Foreign Languages
Post- graduate studies department
Bïi ThÞ Ph¬ng Lan
The first year – language students’ difficulties in paragraph
Writing and some appropriate strategies to solve these
problems at the National Economics University
M.A minor Thesis
Field: English Language Teaching Methodology.
Course: 13
Supervisor: Lª ThÕ NghiÖp, MA

Hanoi, 2007
Abstract
Writing is a very important skill in teaching and learning English especially
paragraph writing. But for the first – year language students at National Economics
University (NEU), they still get many difficulties in paragraph writing. Understanding their
problems, I decided to do a research on teaching paragraph writing with the hope that I can
provide the teachers of English at NEW with the real situation about their students’
difficulties.
In the study, I try to find out the students’ common errors in language, idea
organization, and content. With these findings, I will recommend the best teaching
methodology to help teachers of English deal with their students’ problems like using
pictures and using readings with various activities such as working with the text using
copying, working with the text to examine cohesive links, working with the text to combine
sentence, etc. Moreover, I will mentions to teachers’ correction. How to deal with students’
errors? Which errors teachers should correct? When to correct? I myself also will design a
check - list of paragraph writing for students can check by themselves or check for their
partners.
With my findings and my suggestions for teaching paragraph writing for the first year
language students at NEW, I hope that the teachers of English at NEW will have a basic
background of students to apply a suitable way of teaching in order help them to overcome

their problems.


Table of contents
Page
Introduction
1. Rational (Introduction, NEU students’ difficulties, and Conclusion) 6
2. Objectives of the study 9
3. Scope of study 9
4. Method of the study 10
5. Contents of study 10
2
The Body
Chapter I: Literature review
I.1 Teaching writing
I.1.1. Definitions of writing 12
I.1.2. The reasons for teaching writing 13
I.1.3. Approaches to writing teaching 13
I.1.4. Principles of teaching writing 15
I.2. Teaching paragraph writing
I.2.1. Definition of Paragraph 17
I.2.2. Classifications of paragraph 18
I.2.3. Writing Process of paragraph 20
Chapter II: Methodology
II.1. Subjects. 23
II.2. Description of the course of English for writing paragraph
at NEU 23
II.3. Data collection 24
Chapter III: Data analysis and discussions
III.1. Questionnaire Survey Analysis

III.1.1. Students’ background and attitude 27
III.1.2. General Expectation of the course 29
III.1.3. The Choice on teaching methodology 32
III.2. Errors analysis of writing samples
III.2.1. Errors in the paragraph content 38
III.2.2. Errors in ideas organization 40
III.2.3. Errors in language 41
Chapter IV: Implications for teaching strategies and some
suggested activities and exercises
IV.1. Using pictures to teach paragraph writing 45
(Reasons, strategies for using pictures, suggested activities and exercises)
IV.2. Using readings to teach paragraph writing 53
(Reasons, strategies for using pictures, suggested activities and exercises)
IV.3. Correcting errors 57
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Conclusions
Summary of the study 62
Recommendations for further research 63
Bibliography 64
Appendices
Appendix1: Questionnaires for students 66
Appendix 2: Error analysis in students’ writing papers 69
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor Mr. Le The Nghiep who
has enthusiastically helped and encouraged me during the period of writing this research
paper. Without his experienced guidance, valuable comments and tireless help, I cannot
complete the study on time.
My gratitude also go to all of the instructors in my MA. course at the Post-Graduate
Studies, College of Foreign Languages, Hanoi National University. With their precious and
professional lectures and tutoring, I can understand difficult basic concepts related to English

teaching methodology,
I am also grateful to all my friends and colleagues and my beloved family, who gave
me useful advice on writing process.
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Finally, I wish to acknowledge the kind help of the first year language students at
NEU who helped me to collect data, and their valuable support for finishing the study.
Hanoi December, 2007
Bui Thi Phuong Lan
List of Abbreviations
NEU: National Economics University
ESP: English Specific Purpose
M.A: Master of Arts
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Introduction
1. RATIONALE
1.1. Introduction
The goal of teaching and learning foreign languages is providing the learners with a
means of communication or in other words, improving the communicative competence for
learners. To acquire the communicative competence, four language skills (reading, speaking,
listening and writing) are taught regularly at schools and universities, among which writing
skill is very important because it is a productive skill. It is also because of the fact that
besides speaking, people frequently have to communicate with each other in writing.
Moreover, writing helps learners learn other skills better. “First, writing reinforces the
grammatical structures, idioms, and vocabulary that we have been teaching our students.
Second, when they write, they have a chance to be adventurous with the language, to go
beyond what they have just learned to say, to take risks. Third, when students write, they
necessarily become very involved with the new language; the effort to express ideas and
constant use of eye, hand and brain is the unique way of expressing their idea. They discover
a real need for finding the right word and the right sentence. The close relationship between
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writing and thinking makes writing a valuable part of any language courses” (Raimes, 1938:
3).
Due to the importance of productive skills, the course for the students at NEU pays
much attention to writing.
At NEU, paragraph writing is conducted for the first-year language students because
it is one of the fundamental and basic writing skills. Paragraph writing is the background for
students to learn other writing skills in the next terms. For example, they will learn to write
business letters, business e-mails, and contracts.
1.2. NEU students’ difficulties in paragraph writing
It is the fact that students at NEU in general and the first-year language students in
particular are very weak at paragraph writing. There are some reasons why English major
students face a number of problems when studying paragraph writing. First, most students
were not familiar with paragraph writing. When they were at high school, they only practiced
writing at a very low level like sentence-building, sentence-rewriting. Second, they just got
acquainted with very informal writing styles like close-letters and close-e-mails, in the first
semester. So when they write a paragraph, they make many mistakes of vocabulary,
grammar, organization as well as the way of idea expression.
As revealed in the questionnaire, each student has his own difficulties. But the most
serious ones are limitations of English vocabulary and grammar, weakness in expressing
ideas and using linking words.
The students’ paragraph writing revealed that students always make vocabulary and
grammatical mistakes. They use the wrong words when they write a paragraph because of
their misunderstanding the meaning of words so they face a lot of confusion in vocabulary
use. A student wrote: “My most difficulty in paragraph writing is to choose the right words”.
Obviously, mastering the usage of English vocabulary and structures is very difficult for
every student, so a new and appropriate teaching strategy needs applying soon in order to
help students enhance their knowledge of language.
Weakness in expressing ideas is also a big problem for the students. Students get
accustomed to the way of Vietnamese thought, so their ideas come out indirectly and
lengthily. They do not focus on the main point of the problem, they write a lot but the

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sentences are not connected, so their writings are vague and illogical. The students
themselves feel very difficult to write a good paragraph in English.
Moreover, linking words cause some difficulties for students. As we all know, linking
words play an essential part in writing because they are used to link the ideas in paragraph to
make the writing transparent and understandable. Without linking words, the writing is
confusing and illogical because the ideas in the paragraph are unconnected together. And
without using linking words such as and, but, however, although, etc., the students cannot
compose a paragraph logically and clearly.
Last but not least, there are students who feel it very difficult to make a good topic
sentence. They cannot write a sentence which includes all the ideas they want to mention
later. So showing them the best way to write a topic sentence is also important element in
teaching paragraph writing because the writing is good or bad depends a lot on the topic
sentence.
1.3. Conclusion
Because of those difficulties, teaching paragraph writing is really a challenge. What
the teacher should do now is to develop effective teaching strategies that help students work
out the way of writing a paragraph and help them avoid mistakes. It is a big problem for
teachers of English at NEU.
To find the best answer, I would like to search for the common errors and the causes
of those errors that the students are likely to make. After that I recommend some appropriate
teaching strategies and useful exercises in my study with the hope that students at NEU can
only avoid their errors in writing paragraph but also improve their paragraph writing skill.
2. Objectives of the study
To be aware of the importance of paragraph writing and the weakness of
students at NEU in paragraph writing, I myself, a teacher of English at NEU want to
contribute a little part to improving students’ writing skill by studying the issues related to
the ineffectiveness in teaching paragraph writing at NEU.
The following questions are given to find out the students’ difficulties in paragraph
writing. Firstly, the study will find out the common errors that students are used to make,

students’ background and students’ recommendations though the students’ compositions and
the questionnaires. Secondly, based on data analysis and the students’ background some
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appropriate strategies in teaching paragraph writing and some kinds of exercises are
recommended in order to help the students overcome their difficulties in paragraph writing.
And research questions of the study are:
- How important is the paragraph writing for students at NEU?
- What are common errors made by students in writing English paragraphs?
- What are the causes of the common errors?
- What are effective strategies for teaching writing English paragraphs?
3. Scope of The study
The study is about teaching paragraph writing for students at NEU, but due to the
limited scope and time, it is confined to finding out the students’ errors in paragraph writing
and suggesting some new teaching strategies to solve the students’ problems.
In the study, the author tries to find out the errors derived from writing tasks of the
first year language students at NEU. From these errors, the writer investigates the causes of
those problems before giving solutions to them as well. The focus will be placed on the form
of English such as grammatical, lexical errors and other errors related to paragraph writing in
order to help students learn how to write a paragraph well.
4. Method of the study
In this study, the writer chooses the quantitative research by using the students’
compositions as a technique of eliciting data for the analysis and statistical counting. The
writer will collect the students’ writing tasks to analyze the most typical errors that students
make. And the analysis of questionnaires information is also conducted to seek students’
background information, their difficulties, and their evaluation of effectiveness when the
teacher applies different teaching methods. On the basis of the data analysis, the writer will
has the right view on the students’ difficulties in writing paragraph and basing on their
difficulties provide some appropriate teaching strategies and exercises.
5. Contents of the study
There are three main parts in the study. The first one is introduction, the second is the

body and the last one is conclusion. And in each part, the issues related to the study are
included.
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The study starts with an introduction that gives an overview of teaching paragraph
writing, the reason why the issue is chosen for research and the way to conduct the research.
After introduction, there are three chapters presenting the study in detail as the main part of
the research.
In chapter one, literature review related to teaching paragraph writing is conducted in
order to help students avoid errors of style in their writing; the difference between written and
spoken texts and approaches in teaching English writing are presented. Besides, writing
paragraph is carefully analyzed based on some theories to help students understand more
about the classifications of paragraph, the process of paragraph writing. In chapter two, the
method of the study is presented. It includes the careful descriptions of subjects, sampling,
and instrument and data collection. The last chapter presents data analysis and discussions. In
this part, questionnaires and writing samples collected from students are analyzed to find out
students’ typical errors and their causes in order to recommend effective strategies for
teaching paragraph writing at NEU.
Finally, the study closes with a conclusion, which summarizes the whole study issue,
and provides suggestions for further study.
Chapter I
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Literature review
I.1.Teaching Writing.
I.1.1. Researchers’ opinions about writing.
There are various opinions of writing given by different researchers. Each one has
their own idea about writing.
Tribble (1996: 3) considers writing as language skill involving not just a graphic
representation of speech, but the development and presentation of though in a structured way.
But Byrne (1988: 1) considers writing as the act of forming graphic symbol only such
as letters or combination of letters.

Besides, Sokolik (2003:88) defined writing as a physical and mental act. It means that
writing requires writers to commit words or ideas and to convent ideas, think about how to
express them, and organize them into statements and paragraphs. She also considers writing
is a process and product, and writing aims at expressing and impressing. The writers have to
generate ideas, organize, draft, edit, read, re-read to produce a product-a paragraph, an essay
or a report and writers try to express their ideas, feeling to impress their readers in certain
ways
Writing involves many different aspects. According to Roger, G, D. Phillips, and S.
Walters (1995: 113), writing involves seven aspects. They are handwriting, spelling,
punctuation, sentence construction, organizing a text and paragraphing, text cohesion and
style. All aspects are carefully considered by any writers.
I.1.2. The reason for teaching writing
According to Harmer, J, (1998: 79), teaching writing to students of English include
some reasons as follows.
Firstly, it is reinforcement. Most of students gain great benefits from seeing the
written language especially the visual demonstration of language construction is valuable for
both their understanding and committing the new language to their memory. So it is very
useful for them to write sentences using new language after they have just studied it.
Secondly, language development is also a reason for teaching writing. It seems that
the actual process of writing helps students to learn language better. The highest level of
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writing skill involves critical thinking. To deal with their mental activities, students have to
construct proper written texts using all their learning experience.
Thirdly, the most important reason for teaching writing is that it is a basic productive
language skill. Obviously, students need to know how to write a letter, how to write a report,
etc. Therefore, they need to know some writings’ conventions such as punctuation, paragraph
construction, forms of paragraph.
I.1.3. Approaches to writing teaching
In the field of writing, product and process approaches are the most popular.
I.1.3.1. Product approach .

Product approach is a largely “prescriptive and product-centered” way of teaching
writing (Applebee, 1986).
Product approach pays much attention to the final outcome of a writing process and
supposes that students need to produce only one writing version of the task (Adapted from
Huong, T.T, Minh N.T.T.etal, 2007: 57).
In general, product approach focuses on the end result of the learning process - what
it is that the learner is expected to be able to do as a fluent and competent user of language.
With this approach, the favorite class activities are engaged in imitating, copying, and
transforming models of correct language.
Steel (2002) provides four steps as a model for this approach:
Stage 1: Students study a model text and mimic its highlighted features.
Stage 2: Students are involved in controlled practice of the highlighted features,
usually in isolation.
Stage 3: Students work to organize ideas.
Stage 4: Students choose from a choice of comparable writing tasks. Individually,
they use the skills, structures and vocabulary they have been taught to produce the product to
assess their English progress.
I.1.3.2. Process approach
Process approach encourages students’ communication of ideas, feeling and
experiences (Stanley, 2002).
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Writing is now multistage process with teacher intervention as needed, and is
evaluated according to how well it fulfills the writer’s intentions (Reid, 1993).
Also teaching and learning writing focus on the process rather than the final product.
(Adapted from Huong, T.T, Minh N.T.T.etal, 2007: 58).
Process approach focuses more on the various class activities which are believed to
promote the development of skilled language use. With the process approach, writers are
encouraged to get their ideas on paper in any shape or form without worrying too much about
formal correctness. It also encourages collaborative group work among students as a way of
enhancing motivation and developing positive attitudes towards writing. Moreover, process

approach encourages the development of critical thinking skills, which help them to have
chances to challenge their social reality (Nunan, D, 1991: 87).
Roger, G, D. Phillips, and S. Walters (1995: 115) provide some guidelines for a process
writing activity.
Introduction: Teachers create a piece of writing for students to write by the way of
stimulating students’ interests through listening, speaking or reading activity. Then teacher
asks students to discuss the text type, definite the readers who are they and definite the
content that the writer is going to inform, etc.
Working with ideas: Using maps, picture or sketch, etc. to ask students brainstorm in
order to get ideas. After noting down, students need to decide which ideas can be kept and
which ones should be rejected and develop them before ordering them logically.
Planning: Teachers ask students to remind the typical feature and structure of the text
type they are writing, for example of paragraph: introduction to the topic with a topic
sentence, the supporting ideas for the topic sentence and the writer’s conclusion.
Drafting: The students start to write the first paragraph from their plans. They may
use dictionary to find words, grammatical structures if they need.
Editing: With the teacher comments, students correct and improve their first
paragraph by looking at content, language accuracy, organization, etc.
Re-writing: Students write out the final version and teachers have to decide to give
the final correction and responses to the students’ writings.
I.1.4 Principles of teaching writing
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There are several principles of writing. But according to Huong, T.T, Minh
N.T.T.etal, 2007: 58), teachers should consider some following principles when teaching
writing.
First of all, teachers should provide many opportunities for students to write.
Students’ writing skills just improve when they practice writing a lot. So, just asking students
to practice in writing lesson is not enough. Teacher can create writing tasks from listening,
reading and speaking lesions with different style of writing such as letter writing, e-mail
writing, etc.

Then, teachers should make their feedback to students helpful and meaningful by the
way of giving comments in detail at the end of students’ writings. And teachers’ comments
should help students to be independent writers. It means that teachers’ comments should help
students to correct their errors instead of correcting their errors.
Moreover, to evaluate students’ writings clearly and exactly, teachers should make
criteria for each item such as spelling, accuracy of vocabulary, use of cohesive devices, etc.
Besides, as often as possible teachers should create the right conditions for students’
generation of ideas, and teachers always consider themselves as a resource for information
and language when necessary.
Lastly, teachers should provide students communicative writing activities. With this
kind of activities, students write with the answer to the three questions: What they are
writing? (genre), for whom? (audience) and why (purpose). This is useful for students
because these writing activities in the class tend to resemble communicative writing tasks in
the real life.
I.2. Teaching paragraph writing
I.2.1. Definitions of Paragraph
There are various definitions of a paragraph but in general a paragraph can be
understood including topic sentence and supporting sentences (if necessary) to make the
main idea clearer.
According to Oxford Advanced Genie (2002), a paragraph is “a section of a piece of
writing, usually consisting of several sentences dealing with a single subject. The first
sentence of a paragraph starts on a new line”
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But Alice & H. Ann (1996: 2) think that “A paragraph is basic unit of organization in
writing in which a group of some related sentences develop one main idea. A paragraph can
be as short as one sentence or as long as ten sentences. The number of sentences is
unimportant. However, the paragraph should be long enough to develop the main idea
clearly”.
Besides, Feist (1996: 6) reckons that “A paragraph as a group of sentences that
develop a single idea. We write in paragraphs to make the organization of our ideas clear to

our reader. If you think about paragraph writing as a step-by-step process, it will help you
sort through the confusion. The first step of the writing process is to gather your ideas and
facts”.
In fact, besides elements of unity and coherence, a paragraph should have three main
parts. They are the topic sentence, supporting sentences and the concluding sentence.
What is a topic sentence? A topic sentence is usually the first sentence that
summarizes the main idea of a paragraph. It states the most important thing that you want to
say about your topic. In the other words, a topic sentence must be the controlling idea of the
paragraph (Feist, 1996: 17). To write a good topic sentence, writer should put it in a complete
sentence.
What are supporting sentences? They are the sentences those include the ideas related
to the topic (Feist, 1996: 23). Supporting sentences may develop various aspects of the topic
such as causes, effects, reasons, example, etc. All the supporting sentences are connected
together by cohesive devices. What is a concluding sentence? It is usually a single sentence.
But some paragraphs may require more than one concluding sentence. The conclusion is
usually placed at the end of paragraph. It summarizes or restates the main point you made.
I.2.2. Classifications of paragraph
According to Feist, there are four main kinds of paragraph: informative, descriptive,
narrative and persuasive.
I.2.2.1. Informative paragraph
An informative paragraph is a paragraph that informs information. For example,
“Write a paragraph to inform your friend about your missing a date” To write a good
informative paragraph, writers need to ask themselves three questions:
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1 What do I want to explain? (The answer is also the topic sentence)
2. What steps are needed to do this activity?
3. Who is my audience?
After determining the topic sentence by answering the question 1, students continue
with the answer to question 2 to give the support sentence in chronological order using signal
words such as: first, then, etc. in order to complement the topic sentence

Signal words for chronological order are:
First Then Before To start
Second Next After Finally
third While during In conclusion
(Adapted from Feist: 43)
I.2.2.2. Descriptive paragraph
A descriptive paragraph tells what something or someone is like. For example:
“Describe your house” or “Describe your car”. It helps readers see, feel, taste, smell and hear
the things being described. The topic sentence gives the overall impression. Supporting
sentences include specific details about the person or thing being described. According Feist,
students may be guided to write a descriptive paragraph following necessary steps.
1. Observe the subject of paragraph carefully. Try to give sensory details. That is the
thing you can see, touch, feel, and taste.
2. Write a topic sentence that gives your overall impression of the subject.
3. Write supporting sentences that contain vivid details.
I.2.2.3. Narrative paragraph.
A narrative paragraph is a paragraph that tells about something that happened. For
example, “Write a paragraph that tells what happened to you last weekend”. This kind of
paragraph is used in newspapers, stories, and novels. A narrative paragraph is usually
arranged in chronological order. It answers following questions:
1. Who was involved?
2. What happened?
3. Where did it happen?
4. When did it happen?
I.2.2.4. Persuasive paragraph:
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“Persuasive writing convinces the reader to take action or to support an idea” (Feist:
54). In this kind of paragraph, the main idea is your opinion on the topic. It is usually stated
in a topic sentence. The others support the opinion with reasons, evidence.
The tone of persuasive paragraph should be strong, but polite in oder to encourage the

reader to act.
I.2.3. Writing process of paragraph
To perfectly complete a paragraph, the writer needs to conduct four main stages. The
first is prewriting, the second is draft writing, the third is revising drafts and proofreading is
the last one.
There are different tables, charts or articles showing the paragraph writing process
like Ann Raimes, Alice & H. Ann. But in general, when a paragraph is written, the writer
needs to concern about some main steps that cannot be lacked. They are shown by the
following chart.

Start Here X
The graph of writing process
Proofreading
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In the pre-writing stage, writers need to choose and narrow a topic to a specific focus
then they generate ideas. That is called brainstorming. This process can get them to start the
writing more easily and quickly. It means that if they conduct the stage, it helps them save
time in later stages of the writing process.
After brainstorming, listing step is conducted. Students think about their topics and
make a list of any words and phrases coming into their mind on a paper. They think of as
many ideas as possible in a very short time. “Don’t stop free flow of ideas by judging or
editing them before you write them down” (Alice & H. Ann. 1996:5).
The next step is free writing. Students can write any ideas about their topics to find
out a specific focus. While students are writing, their minds will come out other related ideas
from the ones that they have. Writers should write the ideas down as many as possible
without worrying about any mistakes. When they run out of ideas, they need to reread their
paper and underline the main ideas that they think will develop. All of these activities are to
ensure that whether writers are looking for a narrow topic or not because to find out a narrow
topic is very important. It helps them to choose an appropriate and adequate idea to develop.
Draft writing stage is the actual writing stage. It is just an extension of the pre-

writing stage. The students transfer the information or issues they have gathered and
organized them into a simple paragraph. Until this stage, they may not be exactly certain
which direction their ideas will go. However, this stage allows them to settle on the subject
the paper will take.
Revising or editing is usually the most difficult stage of the writing process,
especially for beginning writers. Revising can include adding, deleting, re-arranging and
substituting words, sentences, and even making transparency. Even the most excellent
authors also need to spend the majority of their time on this stage of the writing process to
read again and again in order to find out and edit their writings better, that will be easy for
them to remember the mistakes they make and avoid them in the next writings.
It is important to gain proofreading skills for students as this improves a student’s
writing over time. Proof-reading stage is a chance for the writer to scan his or her paper for
mistakes in grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
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Chapter II
Methodology
II.1. Subjects:
Because of time limitation, it is impossible to carry out the study with all language
students who are in the first year in the population individually. So the data collection in the
study is derived from a subset of the population by means of cluster sample.
There are 43 students who are examined and questioned. They are at the same age of
19. They come from different parts of Vietnam, but most of them are from Northern
Vietnam. Their level of English proficiency is equal to intermediate that is shown by their
result of their English test in university entrance examination.
During the first part of the course, they themselves revealed that their attitude of
learning English is very positive and their English is rather good, especially their reading
skills. However, when they asked to write a paragraph, they still have different difficulties in
vocabulary, grammar, and content as well as idea organization.
II.2. The description of the course of English for paragraph writing.
NEU is one of the biggest universities in Vietnam and its Faculty of the Foreign

Languages was established in 1956. It used to open language program for non- major
students of English. But in 2006, a part from non-major programs, it started opening
language programs for major students of English. It means that the students in the study are
of the first course of major language program.
This is term 2 of the four- term- writing courses designed for the major students of the
Faculty of the Foreign Languages for Economics, whose level of English is intermediate.
They have completed period 1. In period 1, students learned sentence writing. The course in
period 2 takes students through the process of writing a paragraph, a group of sentences that
develop one central idea.
Learning writing a paragraph plays an essential part in writing task in general and is
an important step in writing an essay, which students will learn in the following section of
their major writing course. The course is fulfilled within in fifteen weeks. Each week,
students have three 45 minute writing periods. In total, the course of paragraph writing takes
45 periods.
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In 45 periods, the course covers all the parts of paragraph writing, including
brainstorming a topic, narrowing the topic, writing a simple paragraph outline, writing a
proper topic sentence, writing supporting sentences, writing concluding sentence, developing
the topic in logical order, unity, coherence, using writing facilities like logical order,
transition signals, etc.
Besides, Portfolio method is also used in the course. Teachers always let students
practice writing in context and guide them step by step through the writing process. They
provide students with abundant opportunities for writing practice and review.
II.3. Data collection procedures
The collection of data was carried out through the following stages.
Stage 1: Choosing 45 language students who are in the first year at NEU randomly to
conduct the survey of the study.
Stage 2: Asking the subjects to answer the questionnaire. The questionnaire content
is divided into three parts. The first one is about background information of the respondent’s
English study. The second one includes questions about the respondents’ general

expectations from the course and the last one contains all questions on the respondents’
preference for the teaching strategies for English paragraph writing. In the last one, it is
further divided into methods of presenting knowledge, methods of sampling model
paragraphs, methods of choosing exercises, and methods of showing and correcting errors in
students’ writing.
For the first and the second parts, most of the questions are multiple-choice and open-
ended questions but the questions in the third part mostly are scale questions that are ranged
according to high level, average level and low level of effectiveness. The multiple-choice
questions are chosen because they are easier to analyze while open-questions allow
respondents to clarify their ideas and expectations specifically. And the scale questions are
used for judging the effectiveness of different methods of teaching.
Stage 3: Asking the subjects to write a paragraph as the mid-term test to collect the
data. 43 exam papers of the achievement assessment are examined and the errors in the
answers for the paragraph writing are counted and categorized.
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The students’ sample paragraph was a 45-minute test and the subjects were required
to write about one of the following topics:
a. Why do many people go to Australia to study?
b. The best place to visit in Vietnam
c. Write a paragraph about a good or country to visit.
d. A famous person.
e. Eagle animal
There are several reasons to choose the topics. Firstly, through the task, the teacher
can realize whether his students improve their writing or not in order to have necessary
timely adjustment to help students overcome their difficulties. Secondly, students have
chance to choose the topic that they are interested in, so they can write the paragraph with
their own ideas basing on the topic they like, which helps the writer of the study to see the
typical errors of their writings.
The answers for this exam will be analyzed as writing samples and the errors in these
papers will be collected, categorized so that those errors can be explained and the teacher can

help students avoid them.
The errors analysis of the students’ writings samples, together with the survey will
build up the data necessary for the study so that the writer can suggest certain strategies for
teaching paragraph writing. The analysis of these data will be presented in the following
chapter.
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Chapter III
Data analysis and discussions
III.1.The Analysis Questionnaire Survey
III.1.1. Students’ background and attitude
There are 12 questions in the questionnaire (see a Appendix 1) being answered by 43
respondents; of which 4 respondents are male and 39 the others are female. The average of
years that they have been learning English is 10.2 years, ranging from 6 years to 14 years.
The figure in Chart 1 shows that most of them started learning English since they were at
lower secondary school but some started learning English sooner, from primary school.
During a long time of learning English, most students (90%) have finished the course
of sentence writing and letter writing, 69% students have learned e-mail writing and even
27% students have finished an essay writing-course. Besides, there are 20% students who
have taken the course of memos writing, report writing, and note taking, among which there
are 5% for memos writing, 8% for note taking and 7% for report writing. Remarkably, 60%
students have learned paragraph writing. But students revealed that it was not a course, it is
just some instructions of paragraph writing given by teacher.
Chart 1: Percentage of students having taken different
Writing courses
With a large number of students who have already learn some basic writing courses
(sentence writing, letter and email writing). Students are not likely to have many difficulties
in writing a paragraph.
There are some students who did not answer the question of their motivation in
learning English. But in general, the language students have high motivation of learning
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English, or in other words, they have a positive attitude toward studying English. 65.1 %
respondents choose English with the reason for having a good job in the future. And 18.6%
students decided to study English because of their passions. But there are only 5 out of 43
students, approximately 11.6%, who have a negative attitude toward studying English. They
think they had a wrong choice on learning English because after the first term they realize
that English is quite difficult for them. They hardly meet the course requirement. And 4.7
students have reasons of discovering the native speakers’ cultures. Chart 2 shows the
percentage of students with different views on learning English.
Chart 2: Percentage of students with different views on English
Obviously, most students learn English because of their future job’s requirement so that apart
from improving their language knowledge, teachers should provide them with social
knowledge by asking them to write some topics related to work.
III.1.2. General Expectation of the course
III.1.2.1. The necessity of the paragraph writing course
There are 100% students answering “Yes” when they are questioned “Do you wish to
learn paragraph writing at NEU?” But each one has his own motivation. 30.2% students
confirm it is necessary to study paragraph writing because it is very useful for their essay
writing and their thesis writing in the future. The same percentage of students (30.2%) think
paragraph writing is good for their future career. The proportion of students who think it is
essential to conduct a paragraph writing course because it is a background writing course for
any higher writing course accounts for 18.6%. 6.9% students think it is the first step in
learning English to improve other language skills. There are only 2.3% students confirming
that they need to learn paragraph writing because their English is still very poor.
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Chart 3: The necessity of the paragraph writing course
In short, the number of students who think paragraph writing is necessary for their
thesis writing and their future jobs are the same (30.2%). It shows that finding an appropriate
strategy of teaching paragraph writing to help students overcome their difficulties is an
urgent task.
III.1.2.2. Students’ expectation of the course contents

Chart 4 presents the necessity of the paragraph writing contents. In general, students
highly appreciate the elements in the given course contents. Most elements get more rates 4
or 5 (high scale) than 1 or 2 (low scale). There are 38 out of 43 (88.3%) students who think
they really need to improve their vocabulary and grammar after finishing the paragraph
writing course. The proportion of students who are aware of high necessity of the paragraph
writing process account for 62.7%, and only 4.6% think it is low-necessary. For idea
organization, 62.7% students choose highly necessary scale but no one chooses low
necessary scale. Besides, ESP knowledge also plays an important role in their writings with
69.7% students who choose highly-necessary scale and 51% others choose necessary-scale.
But there are only 23.2% students highly appreciate the using visual-aids while 51.1% think
it is necessary for paragraph writing.
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Chart 4: The necessity of the paragraph writing contents
In summary, most students highly appreciate the necessity of vocabulary, grammar
and ESP knowledge gaining after the paragraph writing course. It is understandable because
most of them revealed that they learn English for their future jobs.
III.1.2.3. Students’ difficulties
Although some of students have learned paragraph writing, most of them still face
many difficulties. All these difficulties are shown in Chart 5.
Chart 5: The students’ difficulties
It can be seen that the number of students who have difficulty in vocabulary and
grammar is the highest, accounting for 60.4%. Then, the difficulty in idea expressing is
48.8%. A part from that, using linking word is also difficult for the students in paragraph
writing. It accounts for 46.6%. While there is 18.6% students who feel it difficult to write a
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