Điều tra những lỗi thông thường trong sử dụng trợ động từ của sinh viên năm thứ nhất Khoa Công nghệ Thông tin - Đại học Thái Nguyên

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES




NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG HOA



AN INVESTIGATION INTO SOME COMMON ERRORS IN USING
AUXILIARY VERBS MADE BY FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS AT THE
FACULTY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY –
THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

Điều tra những lỗi thông thường trong sử dụng trợ động từ của sinh
viên năm thứ nhất Khoa Công nghệ thông tin – Đại học Thái Nguyên

M.A. MINOR THESIS



FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60 14 10

HA NOI - 2010


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES



NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG HOA



AN INVESTIGATION INTO SOME COMMON ERRORS IN USING
AUXILIARY VERBS MADE BY FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS AT THE
FACULTY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY –
THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

Điều tra những lỗi thông thường trong sử dụng trợ động từ của sinh viên
năm thứ nhất Khoa Công nghệ thông tin – Đại học Thái Nguyên


M.A. MINOR THESIS


FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60 14 10
SUPERVISOR: NGUYỄN MINH CƯỜNG, M. A.

HA NOI - 2010


iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGES
ACKNOWLEDGMENT …………………………………………………………… …… i
ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………… …………….……ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS …………………………………………………………… … iii
LIST OF TABLES …………………………………………………………………….……v
LIST OF FIGURES ……………………………………………………………………… vi
PART 1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Rationale of the study 1
1.2 Aims of the study. 2
1.3 Significance of the study 2
1.4 Scope of the study 3
1.5 Method of the study 3
1.6 Design of the study 4
PART 2 DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Auxiliary verbs in English 5
2.2.1 Types of auxiliary verbs 5
2.2.1 Functions of auxiliary verbs 7
2.2 Sources of errors in using auxiliary verbs 8
2.2.1 Performance errors…………………… 8
2.2.2 Imperfect learning……………………. 9
2.2.3 Overgeneralization…………………… 10
2.2.4 L1 transfer……………………………. 10

2.3 English learners’ common auxiliary errors 11
2.3.1 Omission of auxiliary 12
2.3.2 Mis-ordering auxiliary 13
2.3.3 Confusion of auxiliary 13
2.3.4 Wrong subject-verb agreement 13
2.3.5 Addition of auxiliary 13

iv

CHAPTER 2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research setting 15
3.2 Participants 15
3.3 Questionnaire design 16
3.4 Exercises 16
3.5 The interview 17
3.6 Data collection 17
CHAPTER 3 PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF THE DATA
4.1. Presentation of the data 18
4.1.1 The questionnaire for students 18
4.1.2 The questionnaire for teachers 23
4.1.3 The interview with teachers 24
4.1.4 The exercises for students 25
4.2. Discussion of the findings 31
4.2.1 Confusion of auxiliary 32
4.2.1Omission of auxiliary 33
4.2.2 Wrong subject-verb agreement 33
4.2.3 Mis-ordering auxiliary 34
4.2.5 Addition of auxiliary 34
4.3 Implications for teaching auxiliary verbs……………………………………………….35
4.3.1 What teachers should take into consideration? 36

4.3.2 Suggested techniques for corrective feedback 37
4.3.3 Suggested solutions for practice 38
5.4 Suggestions for further research 39
PART 3 CONCLUSION ………………………… ………………………….… …… 40
REFERENCES 41
APPENDICES



v

LIST OF TABLES

Tables
Titles
Pages
1

Summary of respondents’ answers
17
2
Summary of teachers’ answers
22
3
Students’ errors in exercise 1
26
4
Students’ errors in exercise 2
27

vi



LIST OF FIGURES



Figures
Titles
Pages
1
Students’ purposes in learning English
19
2
Frequency of errors
19
3

Students’ attitudes toward the role of auxiliary
20
4
Frequency of auxiliary errors in different types of sentences
21
5
Students’ methods of learning auxiliary
21
6
Students’ sources of errors in using English auxiliary
22
7
Ratio of errors in using auxiliary
26
8
Errors in negative sentences
29
9
Errors in affirmative sentences
30
10
Errors in interrogative sentences
30





1
PART 1

INTRODUCTION
1.1 Rationale of the study
English has been considered an international language and used in many fields for years. It
is, nowadays, widely recognized as the key language tool in the integrating process into the
world. As English is used widely in many countries over the world, it has become the most
popular means of communication.
Thai Nguyen University, being a mountainous university, receives students mainly from
the mountainous and rural areas where English is not improved considerably. Entering
university, these students have to study English as a compulsory subject right from the first
semester and they are evaluated with both communication skill and grammar knowledge.
At the same time, they do not have a good basis of English from high school; therefore,
they meet difficulty in learning the language and often make mistakes.
In the FIT, English is a compulsory subject and is paid much attention to as it is essential
in information and communication technology. As computer language is mainly English,
students in FIT need English for their studies. Although the course book chosen to teach
English to students in the FIT focuses on communicating skills, it is undeniable that
grammar makes communication smoother and more proper. Further more, to better one‟s
English, grammar is essentially important. In fact, many students spend a lot of time
studying grammar; however, the verb is the area which they have much difficulty
understanding and mastering.
It is widely agreed that to students grammatical use is of substantial significance in order to
perfect their language skills and it requires effective teaching and learning methods.
Though teaching grammar nowadays does not play a requisite role as it was in the past
because of communicating purpose, it is still important, especially at the elementary level
of learning the language where English is a compulsory subject.
Accordingly, there have been many studies in the area of students‟ grammatical errors. Lan
(2005), Houng (2005), Ngat (2003), and Hai (2003) conducted researches on grammatical
errors and among the errors they found were those in using auxiliaries.
As can be seen, the role of grammar in English is realized. While grammar is important,
the auxiliary is part of it. When learners learn the language, errors are unavoidable. The

studies on grammatical errors show a certain number of errors in auxiliary verbs. However,


2
not many have chosen the auxiliary as the main focus in their research. In addition, from
the writer‟s own experience in English teaching, she has observed a lot of difficulties in
students‟ using English auxiliary verbs. Therefore, she would like to conduct a study on
some common errors in using auxiliary verbs made by first-year students at Faculty of
Information Technology - Thai Nguyen University.
Hopefully, the research „An investigation into some common errors in using auxiliary
verbs made by first-year students at Faculty of Information Technology - Thai Nguyen
University‟ will be a contribution to better teaching and learning English in the FIT.
1.2 Aims of the study.
The aims of the study are:
- To investigate the types of errors in using auxiliary verbs made by first-year students in
The FIT-Thai Nguyen University.
- To find out how students learn and use auxiliary verbs.
- To find out the sources of the errors.
- To give suggestions and solutions for reducing the errors and teaching and learning
English more effectively.
To achieve the aims of the study, the following questions are proposed:
1. What types of errors in using auxiliary verbs do the students often make?
2. What are the sources of the errors in using auxiliary verbs?
3. What should be done to help them reduce the errors in using auxiliary verbs?
The research „An investigation into some common errors in using auxiliary verbs made by
first-year students at Faculty of Information Technology - Thai Nguyen University‟ was
conducted to find the answers to the questions above.
1.3 Significance of the study
During learners‟ process of learning English, errors are various and unavoidable. This
study‟s purpose is to investigate the types of errors in using auxiliary verbs of first-year

students in the FIT and the sources of the errors.
Corder (1967) observes that errors tell teachers of language where and when learners need
help, what sort of help learners need and what they should do to better acquire the
language.
Hopefully, the findings of the research on common errors in using auxiliary verbs by first-
year students in The FIT will give teachers better awareness of students‟ problems, what


3
they should do to help students reduce the errors and what change should they need in their
teaching methods to cover students‟ weak area.
1.4 Scope of the study
As elementary level is the basis and the starting point from which students understand and
improve the language, I would like to study what difficulties students often meet with in
this level. However, difficulties and errors are various; the study only focuses on the
common errors in using auxiliary verbs made by first-years students in the FIT. The
subjects of the research are the first-year IT students and the research is conducted at the
end of the first semester of the academic year 2009-2010. When the errors and sources of
errors are identified, solutions then can be given in hoping to improve the matter.
1.5 Method of the study
Although communicative skills receive much attention in teaching and learning English
nowadays, a large number of studies reveal that grammar helps to form proper English
utterances, which leads to agreeable communication. Therefore, there have been
researchers who share the same interest in the usefulness and necessity of grammar and
studied learners‟ grammatical errors. Bùi Thị Đào (2008) observes that 80% learners
commit such errors as misuse of structures, misordering and misuse of auxiliary verbs.
Sayuri Kusutani‟s (2006), Chandra Bose (2005), Lim (2006), Cowan (2008), Astasari
(2009), and María Mayo & María Lecumberri (2003). Therefore, this study would like to
have a focus on common errors in using English auxiliary made by first-year students.
The study uses the survey method as it is useful when a researcher wants to collect data on

phenomena that cannot be directly observed and it is used to assess attitudes and
characteristics of a wide range of subjects by sampling a population.
The subjects of the study were 6 teachers of English and 100 first-year students in the FIT
to investigate the common errors in using English auxiliary verbs. The study used
questionnaires, exercises and interviews to collect data.
The questionnaires were delivered to 100 students and 6 teachers of English in the FIT to
investigate their attitudes towards auxiliary teaching and learning, and their experience and
difficulties in learning and teaching auxiliaries.
Exercises were also designed and delivered to students to study the errors they would
make. There are 2 different exercises on the exercise sheet.


4
The interviews were conducted with teachers for their ideas about role of auxiliary verbs,
how they teach auxiliary verbs, what errors their students often make in using auxiliaries
and what they do to help their students.
The data collected were then analyzed and discussed.
1.6 Design of the study
The study consists of 3 part:
Part 1: Introduction. The chapter gives an overview of the study. It states what will be
studied, why and how the study should be done.
Part 2: Devlopment
Chapter 1: Literature review. The chapter reviews the theories and researches related to the
study.
Chapter 2: Research methodology. The chapter gives a brief view of the setting and
participants. It also states how the study is done and how data are collected.
Chapter 3: Presentation and discussion of the findings. The chapter presents and analyzes
the data obtained in the study. It also suggests solutions to help students reduce errors in
using auxiliaries.
Part 3: Conclusion

5
PART 2
DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Auxiliary verbs in English
2.1.1 Types of auxiliary verbs
The verb is an important part in a language and there are different ways to define it and
different ways to classify it.
In terms of function of items in the verb phrase, Quirk (1972) divides verbs into lexical
verbs and auxiliary verbs. Auxiliary verbs can be subdivided into primary and modal
auxiliaries.
Lexical: walk, write, play, have……
Auxiliary Primary: do, have, be
Modal: can, may, shall, will, could, might, should, would, must,

ought to, used to, dare, need
Thompson & Martinet (1986) divides verbs into auxiliary verbs and ordinary verbs. The
Auxiliary verbs can be subdivided into principal auxiliaries, modal auxiliaries and semi-
modal auxiliaries.
Auxiliary verbs Principal auxiliaries: do, have, be
Modal Auxiliaries: can, may, shall, will, could, might, should,
would, must, ought to
Semi-modal auxiliaries: used to, dare, need
Ordinary verbs: work, talk, play, go………………
A. Chandra Bose (2005) divides verbs into two types: main verbs and auxiliary verbs.
Main Transitive
Intransitive
Auxiliary Primary: be, do, have
Modal: will, ca, may, must, ought to, used, need, would
Cowan (2008) divides verbs into two types: main verbs and auxiliary verbs.
Main
Auxiliary Auxiliary: be, do, have
Modal auxiliary: will, can, may, must, should….
From the ways of verb classification presented above, it can be concluded that


6
- Linguistic researchers divide English verbs into two types.
- One of the two types is auxiliary verbs.
- The other type may be called main or lexical verbs, which contain the same verbs.
Ordinary verbs (as called by Thompson & Martinet, 1986) are one subdivision of this
type.
According to Cowan (2008), English auxiliary verbs are divided as follows:
Auxiliary verbs:
Be expresses action in progress. The action is indicated by the use of be and the main verb

in ing-form.
E.g. The old lady is writing a play.
The old lady was writing a play.
He is working in London at the moment.
Have expresses an action accomplished in the past but retaining current relevance. The
action is indicated by the use of auxiliary have and a past participle.
E.g. She has been to Australia.
I have been working since 2 p.m.
From the beginning of the semester John has read three novels.
Do
This subclass of auxiliary verbs contains only the verb do. It is used with a main verb to
form negative sentences, questions, imperatives sentences or to give contradiction.
E.g. Do you like cheese?
I do not like cheese.
Do not eat the cheese!
A: I‟m sure that he doesn‟t like her.
B: Yes, he does like her.
The auxiliary do is never used with any form of the verb be except in imperatives:
E.g. Don‟t be lazy!
Don‟t be ridiculous!
Modal auxiliary verbs: (also known as modal auxiliaries or just modals) express
permission, ability, obligation, possibility, necessity, or prediction. They include
can/could, may/might, shall/should, will/would, must, ought to. Modals may appear before
other auxiliary verbs and main verbs in bare-infinitive form.
E.g. You can have a sweet if you like.
You should have done it earlier.
A model can’t eat fattening food.


7

You ought to finish your homework.
The auxiliary do is never used with any form of the verb be except in imperatives:
E.g. Don‟t be lazy!
Don‟t be ridiculous!
Cowan (2008) defines auxiliary verbs as
…… always precede main verbs within a VP. Traditionally, auxiliaries have been called
helping verbs because they always appear together with a main verb and seem to refine
its meaning. Along with inflections on the main verb, they indicate whether the action of
the verb is in progress, repetitive or complete. This is called aspect. Tense, which is the
time that the action occurs (i.e., present, past or future) is indicated by the inflections on
the verbs, and on auxiliary verbs, or by modal auxiliary verbs like will.
(Cowan, 2008, p 21)
2.1.2 Functions of auxiliary verbs
As Cowan (2008) defines, auxiliary verbs help main verbs because they always appear
together with a main verb and seem to refine its meaning. They are used with other verbs
to form voice, tense, and mood. In English, auxiliary verbs mainly have grammatical
functions:
Tense: Auxiliaries precede a main verb to show tense.
E.g. The doctor is going home.
The doctor has gone home.
Aspect: Along with inflections on the main verb, they indicate whether the action of the
verb is in progress, repetitive or complete.
E.g. He’s been going to that health club.
I have talked to him about it.
They are singing a duet.
Voice: Only the auxiliary be performs this function. It is used with a past participle to form
the passive voice.
E.g. A new road is going to be built.
My bag is made of leather.
Negation: Auxiliaries take not (or n't) to form the negative, e.g. cannot (can‟t), will not

(won‟t), should not (shouldn‟t), etc.
E.g. It won’t rain tomorrow.
You shouldn’t eat too much chocolate.
In certain tenses, in questions, when a contracted auxiliary verb can be used, the position of
the negative particle n't moves from the main verb to the auxiliary:
E.g. He doesn‟t come from Italy.


8
Doesn‟t he come from Italy?
Interrogation
Auxiliaries invert to form questions:
E.g. He will come. Will he come?
The auxiliary do appears before the subject in sentences in simple present and past
tenses to help the main verb to form questions. This is called do insertion or do support.
E.g. He works in a factory. Does he work in a factory?
They went fishing yesterday afternoon. Did they go fishing yesterday afternoon?
Ellipsis
Verb phrase ellipsis deletes a verb phrase identical to a previous one with an auxiliary or
modal remaining.
E.g. I will go, but she will not.
John never sings in the kitchen, but Mary does.
John never sings in the kitchen, but Mary does in the shower.
Tag questions
Auxiliaries can be repeated at the end of a sentence, with negation added or removed, to
form a tag question. In the event that the sentence did not use an auxiliary verb, the
auxiliary do is used instead:
E.g. You will come, won't you?
You ate, didn't you?
You didn't eat, did you?

You know how to dance, don't you?
2.2 Sources of errors in using auxiliary verbs
Sources of errors refer to the factors that cause errors in learners‟ second language. Many
researches have been done on sources of grammatical errors and different types of sources
have been found and dealt with. According to A. Chandra Bose (2205), the sources of
errors are over-generalization, over-extension of target language rules, inter language
differences, mother tongue interferences, filter language interference, simplification of
errors, induced Errors, deficit learning. Ellis (1985) refers to sources of errors as
overgeneralization, simplification, fossilization and influence of mother tongue.
Since auxiliary errors belong to grammatical errors, the sources of grammatical errors can
be applied to auxiliary errors. Different researchers have different ways to classify sources


9
of errors but the errors can be contributed to performance and competence. Cowan (2008)
classifies sources of grammatical errors as:
2.2.1 Performance errors
English learners, as well as native English speakers, can make ungrammatical sentences
due to ignorance or carelessness of the grammatical rules. Cowan (2008) called this
performance errors. These errors are made during the performance of speaking.
E.g. If I were you, I won’t go out with him.
In the example, instead of using wouldn’t in the second clause to accord with were in an
unreal conditional sentence, the producer of the sentence used won’t. This may be caused
by a slip of the tongue between two types of conditionals that the producer had learnt.
In performance errors, carelessness is one of the major causes. When a speaker creates an
utterance in such psychological conditions as tense or excitement, slip of the tongue may
happen leading to errors in the utterance. These errors can be corrected when the speaker
pay attention to what s/he says. Cowan (2008) states that performance errors are probably
the smallest number of errors made by English language learners.
2.2.2 Imperfect learning

Very often, when an English learner has not mastered a rule or the restrictions that apply to
the rule, s/he can produce a grammatically incorrect sentence.
E.g. Do he go to school every day?
As we might expect, a large number of recorded errors by learners with elementary and
intermediate proficiency are a reflection of imperfect learning. When the learners are
learning a language, they develop through different stages. The imperfect learning errors as
in the example sentence is a common error and represents one stage of development in the
gradual process that English language learners make as they attempt to produce
grammatically correct yes/no questions. There are four stages in the sequences:
Stage 1: fragment or single word with rising intonation
E.g. Speak English?
Charles in house?
Stage 2: subject-verb order with rising intonation
E.g. He speak English?
Charles is in the house?
Stage 3: insertion of do at the beginning of the sentence


10
E.g. Do he speak English?
Does Charles is in the house?
Stage 4: base form in the main verb, inversion of subject and verb
E.g. Does he speak English?
Is Charles in the house?
The producer of this sentence has not mastered the rule for forming English yes/no
questions. The learner did remember to put an auxiliary verb do at the beginning of the
question to support the main verb. However, he used the auxiliary verb do instead of the
auxiliary verb do for a third person singular subject, which made the sentence
grammatically in correct. Grammatically correct, the sentence must be „Does he go to
school every day?‟ He has only advanced to the third stage in the developmental

sequences.
Currently, there seems to be a general acceptance of developmental sequences in L2
leaning, although some researchers, for example, Wong (2003) believes that instructions
may speed up the process of moving to the next stage. The existence of developmental
sequences does suggests that teachers should be patient when students seem to be stuck at
a specific stage and helping them to move on to the next stage.
2.2.3 Overgeneralization
Over generalization covers the instance when the learner creates a deviant structure which
is on the basis of his experience of other structure of the target language. Coder (1967:84)
says that these over generalization errors are produced on the basis of analogy and they are
inevitable process in the learning.
Cowan (2008) states that the error is very common for learners of different L1s. One may
easily make an incorrect utterance due to ignorance of the exception regarding the rule s/he
is applying to the sentence. This can happen because of lack of knowledge or experience of
the target language. Thus, a learner of elementary proficiency can readily applies the rules
of regular verbs in the past tense form to irregular verbs.
E.g. He played football and hurted his leg.
The speaker is in ignorance of the fact that the past form of hurt is also hurt, that is why he
added –ed to make it past form.
In short, overgeneralization occurs when learners try to apply the regular patterns and rules
of the target language that they have learnt to unknown sources of language in an attempt


11
to produce expressions of their own and the interlanguage continues to grow more and
more similar to the English grammar up to a certain level.

2.2.4 L1 transfer
Many linguistic researchers believe that interlanguage is often created by a second
language learner when applying the rule of their native language to the target language.

Claude Hagège (1999) observed that this happens to both children and adults. In adults it
is more obvious and increases continuously, as a monolingual person gets older and the
structures of his first language get stronger and impose themselves more and more on any
other language the adult wishes to learn. In contrast, as regards children, interference
features will not become permanent unless the child does not have sufficient exposure to
L2. If there is sufficient exposure, then instead of reaching a point where they can no
longer be corrected (as often happens with phonetics features), interference features can be
easily eliminated.
2.3 English learners’ common auxiliary errors
Although communicative skills receive much attention in teaching and learning English
nowadays, a large number of studies reveal that grammar helps to form proper English
utterances, which leads to agreeable communication. Therefore, there have been
researchers who share the same interest in the usefulness and necessity of grammar and
studied learners‟ grammatical errors. Bùi Thị Đào (2008) observes that 80% learners
commit such errors as misuse of structures, misordering and misuse of auxiliary verbs.
Sayuri Kusutani‟s (2006) study on Japanese learners‟ confusion of copula be found the
following types of auxiliary errors:
Auxiliary verb problem:
E.g. I was open the window.
We are invite letters to each other.
In the examples above, students put be before a main verb.
E.g. Daddy cooking in the kitchen.
In this example, the verb missing required is auxiliary be.
Besides the errors in auxiliary, Kusutani also found other errors concerning copula be.
Copula dropping:
E.g. I from Tokyo.


12
Subject-verb agreement:

E.g. Is you from Tokyo?
A. Chandra Bose (2005) studied on modal auxiliaries and found errors in word order.
Addition of be:
E.g. You are shall have a holiday tomorrow?
You am will have a holiday tomorrow?
Verb forms:
E.g. We might to obey the traffic rules.
Voice and tense:
E.g. We could have done it earlier.
Lim (2006) analyzed errors committed by second language learners in the acquisition of
English tenses, particularly the present continuous, to investigate learners' difficulties in
acquiring target language rules. One auxiliary error he found out was omission of
auxiliary.
E.g. He will going.
Cowan (2008) studied L2 learners‟ errors and he found the following errors in auxiliary:
confusion, omission and subject-verb agreement.
Astasari (2009) conducted a study on grammatical errors in students‟ narrative writing and
found types of errors concerning auxiliary: omission of auxiliary, misinformation of modal
auxiliary, addition of auxiliary, and misordering of modal auxiliary.
María Mayo & María Lecumberri (2003) observed that learners often committed omission
of auxiliary and subject-verb agreement errors.
Those studies, though done directly on auxiliary errors or on grammatical errors in
general, all found out learners‟ errors in using English auxiliary. The errors were called by
different names but bore similar characteristics. From the types of auxiliary errors each
study pointed out, the most common auxiliary errors are as follows.
2.3.1 Omission of auxiliary
Omission of auxiliary is the error in which producers of a sentence omit an auxiliary
before the subject.
E.g. Where you go last Sunday?
My house built in 2003.

13
There is an omission of the auxiliary did before the subject of the first sentence. This
commonly happens in WH-questions. In the second sentence, the speaker used a passive
sentence without the insertion of auxiliary was.
In his research on present continuous tense, Lim (2006) found that the omission of
auxiliary was obvious among the subjects. Over half of his subjects committed this type
of error. The cause of it, he observed, can be traced back to the interference of mother
tongue.
2.3.2 Mis-ordering auxiliary
Misordering is the error in which learners tend to put the auxiliaries after the subjects in
WH questions.
E.g. A learner may asks, „What sports he can play?‟ instead of „What sports can he play?‟
In their research, María Mayo & María Lecumberri (2003) found that children aged 17-
18 often made mis-ordering errors.
2.3.3 Confusion of auxiliary
E.g. He was a natural tennis player so he must not train much.
This error occurs as a result of confusion of 'must' and 'have to'. The cause of this may be
traced to the learner‟s imperfect learning. When s/he learns the use of modal auxiliaries,
the negation of must must be taken into account since it bears a difference meaning from
must itself. However, the learner might ignore this and applies the rule of negation to must.
2.3.4 Wrong subject-verb agreement
Wrong subject-verb agreement is an example of performance errors in Cowan‟s (2008)
study. The causes of this are the learner‟s carelessness or ignorance of the rules. Learners
may make this type of error due to being in an abnormal psychological condition. Very
often, the learners are in ignorance of the number of subject or careless in forming the
auxiliary.
E.g. Mary and Peter doesn’t like football.
I has studied English for 8 years.

2.3.5 Addition of auxiliary
This is the case that a addition of auxiliary is added to the sentences.
E.g. I was open the window.
Studies on the subject show that it is often the addition of be to the sentence.


14
In short, errors are important sources of information to decide the learner's strategy in
learning and are found in the learner's out - put. To teachers, learners‟ errors show the
areas where they are weak and need to be help. They also tell the teachers what language
items have been learnt and internalized by learners and what is left to be learnt. To help
learners overcome difficulties, teachers have to better prepare their lessons and improve
their teaching methods and skills. A look at the various kind of errors L2 learner made will
guide the teacher not only to identify the problematic area of L2 learners, but also to spot
out areas for which remedial programs and materials are needed. So the error analysis not
only finds out and classifies the errors in L2 learners out put. It also tries to interpret the
learning strategy of the learners. Error analysis also helps in the selection of strategies
teachers may take to correct errors.
To learners, errors show them what areas they are good and what areas they need to put in
more effort to learn. In addition, from errors they make, they can be better aware of the
rules and avoid making the errors again.

15
CHAPTER 2
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research setting
The Faculty of Information and Communication Technology, belonging to Thai Nguyen
University, was established in 2001. The main duty and purpose of the faculty is training
informatics for students living in the Northern provinces. In the FIT, English is a
compulsory subject and is paid much attention to as it is essential in information and
communication technology. As computer language is mainly English, students in FIT need
English for their studies. Although the course book chosen to teach English to students in
the FIT focuses on communicating skills, it is undeniable that grammar makes
communication smoother and more proper. Further more, to better one‟s English, grammar
is essentially important. Understanding the importance of English, teachers of English in
FIT have tried hard in order to improve and enhance the quality of teaching and learning
English. However, this is not an easy task. The fact is that most of the students in FIT are
from mountainous regions. They are not carefully taught English in high school or are not
taught at all. Further more, at school they only concentrate on the subjects they need for the
university entrance exams and as a result, English is nearly ignored, and many students
enter The FIT with poor command of English. In addition, most of the English teachers
trained in Thai Nguyen College of Education and have an average of 5 years working in
the career. Therefore, it is not avoidable to lack teaching experiences. Teaching in these

large classes with students of unequal levels is too difficult. There are students who have
studied English for 7 years, and also students who have only studied English for 3 years.
Further more, there remain students who have not studied English at all in the high school.
They studied French or Russian instead. Another factor leading to the difficulties is that,
within 45 teaching periods in class, the main practicing focus is communication whereas
students and teachers do not have enough time to focus all grammatical structures and
problems.
3.2 Participants
The respondents of this study were 100 freshmen English non-major students and 6
teachers of English at the FIT - Thai Nguyen University during the first semester of the
school year 2009-2010.
The students were 74 males and 26 females. They came from different provinces and
districts in North of Vietnam. They were all information technology major. English is a


16
compulsory subject which they have to deal with in three terms. The students under this
investigation had just finished their first term of the first year at the faculty.
3.3 Questionnaire design
In order to investigate common auxiliary errors made by first-year students, two
questionnaires were designed and conducted to collect information form teachers and
students in the Faculty of Information and Communication Technology – Thai Nguyen
University.
The first questionnaire consists of twelve questions for students to get information about
their English background, attitudes to English, methods and difficulties in their study.
Eleven questions in the questionnaire are multiple-choice, in which students choose one
out of four options given. There is one open question which requires students to recall
what they have learned in order to answer it.
The second questionnaire consists of eight questions which were given to teachers for their
information about their attitudes towards the auxiliary, their auxiliary teaching techniques

and their opinions about errors made by students and how to help them. The questions are
all multiple-choice.
The questionnaires are given to both teachers and students for the purpose of comparing
their views on auxiliary and auxiliary errors, from which a better treatment of auxiliary is
hoped to be drawn out.
3.4 Exercises
To find out what errors are often made by students, two different exercises were designed.
The results of the exercises are anonymous so that students can freely give their answers.
The exercises include three types of verbs, auxiliary do, modal can, and copular be. As
students‟ confusion between be and auxiliary do is often seen, be is included to examine
how serious this problem is.
Exercise 1 asks students to supply the correct forms of the verbs in brackets. There are 10
items in this exercise with three types of sentences: positives, negatives and interrogatives.
All that students have to do in this exercise is to apply the rules for each type of verbs they
have learnt to put them in the correct form. The aim of this exercise is to find out what
types of verbs cause the most difficulty for students and what errors they make when the
verbs are clearly given to them.


17
Exercise 2 asks students to build sentences using the given words. The sentences students
have to make are positives, negatives and interrogatives. The purpose of the exercise is to
examine in what kinds of sentences students often commit auxiliary errors. This exercise is
a bit more difficult for students in that they have to determine the tenses, verb group and
other elements of the sentences.
When the exercises are collected and the results are analyzed, the writer will make an
interview with students asking why they make the errors, if they have any idea about the
errors they make, and how will they wish to be helped to correct.
3.5 Interview
The interview with teachers contains 12 questions. The questions aims at finding how they

teach English in class, and what they focus their students on in class. The interview asks
teachers to give their opinion about if their students‟ knowledge of auxiliary does any good
in learning English. The teachers are asked what auxiliary errors they notice form their
students and how they address them. Finally, teachers are asked if they have any difficulty
in helping students reduce the errors. The results of the interview may give an insight into
the sources of students‟ errors and what change is needed to solve the problem.
3.6 Data collection
The data for the study were collected through questionnaires, exercises and interview.
The questionnaire and exercise sheets were given to 100 first-year IT students. All the
questionnaire and exercise sheets were numbered to make the respondents‟ answer
anonymous. The respondents were asked to complete the questionnaire and then the
exercises. The results were collected for analysis.
Another questionnaire was given to 6 teachers of English in the FIT – Thai Nguyen
University. After collecting the results from the questionnaire, the oral interview was made
with the six teachers and answers were taken note.
All the data collected were analyzed and presented in the next chapter.







18
CHAPTER 3
PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF THE DATA
4.1 Presentation of the data
4.1.1 The questionnaire for students
The table below shows the collective results from the questionnaire for students. There are
descriptive results for 11 questions except question 7 as it is an open one.

Q A
Q
A
b
c
a
1
10
32
58
0
2
43
20
17
20
3
50
40
10
0
4
47
28
20
5
5
48
52
-

-
6
25
62
10
3
7
-
-
-
-
8
48
52
-
-
9
14
43
43
0
10
8
38
48
0
11
8
32
48

12
12
45
39
12
4
Table 1: Summary of students’ answers
The result of the first question shows that, out of 100 students, 58 have learnt English since
primary school up to now, which means they have been learning English for over 7 years;
32 have learnt English since secondary school up to now, which means they have been
learning English for over 3 years; and the rest of 10 only started learning English when
entering university. The results show that more than half of the students in the study had a
lot of experience with English and 90% had learnt far beyond the knowledge of English
required of them in the first semester of their first academic year. It was expected that these
90% of students would found English easy for them. However, English was a difficult
subject for a large number of students. Not only those who did not study English at school
but even the ones who did from primary school had problems with English.



19
Figure 1: students’ purposes in learning English
for f uture jobs
20%
to pass the exams
43%
to communicate
17%
to read and
understand IT

documents
20%
to pass the exams
to read and
understand IT
documents
to communicate
for future jobs

Answers from the second question (figure 1) show that nearly half of the students (43%)
only learnt English to pass the exams. These students were not interested in English as they
found English difficult and passing the exams was enough for them. This accounted for the
indifferent attitude towards learning English of a quite large number of students. On the
contrary, more than a half learnt English with positive purposes. 20% wanted to learn
English so that they could read IT documents and another 20% needed English for their
future jobs. These students were aware of the importance of English in IT field. The rest of
17% were even interested in communication in English and learnt English so that they
could talk with English speakers.
In answering question 3, 50% said that they focused on learning grammar; 40% focused on
speaking and 10% focused on reading. Unsurprisingly, no one focused on listening since
listening was a very difficult task for elementary students. The results show that although
speaking skill was paid much attention to in English classes, grammar was what students
found most necessary.
Figure 2: Frequency of errors
hardly ever
5%
often
28%
alw ays
47%

sometimes
20%
always
often
sometimes
hardly ever

With regarding to the frequency of making errors, nearly half (47%) always made errors. It
is not surprising since students found English difficult and they might make errors of any
types. 28% answered that they often made errors in English. These two categories