Tiến Sĩ Nghiên cứu khả năng sử dụng ngữ pháp và ngôn từ của sinh viên năm thứ 3 tại Đại học Thái Nguyên, từ

ENGLISH LANGUAGE GRAMMATICAL COMPETENCE AND DISCOURSE COMPETENCE OF 3rd YEAR COLLEGE
STUDENTS OF THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY:
BASIS FOR INTERVENTION EXERCISES




A Dissertation Proposal
Presented to
The Faculty of Graduate School
Batangas State University
Batangas City, Philippines




In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Major in English




By:
NGUYEN THI HONG CHUYEN (JENNY)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
TITLE PAGE
TABLE OF CONTENTS i
LIST OF TABLES III
CHAPTER
I. THE PROBLEM 1
Introduction 1
Statement of the Problem 6
Scope, Delimitation and Limitation of the Study 8
Significance of the Study 9
II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE 11
Conceptual Literature 11
Research Literature 38
Synthesis 45
Theoretical Framework 49
Hypothesis 51
Definition of Terms 52
III. RESEARCH METHOD AND PROCEDURE 55
Research Environment 55
Research Design 60
Subjects of the Study 60
Data Gathering Instrument 62
Data Gathering Procedure 64
Statistical Treatment of Data 65
IV. PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA 66
V. SUMMARY, CONCLUSION, AND
RECOMMENDATION 114
Summary 114
Conclusion 123
Recommendations 124
BIBLIOGRAPHY 125
APPENDICES 132
A. Letter of Requests 133
B. Questionnaires 139
C . Documentations 148
CURRICULUM VITAE 154




LIST OF TABLES

Table Title Page
1. Distribution of the Respondents of the Study 61
2. Level of Grammatical Competence of Students in Parts of Speech 68
3. Level of Grammatical Competence of Students in Morphology 69
4. Level of Grammatical Competence of Students in Syntax 71
5. Level of Grammatical Competence of Students in Vocabulary Meaning 72
6. Level of Discourse Competence of Students in Cohesive Devices 75
7. Level of Discourse Competence of Students in Transitional Phrases 76
8. Level of Discourse Competence of Students in Coherence 78
9. Level of Discourse Competence of Students in Connectors 79
10 Level of Discourse Competence of Students in Choice of Words 81
11. Validated Students’ Skills Employed in Teaching the Basic English Course 83
12. Students’ Skills and their Frequency of Use 85
13. Students’ Skills and their Degree of Importance 86
14. Students’ Level of Grammatical and Discourse Competencies and their Performance as Assessed by English Teachers 88
15. Bases in the Design of Integrative Learning Exercises on Morpho-Syntactic Competencies 91

CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM

Introduction
In Vietnam, students are required to learn English through compulsory programs and as a requirement in school and universities and in most countries in the world. Many students take English course because of its utility value as lingua franca or a world language. Most of them fail to learn the language successfully. This situation also applies to students in other countries where learning a foreign language is also compulsory. Students enrolled in the English courses have either high dropped out rates or failed students at the end of the term. This situation is true to countries like the United States and Australia where students literally drop out in their foreign language studies, while in countries like China, Japan and Vietnam students either mentally withdraw or look for strategies that will help them to learn the English language.
In the last decade, the use of English as the main foreign language taught and employed in communication with foreigners, has dramatically increased in Vietnam. According to the Ministry of Education, the number of off-shore students exceeds 60,000 in Vietnam nowadays and Vietnamese students who want to work and study abroad are increasing.
However, English language teaching in Vietnam still utilizes the traditional teaching model where students are taught English just for passing examination purposes only and teachers just give lecture mainly to help students achieve this goal. The result is that students do not have the ability to communicate effectively with others in English. This is referred to as dumb English or deaf English in Vietnam. Obviously students’ overall skills are not enhanced, especially for students at the college and university level.
In order to improve the situation based on need analysis, Vietnam Ministry of Education states that the aims of Vietnam English Language Teaching (ELT) at general educational level expressed in the new curriculum are that at the end of the upper secondary level, students will be able to use English as means of communication at a certain level of proficiency in four macro skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing and to be able to read materials at the same level of their textbook, using a dictionary, to have a mastery of basic English phonetics and grammar, to have acquire the minimum of around 2,500 vocabulary items of English; to attain a certain level of understanding of English and American cultures, to become aware of cross cultural differences in order to become better communicators, to better inform the world of the Vietnamese people, their history and culture and to take pride in Vietnam, its language and culture (MOET 2007).