ERROR ANALYSIS ON ONLINE JOURNAL WRITING: A CASE STUDY

MAZLIA BINTI MAHADI

Laporan Projek Ini Dikemukakan Sebagai Memenuhi

Sebahagian Daripada Syarat Penganugerahan Ijazah

Sarjana Muda Sains Serta Pendidikan (TESL)

Fakulti Pendidikan

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

2003

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To:

my mother, Jamilah Ali

My soul-mate,

Khairil Rizman Amiruddin

And

to the man who I love the most

Arwah Mahadi B.Che Mat

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to praise and thank Allah for blessing me and guiding me all the way

in completing this thesis. I would also like to express my heartiest gratitude and

appreciation to my finest supervisor, Pn. Rohaya Kahar for her encouragement, guidance

and supported me with her endless patience. I would also like to thank my course mates

and my housemates for their encouragement and advice. A big thanks to my mum,

Jamilah Ali and to both of my sisters, Marzila and Mazlina Mahadi for the care and

support. Also to my soul mate, Khairil Rizman and his family for being so understanding

and caring. Thanks for being there when I need a shoulder to cry on and gave me all the

support I need when I was lost. May Allah bless you all. Thanks a lot.

ABSTRACT

Errors in writing have always been a major concern of Second Language

(L2) teachers. Thus, a study was conducted to investigate the common errors

occurred in students’ writing via online and to determine the factors that lead to

these errors. It was also hoped to investigate whether online journal writing

promoted motivation for students to write in English. A group of five UTM

students who were doing their final semester for semester I 2003/2004 were

chosen as the subjects. They had visited the online journal website

(www.diaryland.com) and had signed up as members to allow them to write their

journal, online. Subjects had to write a journal of not less than 150 words. From

their writing, the common errors and the factors of these errors were identified.

The subjects were then interviewed to discover if there was any sign of motivation

enhanced in students’ perception of writing in English. The results showed that

there were six common errors found in which five of them were inter-lingual

errors meanwhile the other one was intra-lingual error. The subjects also claimed

that writing journal online did promote motivation for them to write in English.

They also claimed that they were more comfortable had their writing been

corrected online. At the end of this research paper, the limitations and some

pedagogical implications for future study are also included.

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ABSTRAK

Kesilapan yang terdapat dalam penulisan adalah dititikberatkan oleh guru-

guru pengajaran bahasa kedua. Kajian ini dibuat untuk mengenalpasti kesilapan-

kesilapan yang sering berlaku didalam penulisan secara online oleh pelajar dan

mengenalpasti faktor-faktor yang menyebabkan kesilapan-kesilapan ini. Adalah

diharapkan agar penulisan jurnal secara online akan memotivasikan pelajar untuk

menulis dalam Bahasa Inggeris. Sekumpulan pelajar UTM yang sedang

menjalani semester akhir untuk semester 1 2003/2004 telah dipilih sebagai subjek

kepada kajian ini. Subjek-subjek telah melawat laman web jurnal secara online

iaitu www.diaryland.com dan telah mendaftar sebagai ahli untuk menulis jurnal

didalam laman web tersebut. Berdasarkan dari penulisan mereka ini, kesilapan-

kesilapan yang sering terdapat dalam penulisan mereka dan fator-faktor kepada

kesilapan-kesilapan telah dikenalpasti. Para subjek kemudiannya telah

diwawancara untuk mengetahui samada terdapatnya sebarang tanda peningkatan

motivasi terhadap penulisan dalam Bahasa Inggeris. Daripada keputusan yang

diperolehi, ia menunjukkan terdapat enam jenis kesilapan yang telah dibuat

dimana lima diantaranya tergolong dalam faktor yang disebabkan oleh kesilapan

“inter-lingual” manakala satu jenis lagi adalah kesilapan “intra-lingual”.

Subjek-subjek bersetuju bahawa menulis jurnal secara online memotivasikan

mereka untuk menulis dalam Bahasa Inggeris serta berasa lebih selesa dengan

pembetulan yang dilakukan secara online. Pada akhir laporan kajian ini, beberapa

batasan dan unjuran turut dimuatkan sebagai panduan untuk kajian yang akan

dilakukan pada masa hadapan.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER CONTENTS PAGE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT iv

ABSTRACT v

ABSTRAK vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS vii

LIST OF TABLES xi

LIST OF APPENDICES xii

ONE INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction 1

1.2 Background of the Study 2

1.3 Statement of Problems 4

1.4 Research Questions 5

1.5 Research objectives 5

1.6 Purpose of the Study 6

1.7 Scope of the Study 6

1.8 Significance of the Study 7

1.9 Definition of terms 9

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1.10 Conclusion 11

TWO LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction 12

2.2 Errors and Second Language Acquisition 13

2.2.1 Errors 13

2.2.1.1 Inter-lingual Error 14

2.2.1.2 Intra-lingual Error 15

2.2.2 Second Language Acquisition 16

2.3 Online Journal Writing 20

2.3.1 Journal Writing 20

2.3.2 Online Journal Writing 21

2.4 Error Analysis on Online Writing 22

2.5 Conclusion 24

THREE METHODOLOGY

3.1 Introduction 25

3.2 Subjects of the study 26

3.3 Research Design 26

3.4 Research Instrument

3.4.1 Online Journal Writing 27

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3.4.2 Interview 27

3.5 Procedures 28

3.6 Data Analysis 29

3.7 Assumptions 29

3.8 Conclusion 30

FOUR FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Introduction 31

4.2 Common Error 31

4.3 Factors that lead to the error 33

4.3.1 Inter-lingual Errors 33

4.3.1.1 L1 words in text 33

4.3.1.2 Wrong verb-to-be form 34

4.3.1.3 Mis-spelling 35

4.3.1.4 Inaccurate vocabulary 36

4.3.1.5 Wrong question form 36

4.3.2 Intra-lingual Errors 37

4.3.2.1 Overgeneralization of grammar 37

4.4 Writing style preferred 37

4.5 Subjects’ responses on online journal writing 39

4.6 Subjects’ responses on being corrected online 41

4.7 Problems encountered while writing

journal online 41

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4.8 The motivation level 42

4.9 Conclusion 44

FIVE CONCLUSION, IMPLICATIONS AND LIMITATIONS

5.1 Introduction 45

5.2 Limitation 45

5.3 Conclusion 46

5.4 Implications 47

5.4.1 Pedagogical Implications 49

BIBLIOGRAPHY 50

APPENDICES Interview Questions 54

Transcribed Answers 55

Samples Of Written Journal 67

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LIST OF TABLES

TITLE PAGE Table 1 The Frequencies of Errors Occurred in the Data 31

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LIST OF APPENDICES

TITLE PAGE

APPENDIX 1 Interview Questions 53

APPENDIX 2 The Transcription of Interviews 54

APPENDIX 3 Samples of Online Journal 66

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction

Errors in writing have always been a major concern of Second Language

(L2) teachers. What are the most errors made by students in writing and why these

errors occur in second language learners’ writing? What are the factors that lead to

these errors in L2 learners writing?

With the intrusion of the internet in education system, formal classrooms

have now gradually been replaced by virtual classrooms which apparently are

more practical. This gives a new approach to writing teaching/ learning. Internet

provides such a huge opportunity of education for teachers and learners. This is an

advantage that English language teachers should take to enhance their teaching

pedagogy especially in teaching writing and for learners as well to improve their

knowledge. As a teacher-to be, the researcher is interested in interactive learning

in which for her, it gives a new alternative and a more interesting environment

into English classrooms. Furthermore, with a new affection to the internet by

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learners lately, it is an advantage for teachers to manipulate this media into their

teaching especially in teaching writing.

This paper will focus on the errors occurred in writing via the internet by a

group of students in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

This chapter will elaborate on background of the problem, statement of the

problem, research question, purpose of the study, importance of the study, scope

of the study, definition of terms and conclusion of the chapter.

1.2 Background of the problem

The use of English language is widespread all over the world. In this

globalization era, those who are proficient in the language possess great advantage

especially those who are working in professional fields. Malaysia as a fast

developing country needs employees who are proficient in English to keep up

with the government needs.

However, what is happening here in Malaysia actually contradicts to what

is expected from these workers. The actual scenario found here is that some of

Malaysian professionals are not proficient in English language especially in

writing. This phenomenon is obvious because the written texts are printed and the

mistakes made will be permanently stated for everybody to read and laugh at. This

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situation will cause people from other countries doubting the Malaysian

professionals’ ability. What is the factor that contributes to this problem? Is the

methodology of teaching writing by Malaysian teachers is to be blamed?

Writing assignment is frequently being seen as a difficult task in our

students’ mind. The frequent reasons given by students are lack of ideas and they

are petrified to make mistakes especially grammatical mistakes. To the students, if

they make mistake, it will show their weaknesses where they are often ashamed to

confess about the errors in their writing.

Errors made by second language learners are often seen as a weakness of

the learners and teachers as well. The questions aroused in relation to this

scenario would be: are the students aware of the errors that they make? Are

teachers aware of the errors made by their students? If yes, what do they do to

overcome these problems? Here is where journal writing plays its part. By giving

the students the journal writing tasks, this will encourage students to practice

writing in English. Furthermore, by writing journal, students will not be bound by

a title. They are free to write about anything. It could be their own reflection of

anything that they observe or things they do in their daily life. Latulippe (1992)

defines journal as notebooks that writers keep to record daily thoughts. Writing a

journal helps them examine and reflect upon their ideas. In journal writing,

teachers can see how well the learners write. This is because they will write about

things that they have in mind.

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With the rapid development of information technology, journals are now

could be written via online. With an encouraging interface, writers could get

more inspiration to write.

1.3 Statement of the problem

As university students, writing errors should be avoided especially

when they are writing a report or an academic paper, especially when these papers

are written in English. But what is actually happening contradicts to the statement

as mentioned above. Most of Malaysian university students are not competent in

English language particularly, in writing skills. This is a sign of weaknesses in

teaching and learning of English language where it shows that the language is not

fully acquired by these students.

One of the factors that contributed to the problem is the students

are lack of motivation to write in English. For them, writing task is always seen

as the most difficult part of English language learning. The challenge here is to

engage these students into the writing activities. Thus, this study was conducted

to look into the errors that occurred in student’s writing and whether online

journal writing promotes motivation for students to write in English.

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1.4 Research questions

In this study, the researcher wishes to seek for answers to these questions:

1) What are the common errors that occur in students’ writing

via online?

2) What are the factors that lead to the errors in students’

writing via online?

3) Does writing online promote students’ motivation to write

in English?