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50MONGOLIAN STUDENTS" COMMON MISTAKE ANALYSIS
© Ariuntuul B.1, Tungalag Kh.2
Foreign Language center of National University of Mongolia Foreign language center of Mongolian University of Life Science
Academic English writing is the brand new lesson for the Mongolian students. We have started teaching academic English since 2013 at National University of Mongolia for students, not majored in English. Even though they are majored in other fields of sciences, learning English is still vital for them to get information, upgrade their education and self-development. After learning communication and reading skill, learners are ready to develop their writing skills. So it is the most difficult part of the academic English. Therefore learners must to emphasize the common mistakes and try to avoid. After editing hundreds of pieces of academic writing, we have compiled following common mistakes that Mongolian students make and offer suggestion how to teach learners to avoid them. It would be fruitful and helpful for the learners what are the common mistakes and how to avoid them in efficient ways. The edited academic writing materials are written by students at intermediate level of academic English class of National university of Mongolia.
Keywords: common mistake, English writing, college writing, academic writing, paragraph, essay, teaching.
Introduction
What is good writing? It depends on what country you are from. We all know what is considered "good writing" in our own country. And we try to do like that in English (William Zinsser, 2009).
Although instructors may think of errors as part of a language learning process related to linguistic, situational, and psycholinguistic contexts (Carson, 2001), and writing as a skill developed over time, most learners' writing is judged according to criteria that are static and product-based.
First of all, students may be able to communicate more effectively if they are exposed to models of not only standard paragraphs and essays, but also a variety of genres of writing such as describing, reporting, citing, paraphrasing, quoting and so forth.
By examining a variety of written texts, students' awareness can be raised with regard to the way words, structures, and genre contribute to purposeful writ-
1 Foreign Language center of National University of Mongolia, MA.
2 Foreign language center of Mongolian University of Life Science, MA.
ing. They can also be made aware of different types of textual organization, which can in turn affect students' composing processes (Swales, 1990; Raimes, 1991, 1998).
In Mongolian case, it is observed that the writing skill is the weakest one compared with communication and reading skills after editing 143 academic papers. We tried to get a clear understanding on what is the level of Mongolian students writing skill and what is the most essential way to teach them academic writing, efficiently. We have determined the following common mistakes. These mistakes could be divided into grammar, configuration and stylistics parts.
13 Grammatical common mistakes
1. The order of adjectives in a sentence.
Students do not write adjectives in their right order. The right order of the adjectives quantity or number, quality or opinion, size, age, shape, color, proper adjective (often nationality, other place of origin, or material) and purpose or qualifier.
Orgil shopping center provides its customers with original, new, fantastic goods from USA. x
Orgil shopping center provides its customers with fantastic, new, original goods from USA. V
2. Wrong usage of apostrophe.
The black one is my brothers' bike. x
3. Adjective / adverb confusion.
She studies very good. x
V
4. Wrong usage of the article.
She is a pretty. x
5. Homophone confusion.
Whether forecast warned about hurricane. x
6. Fewer / less.
"Fewer" refers to items you can count individually.
"Less" refers to a commodity, such as sand or water, that you can t count individually.
7. Then / than.
Confusion between "then" and "than" probably arises because the two look and sound similar.
"Than " is used in comparisons.
"Then " is used to indicate something following something else in time, as in step-by-step instructions, or planning a schedule ("we'll go there then there").
8. Punctuation, specially writing the person' s title.
Mr. Orgil office manager of Tavansharge said "We are ready to open our new e-stores". x
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9. Incomplete sentence.
And helped me to fulfill my dreams into real. x - no subject
10. Subject verb agreement.
The most interesting one of the Korean dramas are "Sandglass. " x
11. Not useful pronoun change in direct speech Mr. Orgil said, "His job is tough and interesting." x
12. Dangling modifier.
Configuration and stylistic common mistakes
1. Writing so many sentences not related to the topic.
2. Plagiarism.
3. Introducing the topic in the beginning of the paragraph.
4. Do not follow standard format No logical order.
5. Using contraction.
6. Pronunciation.
7. Topic.
8. Choosing wrong words.
9. No revision.
Conclusion
We, academic English teachers edited 143 students' academic paper works on several kinds of topics in intermediate level and compiled 13 common grammar mistakes and 10 configuring and stylistic mistakes of Mongolian students of National University of Mongolia and Mongolian University of Life Science. Since we know that the common mistakes are made by common students in common area based on their nationality, we should know Mongolian students' common mistakes and analyze about it. This compiled and analyzed date would be helpful for English teacher to prepare for their lesson.
Resume
After editing and compiling these common mistakes in grammar, configuration and stylistics, teachers are possible to upgrade their teaching and methods to teach grammar and writing skills. If the learners are warned about these kind of common mistakes at the beginning before they confusing, they could avoid we hope.
Reference:
1. The ten most common ESL mistakes, Scribendi, 2009.
2. Carson, J. G A task analysis of reading and writing in academic context, 2001.
3. Swales, Johanne Myles, Second Language Writing and Research: The Writing Process and Error Analysis in Student Texts, 1990.
4. Genres in academic writing, essays, http://www.uefap.com/writing/genre/ essays.htm.
5. College writing 2, Patricia Byrd, 2006.
SEXISM AND LANGUAGE
© Bayarchimeg Ch., Javzmaaa D.
Foreign language Department of Mongolian University of Life Science
A look at linguistic sexism is finding out the relationship between language and gender. A lot of people run into the difficulty of making the choices between certain words in their everyday discourses. They wonder which to choose - the chairman has arrived for the meeting or the chairperson has arrived for the occasion when referring to a woman.
Key words: Society, gender, naming practices.
In society, men are considered the norm for the human species: their characteristics, thoughts, beliefs and actions are viewed as fully representing those of all humans, male and female. This practice can make women invisible in language or altogether excludes them. It can also lead to their portrayal as deviations from this 'male = human' norm. Sexism was defined by Wilson as - set expectations of women's appearance, actions, skills, emotions and proper place in society (45). It is generally conceived as anything that conveys that one sex is superior to the other. In most societies, it is commonly shown in behaviours that depict males as superiors to females. One of the points of Oxford Dictionaries, part of Oxford University Press (OUP), is to show how words are used in the real world. And that is their response to allegations of sexism. "The example sentences we use are taken from a huge variety of different sources and do not represent the views or opinions of Oxford University Press," they said in a statement.
In other words, it's not the dictionary that's sexist, it's the English-speaking world. Why choose "feminist" over, say, "rightwingef', "communist" or "fan", though? As if not quite convinced by its own explanation, the OUP is now "reviewing the example sentence for 'rabid' to ensure that it reflects current usage".
That can only be a good thing. But a word of warning: it might not deliver the answer you'd hope for. Perhaps "rabid" is collocated with "feminist" more often than with those other words (if the data the OUP uses includes online discussions, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case). Sexist a s-sumptions find their way into speech and writing for the simple reason that society is still sexist.
