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Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company
DECLARATION I, Duong Thi Han, K52N3, hereby certify that this minor thesis with the tittle 'Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company' is the result of my own research in the fulfillment of the requirement for the Graduation Paper at English Faculty of Thuongmai University and the substance of this research has not been submitted for a degree to any other university or institution Signature Duong Thi Han ABSTRACT Writing is considered as one of the most challenging skill among four language skills, it always requires meticulousness and elaborateness, therefore this is not a simple skill to be proficient Writing skills, especially business correspondence writing skills are becoming increasingly essential in the field of business, especially in the companies cooperating with foreign countries Thanks to the great development of technology, entrepreneurs can save time, travel costs, shorten geographical distances by exchanging work via emails and social networks This is a big reason to emphasize the important role of commercial correspondence Obviously, to get the best work efficiency, every employee needs to master the skills of writing business correspondence There has been a great deal of researches in the field of business correspondence, but there are still gaps in the topic of business employees’ difficulties in using this skill at work As a result, this study was conducted to fill those gaps This research is aimed at the staff in IQL Joint Stock Company, focusing on studying their difficulties and mistakes when dealing with business letters, then find out the possible solutions for both the staff and the company In order to achieve those aims, the researcher applied qualitative and quantitative methods to conduct the research The researcher used a questionnaire and interview as the data gathering instruments The author also used technique of analyzing to delve deeper into the issue The results from the study show that the employees were aware of the significance of business correspondence writing skills as well as the necessity to self-study this skill However, their attitude did not seem to get on well with their actual practice very much as they had to spend quite a lot of time for working and some other essential activities The findings from this research are hopefully to be useful not only for the IQL employees but also for all employees in general ACKNOWLEDGEMENT On completing this graduate paper, I would like to send my deepest and most sincere gratitude to many people who have gave me a lot of precious assistance and timely encouragement during the conduction process of the study First and foremost, I would like to express my profound respect and heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor Mrs Le Thi Phuong Mai for her valuable supports, timely guidance and constructive feedbacks during my study This research could not been completed without her constant and unfailing helps which were decisive factors to the completion of the study My sincere thanks also go to all the teachers at English Faculty of Thuongmai University for their enthusiasm in teaching me useful lessons, bringing valuable knowledge so that I can fulfill this graduation paper I also would like to take this opportunity to send my sincere gratitude to all the staff in IQL Company for their cooperation and enthusiastic participation in the survey as well as their provision of documents and information needed for the research I would like to acknowledge my thanks to all the authors of the books, magazines, and other materials listed in the reference part for their commendable ideas Last but not least, I would love to express my truly gratitude to my family, my husband, my daughter for their endless love, they have emotionally and spiritually comforted me through the challenging time I also deeply thank my best friends who gave me honest advices and enthusiastic supports at any time I asked for This study could not have been completed without their continual encouragement TABLE OF CONTENT LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS No Name Content Chart 3.1 Participants’ years of learning English Chart 3.2 Participants’ years of working Chart 3.3 Chart 3.4 Chart 3.5 Table 3.5 Chart 3.6 Chart 3.7 Chart 3.8 Table 10 3.6 Table 11 3.7 21 The importance of business correspondence at work 27 Self-assessment of the staff on their writing skills 28 The frequency of making mistakes in writing business correspondence 29 Common mistakes in writing business letter 30 Employees’ level of interest in writing business correspondence 31 The importance of self-study in improving writing skills 32 Participants’ frequency of self-practice with writing business correspondence Employees’ strategies to handle with difficulties in business correspondence writing Types of error category Numbe r Abbreviations 33 33 34 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Page 21 English meaning JSC Joint Stock Company S&M Sale and Marketing etc Et cetera CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale of the study We all know that English is supposed to be the dominant language all over the world, and perhaps the last decade is the period in which English has grown most intensely As in our country, everyone is rushing to learn English, English centers are mushrooming, the number of students choosing English as their major is also increasing, Therefore, we can say that the importance of this language has never diminished but only increased So, what they learn English for? In my opinion, the most plausible reason is to have a good job To use English fluently, we need to master skills, which are listening, speaking, reading and writing Of these four skills, writing is thought to be an important factor, playing an extremely essential role in mastering the language Writing is considered an act of coding an idea, a thought, a reflection, a process of putting one's thoughts into words If the writer wants to convey his thought well, he needs to select and organize appropriate words Written text requires the writer to have a rich vocabulary, and to know how to build sentences coherently and then continue to use good grammar, syntax, morphology of words to create a standard language product Specifically, in this study, the researcher focuses on writing business correspondence, which is a specific area of English writing skills Therefore, it needs specific requirements, professional knowledge and skills related to commercial English Nowadays, companies always make many standard requirements for recruitment, they usually ask the candidates to prove their English ability not only in the interview but also during the time when they work at the company IQL Joint Stock Company, where I interned, is not an exception IQL is a company specializing kitchen equipment, it has developed for many years and is currently cooperating with a lot of foreign partners Therefore, the company always requires the staff to use English fluently Especially, Sale and Marketing department is a hub for connecting with foreign partners and customers, the employees have to exchange jobs by phone and social network, they are also responsible for processing a large amount of English document, contracts and emails from foreign partners As a result, the skill of writing business correspondence is extremely important and necessary for them However, during my internship, I realized that the staff still had many shortcomings, so the documents were not handled correctly, which caused lots of inconveniences to customers Wishing to help all employees in the company improve this problem, as well as help myself build a solid foundation of writing business correspondence skills to develop my career in the future, I decide to conduct this research with the title "Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company" 1.2 Previous studies There have been many studies on writing business correspondence both in our country and over the world, they provide a broad foundation of knowledge about business correspondence, from the basic to the intensive knowledge These backgrounds will assist readers to have understanding of some leading experts in the field of using English as the second language based on using English business correspondence at workplace The review of previous studies will show remarkable data on staff's performance as using correspondence to finish their assignments Vu Thi Huong Giang (2010) has studied this area before and concluded that the essential techniques in writing English letters are your attitude, positive emphasis, tone and language To reach this conclusion, she laid out the theoretical background for definition, importance, purpose, format and some types of business letters Besides, she also pointed out some common mistakes in writing letters from English Shafa Firda Nila (2017) conducted another study focusing on common mistakes in writing business letters, saying that there were four categories of errors: morphological, lexical, syntactic, and mechanical errors These four errors are divided into eight types: verbs, nouns, articles, word choice, sentence structure, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization In addition, there are three main factors that cause these errors: language transfer, overgeneralization, and context of learning Aggoune Amina (2015) showed a case study of Internet Company The author used a business letter test to research the employee's status of written communication, he also described the difficulties of employees when they communicate and interact with non-English speaking colleagues around the world This research has helped to build effective business writing principles Most above studies have demonstrated the useful performance of business letters in the workplace and the way to improve writing skills However, in order for the staff can develop their ability to write letters of business correspondence in English, they need to understand the difficulties they have to face at first Therefore, this thesis will focus on the difficulties of writing commercial correspondence with the research subjects are the employees of IQL Company Aims of the study 1.3 Initially, this thesis aims at studying the difficulties of the IQL employees in writing business correspondence, so I will delve into the difficulties in practicing writing skills and the common writing mistakes, along with their attitude in selfstudy More specifically, the study is an attempt to answer the following questions: • What are the difficulties of the staff in practicing writing business correspondence? • What are the common mistakes the staff often encounter when writing • 1.4 business correspondence? How is their attitude in self-study to improve business correspondence writing skills? Research subjects Business correspondence writing skills is one of the most essential skills at work because it plays a key role in processing transaction documents, contracts or building relationships with customers But even long-term employees are not immune to familiar mistakes while writing English, which is a problem worth concerning There doesn't seem to be much research on this specific field Most studies only focus on general English writing skills I conduct this study on difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company That is the company where I interned and the employees will be the direct research objects to help me carry out my work The results of the study will directly serve the company, it will contribute to help the company have an effective orientation to improve the writing ability of all employees 1.5 Scope of the study This thesis is about to study the employees' reality of business correspondence writing ability in IQL Company Because the ultimate purpose of this research is to find out a better method to develop English letters writing skills for the employees in the company, the study focuses only on surveying the staff of IQL.,JSC, then we can draw lessons for all office workers in general In addition, the research is going to specifically focus on the employees of Sale and Marketing department, because these people have to deal with a range of English letters every day, they have a better English level than the rest of the company Moreover, they are accustomed to a high-pressure environment and always have to try their best to improve their English skills to achieve high working efficiency At the same time, due to time and references materials constraints, this study could not delve into all aspects of business correspondence, it only focuses on clarifying the difficulties that employees often face with and the way they selfstudy Discussions about the disadvantage of poor writing skills or other areas would not be found in this study In order to get the most accurate answer to the question ‘What mistakes the staff often make when writing business correspondence?’, the research data will be taken from the Sale and Marketing (emails, drafts of contracts written by the staff in the room) Additionally, the study is also based on references materials related to subject Business Correspondence of Thuongmai University 1.6 Research methodology Firstly, the design of this research was survey quantitative According to Creswell (2005), survey designs are procedures in quantitative research in which investigators administer a survey, a sample to the entire population of people in order to describe the attitudes, opinion, behaviors, or characteristics of the population The survey design has two kinds, the first is “at one point in time” (Cross sectional), and the second is “Study over time” (longitudinal) In this case, researcher conducted one point in time (Cross-sectional) The second point is about the instrument of the research, it was the tool use to collect the data from the respondent of the research In this research, the first instrument that the researcher used is questionnaire The questionnaire was about the difficulties, the common errors as well as the way of self-study, and it was distributed to all the staff in the IQL Company Technique of Collecting Data was applied To collect the data, the researcher asked the students for giving their response by filling the questionnaire The answers in the questionnaire were the multiple choices It is refracted into A, B, C, D and E, the design of the answer is drawn as Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree Thirdly, another data gathering instrument which was used in this study was interview The purpose of the interview was to consolidate the information gathered through the questionnaire, so that the researcher could delve into the causes behind the difficulties in practicing writing at workplace as well as selfstudy at home Besides, the interview also expected to learn about the strategies that employees wanted to implement to enhance their writing skills Additionally, by giving the staff opportunity to report with their own words, the researcher could gain some insights of their understanding and attitudes toward writing skills Finally, the researcher used Technique of Analyzing the Data for data processing After the data was collected from the participants by using questionnaire, the data was analyzed and become a percentage Based on these figures, the researcher can make specific and accurate assessments of the problem 1.7 Organization of the study 10 Chart 3.6 Employees’ level of interest in writing business correspondence According to the chart above, it can be seen that the majority of the staff have a neutral idea about writing business letters Specifically, among 46 members, 19 stated that their level of interest in writing commercial letters is soso, which accounts for 41,3 % of the employees Followed are 28,3 % of the participants like writing English quite a lot The number of the staff who not really enjoy this skills constitute 15,2 % While only members, occupying 8,7 % of the population are deeply interested in English writing, 6,3 % have an opposite idea that they not like writing at all In short, business correspondence writing skills is not really appeal to the majority of the IQL employees 3.6.2 The importance of self-study in improving writing skills The greater the importance of self-study is, the greater the employee's morale for learning is Therefore, it is noteworthy to detect their assessment of the self-study importance Chart 3.7 The importance of self-study in improving writing skills The above chart shows the information about the staff’s assessment toward self-study attitude First to mention, the number of opinions agreeing on the importance of self-study is the highest, approximately 39.1% of the respondents (18 people) In addition, 10 employees strongly agreed that self-study deeply affects their writing skills, accounting for about 21.2% Meanwhile, 16 employees (34.7%) gave neutral opinions, and employees (4.3%) disagreed about the importance of self-training Specially, no one strongly disagreed to this point It can be seen that the number of employees with neutral opinion accounts for a significant proportion, so the researcher decided to ask further question why they chose that answer They responded that they found practically writing with foreign partners when working is much better than studying on their own It helps them remember longer, and they have more motivation in doing that way because it is the work they are responsible to To sum up, there are two main streams of opinion which are agreed and neutral on this issue 35 3.6.3 Employees’ frequency of self-practice with writing business correspondence Chart 3.8 Participants’ frequency of self-practice with writing business correspondence From the information of the chart 3.8, the percentage of employees who only occasionally (about once a month) self-practice is the highest, accounts for 18 people out of 46 people, approximately 39.1% The number of people who sometimes practice English writing rank the second position, occupying 23.9% (11 people) This is followed by 17.5%, representing for employees usually selfpracticing writing letters of business Only people (6.5%) always (every day) practice writing and the double number of people never self-study In sum, the chart shows that most employees of IQL company not spend much time on self-study 3.6.4 How to deal with difficulties in writing business correspondence? When faced with difficulties in writing a commercial letter, what will IQL employees to resolve it? The following table will answer this question 4 0% 2,2 % 8,7 % 19,6 % Votes (%) Votes 2,2 % 3 6,5 % 10 15 32,6 % 11 (%) 6,5 % 8,7 % 13,0 % 13 28,3 % 21,7 % 23,9 % 14 10 32 69,5 % 23 50 % 16 34,7 % 30,4 % 21,7 % 2,2 % Votes a, Using Google Translate b, Search on Google c, Ask for co-worker’s help (%) Votes d, Using templates Ran k Level of frequency(1-5) Strategies (%) 17,4 % e, Get a friend as an ‘English Votes 12 17 expert’ (such as a good 19,6 English student, a English (%) 26,1 % 40, % 13,0 % 4,3 % % teacher,…) Table 3.6 Employees’ strategies to handle with difficulties in business correspondence writing 36 The above table clearly shows how IQL employees to cope with difficulties when they write business correspondence, the above strategies are ranked in descending order of application rate The way used the most is using Google Translate Up to 69.5% of the staff (32 members) always chooses to use Google Translate at first when having trouble writing English emails They think this is the fastest way to transfer from one language to another The second most applicable way is searching information on Google, which is voted by the 50% of the participants as the highest application level The employees can easily find related information on the Internet, such as format of a letter, type of letter, structure or anything else The third option of the staff is asking their co-workers, 34.7% of the employees supposed that was the way they use a lot Their coworkers often quickly help them and they can even learn more information thanks to the dedication of the colleagues Using templates is the next way to queue Not many employees think that this method is useful, most members (30.4%) choose level for this way Finally, making friends with those who are good at English is not appreciated Up to 26.1% of employees thought this is the least applicable way because there are so many different sources of information to support them in supplement knowledge about business correspondence Nowadays, just by simple manipulations, they are able to find a reference source, a detailed guide on writing business letters 3.6 Findings from the analysis Ferris and Hedgcock models (2005) have classified errors into different groups, they are morphological, lexical, syntactic, and mechanical error Then, in taxonomic analysis, each category is divided into specific error subcategories as follows: Morphological Lexical Syntactic Verb Error category Sentence Noun Word choice structure Article Table 3.7 Types of error category Mechanical Spelling Punctuation Capitalization Based on this error model, the researcher selected ten most common errors while writing a commercial letter to create question No in the questionnaire 37 The ten errors are: grammar, word choice, verb, noun, article, spelling, punctuation, type of the letter, tone of the letter, and jargon Combining the answers presented in section 3.5.4 “Common mistakes in writing business letter” and 15 emails from IQL staff, the researcher will analyze the most common errors that the IQL employees often encounter, they are grammar, word choice, verb, and spelling error 3.6.1 Grammar error Many employees still write the incorrect sentence structure due to their less understanding of English grammar Besides, they tend to write the sentence literally from Vietnamese into English Some examples of errors in sentence structure are as follows: “We from the Department Sale happy that you interest in our product.” “Thanks for complaints We will fix problem quick And thank you so much for this complaint, because this letter, the company can solving the problem.” “For your big order, we thank you very much.” Grammar error is a common problem for non-native speakers The interference of mother tongue language cannot be avoided when they have lack understanding of English These above sentences are not correct in grammar structure and difficult to understand Below are the suggestions for correct sentence: “We are from the Sale and Marketing department and we are very happy that you are interest in our product.” “Thanks for your complaints We will fix problem quickly Because of this letter, the company can solve the problem soon.” “Thank you very much for your big order.” 3.6.2 Word choice error This is the mistake accounting for the highest proportion Word choice error refers to the use of inappropriate vocabulary in particular field and situation The employees often fail to recognize the appropriate word because they tend to transfer the word literally without considering the context Below are some examples: 38 “We apology to you about…” “Before, we are sorry for the problem…” “Please forgive we for the damages.” “Earlier in our company have a promotion program…” Due to their inaccurate way of thinking in English, the employees are still confused between nouns and verbs They also have difficulty choosing the adverb at the beginning of the sentences Those sentences should be written as: “We apologize to you about…” “First of all / Firstly, we are sorry for the problem…” “Please forgive us for the damages.” “In the past, our company has a promotion program…” 3.6.3 Verb error The verb error occurs when the employees have to deal with the tenses, the subject, passive voice and the preposition Below are some example and the way to correct them: “We have received your EX8 model send on 14/03/2020.” sent “Our company have a policy…” has “We are responsible for pay that cost.” paying “The promotion program end for week.” has ended 3.6.4 Spelling error The vocabulary of commercial economics is very diverse and difficult to remember, especially economic terminologies In most cases, the employees misspell the words because they don’t check the correct spelling in the dictionary, sometimes due to their mistakes of typing For example: “So, whithin three days your outstanding invoices must be paid.” with in “Our leader will give you an explaination for this problem soon.” 39 explanation “We ưill send you a new water purifier in three days latter.” will-later “We apologize for the dissatisfachtion.” dissatisfaction “We appologize for the mistake” apologize So, the limitation of vocabulary causes many spelling errors in commercial correspondence, it also limits the expression ability of the employees 3.7 Discussion of the findings This study reported data collected from an investigation into the difficulties in writing business letters of employees of IQL,.JSC company The survey found out the difficulties faced by the staff, both subjective and objective The difficulties were partly because the employees themselves did not ensure their writing skills, partly because the company has not paid enough attention to employees In addition, the survey also found the most common writing mistakes Analysis of these errors would help the employees improve the quality of their written texts This investigation also showed that not all employees have a positive attitude about self-practicing writing skills Unlike students, most workers spend a lot of time on their job and other activities Only a few are aware of the need to consolidate writing skills every day to ensure the best working quality According to the observation, most of the staff are at normal level of English proficiency, what they need is learning more knowledge of other culture, economic terms and enhancing their English knowledge Many employees have a habit of literally translating from Vietnamese into English, which not only makes the sentence difficult to understand but also makes their acumen decrease day by day 40 CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 4.1 Summary of the study With the title “Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company”, the researcher makes an effort to get an insight into all the difficulties the employees have to face with, then, find out the best solutions for them To achieve all of these goals, this research is divided into four chapters with different purposes The first chapter briefly introduces the theories related to the research The second chapter presents an overview of commercial correspondence so that readers are provided with a basic knowledge of the research subject The next chapter shows the research methodology and findings drawn from the survey In this chapter, the researcher has analyzed thoroughly to find out the answers to the three research questions given at the beginning of the study The final chapter presents some methods to improve business correspondence writing skills of IQL employees In addition, this chapter addresses the limitations of this study and offers suggestions for further studies 4.2 Suggestions to improve business correspondence writing skills of the staff in IQL Company 4.2.1 Suggestions for the staff It is obvious that not only the company takes actions but the employees also need to if they want to correct their mistakes Firstly, each individual of the department should follow strategies that are designed in order to advance writing skill by the company For example, joining English classes of writing business correspondences in English has profound impacts on their improvement In addition, because employees usually suffer from heavy workload, they not have enough time to join English classes or conferences They can create groups on social network such as Facebook or Skype, in which they can chat to their co-workers in English about work and life in a bid to enhance their English skills Secondly, the employees should take the initiative in learning abbreviations and terms A large number of abbreviations as well as terminology are normally 41 used in business transactions If an employee does not understand the meaning of words used in the letters, it will be difficult for him to reply partners Thirdly, for employees, they also should arm themselves with background knowledge of business, experience and be more responsible in learning writing skill They can find out the most effective method of learning for themselves Large workloads are common problems in any business company, especially for companies with foreign joint ventures as IQL, so employees in the company should best adjust the time to achieve the best work efficiency Otherwise, this will be a great pressure, directly affecting the morale of working, which will lead to unwanted consequences For business correspondence writing, when being under busy work conditions, the employees should adapt to a variety of ways such as learning online or finding references online 4.2.2 Suggestions for the company First of all, the company should organize some regular training courses of writing business correspondence in English for the entire staffs, especially those in Sales and Marketing Department In addition, the general director might create plan to associate with English centers in Hanoi such as British Council to design some trading English courses for employees Accordingly, the lessons focus on teaching the skills of writing business correspondences and drafting contracts in English This helps them to broaden a wealth of knowledge about the importance of business letters in their work as well as ways to write accurately As a result, the company can make an impression on foreign guests Secondly, the company can arrange for conferences on instructing how to write business correspondence in English correctly, in which employees are taught 12 main parts including in the letter Besides, general director might encourage his staffs to take part in the conferences on sharing experiences in writing skill held by domestic and foreign organizations As a result, some mistakes can be eliminated Furthermore, recruitment criteria of the company should be changed, which includes the requirement for using English proficiently and accurately The 42 process of recruiting, interviewing should have clear procedures to evaluate correctly English ability of staffs Last but not least, the company should increase support for individuals who have ability to write business letters in English well in the workplace in finance and improve working conditions The company also needs to apply more policies to encourage English learning by offering higher salaries or good perks to all officers 4.3 Limitations of the study Despite the researcher’s effort in validating the methodology of the study and collect as well as analyze the data with careful consideration, the study is still subject to several limitations First of all, due to the objective condition, the time duration of the intervention was limited in a few weeks Hence, the researcher has decided to focus on the things that are easy to describe, such as the attitudes of employees and their difficulties when writing business correspondence Because the researcher is lack of time and limited knowledge, there is a considerable gap for future research into those more complicated issues Second, the target subjects of the study are just limited to 46 employees in the company Third, due to the shortage of knowledge and experience in doing research, the study cannot deal with other factors relating to the topic such as writing materials or benefits of writing skills All of these above might somehow have detrimental impact on the preciseness of the data collected 4.4 Suggestions for further studies The limitation and scope of the study leave the gaps for other researches in the field of writing business correspondence to fill in First, the study was carried out with the employees in IQL company, therefore, for the further studies, to get better results, the researcher should invite more participants and the data collection method Second, the present study just focused on the common mistakes in writing business letters, so a further research can investigate other fields such as stategies to learn business correspondence 43 CONCLUSION The importance of English is undeniable in modern society People who are good at English certainly have more opportunities to success than those who own poor English ability Therefore, the workers should pay much their attention to this international language However, for most employees, mastering the skills of business correspondence is not easy The difficulties are differences in culture and language, difficulty in rounding up vocabulary and terminology, difficulty in letter types, and huge workload To improve English writing skills, employees should change their writing strategies, as well as reinforce their knowledge of culture, vocabulary, grammar, etc In addition, the company should also focus on fostering, encouraging employees, opening more programs to strengthen writing skills for employees The writer hopes that her minor research may partly contribute to improving the quality of business writing skills of the staff in IQL Joint Stock Company 44 REFERENCES Creswell, John (2005) Educational Research: Planning, Conducting, and Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative Research Boston: Pearson Education Ferris, Dana & Hedgcock, John (2005) Teaching ESL Composition: Purpose, Process, and Practice (2nd edition) New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Johan, Rita (2014) Business English Jakarta: Grasindo Frendo, Evan (2012) How to Teach Business English England: Pearson Education Limited Gilling, Desmond (2013) The Essential Handbook for Business Writing (Revised edition) Canada: Greenlink Consulting Website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_correspondence 45 APENDIX SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE Dear IQL Company’s staff, I am Duong Thi Han, a final-year student at Thuongmai University I am doing a survey serving my graduation thesis with the topic: “Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company” I would like to ask for your help with this questionnaire to collect necessary data which play an extremely important role for my graduation paper There would be no right or wrong answer, each of your answer will be a valuable basis for the analysis process Therefore, I hope that you would answer as sincerely as possible The data collected will be strictly kept confidential and used in the research only, not for any commercial purposes Thank you in advance! Part A: Personal information What is your name? …………………………………………………………………………………… Your department: …………………………………………………………………………………… a b a b c d Your gender: Male Female How long have you been learning English? (Tick out the best answer) 1-3 years 4-6 years 7-9 years More than years Your number of years you have been working ……………………… Part B: Common mistakes you make when writing business correspondence a b c d e a b c Business correspondence writing skills are important at work Strongly disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree What is your level of writing business correspondence? (self-assessment) Very good Good Average 46 d e a b c d e a b c d e Bad Poor What are the most common errors you make when writing business letter? Grammar error f Word choice error Verb error g Spelling error Noun error h Type of the letter Punctuation error i Jargon error Article error j Tone of the letter How often you make mistakes in writing business correspondence? Very often Often Sometimes Hardly Never Part C: Your attitude in self-study to improve writing business correspondence skills 10 How much you like writing in English? (Circle the number that presents your level of interest) Not at all Very much 11 a b c d e 12 a b c d e 13 Self-study is important for improving writing skills Strongly disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree How often you self-practice writing business correspondence? Never Only occasionally (about once a month) Sometimes (about once a week) Usually (2-3 times a week) Always (everyday) What you often when getting difficulties in writing business correspondence? (Circle the number that can best describe your writing strategies) Never Occasionally a, Using templates b, Search on Google 47 Sometimes 1 Usually 2 Always 3 4 5 c, Ask for co-worker’s help d, Get a friend as an ‘English expert’ (such as a good English student, a English teacher, …) e, Using Google Translate 48 5 APPENDIX INTERVIEW QUESTIONS What are the difficulties that you face up with when learning how to write business correspondence? What causes lead to those problems? What should you to enhance your writing skills? What strategies you think IQL Company should to improve staff’s writing skills? In your opinion, trying to gain good writing skills right from studying in a university or studying and working simultaneously will be more effective? Why? 49 ... Summary of the study With the title ? ?Difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company? ??, the researcher makes an effort to get an insight into all the difficulties. .. writing skills I conduct this study on difficulties of the staff in writing business correspondence in IQL Joint Stock Company That is the company where I interned and the employees will be the. .. Aims of the study 1.3 Initially, this thesis aims at studying the difficulties of the IQL employees in writing business correspondence, so I will delve into the difficulties in practicing writing