Research Instruments

This research adopted the case study method because the researcher wanted an in-depth study of the written errors by the subjects. A case study is one of several ways of doing social science research. There are other ways to conduct a case study, such as experiments, surveys, multiple histories, and analysis of archival information (Yin, 2003). The case study was able to focus on a specific group of Chinese ESL students chosen for the study. In the study, both quantitative and qualitative methods were used.

The quantitative method was used to collect statistical data of verb errors collected from the written works. It was important to obtain the frequency of occurrence of verb- form errors so that the most common errors or errors with high frequency could be determined. The research also employed the qualitative method to collect empirical data in the form of subjects‟ written task for an analysis of verb-form errors.

Two sets of research instruments were used to collect data in the study. The first set of instruments was composed of three writing tasks in three sessions. The second set of instruments was a questionnaire consisting of two sections. The questionnaire was aimed at obtaining information on the background of the subjects, their language exposure, and perceptions about learning English.

3.4.1 The writing task

A writing task was used as the first instrument in the study to determine the types of verb errors produced by the subjects. The writing task was divided into three sessions and subjects were required to write an essay during each session. The sessions were conducted after class in a classroom in SIS Gopeng. During each session, the subjects were required to write an essay of 200 words. The time given to write each essay was 45 minutes.

The specifications of the three sessions of writing task are as follows:

Session Date Essay Title Data determined

1 10.02.12 Write a short story ending with “…regretted for not telling anyone where Samuel had gone.”

Mostly verb errors in past tense

2 17.02.12 Private Tuition Mostly verb errors in present tense 3 24.02.12 My New Year Resolutions Mostly verb errors expressing

futurity

During the writing task, discussions with other subjects were prohibited. However, subjects were allowed to raise questions about words they wanted to use in their writing but did not know in English. The teacher would only provide the root words for the students but not in the inflectional forms. Students were informed of the rules of the writing task before they started writing. By providing vocabularies in English to the

subjects, they were able to express what they wanted to write and be not bounded by their limited vocabularies.

Before the writing task took place, the researcher obtained the permission of the management of SIS Gopeng to carry out the writing task on three different days in February. The first writing session was conducted on 10th February, 2012 after school in a classroom in SIS Gopeng, with the help of an English teacher of the school. The researcher briefed the subjects on the instructions of writing the essays while the teacher assisted the writing process. In the first session, the subjects were required to write an essay entitled „Write a short story ending with …regretted for not telling anyone where Samuel had gone.‟ This essay required the subjects‟ knowledge of past tense verbs to express an incident that happened in the past. The essays collected were able to present the types of errors mostly of the past tense.

The second session was conducted on 17th February, 2012, after school in the same classroom where the first session was conducted. During the second session, the subjects were required to write an essay entitled „Private Tuition.‟ This non-fictional essay title required the subjects to write mostly using the present tense because this is a current issue in society. The subjects were expected to write about their opinions regarding attending private tuition and how they feel about private tuition. The data collected from this essay shows errors mostly in the present tense.

The third session was conducted on 24th February 2012. During the third session, the subjects were required to write an essay entitled „My New Year Resolutions.‟ This essay title required the subjects to use mostly in future tense to express the plans that will be carried out to accomplish their New Year resolutions. The essays collected indicate mostly errors of futurity.

3.4.2 The questionnaire

A questionnaire was the second instrument used in this study to obtain further information of the subjects in order to collect more relevant and supportive data for analysis purpose.

After completing the third essay, the subjects were given a questionnaire to fill in. The time allocated for the subjects to complete the questionnaire was 20 minutes. Time was extended for those who needed more time to complete the questionnaire. This was to ensure they had sufficient time to complete the questionnaire and provide sufficient data. The questionnaire was divided into two sections as follows:

(1) Section A

The purpose of this section is to obtain the subjects‟ biographical details and language background. This section will also review the students‟ English test results.

(2) Section B

This section consists of questions concerning how often English is used in their daily life and their perception about learning English. From the answers provided in this section, the researcher was able to connect the factors that contributed to their verb errors to the findings.