Thai EFL Undergraduate Students’ Attitudes towards Syntactic Structures in English Writing

Abstract

This study investigated Thai EFL students’ attitudes of difficulties towards syntactic structures in English writing and their evaluation of frequencies in using syntactic structures in their writing. The participants in this study were 30 sophomores, majoring in English from a private university in Thailand. They were asked to fill in a questionnaire concerning syntactic structures in English writing.  The instrument in this study was a questionnaire with a five-scale measurement. The descriptive statistical analysis via frequencies and percentages was used to calculate the data analysis. The results in this study show that the participants feel that dependent clauses are difficult for them to use, especially adverbial clauses, reduced adjective clauses and verbless adverbial clauses. Based upon their evaluation towards frequencies of syntactic structures, the participants frequently used existential there constructions and adjective clauses in their writing in English. It was highly expected that the results of this study would be useful for English language teachers to gain better understanding of Thai EFL university students towards their difficulties with syntactic structures in English writing. So, English teachers could bring the results of this study to provide improvement to their students.