Analysis of Sentence Structures through Translation for a Reading Task

Abstract

The study aimed to diagnose students’ problems in sentence structures which affect their reading comprehension. The study was conducted with 84 mixed-ability students who enrolled in an undergraduate university-level fundamental English course. The translation method was used as a medium for data collection. The students were asked to provide an English-Thai translation of a twelvesentence story where seven common grammatical points were the concern—present and past participles, infinitives and gerunds, passive voices, adjective clauses, and noun clauses. They were varied in distribution, and each was found a maximum of two times in the story. The glossary of vocabulary presumed unknown to the students was provided in the passage. Two Thai raters who were researchers graded the students’ written work. The results show that most of the students could not translate the sentences accurately since they did not know the sentence structures. Although the students could understand the whole meaning of the sentences, they were uncertain in the accurate use of certain grammatical points. This led to misconception and affected comprehension in reading pertaining to the deep meaning the text conveyed.

Key words: sentence structures; reading comprehension; translation