VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ************************* TRẦN MINH THÀ NH AN EVALUATION OF THE COURSEBOOK “ENGLISH FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY I” FOR SECOND–YEAR STUDENTS OF UNIVERSITY OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY UNDER THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY (Đánh giá giáo trình “Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành Công nghệ thông tin I” dùng cho sinh viên năm thứ hai Trƣờng Đại học Công nghệ Thông tin và Truyền thông thuộc Đại học Thái Nguyên.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.111 Hanoi, 2014 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ************************* TRẦN MINH THÀ NH AN EVALUATION OF THE COURSEBOOK “ENGLISH FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY I” FOR SECOND–YEAR STUDENTS OF UNIVERSITY OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY UNDER THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY (Đánh giá giáo trình “Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành Công nghệ thông tin I” dùng cho sinh viên năm thứ hai Trƣờng Đại học Công nghệ Thông tin và Truyền thông thuộc Đại học Thái Nguyên.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60. Nguyen Hoa Hanoi, 2014 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I – Tran Minh Thanh, a candidate for the Degree of Master of Arts (TEFL) hereby state that I accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master‘s Graduation Paper deposited in the library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper. Signature Tran Minh Thanh i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My deepest gratitude goes to Professor.
Nguyen Hoa, my supervisor, for his valuable instructions, comments and criticisms as well as his kind encouragement during the development of this thesis. I am deeply indebted to the teachers and students at ICTU for their generous cooperation and enthusiasm from which I have benefited a lot during my study. Finally, I wish to express my sincerely thanks to my wife for her understanding and supports for me throughout the preparation and development of the thesis. ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT The ESP coursebook ―English for Information Technology I‖ compiled by four teachers of English of ICTU has been employed as the teaching materials for the second-year students of Faculty of Information Technology since 2009.
However, up to now, there has been no official research conducted to evaluate the relevance of the coursebook to the learners‘ needs as well as its suitability to the desired objectives of the course. The purpose of this study is to reveal the findings and information about the coursebook evaluation from the perspectives of students and teachers of ICTU. With this regard, the study tries to assess the relevance of the coursebook to the students‘ needs in terms of content, format and methodology. Four teachers of English and 80 second-year students participated in the survey.
The findings show that the coursebook is rather relevant to the needs of learners. iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS English for IT I English for Information Technology I ESL/EFL English as a Second Language/ English as a Foreign Language ESP English for Specific Purposes ICTU University of Information and Communication Technology IT Information Technology iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION .iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS. Rationale of the study.
Aims of the study. Methods of the study. Scope of the study. Significance of the study.
Design of the study. 4 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Materials in language teaching and learning. Concepts of materials.
Types of materials. English for specific purposes. Definition of materials evaluation. Purposes of materials evaluation.
Types of materials evaluation. Methods of materials evaluation. Criteria for materials evaluation. Materials evaluation models.
14 v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. 16 CHAPTER II: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 2. An overview of current ESP teaching and learning at ICTU. The objectives of the ESP course ―English for IT I‖.
The coursebook description. Data collection instruments. Data collection procedure. 21 CHAPTER III: MAJOR FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 3.
Learners‘ background of learning English. Learners‘ levels of English. Learners‘ purposes and expectations of learning the ESP course ―English for IT I‖. Learners‘ needs of learning the ESP course ―English for IT I‖.
Learners‘ and teachers‘ evaluation of the coursebook ―English for IT I‖. The evaluation of the content. The evaluation of the format. The evaluation of the methodology.
Summary of the study. Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further study. 41 Appendices: vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
XIX vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study In accordance with the innovation in education and training, English is considered an important subject taught at both schools and universities in Vietnam. In universities English courses are usually divided into General English (GE) course and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course. University of Information and Communication Technology (ICTU) under Thai Nguyen university is not an exception.
In the curriculum for ICTU students, English courses account for 10 credits, which are distributed into two phases: General English (GE) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP). General English consisting of two courses (a total of six credits) aim to train students in four general skills of English. The two courses of General English explore a variety of topics related to real life situations. ESP including two courses with four credits in total is designed to teach students English language for specific purposes, such as English for Electronics and Telecommunications, English for Automation Technology and English for Information Technology.
The role of an ESP course is to bring to the learners what they desperately need in real life. Students of Faculty of Information Technology are introduced with ESP courses in the second academic year. These ESP courses are divided into two modules using two coursebooks ―English for Information Technology I‖ and ―English for Information Technology II‖. In ICTU, coursebooks are mostly used as teaching and learning materials for both teachers and learners.
They not only provide a framework for teachers in obtaining the objectives of the course but also play an important role as a guide to the teacher in conducting lessons. From the perspective of learners, a coursebook truly affects their attitudes and performance on lessons throughout the course. It is true that when learners like their coursebook, they like the course as well, and become active participants to the lessons. Therefore, the appropriate choice of a coursebook is an issue of great concern and is paid much attention to by both administrators and lecturers of English here.
However, most of the textbooks in the market are written by native speakers or other lecturers coming from other universities rather than from 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. These textbooks are not fully suitable with the particular needs of students of ICTU whose the knowledge of expertise is designed by IT lecturers of ICTU. In other words, the textbooks do not go together with the IT knowledge students learned. Being aware of this, the administrators and lecturers of English of ICTU decided to design their own textbooks to employ in the ESP courses for students.
Since the approved version of the coursebook “English for IT I” was put into use in 2009 for the second-year students, there has been no official evaluation of researchers or lecturers conducted to evaluate or review the fitness of the coursebook to ESP learning context of ICTU. In addition, some students still complain about the problems when they use the coursebook. They say that they are not really interested in some parts of the coursebook, especially writing section. Besides, some lecturers still question the relevance of the coursebook to students‘ needs.
Thus, a study to evaluate the coursebook “English for IT I” is urgently needed. Aims of the study The study is carried out to evaluate the coursebook “English for IT I” which is used as teaching materials for second-year students at ICTU to see how the coursebook is relevant to the learners‘ needs. The findings of the study will help teachers to adjust the exploitation of the coursebook so that they can optimize the strong points and adapt or substitute weak points from other IT materials to meet the learners‘ needs. Furthermore, it is expected that the results of research, to some extent, could become the reference material for those interested in the field of coursebook evaluation.
Research question This study aims to find out the answer to the following research question: 1. Is the coursebook “English for Information Technology I” relevant to the learners’ needs in terms of content, format and methodology? 4. Methods of the study To conduct this study, two main instruments were used to collect data: - Survey questionnaires - were designed for both second-year students of Faculty of Information Technology and four involved teachers of English at ICTU. 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com - Semi-structured interviews - were conducted to look for both teachers and students‘ further opinions on the coursebook based on their experience in using it or to clarify any misunderstanding.
Scope of the study The coursebook “English for IT I” has been used as the official teaching materials in the ESP course ―English for IT I‖ for second-year students for five years. In material evaluation, there have been a number of criteria that should be taken into consideration, such as the content, the methodology, the layout, the culture bias, the authenticity, and so on. It will be highly precious to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the coursebook. However, within the scope of a minor thesis, the criteria for evaluation were based on Hutchinson and Waters‘s (1987) with focus on three criteria: Content, Format, and Methodology to see how the coursebook is relevant to learners‘ needs.
Significance of the study In the first place, this thesis will cater for the methods to evaluate materials effectively. A sound theoretical background will help teachers move beyond impressionistic assessments and acquire useful, accurate, systematic, and contextual insights into the overall nature of materials. Secondly, the paper examines how far the materials used in IT classrooms provide the necessary tools in preparing learners for the language skills they need for their future occupations. At the same time, it would assist the educators in identifying the particular strengths and weaknesses in the coursebook.
This would go a long way in ultimately assisting the teachers with making optimum use of the coursebook‘s strong points and recognizing the shortcomings of certain tasks, and entire texts. The evaluation when completed will serve as the foundation for the design of a new coursebook or improve the current one that promises to be more up-to-date and motivating for the students. I find it important to develop this project because our teachers of English will have the opportunities to offer students suitable materials according to their specific needs. 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
Design of the study The study consists of three parts: Part A: Introduction – presents the rationale, aims, scope, methodology and significance of the study. Part B: Development – includes three chapters: Chapter I: Literature review – provides theoretical basis for the study. Firstly, some most important notions related to teaching materials, such as concepts of materials, types of materials and ESP are discussed. Secondly, this chapter reviews materials evaluation.
Readers are provided with concise understandings of the approaches, types, purposes, criteria, methods, and models of evaluation. Chapter II: Research methodology – describes the methods employed in this thesis.