VIETNAM NATIONAL1 UNIVERSITY-HANOI vV COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POST GRADUATE STUDIES ----------------------- HOANG THI HAI HANH A STUDY ON STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES AT FACULTY OF BROADCASTING TECHNOLOGY OF COLLEGE OF BROADCASTING I (NGHIÊN CỨU NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN CỦA SINH VIÊN KHOA KỸ THUẬT PHÁT THANH - TRUYỀN HÌNH, TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẰNG PHÁT THANH- TRUYỀN HÌNH I TRONG VIỆC HỌC TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: METHODOLOGY Code: 60 14 10 Hanoi, December 2009 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POST GRADUATE STUDIES ----------------------- HOANG THI HAI HANH A STUDY ON STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES AT FACULTY OF BROADCASTING TECHNOLOGY OF COLLEGE OF BROADCASTING I (NGHIÊN CỨU NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN CỦA SINH VIÊN KHOA KỸ THUẬT PHÁT THANH - TRUYỀN HÌNH, TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẰNG PHÁT THANH- TRUYỀN HÌNH I TRONG VIỆC HỌC TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: METHODOLOGY Code: 60 14 10 Supervisor: Duong Thi Nu, D.r Hanoi, December 2009 Hanoi, December 2009 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vi Table of Contents Certificate of originality i Acknowledgement ii Abstract iii List of Abbreviations iv List of tables. figures and charts v Part I: Introduction 1 1. Aims of the study 1 3. Scope of the study 2 4.
Methods of the study 2 5. Design of the study 2 Part II: Development 4 Chapter 1: Theoretical Background 4 1.1 Reading and reading comprehension 4 1.1 The nature of reading and reading comprehension 4 1.3 Classification of reading according to the purposes of 7 reading 1.1 Definitions of ESP 9 1.2 Reading skills in ESP 10 1.3 ESP reading materials 11 1.3 Problems in learning ESP reading 11 1.1 Reading skill problem 12 1.5 Summary 13 Chapter 2: The current situation of teaching and learning ESP 14 reading at College of Broadcasting I.1 Introduction about CB-I learners 14 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.2 The objectives of teaching and learning reading English in CB-I.3 Teachers and method of teaching 15 2.4 The ESP program at CB-I 16 2.5 Summary 17 Chapter 3: Research Methodology 18 3.3 The data collection methods 18 3.1 Students’ attitudes towards ESP reading 19 3.2 The purpose of reading ESP in the views of the students 22 3.3 Students’ perception of ESP reading difficulties 23 *In term of grammar 24 * In term of vocabulary 25 * In term of discourse 26 * In term of reading skills 27 * Rank order of ESP reading difficulties 29 3.4 The causes of difficulties 29 * The reading materials 30 * The teachers 30 * The learners 31 3.5 Students’ expectations in term of material 31 3.6 Students’ expectations in term of methodology 32 3.5 Summary 34 Chapter 4: Some suggestions to improve learning ESP reading in 35 CB-I 4.1 Improving teachers’ classroom techniques for teaching 35 Broadcasting Technology reading 4.1 Applying different approaches to teach vocabulary 35 4.2 Supplying more grammar structures 35 4.3 Increasing students’ reading interest and motivation 36 4.2 Training students to become efficient readers 37 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.1 Teaching students different reading strategies 37 4.2 Assigning and checking students’ completion of 38 homework.1 Improving Broadcasting Technology background 39 knowledge for teachers of English 4.2 Improving teaching methodology 39 4.4 Developing ESP reading materials 40 4.2 Adapting reading practice exercises 41 4.3 Simplifying highly specialized texts 41 4.5 Summary 41 Part III: Conclusion 42 1. Summary of the findings 42 2. Limitations of the study and suggestion for further study.
43 References 44 Appendices I Appendix 1: Some pictures about mixing desk and recording studio I Appendix 2: Unit 6- Making a recording IV Appendix 3: Bảng câu hỏi dành cho sinh viên V Appendix 4: Translated version of the questionnaire for students X LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CB-I: College of Broadcasting I ESP: English for Specific Purposes FBT: Faculty of Broadcasting Technology GE: General English LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com v LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND CHARTS Figure 1: Schematization of the To-down approach Figure 2: The vicious circle of the weak readers Chart 1: Students’ perception about the importance of reading skill in ESP reading Chart 2: Students’ views about the role of ESP reading for their future job Chart 3: Students’ interest in ESP reading Chart 4: Purposes of reading ESP in the views of students Chart 5: Students’ views of sources of difficulties. Table 1: The difficulties in term of grammar Table 2: The difficulties in the term of vocabulary Table 3: The difficulties in the term of discourse Table 4: The difficulties in the term of reading skill Table 5: The average source of the items in each area of difficulties Table 6: Students’ expectations in material Table 7: Students’ expectation in methodology LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Owing to the ongoing process of regional and global integration in Vietnam, the demand for English language learning across the country is increasing. English has become a compulsory subject in every school, college and university with a considerable length of time.
To students, nowadays, English is not only a subject in the curriculum at university but also a key to gain access to the information world. In Vietnam, there is a growing demand for English language teaching to meet the needs of a new generation of learners who want to learn English to “gain access to the required knowledge that is available, either exclusively or most readily, in English” (Munby, 1978:3) or to serve other different specific purposes. That leads to the coming into being of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Being aware of the great demand for English in particularly and the importance of ESP in specially, officials in CB- I have adapted GE since 1990 and ESP since 1993 as compulsory subject.
It is aimed at broadening students‟ knowledge and achieving success in their career life as well. As a technical college, one of the requirements for graduates is to be able to read professional documents in their field for further study or future jobs. Therefore, ESP was first introduced into the syllabus about 10 years ago. However, teachers and students at CB-I still face some of these problems: - There has been little or almost no research work touching upon ESP teaching methodologies to language students in Vietnam.
- Most teachers at CB-I lack experience in teaching ESP. - There are no training courses for teachers of ESP. - Students are not of equal level of English - The present course book at CB-I is not effective and relevant. The foresaid reasons of ESP teaching and learning at CB-I have aroused my interest and made me find out the areas of students‟ reading difficulties at CB-I.
Once problems have been identified, it will be possible to make suggestions for the teachers and students to improve teaching and learning of ESP reading at CB-I. Aims of the study LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 This study aims to examine the areas of difficulties in ESP reading of the second-year students of Faculty of Broadcasting Technology (FBT) at CB-I. The objectives of this study are: - to investigate the student attitudes towards ESP reading. - to find out the students‟ reading difficulties and their causes - to investigate the students‟ needs in terms of material and methodology.
- to offer some recommendations to reduce the difficulties and help students to improve their reading skills. Hopefully, the study will make some contributions to the improvement of teaching and learning ESP in CB-I. Scope of the study Dealing with ESP learning difficulties is too broad for a study of this size. It is impossible to cover all aspects of language theory and practice in this study.
Therefore, the focus of this study is to investigate some linguistic problems and difficulties in ESP reading skill experienced by the second-years students at Faculty of Broadcasting Technology in CB-I then recommend some techniques to help them improve their reading. Methods of the study The theoretical background of the study mainly relies on many published books written by different authors on language of technology, communicative language teaching, English for specific purposes, approaches to ESP teaching and learning. The major method used in the study is the survey one. With the aim of finding out the difficulties in ESP reading of the second-year students of Faculty of Broadcasting Technology, this thesis uses the analysis of the statistics from the instruments including one questionnaire, informal interviews and small talks conducted with the teachers and students at CB-I.
Design of the study The study is organized into three main parts: the introduction, the development and the conclusion. The first part introduces the rationale, aims of the study, method, scope of the study as well as design of the thesis. The second part consists of four chapters: Chapter 1 reviews the theoretical background of the research including Reading and reading comprehension, ESP reading and problems in learning ESP reading. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 3 Chapter 2 discusses the present situation of teaching and learning reading English in Faculty of Broadcasting Technology at CB- I.
Chapter 3 presents the research methodology which focuses on the research questions, the participants, research method including data collection methods, data analysis process and some discussion and findings. Chapter 4 suggests some recommendations to reduce difficulties and to improve the teaching and learning of ESP reading. The last part summarizes the issues addressed, presents some conclusions made on the basis of the findings, shows the limitations of the study and makes some suggestions for further research. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 PART II: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Theoretical background As the study aims at finding students‟ difficulties in ESP reading in the field of broadcasting technology in this chapter, we will take a long , careful look at the theoretical background of the study which would be a review of issues relevant to the thesis topic.
Reading and reading comprehension 1. The nature of reading and reading comprehension * The nature of reading According to Anderson et al (1985), the majority of scholars in the field now agree on the nature of reading: “Reading is the process of constructing meaning from written texts. It is a complex skill required the coordination of a number of interrelated sources of information”. Reading is “a psycholinguistics process by which the reader, a language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display” (Goodman, 1971:135).
According to Goodman, this act of reconstruction is viewed as “a cyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing and confirming”. Eddie Williams (1984:2) noted that “a simple definition of reading is that it is a process whereby one looks at and understand what has been written.” He takes the same view with Goodman on reading, especially on the act of reconstruction as Goodman. Clearly, there is a great deal of defining reading and no definition can capture all the ideas and features of what reading is. Each researcher reflects what reading means according to his or her own opinions.
What is common between them is that however they have an effort to find out the nature of reading, reading act in which reading, the readers and the text are emphasized. Now it is essential for us to understand thoroughly the definition of reading comprehension before teaching a reading text. * Reading Comprehension Grellet (1983: 3) indicated that “reading or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as effectively as possible”. Reading comprehension is considered as an important part in teaching and learning reading a foreign language.
It can be understood as the ability to attract the required information from the text as effectively as possible.