VIETNAM NATIONAT, UNTVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYEN THI HOAI MY INVESTIGATING SOME PROBLEMS CONFRONTED BY ‘TEACHERS AND THE SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS OF HANOL UNIVERSITY OF SPORTS AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN TEACHING AND LEARNING READING ESP IN SPORTS (Nghiên cứu đánh giá một số khó khăn mà giáo viên và sinh viên năm Lhứ hai triờng Đại học SP TDTT Hà Nội phải đối mặt khi dạy và học môn dục tiếng Anh chuyên ngành Thể thao} MA. MINOR THSIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410 Supervisor: Pham Thj Ngoc Philợng, M.A TIanai, 2010 VIETNAM NATIONAI. UNIVERSITY, HANOT UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTFRNATIONAT. STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYEN THI HOAI MY INVESTIGATING SOME PROBLEMS CONFRONTED BY TEACHERS AND THE SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS OF HANOI UNIVERSITY OF SPORTS AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN TEACHING AND LEARNING READING ESP IN SPORTS (Nghiên cứu dánh giá một số khó khan mà gián viên và sình viên nam thứ bai trl lờng Dai hoc SP TDTT Ha Nội phải đối mặt khi dạy và học môn đọc tiếng Anh chuyên ngành Thể thao) MA.
MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410 Supervisor: Pham Thi Ngọc Phiợng, XI. Hanoi, 2010 iv LIST OF TABLES ‘Table 1: Students’ perceptions of the texts in the course book. Table 2: Students’ perceptions of vocabulary in the lexis Table 3: Students’ ways to get the meanings of specialized vocabulary when reading the texts Table 4. The difficultiesin the areas of reading skills Table 5: Students’ views of sources of difficulties.
‘Table 6: Students’ pre-reading activities Tal Students? ways of reading Table 8: What help students to understand the text Table 9: Students’ post-reading activities Table 10: The frequency of the students in using supplementary materials Table 11; The students’ desires from theix teachers in term of methodology ‘Table 12: The students’ expectations in term of materials CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2. Reading comprehension in Foreign Language Learning and in ESP. What is reading and reading comprehension? First of all, according to Frank Smith (1985:102) “Reading is to understand the author’s thought”. ILis a process through which the reader draws out the fill amounl of information and understands what the writer wants to say through the message.
(1990: 2) stated that ‘reading is a process whereby one looks at and understands what has been writer” The prablem still remains low the reader imderslands the mossage. In toadling, we have to put the words into contexts because the meanmgs of a word depend on the context in which it appears. One more definition of reading is offered by Goodman (1971: 135). In his viewpoint, reading is “a psycholinguistics process by which the reader, a language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message whieh has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display”.
He considered this act of reconstruction as “a eyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing, and confizming”. Besides, reading is defined as “a developmental process”. We loam reading not only to learn how to read the text, to master grammatical structures, the sound, ele, butalso to understand the content, expressed in the text or lo develop the ability ofre expressing the author’s ideas in our own words. Reading comprehension is the process of constructing meaning from text.
‘The goal of all reading instruction is ullinalely targeted al helping a reader comprehend texl. Reading comprohonsion involves at least lwo poopls: the reailer aul ths writer. The process of comprehending involves decoding the writer's words and then using background knowledge to construct an approximate understanding of the writer's message, Grefllet (1981: 3) indicated that “reading comprehension or understanding a wrilten Lex! means extracting the required information from it as effectively as possible”, According to Richards (1992), “reading comprehension is best described as an understanding between the author and the reader”. This point of view concentrates on the reader’s understanding of the message based on the individual’s background knowledge.
(Swan, 1992: 1) “A student is good at comprehension we mean that he can read accurately and cflicionlly, so as to gel tho maximum information from a text with the minieum of misunderstanding”. The student ean show his understanding by re-expressing the content of the text in many ways such as summarizing the text, answering questions etc CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2. Reading comprehension in Foreign Language Learning and in ESP. What is reading and reading comprehension? First of all, according to Frank Smith (1985:102) “Reading is to understand the author’s thought”.
ILis a process through which the reader draws out the fill amounl of information and understands what the writer wants to say through the message. (1990: 2) stated that ‘reading is a process whereby one looks at and understands what has been writer” The prablem still remains low the reader imderslands the mossage. In toadling, we have to put the words into contexts because the meanmgs of a word depend on the context in which it appears. One more definition of reading is offered by Goodman (1971: 135).
In his viewpoint, reading is “a psycholinguistics process by which the reader, a language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message whieh has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display”. He considered this act of reconstruction as “a eyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing, and confizming”. Besides, reading is defined as “a developmental process”. We loam reading not only to learn how to read the text, to master grammatical structures, the sound, ele, butalso to understand the content, expressed in the text or lo develop the ability ofre expressing the author’s ideas in our own words.
Reading comprehension is the process of constructing meaning from text. ‘The goal of all reading instruction is ullinalely targeted al helping a reader comprehend texl. Reading comprohonsion involves at least lwo poopls: the reailer aul ths writer. The process of comprehending involves decoding the writer's words and then using background knowledge to construct an approximate understanding of the writer's message, Grefllet (1981: 3) indicated that “reading comprehension or understanding a wrilten Lex! means extracting the required information from it as effectively as possible”, According to Richards (1992), “reading comprehension is best described as an understanding between the author and the reader”.
This point of view concentrates on the reader’s understanding of the message based on the individual’s background knowledge. (Swan, 1992: 1) “A student is good at comprehension we mean that he can read accurately and cflicionlly, so as to gel tho maximum information from a text with the minieum of misunderstanding”. The student ean show his understanding by re-expressing the content of the text in many ways such as summarizing the text, answering questions etc CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale With the globalization of trade and economy and the contmnuing inerease of international communication in various fields, the demand for English for Specific Purposes is expanding, especially in countries where Fnglish is langhl as a foreign language Teaching reading comprehension to students plays a very important role in foreign language teaching in general, and in English teaching in particular.
It is much more imporlanl, iC leaching and Icaning conditions arg out. of the large! language environment In specialized non-language universities students learn English as a school euxicwum subject, not as their future specialty. Most of them consider that the aim of their English learning al university is successfully passing term examinations andi it is possible, using English to read their professional materials that do not exist in Vietnamese. At Hanoi University of Sports and Physical Education where I work, English is not considered a major subject but it is a compulsory one in the curriculum.
It is taught with the purpose that students will use it to communicate basically with others and to fulfill their work in the future and for their future study. In English, students have to lear both General English (GM), using “New Ieadway Blemeniary’ book and Tnglish for Specific Purposes (ESP) with ‘Giao tinh tieng Anh chuyen nganh The thao’, ESP plays a very important rele with the objective to enhance students’ specialized knowledge and provide them wilh a system of lems relaled lo Sports in Tinglish. In the curriculum of Fnglish for Sports, we mainly focus on Readiryy skill because il is reading that will be made use af by students m the future work, And if students want to follow the present knowledge explosion, they should learn to read so they can arm their minds with the recent achievements in scicnlific research, Carrell (1989: pl) states that “for many students, reading is by fhr the most important of the four macro-skills, particularly in English as a second foreign language”. ESP reading courses offer students a new field, fresh bridge of understanding.
Unfortunately, while teaching and learning reading, both teachers and theix students may run across many problems, such as new words, difficult sentences, lack of reading skills, inappropriate teaching methods, lack of teaching facilities, lack of reference books relating to sports subject ole. In this paper, T woukl tke 10 improve reading command for the students by working out some problems which may negatively influence their leaming reading English for Sports and then suggest some possible solutions to overcomethese problems.2, Aims of the study: ‘The study is aimed at: - Tnvestigaling the difficulties thal leachers and students are coping wilh in their daily teaching and leaning of English for sports reading, - Proposing some possible solutions to overcome those difficulties and to improve roading comprehension for students in their roading Engtish for sports. Significance vf the study ‘This study is beneficial in shedding lights on the difficulties the teachers and the second- year sludents confronted whils teaching and curning FSP roading for sports al Hanoi University of Sports and Physical Education and to find out the causes for those difficulties, From this result, the study will make some possible suggestions to overcome those difficulties and to improve students’ reading comprehension for English sports. In addition to this, these instructions are also hoped to help teachers of English at Hanoi University of Sports and Physical Education in their teaching careers 1.4, Scope of the study The study mainly focuses on ESP reading problems confronted by both ESP teachers and students of Sports at Hanoi University of Sports and Physical Education hen, the suggestions will be recommended to overcome these abslacles and lo gain better leaching and Icarting reading ESP in the phase.5, Methodology ‘The study is carried out in terms of both theory and practice.
‘Ihe theoretical background of the shady mainly relics on many published books writion by differen authors famous for ESP teaching and learning. In terms of practice, the major method used in this study is the quantitative one, That is all comment, consideration, suggestions given in the thesis arc bascd on the analysis of the statistics from the survey questionnaires with the students at Hanoi University of Sports and Physical Lducation, Besides, the informal interviews are also used to record information from Izachers, Two approaches to data collection will, hopetully, provide fresh insights into teachers and students’ difficulties in teaching and leaming reading HSP for Sports. Based on the results 3. The setting of the study 3.
Purposes of leaching and Icamning reading English in Sports at HUSPE 3. English language teachers and their methods of teaching 3. Students and their background knowledge 3. Data analysis Chapter 4: Results and Discussion 4.
Dala analysis and discussion of studouls” survey questionnaires 4. Data analysis and discussion of the teachers’ interviews 4. Teachers” opinions on the course book they are teaching 4. Teachers” ways to deliver their lessons 4.
Teachers’ difficulties in teaching reading English for Sports 4.4, What have you been doing to overcome difficulties? 4. The frequency of teachers in using supplementary materialsin teaching ESP reading Chapter 5: Conclusion 5. Summary of major findings 5. Teachers’ probl: ng 5.
n term of course book 5.1, Training EFL teachers for ESP teaching 5. Applying different approaches to teach vocabulary 5.