iii ABSTRACT Reading is one of the most important skills in learning English, especially ESP. For first year students at Electricity Faculty in Sao Do University, reading has been given the first priority and has been paid more attention as the students have to read English materials related to their own specialist subject. This study has been conducted in an attempt to investigate the difficulties in reading ESP materials, find out the necessity of adapting and recommend techniques of adapting tasks for reading lessons in English for Electricity to improve the reading skill of the first year students at Electricity Faculty, Sao Do University. The subjects involved in the study are 8 English teachers who have taught English for Electricity and 100 students of Electricity Faculty chosen at random from 3 classes.
They were in their first year and have just finished studying English for Electricity. The data collected from questionnaires and notes from class observation reveal that it is necessary to adapt reading tasks to facilitate reading process and help students to obtain desirable achievements in ESP reading. The analysis of the data collected has helped the researcher to come at several problems in both teaching and learning ESP in general and reading skill in particular. Stemming from the findings, the author has put forward adapting tasks in reading lessons of English for Electricity to improve reading skill of the first-year students at Electricity Faculty, Sao Do University.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iv LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND ABBREVIATION 1. Tables: Table 1 – Exercises believed to be suitable to develop reading skills Table 2: English for Electricity’s Units Table 3: Students’ evaluation of the difficulties of different units in the textbook Table 4: Teachers’ evaluation of the difficulties of different units in the textbook Table 5: Teachers’ and students’ preferences for the reading activities 2. Figures: Figure 1: Students’ places of domicile Figure 2: Students’ time of learning English Figure 3: Students’ purposes in learning ESP Figure 4: Students’ evaluation of the difficulties in learning English for Electricity Figure 5: Teachers’ evaluation of the difficulties in learning English for Electricity Figure 6: Students’ views of the difficulties of reading strategies Figure 7: Teachers’ evaluation of the necessity of reading strategies Figure 8: Students’ views on the reference materials Figure 9: Time of students’ studying outside the classroom 3. Abbreviations: GE: General English ESP: English for Specific Purposes CLT: Communicative Language Teaching EFL: English as a Foreign Language DC: Direct current LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com v TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements.iii List of tables, figures and abbreviations.iv Table of contents.
The aim of the study. Scope of the study. Organization of the study.2 PART II: DEVELOPMENT.3 CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW. Deleting or Omitting.What is reading and reading comprehension?.
The definition of reading. Reading skills in English for Specific Purposes. TASK IN LANGUAGE TEACHING AND TASK DESIGNING. Task in language teaching.10 CHAPTER II: THE STUDY.13 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vi II.
THE RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS AND PROCEDURE.16 CHAPTER III: DATA ANALYSIS, DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS. QUESTIONAIRE DATA ANANYSIS AND DISCUSSION. Students’ background of learning English and their purposes in learning ESP. Evaluation of the difficulties in learning English for Electricity.
Evaluation of the difficulties of different units in the textbook. Evaluation of reading skills. Students’ views of the difficulties of reading strategies. Teachers’ evaluation of the necessity of reading strategies.
Teachers’ and students’ preferences for the reading activities. Reference materials for students. Time of students’ studying outside the classroom. Some adjustments of teaching and learning.
Promoting students with a variety of reading strategies.2 Encouraging students to develop learning habit outside class. Adaptation of the reading tasks in English for Electricity. Deleting or Omitting.41 PART III: CONCLUSION.IV LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 PART I: INTRODUCTION I. Rationale English has experienced its popularity in Vietnam over the last few decades.
Together with the development of General English (GE), English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has become an indispensable branch in English Language Teaching in Vietnam to meet the growing demand for communicating with foreigners and updating information as well as technology in the fields of electrical engineering, electronics, computer science and engineering… ESP is a compulsory subject in the training curriculum at Sao Do University. Students at Electricity Faculty are supposed to study a certain command of ESP relating industrial fields such as: electrical engineering, electric power system, electric power in industry and household. However, ESP teaching has encountered a number of problems such as long and difficult reading texts, students’ electrical knowledge limitation, and lack of experienced teachers of ESP. Another problem of great concern of the ESP teachers is syllabus, especially its tasks and activities for practicing reading skill.
The ESP syllabus for the first-year students of Electricity Faculty – English for Electricity is not an exception. And the desire of how to improve the effectiveness of reading lessons is really the strong motivation. All the above mentioned reasons lead to the choice of the study: “Adapting tasks for reading lessons in English for Electricity to improve the English reading skill of the first- year students at Electricity Faculty, Sao Do University” I. The aim of the study The study aims to: - develop a theoretical framework which is appropriate for adapting tasks for reading lessons in English for Electricity for the first year students at electricity Faculty, Sao Do University.
- investigate and analyze the difficulties the first year students of Electricity Faculty may encounter when studying the reading lessons in English for Electricity. - adapt some reading tasks in English for Electricity for the first year students at electricity Faculty, Sao Do University. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. What difficulties may the first-year students of Electricity Faculty encounter when studying the reading lessons in English for Electricity? 2.
What reading tasks are considered inappropriate for the first-year students of Electricity Faculty? 3. What reading tasks in English for Electricity should be adapted? I. Scope of the study This study is limited to the area of investigating and analyzing the difficulties the first year students of Electricity Faculty may encounter when studying the reading lessons in English for Electricity. More importantly, the focus of the study is to suggest techniques to adapt some reading tasks in this textbook to improve the students’ reading skill.
Organization of the study The study is expected to consist of three main parts. Part I includes rationales, aims of the study, research questions and scope of the study. Part II includes 5 chapters Chapter 1 deals with the theoretical background relevant to the research topic including adaptation, an overview of reading, tasks in language teaching and task designing. Chapter 2 provides with current situation of teaching and learning reading skill in the Electricity Faculty, Sao Do University and introduces the research methodology.
Chapter 3 presents the findings of the study resulting from a statistical analysis of the collected data and some extra reading tasks for “English for Electricity” Part III presents conclusion of the study References Appendix LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 3 PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW I. Definition According to Madsen and Bowen (1978: ix), adaptation is an action of employing “one or more of a number of techniques: supplementing, expanding, personalizing, simplifying, modernizing, localizing, or modifying cultural/ situational content”. Similarly, from Tomlinson (1998:xi) took the same position that adaptation referred to “reducing, adding, omitting, modifying and supplementing”. Adaptation is a term referring to the ability to adjust to new information and experiences.
Learning is essentially adapting to our constantly changing environment. Through adaptation, we are able to adopt new behaviors that allow us to cope with change. Adding The notion of addition is that tasks of a textbook are supplemented by putting more into, while taking into account the practical effect on time allocation. First, we can certainly add in this quantitative way by the technique of extending "This means that the techniques are being applied within the methodological framework of the original materials: in other words, the model is not itself changed" (McDonough and Shaw, 1993:89).
We can do this in the following situation: A second reading passage parallel to the one provided is helpful in reinforcing the key linguistic features - tenses, sentence structures, vocabulary, cohesive devices - of the first text. Second, more far-reaching perspective on addition of materials can be termed expanding. This kind of addition is not just extension of an existing aspect of content. They go further than this by bringing about a qualitative as well as a quantitative change.
This can be thought of as a change in the overall system' (McDonough and Shaw, 1993:90). Deleting or Omitting Deletion is clearly the opposite process to that of addition. As we saw in the previous section that tasks can be added both quantitatively (extending) and qualitatively (expanding), LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 the same point applies when a decision is taken to omit tasks. The most straightforward aspect of reducing the length of tasks is subtracting.
Addition and deletion often work together. A task may be taken out and then replaced with something else. The methodological change is greater when, for example, grammar practice is substituted after the omission of an inappropriate communicative function. Modifying Modifying can be sub-divided under two related headings.
The first of these is rewriting, when some of the linguistic content needs modification, the second is restructuring, which applies to classroom management. - Rewriting may relate activities more closely to learners' own background and interest, introduce model of authentic language, or set most purposeful problem-solving tasks where the answers are not always known before the teacher asks the question. - Restructuring: For many teachers who are required to follow a course book rather strictly, changes in the structuring of the class are sometimes the only kind of adaptation that is realistically possible. For example, the materials may contain role-play activities for groups of certain size.
The logistic of managing a large class (especially if they all have same LI) are complex from many points of view, and it will probably be necessary to assign one role to a number of pupils at the same time. Obviously the converse - where the class is too small for the total number of roles available - is also possible if perhaps less likely. Simplifying The technique of simplification is a type of modification, namely a "rewriting" activity. The elements of a language which can be simplified are: the instructions and explanations that accompany exercises and activities, and even the visual layout of materials so that it becomes easier to see how different part fit together.
However, texts, most often reading passages are applied this technique. Usually, the emphasis has been on changing various sentences - bound elements to match the text more closely to the proficiency level of a particular group of learners. Simplification could be in the following forms: Sentence structure; Lexical content, and grammatical structures. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 5 Simplification has a number of further implications.
Firstly, once linguistic items are changed, stylistics will be affected, and therefore the meaning of intention of the original text is changed. Secondly, simplification of content is required when the complexity of the subject- matter is regarded as being too advanced. Thirdly, simplification can refer to the ways in which the content is presented: we may decide not to make any changes to the original text, but instead to lead the learners through it in a number of graded stages. Re - ordering This procedure refers to the possibility of putting the parts of a course book in a different order.
This may mean adjusting the sequence of presentation within a unit, or taking units in a different sequence from that originally intended. What is reading and reading comprehension? I.