VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ---------- TRẦN NGUYỆT MINH DESIGNING AN ESP READING SYLLABUS FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS OF ARCHITECTURE AT HANOI UNIVESITY OF BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY THIẾT KẾ CHƯƠNG TRÌNH ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH CHO SINH VIÊN THỨ NHẤT KHOA KIẾN TRÚC, TRƯỜNG ĐH KINH DOANH VÀ CÔNG NGHỆ HÀ NỘI M.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60. Ngô Hữu Hoàng HA NOI – 2013 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ---------- TRẦN NGUYỆT MINH DESIGNING AN ESP READING SYLLABUS FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS OF ARCHITECTURE AT HANOI UNIVESITY OF BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY THIẾT KẾ CHƯƠNG TRÌNH ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH CHO SINH VIÊN THỨ NHẤT KHOA KIẾN TRÚC, TRƯỜNG ĐH KINH DOANH VÀ CÔNG NGHỆ HÀ NỘI M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60. Ngô Hữu Hoàng HA NOI – 2013 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION .iii TABLE OF CONTENTS.
iv LIST OF TABLES. vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. vii PART A INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………. Rationale of the study.
Previous related studies. The aim of the study. Scope of the study. Significance of the study.
Organization of the thesis. 5 PART B DEVELOPMENT…………………………………………………………………6 CHAPTER I THEORETICAL BACKGROUND. English for specific purposes. Reading in ESL/EFL and ESP.
15 CHAPTER II RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Data collection instruments. 17 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Data collection procedure.
Method of data analysis. 22 CHAPTER III DATA ANALYSIS. Discussion of findings. 36 CHAPTER IV THE PROPOSED ESP READING SYLLABUS.
The goals and objectives of the ESP reading course. Content selection and gradation. Suggested teaching methodology. A proposed ESP reading syllabus for first-year Architecture students at Hanoi University of Business and Technology.
Research limitations and suggestions for further study .III APPENDIX 1 FIRST-YEAR STUDENT QUESTIONNAIRE. III APPENDIX 2 THIRD-YEAR STUDENT QUESTIONNAIRE. VI APPENDIX 3 ARCHITECT QUESTIONNAIRE. VIII APPENDIX 4 INTERVIEW FOR ESP TEACHERS.
X APPENDIX 5 Teachers’ suggested teaching techniques. XII APPENDIX 6 A proposed ESP reading syllabus. XIV v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 3. Architects’ jobs, working places, and frequency of reading.
Source of materials. First-year students’ expectations towards the ESP reading course. First-year and third students’ purposes of attendance. Word-attack strategies.
First-year students’ preferences on topics of reading text. Third-year students’ attitudes towards the current reading syllabus for first-year students. Third-year students’ suggestions for improving ESP training quality .35 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ELT English Language Teaching ESP English for Specific Purposes GE, EGP English for General Purposes HUBT Hanoi University of Business and Technology L2 Second language/foreign language vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study Globalization has made English an international language of communication that is used by an increasing number of people from a wide range of occupational contexts.
Reading in English is particularly an essential skill for Vietnamese architects since a large number of high-quality specialist materials such as books and periodicals are written in this language. Therefore, it is no doubt that ESP reading instruction of would-be professionals at the tertiary level is of great importance. Hanoi University of Business and Technology (HUBT) is a private university founded in 1996. From the first days of establishment, the Management Board has given a top priority to English instruction.
Accordingly, the English program makes up a large proportion of the university’s curriculum for students from all departments, including students from Architecture Department. The English program for Architecture majors is divided into two stages: General English (GE), and English for Specific Purposes (ESP). The GE stage is implemented in the first two academic years, while the ESP in the third-year. 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com It is the fact that the ESP syllabus plays a significant part in the whole English program.
However, from academic year 2013-2014, due to some factors, the whole time for the English program will be cut short to only two years. If the ESP reading instruction lasts for one academic year only, it would not be a sufficient time to train students the language for Architecture purpose. In addition, during the time teaching EGP and ESP to Architecture students, from first-year to third-year ones, the researcher recognizes two major issues. First, whereas they are quite confident with English grammar exercises, they struggle a lot when dealing with the four language skills, particularly reading.
Third-year students prove to be ineffective readers, with weak reading skills although they have taken one academic year studying GE with a four-skill integrated course. Secondly, quite a few teachers have made complaints about our Architecture students’ lack of focus and motivation in reading GE texts, mostly because they find them uninteresting and irrelevant, so the effectiveness of the class is often low. In conclusion, it is the fact that the current syllabus has not yielded the teachers’ desired results and has proved inadequate in addressing the students’ needs. To improve the students’ reading skills, it is suggested that a separate reading course should be introduced earlier from the first academic year, because reading takes considerable time and resources to develop, and it cannot be taught in one or two courses (Grabe, 1991).
Apart from that, in order to make the syllabus accommodate the Architecture students’ immediate and long-term needs, an ESP approach to syllabus design should be adopted. With consideration of the whole context, I decided to carry out the research entitled “Designing an ESP reading syllabus for first-year students of Architecture at Hanoi University of Business and Technology” 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Previous related studies Together with the economic integration into the global market, the need of learning English and especially ESP is ever increasing. So far, there have been a number of studies on ESP syllabus design for ESP courses.
Among those, there are ESP theses for different disciplines. Among them are the ESP reading syllabuses designed by Doan Van Giao (2005, cited in Ha, 2008) for students of Civil Engineering, Tran Thi Dung for students of Urban Planning (2007), Dinh Thi Thu Ha for students Informatics (2008) and Dora Chostelidou for students of Accountancy (2010). They did a needs analysis suitable for the context at their working place. Giao (2005) carries out a needs analysis on current students, ex-students, ESP teachers, teachers and employers.
This is expected to help improve the teaching and learning of ESP reading at his university. However, he only uses questionnaires as a data collection instrument, which is not enough to achieve objective results of his students’ needs. In Dung’s thesis, what is notable is an in-depth analysis of needs from various sources, including ESP teachers, subject teachers and second-year students. However, the questionnaire items concerning reading skills and exercises are a bit too lengthy and complicated for the students.
Ha (2008)’s thesis was done with ex-students apart from ESP teachers, subject teachers and second-year students. This helps the author get a wider view on what reading skills, types of English specialist materials learners should be in touch with at work, which is a reliable source about target needs. What is emphasized in Chseostelidou (2010)’s study is that a needs analysis is a key to identifying learners’ needs, learning competence and competence required of them in their future job. Therefore, needs analysis plays a crucial role in designing an ESP course.
A common feature of these studies is the use of needs analysis in the process of designing or redesigning an ESP syllabus. Thanks for that, they are used by the writer of this thesis as an important source of reference. Seeking to design an ESP syllabus appropriate for the first-year students of Architecture at HUBT, this study 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com is also expected to contribute its distinguished features to the whole research scenario of ESP teaching in general. The aim of the study The main aim of the study is to investigate the learning needs, wants and lacks of the first-year students of Architecture in ESP reading learning, and expectations of ESP teachers, which serve as the foundation for designing an appropriate ESP reading syllabus.
To achieve the aim, a needs analysis was done to identify the target needs and learning needs of the students because, as Basturkmen (2008) puts it, a key feature of ESP syllabus design is that the syllabus is based on an analysis of the needs of the students. Research questions This study aimed to address the following research questions: 1. What are the perceptions and attitudes of Architecture students, ESP teachers at HUBT, and architectural professionals towards ESP reading? The answer to question 1 leads to the next question: 2. Is it necessary to introduce an ESP reading syllabus to first-year students of Architecture at HUBT? And if yes, 3.
How should such an ESP reading syllabus be designed? 5. Methodology Survey research is employed in this study with the use of questionnaire and interview as the means of collecting data about first-year Architecture students’ target needs and learning needs. Scope of the study The study is done based on the circumstances for first-year Architecture majors at Hanoi University of Business and Technology (HUBT). Due to the scope of the 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com thesis, a needs analysis of the students was focused, which serves as the foundation to put forwards an ESP reading syllabus for them.
Significance of the study Within the limited scope based on the HUBT circumstances, the study will hopefully, to some extent, make ESP reading instruction at HUBT more effective and responsive to the first-year Architecture students’ desires, the ESP teachers’ expectations in line with the university training goals and the labor market’s demands. Besides, the researcher also considers this M. minor thesis as an opportunity to make an improvement on her own ESP teaching practice. Organization of the thesis The thesis consists of three main parts, followed by a list of references and appendices.
Part A: Introduction, presenting the rationale, the aims, scope and significance of the study, previous related studies, and the organization of the thesis. Part B: Development Chapter I: Theoretical background, with the related literature being reviewed. Chapter II: Research methodology, including research method, data collection instruments, subjects, data collection procedures and data analysis methods. Chapter III: Data analysis, presenting and discussing the findings.
Chapter IV: A proposed ESP reading syllabus for HUBT first-year Architecture students. Part C: Conclusion 5 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART B DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I THEORETICAL BACKGROUND In this part, some key notions about ESP syllabus design will be addressed, with focuses on literature in ESP, reading, syllabus design and needs analysis. English for specific purposes Hutchinson and Waters (1987, p. 20) defines “ESP is an approach to language teaching which aims to meet the needs of particular learners”.
Dudley-Evans and St John asserts that “the main concerns of ESP have always been, and remain, with needs analysis, text analysis, and preparing learners to communicate effectively in the tasks prescribed by their study or work situation” (1998, p. A question emerging here is: what is the difference between ESP and GE, and what is the position of ESP in ELT. In fact, the border between ESP and GE is not always clear. Barnard and Zemach believe ESP should not be seen as a discrete division of ELT, but simply “an area (with blurred boundaries) whose courses are usually more focused in their aims and make use of a narrower range of topic” (2003, pp.
306– 307, quoted in Basturkmen, 2010).