VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES Department of POST GRADUATE STUDIES ----------@---------- Đinh ThỊ THU FACTORS AFFECTING READING COMPREHENSION OF ENGLISH FOR COMPUTER SCIENCE OF THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS AT VINH TECHNICAL TEACHERS’ TRAINING UNIVERSITY (Những yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến việc đọc hiểu tiếng anh chuyên ngành tin học của sinh viên năm thứ hai ở trường đại học sư phạm kỹ thuật Vinh) M.A Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.10 HANOI - 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES Department of POST GRADUATE STUDIES ----------@---------- Đinh ThỊ THU FACTORS AFFECTING READING COMPREHENSION OF ENGLISH FOR COMPUTER SCIENCE OF THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS AT VINH TECHNICAL TEACHERS’ TRAINING UNIVERSITY (Những yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến việc đọc hiểu tiếng anh chuyên ngành tin học của sinh viên năm thứ hai ở trường đại học sư phạm kỹ thuật Vinh) M.A Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60. Dương Thị Nụ HANOI - 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS VTTTU: Vinh Technical Teachers’ Training University GE: General English ESP: English for Specific Purposes CS: Computer Science IT: Information Technology L1: The first language L2: The second language LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com v LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Figure: Students’ background Table 1: Students’ attitudes towards ESP reading Table 2: Students’ preparation lessons before going to class Table 3: Students’ frequency of reading supplementary materials Table 4: Students’ evaluation of the texts in the current ESP reading material Table 5: The causes of the students’ difficulties in reading English for CS Table 6: Activities the teachers ask the students to do at pre/ post-reading stages. Table 7: Activities carried out by the teachers to motivate students in a reading lesson Table 8: The learners’ expectation in terms of ESP materials Table 9: The learners’ expectation in terms of teaching methodology LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration ………………………………………………………………………………… i Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………ii Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………iii List of abbreviations……………………………………………………………………… iv List of figures and tables ………………………………………………………………….v Table of contents ………………………………………………………………………….vi Part A: Introduction ……………………………………………………………………. Aims of the study ………………………………………………………………….
Methods of the study……………………………………………………………… 2 4. Scope of the study ………………………………………………………………. Organization of the thesis ………………………………………………………… 2 Part B: Development ……………………………………………………………………. 4 Chapter 1: Theoretical background …………………………………………………….
The nature of reading ……………………………………………………………. Definitions of reading and reading comprehension……………………… 4 1. Classification of reading according to purpose of reading ………………. Reading in General English and in ESP ………………………………….
Definitions of ESP ………………………………………………………. Reading skills in ESP ……………………………………………………. Factors in teaching and learning ESP reading …………………………… 8 1. ESP teachers and their roles ……………………………………….
ESP students and their roles ………………………………………. ESP materials and their roles ……………………………………… 10 1. ESP reading difficulties for foreign language learners …………………………10 1. Reading skills problems …………………………………………………11 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
12 Chapter 2: Investigation into the current situation of teaching and learning English for Computer Science at Vinh Technical Teachers’ training University ( VTTTU ) 2. Introduction of the VTTTU ……………………………………………………. The teachers and their teaching methods ………………………………………. The students and their background …………………………………………….
The teaching and learning English at VTTTU …………………………………. The present ESP syllabus and materials …………………………………………15 Chapter 3: The study …………………………………………………………………. The data collection method ……………………………………………………. The data collection procedure ………………………………………………….
Factors affecting reading English for Computer Science at VTTTU ………18 3. The participants’ background …………………………………………18 3. Students’ attitudes towards ESP reading ……………………………. The reading materials ……………………………………………….
The teachers and teaching methods …………………………………. The learners’ expectation in terms of ESP materials ……………………… 25 3. The learners’ expectation in terms of teaching methodology ………………26 3. 28 Chapter 4: Recommendations to improve the quality of the teaching and learning to read English for CS at VTTTU …………………………………………………………29 4.
Improving teachers’ classroom techniques ……………………………………. Increasing students’ reading interest and motivation …………………… 29 4. Applying different approaches to teach vocabulary ……………………… 29 4. Training students to become efficient readers ………………………………….
Training students with different reading strategies ………………………. Encouraging students to develop extensive reading habits ………………. Giving homework and checking the previous lessons frequently …………32 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Improving teachers’ background knowledge about CS and teaching methodology 4.
Improving teachers’ background knowledge about CS ……………………33 4. Improving teachers’ teaching methodology ……………………………… 33 4. Developing E CS reading materials ……………………………………………. Adapting and improving reading exercises ……………………………….
Choosing supplementary reading materials ………………………………. Conclusions of the study …………………………………………………………. Limitations of the study and Suggestions for Further study …………………….I LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale English learning has been popular in Vietnam over the last few decades.
Especially, learning English has become a burgeoning need when Vietnam fosters its international relations. Everyday an increasing number of people learn and use English for different purposes. In teaching and learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has recently received a great deal of attention. It has been introduced in the training curriculum at almost every university in Vietnam as recognition of the increasing importance of the language as a tool to help students access information and technological advancements of the world.
One of the main objectives of the ESP program is to develop the students‟ skills in accessing, analyzing, and evaluating critically the information available for their career purposes. Therefore, being able to read in a foreign language, especially in English is often important to academic studies, professional success and personal development. It is obvious that reading is given the most important account for the students of Information Technology. That is because reading is not only the important means to get knowledge but also means of further study.
By means of English, the learners can take it professionally in their future work as well as reading their specialized materials. It is completely true for the students of IT. At VTTTU, after finishing three semesters of GE, the students of IT department begin to take 60 ESP periods of CS. Being an ESP teacher of CS, the researcher has always been aware of the importance of developing the reading skills for IT students.
If the students read well, they are able to handle subjects related written materials in English and to work with modern technological equipments. But in fact, despite of the effort of the teachers and students, the researcher finds her students‟ reading skills disappointed, which do not meet the requirements of the college and they have a lot of difficulties in reading English for CS. For all the above reasons, the researcher would like to find out the factors affecting reading comprehension of English for CS of the second year students at VTTTU. It is LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 hoped that the study will make some suggestions for teachers and students to improve the quality of teaching and learning English for CS at VTTTU.
Aims of the study The study aims to examine the factors affecting reading comprehension of English for Computer Science of the second year students at VTTTU. To be more specific, the objectives of the study are: - To examine the students‟ attitudes towards ESP reading. - To investigate the current situation of teaching and learning English for CS at VTTTU in order to find out the factors affecting reading comprehension of English for CS of the second year students at VTTTU. - To investigate the learners‟ needs in terms of reading materials and methodology.
- To give some recommendations to improve the quality of teaching and learning English for CS at VTTTU. It is hoped that the findings from this study will be of some benefits to teachers and students at VTTTU. Method of the study In order to achieve the aims mentioned above, the methodologies adopted for this study are a survey questionnaire with 100 students which is used as the main method to collect the needed data from the learners and informal interviews and discussions with the teachers as well as the researcher‟s observation during the course. Scope of the study The study mainly focuses on the investigation of factors most affecting reading comprehension of English for Computer Science of the second year students at VTTTU, and then suggests some techniques to help them improve their ESP reading.
Organization of the thesis This minor thesis consists of three parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion. The first part concludes the rationale for the study, the aims, the methods, and the scope of the study as well as the organization of the thesis. The second part consists of four chapters. Chapter 1 discusses the theoretical background to the nature of reading and reading comprehension and reading in ESP teaching and learning.
Chapter 2 investigates the current situation of teaching and learning English for CS at VTTTU. Chapter 3 deals with the research methodology which covers LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 3 the research questions, the participants, the data collection method, and the data collection procedure as well as the data analysis, findings and some discussion of findings. Chapter 4 offers some possible suggestions to improve the current situation of teaching and learning English for Computer Science at VTTTU. The last part- Conclusion - summarizes the main issues of the study, points out the limitations and makes some suggestions for further research.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND This chapter involves the theoretical background of the study which would be a review of issues relevant to the thesis topic. The review includes an overview on the nature of reading, in which the definitions of reading and reading comprehension as well as classification of reading according to the purpose of reading are discussed. Moreover, this chapter also discusses the definition of ESP, reading skills in ESP, factors in teaching and learning ESP reading, and ESP reading difficulties for foreign language learners. The nature of reading 1.
Definitions of reading and reading comprehension So far, there are numerous definitions of reading by many perspectives – linguists, psychologists, educators and second language researchers. Each author defines in a different way as seen from his own point of view. According to Goodman (1971:135), 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”. This act of reconstruction is viewed as “a cyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing, and confirming”.
Harmer (1989:153) considers reading as a mechanical process that “eyes receive the message and the brain then has to work out the significance of the message”. Harmer focuses on not only two actions dominated by the eyes and the brain but also the speed of the process: “a reading text moves at a speed of the reader”, which means it is the reader who decides how fast he wants to read the text. Sharing the same opinion, Smith (1985:102) defined: “reading is understanding the author‟s thought”. It means that the readers “read the author’s mind not the author’s words”.
To sum up, it is obvious that attempts to define reading have been various but no definitions can reveal all the features and ideas of what reading is. However, the definitions all focus on the nature of reading that is the interaction between readers and authors. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 5 Reading comprehension takes an important role in teaching and learning reading. It is the ability to get information from the text as efficiently as possible.
There are three elements involving in the reading process: the text being read, the background knowledge of the reader and the contextual aspects relevant for interpreting the text. According to Grellet (1981:3), “reading comprehension or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible”.