Luận văn thạc sĩ using supplementary reading materials with the course book business basics to improve the efficiency of reading teaching and learning for second year students at bac ha college of technology

Output file VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** Dao thi hoa Using Supplementary Reading Materials wi[.]

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Dao thi hoa

Using Supplementary Reading Materials with the Course book Business Basics to Improve the Efficiency

of reading teaching and learning for Second-year Students at Bac Ha College of Technology

Sử dụng tài liệu đọc bổ trợ cho giáo trình Business Basics nhằm nâng cao hiệu quả của việc dạy và học kỹ năng đọc cho sinh viên năm thứ

hai tr-ờng Cao đẳng Công nghệ Bắc Hà

m.a minor thesis

Field: Methodology

Code: 60 14 10

Supervisor: Phan Thi Van Quyen

Table of contents

Acknowledgements……… i

Abstract……… ii

List of tables and charts……… iii

Table of contents……… iv

Part a: Introduction 1 Rationale……… 1

2 Aims of the study……… 2

3 Significance of the study……… 2

4 Research questions……… 2

5 Methodology……… 3

6 Design of the study……… 3

Part B: development Chapter 1: Literature review 1.1 An overview of reading……… 4

1.1.1 Definitions of reading comprehension……… 4

1.1.2 Models of reading ……… 4

1.1.3 Reading skills and types of reading skills……… 5

1.1.3.1 Definition of reading skills……… 5

1.1.3.2 Types of reading skills……… 5

1.2 Materials development in language teaching……… 7

1.2.1 Definition of language teaching materials……… 7

1.2.2 Processes in materials development……… 7

1.2.2.1 Materials evaluation……… 8

1.2.2.2 Types of materials evaluation……… 8

1.2.2.3 Criteria for materials evaluation……… 9

1.2.3 Supplementary materials in teaching reading skills……… 10

1.2.3.1 Definition of supplementary materials……… 10

1.2.3.2 Criteria for selecting supplementary materials……… 10

1.2.3.3 How to use supplementary materials……… 11

Summary

Chapter 2: Methodology

2.1 Background to the study……… 14

2.1.1 The setting……… 14

2.1.2 The textbook Business Basics……… 14

2.1.3 Participants……… 15

2.1.3.1 The teachers……… 15

2.1.3.2 The students……… 16

2.2 Instrument for data collection……… 16

2.2.1 The questionnaire for teachers……… 16

2.2.2 The questionnaire for students……… 17

2.3 Data collection procedure……… 17

Chapter 3: Data analysis, findings and discussion 3.1 Data analysis……… 18

3.2 Findings and discussion……… 27

3.2.1 The teachers’ and the students’ evaluations of the current textbook Business Basics……… 27

3.2.2 The teachers’ and the students’ expectations of supplementary reading materials……… 28

Chapter 4: Recommendations 4.1 Suggestions for selecting supplementary materials……… 29

4.2 Designing tasks and activities for reading passages……… 30

4.3 Sample supplementary readings……… ……… 30

Part C: conclusion 1 Conclusion of the study……… 37

2 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study……… 37

References 3

9

Appendices

Appendix 1: Questionnaire for teachers

Appendix 2: Questionnaire for students

Lists of tables and charts

Tables

Table 1: The teachers’and students’ evaluations on level of difficulty, content and length

of reading texts in the textbook

Table 2: The teachers’ opinions on reading exercises in the textbook Business Basics

Table 3: The students’ opinions on reading exercises in the textbook Business Basics

Table 4: Topics in the textbook need supplementary reading

Table 5: Teachers’ expectations of the supplementary reading materials

Part a: introduction

1 Rationale

Nowadays, in the time of globalization, English plays an essential role in the increasing development of science, technology, politics, economics, tourism, culture and

so on English language is not only considered as a means of communication but also a key

to access the important achievements of science and technology Therefore, learners of English should acquire this language and teaching and learning English become popular in our country

Among four language skills, reading is very important in learning a foreign language as reading helps students to widen their knowledge and understand different academic materials written in English Carrel (1981: 1) also emphasizes “for many students, reading is by far the most important of the four skills in a second language, particularly in English as a second or foreign language” It is necessary for the second year students at Bac Ha College of Technology to develop reading ability effectively because reading provides a lot of useful information as well as enrich their language vocabulary and structures Reading will be an effective way to help students enhance their English proficiency especially their reading skills Nevertheless, despite the teachers‟ and students‟ efforts, the students at Bac Ha College of Technology have a poor reading result that makes them uninterested in learning English in general and in learning reading skill in particular

The students‟ English proficiency at Bac Ha College of Technology is not the same It is due to the fact that they come from different places Most of them come from the countryside so they can not have preferable English learning condition The others come from towns and cities where they have more convenient condition of learning English This results in low English proficiency of the students because of their limited vocabulary and grammar In addition, they do not have appropriate reading strategies and background knowledge Therefore, students face a lot of difficulties in reading and understanding the long texts especially the texts relating to economic fields which they are studying As a result, they find it hard to be successful in their reading and they are not

With the purpose of improving their English knowledge, it is very important for the teachers to provide them as many opportunities to read as possible Nuttall in the book

“Teaching reading skills in a foreign language” (1982) states that “reading as a purposeful activity, we can make teaching more purposeful and classes livelier, even in the difficult circumstances”

All the above reasons have inspired me to carry out the study on “Using

Supplementary Reading Materials with the Course book Business Basics to Improve the Efficiency of Reading Teaching and Learning for Second-year Students at Bac Ha College

of Technology”, with a hope to improve the teaching and learning English as well as the

teaching and learning reading comprehension

2 Aims of the study

The purpose of the study is to find ways of developing the effective reading materials so as

to improve the teaching reading skill of the teachers as well as to enhance the students‟ learning reading The specific aims of this research are as follows:

- To find out some different evaluations made by teachers and students towards the textbook Business Basics, which is currently used by the second year students at Bac Ha College of Technology

- To examine the teachers‟ and the students‟ expectations of supplementary reading materials

- To give recommendations for selecting supplementary materials to improve teaching reading of the teachers as well as learning reading of the students

3 Significance of the study

This study is of great importance to the author herself as well as to all teachers of English

It helps to reinforce students‟ English proficiency and suggests ways to improve the teaching of English in general and reading in particular at Bac Ha College of Technology and most schools and universities that share the same mandate

2 What are the teachers‟ and the students‟ expectations of supplementary reading materials?

5 Methodology

The methods used in the study is quantitative and qualitative A questionnaire is used as a main instrument for data collection Two sets of questionnaires were designed and delivered to the teachers and the second-year students at Bac Ha College of Technology in order to find out answers to the research questions The data were collected, synthesized and analyzed from the survey questionnaires for both teachers and students on their evaluations of the current textbook and their expectations of supplementary reading materials

6 Design of the study

This study is divided into three parts

Part A is the introduction in which the rationale, aims of the study, significance, research

questions, methodology and design of the study are stated

Part B is the development, the main part of the study In this part, there are four chapters

Chapter 1 reviews the literature concerning an overview of reading, reading comprehension with models of reading process, the theory of materials development and supplementary materials in teaching reading skills

Chapter 2 presents methodology of the study consisting of the background to the study It covers the setting, the textbook Business Basics, the participants, the instrument as well as

data collection procedure

Chapter 3 goes into details of the data analysis, findings and discussion

Chapter 4 briefly deals with recommendations of the study

Part C comes up with the summary of the study in which limitations of the study and

suggestions for further research are also presented

Part B: Development Chapter 1: Literature review 1.1 An overview of reading

1.1.1 Definitions of reading comprehension

Reading comprehension plays an important role in teaching and learning a foreign language It has the nature of communication, in which reading activity acts as a means of communication between the writer and the reader

Reading comprehension can be affected by world knowledge, with many demonstrations that readers who possesses rich knowledge about the topic of a reading usually understand the reading better than classmates with lower knowledge Roe, Stood and Burns (1987: 2) indicate “Reading comprehension is reconstruction, interpretation and evaluation of what author of written content means by using knowledge gained from life experience”

Sharing the same point of view, Grellet (1981: 3) consider “reading comprehension

or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as effectively as possible” In his definition, reading comprehension simply means reading and understanding Reading comprehension is not merely decoding-translating written symbols into corresponding sounds

Though these definitions are not exactly the same, what comes up a common point

is that reading comprehension is the process in which the readers, as they read, can recognize the graphic forms of the reading text and what is implied behind these forms While reading, learners of language need to have critical thinking to understand and analyze what is written Then readers can learn both grammar and vocabulary after reading From that, they will easily understand the content of the reading

1.1.2 Models of reading

In terms of the reading process, many language researchers (Nuttall, 1996; Ur, 1991; Alderson, 2000, etc) share the same viewpoint that there are three different ways of processing a text namely the bottom-up, the top-down and interactive models

The bottom-up models: The basis of bottom up models is linguistics knowledge of

the reader In these models, the reader starts with the written text (the bottom), and constructs meaning from the letters, words, phrases and sentences found within and then

processes the text in a linear fashion The bottom-up models analyze reading as a process

in which small chunks of text are absorbed, analyzed, and gradually added to the next chunk until they become meaningful

The top- down models: The top- down process moves from the top, the higher -

level mental stages, down to the text itself In these models, the reading process is driven

by the reader‟s mind at work on the text (reader- driven models) The reader rather than the text is at the heart of the reading process

Interactive models of the reading process are proposed in the light of the perceived

deficiencies of both bottom- up and top- down models Like top- down models, they are reader- driven This means the reader uses his or her previous understanding to guess about text content and as in bottom- up models, the reader is dependent upon what is in the text

Hayes (1991) supposes that “Interactive models are more than a compromise between bottom- up and top- down theories In interactive models, different processes are thought to be responsible for providing information that is shared with other processes The information obtained from each type of processing is combined to determine the most appropriate interpretation of the printed page”

In brief, interactive models are more adequate than the bottom- up and top- down models because they maximize the strong points and minimize the weak points of the use

of both bottom- up and top- down models Thus, the language users need combine and practice both bottom- up and top- down strategies to gain efficiency in the reading process

1.1.3 Reading skills and types of reading skills

1.1.3.1 Definition of reading skills

Reading skill is one of the four important skills in learning language Paris, Wasik and Turner (1991: 611) also confirm “Reading skills refer to information – processing techniques that are automatic, whether at the level of recognizing grapheme – phoneme correspondence or summarizing a story Skills are applied to a text unconsciously for many reasons including expertise, repeated practice, and compliance with directions, luck, and native use”

1.1.3.2 Types of reading skills

- Skimming

Skimming is used to quickly gather the most important information Grellet, F (1981: 19)

of it, to know how it is organized, or to get an idea of the tone or the intention of the writer”

Hedge, T (2000: 195) points out that “Skim reading is used to get a global impression of the content of a text An example would be previewing a long magazine article by reading rapidly, skipping large chunks of information, and focusing on headings and first lines of

paragraphs”

- Scanning

Scanning occurs when a reader looks quickly through the text searching for a specific piece

of information or to see if the text is suitable for a specific reading purpose Hedge, T (2000: 195) suggests that “Scanning involves searching rapidly through a text to find a specific point of information, for example, the relevant times on a timetable, items in a directory, or key points in academic text” Scanning is the reading skill we use when we want to find the answer to a specific question Scanning is an useful reading skill that may

at first strange to a learner who is used to reading everything in a foreign language with the same degree of attention

Inference means making use of syntactic, logical and cultural clues to discover the

meaning of unknown elements If these are words, then word-formation and derivation will also play an important role When dealing with a new text, it is better not to explain the difficult words to the learners Students should be encouraged to make a guess at the meaning of the words they do not know rather than look them up in a dictionary If they need to look at the dictionary to get the meaning, they should only do so after having tried

to work out a solution on their own Therefore, it is very essential to develop the inference

skill

- Critical thinking

Critical thinking involves determining the meaning and significance of what is observed or

expressed, or, concerning a given inference or argument, determining whether there is

adequate justification to accept the conclusion as true Hence, Fisher & Scriven define

critical thinking as "skilled, active, interpretation and evaluation of observations,

communications, information, and argumentation".While Moore & Parker define it more

naturally as the careful, deliberate determination of whether one should accept, reject, or

suspend judgment about a claim and the degree of confidence with which one accepts or

rejects it

Critical thinking employs not only logic but broad intellectual criteria such as clarity,

credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, significance and fairness

- Summarizing

Summarizing involves putting the main idea(s) into your own words, including only the

main point(s) Once again, it is necessary to attribute summarized ideas to the original

source Summaries are significantly shorter than the original and take a broad overview of

the source material Effective summarizing leads to an increase in student learning

Summarizing helps students recognize how information is structured and it will help them

summarize what they read or hear 1.2 Materials development in language teaching

1.2.1 Definition of language teaching materials and types of materials

According to Tomlinson (1998: 2), the term “language teaching materials” is

defined as anything which is used by teachers or learners to facilitate the learning of a

language In this sense, language teaching materials consist of not only course books or

grammar books but also videos, CD-ROMS, cassettes, dictionaries, pictures, photocopied

exercises

He categorizes language-teaching materials into two main types: published

materials and prepared materials Crawford (2002) shares the same point of view on

talking about classification of materials that there are two different types of materials:

pre-prepared and self-pre-prepared materials

1.2.2 Processes of materials development

Tomlinson (1998) also asserts that “materials development refers to anything which

those sources in ways which maximize the likelihood of intake” Therefore, language teachers become materials developers with the aim to promote language learning There are two main steps of the process of materials development mentioned: materials evaluation and materials adaptation

1.2.2.1 Materials evaluation

It is undeniable that the evaluation of materials is obviously of great importance in the process of language learning and teaching Materials evaluation helps language teachers to identify specific strengths and weaknesses of the materials in use Thus, EFL teachers need to evaluate the effectiveness of the materials well

Materials evaluation is defined differently by different authors According to Hutchinson and Waters (1993), evaluation is defined as really a matter of judging the fitness of something for a particular purpose “Given a certain need, and in the light of the resources available, which out of number of possibilities can represent the best solution? There is no absolute good or bad – only degree of fitness for the required purpose”

Brown (1995: 218) gives different viewpoint on defining evaluation In his point of view, “Evaluation is the systematic collection and analysis of all relevant information necessary to promote the improvement of a curriculum, and access its effectiveness and efficiency, as well as the participants‟ attitudes within the context of the particular institutions involved” This definition requires that information be gathered and analyzed

in a systematic manner and that only relevant information should be included

Nunan (1998) states that evaluation be “a process not a final product” that means it takes place at any time of the material design The first emphasis of evaluation is to determine whether the goals and objectives of a language program are being gained

From the above definitions, it can be inferred that materials involves the determination of the objectives and requirements for the materials, and the judgments of the value of the materials being evaluated in relation to the objectives and requirements determined

1.2.2.2 Types of materials evaluation

On talking about types of materials evaluation, Tomlinson (1998) categorized

materials evaluation into three types namely pre-use evaluation, whilst-use evaluation and

post-use evaluation

Pre-use evaluation relates to making predictions about the potential value of

materials for their uses Making an evaluation criterion-referenced can reduce subjectivity and can certainly help to make an evaluation more principled, rigorous, systematic and reliable

Whilst-use evaluation involves measuring the value of materials whilst using them

or whilst observing them being used It can measure short-term memory through observing learner performance on exercises but it cannot measure durable and effective learning because of the delayed effect of instruction

Post-use evaluation is probably the most valuable type of evaluation as it can

measure the actual effects of the materials on the users It can measure the short-term effect

as regards motivation, impact, achievability, instant learning, etc., Post-use evaluation can measure the long-term effect as regards durable learning and application

1.2.2.3 Criteria for materials evaluation

Criteria for materials evaluation is one of the important issues evaluators must consider before any evaluation can take place Criteria for materials evaluation depend on what is being evaluated and why they need to be evaluated (Dudley – Evans and St John,

1998)

Sheldon (1998) suggests a wide range of criteria that can be used to evaluate almost all aspects of materials The criteria given by Sheldon consists of rationale, availability, user definition, layout, accessibility, linkage, selection/ grading, physical characteristics, authenticity, sufficiency, cultural bias, educational validity, stimulus/ practice/ revision,

flexibility, guidance, and overall value for money

However, reading materials is the major concern of the study, therefore a checklist for evaluation of reading texts suggested by Hutchinson and Waters (1993) will be specifically stated as follows:

* Offer exercises for understanding of plain sense and implied meaning

* Relate reading passages to the learners‟ background

* Select passages within the vocabulary range of the pupils

* Select passages reflecting a variety of styles of cotemporary English

Criteria for reading texts evaluation

(Williams, D ELT Journal Volume 37/3 July 1983)

* the completeness and appropriateness of the items presented;

* the activities suggested for practising the items selected;

* the sequencing of vocabulary, particularly the functional load, rate and manner of entry and re-entry;

* the relevance of its contexts and situations

1.2.3 Supplementary materials in teaching reading skills

1.2.3.1 Definition of supplementary materials

Tomlinson (1998) in Materials Development in Language Teaching proposed

several basic terms in which materials is defined as “anything which is used to help to teach language learner Materials can be in the form of a textbook, a workbook, a cassette,

a CD, a video, a photocopied handout, a newspaper, a paragraph written on a whiteboard, anything which presents or informs about the language being learned”

The term “supplementary materials” is also defined as follows:

“materials designed to be used in addition to the core materials of a course They are usually related to the development of skills of reading, writing, listening or speaking rather than to the learning of language items”

1.2.3.2 Criteria for selecting supplementary materials

It is obviously that materials play a crucial role in language teaching So selecting criteria of extra materials should be considered carefully

According to Nuttall (1996 – 170), there are three major criteria influencing the selection of texts: suitability of the content, exploitability, and readability In his point of view, suitability of the content means the text‟s ability to address the students‟ needs and the course‟s objectives Reading texts should interest the readers by providing new, interesting information that suit the course‟s objectives A text with interesting content makes the learners‟ task far more rewarding and the classroom more effective This requires the teachers of English to find out what their students like reading and select texts for classroom study Some classroom texts should represent the kind of materials, students

will need to handle after they leave the foreign language class It is better to begin on materials chosen chiefly for enjoyment

Exploitability means facilitation of learning When you exploit a text, you can make

use of it to develop the students‟ competence as readers A text cannot exploit is no use for teaching even if the students enjoy reading it Therefore, different kinds of tasks should be designed to best exploit the text so that the course‟s objectives could be obtained Also, the focus in the reading lesson is neither language nor content, but the two together An ideal reader would be able to extract the content from any text at all If the reader exploits the text effectively, he/ she will develop his/ her strategies that can be applied to other texts

Readability refers to the combination of structural and lexical difficulty That

means the text must be suitable with students‟ English proficiency levels in terms of vocabulary, syntax, and style The teacher must know what their students‟ language proficiencies are to find out what vocabulary and structures the students are familiar with

so as to choose texts at the right level and balancing different level of proficiencies If the students have varied backgrounds, a period of trial and error is unavoidable However, a series of cloze tests can give you an ideal of their level Once you know the students‟ vocabulary level, you can count the new lexical items (words or phrases) in a text, including new uses of familiar words and new idiomatic combinations Then you have to decide what proportion of new items is acceptable This partly depends on the purpose: if you only want students to get the gist of a text, they can skip unfamiliar words; on the other hand, for intensive reading which is slow and careful anyway It may be acceptable

to have quite a lot of new words The nature of new items, and whether they are well spread out, is also relevant

1.2.3.3 How to use supplementary materials

* Materials adaptation

Materials adaptation is considered as one of the two important issues in the process

of materials development As the materials have been evaluated, potential problem areas can be identified: What the materials offer can not be exactly what our learners‟ need; the materials methodology may not match our own; the general aims may not be suitable with the aims of the materials; the aims of a specific unit in the materials may not match our lesson We have to select, make changes to materials so as to improve them or to make

them more suitable for a particular type of learner So we need to supplement the materials

to learners

There are five major ways of adapting materials:

* Adding, including expanding and extending

When adding to published materials the teacher is supplementing the existing materials and providing more materials The teacher can do this by either extending or expanding

is important to note that additions to materials can come at the beginning, at the end or in the middle of the materials being adapted

* Deleting, including subtracting and abridging

As with the technique of adding, materials can be deleted both quantitatively (subtracting)

or qualitative (abridging) When subtracting, for instance, a teacher can decide to do five of the questions practicing the simple past tense instead of the ten in the course book When abridging, however, the teacher may decide that focusing attention on pronunciation may inhibit the learner‟s fluency and decide not to do any of the pronunciation exercises in a course book

* Simplifying

When simplifying, the teacher could be rewording instructions or text in order to make them more accessible to learners, or simplifying a complete activity to make it more manageable for learners and teachers

Teachers may also decide to replace a whole activity depending on the goals of a particular class or lesson For instance, a reading activity might be replaced with a listening activity

These ways of modifying materials may overlap but the final aims of adapting is to make the materials more relevant to the learners, the language teaching and learning more effective It can be said that a good teacher needs to adapt the materials when he/ she uses their textbook in order to maximize the value of the book for the specific learners Thus, it

is believed that adapting materials is a necessary task for the EFL teachers to make full use

of the appropriateness of the materials in their teaching process

Secondly, theory of materials development has been given so as to provide the useful way to adapt currently-used textbook Business Basics Moreover, criteria to choose supplementary materials have also been viewed so that teachers and learners of language can select the appropriate supplementary materials

In the next chapter, the researcher describes background to the study, instrument and procedure of data collection The findings of the research will be presented clearly under the light of the above theories

is considered to be important to the students‟ development because they have more time and chances to practice their skills systematically

In the second stage, students have to learn economic English with the textbook

“Business Basics”, which is a textbook for commerce, edited for those who are doing business and for those who are majored in economics They need to widen their knowledge and basic skills to work in international commerce environment

The training program of the second year is divided into two semesters Each semester lasts fifteen weeks (two periods a week) There are total thirty periods per semester All students are learnt four integrated skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing One teacher is usually in charge of a class and use the same textbooks selected by the department but supplementary materials chosen by the teachers themselves In this stage, the current textbook including twelve units in accordance with specific topics in order to develop language skills and working skills in business environment

2.1.2 The textbook Business Basics

For the past four years, the textbook Business Basics has been used as an official

economics English textbook for teaching reading to the second year students at Bac Ha College of Technology Students have only thirty periods (two periods per week) of learning reading each semester However, the teacher has to cover all the texts in reading

part of the book The book consists of twelve units with different reading texts Each reading text with various types of exercises is designed to develop a specific reading skill

namely checking comprehension, true/ false questions, extracting main ideas, and so on

Secondly, the current textbook Business Basics is not suitable for the students Many of them complained that some texts in this book are uneasy for them to read because

of too many new words related to economics The others said that some reading texts are too long and some topics in the reading passage are unfamiliar to them Some types of exercises are quite challenging for the students to deal with For example, exercises in Reading of Unit 4, which describe company structure (p.51), are quite difficult for the students The requirements of this reading are read the text about the French company Perrier Vittel and use the information from the text to complete the missing information of the available organization chart Then they are required to draw a similar chart for their company or a company they know and they have to describe it to a partner This kind of exercise is too difficult for the students to do because of their poor vocabulary and limited grammar structure

Finally, some of the reading texts in the textbook lack pre-reading and post-reading activities that are very useful for motivating students to read Pre-reading activities introduce and arouse interest in the topic and provide some language preparation for the text Post-reading activities help to understand the writer‟s purpose and the content of the text The textbook Business Basics also lacks the list of vocabulary The list of new words and expressions designed before or after each text can support the students know what they are going to read and remember as well as systematize what they have learnt The list of words and expressions help them a lot in practicing speaking English requiring using words and structures in the reading passage More importantly, time allocation for reading

is not sufficient (only two periods per week)

2.1.3 Participants

2.1.3.1 The teachers

The study was carried out with the participation of twelve teachers at Bac Ha College of Technology Half of them graduated from Hanoi Foreign Languages Teachers‟ Training College The rest had in-service ELT training course One teacher has got M.A degree and two of them are taking the M.A course at VNU They are aged from 27 to forty

to adjust to new thinking to collect useful supplementary materials for their students to help them improve their knowledge in general and English in particular

2.1.3.2 The students

The total number of students who participated in the research was 120 They consist of both male and female aged from 19 to 22, but the female outnumber the male They have learned English for at least five years, three years at high schools and nearly two years at college Many students have learnt English since they studied at grade six However, their English proficiency is not good It is due to the fact that they are taught almost grammar, reading, and a little bit writing whereas listening and speaking are not paid much attention to within other skills In addition, the students‟ awareness is too limited because of their bad marks in the entrance examination They scored only from two

to six in English and a large number of them got under the average marks in this subject Consequently, when they enter the college, they do not have enough learning strategies to become effective learners of English The students are not successful in equipping their reading comprehension strategies They find it difficult to understand the content of the whole reading text so they can not answer the reading comprehension questions And they need to practice reading more so as to improve their English proficiency as well as reading comprehension

2.2 Instrument for data collection

The major means of data collection is questionnaire that is considered as one of the best and the most useful ways Two sets of survey questionnaires were administered to twelve teachers of English and 120 second year students to obtain data for the study Two questionnaires consist of Wh-questions so that the researcher can collect brief information from respondents One with seven questions was designed for the teachers and the other with five questions for the students There are three similar questions for both teachers and students from question 1 to question 3 However, the rest questionnaires for teachers are different from the rest ones for students

2.2.1 The questionnaire for teachers

Questionnaire designed for the teachers aims at finding out:

Question 1: Teachers‟ evaluations on level of difficulty, content and length of reading texts in the textbook Business Basics

Question 2: Teachers‟ opinions on reading exercises in the textbook

Question 3: Teachers‟ opinions on topics that need supplementary reading

Question 4: Teachers‟ purpose of using supplementary materials in teaching reading lessons

Question 5: Teachers‟ suggestions on the types of exercises to be used in the supplementary materials

Question 6: Teachers‟ sources of supplementary reading materials

Question 7: Teachers‟ expectations of the supplementary reading materials

2.2.2 The questionnaire for students

Questionnaire designed for the students aims at finding out:

Question 1: Students‟ evaluations on level of difficulty, content and length of reading texts in the textbook Business Basics

Question 2: Students‟ opinions on reading exercises in the textbook

Question 3: Students‟ opinions on topics that need supplementary reading

Question 4: Students‟ evaluations on the benefits of supplementary materials

Question 5: Students‟ expectations of the supplementary reading materials

2.3 Data collection procedure

Two sets of questionnaires, one for teachers and one for students at Bac Ha College

of Technology were administered The questionnaire for teachers was delivered to 12 teachers and the researcher was always willing to answer any questions raised by the teachers After the teachers of English finished the questionnaire, the researcher collected them immediately

The other questionnaire was given to 120 students in classes KT1 and NH2 at the end of the school year in order to get the data for the study The students are allowed to complete the questionnaire in 30 minutes Before giving the questionnaire to the students, the researcher had clear and brief explanation in both English and Vietnamese the aim of the survey questionnaire to make sure that they fully understand all questions Then they could be free to answer all the given questions strictly and independently

Chapter 3: Data analysis, findings and discussion

3.1 Data analysis

Question 1: What are the teachers’ and the students’ evaluations of the current textbook

Business Basics?

Question 1 is to investigate the teachers‟ and the students‟ evaluations on level of language

difficulty, content and length of reading texts in the textbook Business Basics

a) level of difficulty - too difficult

Table 1: The teachers’and students’ evaluations on level of difficulty, content and length of

reading texts in the textbook

As illustrated in the above table, the majority of the teachers and the students say

that the current textbook is not easy 58,33% of the teachers think that the textbook is too

difficult As much as 71,66% of the students share the same opinion on this point

However, the percentage of the students is higher than the percentage of the teachers Only

16,67% of the teachers and 9,16% of the students claim that the textbook is too easy

While the percentage of the teachers and students think that the textbook is relevant to the

students‟ proficiency is a bit higher (25% and 19,16% respectively) The reason for various

evaluations of teachers and students on the level of difficulty is that teachers at Bac Ha College of Technology usually expect a lot from their students while students have poor English proficiencies and different reading strategies Students who have good English proficiencies and good reading strategies will find the texts easy and relevant but those who have inappropriate reading strategies will find them too difficult to exploit the reading texts in the textbook

Also, when being asked to give evaluation on the content of the textbook, 66,67%

of the teachers and 55,83% of the students claim that the textbook Business Basics is interesting 16,67% of the teachers who assume that the content of the textbook is familiar equal to 16,67% of the teachers who assume that the content of the textbook is unfamiliar Obviously, the percentage of the students who find content of the textbook unfamiliar is a bit higher than the percentage of the students who find the content of the textbook familiar (20% and 12,5% respectively) It is noticeable that none of the teachers and the students says that the content of the textbook is boring

In terms of the length of reading texts, 50% of the teachers and 65% of the students state that the length of reading texts is relevant The percentage of the teachers who propose that the reading texts are too long is quite equal to the percentage of the students (33,33% and 30,83% respectively)

Question 2: What are the teachers’ and the students’ opinions about the reading exercises

5 too few exercises 6 50

6 too many exercises 7 58,33

Table 2: The teachers’ opinions on reading exercises in the textbook Business Basics

Reading exercises No of respondents Percentage (%)

1 of various types 51 42,5

2 of a few types 27 22,5

5 too few exercises 32 26,67

6 too many exercises 65 54,16

Table 3: The students’ opinions on reading exercises in the textbook Business Basics

As described in the two tables 2 and 3, the biggest portion of teachers (83,33%) is for the idea that reading exercises in the textbook are too difficult for the students while 65% of students share the same viewpoint Besides, 25% of the teachers answer that reading exercises are too easy Similarly, only 9,16% of the students find reading exercises too easy The result indicates that the percentage of the students who believe that reading exercises are too easy is lower than the percentage of the teachers Also, this percentage of the students is the lowest percentage of all percentages of the students who give their opinions on reading exercises in the textbook When being asked to give comments on the types of exercises, 66,67% of the teachers and 42,5% of the students think that reading exercises are of various types Furthermore, 33,33% of the teachers and 22,5% of the students support the idea that reading exercises are of a few types

The table also shows that the percentage of the teachers who answer that there are too many exercises for each reading text is nearly equal to the percentage of the students who agree with this viewpoint (58,33% and 54,16% respectively) However, there is a big difference in the percentage of the teachers and the students who give their opinions on reading exercises Obviously, the percentage of the teachers who believe that there are too few exercises in the book is higher than the percentage of the students 50% of the teachers and 26,67% of the students say that there are too few reading exercises for each reading text

Question 3: Which topics in the current textbook need supplementary reading?

The purpose of this question is to find out which topics both teachers and students need supplementary reading

Dealing with problems 16,67 50,83

The world of work 16,67 43,33

Describing and comparing 8,33 73,33

Table 4: Topics in the textbook need supplementary reading

The very noticeable thing that can be realized from the table is that both teachers and

students put visiting a company as their top priority This topic is selected by the greatest

percentage from the respondents (58,33% of the teachers and 82,5% of the students)

However, the teachers‟ and students‟ opinions about other topics vary a lot Topics you and

your company and people at work are ranked at the second scale by the teachers (50% and

41,67% respectively) Meanwhile, the topics away on business and describing and

comparing are chosen with the second highest percentage from the students (75,83% and

73,33% respectively) Both topics preparing a trip and getting a job are selected by 33,33% of the teachers and three topics away on business, new developments and life

stories are chosen by equal percentage (25% of the teachers) Topics preparing a trip, life stories, and you and your company are the students‟ choice with the third high percentage

(65%, 61,67% and 60% respectively) Next, topics dealing with problems, the world of