Luận văn an evaluation of the coursebook nursing 1 and its suitability to the second year nursing students at quang ninh medical college

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES TTA TAT TONG AN EVALUATION OF TIIE COURSEBOOK “NURSING 1” AND ITS

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

TTA TAT TONG

AN EVALUATION OF TIIE COURSEBOOK “NURSING 1”

AND ITS SUITABILITY TO THE SECOND-YEAR NURSING STUDENTS

AT QUANG NINH MEDICAL COLLEGE

(PANH GIA GIAO TRINA “NURSING 1° VA SU PHU HG? CUA GIAO TRINH

GI SINH VIÊN NAM THU HAI CHUYEN NGANH DIEU DƯỠNG

TRUGNG CAO DANG Y TE QUANG NINID

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Hanai, 2016

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, IIANOL

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUACKS AND INTERNATIONAL STUDLES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

HA DAI TONG

AN EVALUATION OF TITE COURSEBOOK “NURSING 1”

AND ITS SUITABILITY TO THE SECOND-YEAR NURSING STUDENTS

AT QUANG NINH MEDICAL COLLEGE

(ĐÁNH GIÁ GIAO TRINA “NURSING 1” VA SU PHU HG? CUA GIAO TRINH

VỚI SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI CHUYÊN NGÀNH DIỀU DƯỠNG

TRUONG CAO DANG Y TẺ QUẢNG NINH)

M.A MINOR PROGRAN

TE TITESIS

Field: English Tcaching Methodology

Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Lam Quang Ding

TRanoi, 2016

DECLARATION

Thereby declare that (his thesis and the work presented in il arc may own and has been generated by me as the result of my own original research } confirm that:

1 This work was done wholly while T am in candidature [or a Masler degree al

5 Thave acknowledged all main sources of help;

6 Where the thesis is based on work done by myself joinlly with others, [have made clear exactly what was done by others and what I have contributed myself,

I am fully aware that should this declaration be found to be false, disciplinary action could be taken and penalties imposed in accordance with University policy and rules

Lanoi, October 2016

Ha Iai Hong

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This study would not have been completed without the help and encouragement which I received along the way

First and foremast, T wish lo express my profound gratitude to my supervisor

- Assoo Prof Dr Lam Quang Déng, who during the preparation of this thesis has been most willing and ready Io give me valuable advice, inspiration and supervision

T also acknowledge my sincere thanks to all the professors and lecturers at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their insightful lectures, invaluable assistance and useful guidance

I would like to extend my appreciation to the teachers and nursing students

of KO at Quang Ninh Medieval College for their participation and assistance throughout the process of the study

1 am indebted to the authors of the reference materials whose ideas have inspired me througheut the writing process

Last but not least, 1 am grateful to my family whose encouragement was vital

to me in completing this paper

fo carry out the research The results of the study show that the coursebook is appropriate to be used for musing students at the college although it has some drawbacks which can be adjusted through the process of adaptation by the teachers

English for Special Purposes Tnglish for Vocational Purposes General English

Quang Ninh Medical College

‘Vocational English as a Second Language

iv

LIST OF CHARTS, FIGURES AND TABLES

Chart 1: Students? time of learning English

Chart 2: Students’ levels of English

Chart 3: Learners’ altitudes towards learmng ESP

Vigure 1: L'ypes of LSP (rom Lfutchinson and Waters, 1987)

Figure 2: The evaluation model of Hutchinson and Waters (1987)

Table 1; Students’ and teachers’ ranking of the purposes of leaming ESP

Table 2 Students’ and (cachers’ requirement [or the Lopics of the coursebook

‘able 3 Students’ and teachers’ requirement for grammar of the coursebook Table 4: Students’ and teachers’ requirement for vocabulary of the coursebook Table 5: Students’ and (eachers’ requirement for skills of the coursebook

‘Table 7: Students’ and teachers’ requirement for activities of the coursebook Table 6: Students’ and teachers’ requirement for the support of the coursebook

4 Scope of the study

5 Methods of the study

6 Organization of the stud

13 Characteristics of ESP course

1.4 Characteristios of English for Medical Purpose

Roles of using the coursebook in language (caching anc learning

k2

1 Definitions of textbook, coursebook and materials:

22 The importanoe of coursebook

3 Coursebook evaluation

3.1 Delirntion of coursebook cvaluation

3.3 Purposes of coursebook evaluation

3.3 Types of coursebook evaluation

3.4 ‘Techniques of coursebook evaluation

3.5 Criteria for coursebook evaluation

3.6 Madels for coursebook evaluation .

1 The current ESP teaching and leaming situation at Quang Ninh medical college

3 Data collection instrument:

4 Data collection procedure

5 Data analysis procedure

CUAPTLR 3 RUSULT'S AND DISCUSSION

41 The suitability of the coursebook in lerms of audience

42 — The suitability of the coursebook in terms of aims

4.3 ‘The suitability of the coursebook in tenns of content

4.4, — The suitability of the coursebook in terms of methodology

PART C CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

1, The strengths and weaknesses of the coursebook

3 Limitations of the sludy

4, Suggestions for further study

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

ESP has had a relatively long ume to mature Since the carly 1960's, ESP has

grown to become one of the most prominent areas of KEL teaching today ‘The growth

of FSP hws also goneraled an increasing number of specialized textbooks The

importance of the textbook is undeniable since it determines the major part of classroom teaching and student leaning Although choosing a textbook is daunting, it has significant influonce on students’ ability 10 1ueel their language learning objectives

and affects both the process of learning and outcomes Nevertheless, as Swales (1980)

states, textbooks, especially coursebooks, exhibit problems and extreme cases are examples of educational failure Thus, to have a succesalul language teaching program,

it is necessary to have goad materials, and to make the most effective use of a textbook,

iLis uecessary for teachers tp carefully examine all aspects of the textbook and compare

it agaist an assessment tool The current ESP coursebook used at Quang Ninh Medical

College (QNMC) was collected and edited from various sources To some extent, its objectives mecl leaching and leaming’s goals such as vocabulery and reading development However, for communicative target int learning language, it does not meet teaching and learning requirements It includes the texts, then the exercises, which contain only questions to improve reading comprehension and the same kind of questions for ail 12 units, which gives students little interest in learning ‘Ihere is no

CD no video, no suggested reference books or sources enclosed in this book This material has been used at QNMC since 2011 and it appears to be uninteresting and

unsuitable to the objectives of the course Therefore, the writer of this study

recommends a new coursebook Nursing I, Oxford University Press (hal lias received many positive comments from colleagues of other medical colleges However, it is

necessary to have overall evaluation on the coursebook before it comes into use so that

the teachers can assess its suitability to the students and adapt the coursebook for the highest effectiveness in teaching and Ieaming For those reasons, the topic “Au evaluation of the coursebook "Nursing 1" and its suitability to the second-year nursing students at Quang Ninh Medical College” was chosen with the intention that

a new but suitable and useful coursebook will be used to enhance the leaning efficiency as well as stimulate students’ interest in language learning

2 Aims of the study

This study aims lo evaluate the strengths and the weaknesses of the coursebook

and its suitability to the objectives of the curriculum, content and methodology from

both the leacher’s and the nursing sluder’s perspectives al Quang Ninh Medical

1 What are the strengths and the weaknesses of the coursebook Nursing 1?

2 How suitable is the coursebook to the second-year nursing students at QNMC?

4 Scope of the stuly

In coursebook evaluation, there are a preat number of criteria that should be

taken múo consideration such as: the audience, the content, the methodology, the

cultural bias, the layout, the authenticity, and so on In this study, the criteria for

evaluation were based on Hutchinson and Waters (1987) with focus on the four

following criteria: austicnee, aims, content and methodology

5 Methods of the study

This study employed three methods including document analysis, survey

questionnaires and informal mferviews These methods are desenbed im detail im

chapter two

6 Organization of the study

the study consists of 3 parts:

Part I - Introduction - presents the rationale, aims, scope and methodology of the

study

Part LI - Development - includes 3 chapters

Chapter 1 — Literature review — provides a theorelical basis for the study First, i

surveys the literature on the theories of the basic concepts such as English for Specific Purposes and English for Medical Purposes, regarding the definition, classification, and

characleristics Second, il reviews coursebook evaluation, need analysis in terms of

definition, types, purposes and models ‘The last paxt of the chapter presents the issues involving coursebook adaptation which serve as a base for the improvements

recommended at the end of the study

Chapter 2 — Research Methodology — includes an overview of the approach used in

conducting the study It also provides a thorough description of the data collection

procedure as well as the analytical procedure

Chapter 3 — Results and discussion — reports the findings of the survey and discusses

the prominent aspects,

Part L—Conelusion makes conclusion of the study; recommends the improvements

to the coursebook; expresses the limitations and suggestions for further research

According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987), ESP must be seen as an approach

not as a product which Dudley-Lvans (1998) describes as an “attitude of mind” They allum (hat “ESP is an approach to language teaching in which all decisions as lo content and method are based on the leamer’s reason for learning” ‘They also emphasize that “the foundation of all ESP is the simple question: Why does this learner need lo earn a foreign language?”

Robinsen (1991) states that ESP is “normally goal-directed”, and that ESP courses develop (rom a need analysis, which aims lo specify as closely as possible what cxaetly it is that students have to do through the mediun of English

From the definitions, ESP can be not necessarily related ta a specific discipline, and il also docs not have to be aimed al a certain age group or ability range Rather, ESP should be seen simple as an “approach” to teaching that meets leamer’s demands

1.2 Classification of ESP

Hutchinson and Waters (1987) state that ESP has two main types according to whether the leamer requires Inglish for academic study (LAP: English for Academic Purposes) or (or work/ training (EOP! EVP! VESL: English [or Occupational Purposes English for Vocational Purposes/ Vocational English as a Second Language) The target leamers of EAP are generally at schools and they need English in their study Meanwhile, HOP is used as part of leamers “work or occupation, for instance, to communicate with tourists (a tour guide), to persuade the customer (a salesman)” The crucial point here is that ESP course which will rake place depends mainly on whether

the learners are studying Linglish before, during or after the time they are taught in their

job Nevertheless, school-subject ESP has been divided into such situations where

English is a separale subject on the curriculum bul with a related content to other subjects (independent ESP), and where English is the means for other subject ta be

learnt Gntegrated ESP) Hutchinson and Waters (1987) divide ESP into three branches with cach branch subdivided into two smaller ones: EOP and EAP as follows:

English for Science English for Business English for

& ‘Technology & Bconomies Social Study

eg English eg English eg.fnglish sg English e.g English eg English

studies technicians Economics Accountancy Psyehalogy = Law

Figure 1: Types of ESP (From Hutchinson und Waters, 1987) This classification is not a clear-cut distinction people can work and study concurrently; and there is also a likelihood that in many cases the language learnt for immediate use in a study environment will be used later when the student takes up a job

1.3 Characteristics of ESP course

Most researchers (Strevens, 1988, Bojovic, 2006, Dudley-Evans, 1997, Gatehouse, 2001) have supported the main characteristios proposed by Carter (1983)

Le identified the following “three features common to LSP courses: authentic material,

purpose-related orientation, and self-direction”

“Authonlic malcrial” means using matcrial, not developed or written [or leaching purpose, from the main area of study of the learners or their occupation This material

may include books, forms, charts, graphs etc and these forms of authentic lexis may be

exploited in modified or unmodified forms according to the requirement of the teaching circumstances Authentic material will be an appropriate choice if LSP courses are offered to advanced or intermediate level as proposed by Dudley-Fvaus, (1997)

Purpose-related orientation (Gatehouse, 2001 cf Carter, 1983) has been

identified as the simulation of different communicative tasks to prepare the learners for

diffrent target situations The leamers are given practice through simulation to enable them to handle various linguistic roles in the target situation

“Self-direction” is the third characteristic of ESP courses which means “that ESP

1s concemed wilh turning leamers into users” (Carter, 1983) TL mdicales thal the

students should “have certain degree of freedom to decide when, what and how they

will siudy” (Gatehouse, 2001)

1.4, Characteristics of English for Medical Purpose

EMP is a subset of ESP Education that most often focuses on teaching aspects of

medical English, particularly terminology (Hull, 2004) The language of medicine is quite unique It is fraught with technical, academic language and replete with slang,

colloquiahismes, abbreviations and acronyms Tt bas ils own rules and structures Healthy professionals mwust read, write, interpret, give directions, etc, Using a wide variety of

abbreviations and acronyms are extremely oareer-specific Medical Tnglish is also contextual, Doctors and nurses use academic and technical language interspersed with common speech and workplace jargon It rarely focuses on complete or proper sentence

structure

With regard to the level of Medical English, Hull (2004) believes that Medical

Tinglish cannot be taught at the level of or in the same methods of basic English

6

language teaching Llul! assumes that all IMP leamers are health professionals or in the midst of health studies at the college or university level Therefore, career-specific, highly tochnival language must be coulextually based The goal of learning Ruglish at this level is not to leam grammar and structure primarily, but to acquire and use the language of practice and social relations wilhiin the career

2 Roles of using the coursebook in language teaching and learning

2.1, Definitions of textbook, coursebook and materials

The definition which Ur (1996) has given is very useful and casy to understand {t reads as follows: ‘The term ‘coursebook’ means, a text book of which the teacher and each student has a copy and which is iz principle to be followed systematically as the basis for a language course Therefore, a coursebook must have at least being available

in the hand of students and teachers, and used systematically in a course of study, and a course of study in this article refers to an Bnglish course of study

In Materials Development in Language Teaching (Littlejohn, 1998) the term

“materials” is defined as “anything which is used to help to teach language leamers It

cam be in the form of a textbook, a workbook, a cansctic, a CD-ROM, a video, a

photocopied handout, a newspaper, a paragraph written on a whiteboard.” (Tomlinson,

1998) Therefore, it can be pointed out that coursebook is a type of materials

2.2 The importance of coursebook

In classrooms, coursebooks are an important aspect of the curriculum They are

the most observable feature of a teachor’s methodology, and cart contribute greatly to a course's syllabus O’Neill (1982) provides 4 justifications for the use of coursebooks

Firstly, a large portion of a coursebouk’s material can be suHable for students needs,

even if not specifically designed for them Secondly, courscbooks allow students to

look ahead, or refresh themselves with past lessons ‘hirdly, coursebooks have the

practical aspect of providing material which is well-prosonted in inexpensive form

Kinally, well-designed coursebooks allow for improvisation and adaptation by the

teacher, as well as stimulating students to create spontaneous interaction in the class

Therefore, coursebooks should be accessible to a variety of students as well as

adaplable Lo the diversity of ieachers and Leaching atyles

3 Coursebook cvaluation

3.1 Definition of coursehook evaluation

Hutchinson and Waters (1987) state that “evaluation is a matter of judging the

fitness of something for a particular purpose Given a certain need, and in light of the

resources available, which is out of a number of possibilities can represent the best solution?” In other words, “Evaluation is basically a matching process: matching needs

to available solutions.”

In the opinion of Dudley (1998), “Evaluation is a whole process which begins with determining what information to gather and ends with bringing about the change in

ciurent activities or influencing future ones.”

Although each researcher has his own way of giving opinion on evaluation, they still come to the agreement that evaluation is a process of collecting data, giving

judgments based on the collected data, and the mos importantly, evaluation must

include action

3.2, Purposes of coursebook evaluation

Evaluation plays a very important role in the development of materials Ellis (1997) points out two purposes for materials evaluation Firstly, evaluation is carried oul lo choose among the available materials the most suilable one lo use for a particular situation and such valuation is taken before the course takes place, Secondly, evaluation

is carried cut to determine whether the material which has been chosen works for that situation after it has beon used for a peried of tune This helps to decide whether to continue using the material or to replace it with a better material In short, evaluation can help assess whether the coursebook is the most appropriate for the target learners at various levels and in various teaching settings, then adjust it in order to increase the

strengths and minimize the drawbacks of the coursebook.

3.3 Types of coursebook evaluation

According to same scholars, material evaluation is divided into three main types depending on the reasons for evalualion, Curmingsworth (1995) points out that there are three types of material evaluation, ie pre-use evaluation, in-use evaluation and post- use evaluation This classificalion is similar to Fllis (1997) with different names, ie Preliminary, Formative and Summative cvaluation respectively The first type, pro-use evaluation is carried out before a course begins in order to select the most relevant and suitable materials for a particular group of Ieamners This also has the purpose of identifying which aspects of the published materials need to be adapted to suit the purposes of the evaluators (Robinson, 1991; Ellis, cited in Tomlinson, 1993) Pre-use evaluation focuses on predictions of potential valuc This is probably the most difficult kind as there is no actual experience of using the course book In-use evaluation is a kind of evaluation for suitability, involving “matching the course book against a specific requirement including the learner’s objectives, the leamer’s background, the resources available etc.” (Cunningswarth, 1995) The third type, post-evaluation refers

io an asa ment of a textbook’s fitness over a period of continual usc Evaluation of

this kind can be practical in helping to decide whether to use the same coursebook on

the future occasion

In short, whatever the types of evaluation, pre-use, in-use evaluation or post-use are, it is very importam that the evaluator identifies clearly the reasons for their

evaluation so that il can be beneficial for the use of the courscbook (Robinson, 1991}

3.4 Techniques nf coursebavk evaluation

According Tlutchinson & Waters (1987), Lynch (1996), Richards (2001), Robinson (1991), the uscful evaluation techniques are questionnaires, interviews, test results, discussion and other informal means ‘The different methods used for evaluation have been mentioned but they all have their possible advantages and limitations as follows:

- Questionnaires are the most popular methods of data collection ‘they can be

used to elicit students’ and teachers’ comments on a wide range of issues The

adveritage is thal they cant be given Lo a large group of respondents at he same time and they are not expensive Ilawever, questionnaires need to be carefully designed to avoid

respondents’ misinlerpretalion of questions

- Interviews are also a valuable method for evaluation They have advantages of

in-depth information on specific questions but the problem is that it is very time- consuming, though they can provide the opportunity for more extended explaration of the issues than questionnares

- Observation can focus on any observable aspects of the lesson and can provide

an objective cye to identify things that may not be very clear to the teacher However, It

is a specialized work and requires careful preparation

- Document analysis refers to any documents that are involved in evocation, such

as: curriculum descriplion, policy siatemenl, newspapers, are program brochures, correspondence and so on This method is an effective way to callect data for the study

because it can provide useful information and then “form an essential part” of the data

for an evaluation exercise (Robinson, 1991)

To sum up, among a number of different methods to collect data the researcher

should identify what types of these instruments to be used effectively in their study Ta this study three methods including document analysis, questionnaires and interviews

were applied for data collection

3.5 Criteria for coursehook evaluation

Criteria for material evaluation used to determine which perspectives of the material should be taken into consideration Tomlinson (1998) suggests, “Criteria are what researchers use to reach a decision regarding what needs to be evaluated”

Hutchinson and Waters (1987) suggest four main cnteria for material evaluation

including: the audience, the aims, the content and ihe methodolegy.

- Audience: ‘The evaluator should obtain information about and from leamers to find out whether the materials are suitable to the students’ age, knowledge of English, intereal, sex, study or professional fields, stalus, educational background, arid so on,

- Aims: The aims of the material is to help leamers develop certain language skills and function or Lo improve the language as a whole Tn any language course, it is necessary to examine whether the material can satisty the aims and the objectives of the

+ Methodology: The criterion of methodology refers to the researcher's judgment

of whether the methodology used in the material is appropriate with the leamers and efficient in helping them achieve the course’s objectives Methodology of the material can be reflected by the theories of learning on which the course is based, the attitudes Lo

or the expectations of the leamers about leaming English, kinds of exercises and tasks included, teaching and leaming techniques used, teaching aids, teaching guidance needed and the flexibility of the material to suit in different teaching, contexts

Besides the four criteria mentioned above, [Tutchinson and Waters suggest other criteria such as the price, quantities and availability of the material

In this research, the set of evaluation criteria suggested by Hutchinson and Waters (1987) appears fo be suitable to be applied in evaluating to coursebook Nursing

7 intorms of audience, aims, conten! and molhodology

3.6 Models for coursebook evaluation

Hutchinson and Waters (1987) presents a model is a macro-evaluation in which the evaluation is divided into 4 steps

DEFINING CRITERLA

On what bases will you judge materials?

Which criteria will be more important?

crileria?

MATCHING How far does the material match your needs?

Wigure 2: The evaluation model of [Iutchinson and Waters (1987)

The model shows a logical procedure for maierial evaluation or courscbook

evaluation This first step is defining criteria on which the material will be assessed

‘This step is to identify the requirements for material, so the evaluator should describe

what onteria your course is based The second one is 10 evaluate whether the material

realize the criteria set in the subjective analysis The final step is the matching process,

which finds cut how far the material matches the course requirements ‘'o evaluate the

coursebook under study, it is very important for the author to set out the criteria for both subjective analysis (he analysis of the (raining curriculum) and abjeolive analysis (the analysis of the material being evaluated) Then the findings of the two analyses are put into comparison to find out whether they match or not Based on the results, strengths

as well as drawbacks of the coursebook can be identificd, which may lead to some

suggestions for the coursebook inprovements.

3.7 The importance of conducting a pre-use evaluation

As mentioned previously, among three Lypes of evaluation, pre-use evaluation is

carried out before a course begins in order to select the most relevant and suitable

materials for a particular group of leamers and it is considered the most difficult kind as

there is no actual experience of using the course book ‘he desired outcome of

evaluation is to allow for informed adaptation of the coursebook, which is intended to

allow teachers to compensate for “non-corgruence” (McDonough and Shaw, 2003)

between coursebook, desired course outcomes, and the teaching context

According to Richard (2012), most coursebook evaluation schemes distinguish

two essential stages that are necessary at the pre-evaluation phase: a description or

analysis phase, and an interpretation or evaluation phase Tn the first phase, the contents

of the book have la be carefully described in terms of scope and sequence, organization, and the types of texts and exercises contained within The analysis phase will invalve identifying these kinds of information: aims and objectives of the book, level of the book, skills addressed, topics covered, situations t is intended for, target learners, time

required, components, number and length of unils, organization of units

In this study, the evaluator applied this type of evaluation also to understand leamers and teachers’ expectations from a coursebook so that the coursebook can be adapted to meet the requirements of leamers and teachers,

4 Coursebook adaptation

4.1 Reasons far adapting

Once a coursebook has been evalusted, polential problem areas can be identified: What the coursebook offers cannot be exactly what our learners’ need; The coursebook methodology may not match our own; Our general aims may not match the aims of the coursebook; ‘The aims of a particular lesson/unit in the book may not match

ow lesson-by-lesson aims We will have to prioritize and select We may need to supplement the coursebook

‘Yeachers, with direct personal knowledge of their classroom teaching, should see

textbooks as a resource or an “idea bank” which can stimulate teachers’ own creative

potential (Cumningsworth, 1984) Adapting materials helps teachers to maximize the

value of the book for the benefit of their learners [lence they can improve it so that it is

suitable for the particular situation (Apple and Jungck, 1990; Shannon, 1987)

4.2 Areas for adaptation

McDonough and Shaw (2003) identify the possible arcas to adapt as follows

Lack of grammar coverage in general

Lack of practice of grammar points of particular difficulty

Reading passages contain too much wiknown vocabulary,

- Comprehension questions are two easy

Subject matters are inappropriate for leamers

Photographs and other illustrative materials are nol culturally acceptable

Amount of material is too much/too little to cover

- Lack of guidance of teachers on group work and role play

‘There are no vocabulary list or a key to exercises

However, they also note that more areas could be added to this list, depending on

actual conlexts

4.3 Techniques for adaptation

According to Tomlinson (1998) there are various ways various ways of adapting

a course-book:

- Omission: ‘The teacher leaves out things deemed inappropriate, offensive and

unproductive, ele

- Addition: Where there seems to be inadequate coverage, the teachers may decile

to add material, either in form of texts or exercise material

- Reduction: Where the teacher shortens an activity to give it less weight or emphasis

- Extension: Where an activity is lengthened in order to give an additional

dimension

= Rewriting/modification: ‘Yeachers may occasionally decide to rewrite material,

especially exercise material, to make it more appropriate, more communicative, more

demanding, more accessible to their studems

- Replacement: Texts or exercise material which is considered inadequate for whatever reason may be replaced by more suitable material

- Re-ordering: Veachers may decide that the order in which the materials are presented is not suitable for their students They can then decide to plot different course

through the materials from the one writer has laid down,

5 Previous studies on coursebook evaluation

There have been wany studies done in the fiekl of evaluation of FSP coursebook Many of these studies have brought about good improvement of the coursebaoks used for FSP courses Some researches worth mentioning are Neo Thi My Binh (2010), Luong Thi Minh Thu (2012), Nguyen Thi Van (2012), Luu Nhu Quyrh (2012), Nguyen Thi Mai Huang (2013)

These evaluation had been done on different kinds of coursebooks such as USP for tourism students, marine engine students, for nursing students, for medical students, for economics and business management students All of these researchers of ESP coursebooks aimed at finding out the strengths and the weaknesses of the coursebook and then usually gave suggestions for improving the coursebooks This thesis aims to evaluate the DSP coursebook for the second-year nursing students at QNMC in terms of language level, aims, content and methodology to determine whether it meets the course’s objectives, students’s language level, and the users’ needs Therefore, the researcher just wants to review two studies that have the similar aspects Luu Nhu Quynh (2012) did the research to evaluate the USP coursebook for the students at La

‘Tinh Medical College according to learing-centred approach ‘he subjects of this study were] 00 second-year students of medicine who were taught the LISP coursebook

of the college and three Hnglish teachers The study employed survey questionnaires for teachers and students ‘To conduct the study, Luu Nhu Quynh used criteria and the model proposed by Hutchinson and Waters (1987) focusing on the leamers and the

15

procedwal consideration with subjective and objective analysis in the light of learning- centred approach Nguyen Thi Van (2012) also conducted a need-based evaluation of the nursing coursebook in tenus of appropriateness of ils objectives, contents and methodology from both the teacher’s and the student’s perspective To collect the data, the author of the study applied two instroments which are questionnaire and informal

intervie

Sho also followed the model of material evaluation proposed by Hutchinson

and Waters (1987) An overall assessment of the coursebook showed that the

coursebook was partly appropriate to the needs of the students im terms of the aim,

coment and methodology There were some problems with the content, such as the

ratios of subjccl areas, types of cxereises, time spent on each urn Further mora, there

was no support for the teachers teaching the coursebook

From the studies on the coursebook ¢valuation presorited above, His found that

the coursebook evaluation model suggested by Hutchinson and Waters (1987) was employed by most of Vietnamese researchers This model seems to fit their leaching and learning contexts The data collection instruments including document analysis,

questionnaires and interviews were the most popular The review of the studies above

have prompted the researcher to use Hutchinson and Waters (1987)’s model ta carry out

the coursebook evaluation

6 Summary

This chapter has addressed key notions about ESP and provided a brief review of

literature on coursebook evaluation and adaptation The chapter indicates that evaluating the ESP coursebook is an obligatory process as the coursebook plays a very important role in language teaching in general and in the ESP context in particular

Basing the theoretical foundation in this chapter, the evaluator selected the set of

evaluation criteria suggested by Llutchinson and Waters (1987) to apply for the study and concentrated on such major issues as audience, aims, content and methodology

‘The evaluator also employed major methods including document analysis and questionnaire Informal interviews are used after analyzing documents and survey questionnaire data with the purpose of getting more objective information about the

material in order to iercase the credibility of the evaluation

16

CHAPTER 2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

1 The current ESP teaching and learning situation at Quang Ninh medical

college

1.1 The context

At QNMC the number of teachers of English is limited and none of them are in

charge of teaching ESP independently

At the college, English s @ compulsory subject to all studenis An English course

is divided into two parts: General English and English for Specific Purpose Students learn GH from a coursebook entitled Lifelines Hlementary published by Oxford

University Press in 1999 After finishing GE, they take a ESP course (32 periods) The

problem is thal students have not finished all their professional courses, thus they do not

have sufficient background knowledge of their profession

Nursing students study Medical English with the coursebook composed by the

head lecturer of Hnglish of the college However, this coursebook does not bring good results in teaching and leaming ESP duc to its clear drawbacks Thus it is very

necessary 10 find a betler coursebook as a substitute

Teaching ESP is very important to the nursing students of QNMC because it

brings them more opportunities to work in foreign organizations or foreign countries in the age of globalization

1.2 The coursebook descriptian

Nursing 1 is a 135-page-long “in-house” malerial which was written by Tony

Grice and first published by Oxford Universily Press in 2007 The coursebook consisls

of 15 units of different topics Each unit includes the following parts:

« Scrub up: ‘his part can be seen as a warm-up activity at the beginning of each unit It usually contains a number of pictures and introduces key words or concepts It

eatt lead students to focus on the topic of the unit

+ 1s my job: Livery two or three units include this section “It’s my job” is based

on authentic interview and sources Stadents will read about many people in various nursing environments and obtain insight into the skills required

« Patient care: Some units introduce this part which is useful to practice communication skill, an important “soft skill”, ‘They will leam how to communicate with patients and their family and their friends about difficult or sensitive matters

« Body bits: This stimulates students to concentrate on paits of the body, which

enables them (o extend the vocabulary for lalking aboul the body and ils functions

+ Signs and symptoms: This part appears in some units and focuses on common diseases and conditions which are relevant to the particular unit, providing, students with the vocabulary for describing comunon signs and symptoms of illness

+ Top ma

This is on the lop of the page, containing facts, slalistics and

quotes These are oplional extras and can add variety and interest Lo lessons, or equip

additional material for strong students There are also definitions for difficult words or

phrases which are important for understanding a text which appears on the same page

* Yocabulary: There is an amount of specialist vocabulary related to the topic of

the tai mm this secon The words are introduced tm different teckmques and put mm

contextualized situations to raise leamers’ attention and interest There are exercises

following for further practice

« Language spot: ‘his focuses on the grammar arising from the topic of the unit and pays attention to its practical application Learners can have revision by looking at

the Grammar reference Teachers also can provide them grammar test in Teacher’s

Resource Book

« Listening, Reading, Speaking, Writing: These activities give realistic and

communicative practice of language skills needed in nursing

In the listening activities students are exposed to situations related to nursing,

conlaimng dialogues, cmergencies, and interviews They also listen to a variely of

Dnglish accents, both native speakers and non-native speakers

1n the reading parts, learners will read a number of nursing-based texts

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in the sections of speaking, students are required to practice speaking in

authentic situations at work environment

Writing practice is designed as consolidation and extension of the topic with

structured, meaningful writing tasks

«Pronunciation : ‘his helps students to practice pronunciation with key words

«Project: ‘This section encourages learners to take an active role in learning, both

in terms of English language work and the subject of nursing itself This can be sct as homework assignment

«Checklist: This allows students to check their own progress

« Key words: ‘This part contains the main items of mursing vocabulary presented

in the unit, The definitions and pronmeiation appear in the Glossary The section also give students the clumec to personalive the Key words by adding five more words or

expressions thal they are thought to be useful to them

« Grammar reference: This section supports the part of Language spot It

presents the form of a particular grammar pattern, briefly explains its use and provides example sentence as well as showing erars which students are likely to make

« Listening scripts: The scclion provides complete transcripts of all recordings

Students can check their answer after completing listening task It also allows weak

students to read it when they listen to a recording

« Glossary: ‘This is an alphabetical list of all the key words Livery word is followed

by the pronunciation in phonetic seript, the part of speech and a definition in English

Glossary begins witha phonelic chart, with an example word from nursing Lo iHustrale

each of the sounds

« Reading bauk: The section appears in the middle of the book, providing specific skills practice in reading, ‘The reading texts are accompanied by pre-reading tasks and comprehension questions There is also an Answer key in the Student’s Book

1o enable lcamers to cheek their work by themsclves

From the above description, it can be seen that the book focuses on the

functional language needed to succeed in the job Grammar, vocabulary, and skills are

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all contextualized in real work situations An inspirational approach includes It's my job profiles of real professionals, and specialist facts, figures, and quotations on every page

Writing bank or Reading bank gives practice in working with specialist texts

The book also provides Revision and Ixtension with Projects, a student's

website with consolidation exercises from the unit Besides, 'eacher's Resource Book

provides a specialist background to the area for every unit, plus easy-to-understand tips,

additional activitics for mixed ability classes, and Grammar tests and Communication

worksheets The book also provides CDs

2 Participants

The teachers

The first group of teachers includes 3 teachers of English Department One of them has experience in collecting and editing materials for English courses Two of thom have taught ESP and the other docs not have much experience in teaching ESP

The second group of teachers lo be merviewed consists of 10 Tecturers of

Nursing Department who have much professional knowledge and experience in teaching nursing students

The Quang Ninh Medical College ollici

four criteria as the audience, aims, coment and methodology The course objectives in

al curiculun was analyzed according lo the curriculum were carefully examined as a subjective analysis

‘The coursebook itself was analyzed as an objective analysis to examine how the coursebook realizes the criteria of the course requirements Ihe coursebook analysis were broken into sub-issues as follows to get detailed comparison of each’ Aims of the course; Level; Content and Methodology

3.2 Questionnaires

In this study, three questionnaires were used: 1 Questionnaire for the students,

2 Questionnaire for teachers of Hnglish; 3 Questionnaire for teachers of specialized subject (nursing)

3.2.1 Questionnaire for the teachers

« Questionnaire for the teachers of English

The questionnaire for the teachers of English was designed to oollect their information on requirements of the new ESP coursebook ‘The questionnaire includes

four sections with ten items The researcher hoped to see their demands in terms of

course aims, content, methodology The questionnaire (sce Appendix 1) consists of four

sechons:

Section 1 was designed to get the information of the teachers: the time of teaching Hnglish

Section 2 was designed to collect the information on the teachers’ ideas about

the maint objectives of the ESP course

Section 3 was designed to gather the information about the teacher's

requirements for the content of the coursebook

- Section 4 was designed to collect teacher's requirements for the methodology

© Questionnaire for the teachers of specialized subject

‘he questionnaire (see Appendix 3) for specialized subject teachers contains two

sections:

- Section 1 was designed to collect the mformation about the objectives of the ESP course,

- Section 2 was designed to collect the information about the topics which should

be included in the coursebook.

3.2.2 Questionnaire for the siudenis

The questionnaire for the students was designed to collect their information on

requirements for of Lic new ESP coursebook The questionaire meludes four sechions:

with ten items The researcher hoped to see their demands in terms of course aims,

content, methodology The questionnaire (see Appendix 2) consists of four sections:

- Section 1 was designed to get the information of the leamers: the time of learning

English, the result of their GE course

- Section 2 was designed Lo collect the information on the learners’ objectives

when they take part in an ESP course

- Section 3 was designed ta gather the information about the leamer’s requirements

for the content of the coursebook

- Section 4 was designed io collect learner’s requirements for the mothodology

3.3 Informal interview

Tn this study, interview was used to collect additional ideas and acquire a variety

of opinions and concerns that cannot be elicited from the questionnaires

Yo make the result of the interviews objective, three interviews were conducted

with three teachers of English, 6 teachers of specialized subjcet and 5 masing students

at different pomis of time

The interviews which were designed for the teachers of English with the same

questions were related to the following issues

‘The objectives of the LSP course

The language skills considered to be important for nursing students

The contents and appearance of the coursebook which can motivate nursing

students in leaming ESP

The interviews which were designed for the teachers of specialized subject with the same questions were related to the following issues:

‘The most necessary topics that should be taught for nursing students

The real situations in their future working environment in which students may use English,

‘The interviews which were designed for the mursing students with the same

questions were related to the following issues

- The reason for learning LISP

The expectation when taking ESP course

The sitnations in which they use English for their future joh

- The requnrements for the content and the appearance of the coursebook

+ The language skills dhey want to learn (he most

- The requirements for the methodology of the ESP course

4 Data collection procedure

Data collection was conducted via questiormaires and interviews for boll the

teachers (teachers of English and teachers of specialized subject) and the students

Tirstly, the questionnaires were distributed among the teachers of English individually

‘They were given a week to complete and return the questionnaires to ensure that they had enough time to give their answers Secondly, the students were asked to complete the questionnaires while they were in their classroom afler being explained about the aim and the way to answer the questionnaire The third questionnaire was delivered to the teachers of specialized subject individually They had three days to finish it

interviews with the teachers and the students were carried out after collecting data

from questionnaires for detailed information

5 Data analysis procedure

After having collected data, the researchers analyzed, synthesized and categorized the answers in suitable tables ‘The result in this research was reported with

the descriplive statistic tool

lạ 3

CHAPTER 3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

1 Document analysis

1.1, The analysis of ESP training curriculum

As prosenled above, il was necessary lo analyze the Training Curriculum of

QNMC in order to explore the training goals of the KSP course It was reported that

Linglish is a required subject including GE and BSP The first stage af GE costs 4

credits equivalent to $6 class-time periods The other of ESP includes 2 credits equal to

32 class periods In the curriculum, it is stated that at the end of the English course, including both GE and ESP, students will be able to obtain basic knowledge and skills

of English language and they will be able (o communicate m English in daily life In the

Training curriculum of ESP, it is reported that at the end of the course students will

acquire basic knowledge of vocabulary, grammar in order to read and undersland necessary authentic materials for their study of specialist subjects and they will be able

to communicate with patients and colleagues in English in their future working

cuvironment

it is understood from the trainmg curnculum and the course objectives that

speaking, listening and reading are three skills of focus during ESP course In addition,

students are expected to be able to use their English in zeal situations of work context

To be more precise, topics and materials used during the course should be authentic in

order for learners gel familiar so thal they find il easier lo apply in their future job

1.2, The analysis of the coursebook

In this part, the coursebook was analyzed with regards to the aims, level, content

(focusing on specialist vocabulary, topics of unils, and grammar structures) and

methodology (types of tasks or exercises and different types of class arrangement) The

results of the coursebook analysis were as followings:

e Aims of the coursebook

It can be inforred from the part of coursebook analysis presented above that the

coursebook aims to equip students with vocabulary, grammar items and language skills

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which are necessary for their future job in addition, all those language knowledge,

skills and tasks are presented in contextualized examples and situations which are

extremely useful for students to use English to deal wilh their job in the future, especially speaking and listening tasks which enable students to improve their

communicative skills in real situations Tn short, Mursing 7 aims to leach pre-work

students to communicate acouratcly, in English, with pationts and colleagues

© Level of the book

‘the coursebook is ideal for pre-work students, studying at pre-intermediate

level who will need to use English in work situations Therefore, the level of the book

is appropriate for the nursing sludonls of QNMC who have finished GE course al elementary level

© Content

Topics

‘The 15 units cover the 15 main different topics In each lessan in each big topic, there are subtopics used to clarify the big one but they do not have specific names Most

of information from sentences or texts in the coursebook is updated news or articles,

reports and writings from internet In terms of topic variety, as can be scen from the

following figure, there is a wide range of topics in this book

Unit 'Teplcs Unit Topics

Unit ‘The hospital team Unit 9 Blood

ni 2 Hospital department Unit 10 Death and dying

Unit 3 Lospital admissions Unit 1 Hygiene

Und — Accidents and emergencies | Unit 12 Mental health nursing

Unie 5 — Pain Unit 13 Monitoring the patient

Unit — Symptoms Unit 14 Medication

Unit? Caring for the clderly Unit TS Allemalive treatments

Unit 8 Nutrition and obesity

bạ a

Specialized vocabulary

Since Nursing | covers many typical topics related to nursing job, it can be said thal the coursebook provides learners a wide range of specialized vocabulary related to their career as a nurse in the future

Unit Tanguage focus Tinit ‘Language fncus

Unit] Present sumple vs Present Unit 9 Zero and first conditional

continuous

Unit 2 Prepositions of places and Unit 10 Expressing possibility

movement Unit 3 Past simple and past continuous | Unit 17 ‘Talking about obligation

Und Instructions Unit 12 Present perfect

Unit 5 Making comparison Unit 13 The passive

Unit 6 Question forms Unit 4 Be going lo v present continuous

for future Unie 7 Will Unit 15 Giving reason

listening and speaking gel more atiention because there aro more tasks involved in

listening and speaking in the book ‘there is also an independent reading bank consisting of 15 reading texts given to leamers who want to widen vocabulary and

improve their reading skill Tt can be concluded that the coursebook focus on skills that

enables learners to use Linglish for communicative purposes

Text types

It is clear that the text-type used in the coursebook under study is of the types

required nursing documents All the topics mentioned above are presented in different

forms of texts varying from definitions, explanations, records, dialogues, picture

illustrations, charts, graphs, figures There are many reading texts with various types of

exercises but the number of monologues, dialogues and conversations is limited

© Methodology

The coursebook is designed with many kinds of activities There is a great

amount of tasks and exercises for students to work individually such as matching, true

or false, gap-filling, multiple-choice, open-ended question answering, picture

describing, paragraph writing, email writing, chart describing and so on Pair-work is also usually seen throughout the book with such activities as making a conversation,

role playing discussing, etc There are some activities for group work However, there

are few activities for students to do presentation

The tasks and exercises for listening, reading, speaking, writing, vocabulary,

grammar pattern are diverse and put in contextualized situations It can be seen that

listening and speaking get more attention than other skills

2 Students’ background

Time learning English

3% sự,

m<1year 32-3 years 3-4 years

m>S years

Chart I: Students’ time of learning English

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The chart above indicates that the number of students who have been learning

English for more than 5 years overwhelms the number of the other groups Most of

them (87%) have learned English for more than 5 years The number of students having

learned English from 3 to 4 years equals to the number of those who have learned the

subject from 2 to 3 years These two groups account for 5% each There are one 5

students (5%) among 150 having learned English less than 1 year To conclude, most

nursing students under this study have leamed English for quite a long time

Chart 2: Students’ levels of English

The students have finished GE course at elementary level and taken the final

exam The above chart shows their exam results 7% of those students haye got excellent level (whose marks for the whole course are from 8/10 to 10/10) 49% of

them have got good marks (from 7 to 8/10) The number of students are at average level

(whose marks are from 5/10 to 6/10) accounts for 37% of the total number And the

number of students whose test results are below average level takes up 7% From the

chart it can be seen that most of the students have passed their GE course, and more than half of them (56%) are at good and excellent level This means that the number of

students at average level is quite considerable

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Role of English

quite important 17%

ay ogee

Jmportant //

Chart 3: Learners’ attitudes towards learning ESP

Most students show their positive attitudes to the ESP course They are aware of

the fact that English for nursing purpose course is important for their study and their

future work Chart 3 depicts that 37% of the students consider ESP course very important for them while 44% find it important and 17% students assert the course is of

slight importance, and 2% confirm that ESP is not important to them

3 The requirements for the coursebook

3.1 The aims

Table 1: Students’ and teachers’ ranking of the purposes of learning ESP

Objective 1: To build up English terms of nursing field used in books, documents and

special newspapers and magazines

Objective 2: To read and coniprehend some certain kinds of documents for nursing Objective 3: To translate books, documents and magazines of nursing field from

English to Viemamese and vice versa

Objective 4: To consolidate and improve basic grammar used in specific texts

Objective 5: To use English in connumicating and daily activities at work

Students Teachers of English Teachers of (N=150) (N=3) specialized subject

(N=10) Rank

gt | ame] gre gm gm | yx | gna] gra ga gt ge | ona | gre | gn | gm

On the other hand, the students seem to be in accordance with their teachers when they rank the “to consolidate and improve basic grammar used in specific texts” and “to translate books, documents and magayines of nursing field from Frglish to Vietnamese and vice versa” the fourth and the least important one respectively

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