Difficulties in reading comprehension faced by third year international relations students in the course entitled english for interational affairs 1 at the academy of journalism and communication (ajc)
INTRODUCTION
Statement of problems
Due to the process of globalization and integration, Vietnam is witnessing rapid growth in career and professional trends such as international business and trades, tourism or banking As a result, English, a global language, is viewed as a tool for increased employment opportunities in any discipline in Vietnam (Hoang, 2010) This development prompts English to become a compulsory subject in the K-12 of the national education system, regardless of urban or suburban areas For these reasons, teaching English as Foreign Language (EFL) and English as a Second Language (ESL) has received rapt attention since 1971 (Nguyen, 2015) However, from the early 1960s, the rise of English for Specific (ESP) has become a standout among the other educational patterns Due to the growing needs and demands to use English in specific professional areas, ESP is of great concern in English teaching and learning in countries where English is taught as a second language According to Tony Duddley - Evans (2001: 132), ESP is a “very active, even feisty movement that has had considerable influence over more general activities of TESOL and teaching linguistics.”
In the case of Vietnam, ESP shares equal status with distinct countries over the world when it is a mandatory tertiary-level course in most universities and institutions Ho (2017) suggests that Vietnamese ESP practitioners spend too much time teaching terminology, grammar and translation in class; consequently, the focus of ESP has been narrowed down to reading and writing skills Reading itself is known as a complex cognitive activity, and the teaching progress may experience considerable difficulties (Vinothini, 2019); therefore, the idea of students‟ achievement in reading fails from what is expected (Sari et al., 2018) In the ESP context, attaining an adequate reading comprehension level is one of the most critical requirements in reading, especially academic reading, so learners can gain technical knowledge when reading an ESP book
Being aware of the significant importance of ESP, The Academy of Journalism and Communication (AJC) is now making great efforts to implement ESP courses in their curriculum The teaching staff in the International Affairs faculty start designing ESP programs for their own junior and senior students ESP is significant for those students because they are expected to work in the related field at either local organizations or international associations after graduation The ESP course includes four skills in which writing and reading are the central sources as they are expected to be primarily used in future jobs Especially through reading, students are provided with current international themes, relations among the world and the development of international situations Hence, reading and understanding messages conveyed in a reading text, especially in journal domains, play a focal role in contributing to learners‟ success Many students, nonetheless, encounter perennial difficulties that hinder them from comprehending reading materials
For the aforesaid reasons, the researcher decided to carry out this study en in a great attempt to help International Relations-majored students improve reading comprehension when learning this course.
Research aims and research questions
The study is an attempt to interpret and investigate difficulties in reading English for the International Affair 1 course among third-year students at AJC This also aims at examining factors that contribute to reading comprehension regarding background knowledge, specialized knowledge, reading sub-skills, terminologies and text types Lastly, some possible solutions and recommendations are put forward to address students‟ problems
The overall aims are specified in three research questions as followed::
1 What are reading difficulties that ESP students encounter when learning the course entitled “English for International Affairs 1”?
2 What are the main reasons for the difficulties as perceived by students and teachers?
3 What are possible solutions that help them overcome the difficulties as proposed by students and teachers?
The findings will assist students in bettering their reading comprehension Added to that, based on the research on those difficulties, ESP teachers can benefit by adapting further modifications in teaching strategies as well as task designs, which help students overcome their struggles.
Scope of the study
The research aims at investigating an ESP course at the Academy of Journalism and Communication in which ESP courses are designed mainly for third-year and fourth-year students majoring in International Affairs Because of the limited time and efforts, the research mainly concentrates on exploring what causes difficulties in ESP reading comprehension encountered by third- year students in the course entitled English for International Affairs 1 course and proposing possible solutions to facilitate their problems.
Significance of the study
The research is carried out to hep learners raise awareness of common difficulties and their causes in ESP reading comprehension This, on the other hand, serves as a source of reference for ESP teachers in finding out students‟ problems so that they can implement different innovative teaching methods to motivate students in learning reading skills In general, the study will play a role of intervention in which remedial approaches towards students‟ difficulties are made; as a result, it helps to facilitate students‟ weakness in comprehending ESP reading material thanks to recent adaptation.
Design of the study
The current study is organized into five main following parts:
Chapter 1: Introduction - discusses the background of teaching ESP and the researcher‟s rationale in undertaking the study In addition, the research aims, research questions, scope, significance and organization of the study have been given
Chapter 2: Literature Review - provides relevant theoretical background in terms of basic concepts about ESP, followed by definitions of reading comprehension, ESP reading comprehension and the caused of ESP learner‟s difficulties in reading comprehension Also, previous studies from local and global contexts and the research gap are included in this chapter
Chapter 3: Research methodology - introduces specific description and explanations about research methods of the study, the setting, participants, data collection instrument, data collection procedure and analysis
Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion - presents results and findings of the research The findings will then be discussed and summarized to answer the three research questions proposed above, together with explaining the problems that students are facing
Chapter 5: Conclusion - recapitulates the significant findings, suggests some recommendations for students and ESP lectures, and imposes research limitations and suggestions for further studies in the same area.
LITERATURE REVIEW
English for specific purposes
Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 19) first stated that English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is a centred-learner approach; therefore, learners' main concern is "not with language use" but "language learning" Anthony (2018) further clarified the meaning of learner-centredness that in ESP courses, instructors and learners "should always be considering how language items, activities and explanations will ultimately help learners meet their currents and/or future 'non-linguistic' needs"
In addition to the definitions given by Hutchinson and Waters, other scholars and researchers view ESP from different perspectives As suggested by Blackie (1979: 266), ESP "should normally refer to programs designed for groups of learners who are homogenous with respect to aims [ ]", claiming that the focus of the language studies should be on the learners' specialist areas Belcher (2009) referred to ESP as the process of teaching and learning English that addresses students' own specific purpose, or more understandably, the goal of learning ESP is to utilize English in a particular domain One worth considering key feature of ESP is that content-oriented designs in an ESP course primarily aim at satisfying the specific needs of learners (Chen, 2016) Based on the learner's desires and needs, Coffey (1984: 3) classified ESP into two majors: (1) English for Academic Purposes (EAP), which is commonly employed to pursue an academic study and (2) English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) which is an "effectiveness in a paid employment" Specifically, the division of ESP according to discipline or professional area is represented in Figure 1 as below (Duddley-Evans, 1988, as cited in Rahman, 2015)
English for Specific Purposes (ESP)
English for Occupational Purposes (EOP)
English for Academic Purposes (EAP)
English for Vocational Purposes (EVP)
English for Professional Purposes (EPP)
English for Science and Technology (EST)
English for Legal Purposes (ELP)
English for Medical Purposes (EMP)
Figure 1 Classification of ESP according to professional area by Duddley-Evans (1988)
ESP is recognized as a multi-disciplinary activity in English Language Teacher with specific characteristics Dudley-Evans and St.John (1998: 4) highlighted absolute and variable characteristics of ESP as follows:
● ESP is defined to meet specific needs of the learners;
● ESP makes use of underlying methodology and activities of the discipline it serves;
● ESP is centered on the language (grammar, lexis, register), skills, discourse and genre appropriate to these activities
● ESP may be related to or designed for specific disciplines;
● ESP may use, in specific teaching situations, a different methodology from that of General English
● ESP is likely to be designed for adult learners, either at a tertiary level institution or in a professional work situation It could, however, be for learners at secondary school level;
● ESP is generally designed for intermediate or advanced students Most ESP courses assume some basic knowledge of the language systems, but it can be used with beginners
From the characteristics above, it is inferred that teaching ESP in class can be differentiated from teaching GE based on striking features, primarily when its purposes are directed towards learners‟ demands and professional application
The two main dimensions of designing an ESP course are to meet learners' demands in the academic field for the pre-occupational setting or occupational arena in the post-graduate setting (Javid, 2015: 19) In most ESP courses, materials are designed to develop learners' skills regarding listening, writing, reading and speaking Providing products that fit the learner's background is ESP practitioners' major concern regarding the reading domain Most teachers tend to adapt authentic materials in designing exercises and tasks they need to perform in the target language However, reading materials that are monotonous and boring can demotivate students as some reading tasks put heavy demands on students; therefore, the ESP reading tasks should be contextually framed to provide students with rich reading experiences that
"allows for the development of their reading ability, language competence and content knowledge" (Emery & Moore, 2014: 155) Furthermore, the rationale for choosing authentic materials for teacher-made supplements should be considered in terms of several aspects such as background knowledge, degree of difficulty, type of text, and students' interests closely related to motivation
(Lindita & Anila, 2013) Selecting appropriate ESP reading materials and developing a good reading course to meet learners' expectations pose a challenge to ESP teachers, especially those who play the role of active practitioners (Ghafournia & Sabet, 2014) that a variety of fundamental criteria cannot be neglected in this process.
Reading comprehension in ESP
According to Goodman (1998: 12), reading is a "psycholinguistic process" which begins with the writers' "linguistic surface representation" and ends with learners' understanding of the message constrained Simply defined, reading is a complex activity of extracting meanings from texts A teacher can be aware of qualitative readers by observing a student's speech of reading and his/her understanding of the reading text Reading is an important skill should students want to master a second language; as part of it, reading comprehension plays the function of forming a successful reader Kendeou and his colleagues
(2007, as cited in Grabe, 2008: 39) defined that "comprehension is not a unitary phenomenon but rather a family of skills and activities" In short, reading comprehension unfolds the cognitive ability to understand what is written based on readers' background knowledge and information from the text From the reading scale, the goal of comprehension is to facilitate the meaning constructed in the reading text Comprehension, however, is a source of factors that impedes learners from understanding and interpreting the messages that are read (Tamor, 2016) In order to investigate what happens when a person comprehends what she/he is reading, Irwin (1991, as cited in Iman, 2019) introduced five basic comprehension processes as below:
Understanding Organizational Structures in Expository Text
Selection of Key ideas Deletion
Figure 2 Five basic comprehension processes by Irwin (1991)
In the parameters of ESP, reading is the central concern that learners are expected to comprehend messages conveyed in the text ESP reading aims to obtain information needed within the learner‟s field of study As suggested by Perfetti, Landi, and Oakhill (2005), limitations on reading comprehension are linguistic abilities, relevant knowledge and general intelligence Students need to achieve good reading skills to understand a subject matter; therefore, there is a necessity for interactions between the text and students‟ responses to it (Clarke et al., 2013) Each individual has his/her own way of thinking, so a sentence can be interpreted in different aspects by different people Meanwhile, teachers play a fundamental role in helping students develop reading skills, in which some key aspects should be taken into account Firstly, texts given by teachers have to achieve two characteristics, particularly coherence and cohesion (Olga & Claudia, 2020) It means that sentences in a text should be linked to each other to deliver a precise meaning, while vocabularies should be correctly used Secondly, teachers are expected to apply interactive methods depending on their creativity in creating content and tasks for each lesson before they start teaching The utilization of those methods serves as a principal source of the learning process, which helps to ensure students‟ full participation (Giorgdze & Dgebuadze, 2017) In conclusion, it is vital that students in an ESP course should be provided with relevant knowledge, skills and effective teaching strategies as efficient ways to master reading comprehension.
Difficulties in ESP reading comprehension
The inability of understanding messages through written text causes far- reaching consequences for learners (Clerk et al., 2013) Reasons leading to difficulties may vary; for example, Wiley & Sons (2013: 81) provided three factors characterizing poor comprehension that can be ameliorated by suitable teaching methods comprehension, namely reading skills, text types and vocabularies Al-Jarrah and Ismail (2018) synthesized reading comprehension difficulties among students which are vocabulary text complexity, cognitive ability, background knowledge, working memory All of them are vital elements to determine students‟ level Based on the aforementioned study, the researcher highlights five reciprocal contributions to reading comprehension weakness which are background knowledge, reading sub-skills, terminologies (a sub-branch of vocabularies), text types and specialized knowledge Since this study‟s primary purpose is to examine students‟ problems in reading the ESP materials, the researcher, thus, is exposed to students‟ specialized knowledge that evaluates how it influences their ability to comprehend the ESP reading material All of these criteria aid the researcher with having a critical view of common aspects which obstruct a vast number of EFL students
In second language research, background knowledge or domain comprehension (Langer, 1984; Lee, 1986; Wells Rowe & Rayford, 1987) Background knowledge stems from the nature or the extent of knowledge experienced previously (Langer, 1984) that readers bring to comprehend the presented information The more readers know about the topic, the easier they can read the text Given that, learners are required to have the background knowledge that helps them gain a global understanding to fill the gaps within the written document (Al-Jarrah, & Ismail, 2018) The learner's restriction of background knowledge is reflected by students not perceiving or ascertaining critical points in a topic (O'Reilly, Wang & Sabatini, 2019) In consequence, Lee (1986) examined the influence of background knowledge on reading comprehension through three components: context, transparency, and familiarity His research discovered that learners' ability to facilitate their knowledge is based on one of those components or the complex interactions between them For example, they tend to use prerequisite semantic knowledge to interpret the topic and use semantic context to comprehend a passage Readers who are unfamiliar with the cultural content might misunderstand or misinterpret the authors' conveyed messages due to their cultural discrepancies
On the other hand, lacking background knowledge can result in a poorer recalling of the important ideas in a text and incorporating those ideas into a text summary (Recht & Leslie, 1988)
It is believed that despite having struggles to work with structures and language features, another literacy challenge when students progress through ESP learning is the apprenticeship of specialized knowledge Served as a subset of domain knowledge, specialized knowledge refers to one person's understanding of their specific field of study or career path A specialized knowledge base forms a fundamental part of reading as it offers students encouragement for their own sake To illustrate, students who read specialized texts about international affairs will be motivated since it provides them with new information on the given topic They engage in and acquire knowledge about international issues and journalism, which is meaningful to an international relations-majored student Therefore, when dealing with a reading text, students need to apprehend not only the linguistic forms of the written text and visual information that instructs the specialized or “commonsense” knowledge (Unsworth, 1997) Learners whose built schema knowledge does not link to new knowledge will diminish the practicability in the cognitive process; thus, they fail to achieve a broader comprehension (Arias Rodriguez,
2014) Also, low working memory capacity devoted to the “storage of partial product of reading tasks” (Harrington & Sawyer, 1992: 26) may result in the inability to capture the meaning and insights of the text given
The matter that hinders learners' reading comprehension lies in the absence of sufficient sub-skills practice Krashen and Terrell (1998) categorized reading sub-skills into four main types: skimming, scanning, extensive reading and intensive reading Initially, skimming tests readers' general understanding of the text by asking them to draw a general idea of how the information is organized, which can help them locate information needed more easily later on Reading instructions usually require readers to identify the topic of the passage, the main idea of the passage or the writer's tone, etc On the contrary, scanning takes place when readers seek a particular piece of specific information, and it usually works with numbers, persons or words There are various reading task types that learners encounter, which are matching information, identifying the writer's claims or views and completing sentences Low-level reading comprehenders might find it hard to allocate the information if the structures in the text are not well organized The lack of learner's high-frequency practice for these two strategies, on the other hand, leads to the failure in fulfilling reading exercises, for example, multiple-choice questions (MCQ) or passage main related-tasks According to Carrell and Carson (1977: 50), extensive reading focuses on helping learners in "reading for the sake of reading (for information or entertainment), and lesson reading for the sake of mastery of a particular linguistic structure or even a particular reading strategy or skill" The meaning of extensive reading is to read for a wide range of materials such as blogs, newspapers or magazines As a result, learners will become familiar with different reading types and build the cognitive ability to know the frame sentences and flourish their reading ability Intensive reading differs from extensive reading since it aims at improving learners' competency to obtain meaning from the text, which comprises
"identifying main ideas and recognizing text connectors" (Renandya, 2007) This reading strategy encourages readers to get a deeper understanding of what is being written by the writer, assess the purposes and evaluate the contents so that he/she will be able to tackle complicated texts Hence, it is apparent that not mastering reading sub-skills might create discernible hurdles such as reading in slow speech, being unable to guess the meaning of unknown vocabulary or failing to understand the meaning of the text to fulfill tasks required All of which are signals of unsuccessful readers
Terminologies, or so-called terms, are words used in particular areas or fields of study such as medicine, engineering, laws, etc They commonly appear in specialized textbooks taught in ESP courses Considered as a part of background knowledge, the terminology is asserted to have a close relationship with reading comprehension Consequently, it is likely that poor comprehenders show unsatisfying performance both in the classroom and at home One of the main reasons for students' weakness is the low level of word recognition Cunningham and Stanovich (1997: 934) suggested that "Lack of exposure and practice on the part of the less-skilled reader delays the development of automaticity and speed at the word recognition level" Therefore, vocabulary acquisition and practice are highlighted as necessary in the reading procedure Besides, Clarke and his colleagues (2013) suggested that learners who exhibit a limited range of vocabularies in written or speech and use them imprecisely display severe problems in understanding reading text
Learners, despite these challenges, are still able to infer the meaning of the unknown words with the help of text-level constraints (Lervồg, 2010); however, if students show a small percentage of word identification accuracy, a "break- down" in the reading comprehension process will happen (Carven, 1994)
The role of a text is manifest in which it is an indispensable component in reading Ricoeur (2016: 108) defined text as “a discourse fixed by writing” in which every text has its target readership as a “realization of social interaction through the meaning making of the text” (Emery & Moore, 2014:
147) According to the research by Alavi and Abdollahzadeh (2008), there are three common text types that readers encounter in ESP reading comprehension which are narrative, expository and argumentative Narrative texts are classified into fiction (fairy tales, novels) or nonfiction (newspaper report), which constructs real-life events Expository texts involve the identification and characterization of phenomena in the form of written materials such as essays, magazine articles or manuals (Weaver & Kintsch, 1991, as cited in Alavi & Abdollahzadeh, 2008) In argumentative texts, it is assumed that readers‟ opinions will be changed as the process of judging, so one typical example illustrating this kind of text is advertisements Knowledge of text aids readability and assists readers in compartmentalizing a text to lessen the degree of difficulty in the reading comprehension process On the other hand, not acquiring enough knowledge about different types of text and the organization in a text may lead to difficulty in navigating the way learners integrate a reading passage Those who fail to recognize different structures or genres of text (Lawrence, 2009) may get confused or misled by unnecessary details when evaluating a text A classification of text types drawn from research conducted by these researchers are presented by Figure 3
Figure 3 Classification of text types
Related studies
Numerical correctional research was conducted to discover common problems encountered by university students when reading ESP course materials The majority emphasizes that the ESP reading comprehension of university students is far from satisfactory
In the global context, researchers have shed light on investigating the difficulties and their causes in the reading comprehension process among ESP students Hamouni and Tamzirt (2017) examined suggested that ESP texts propose significant problems to students The use of inappropriate authentic materials, which contains a high level of text complexity, makes students hard to integrate the sentence or text meaning Furthermore, other elements, namely prior knowledge and material selection, prevent the students' aims of extracting information to achieve the learning targets
Hazmani (2019), who conducted an investigation on first-year doctoral students' reading difficulties, also agreed on the effect of linguistic knowledge on understanding background knowledge Besides, students may get trouble with the organization of ESP reading texts, which is criticized for causing poor reading comprehension Another factor that poses challenges to students is their poor word recognition level He also points out that the density of specialized terminology significantly contributes to students' unwillingness to read As they are unable to cope with those words, they seem inclined to be interested in the reading text
Mozhdeh (2021) studied Iranian Medical ESP practitioners' reading comprehension assessment literacy suggests that teachers, who play the role of ESP practitioners, hold significant responsibilities for the students' reading comprehension problems The findings show that there exist several factors that arise from lecturers First, teachers' unclear visions of the assessment purpose and their applied a limited range of assessment techniques result in failing to evaluate students' performances while students are not accessible to suitable assessment-related activities Seconconly, the study suggested that teachers‟ lack sufficient training on ESP material development and misinterpret the course objectives will cause severe obstacles in designing teaching materials All of the aforementioned factors contribute to the fact that the students are unable to meet the instructional goals of the ESP course
Coping with the Vietnamese context, Dang (2010), in her study of examining difficulties encountered by students in reading English for Business suggests that students seriously lack vocabularies and terminologies related to the Business field, which prevents them from understanding what is given by the text Furthermore, the materials account for having long texts with complex grammar structures, an enormous range of unknown words and purely academic contents In addition to inadequate linguistic knowledge and unsuitable material aspects, Dinh (2011) proposed factors reflecting learners' readability in the English for Finance course It is presumed that having limitations in the background and cultural understanding accounted for unexpected outcomes in the reading process In addition, the inappropriate teaching strategies, along with the student's negative attitude toward learning, are blamed for the contributions to reading difficulties Also, teachers find it hard to carry out a successful lesson due to their lack of specialized knowledge of economics and finance
In the contemporary Vietnamese context, many researchers have conducted studies on reading comprehension of ESP courses such as Finance and Banking, Business or Accounting, Business and Economic; however, not much research can be found in journalism and communication, especially International Relations Hence, this study is carried out to unreveal issues that International Relations-majored students encounter and fill the gap of the study
In this chapter, the researcher has discussed an overall review of the literature regarding ESP, reading comprehension, and several difficulties students are coming up against during the reading process Besides, briefs of previous studies in the same field are provided as well.
METHODOLOGY
Research setting
3.1.1 The institution and its students
The study is conducted at The Academy of Journalism and Communication (AJC) - leading institution for journalism and communication in Vietnam's national education system According to the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics (2015) on the Electric Portal, AJC is one of the most prestigious institutions providing official training in "political theory, press-communication, ideology-culture and other social sciences and humanities" Currently, this institution is offering 39 undergraduate programs, including three high-quality and one international program English, therefore, is regarded as an integral component of every course
Faculty of International Relations students are all full-time learners, aged from 19-22 Before taking the ESP course 1, all students are required to take a diagnostic test in general English that measures students' competencies in four language skills The reading and writing sections account for 60% of the total score while listening and speaking share the same proportion, about 20% each Reading component includes 30 multiple-choice questions with grammar check, information notice and passage reading comprehension The writing segment covers two main parts regarding sentence completion and composition writing, in which students compose an essay of 200-250 words
Listening component is divided into (1) listening to five conversations to answer questions and (2) listening to the recording to fill in the blanks with one word It is noted that the time allowed for the paper test is only 120 minutes long In terms of speaking, students work individually in a face-to-face meeting with one teacher for a maximum of 12 minutes The test starts with a set of questions given by the examiners called the part of the social interactions, next is a talk about one topic selected randomly and finally is the discussion section
The reason of choosing the course entitled “English for International
Affairs 1” for this study is that it is the first ESP course students have access to; hence, they may encounter a considerable number of obstacles when shifting from General English to a more specialized area As a result, the study hopes to be of help for students to recognize their weaknesses and overcome the difficulties
3.1.2 The ESP course syllabus and objectives
The ESP course entails 45 periods of off-line scheduled teaching within
15 weeks, and it is divided into two blocks, namely Reading and Writing The three-hour lesson contains two main sections: reading and writing, in which students are engaged in numerous activities under the teachers‟ guidance The book used in the course marks the beginning of an ESP course among a series of English coursebooks for International Affairs
The course aims to raise students‟ English proficiency in the International Affairs setting and serve as a supply of specialized knowledge in this field for majored students Accordingly, by the end of the course, students will be able to:
● Understand and memorize a range of words and expressions in the field of International Affairs
● Identify and use appropriate techniques in reading comprehension skills and writing skills to complete exercises
● Review and present arguments on international issues
At The Academy of Journalism and Communication, the textbook
"English for International Affairs" designed by staff teachers in the faculty is utilized as an in-house publication The book has 15 topics that are delivered on a weekly basis, namely US-China Trade War, Indonesia election, Anti- immigrant politics, Brexit, International Labour Organization, Promoting cultures in Palestine, Peace Talks, World Bank, World's most trafficked mammal, India's elections, English test cheating in UK, Cyber security, Digital media, Notre Dame Cathedral: Symbol of Paris, Terrorism The teachers have used authentic materials from updated international news from widely-known sources, namely CNN, Reuters or The Times The uniqueness demonstrated in the reading exercises is the display of various reading types, such as multiple- choice, matching and gap-filling As for writing, apart from summarizing or paraphrasing tasks, students have to write their reflection on the news or write an essay on a topic of international issues Finally, a vocabulary word list extracted from reading passages at the end of each chapter is included to help students collect necessary vocabularies.
Participants
The 110 participants surveyed are third-year students who have been learning English for International Affairs at AJC Those target participants were selected from two classes: Political Relations and Internal Communication K39 as well as International Communication K39 at the Faculty of International Relations All participants had recently finished the course English for Specific Purposes 1 in the fifth semester; therefore, those students were considered the most appropriate participants for the research, as they could share their experiences and recommendations towards reading comprehension, especially difficulties while learning the ESP course Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, due to the transition from GE to ESP, all of the students invited to the research had proved to achieve at least B1 level (according to CEFR level)
Two lecturers teaching the ESP course for third-year students were invited to join the study The first interviewee, the author of the coursebook English for International Affairs 1, is now the president of the English faculty at AJC She has had more than 20 years of teaching English and 18 years in the
ESP field The lecturer is teaching two classes Political Relations and Internal Communication K39 and International Communication K39; hence, she has observed those students well to evaluate students‟ learning attitudes Additionally, as holding a PhD degree in Applied linguistics and having a second degree in International Relations major, the lecturer is specialized in evaluating authentic materials utilized in the ESP course She can also give feedback on students‟ performances in the role of an experienced teacher, both in designing the reading lesson and working with reading comprehension activities Next, the second interviewee, with six years of English Teaching and two years of teaching ESP for International Relations students, is acquiring the M.A degree in Applied Linguistics and TESOL Therefore, the lecturer is expected to apply useful techniques in teaching while proposing constructive recommendations to students‟ problems.
Data collection instruments
For this study, the researcher employed a mixture method, combining quantitative (as the main approach) through survey questionnaire and the quantitative method through semi-structured interview First, quantitative technique was utilized to scrutinize the data collected since it was one of the most suitable and affordable strategies that helped to fulfill the research's aims
As defined by Creswell (2018) in the book Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches, the quantitative method is an approach that focuses on measuring "a parsimonious set of variables" to provide study outcomes Additionally, the core of this method is to study and measure how variables change (Martin & Bridgmon, 2012) in accordance with the study's purposes and necessary components Besides, semi-structured interviews aimed at figuring out lecturers' perceptions and identify unclear answers from students That the researcher mixed the two method in the study was to achieve the purpose of (1) finding out learners difficulties, the causes and feasible solutions while making comparisons among those items and (2) clarifying participants‟ responses in order to fulfill the research questions
In order to gather the information required to carry out this research, a survey questionnaire was employed The primary purpose of using a survey was because it provided a quantitative description of trends, attitudes and opinions given by the population with a sample study (Creswell, 2018) Thus, it helped the researcher find out the answers for research questions regarding the students‟ problems The survey had three parts, containing a series of open and closed questions The first section collected participants' personal information such as years of learning English, score of the ESP course 1, attitude toward reading comprehension and purposes of learning ESP course Meanwhile, the second section focused on answering three research questions, which include questions regarding students' ESP reading comprehension difficulties, reasons of difficulties, and solutions to students‟ problems It was noted that the results were under participant's acceptance, and their privacy was protected
The researcher carried out a semi-structured interview to investigate in- depth information about the student's difficulties viewed from students and lecturers In this interview, the participants answered preset open-ended questions (Jamshed, 2014), whereas the interviewer could observe how the participant's "voice" affects assumptions (Newton, 2014) This method was time-saving for both the interviewer and interviewees
The semi-structured interview was divided into two main parts that concentrated on several significant issues The first two questions were meant for asking about lecturers' background information, while the remaining questions aimed at gathering insights about the topic of the study Questions three and four collected teachers' perspectives on students' problems, which answered research questions 1 and 2, respectively The fifth and sixth questions offered practical solutions and adjustments for the ESP course that helped resolve research question 3 The interview lasted approximately 30 minutes
As the survey questionnaire only allowed students to list out their answers, an interview was set up to help the researcher thoroughly clarify and understand their difficulties Based on the students‟ remarkable responses, the researcher grouped them according to their scores provided in the question 2 (please refer to Appendix 1) To illustrate, three groups of participants were grouped following their results: students with high scores (above 7), students with average scores (5-6) and students with low scores (under 5) The researcher then selected 3-4 students with exceptional responses in each group to participate in the interview Similar to the teachers‟ interview, this process consists of two major parts, starting with warm-up questions and continuing with questions of clarification Due to the number of interviewees, each interview will be conducted within 10 minutes per person.
Data collection procedure
In the survey pilot procedure, a survey draft was designed based on a hypothesis background to identify students' difficulties in reading and to discover their expectations The first step of the preparedness was translating the survey from English to Vietnamese Having finished with the first draft, a small group of 10 random students from the Faculty of International Relations were invited to pilot the survey The researcher asked the respondents whether all the items were comprehensive enough or there was any ambiguity prohibited them from approaching All the participants were supposed to carefully read and then leave their comments regarding questions, format and instructions Finally, the survey was sent to the supervisor for instant feedback The research then finalized the survey with modifications and improvements before collecting data from target participants This phase began on 20/12/2021 and ended on 30/12/2021 After being adjusted with the supervisor's support in the second phase of survey administration, a final version of the survey was assigned to the intended population Due to the severe impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, universities in Hanoi were asked to shut down; therefore, the survey could only be conducted online through Google Form In this process, the researcher distributed the survey questionnaire to students in two classes Thanks to the lecturer‟s permission, the researcher was allowed to stay in the class to observe the data collection procedure, which ensured that all of the attendants understood the survey questionnaire clearly Eventually, the total responses were 110, which affirmed the sufficient data needed for the study This process took place from 20/01/2022 to 14/02/2022
In the semi-structured interview, each participant was interviewed individually for around 10-30 minutes per person Aiming at interpreting data precisely, the research initially asked for consent to record participants' answers
In order to monitor the data collection procedure, a Zoom meeting was set up After finishing the interview, the researcher saved all the recording files of digital sound and labelled each participant by number L1, L2 (as lecturers) and S1, S2, S3, (as students) for easy access and identities protection.
Data analysis procedure
With the survey questionnaire, after tokens were recorded, the researcher analyzed and synthesized the data into descriptive statistics (percentages) and then displayed those statistics in the form of charts and tables
In this procedure, the excel tool was employed to extract insights from the data Next, the results were categorized into different parts, such as students' attitudes or difficulties in ESP reading comprehension, which answered the research questions 1 and 2
In the interview analysis process, the researcher first transcribed the recordings into written text, then read the interview transcript and created memos to document the participants' answers Finally, based on lecturers' and students' responses, the research presented some possible solutions to the student's problems, which give answers to the final research question.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
4.1.1.3 Students‟ attitudes toward ESP reading comprehension 27 4.1.2 Research question 1
Difficulties related to background and specialized
Table 1: The difficulties in terms of background and specialized knowledge
Question 9 VE E N D VD a Understanding cultural contents of reading materials (religions, customs, )
4.5 14.5 52.7 22.7 5.5 b Understanding authentic materials extracted from real world
9.1 35.5 33.6 16.4 5.5 c Understanding new specialized knowledge 3.6 9.1 30 37.3 20 d Understanding literature/topics related to international relations major
The table displays that the results spread from "very easy" to "very difficult" in five items Items 9c and 9d have the highest number of students rating on "difficult" and "very difficult" with 57.3% and 70.8% in total This finding is compatible with the answers in the interview that all students have trouble with understanding topics of new specialized knowledge, regardless of being in a high, average or low-level group However, a considerable number of participants have few difficulties in understanding reading texts extracted from authentic materials (9b), as they closely connect with students‟ experience
On the contrary, item 9a receives more than half of participants keeping neutral attitude due to the unfamiliar contents regarding culture.
Difficulties related to reading skills and terminologies
Table 2: The difficulties in terms of reading skills and terminologies
Question 10 VE E N D VD a Skimming to the get main ideas 12.7 31.8 43.6 7.3 4.5 b Scanning to get the specific information 4.5 27.3 37.3 27.3 3.6 c Summarizing the main ideas of the text 1.8 14.5 41.8 30.9 10.9 d Recognizing the writers‟ implications
(indicated information), making inferences and conclusions
1.8 10.9 26.4 31.8 29.1 e Being fluent in one/more linguistics structures appearing in the reading materials
3.6 6.4 28.2 33.6 28.2 f Understanding the meaning of the text 1.8 19.1 50 20.9 8.2 g Identifying the main idea of the text 2.7 25.5 44.5 21.8 5.5 h Identifying specialized terms accurately 2.7 9.1 26.4 40 21.8 i Understanding and memorizing technical terminologies
3.6 7.3 26.4 36.4 26.4 j Guessing the meaning of idiomatic expressions, nouns, noun phrases,
1.8 10 31.8 40.9 15.5 k Memorizing long words 2.7 5.5 36.4 31.8 23.6 l Finding appropriate meanings for poly- sementic words
2.7 9.1 31.8 40 16.4 m Utilizing specialized terms accurately in speaking or writing
In table 2, five items 10d, 10e, 10h, 10i and 10m score the highest rates on the difficult scale, which are above 60% in total Obivously, the majority of students rate the ability to master reading strategies such as recognizing implications, identifying or memorizing technical terms “difficult” Surprisingly, item 10m is considered the least easy (0.9%) that students find it challenging to precisely utilize specialized terms in the proper context when speaking or writing Following it, other items 10c, 10f and 10g are around half of “normal” rating scale while items 10a, 10b present a relatively high percentage of survey students with neutral response (46.6% and 37.3%), though scanning and skimming are straightforward processes Besides, high- scored students admit that they only lack technical terminologies and sometimes they are overwhelmed with the range of vocabulary in a reading text
In contrast, those with average scores encounter more hindrances in reading skills: guessing, predicting, summarizing or memorizing the words Apart from having poor reading techniques, low-scored students with unsustainable language base are unable to learn vocabularies, so they ignore their poly- semantic meanings, which is claimed by students labelled S10 and S11:
“I find it hard to memorize a single word, so I always feel hesitated to learn long vocabularies or phrasal nouns.” and“It takes a lot of time and effort to find the synonym or antonym of a word.”
Difficulties related to text types
In this part, participants first evaluate the frequency of students having access to reading text types (1 being “never” - N, 2 being “barely” - B, 3 being
“sometimes” - S, 4 being “often” - O, 5 being “always” - A), and then illustrate difficulties they encounter
Table 3: The frequency of having access to reading texts
Specialized research papers 7.3 23.6 34.5 29 5.5 Articles (news, events, etc.) 1.8 3.6 26.3 32.7 35.5
Table 4: The difficulties in terms of text types
Question 11 Percentage (%) a Distinguishing the text types used in ESP materials 64.5 b Dealing with different text types 47.3 c Understanding the illustrations used in the text 41.8 d Dealing with complex structures in the reading patterns 70 e Others 0.9
Table 3 illustrates that the most common type of reading texts used in the textbook is articles (68.2% in total) Following it is academic writings with 38.2% of participants choose “often” while research papers are just
“sometimes” (35.5%) involved in the book Although specialized reports and press releases are practical, they are “barely” covered in the ESP coursebook Especially, two-thirds of students in the interview admit that they have never been provided with any technical reports regarding international relations, explaining why 27.3% of participants chose the option “never”
As presented in Table 4, three-fourths of students have difficulty in dealing with complex structures of the reading patterns This problem is perceived by all students participating in the interview that they are unable to differentiate text types used in the ESP material Therefore, this factor ranks second (64.5%) among the common difficulties whereas others shown in items 11b and 11c rank third and fourth respectively Incredibly, many kinds of documents, such as press releases or reports, are unfamiliar to third-year students due to the low-level frequency of utilization Two students also affirm that they soon feel tired when working with complicated texts, which demotivates their effort in ESP learning However, this situation occurs typically in the average and low-level group, while good English proficiency students only get confused with complex structures This is explained by the differences in students‟ linguistic ability and their general intelligence (Perfetti,
Landi & Oakhill) Additionally, the responses from the interviews suggest that text types are of the least concern compared to background knowledge or technical terminologies.
Research question 2
4.1.3.1 Causes of reading comprehension difficulties perceived by students
Figure 7: Causes of difficulties in terms of background and specialized knowledge
Figure 7 presents that there are not many variables among four options First, 70% of the participants agree that the lack of specialized knowledge affect the ability to read and comprehend the ESP materials A vast number of students (68.2%) do not gain enough knowledge of the topics they are learning, especially 63.6% of them have little exposure to topics of international relations Additionally, students acknowledge that topics covered in the ESP textbooks are far-reaching from the real world, which rises the challenge of acquiring in-depth knowledge of unfamiliar topics
Figure 8: Causes of difficulties in terms of reading skills and terminologies
As displayed in Figure 8, the two options with the highest proportion can be found in the poor method of reading skills and the lack of frequent practice, accounting for 79.1% and 78.2%, respectively It is complained by students that technical terminologies included in the text which are arranged in a coherent style give rise to obstacles in memorizing the meaning of the words (49.1% of students have poor ability to recognize vocabularies), whereas having a slow speed reading could influence the reading fulfillment process Surprisingly, students also highlight the importance of having opportunities to practice speaking and writing in class; which is not accord with the survey result due to the low participants‟ selection (0.9%) Moreover, lacking sufficient in-class practice will demotivate students‟ learning attitude and initiative because there is no one helping them to review or give comments on their performances
Figure 9: Causes of difficulties in terms of text types
It is apparent that the texts themselves could be criticized for causing considerable problems that students need to cope with In light of this thought, 75.5% of students confirm that they lack access to reading sources where they can find articles on different topics such as politics, finance or humanity Furthermore, the inability to distinguish different types of reading text and know how to deal with each type of text is under students‟ great concern, which is perceived by 60.9% and 66.4% of the participants
4.1.3.2 Causes of reading comprehension difficulties perceived by teachers
The results from the semi-structured interview reveal the lecturer's perceptions on students' difficulties Unlike GE courses which focus on four
English skills, ESP courses require more concentration on teaching contents of the subject matter The first reason that comes to teachers' view is students' lack of specialized knowledge The topics in the ESP coursebook are claimed to be unfamiliar to students; thus they are in need to devote more effort and deeper investigation to decipher the meaning of the reading documents Despite having taught ESP for a long time, teachers still find it challenging to create a well-designed book from raw materials The second problem emerges from the fact that not all students acquire a sufficient range of technical terminologies
In fact, before taking the ESP course, students should achieve at least a B2 level in English reading; however, the number of students who meet the requirement is relatively low In fact, most of them are in B1 level or even A2, so they are is not really qualified for the course; hence, learning vocabularies, especially technical terminologies, become problematic This finding is compatible with students' answers regarding terminologies Next, teachers' concern goes for students' reading skills Based on students' level and acquisition ability, they share different ways in dealing with questions of reading tasks That students perform poorly in learning is blamed for implementing ineffective reading strategies, and those with low English proficiency usually get the lowest scores compared to others Lastly, students' poor reading comprehension may stem from teachers themselves Many lecturers' expertise is not International Relations; therefore, they may not be well trained before teaching ESP courses, which places severe limitations on their teaching strategies Without acquiring professional knowledge of the subject, it is impossible to teach students language skills in International Relations contexts
It seems that lectures and students reach an agreement that the lack of specialized knowledge, terminologies and the poor reading strategies are troublesome to students‟ learning output However, there still exits differences between the two sides While students consider text type an influential factor for their academic performance though it receives the least concern among of comprehending the ESP materials It is explained that the teaching ESP courses for students are to help them enhance knowledge in the specialized field, which serves as the basement for pre-occupational setting and post- graduate one (Javid, 2015) Learners‟ primary responsibilities are to enrich knowledge of International Relations and practice reading strategies for exam preparedness; therefore, the ability recognizing different types of texts is not the matter of importance To illustrate, topics selected in the coursebook are varied to arouse students‟ interest (Lindita & Anila, 2013) toward current issues, which meets the requirements of the course objectives Another factor mentioned in the interview is the impact of motivation Teachers tend to neglect interesting activities that aim at fostering learners‟ intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, which lowers students‟ concentration level.
Research question 3
In this part, questions are designed to find out methods of enhancing students‟ comprehension skill; then look at their expectations toward teachers and ESP materials In addition, findings from the interview will clarify students‟ responses and reveal teachers‟ recommendations and justifications
4.1.4.1 Solutions to difficulties proposed by students
Students’ suggestions to reading comprehension difficulties
In terms of background and specialized knowledge
Table 5: Actions to solve problems of background and specialized knowledge
What students have done to improve reading comprehension
1 Apply existing knowledge about the topic in the reading text to have an overview of the reading content
2 Find additional document regarding topics (religion, culture, ect.) that usually appear in the ESP material
3 Reinforce specialized knowledge of international relations 68.2 by reading additional materials related to this field What students need to do/will do to improve their reading comprehension
4 Ask teachers to provide additional sources that help access to specialized knowledge taught in the ESP course
5 Take advantage of multiple forms such as watching news, current affairs or talks to acquire new knowledge
6 Create a connection model between new knowledge and existing background knowledge
The results present that students have adopted several approaches to increase their background and specialized knowledge More than three-fourths of the participants search for additional documents about the topics they have learnt to acquire new knowledge By doing so, the Internet is a valuable and endless resource that provides them with materials needed for any course Next, 92.7% of students prefer watching online news or talks rather than reading newspapers or reference books in the library The use of modern technical devices are effortless for the young generation in exploiting information online, compared with the inconvenience of conventional approaches In contrast, 61.8% of participants are willing to ask teachers for help on where they can find valid documents but 68.2% of them would read extra materials regarding their major for self-reinforcement while 66.4% of them favor of applying existing knowledge in learning Besides, just more than 40% of the participants will create a connection model between new knowledge and existing knowledge since this strategy demands huge patience
In terms of reading skills
Table 6: Actions to solve problems of reading skills
What students have done to improve reading comprehension
1 Briefly summarize the reading text 48.2
2 Learn to master reading skills (skimming for main ideas, reading slowly and carefully to find details, etc.)
3 Read in depth to analyze sentence expression in specific context to make inferences
What students need to do/will do to improve their reading comprehension
5 Learn to take notes of important ideas/phrases appearing in the text
6 Divide the reading process into three steps: pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading
7 Share with others information learnt from the reading text 40.9
Table 6 illustrates that in order to improve reading comprehension, students have exercised several reading strategies Initially, two actions preferred by the vast students are the reading practice and in-depth reading, which take 73.6% and 68.2%, respectively It is essential to master sub-skills, including skimming, scanning or intensive reading to maximize the effectiveness of the reading process For example, there are multiple types of reading tasks in an exercise; therefore, students need to analyze the text carefully to make inferences about what the author intends to deliver It is recommended that students learn to take notes (69.1%) and divide the reading process into three steps: pre-reading, while reading and post-reading (73.6%) to have a thorough understanding of the text's meaning Additionally, students do not incline to summarize lengthy text, with just 48.2% picking this option and only more than 40% of students agree to share what they have learnt from the text with others because of fearing to deliver misinformation
Table 7: Actions to solve problems of terminologies
What students have done to improve reading comprehension
1 Memorize how to read and learn Vietnamese meanings of technical words and phrases
2 Search and learn by heart synonyms or polysemy of specialized vocabularies
3 Do exercises containing specialized terminologies and phrases that appear in the reading text
What students need to do/will do to improve their reading comprehension
4 Use learning methods such as flashcard or online applications such as Quizlet, Elsa, Doulingo, etc
5 Look up the meaning of new words by using both
English-English and English-Vietnamese dictionaries
6 Self assess and evaluate the ability to memorize words regularly
From Table 7, 76.4% of students agree on learn to memorize the poly- sementic meanings of a word in every context whilst reinforcing learnt vocabularies by doing reading tasks provided in the coursebook (64.5%) Another finding is that only half of students (52.7%) memorize technical terms by learning Vietnamese meanings; however, it is not advisable that not many students understand the exact meaning of the word when being translated into
Vietnamese As a result, 78.2% suggest using English-English and English- Viet < UNK> dictionaries on Lexio and Cambridge websites for looking up new words The next option, which is favoured by 65.5% of the informants, is the application of flashcards and online learning support such as Duolingo, Quizlet or Elsa This method is convenient for those who use portable electrical devices as they can learn new words at any time The last option of self- evaluation method only reaches 56.4% of the agreement because students cannot work out suitable ways for the assessment process
In terms of text types
Table 8: Actions to solve problems of text types
What students have done to improve reading comprehension
1 Analyze to understand the structure of the text 52.7
2 Focus on text clues to find answers to each part of the reading comprehension task (keywords, synonyms, antonyms, etc.)
3 Note the Vietnamese meaning next to the English word
What students need to do/will do to improve their reading comprehension
4 Use mind maps to analyzed and interpret complicated information in the text
5 Write down specialized terminologies that appear frequently in the text to learn
6 Underline clues in the text as evidences to find the answers
The collected data in Table 8 shows that most students (87.3%) centre on text clues (i.e., keywords, synonyms) to discover the answers to comprehension questions by underlining those clues as evidence As mentioned in the previous part, many students have trouble with sentence structure; thus, more than half of the them try to analyze these structures to comprehend the sentence meaning thoroughly Likewise, the range of technical terms in a text placed in a text has a close connection to determining the difficulty of the text
To deal with this problem, 85.5% of students would write down terminologies which frequently appears in the text instead of noting the Vietnamese meaning next to it Only a small number of informants (37.3%) agree with using a mind map to interpret information due to the fact that ESP text is usually written in at least three pages and this technique seems ineffective and time-consuming
Students’ expectations toward teachers and ESP materials
In general, students hold expectations toward pedagogical methodologies and learning materials which are consistent with difficulties they were surveyed The results from the semi-formal interview suggest that there is the need of teacher to provide students with support and advice in class They wish to be explained the meaning of technical terms to ensure that students will not misunderstand the information delivered by the author Many students tend to withdraw from reading comprehension tasks due to the level of difficulty; therefore, they hope that teachers will give them valuable tips on how to deal with different task types The recommended method is organizing recreational activities; for example, a vocabulary game can stimulate students‟ competence in learning new words, whilst a role-play activity may reduce their lack of confidence in public speaking Besides, the activity of checking pronunciation in which students give answers in front of the class can be a tentative decision in activity design Informants of the interviews are also hope that they are offered more sources for self-practice in order to broaden their horizons of their major so that they will pass the ESP course with high results
In addition to that, topics in the coursebook should also be arranged from familiar scale to exotic one, which prevents the demotivating factors caused by strange contents
The semi-structured interview illustrates teachers‟ perspectives on learning strategies and teaching methodologies that help students improve their reading comprehension skill Initially, in order to gain background knowledge of specialized subject, students should equip themselves with information by updating current news and issue on a regular basis Accordingly, it is recommended that students use interactive learning media to make their learning process more active and independent Students can also join competitions, regardless of online or offline, to enrich their existing knowledge and test their memory
Another way that assists students to improve their reading skills and learn technical terminologies is taking part in the material design activity, which requires group collaboration When directly exposing to the topics, students will experience different reading strategies; thus bettering their understanding of the text In addition, many students employ Google Translate as the primary way of apprehending complex long text; however, teachers advise that they try to explain ambiguous words or phrases in English by putting them in the actual context rather than translating them directly into Vietnamese Other methods, including visualizing the text or cooperating with partners for increasing their memory, are encouraged
Lecturers also suggest that students be taught to select appropriate sources when reading a text or using any online article as authentic materials for the designing activity There is an overwhelming number of sources that can be found on the Internet, and students tend to rely on fake news or harmful contents if they are not well directed; hence, they should only choose reliable sources, namely CNN, Reuters, The Guardian and other websites.
Discussion of the findings
In relation to the results above, it can be presumed that inadequate terminologies prove to be the most learners' concern when learning an ESP course Students find it difficult to guess, memorize, identify poly-semantic words, and understand word meanings Next, background knowledge of ESP subject matter also hinders most students from understanding reading materials
On account of globalization and economic integration in Vietnam, the need for competence in foreign languages has become high to a great extent; therefore, students are expected to update new knowledge of the current issues on a regular basic Furthermore, the data also highlights that reading sub-skills cause great difficulty to ESP learners It is noteworthy that students seem to make fewer errors in reaching the main ideas, finding specific information, or even summarizing the text; however, students' inability to recognize implications and make inferences are serious problems while deducing the meaning of the reading text The last glance students see as a problem in reading is text type Apparently, there is a strong connection between the text and comprehension, as the text will aid readers' readability It is noted that the two significant difficulties in dealing with text are the lack of frequency in accessing text types and the inability to cope with text structures This result is in line with previous research by Hamouni and Tamzirt (2017) regarding the negative impact of text complexity that it can demotivate the students' interest and prevent them from achieving the intended goals
The findings of this study also discuss many reasons behind the students' difficulties First, that students get little exposure to the ESP terminologies and lack regular daily practice results in a low level of word recognition (Cunningham & Stanovich; 1997) Students are believed not to allocate enough time to learn the use of technical terminologies; which impedes them from applying those words precisely in speaking, writing and especially reading It is confirmed by Carven (1994) that without the correct identification, there is an occurrence of interruption in the reading comprehension process Secondly, the factors that account for students' unexpected reading outcomes are the restriction in accessing ESP subject matters (O'Reilly, Wang & Sabatini, 2019) and the unfamiliar certain cultural contents used in the coursebook The probable explanation for this finding seems to point toward the influence of components, which were discussed earlier, that requires the interaction between article about an election in America would be more understandable and engaging than a presidential election in Indonesia (please refers to Appendix 3) because students tend to be attracted by politically influential country like the U.S rather than the less powerful nation such as Indonesia Besides, the teachers' lack of professional knowledge is regarded as a major contributor to students' poor academic performance, which is accord with the previous studies by Dinh (2010) and Mozhdeh (2021) Since ESP teaching is narrowed down to a specialized area; thus, it is essential that teachers obtain in-depth acquisition of the knowledge they deliver to students Lastly, the text structure will determine whether students understand the meaning represented or not based on the idea organization and the number of words involved in this sentence If students misunderstand a sentence's meaning, they may fail to spot essential information in the text structure (Lawrence, 2009)
In order to aid students in achieving the goal of being successful readers, there is a number of suggestions discussed under the views of ESP teachers and learners First, it is suggested that students should be active in finding additional materials to fill the knowledge gap and compete in the language because this is a matter of language proficiency (Hazmani, 2019: 72) Additionally, a prevalent learner-centred strategy called group work that has not been mentioned is encouraged to provide students with opportunities to share opinions and discuss the content of the reading article (Pongsatornpipat, 2021: 358) When compared with the methods including skimming, scanning, intensive and extensive reading (Krashen & Terrell, 1998) in the previous chapter, the result serves as a supplement to fulfil the literature by recommending the utilization of supporting reading strategies, such as taking notes, underlining important information and using reference materials (i.e., dictionaries and learning applications) Moreover, instructions on reading strategies placed above the exercise will help students get used to the technique before applying it to a specific task In addition to that, students should have opportunities to regularly practice under the lecturer's supervision to receive consistent reinforcement, which is also highlighted by Dang (2010) to make the reading process effective However, this method differs from the students' preferences of employing problem-solving strategies rather than supporting strategies in the study of Bensaad and Ouahmiche (2020: 1795) because it enables them to easily facilitate the reading process Finally, despite students‟ worry of text types, teachers tend to ignore the impact of this factor Hence, based on students‟ need, teachers should offer students knowledge and guidance in differentiating various genres of text, which benefits them in navigating "the types of text presented within literary and factual text" (Isani, 2014: 40) On the whole, the suggestions above justify students' perception of the possible ways to improve their reading comprehension skills.
Summary of the chapter
In this chapter, the researcher analyzed data to indicate difficulties in reading comprehension that learners encounter when learning the ESP course Next, the research also pointed out factors that exercise an influence on students‟ problems as perceived by students as well as by the lecturers, later on proposing recommendations for students‟ improvement Finally, the present research findings were summarized to provide answers to the three research questions mentioned in the first chapter, Introduction.