Nghiên cứu thăm dò về việc dạy và học phần đọc hiểu TOEIC tại EQuest academy

Xét về quan niệm của bài đọc khó, kết quả bước đầu cho thấy, độ dài của bài đọc hiểu và chủ đề không quen thuộc gây khó khăn nhiều hơn cho giáo viên so với học sinh. Trong khi đó, từ mới và cấu trúc ngữ pháp phức tạp cản trở học viên nhiều hơn. Nhà nghiên cứu Đào Thu Hương (2007) cũng tìm ra những khó khăn tương tự đối với học sinh ở trường trung học phổ thông Lê Hồng Phong. Ngoài ra, giáo viên và học viên ở EQuest đã thừa nhận rằng từ vựng là mảng khó khăn lớn nhất họ gặp phải khi dạy và học phần đọc hiểu TOEIC. Khi so sánh với nghiên cứu của Yorio (1971) và Vũ Thị Thu Hà (2010), kết quả cũng chỉ ra đều tương tự. Những khó khăn đáng quan ngại khác xuất phát từ việc học viên có xu hướng nghỉ học ở EQuest vào giai đoạn gần cuối khóa khi mà phần đọc hiểu TOEIC được giảng dạy và kĩ năng đoán từ vựng trong văn cảnh còn hạn chế. Về chiến thuật đọc, nhiều học viên dường như chưa có sự chuẩn bị chu đáo trước khi học phần đọc hiểu trên lớp, bài tập về nhà cũng chưa được làm thật sự đầy đủ. Ngoài ra, đối với giáo viên, phương hướng đọc tương tác (interactive approach) được nhận thức và khai thác tốt hơn so với học viên.

I am indebted to Assoc Prof Dr Le Hung Tien & Dr Pham Thi Thanh Thuy fortheir valuable and interesting course in Research Methodology and Le Van Canh,Ph.D for his precious lecture in Reading skills in TESOL Methodology coursewhich has helped me build up data of literature review

My deep thanks are also extended to all staff, lecturers and members at Faculty ofPost-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, VietnamNational University, Hanoi for their work and services

Words of thanks are sent to my friends of group 20, especially my K20B classmatesfor their advice and useful documents

My study would probably not have been completed without the active participation

of my colleagues and their students at EQuest Academy in data collection processusing survey questionnaire and semi-structured interview

Finally, my special appreciations go to my parents and my younger brother, PhamDuc Tuan, who have always given me their head over heels in love, intensive careand positive encouragement

This study was conducted to find out (1) what problems EQuest Academy (EQ)

teachers and EQ students had in the teaching and learning to prepare for TOEIC

reading comprehension skills (part 7) Furthermore, (2) the teachers and students’

perspectives s on the strategies which they had employed were expected to bediscovered

In order to obtain the intended goal, 90 students of TOEIC class and 15 teachers incharge of TOEIC course undertook the data collection method of questionnaires andinterviews The findings figured out that length of the reading texts andtheir unfamiliar topics caused the teachers more trouble compared with the studentswhereas unknown words and complex structures hindered the students more thanthe teachers The results from the students were remarkably consistent with Dao(2007) at Le Hong Phong high school More strikingly, vocabulary was perceived

as the biggest hindrance by both EQ teachers and students in readingcomprehension as found in Yorio (1971) and Vu (2010)’s paper The other topproblems consisted of the lack of skills relating to guessing new words in thecontexts and the students’ infrequent participation in the in-class reading lessons.Regarding their strategies, surprisingly, the large number of TOEIC learners did notsound well-prepared before lessons in the class in term of doing homework orasking the teachers for the outside classroom supplementary materials Besides, theTOEIC trainers put much more emphasis on interactive approach than the TOEIClearners

Based on the findings, several pedagogical suggestions for further exploitation wereoffered for both the teachers and the students in EQuest Academy to improve thecurrent situation of the teaching and learning of TOEIC reading comprehension

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION I

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS II

ABSTRACT III

TABLE OF CONTENTS IV

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS VII

ABBREVIATIONS VIII

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1

1 The statement of the problem and the rationale for the study 1

2 Research aims and research questions 2

3 Scope of study 2

4 Method of study 3

PART II: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Reading .4

1.1.1 Definition of reading 4

1.1.2 Reading process 5

1.1.3 The teaching and the learning of reading 6

1.2 TOEIC 6

12.1 TOEIC definition, origin, benefit and topic 6

1.2.2 TOEIC reading 8

1.2.2.1 TOEIC reading background 8

1.2.2.2 Some factors affecting the teaching and learning of TOEIC reading comprehension skills 11

1.2.2.3 TOEIC reading comprehension strategies 11

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 13

2.1 Setting 13

2.2 Research design 13

2.2.1 Participants 13

2.2.2 Data collection 14

2.2.2.1 Instruments 16

2.2.2.2 Procedure 16

2.2.2.3 Data analysis 17

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 19

3.1 Research question 1 19

3.1.1 Perceptions about difficult reading text 19

3.1.2 Areas of difficulties 20

3.1.3 Reading skills 23

3.1.4 The students’ performance in class 25

3.1.5 Difficulties with the teachers’ lecture 27

3.2 Research question 2 28

3.2.1 Types of reading texts often exploited 28

3.2.2 Strategies before TOEIC reading comprehension lessons 30

3.2.3 Reading approach 32

3.2.4 Priority of reading passages 34

3.2.5 Teacher’s advice to deal with reading text 36

3.2.6 Learners’ strategies to deal with reading text 38

PART III: CONCLUSION 40

1 Major findings of the research 40

2 Pedagogical suggestions for a more effective exploitation of reading comprehension in Equest Academy 43

2.1 For students 43

2.2 For teachers 44

3 Limitations of the research 46

4 Suggestions for further studies 47

REFERENCES 48

APPENDIXES 53

Appendix 1: Survey questionnaire for students (Vietnamese+ English version) 53

Appendix 2: Survey questionnaire for teachers

(Vietnamese and English version) 57

Appendix 3: Plan for semi-structured interview questions 61

Appendix 4: The flyer “Khóa luyện thi TOEIC” 62

Appendix 5: Sample of TOEIC reading session parts 63

Appendix 6: Reading strategies from Longman preparation series for the TOEIC test: Intermediate course 66

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1: TOEIC topics 8

Table 2: TOEIC reading comprehension structure 10

Table 3: Teachers’ difficulties with the students’ performance in class 25

Table 4: Students’ difficulties with the lecturers’ lecture 27

Table 5: Teachers and students’ types of reading texts often exploited 28

Table 6: Teachers’ advice to deal with reading text 36

Table 7: Learners’ strategies to deal with reading text 38

Figure 1: Teachers and students’ perception about difficult reading 19

Figure 2: Teachers and students’ areas of difficulties 20

Figure 3: Teachers and students’ difficulties with reading skills 23

Figure 4: Teachers and students’ strategies before TOEIC reading comprehension lessons 30

Figure 5: Teachers and students’ exploitation of reading approach 32

Figure 6: Teachers’ and students’ reponses related to priorty of reading passages 34

Figure 7: Teachers’ and students’ reasons for reading single passages first 34

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 The statement of the problem and the rationale for the study

Recently, in Vietnam, learning foreign languages especially English has beentaken more notice as a result of intense and extensive world economic integrationwhich occurs in a “flat, hot and crowed” world as the present (Friedman, 2008).Noticeably, in such a competitive global economy, those who achieve an excellentlevel of using English are highly well-qualified for good jobs The TOEIC test,regarded as the worldwide standard for measuring English proficiency in the

workplace, is a leading factor into “(1) screen[ing] employees for overseas business trips or postings; (2) urg[ing] workers to make greater efforts to learn English; and (3) asses[ing] the effectiveness of company-sponsored English training programs” (The Daily Yomiuri, 1997, p 9 cited in Karn & Forster, 1998,

p.3) Therefore, the success in the TOEIC test seems to be a mandatoryrequirement for the majority of successful job candidates

In the report “[l]earn about TOEIC test-taker worldwide” by Educational TestingSystem (2011, p.2), 30% TOEIC test-takers chose reading as the most frequently-used English language skill It can be inferred that TOEIC reading is popular indaily lives or working environment among TOEIC examinees

As the teacher of TOEIC course training in EQuest Academy (EQ), the researcherrealizes that TOEIC reading comprehension (part 7) has been a heated topicdiscussed not only among the teachers in EQuest Academic Department but alsoTOEIC learners in EQuest Academy for a long period of time but there has notbeen any paper which collects and synthesizes the difficulties and strategies fromthe EQuest trainers and learners in order to make the learning and teaching ofTOEIC reading comprehension better Furthermore, except for the study byNguyễn Thị Yến (2010) on “difficulties in teaching TOEIC speaking skills” andthe research by Nhữ Hà Phương (2012) on “the common errors in the TOEIClistening test”, it appears that no thesis paper about the issues relating to TOEIC

reading comprehension in the post-graduate faculty’s library may has been carriedout For the two main reasons stated above, it is very necessary and urgent to

conduct a study with the title “[a]n exploratory study on the teaching and learning

of TOEIC Reading Comprehension skills at EQuest Academy”.

2 Research aims and research questions

Firstly, the study is conducted to find out what difficulties EQ students have had when practicing TOEIC Reading Comprehension to prepare for the TOEIC test and EQ teachers’ problems in teaching TOEIC Reading Comprehension.

Secondly, their (teachers and student’s) viewpoints on the strategies which theyhave employed are expected to be detected In specific, a detailed investigation iscarried out to specify the strategies EQ students have used during the process ofreading comprehension and the strategies EQ teachers have employed in theprocess of teaching In brief, this study aims to address two following researchquestions:

1 What are the difficulties encountered by teachers and students at EQuest Academy in the teaching and learning to prepare for the TOEIC reading comprehension test?

2 What are the strategies proposed by teachers and students at EQuest Academy towards the teaching and learning to prepare for the TOEIC reading comprehension test?

3 Scope of study

Despite the fact that the topic is about “[a]n exploratory study on the teaching and learning of TOEIC Reading Comprehension skills at EQuest Academy”, the

researcher only concentrates on a few aspects of the teaching and learning of

TOEIC Reading Comprehension skills namely the difficulties in learning, the difficulties in teaching, the strategies in learning and the strategies in teaching.

The samples of the study were, due to the time limitation and the small scale ofresearch, restricted to 90 EQ students in 373 Hoang Quoc Viet, in 55 Nguyen

Khang and on 2nd floor of HESCO Building, Km 10 Nguyen Trai At the sametime, 15 EQ teachers were involved in the research.

4 Method of study

To address the two research questions presented above, a combined datacollection process using survey questionnaire and semi-structured interview hadbeen used

Survey questionnaire consisting of two sets of questionnaire (a set for students andthe other is for teachers) was employed to collect information from 90 EQstudents and 15 EQ teachers They were offered to tick or circle the answer thatbest reflects their viewpoints Besides closed-ended questions, open-ended oneswere also exploited so that the students could specify any additional comments onthe situations given

Next, semi-structured interviews were conducted 23 interviewees (15 EQ studentsand 8 EQ teachers) who had taken part in the questionnaire provided in-depthinformation about their viewpoints in the questionnaire With the aim of makingthe respondents most confident in the interview, the used language wasVietnamese Noticeably, typical statements from 23 interviews recorded with therespondents’ permission were taken advantage to represent the arguments in thechapter “Results and Discussion”

PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Reading

1.1.1 Definitions of reading

“The best way to improve one's knowledge of a foreign language is to go and liveamong its speakers The next best way is to read extensively in it.” (Nuttall, 1982,p.168) It is undeniable that reading in general and extensive reading in particular,

as Nuttall states, of great importance in learning a foreign language Regardingreading definition, it can be described differently by a variety of scholars

As stated by Williams (1986, p.2), reading is “a process whereby one looks at andunderstands what has been written”

Anderson (1999, p.1) argues that “[r]eading is an active, fluent process whichinvolves the reader and the reading material in building meaning.”

Both Williams (1986) and Anderson (1999) point out that reading is a cognitiveprocess whereby the reader decodes the text so as to (re)create meaningfuldiscourse

Holding the similar opinion with William and Anderson, Goodman (1971, p 153)asserts that reading is “a psycholinguistic process by which the reader- a languageuser, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by awriter as a graphic display.”

In a nutshell, the researcher is in favor of Goodman (1971) that reading can bedescribed as the process including the reader, the text and the meaning which istransferred from the writer to the reader via the text

Regarding reading comprehension, Roe, Stoodt & Burns (1987) regard it as

“reconstruction, interpretation, and evaluation of what author of written content

means by using knowledge gained from life experience” (p.9) RAND Reading

Study Group (2002) is in agreement with Roe, Stoodt & Burns but in the other

words that reading comprehension is “the process of simultaneously extractingand constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with writtenlanguage” (p.11) It is constituted by the three components: the reader, the text andthe activity of purpose for reading The purpose for reading will be an importantfactor in reading comprehension For instance, a person who is wondering whethershe/he has enough money to go on vacation in Ha Long Bay needs to comprehendthe price information provided on the travel package, but does not need to realizethe name of every site in Ha Long Bay and service involved

Lee & VanPatten (1995) add that only when novel information is integrated intoinformation already stored in memory will comprehension occur (p.191) They go

on to allege that readers are capable of allowing the incoming data to “become apart of their knowledge store” (p.191)

As deDebat (2006, p.10) states, the top-down process is closely related to “schematheory” which is explained by Nunan (1999) as the notion of “the creation ofmental frameworks that help us make sense of new experiences” (p.201) from theprevious experiences Kucer (1987, p.31), Anderson (1994, p.469) and Anderson

& Pearson (1988, p.38) go on to add that the prior experiences may involveknowledge about the text structure or knowledge about the subject matter of atext

Additionally, Eskey (1988) assures that interactive reading is “a constantinteraction between bottom-up and top-down processing in reading, each source of

information contributing to a comprehensive reconstruction of the meaning of thetext” (p.94) It can be elucidated that the interactive reading combines bothbottom-up and top-down approaches Eskey continues to reveal that so as tobecome a good reader; developing reader must be in the perfection of “bottom-uprecognition skills and top-down interpretation strategies” (p.94) without which thereaders can not succeed in reading comprehension

1.1.3 The teaching and the learning of reading

According to Brown (1994), the teaching of reading consists of three steps: reading discussion, while-reading task, post-reading exercises In the post-readingstep, in-depth discussions about the author’s reasoning or summary-writing relatedassignment are highly exploited by teachers

pre-“If teachers understand the nature of reading comprehension and learning from atext, they will have the basis for evaluating and improving learning environment”(Tierney & Pearson, 1994, p.496)

According to Lee & Mallinder (2011, p.155), it is better for students to be trainedbasic reading skills such as “scanning, skimming, guessing, note-taking,summarization, referring to the contexts, repeated reading” before extensivereading practice because there is a strong link between the reading skills and therapid completion of reading passages’ questions

As stated by Dhieb-Henia (2006), reading strategies may be exploited successfullydue to the student’s consciousness of the reading strategies and ability to use themflexibly which are based on the task’s purpose and solving-problem (p.4)

1.2 TOEIC

1.2.1 TOEIC definition, origin, benefit and topic

Firstly, in the research report of Educational Testing System, Test of English forInternational Communication (TOEIC) is “multiple-choice” proficiency test which

is built to measure communicative English for “nonnative-English speakers”(Wilson, 2000, p.1)

Furthermore, as Boldt & Ross (1998, preface) announce, in world-wide businesssettings, TOEIC is regarded as “the world’s leading test of English languageproficiency” with the number of 1.5 million test-takers in 1997 (Boldt & Ross,

1998, preface) Obviously, TOEIC places a crucial role in the setting of globaleconomy as an international assessment tool of communicative English in theworkplace

Secondly, regarding the origin of TOEIC, Test of English for InternationalCommunication was built by ETS (Educational Testing Service) from the originallyproposed request by Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Suzuaki

& Daza, 2004, p.16) In the TOEIC Report on Test-takers worldwide, Japan and

Korea were two countries which TOEIC test results were the most popularlyexploited (63% and 29% respectively) (cited in Suzuki & Daza, 2004, p.16)

Thirdly, in term of TOEIC benefits, the test is considered a golden key to

unlock the door into “job recruitment” as well as “admission to graduate schools” (Kamijo, n.d, p 174) According to Boldt & Ross (1998, p.3), English language proficiency is a primary priority of many international incorporations when they make up their mind about “hiring, overseas staffing, placement and career advancement” (p.3)

In a review of the reading section of the TOEIC, Suzuki & Daza (2004)

argues that TOEIC can be employed by many corporations for different purposes such as “(a) technical training in English; (b) overseas assignments; and (c) language training” (p.16) Furthermore, TOEIC can be conducted for “formative or placement purposes” (p.16) or provide students with scholarships in Japan or Korea.

Lastly, as presented in Examinee handbook-listening & reading (2012, p.3),

TOEIC covers some topics as follows:

Topics Details

Corporate development research, product development

Dining out business and informal lunches, banquets, receptions,

restaurant reservations

Entertainment cinema, theatre, music, art, exhibitions, museums, media

Finance and budgeting banking, investments, taxes, accounting, billing

General business contracts, negotiations, mergers, marketing, sales,

warranties, business planning, conferences, labor relations

Health medical insurance, visiting doctors, dentists, clinics,

Manufacturing assembly lines, plant management, quality control

Offices board meetings, committees, letters, memoranda, telephone,

fax and e-mail messages, office equipment and furniture,office procedures

Personnel recruiting, hiring, retiring, salaries, promotion, job

applications, job advertisements, pensions, awards

Purchasing shopping, ordering supplies, shipping, invoices

Technical areas electronics, technology, computers, laboratories and related

equipment, technical specifications

Travel trains, airplanes, taxis, buses, ships, ferries, tickets,

schedules, station and airport announcements, car rentals,hotels, reservations, delays and cancellations

(Examinee handbook-listening & reading, 2012, p.3)

Table 1: TOEIC topics

1.2.2 TOEIC reading

1.2.2.1 TOEIC reading background

It has been popularly known that TOEIC Listening and Reading is a 120-minutepaper-and-pencil test which includes two sections: listening section and reading

section There are 100 multiple-choice questions in reading section which takes

75 minutes Reading score scale ranges from 5 to 495 and the total score scale(both reading and listening) ranges from 10 to 990 (Examinee handbook-

listening & reading, 2012, p.2).

Reading section covers three parts (part 5, part 6 and part 7 in total TOEIC test)

and instructions provided for each part Regarding part 5, 40 questions are

presented to test TOEIC learners’ grammar and vocabulary extensively Beloweach sentence with a blank which needs to be filled out with a word or phrase arefour options marked (A), (B), (C) and (D) A typical example is taken from

[e]xaminee handbook-listening & reading (2012, p.12) as follow:

101 A late fee will be applied to your account _

payment is not received by March 31

(A) and (B) whether (C) but (D) if”

For this sample question, the answer (D) is the best choice, so the examineesshould mark the letter (D) on their answer sheets with the pencils supplied by IIGVietnam As recommended by Lougheed (2007), so as to do such forty-questiontask effectively, the examinees should be trained with “word families, similarwords, prepositions, conjunctions, adverbs of frequency, causative verbs,conditional sentences, verb tense and two-word verbs” (p.108)

Part 6 is basically similar to part 5 in the form of question Accordingly, the

test-takers are also required to complete each sentence with a word or phrase which isrepresented by (A), (B), (C) and (D) There are two dissimilar things between part

6 and part 5 The first difference is the number of questions, while 40 questions ofreading session are contributed to part 5, only part 6 is constituted of 12 questions

Additionally, the fifth part consists of forty separate sentences but the sixth part includes three or four questions for each text It can be understood that only three

or four texts are seen in the test paper given for part 6 (see more in the appendix 5)

Concerning part 7 (reading comprehension), the test attendants will read a

selection of texts and answer some questions below each text According to ETS(Educational Testing Service) (2012, p.13), part 7: reading comprehensionrequires test-takers to read a variety of texts which are, as Wilson (2000) lists,constituted by “manuals, reports, forms, notices, advertisements, periodicals,memorandum, letters, news and magazine articles” (cited in Kamijo, n.d., 173)

As Muller (2007) assures, there exist four main text structures/patterns in TOEIC

reading passages, namely “problem/solution, general/specific, claim/counterclaim and question/answer” (p.36) Muller goes on to allege that when students have

profound insight into passage components, they could find the answer to testquestion very quickly because they are conscious of where they may look for, “atthe beginning, middle or end of the passage” (p.52)

Reading comprehension section (part 7) is constituted by single passages and

double passages Single passages contain 28 questions (153-180) Test-takers will

only read each advertisement, form, letter, e-mail, fax, memo, table, index, chart,instruction, or notice separately There are at least 2 questions and a maximum of

4 questions for each single passage

Unlike single passage, double passages will cover a set of two passages

Test-takers might read an email and a memo; a form and a fax; a table and a letter; aletter and a letter Double passages have the five questions for each set of twopassages In summary, as presented in Longman Preparation Series for the TOEIC

Test: Introductory course, the structure of TOEIC reading comprehension may be

summed up as follows:

Part 7

Sections

Number ofquestions

Number ofPassages

numbers

Double passages 20 4 pairs 5 per pair of passages 181-200

(Lougheed, 1996b, p.150)

Table 2: TOEIC reading comprehension structure

1.2.2.2 Some factors affecting the teaching and learning of TOEIC reading comprehension skills

As stated in TOEIC research report #3 by the Chauncey Group International Ltd, class size is classified into 3 groups: small (under 10 learners), medium (10-20 learners) and large (more than 20 learners) (p.5).

Some factors impacting the success of acquiring language may involve “learningmaterials, the background of the instructors, objects of the training course, thenumber of students in the class” besides students’ factors such as “motivation, ageand time spent in an English-speaking country” (Boldt & Ross, 1998, p 3)

The interesting finding by Chujo & Oghigian (2009) shows that “in order to gain

95 percent coverage on TOEIC, a reader would need a minimum vocabulary size

of 4,000 words or 3, 000 word families” (p.121)

1.2.2.3 TOEIC reading comprehension strategies

Lougheed (2007b) suggests that reading skills such as “skimming, scanning, usingthe context and reading fast” (p.227, see more in the 6th appendix) should bepracticed sharply to enhance reading comprehension He goes on to add that acompetitive tip is to “read the questions before [test-takers] read the passage”(Introductory Course, p.151) It might be inferred that when readers have aparticular question in their mind, they can read fast and purposefully.Furthermore, TOEIC examinees “do not read the answer before [they] read thepassage” (Lougheed, 2007a, p.151) It may be understood that when test-takersmaster each reading question, they should find the answer in the passage instead

of looking for answer options (A), (B), (C) or (D) after each question Noticeably,Lougheed (2007c) reveals that TOEIC examinees should find not only directanswers but also “synonyms, paraphrases, and implied answers” (p.170) It is notenough without mentioning four main question types-“main idea questions, detailquestions, inference questions and vocabulary questions” (Lougheed, 2007a,p.151) which readers are highly recommended to prepare for the new TOEIC test

Forster et al (1997, p.129) continue to reveal that reading the questions withcarefulness is the first step followed by predicting possible correct answers The

second step comes to information-identifying skills which In “Strategies 1: Building TOEIC/TOEFL test-taking skills”, it is pointed out that the questions

asked may not impose as the orderly information in the text Additionally, fromthe my teaching experience, I am in agreement with such researchers in term ofwrong answers in TOEIC reading comprehension which may be resulted in bychoosing “too general, too vague or too specific” answers (p.129)

As Forster et al (1997, p.9) recommend, answers B and C are the two mostpopular answers to questions in TOEIC, so it is worthy to advise students to mark

B or C when they have no idea for the answer to a specific question Moreover,these researchers suggest that when students encounter a new word which theyhave not seen before, it is better to depend on surrounding words in the sentencesfor guessing the new word in the context

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Setting

EQuest Academy where the researcher has been teaching TOEIC for 2 years isone educational organization which highly majors in educating students orworkforce to take English standardized tests such as TOEFL iBT (Test Of English

as a Foreign Language), IELTS (International English Language Testing System)and TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) Among these

training courses, TOEIC course (see appendix 4) attracts a lot of students from big

universities in Hanoi namely Hanoi University of Commerce, Institute of Finance,Hanoi University of Industry or Foreign Trade University to take part in thiscourse To meet requirements for a TOEIC course, students should be at pre-intermediate level of English in order to catch up with advanced curriculum Somestudents whose English is not good enough to attend in TOEIC course will have tojoin the lower proficiency course called Foundational Academic Course (FAE) InFAE course, students will be provided with input knowledge such as morevocabulary, grammar and sentence structures to improve their four skills includingspeaking, listening, reading and writing to prepare for next higher course TOEICcourse

2.2 Research design

2.2.1 Participants

In accordance with ETS statistics, TOEIC test-takers in 2010 were comparativelyyoung 40% were between 21 and 25 years old while 23% were at younger age,below 20 years old (ETS, 2011, p.8) The students registering for in-2013-TOEICcourse in EQuest Academy seemed to be younger than those from ETS statisticsfrom different regions worldwide The in-the-research-Equest students’ agesranged from 19 to 27 with different kinds of occupations About 85% werebetween 21-25 years old They were third year or fourth year students who wanted

to have better skills for TOEIC in preparation for the-inside-house TOEIC at their

school About one-third of participants aged 21-25 had graduated from theirschools for about 1 year but still out of employment

The number of participants in the study was 90 who had been chosen randomlyfrom 5 TOEIC preparation classes in EQuest Academy They had learned TOEICfrom 2 to 7 month(s) Some of them were pre-intermediate level of English Most

of the participated students had already attended TOEIC preparation courses whileothers had already been trained reading skills in TOEIC reading comprehension

15 teachers were also invited to participate in the survey The majority of EQuestteachers were very young, from 22 to 25 They had already graduated from HanoiUniversity of Languages and International Studies, Hanoi University or BankingAcademy and National University of Education for 1 to 3 years and becomeEQuest teachers for 6 months till 2 years Before teaching TOEIC, the teachershad taught Foundational Academic Course and upgraded their vocabulary,grammar and listening, speaking, reading and writing skill to have high capacityfor TOEIC preparation course 5 of EQuest teachers achieved more than 900points for the real TOEIC exam held in IIG Vietnam, 4 teachers obtained morethan 850 points and others were both encouraged and obligated to sit for TOEICexam due to the end of 2013 In the study, 66.67% teachers were in charge ofTOEIC B and 33.33% teachers were training TOEIC A students

2.2.2 Data collection

2.2.2.1 Instruments

For the purpose of collecting sufficient, reliable and valid data for the study, andquestionnaire and interviews were fully employed

Two questionnaires were employed, one of which was for the students who had

finished TOEIC course (see appendix 1) and the other one for EQuest teachers who specialized in training this course (see appendix 2) In order to help

participants understand the two questionnaires completely, Vietnamese waspreferentially used

Regarding the teachers’ questionnaire, brief introduction about the researcher and

the thesis’s topic was given at the beginning of the starting page Eleven questionsinvolve both closed-ended questions and open-ended questions with spaces forclarifying answers or adding additional comments Such eleven questions areclassified into two parts, each part corresponding to one research question Thefirst four questions were related to difficulties encountered by Equest TOEICteachers in teaching The difficulties were categorized under the headings namely

(1) perceptions towards difficult reading texts”, (2) areas of difficulties in teaching, (3) reading skills with much trouble in teaching and (4) the students’ performances causing the teachers’ teaching less efficient The second part from

the 5th question till the 11th question was concerned about the strategies proposed

by Equest teachers Noticeably, the 7th question about reading approach which theteachers trained students in TOEIC reading comprehension was noted with threekey terms followed by Vietnamese brief explanation to avoid possiblemisunderstanding which might lead to inaccuracy of the results later on.Concerning the 8th question, the teachers in the research were asked about theirexperience and advice in choosing whether single passages or double passagesshould be read first to obtain highly practical effectiveness The two follow-upquestions were designed to uncover the convincing reasons from the teachers’recommendations as stated in the 8th question

The students’ questionnaire was similar to the teachers’ questionnaire It also

covered closed ended questions and open-ended questions In fact, the number ofquestions for the students was the same as the quantity of questions for theteachers but from different perspective because the researcher would like tocollect the contrastive viewpoint from both the students and the teachers on eachissue

Like the questionnaires, two separated interview schedules (see appendix 3) were

arranged for both the students and the teachers Different from the questionnaires,open-ended questions were mainly utilized in the interviews for the purpose of

obtaining the in-depth information Before conducting interviews, the researcherwrote out a list of questions necessitated to ask after re-reading the participants’questionnaire Such prepared questions were expected “to provide the interviewerwith a great deal of flexibility while offering the interviewees adequate power andcontrol over the course of the interview” (Vu, 2006, p.35) Accordingly, 15students and 8 teachers were interviewed to further know about their answers,regarding kinds of reading passages, reasons for reading single or double passagesfirst, areas of difficulties, their perceptions about difficult reading passages andtheir strategies in TOEIC reading comprehension Strategically, the questions inthe semi-instructed interview between the researcher and the respondents werebrought up naturally which helped collect the data efficiently because theinterviewees felt relaxed and could answer honestly.

questions in the questionnaire were put into two subsections, one for the

difficulties in teaching TOEIC reading comprehension (in the teachers’questionnaire) and in learning TOEIC reading comprehension (in the students’questionnaire) and the other is the strategies

Step 2:

115 questionnaire papers were printed and delivered to 90 students and15teachers of TOEIC randomly chosen in different branches of EQuest Hanoiafter the researcher had contacted the teachers of five classes and asked for thereasonable time Additionally, the researcher was always willing to assist theparticipants by making any points in the questions that might be implicit becomemore comprehensive Afterwards, all the papers of questionnaire were collectedcarefully to ensure the quantity of data

Step 3:

After questionnaire papers have completed, semi-structured interviews werecarried out with 15 students and 8 teachers who have previously taken part inquestionnaire data collection process For the teachers, three teachers with thetwo-year-experience year, 3 teachers with about the six-month-year of trainingTOEIC and the last four teachers are less than six month In the results anddiscussion, eight TOEIC teachers in the interview were coded into T1, T2, T3, T4,T5, T6, T7 and T8 respectively

2.2.2.3 Data analysis

Descriptive statistics method was employed to analyze the data Moreover, theinformation collected from the interview was made use to compare and contrastwith the data achieved from the questionnaire which had been calculated andtransferred into the numerical forms

To be specific, the data collected from survey questionnaire had been organizedinto two categories: the difficulties (the first research question), the strategies inthe teaching and learning to prepare for TOEIC reading test (the 2nd researchquestion)

For the first category, the descriptive statistics of frequency method was employed

to illustrate difficulties the students faced with

For the second category, the researcher also exploited the descriptive statistics offrequency method to deduce the most strategically-planned strategies and the mostpopularly-exploited practical experience among the students and teachers

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Research question 1

What are the difficulties encountered by teachers and students at EQuest Academy in the teaching and learning to prepare for the TOEIC reading comprehension test?

The results collected from 90 students and 15 teachers towards the 1st researchquestion are transferred into the charts or tables as follows:

3.1.1 Perceptions about difficult reading text

Figure 1: Teachers and students’ perception about difficult reading

The bar chart above showed a substantial difference of opinion, between teachersand students, about how “difficult reading text” was Remarkably, the readingtexts’ length and unfamiliar topics might cause much more trouble to the teachers’teaching than the students’ practicing The second and third teachers (T2&T3)were in agreement with the sixth and eighth teachers (T6&T8) that double readingpassages (twice as long as single passages) appeared to be the “death area”towards their students because many students rarely finished the homework with

the double reading passages after each unit which consisted of 28 single-passagequestions and 20 double-passage questions as the format of the real TOEICreading test

In contrast, new words and complicated structures agreed by two-thirds and third students respectively were the students’ main difficulties making readingtexts challenging This could be explained by the statements from the threestudents’ interviews One student in TOEIC A acknowledged that her vocabulary

one-was comparatively limited, so when she started practicing, she had trouble with

understanding reading passages’ questions which covered novel words such as

“unlikely or intended” Another TOEIC A student added that “a reading text with

a large of dense vocabulary range often makes my brain refuse to read, my eyeswant to close.” In such cases, he did not often do carefully because it was time-consuming and boring Sharing about this issue, one TOEIC B student indicatedthat “[t]here were many words whose meaning I knew but in the reading section it

carried different meanings.” At that time, as she revealed, she was often crazy at

her From her perspective, learning vocabulary needed much time and dramaticcarefulness

3.1.2 Areas of difficulties

Figure 2: Teachers and students’ areas of difficulties

Firstly, the most striking problem facing both teachers and students was vocabulary.

As seen from the 2nd figure, more than three quarters students regarded vocabulary

as their biggest hindrance From their perspectives, vocabulary could lead to thedramatic improvement of reading comprehension Two students in TOEIC A classstressed their reading teacher used to advise their class that “the more you [students]read, the larger your [the students’] vocabulary grew” Therefore, she gave theirclass a list of TOEIC vocabulary books for reference and for-self-study at home.However, they also showed their sharp disappointment “my teacher didn’t show mehow to learn TOEIC vocabulary effectively” Noticeably, 60% TOEIC teachers alsoadmitted that vocabulary was the serious problem to their students T2 in charge ofTOEIC A class shared that a large number of students in my class had “a pour range

of vocabulary about economics, technology or travelling although they are

economic-majored or technology-majored students” T5 pointed out that the big

hindrance was the fact:

“ learning vocabulary is a complex issue In my TOEIC A class, I requiredstudents to learn TOEIC words of each theme or writing new words with fourcolumns: new word, meaning in English or Vietnamese, its collocation, the sentencewhere they have found such new word or a new sentence made by themselves Itcame as a surprise to me that in the two first week, many students did but in thefollowing lessons, they gradually ignored because of millions of reasons such asheavy workload at their school, lack of free time to do or leaving it at home and

even “I forget”” (the fifth interviewed teacher)

Reading skills were viewed as the second biggest difficulty by 40% teachers andapproximately one quarter students The student interviews unlocked the mystery

of the issue The TOEIC A student argued that once in her class did her teacherprovide them with skimming and scanning However, her teacher just told them

“when you [students] want to find general information, you [the students] useskimming and when you [the students] want to find specific answers to questionssuch as who, what, when, where or why, use scanning” This could be becausesome students might not be supplied enough information on steps to employscanning and skimming which resulted in the considerable problem with reading

skills among nearly one quarter students The TOEIC A student who complainedabout lack of given information about reading skills clarified her point “[f]rankly,when I read reading passages, I had no idea of which questions were answered byusing skimming, which one by using scanning” However, the trouble turned out

to be the truth that some teachers assumed that the students mastered the generalunderstanding of these skills, so they skipped or did not spend considerable time

on training students with these skills It was true for some TOEIC B teachers

“many TOEIC B students moved from TOEIC A classes, so I think that it is notnecessary to teach again what they have trained before” (T7 and T4’s statements)

It was clearly seen that some TOEIC B students who did not move from TOEIC Aclasses might have the serious hindrance towards understanding the theory ofscanning or skimming completely It was worth arguing more that althoughTOEIC B teachers did not explain the theory of scanning or skimming explicitly,they taught such skills through particular reading tasks, they did not teach studentsskimming, scanning or other reading skills singly 80% TOEIC B teachers in theinterviews shared the same view that at the beginning of part 7 (readingcomprehension), they often took about 20 minutes helping the students bear intheir mind that there were only four kinds of questions in TOEIC readingcomprehension and each kind of question needed different skills, not just scanningand skimming skill but also predicting or guessing the new word in the context.Different from some TOEIC B teachers, all TOEIC A teachers held differentviewpoint T2, T3 and T8 acknowledged that they provided students with theexplicitly detailed explanation of basic reading skills in English separately beforeintroducing reading tasks in TOEIC because according to their statements, TOEIC

A students lacked their background of such skills

3.1.3 Reading skills

Figure 3: Teachers and students’ difficulties with reading skills

Regarding the reading skills, the outstanding thing should be noted here was thatguessing new words in the contexts was perceived as the most serious problempersisted by three-fifths teachers and approximately one-half students in Equest.The results from the interviewed students pointed out that the kind of reading taskabout choosing the correct synonym for the words at specific line, in specificparagraph in the texts was easy to practice in the class but was not a piece of cakewhen they practiced at home In specific, a TOEIC student from T3’s classrevealed that when predicting a specific word in the context, his teacher often

asked the students in the class about the answer If there were no answer, the

teacher would translate all surrounding words except the being-questioned word.Therefore, the students could find the correct word quickly The TOEIC studentfrom T3’s class went on to admit that when he stayed at home, he searched for themeaning of both given word and four answer choices what could be replaced forthe given word in the specific line or a particular paragraph in the reading text Itwas easy-to-understand that with a poor range of vocabulary, the students had nobetter choice than looking up the dictionary to discover the word which wassynonymous with the given word from four answer choices

Furthermore, there was a big gap between teachers and students in summing upthe content of the texts towards the inference questions such as “[w]ho is likelythe intended reader?” or “[w]ho would use the information?” or “[w]here wouldyou find the product?” It was a high scale for the students with that reading skill incomparison with the teachers who hardly found any difficulties in teaching T7asserted that he followed the textbook complied by EQuest teachers for TOEIC Aand TOEIC B In both textbooks, there were a few questions relating to theinference ones Most of questions in the textbooks focused on specific and mainideas.

T8 commented on the issue that “collecting the information for inference

questions is not difficult as many students may think.” She explained that, in fact

it was similar to the specific question which usually needed a specific piece of

information such as who, whom or where For example “who might this article be intended for?” (TOEIC B textbook, unit 12, p.218), the answer might lie in the

beginning line, especially correct for advertisements “[t]his month in Golden AgeMagazine we would like to share some tips for making life easier as you get

older” (TOEIC B textbook, unit 12, p.218)

The student in T8’s class was in support of her teacher that inference questionswere not hard for advertisement and announcement because for most of the casesthat student met; he only needed to read through three first line of advertisement

or announcement On the other hand, another student in the same class objectedthat “for some inference questions, I read the reading passage again and again but

I couldn’t find the correct answer.” For example, “which of the following is

implied by the note?”, followed by 4 answer choices which are not mentioneddirectly in the text but their synonyms or their antonyms or restated sentencesoften made her dead tired

3.1.4 The students’ performance in class

The students are often absent from the class 53.33%

The students feel bored and refuse to read 46.67%

The students can not concentrate while practicing reading 26.67%

The students use their phones to search for new words in

reading texts

46.67%

Table 3: Teachers’ difficulties with the students’ performance in class

Concerning the students’ performance in the class, over 53% teachers complainedabout the students’ in-the-class participation The explanations from theinterviewed teachers could bring a much more realistic picture of the issuestudied 100% TOEIC A and TOEIC B teachers insisted that at the beginning, theclass was crowed with the eager students The number of the TOEIC learnersgradually decreased T8 announced that “students in EQuest were very rich, eachlesson cost about 100 000 VND but some students was absent from class for a half

or one-third learning time.” T1 further informed that many students were notinterested in reading comprehension, if the class was unoccupied with several

students; even hard-working students could not concentrate on the lesson

Two other enormous challenges hindering the EQuest teacher in training camefrom the students’ less interest in reading which led to their refusal to read and thestudents’ use of mobile phones to search new words instead of focusing onpracticing fast reading and predicting new words in the contexts About 47% theteacher encountered these two issues This was easy to understand because beforelearning TOEIC A, some students had been trained in the Foundational AcademicCourses which aimed at communicative skills such as speaking, listening, readingand writing In such class, the students used to get accustomed to relaxingatmosphere with many funny activities and games designed for remembering

communicative new words Therefore, when they moved to the class orienting tothe standardized academic exams, they seemed to feel bored because in TOEICreading class, almost time was needed for learning vocabulary and tips, there wereseldom communicative activities The learning atmosphere appeared silent andquite Additionally, although the learners are usually advised not to use thedictionary function in their phones when learning reading comprehension, asurprisingly high number of TOEIC students still depended on their mobilephones very much As stated by T3, “students in EQuest are very wealthy Theyown very expensive phones They mainly make use of their phones to get in touchwith their friends on facebook and look up new words in class at the same time.”T3 highly recommended that his students should put them in their bags or turn offthe dictionary but they appeared to ignore his positive recommendations when hetaught his students some powerful techniques to guess new words in a specifictext The thing should be noted here was that using mobile phones more often thanexpected among the students lessened the effects of reading strategies shared orintroduced to apply by TOEIC teachers

It was remarkable that because the students had rarely been into practice for longhours (2 sustainable hours) before, as one-fourth teachers in the survey noticed,their students did not tend to give enough attention to reading passage as theteachers expected T6 asserted that TOEIC A reading comprehension’s homeworkwas very long If the students didn’t finish their homework before coming to theclass, his lesson seemed to be “burned” After giving his students about 20minutes doing their homework of 100 questions in the class and checking, hisstudents might be in nine clouds and was probably very hard to pay muchattention to the main lessons

3.1.5 Difficulties with the teachers’ lecture

The teachers’ lecture is not interesting and efficient 26.67%

The teachers use the same teaching method in every reading

lesson

23.33%

The teachers’ explanation is not sufficient and clear enough 20%

The teachers do not give Vietnamese equivalent for

long and difficult words

10 %

The teachers do not correct reading tasks carefully 6.67%

Table 4: Students’ difficulties with the teachers’ lecture

The above figure showed that the first three choices were the common hindrancesencountered by the small number of the students 26.67% learners found theirteachers’ lecture boring and ineffective Additionally, the unchanged teachingmethods were the second biggest trouble to the students About more than 23%students acknowledged lack of appeal to the lecturers A student from TOEIC Bclass informed that “my teacher always starts the lesson with checking homework,giving some brief tips for reading comprehension and asking students to do a

variety of reading texts and checking.” She suggested that her teacher could make

the class more appealing by adding some other activities rather than just do andcheck T7 recommended that the TOEIC teachers should change the teachingmethods towards TOEIC preparation course Instead of following “grammar-translation” approach, sometimes they could use communicative activities,teaching reading might be combined with teaching writing and speaking A tellingexample was when introducing to the students about advertisements of jobvacancy; some teachers were able to let the learners become the recruiters whodecided how many positions were vacant and gave the requirement of advertisedjobs along with supplying the applicants with the contact address The studentsthemselves might draft some sentences basing on the a few suggestions made by

the teachers such as the field of business, the name of the output product andarranged them into the correct order of advertisement of recruiting

In comparison with the previous study by Vu Thi Thu Ha (2010), this study’sfindings were consistent with her study at Ke Sat High School regarding theteachers’ Vietnamese explanation and reading task’s careful correction 78%English teachers in Vu’s research (p.22) provided their students with Vietnameseequivalents for long and difficult words Similarly, 90% Equest TOEIC teacherswere highly assessed for providing the Vietnamese equivalent explanations for thecomplicated new words Astonishingly, both 87% English teachers in both Equestand Ke Sat high school (Vu, 2010, p.22) were strongly praised for correcting thereading tasks carefully A valid conclusion may be drawn out that the difficultieswith the TOEIC trainers hardly originated from their correction techniques

3.2 Research question 2:

What are the strategies proposed by teachers and students at Equest Academy towards teaching and learning to prepare for the TOEIC reading comprehension test?

3.2.1 Types of reading texts often exploited

Types of reading texts Teachers’ responses Students’s responses

According to the data from the teacher questionnaire, advertisement was often

introduced by the majority of TOEIC teachers to their students because in theirbelief, advertisement was the most prominent form of reading text in the TOEICpreparation course in EQuest The first interviewed teacher (T1) affirmed that theTOEIC reading preparation course in Equest consisted of four units for readingcomprehension (from unit 9 to 12) Students in both TOEIC A and B class were

all trained to read advertisements during the lesson of unit 9 She went on to explain that the purpose of teaching unit 9 was “to help students experience all

kinds of advertisements and improve reading speed towards short advertisement.”

Secondly, predictably, the report, letter and article, as shared by more than 70%

teachers, stand the second rank of the popularity in teaching content Three other

well-know types of reading text introduced to the students consisted of form, notice and memorandum Noticeably, manual was ranked the least This could be

understandable when the researcher interviewed the third teacher (T3), he hadn’t

taught any “manual” reading text to his students during eighteen months of

teaching TOEIC “I haven’t found any reading text relating to manual in TOEICreading textbook Thus, I have never spent any certain time on training mystudents with manual” The fifth teacher in the interview (T5) who had gained 960points in the TOEIC test assumed that “I sat for the real test in IIG Vietnam for 2times, but I didn’t see any reading passages about manual or reading texts on

instructing step by step how to use something” The two teachers’ responses

seemed contrary to Wilson (2010, cited in Kamijo, n.d., 173) because he wasdetermined that reading comprehension requires test-takers to read a variety of

texts which are constituted from “manuals, reports, forms, notices, advertisements, periodicals, memorandum, letters, news and magazine articles” (p.173) It could be inferred that manual was seldom exploited by TOEIC teachers

in EQuest because of being less popular than other kinds of reading passagesalthough it was still a form of reading text as asserted in the study of Wilson(2010)

In regard to the student questionnaire’s findings, letter was seen as the most

frequently-practiced types of reading text among third-fifths students in the study.This was able to be clearly explained by students at Hanoi University ofCommerce who attended TOEIC A course in EQuest:

“In my school [Hanoi University of Commerce], format and some kinds of letterssuch as thanks-giving letter, refusal letter or asking for information letter werecategorized and carefully taught to the second year student As a result, I got quitefamiliar with these kinds of letters in TOEIC reading comprehension.”

Like teachers’ responses, many students also spent much time on advertisement.This might be because in daily lives students could see advertisements anywhere,

in the notice board at school, in the newspaper or magazines or even from leafletshanded out by the strangers when they walked across zebra crossing or stopped at

the traffic lights Manual and memorandum was perceived by the student

respondents as the two least prominent forms of reading passage (respectively13.33% and 10%)

3.2.2 Strategies before TOEIC reading comprehension lessons

Figure 4: Teachers and students’ strategies before

TOEIC reading comprehension lessons