Adapting reading tasks of ESP materials for the third-year students at Haiphong Medical University = Điều chỉnh những nhiệm vụ đọc hiểu theo tài liệu tiếng Anh 20150227

Hence, skills in reading English texts are naturally of special importance in teaching and learning ESP, which is not an exception for the ESP teaching at HPMU.. However, there have not

I.2.3 Techniques of material adaptation for teaching reading 10

I.3.1 Definition of reading and reading comprehension 13

textbook 24 II.4.1.3 Needed topics perceived by the students 26 II.4.1.4 Students‟ attitudes towards pre-reading activities 26 II.4.1.4.1 The frequency of using extra pre-reading activities

designed by the teachers (responded by the students) 26 II.4.1.4.2 Students‟ attitudes towards given pre-reading activities 27 II.4.1.5 The post-reading activities used by the teachers 28 II.4.1.6 The necessity of adapting the reading tasks in the ESP materials 29 II.4.1.7 The students‟ and teachers‟ difficulties in learning and teaching

II.4.1.8 The students‟ expectations from the teachers and reading

activities employed by the teachers to help their students

Chapter III some suggested techniques of adapting reading

tasks for the third-year students at hai phong

References

Appendices

Abbreviations

List of tables and charts

Chart 1 Evaluation of the effectiveness of reading tasks in the ESP materials

Chart 2 The frequency of using extra pre-reading activities designed by the teachers

Chart 3 The necessity of adapting the reading tasks in the ESP materials

Table 1 The attitudes and evaluation of the reading texts in the current textbook

Table 2 Needed topics perceived by the students

Table 3 Students‟ attitude towards given pre-reading activities

Table 4 The post-reading activities used by the teachers

Table 5 Students and teachers difficulties in learning and teaching medical reading

(respectively)

Table 6 The students‟ expectations from their teachers and reading activities employed by the teachers to help their students overcome difficulties

Part I Introduction

I Rationale

Nowadays English has gained its great popularity all over the world, and this is not an exception in Vietnam Our country has now been in the process of regional and global integration, which has brought about a great many arrivals of foreign visitors, especially since the implementation of the open-door policy This makes English the commonest language of communication which is widely used in all aspects of life Thus, the demands for using English as a means of communication make the English teaching and learning more and more necessary This is realized by the teaching of this language at almost all universities in Vietnam, and unexceptionally at Haiphong Medical University (HPMU)

To meet the increasing needs for using English as a means of international communication, English has been made a compulsory subject in the curriculum of HPMU It is taught with the purpose that the students will use it effectively to fulfill their daily work in the future, so it receives great deal concern of both teachers and students here Non-stop attempts have been made to provide the students with general English as well as English for Specific Purposes (ESP)

ESP is now established chiefly in the universities and the teaching of adults outside the state school system The main objective of ESP course is aimed at providing the students with linguistic knowledge relevant to their field and skills up to their expectation of their future employment However, students learning ESP in Vietnam rarely have opportunities to use English in communication outside the classroom They mainly have access to popular documents written in English through reading Hence, skills in reading English texts are naturally of special importance in teaching and learning ESP, which is not an exception for the ESP teaching at HPMU HPMU is one of those where ESP involves within an English teaching situation in response to the demand for specific language skills for the specialists – the graduated doctors Therefore, improving students‟ reading skills is recognized as a principal objective of ESP course provided by teachers of English at HPMU

Besides, the ESP at HPMU mainly focuses on reading skills and has now been one of the most stimulating but challenging subject It is stimulating because, in comparison to general English, it is more relevant course of the students‟ major concern However, challenges appear due to the fact that the „literary‟ teachers are constantly facing the „content burden‟ problem, students are still immature in terms of both assumed knowledge and the English language

Moreover, the material English in Medicine for the third-year students at HPMU is an edited

collection from various sources and is designed with nearly all exercises relating to the texts It

is lack of realistic and interesting tasks to meet the needs and expectations of the students Consequently, adapting ESP reading tasks has become vital for teachers

In fact, there have been some researches about material adaptation by I an McGrath (2002)

or Tomlinson (1998), etc However, there have not been any studies dealing with reading task adaptation, especially for teaching and learning English in a medical university like HPMU Nevertheless, it can not be denied that adapting material is a broad field to cover In the limit of a minor thesis, I just wish to find out the evaluation and attitudes of the teachers and the students in the university about the ESP reading materials This then would be taken as the basic for my recommendation of the appropriate techniques for adapting ESP reading tasks to make the lessons more effective and interesting

With all the above mentioned reasons, „Adapting reading tasks of ESP materials for the third year students at HPMU‟ is chosen for the thesis and it also has been an urgent work for the development of ESP teaching and learning at HPMU

II Aims of the study

This thesis has been carried out to:

 Investigate into the evaluation and attitudes of the third-year students and teachers

at HPMU towards the current ESP reading tasks used in here for the third-year students

 Find out techniques of adapting ESP reading tasks in order to make ESP reading lessons more effective, interesting and motivating to students

In brief, these objectives are summarized into the following research questions:

 What are the HPMU teachers and third-year students‟ evaluation and attitudes towards the current ESP reading tasks used by them?

 What techniques of adapting materials should be used for teaching ESP reading to the third-year students at HPMU?

III Methods of the study

Both qualitative and quantitative methods are employed in this study

The quantitative method, which is used to collect data by questionnaires, aims at exploring the needs of the students, their expectations and opinions about the ESP reading tasks The questionnaires are administered to the third-year student population studying ESP as well as the teachers of ESP at HPMU The tackling methods are statistic, analytical and synthetical Also the qualitative method is used in the sense that relevant issues concerning reading and reading comprehension, ESP materials, and adapting materials etc are gathered, critical re-examined, analyzed and synthesized in order to establish the senses in which terms or concepts in the field are employed Consulting the supervisor, observing classes and collecting information for the study through the discussion with colleagues, students of HPMU are also involved

IV Scope of the study

The ESP course is only for the third-year students at HPMU, so the study is only concerned with the adaptation of ESP reading tasks to the third year students at HPMU

V Design of the study

The study is comprised of three parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion

 Part I is the introduction which presents the rationale, the aims, the scope, the research methods and the design of the study

 Part II is the development, consisting of three chapters:

o Chapter 1 explores the literature for the thesis, relating to ESP, material adaptation and reading theories

o Chapter 2 deals with subjects, research methodology, instruments, detail description of data analysis and a brief discussion of the findings

o Chapter 3 is devoted to some recommendations on ways of adapting ESP reading tasks suggested in the form of giving samples

 Part III is the conclusion which offers a summary of the study, limitations and suggestions for further study

Part II Development

Chapter I Literature review I.1 An overview of ESP

I.1.1 Definition of ESP

ESP which stands for “English for Specific Purposes” has developed rapidly to become a separate activity in English Language Teaching (ELT) It has sometimes moved away from the mainstream of ELT, when the research on ESP was beyond applied linguistics to include various disciplines There have been a lot of attempts to define ESP

Hutchinson and Waters (1987:19) define ESP as “an approach to language teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based on the learners’ reason for learning” They see ESP as an approach rather than a product, by which they mean that ESP does not

purely involves a particular kind of language, teaching materials or methodology They propose that teaching ESP does not mean teaching a „special variety‟ of English which is separate from the common language use There are not such things as matters of science words and grammar for scientist or a different kind from any other form of language teaching, but it

is an approach to language learning, which is based on the learners‟ needs

Robinson (1991) also accepts the primacy of needs analysis in defining ESP Her definition is based on two key defining criteria and a number of characteristics that are

generally found to be true of ESP Her first criterion is that “ESP is normally goal directed”

(Robinson, 1991:2) Here, she claims that a lot of students study English not because they are interested in English language or English – language culture, but because they need English

for their job or study proposes The second criterion is that “an ESP course is based on a needs analysis, which aims to specify as closely as possible what exactly it is that students have to do through the medium of English” (Robinson, 1991:3) The characteristics that she

gives are that time period should be specified clearly for an ESP course, in which their objectives have to be achieved; and the ESP courses should be taught to adults in

homogeneous classes with the learning content related to the students‟ work or specialist studies

Streven (cited in Tickoo, 1988:1) states “ESP is a particular case of the general category

of special-purpose language teaching”

Dudley-Evans and Jo St John (1998) believe that “a definition of ESP should reflect the fact that much ESP teaching, especially where it is specifically linked to a particular profession or discipline, makes use of a methodology that differs from that used in General Purpose English teaching” In ESP the teachers are more of „language consultants, enjoying

equal status with the learners who have their own expertise in the subject matter In the class the interaction between the teacher and learners may be very different from that in a general English class

According to the above-mentioned authors, ESP is one important branch of the English as

a Foreign language/ Second language system that functions as the main branch of ELT ESP concentrates more on language in context than on teaching grammar and language structures

As a matter of fact, ESP combines subject matter and ELT

I.1.2 Types of ESP

There are many types of ESP which are classified in different ways Traditionally, ESP has been divided into two main areas: English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) and English for Academic Purposes (EAP)

Kennedy and Bolitho (1984: 4) explain the two areas quite early: “EOP is taught in a situation in which learners need to use English as part of their work or profession Instances

of EOP students would be doctors in casualty or technicians servicing equipment They need English, in the first case, to talk and respond to patients and other staff, and, in the second, to read technical manuals.” And, “EAP is taught generally within educational institutions to students needing English in their studies The language taught may be based in particular disciplines at higher levels of education when the student is specializing (in-study) or intends

to specialize (pre-study) in a particular subject”

Robinson (1991: 3) shares the same view of dividing ESP into EOP and EAP by giving the following tree diagram:

of in-service or in-study will be provide the opportunity for specific or integrated work

According to David Carter (1983), he identifies such three types of ESP as English as a restricted language, English for Academic and Occupational Purposes/ English with specific topics

In the “Tree of ELT” (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987), ESP is broken down into three branches, namely English for Science and Technology (EST), English for Business and Economics (EBE), and English for Social Studies (ESS) Each of these subject areas is further divided into two branches: English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 16) do not note that there is not

a clear-cut distinction between EAP and EOP because “people can work and study simultaneously; it is also likely that in many cases the language learnt for immediate use in a study environment will be used later when the student takes up, or returns to a job”

In short, studying various types of ESP is an important step for ESP teachers because it provides them with an overall picture of the group of learners they are going to work with

Accordingly, it is helpful for ESP teachers to choose teaching materials as well as to design or adapt an appropriate ESP course for their target students

I.1.3 Characteristics of ESP

According to Dudley-Evans and Jo St John (1998), there are three absolute characteristics and four variable characteristics

Absolute characteristics:

- ESP is designed to meet specific needs of learners;

- ESP makes use of the underlying methodology and activities of the disciplines it serves;

- ESP is centered on the language (grammar, lexis, and register), skills, discourse and genres appropriate to these activities

Variable characteristics:

- 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 tertiary level institution or in a professional work situation IT could, however, be used for learners at secondary school levels;

- ESP is generally designed for intermediate or advanced students Most ESP courses assume basic knowledge of the language system, but it can be used with beginners The division of ESP into absolute and variable characteristics is very helpful in defining what is and is not ESP We can see that ESP can but is not necessarily concerned with a specific discipline, nor does it have to be aimed at a certain age group or ability range ESP should be seen simple as an 'approach' to teaching, or what Dudley-Evans describes as an 'attitude of mind'

I.2 Material adaptation

I.2.1 Definition of material adaptation

Many teachers of English as a foreign language have recognized the importance of adaptation In reality, a textbook can never totally be an effective tool for teachers to follow without any adaptation because of its intrinsic deficiencies such as linguistic inaccuracies, out-of-datedness, lack of authenticity or lack of variety Adaptation is to compensate for those deficiencies There are numbers of definitions of adaptation given by different scholars

In their book “Materials and Methods in ELT” (1993), McDonough and Shaw devote a

chapter to the issue of adaptation materials They quote Madsen and Bowen‟s definition

(1978: ix) claim that “every teacher is in a very real sense an adapter of the material he uses, employing “one or more a number of techniques: supplementing, editing, expanding, personalizing, simplifying, modernizing, localizing, or modifying, or modifying cultural/ situational content”

Similarly, from Tomlinson‟s point of view (1998: xi), adaptation is referred to “reducing, adding, omitting, modifying and supplementing” He supposes that most teachers adapt

materials every time they use a textbook in order to maximize the value of the book for their particular learners

More or less, most of the scholars‟ viewpoints, which I base my thesis on, agree on some kind of change and addition when mentioning “adaptation”

I.2.2 Purposes of material adaptation

Cunningsworth (cited in Ian McGrath, 2002) gives out the two most frequently cited purposes for adaptation as follows:

- to make the materials more suitable for the circumstances in which it is being used, i.e

to mould it to the needs and interest of learners, the teacher‟ s own capabilities and such constrain as time, or as McDonough and Shaw (1993: 85) put it “to maximize the appropriacy of teaching materials in context, by changing some of the internal characteristics of course book to a better suit our particular circumstances”

- to compensate for any intrinsic deficiencies in the material, such as linguistic in accuracies, out-of-datedness, lack of authenticity (Madsen and Bowen, 1978) or lack of variety (Tice, 1991)

We could take McDonough and Shaw‟s definition of purpose a little further Maximizing the appropriacy of teaching materials is modifying them in such a way they seem more relevant to learners‟ interests and needs and this is important to all teachers of English because

it can activate learners and stimulate their motivation, and increased motivation, in turn, is likely to create a more conductive classroom atmosphere In point of fact, when we make changes to a course book “to better suit our particular purposes”, what we really trying to do is

to improve the effectiveness of the learning experience

I.2.3 Techniques of adapting materials for teaching reading

I.2.3.1 Adaptation as addition

Adaptation does not always require a great deal of extra work of teachers As stated by Madsen and Bowen (1978) and McDonough and Shaw (1993), the most natural form of

adaptation is extemporization, that is, a spontaneous response on the part of the teacher to a

problem or an opportunity This might take such forms as the substitution in a course book example of the familiar for the unfamiliar; the paraphrase of a course book instruction that is unclear or reference to previously taught items when teaching new items

Another form of adaptation as addition is exploitation which is “the creative use of what is

already there (e.g text, visual, activity) to serve a purpose which is additional to that foreseen

by the textbook writer” For example, a text accompanied by a photograph may intend to develop comprehension skills and linguistic resources but a teacher might use it for some additional purposes The picture might be used to predict the content or brainstorm related vocabulary; the topic and language of the text might provide the basis for discussion of students‟ own experiences

The third form of addition, extension, refers to the provision by the teachers of additional

materials in order to improve understanding or learning such as further examples of a rule or

further items in an exercise When extending an activity, the teacher supplies more of the same types of materials, thus makes a quantitative change in the materials

Another form of adaptation which is quite common among teachers is supplementation

According to Ian McGrath (2002: 80), “supplementation, which means no more than “adding something new”, stems primarily from the recognition of a deficit: it is an attempt to bridge the gap between a course book and an official syllabus (or statement of aims), or a course book and the demands of a public examination, or a course book and students‟ needs”

We can supplement a course book in one of two ways:

- By utilizing items, such as exercises, texts or activities, from another published source:

a course book, a supplementary skills book, a book of practice exercises or a teacher‟s resource book;

- By devising our own materials; this may include the exploitation of authentic visual or textual items

The main difference between extension and supplementation is that extension means

“more of the same” If the course books contains only one short exercise to practice a grammar point which your students find particularly difficult and you devise more items of the same type as the original exercise, this is extension If you give them another exercise from another source or make up another exercise yourself, this is supplementation The distinction

is not just terminological; when we extend an exercise we can be fairly sure that we are staying true to the design of the original material and will be contributing to the goals that underpin this materials; when we supplement, especially when we design our own materials,

we have to be very vigilant unless we introduce a new learning objective

I.2.3.2 Adaptation as change

When teachers of ELT consider adaptation, they should be concerned about some issues Cunningsworth (1984: 66) suggests three questions that might be asked when one considering adaptation:

- What does the exercise actually get the learners to do?

- What do I want the learners to do?

- How can I get the exercise to do what I want it to do for the learners?

To these, we should perhaps add a fourth and logically prior question:

- What is the objective of the activity?

This last question calls for a description of the linguistic intention behind an activity or exercise, for example, to provide practice in the use of past tense questions or to provide practice in eliciting information about someone‟s past

Cunningsworth‟s first question, on the other hand, is oriented towards effects and is implicitly, at least evaluative It is the recognition that there is a gap between the two, that an activity/ exercise does not do what was intended to be done or does not do it as effectively or

as efficiently or as interestingly as it might, that follows us to justify adaptation

One of the reasons given above for adaptation was to maintain learner interest by varying what might otherwise be a rather repetitive diet The problem of “the textbook straitjacket” and some flexible responses to this are described by Tice (1991: 23, cited in Ian McGrath,

2002): “Many course books adopt a very similar format for each unit and include rather limited ranges of exercise types For example, new language is always presented through a dialogue, comprehension tested through “wh” questions, grammar practiced through gap fills, vary the means of testing comprehension by introducing prediction tasks, nonlinguistic tasks (such as ordering or selecting pictures) or note taking You can also set up role-plays and sketches based on the reading and listening texts Grammar exercises can be adapted, for example, supply the answers to an exercise to half of the class, and let them work with a partner who doesn’t have the answers Or supply the answers to an exercise, some wrong and then do sentence auction (in groups, learners bid for correct sentences)”

According to McDonough and Shaw, there are two processes involved in adaptation: the evaluation of materials against contextual criteria and the tailoring of the materials to suit these criteria What teachers of ELT have to pay much attention to is the focuses, and the forms of this kind of change including “(1) language – the language of explanations, examples, texts, exercises and the language that students are expected to produce; (2) the contexts and content to which the language relates; and (3) procedures and classroom management – who does what with whom and how this is organized”

McDonough and Shaw also suggest the fourth kind of change – restructuring which might

be an attempt to make the order more logical Examples of this would include re-sequencing activities such as cutting up a text and asking students to put it together again, presenting a picture story in jumbled order or creating a group work task in which each learner must describe their picture so that the group can determine the original sequence

o Reduction: where the teacher shortens an activity to give it less weight or emphasis

o Extension: where an activity is lengthened on order to give an additional dimension (For example, a vocabulary activity is extended to draw attention to some syntactic patterning)

o Rewriting/modification: teachers may occasionally decide to rewrite material, especially exercise material, to make it more appropriate, more communicative, more demanding, more accessible to their students

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

o Re-ordering: Teachers may decide that the order in which the materials are presented is not suitable for their students They can then decide to plot different course through the materials from the one writer has laid down

I.3 An overview of reading

I.3.1 Definition of reading

Reading is completely individual activity which takes place in all different ways from newspapers, magazines, written texts, telephone directory, labels on medicine bottles, notices,

etc Attempts have been made to give a definition of what reading is However, the act of reading is not completely understood nor easily described

According to Goodman (1971: 135), reading is “a psycholinguistic process by which the reader, a language users, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded

by a writer as a graphic display”, and the act of reconstruction is viewed as “a cyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing and confirming.”

Rummelhart (1977) defines “reading involves the reader, the text, and the interaction between the reader and the text” It means the role of learners and reading texts are placed an

important position in reading act

Harmer (1989: 190) seems to be interested in the notion of reading He says “reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain The eyes receive message and the brain then has to work out the significance of the message.”

Rubin and Thompson (1994: 91) offer another definition of reading: “reading is active information – seeking process in which readers relate information in the text to what they already know” From this point of view, the reader‟s knowledge of the language and

knowledge of the world is of importance to their reading success

Though definitions of reading are numerous, none can certainly capture all the ideas and features of what reading is However, what they all share is that they try to find out the nature

of reading, and reading act, in which the readers, reading process, and reading message are emphasized

I.3.2 Classification of reading

In reading the objective of the reader is not always to understand everything which is written down Therefore, reading is divided into various types according to the manners and purposes

I.3.2.1 According to manner

I.3.2.1.1 Reading aloud

“Reading aloud involves looking at the text, understanding it and also saying it.” (Doff,

1988: 70) Though reading aloud is considered a way to convey necessary information to the others, it is unpopular activity outside classroom For the teachers, reading aloud is more of a speaking exercise of pronunciation Nuttal (1996) sees reading aloud as an important aid for beginners to improve their pronunciation However, Greenwood (1985) criticizes this idea He fears that students may be unable to focus adequately on the text‟s meaning when they concentrate too hard on pronouncing the words

As for Doff (1988: 58), reading aloud is not a very useful technique for some reasons:

- Only one student is active at a time, the others are either not listening at all or listening

to a bad model

- Students‟ attention is focused on pronunciation, not on understanding the text

- It is an unnatural activity, most people do not read aloud in real life

- Because students usually read slowly, it takes up a lot of time in class

By whispering the words while reading, reading aloud slows the reader down and forces him to read every word so it can distract him from understanding the text

I.3.2.1.2 Silent reading

Unlike reading aloud, silent reading is more often used in both real life and classroom, and

“it is the method we normally use with our native language, and on the whole the quickest and most efficient” (Lewis, 1985: 110) With silent reading we can best understand the reading

materials in the shortest possible time because we do not need to read all the words in the text,

we can read at our own speed and if we do not understand what we are reading, we can read again or slow down for intensive reading For the teachers, silent reading is helpful for controlling the class In silent reading, students are in fact concentrating on the text, obtaining the meaning and extracting what they need

In short, silent reading is the most useful and practical way to develop the students‟ reading ability However, it is more beneficial when the teacher sometimes combines it with

reading aloud to improve students‟ pronunciation and intonation because reading aloud also has its own advantages

I.3.2.2 According to purposes

I.3.2.2.1 Skimming

When skimming, we go through the reading material quickly in order to get the gist of it,

to know how it is organized, or to get an idea of the tone or the intension of the writer Nuttal

(1982: 36) says “by skimming, we mean glancing rapidly through the text to determine whether a research paper is relevant to our own work or in order to keep ourselves superficially informed about materials that are not of great importance to us.” As for Grellet (1981: 19) “we get its main points or the intention of the writer, but not to find the answer to specific questions” Clearly, the reader skims in order to satisfy a very generous curiosity

about the text This type of reading does not aim at learners at the beginner level but it is more suitable for gifted students of English It helps them to organize their thought and specify what information they can get from reading material; therefore, their subsequent reading is more efficient

I.3.2.2.2 Scanning

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

of information or to see if the text is suitable for a specific reading purpose According to

Grallet (1981: 19), “when scanning, we only try to locate specific information and often we do not even follow the linearity of the passage to do so” Like skimming, scanning is a useful

reading skill that may at first strange to a learner who is used to reading everything in a foreign language with the same degree of attention It can be appropriately applied in teaching and learning reading as it can be very useful as a study technique

I.3.2.2.3 Intensive reading

Nuttal (1982: 36) defines: “Intensive reading involves approaching the text under the guidance of a teacher or a task which forces the student to focus on the text” Grellet (1981: 4)

states that “Intensive reading means reading short text to extract specific information This is

an accuracy activity involving reading for detailed” The objective of intensive reading is to achieve a full understanding of the text not only of what it means but also of how the meaning

is produced Through intensive reading, the reader must arrive at a profound and detailed understanding of logical arguments, the rhetorical arrangement, the pattern of the text, the attitude and purposes of the writer and his linguistic means to achieve his purposes In other words, intensive reading is reading for accuracy which is essential to the students‟ comprehension

I.3.2.2.4 Extensive reading

Grellet (1981: 4) points out that “Extensive reading means reading long texts, usually for one’s pleasure This is a fluency activity, mainly involving global understanding” The

purpose of extensive reading is to train students to read directly and fluently in a foreign language for his own enjoyment, without the aid of the teacher to achieve a general sense of the text, skimming for the gist and scanning for some key details Extensive reading is a relatively rapid and efficient process of reading a text for global or general meaning

In short, there are different types of reading and they are determined not by the texts but by the reader‟s reasons for reading However, effective readers do not use these styles isolatedly, they must know how to use suitable style to achieve their reading purpose

I.4 Concluding remarks

In summary, the chapter has so far discussed the issues and aspects concerning the topic of the study An over view of ESP, material adaptation and reading skill have presented Basing

on this review, the research is carried out on adapting reading tasks of ESP materials for the third-year students at HPMU

Chapter II The study

In the preceding chapter, the literature on the research topic was briefly reviewed for the theoretical basis of the whole study Turning to the practical side, this chapter deals with the current situation of teaching and learning ESP reading at the Foreign Language Department - Haiphong Medical University as well as the setting of the study The subject, instruments and data analysis are also discussed in this chapter

II.1 Situational analysis

II.1.1 ESP teaching and learning situation at HPMU

The setting of the study is Haiphong Medical University (HPMU) where the students learn English for two years and a half (20 credits in total) After two years of studying general English (with the course books: Headway Elementary and Pre-intermediate (published by Oxford University Press in 1993), they learn Medical English (05 credits) in the last semester

By the time, they have just finished some basic subjects such as maths, biology, epidemiology… so they have not got much background knowledge of the field They are therefore at a disadvantage of struggling to learn both the language and the content at the time During this course of medical English, the students have only one class per week (3 periods)

in large classes (about 50 students a class) The material is English in Medicine which will be

described in the following section At the end of the course, they have a 90-minute written test However, their test results are quite low (about 30 percent of the students fail and the majority of the rest get mark 5-6) although all the test questions are taken from the course book

II.1.2 The material description

The teaching material currently used for the third year students is “English in Medicine”

It is a 52-page-long “in-house” material which was collected and edited by the teachers of English Department It consists of two parts: Part 1 contains 10 units of different topics excerpted from “English for medical student” written by Trịnh Thị Thuý Lan, Hồ Liên Biện, Phạm Gia Khải, Nguyễn Văn Trường (published in 1990); Part 2 includes 10 reading texts

which were taken from different sources, mostly from “English in Medicine” (by Eric H Glendinning, Beverly A Holmstrom, 1987) In this part, the teachers designed exercises themselves, often in the form of gap filling or answering questions Though the material was excerpted from these books, there is not any information from the authors or publisher‟s credentials on the cover or at References

Besides, English in Medicine does not contain an accessories package or supplementary

materials including items such as classroom tape cassettes or CD‟s, a student‟s workbook or a teacher‟s manual Although the answers to the exercises are shown in the original books, they are not filed to be a teacher‟s book This might be somewhat problematic for certain students who wish to use the book for independent and/or additional study It might also hamper the execution of lesson preparation by some teachers who do not have access to those books Moreover, even when teachers possess those books, they just give answer keys to the exercises

in the material (some of them are even incorrect or suggest only one possible answer), they do not help teachers understand the objectives and methodology of the texts Also, the original manual does not provide teachers with additional exercises, tests, and reviews There are merely two review units in the book This means that students have few opportunities to review by themselves and teachers must spend a lot of time preparing reviews and tests Although the objectives are not written in the material, the units aim to provide students with a variety of grammatical structures and vocabulary to lead to a general introduction to medical terms such as names, structures, location, functions and properties of the organs in human body; and a number of diseases, their causes, indications and treatment…

The methodology of the material is not laid out either However, the fact that the material presents the exercises basing on different topics suggests the theme-based method

II.1.3 The course objectives

The main objectives of the course are set out by the English Department of HPMU as follows:

At the end of the course, the students should be able to:

 name the organs in human body

 describe these organs in terms of structures, location, functions and properties

 describe a number of diseases, their causes, indications and treatment

 give and follow instructions

 acquire reading skills to read easy medical documents

 understand diagrams and common medical abbreviations

 define the medical terms and abbreviations presented by memory

II.2 Research methodology

II.2.1 Subjects of the study

The process of data collection involved the participation of both teachers of English and the third year students as follows:

II.2.1.1 The teachers

At Foreign Language Department of Haiphong Medical University, there are totally 12 teachers: 8 teachers of English including the researcher and 4 teachers of French Among 8 English teachers (7 females and only 1 male) participating in the survey, 3 of them are over 50 years old and also the people who designed the material The others aged from 26 to 29 who help in editing and printing the material at the beginning of every course All these teachers have taught the third-year students with the material They are enthusiastic with their career and have at least 1 year experienced in teaching ESP It is notable that they are all non-major

in health science and 6 have a master degree and 2 are attending M.A courses

II.2.1.2 The students

The second group of the subjects of this study includes 100 third year students at HPMU Most of them were born in 1989 and they are both male and female They took part in the study after having finished their ESP course in the school year 2009-2010 Among these students, 28 have been learning English for over 10 years, 47 for more than 4 years, and the others for around 3 years However, their test results of general English recorded in the four previous semesters are quite low (about 30% get mark 1 to 4.5; 45% get 5 to 7 and the rest get over 7)

II.2.2 Data collection instrument

II.2.2.1 Questionnaires

The two types of these questionnaires compose of both closed and open ended items To avoid misunderstanding for the students and ensure the accuracy of the data, the questionnaire for students was written in Vietnamese

The questionnaire for 100 students tends to find out their evaluation of Reading tasks in the ESP materials as well as their attitudes toward adapted materials given by their teachers All of 8 teachers have taught the third year students with the textbook “English in Medicine”

so they are absolutely familiar with Reading tasks presented in the book Therefore, the questionnaire for teachers aimed at seeking information about their work experience and evaluation of current Reading tasks in ESP materials used for the third year students and their desire, if any, to add more reading tasks The teachers were also asked about their choice of reading activities which they have added to the textbook

The questionnaires for teachers and students consist of 8 and 11 questions respectively to collect information focusing on the following categories:

- Evaluation of the effectiveness of Reading tasks in the ESP materials

- The attitudes and evaluation of the reading texts in the current textbook

- Needed topics perceived by the students

- Students‟ attitude towards pre-reading activities

- The post-reading activities used by the teachers

- The necessity of adapting the reading tasks in the ESP materials

- The teachers‟ and students‟ difficulties in teaching and learning medical reading materials

- The students‟ expectations from their teachers and reading activities employed by the teachers to help their students overcome difficulties

II.2.2.2 Follow- up class observation

The class observation which is used to increase the validity and reliability of the obtained information and provide more information relating to the adapted reading tasks is a

supplementary instrument along with the survey questionnaires The author has observed the classes of all the teachers of English at Foreign Language Department – Haiphong Medical University to see whether they apply their self-adapted activities or not and how effective the activities are

II.3 Procedures

Data collection was conducted via questionnaire for both the teachers and the students First, the questionnaires were developed basing on the criteria I had selected Then the student survey was administered in the last class meeting of the course The students were requested to complete the questionnaires during the class time (the last lesson of the course) so that they were more willing to do it and could clarify the ambiguous questions (if any) and, last but not least, could return all the questionnaires immediately

Differently, the teachers were requested to complete and return the questionnaires in one week to ensure that they would have enough time to give detailed and accurate information Besides that the class observation was done during the school year so that I the needed information could be collected

After finishing the survey and class observation, it was the task of the writer to work with the data There was a comparison between the results collected from teachers and students The data was categorized in this way simply for seeking the answers to the research questions established for the study The data was then analyzed both descriptively and interpretively Furthermore, the writer also synthesized and compared the data collected from the teachers with those from the students in form of tables and charts where appropriate

Data collected were categorized into:

 The teachers and the third year students‟ evaluation and attitudes towards Reading tasks in the ESP materials

 The teachers‟ current ways of exploiting and adapting materials

These findings, then were taken as the basis for the recommendation for appropriate techniques of adapting Reading tasks in the ESP materials

II.4 Data analysis

II.4.1 Questionnaires

II.4.1.1 Evaluation of the effectiveness of Reading tasks in the ESP materials

The first question in both survey questionnaires asked about the teachers‟ and students‟ viewpoints on the effectiveness of the reading tasks presented in the textbook

15 12.5

45 87.5

31

0

9 0 0

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

students teacher s

Chart 1 Evaluation of the effectiveness of Reading tasks in the ESP materials

Most of the teachers (87.5%) and quite a lot of students (45%) agree that they are rather effective The teachers think that the reading tasks in the textbook are not very effective because of some reasons First, the information in the texts is not up-dated The technical knowledge and methods in the texts are backward Second, the reading tasks are not very interesting; most do not require pair work or group work Moreover, the limitation of the students‟ language knowledge is another reason which makes the reading tasks not very effective On the part of the students, they think that the reading tasks help them develop medical terms and knowledge but the texts consist of too many new words and they do not have many chances to practice pronunciation None of the teachers and a few students (9%) find the reading tasks ineffective

II.4.1.2 The attitudes and evaluation of the reading texts in the current textbook

Questions 2 and 3 are to investigate the students‟ and teachers‟ opinions about the reading texts in general, and the level of language difficulty, the topics and the length of the reading texts in the textbook in particular

evaluating ideas

Teachers‟

evaluating ideas (2) reading texts a very interesting

Table 1 The attitudes and evaluation of the reading texts in the current textbook

As it can seen from the table, the students‟ attitudes towards the reading texts are different from the teachers‟ 40% of the students being questioned find the reading texts in the textbook quite interesting but only 25% of the teachers agree that they are rather interesting Most of the teachers (75%) and 43% of the students think the reading texts are normal None of the

teachers and the students says that the reading texts are very interesting 17% of the students find the texts boring

It also can be seen from the table that half of the students agree that the level of language difficulty in the reading texts is difficult Over one third of the students (33%) and all the teachers hold the idea that it is moderate Nobody says they are easy The reason for the students‟ different remarks on the level of language difficulty may be that they have different English proficiency and reading strategies Therefore, their efficiency in reading is different The students who read English texts efficiently will find them moderate but the others who do not get much success in reading will find them difficult

Table 1 also indicates that half of the students and all the teachers say that the topics in

their current textbook are varied The item c (unfamiliar) and d (boring) get the shortest

percentage (8% of the students and 0% of the teachers) It can be inferred that the medical topics in the ESP materials are familiar with the students‟ background knowledge The topics belong to their speciality - medicine which they want to learn about so they are not boring at all

As for the length of the reading texts, a large number of the students (58%) and teachers (75%) suppose it is moderate But not a small number of the students (33%) consider the reading texts long while no teachers have that idea 0% of the students involved in the survey choose the option that the reading texts are short but 25% of the teachers think so There are still 9% of the students who blame the reading texts for being long with their reading competence

The figures indicate that it is acceptable to use the current textbook because only 17% of the students find the reading texts boring whereas 40% of them suppose that these texts are rather interesting A large number of the students and the entire teachers agree that the level of language difficulty is moderate and the topics are varied, not boring; and most of them say the length of the reading texts is suitable However, more attention should be paid to figuring out the reasons why half of the students who take part in the survey find the reading texts difficult Therefore, it should be first the teachers‟ work to adapt the reading tasks in order to make the reading section appropriate to the students

II.4.1.3 Needed topics perceived by the students

a The structure and functions of the parts of the body 27

Table 2 Needed topics perceived by the students

Question 4 in the questionnaire for students is to clarify the topics of the reading texts which the students want to study The study, as can be seen from this table, shows that all the topics given in the survey questionnaire are chosen by the students and no one suggests the other topics themselves It can be inferred that those are the topics concerning to their needs

most Among the items, the highest percentage of the students (59%) likes the topic “Diseases – prevention and cure” The item a (The structure and functions of the parts of the body)

receives 27% Basing on these figures, the teachers can supply the reading texts about the topics that a lot of students desire to study besides the texts in the current textbook in order to stimulate the students‟ interest for the reading section

II.4.1.4 Students’ attitude toward pre-reading activities

II.4.1.4.1 The frequency of using extra pre-reading activities designed by the teachers (responded by the students)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

usually sometimes rarely never

students

Chart 2 The frequency of using extra pre-reading activities designed by the teachers

As can be seen from the chart, 72% of the students stated that besides pre-reading tasks in the textbook, their teachers usually or sometimes design pre-reading exercises or activities to make them more interested in reading 19% admit that they are rarely given other tasks besides the ones in the book before reading And 9% say that their teachers never design some more pre-reading activities to motivate them in reading An explanation for these is that designing pre-reading activities is time consuming and challenging for some teachers

II.4.1.4.2 Students’ attitude toward given pre-reading activities

Techniques given by teachers Student‟s enjoyment Giving some pre-reading questions to think before reading 44%

Making students brainstorm words, structures or ideas related to

the topic

19%

Table 3 Students’ attitude toward given pre-reading activities

The very noticeable thing which can be realized from the table is that, pre-teaching new vocabulary in the reading text is the most popular technique or activity that the teachers often use (48%)due to the students‟ limitation of vocabulary and ability of guessing the meaning of new words from the context Pre-teaching some key words in the text is necessary to help

students get involved in the reading tasks easily Giving some pre-reading questions to think before reading, as can be seen from the table, is ranked the second in terms of popularity (44%) An explanation can be made here is that the techniques might save teachers time and energy from designing pre-reading activities 37% of the students say that they like a short discussion before reading A discussion will make the class more ebullient Making students brainstorm words, structures or ideas related to the topic is chosen by the least students (19%) May be these students are not very efficient in thinking before reading

II.4.1.5 The post-reading activities used by the teachers

Question number 8 in the survey questionnaire for students and number 5 for teachers aim

to find out the post-reading activities used by the teachers according to both the students‟ and teachers‟ opinions

b Correcting the mistakes or completing the summary 12.5% 21%

c Discussing to give opinions about the reading text 62.5% 38%

Table 4 The post-reading activities used by the teachers

Data in this table states clearly that the highest percentage of the teachers (62.5%) say that they often ask students to give opinions about the texts after reading while the highest percentage of the students (44%) think that they often summarize the texts focusing on the

main ideas The item b “Correcting the mistakes or completing the given summary” is chosen

and applied by the teachers and 21% of the students agree that their teachers use these activities 9% of the students still blame that they do nothing after reading while no teacher let their students finish the lesson after while-reading Another post-reading activity which the teachers apply into their lessons is translating the texts into Vietnamese in order to see whether the students understand the texts clearly or not