AN EVALUATION OF THE COURSEBOOK “ENGLISH FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY I” FOR SECOND–YEAR STUDENTS OF UNIVERSITY OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY UNDER THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ************************* TRẦN MINH THÀNH AN EVALUATION OF THE

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*************************

TRẦN MINH THÀNH

AN EVALUATION OF THE COURSEBOOK “ENGLISH FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY I” FOR SECOND–YEAR STUDENTS OF UNIVERSITY OF INFORMATION AND

COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY UNDER

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

(Đánh giá giáo trình “Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành Công nghệ thông tin I” dùng cho sinh viên năm thứ hai Trường Đại học Công nghệ Thông tin và

Truyền thông thuộc Đại học Thái Nguyên.)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.140.111

Hanoi, 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*************************

TRẦN MINH THÀNH

AN EVALUATION OF THE COURSEBOOK “ENGLISH FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY I” FOR SECOND–YEAR STUDENTS OF UNIVERSITY OF INFORMATION AND

COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY UNDER

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

(Đánh giá giáo trình “Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành Công nghệ thông tin I” dùng cho sinh viên năm thứ hai Trường Đại học Công nghệ Thông tin và

Truyền thông thuộc Đại học Thái Nguyên.)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.140.111

Supervisor: Prof Nguyen Hoa

Hanoi, 2014

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DECLARATION

I – Tran Minh Thanh, a candidate for the Degree of Master of Arts (TEFL) hereby state that I accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use

of Master‘s Graduation Paper deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper

Signature

Tran Minh Thanh

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My deepest gratitude goes to Professor Nguyen Hoa, my supervisor, for his valuable instructions, comments and criticisms as well as his kind encouragement during the development of this thesis

I am deeply indebted to the teachers and students at ICTU for their generous cooperation and enthusiasm from which I have benefited a lot during my study Finally, I wish to express my sincerely thanks to my wife for her understanding and supports for me throughout the preparation and development of the thesis

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ABSTRACT

The ESP coursebook ―English for Information Technology I‖ compiled by four

teachers of English of ICTU has been employed as the teaching materials for the second-year students of Faculty of Information Technology since 2009 However, up

to now, there has been no official research conducted to evaluate the relevance of the coursebook to the learners‘ needs as well as its suitability to the desired objectives of the course The purpose of this study is to reveal the findings and information about the coursebook evaluation from the perspectives of students and teachers of ICTU With this regard, the study tries to assess the relevance of the coursebook to the students‘ needs in terms of content, format and methodology Four teachers of English and 80 second-year students participated in the survey The findings show that the coursebook is rather relevant to the needs of learners

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

English for IT I English for Information Technology I

ESL/EFL English as a Second Language/ English as a Foreign Language ESP English for Specific Purposes

ICTU University of Information and Communication Technology

IT Information Technology

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS v

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Research question 2

4 Methods of the study 2

5 Scope of the study 3

6 Significance of the study 3

7 Design of the study 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Materials in language teaching and learning 5

1.1.1 Concepts of materials 5

1.1.2 Types of materials 6

1.2 English for specific purposes 8

1.3 Materials evaluation 9

1.3.1 Definition of materials evaluation 9

1.3.2 Purposes of materials evaluation 10

1.3.3 Types of materials evaluation 11

1.3.4 Methods of materials evaluation 12

1.3.5 Criteria for materials evaluation 13

1.3.6 Materials evaluation models 14

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1.4 Needs analysis 16

CHAPTER II: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 2.1 An overview of current ESP teaching and learning at ICTU 17

2.1.1 Context 17

2.1.2 The objectives of the ESP course ―English for IT I‖ 17

2.1.3 The coursebook description 18

2.2 Research methods 19

2.2.1 Research question 19

2.2.2 Participants 19

2.2.3 Data collection instruments 20

2.2.4 Data collection procedure 21

CHAPTER III: MAJOR FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 About learners 23

3.1.1 Learners‘ background of learning English 23

3.1.2 Learners‘ levels of English 23

3.1.3 Learners‘ purposes and expectations of learning the ESP course ―English for IT I‖ 24

3.1.4 Learners‘ needs of learning the ESP course ―English for IT I‖ 25

3.2 Learners‘ and teachers‘ evaluation of the coursebook ―English for IT I‖ 27

3.2.1 The evaluation of the content 27

3.2.2 The evaluation of the format 32

3.2.3 The evaluation of the methodology 34

PART C: CONCLUSION 1 Summary of the study 38

3 Some conclusions 38

3 Limitations of the study 39

4 Suggestions for further study 40

Reference 41 Appendices:

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Appendix 1: .I Appendix 2: VI Appendix 3: XI Appendix 4: XIII Appendix 5: XIX

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PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

In accordance with the innovation in education and training, English is considered an important subject taught at both schools and universities in Vietnam In universities English courses are usually divided into General English (GE) course and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course University of Information and Communication Technology (ICTU) under Thai Nguyen university is not an exception

In the curriculum for ICTU students, English courses account for 10 credits, which are distributed into two phases: General English (GE) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) General English consisting of two courses (a total of six credits) aim

to train students in four general skills of English The two courses of General English explore a variety of topics related to real life situations ESP including two courses with four credits in total is designed to teach students English language for specific purposes, such as English for Electronics and Telecommunications, English for Automation Technology and English for Information Technology The role of an ESP course is to bring to the learners what they desperately need in real life Students of Faculty of Information Technology are introduced with ESP courses in the second academic year These ESP courses are divided into two modules using two

coursebooks ―English for Information Technology I‖ and ―English for Information Technology II‖

In ICTU, coursebooks are mostly used as teaching and learning materials for both teachers and learners They not only provide a framework for teachers in obtaining the objectives of the course but also play an important role as a guide to the teacher

in conducting lessons From the perspective of learners, a coursebook truly affects their attitudes and performance on lessons throughout the course It is true that when learners like their coursebook, they like the course as well, and become active participants to the lessons Therefore, the appropriate choice of a coursebook is an issue of great concern and is paid much attention to by both administrators and lecturers of English here However, most of the textbooks in the market are written

by native speakers or other lecturers coming from other universities rather than from

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ICTU These textbooks are not fully suitable with the particular needs of students of ICTU whose the knowledge of expertise is designed by IT lecturers of ICTU In other words, the textbooks do not go together with the IT knowledge students learned Being aware of this, the administrators and lecturers of English of ICTU decided to design their own textbooks to employ in the ESP courses for students

Since the approved version of the coursebook “English for IT I” was put into use in

2009 for the second-year students, there has been no official evaluation of researchers or lecturers conducted to evaluate or review the fitness of the coursebook

to ESP learning context of ICTU In addition, some students still complain about the problems when they use the coursebook They say that they are not really interested

in some parts of the coursebook, especially writing section Besides, some lecturers still question the relevance of the coursebook to students‘ needs Thus, a study to

evaluate the coursebook “English for IT I” is urgently needed

2 Aims of the study

The study is carried out to evaluate the coursebook “English for IT I” which is used

as teaching materials for second-year students at ICTU to see how the coursebook is relevant to the learners‘ needs The findings of the study will help teachers to adjust the exploitation of the coursebook so that they can optimize the strong points and adapt or substitute weak points from other IT materials to meet the learners‘ needs Furthermore, it is expected that the results of research, to some extent, could become the reference material for those interested in the field of coursebook evaluation

3 Research question

This study aims to find out the answer to the following research question:

1 Is the coursebook “English for Information Technology I” relevant to the learners’ needs in terms of content, format and methodology?

4 Methods of the study

To conduct this study, two main instruments were used to collect data:

- Survey questionnaires - were designed for both second-year students of Faculty of

Information Technology and four involved teachers of English at ICTU

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- Semi-structured interviews - were conducted to look for both teachers and students‘

further opinions on the coursebook based on their experience in using it or to clarify any misunderstanding

5 Scope of the study

The coursebook “English for IT I” has been used as the official teaching materials

in the ESP course ―English for IT I‖ for second-year students for five years In material evaluation, there have been a number of criteria that should be taken into consideration, such as the content, the methodology, the layout, the culture bias, the authenticity, and so on It will be highly precious to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the coursebook However, within the scope of a minor thesis, the criteria for evaluation were based on Hutchinson and Waters‘s (1987) with focus on three criteria: Content, Format, and Methodology to see how the coursebook is relevant to learners‘ needs

6 Significance of the study

In the first place, this thesis will cater for the methods to evaluate materials effectively A sound theoretical background will help teachers move beyond impressionistic assessments and acquire useful, accurate, systematic, and contextual insights into the overall nature of materials

Secondly, the paper examines how far the materials used in IT classrooms provide the necessary tools in preparing learners for the language skills they need for their future occupations At the same time, it would assist the educators in identifying the particular strengths and weaknesses in the coursebook This would go a long way in ultimately assisting the teachers with making optimum use of the coursebook‘s strong points and recognizing the shortcomings of certain tasks, and entire texts The evaluation when completed will serve as the foundation for the design of a new coursebook or improve the current one that promises to be more up-to-date and motivating for the students I find it important to develop this project because our teachers of English will have the opportunities to offer students suitable materials according to their specific needs

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7 Design of the study

The study consists of three parts:

Part A: Introduction – presents the rationale, aims, scope, methodology and

significance of the study

Part B: Development – includes three chapters:

Chapter I: Literature review – provides theoretical basis for the study Firstly, some

most important notions related to teaching materials, such as concepts of materials, types of materials and ESP are discussed Secondly, this chapter reviews materials evaluation Readers are provided with concise understandings of the approaches, types, purposes, criteria, methods, and models of evaluation

Chapter II: Research methodology – describes the methods employed in this thesis

Chapter III: Major findings and discussion - is devoted to the analysis of the survey

questionnaire and interview of the coursebook evaluation carried out at ICTU in which description, data collection, and analysis are demonstrated in detail This chapter also reports main findings of the thesis to address the research questions

Part C: Conclusion – summarizes the content of the thesis with regard to the

relevance of the coursebook in terms of three evaluated aspects, and points out some limitations of the study

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents a theoretical base to develop an operational framework for the

evaluation of the coursebook “English for IT I” used for second-year students of IT

major at ICTU The first section in this chapter concerns with materials in language teaching and learning with regards to their concepts, types of materials Next, the study reviews the concepts of ESP The third one presents an overview of materials evaluation At last, the chapter will end up with theoretical discussion about needs analysis

1.1 Materials in language teaching and learning

1.1.1 Concepts of materials

Teaching materials are one of the key components in most language programmes A number of researchers have expressed their own points of view towards the definition of materials, textbook and coursebook

McGrath (2002) argued that materials in a broad sense could include ‗realia‘ (real object such as a pencil, a chair or a bag) and presentations (such as a drawing or a photograph of a person, a house or a scene) Text materials include those that have been either designed for language learning and teaching, such as textbooks, worksheets and computer software or authentic materials like off-air recordings and newspaper articles; teacher-written materials and learner-generated materials From his point of view, the term ―coursebook‖ is used to refer to a textbook on which a course is based

According to Tomlinson (1998), coursebook is a textbook which provides the core materials for a course It aims to provide as much as possible in one book and is designed so that it could be serve as the only book which the learners necessarily use during a course Such a textbook usually includes work on grammar, vocabulary, functions and the skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking

Ur (1996) has stated a less complex, but very useful definition which is easy to understand (p 18) This definition is quoted as follows:

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The term “coursebook” means, a textbook of which the teacher and each student has a copy and which is in principle to be followed systematically as the basis for a language course Therefore, from the above definition one can get that a coursebook must have at least been available in the hand of students and teachers, and used systematically in a course of study, and a course of study in this article refers to an English course of study

The term ―coursebook‘‘ is sometimes associated with text materials as it has been specifically selected and exploited for teaching purposes by the classroom teacher particularly in the local setting Therefore, within this master thesis the terms

‗textbook‘, ‗text,‘ ‗coursebook,‘ and ‗materials‘ are used interchangeably

In summary, it can be agreed that materials include anything which can be used to facilitate and promote the learning of a language They can be instructional, experiential, or exploratory, in that they can inform learners about the language, they can provide experience of the language use, they can stimulate language use or they can help learners to make discoveries about the language for themselves They are best seen as a resource in achieving aims and objectives that have already been set concerning learners' needs

1.1.2 Types of materials

So far, it can be agreed that selecting a textbook for a particular course of particular learners is a crucial issue for those involved like teachers, learners and administrators The choice of the suitable textbook frequently put those people into a dilemma They may either choose the published materials or develop their own materials Despite any choice, its ultimate goal is to provoke the learning process of the learners In this section, I discuss the two types of materials: published materials and home-made materials, their advantages and limitations

Published materials

Published materials refer to any kind of materials which is commercially offered in the market There are several advantages for basing the curriculum on a series of ESL textbooks First, the textbooks have a clearly identified set of achievement

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objectives which include what the learners are expected to be able to do and what to expect next Second, there is a consistency in the topics and genres in the four skills area (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) This allows for greater autonomy in the learning process Finally, ESL course books are the cheapest and most convenient ways of providing learning materials to each student All of these reasons make using these textbooks a very popular choice in the English learning curriculum The most obvious advantage of these materials is its availability for use

However, these published materials do have some limitations First, most textbooks contain a lot of activities where students do ―questions and answers‖ After a few lessons, many students may find the learning process boring and uninteresting The second issue that teachers should consider is student motivation Most college students expect their English courses to be something different from their high school English classes So when we give them textbooks that are similarly designed

as their past learning materials, the students may quickly lose their interest and motivation to study Finally, although most ESL textbooks are well organized with many different kinds of activities, however, they do not provide enough details in other aspects of language study

Home-made materials

Home-made materials refer to those materials developed by teachers or practitioners for their own students in their teaching context There are also arguments for and against the use of home-made materials Firstly, Block (1991) argued that an important advantage of home-made materials is contextualization Home-made materials are likely to be more specific and appropriate than published ones and to have greater face validity in terms of the language deal with and the context it is presented in Secondly, home-made materials may be more flexible In designing their own materials teachers can also make decisions about the most appropriate organizing principle or focus for the materials and activities And this can be changed over the course of the programme if necessary A further advantage of home-made materials is timeliness (Block, 1991) Teachers designing their own materials can respond to local and international events with up-to-date, relevant and high interest topics and tasks In conclusion, the advantages of home-made materials

1.2 English for Specific Purposes (ESP)

Since its emergence, much effort has been made to give an exact definition of ESP There are almost as many definitions of ESP as the number of scholars who have attempted to define it Many researchers have tried to define ESP in terms of what it

is not rather than in terms of what it really is However, the concept of ESP has been basically agreed by numerous researchers to be a kind of language learning which has its focus on all aspects of language pertaining to a particular field of human activities while taking into account the time constraint imposed by learners

According to Hutchinson and Waters (1997), ESP is one important branch of EFL/ESL (English as a Foreign/Second Language) system that functions as the main branch of English language teaching (ELT) Therefore, ESP is not a particular kind

of language or methodology, but rather an approach to language learning whereby the content and methods are based on the learner‘s particular needs to learn the language

Mackay and Mountford (1978) defined ESP as the teaching of English for clearly

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utilitarian purposes (p 2) The purposes they refer to are defined by the needs of the learners, which could be academic, occupational, or scientific These needs in turns determine the content of ESP curriculum to be taught and learned Mackay and Mountford also added that ESP as a special language that is taught in specific settings by certain participants They stated that those participants are usually adults They focused on adults because adults are usually highly conscious of the reasons to attain English proficiency in a determined field of specialization, and because adults make real use of special language in the special settings in which they work

Robinson (1980) defined ESP courses as the ones in which participants have specific goals and purposes (again, academic, occupational, and scientific) She cited Strevens (1977) to emphasize that the purposes language learners have for using language are of paramount importance She stated that those purposes must be understood as the driving force of the curriculum in a way that would help teachers and learners to not let irrelevant materials be introduced into the course She also placed the learners in the role of curriculum designers in order to make the curriculum more learner-centered Strevens also argued that ESP courses are those that are almost strictly based on the analysis of the participants‘ needs - a key and crucial element - in order to tailor the curriculum to meet its true purposes

From the above definitions, it can be seen that ESP can but is not necessarily concerned with a specific discipline (subject), nor does it have to be aimed at a certain age group or ability range or in other words ESP can be applied to any subject and any learner ESP should be seen simple as an ‗approach‘ to teaching, or what Dudley-Evans describes as an ‗attitude of mind‘ This is a similar conclusion to that made by Hutchinson et al (1987, p 19) who states, ―ESP is an approach to language teaching in which all decisions as to contents and method are based on the learner‘s reason for learning‖

1.3 Materials evaluation

1.3.1 Definition of materials evaluation

A numbers of researchers have expressed their own points of view towards the definitions of materials evaluation

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According to Dudley (1998), ―Evaluation is a whole process which begins with determining what information to gather and end with bringing about the change in the current activities or influencing future ones.‖

In his opinions, Tomlinson (1998, p 3) claims that ―this term refers to attempts to measure the value of materials‖ In many cases, this is done impressionistically and consists of attempts to predict whether or not the material will work, in the sense that the learners will be able to use them without too much difficulty and will enjoy the experience of doing so

Hutchinson and Waters (1987, p 96) point out that evaluation is matching process designed to establish the degree of match between the needs and available solutions

It refers to the attempts to measure the value of materials and is aimed at assessing the fitness

In summary, although each researcher has his/her own way of evaluation, they still come to the agreement that materials evaluation is a process of collecting data, giving judgments based on collected data, and the most importantly, evaluation must include actions

1.3.2 Purposes of materials evaluation

Materials evaluation plays an important part in the improvement of a language course as it helps to identify particular strengths and weaknesses of the materials in use After being used for the language course in a certain time, teaching materials need evaluating to see if they have worked well to meet the expectation of students Regarding the purposes of materials evaluation, Sheldon (1998) has offered several other reasons for materials evaluation He suggested that a thorough evaluation would provide for a sense of familiarity with a book‘s content that assisting educators in identifying the particular strength and weakness in textbook already in use This would help teachers make the optimum use of a book‘s strong points and recognizing the shortcoming of certain exercises, tasks, and entire text

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According to Cunningsworth (1995), through evaluation, we can assess whether the coursebook is the most appropriate for the target learners at various levels and in various teaching settings

Anderson (1992) sets out a list of purposes of materials evaluation as follow:

o To decide whether the materials have had the intended effect

o To identify what affect materials have had

o To vindicate a decision

o To justify the future course of action

o To compare approaches/methodologies

o To identify the areas for improvement in the future use

o To show the positive achievements of teachers and students

o To motivate teachers

o To allay suspicions among parents and sponsors

1.3.3 Types of materials evaluation

There are many different types of materials evaluation offered by a number of researchers According to Cunningsworth (1995, p 76) and McGrath (2002, pp 14-15), there are three types of material evaluation: pre-use, in use and post use evaluation This classification is similar to Ellis (1997) with different names: Preliminary, Formative, and Summative Evaluation respectively In spite of different terms used to refer types of materials evaluation, these terms are basically similar and discussed as containing three types

Pre-use evaluation: According to Tomlinson (2003, p 23) often takes place before

the materials are used to predict the potential values of materials for their users to select a coursebook for use with a particular class It seems that pre-use evaluation tends to be the most difficult type as there is no actual experience of using the materials

In-use evaluation: it is a kind of evaluation of suitability, involving ―matching the

course book against a specific requirement including the learner‘s objectives, the learners‘ background, the resources available, etc‖ (Cunningsworth, 1995, p 14)

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Post-use evaluation: Post-use evaluation refers to an assessment of a textbook‘s

fitness over a period of continual use According to Tomlinson (2003, p 25), evaluation of this kind can be ‗‗the most valuable as it can measure the actual effect

of the material on the users‖ Based on the data measured, evaluators can make reliable decisions about the use, adaptation or replacement of the materials However, this type of material is normally time-consuming

Generally, each type of materials has its certain strengths and weaknesses, so it is necessary for the evaluators to determine what type of materials evaluation will be the most suitable for specific context Based on the current context of University of Information and Communication Technology, I decided to choose the post-use evaluation to measure the relevance of the coursebook to the learners‘ needs

1.3.4 Methods of materials evaluation

1.3.4.1 The impressionistic method

According to Cunningsworth (1995, p 2), the impressionistic method is designed to

be able to gain an impression of a book by looking rather more carefully at representative features, such as the organization, topics, layout, visuals and the design of a unit or lesson or more specific features, such as the treatment of particular language elements Therefore, this method is wide ranging but relatively superficial due to the fact that ―techniques of impressionistic evaluation cover the wide spectrum‖

1.3.4.2 The checklist method

McGrath (2002) states that ―a checklist is likely to need tailoring to suit a particular context, and this can involve a good deal more than simply deleting checklist items which are in applicable Moreover, William (1993, cited in McGrath, 2002, p 27) points out that ―checklist cannot be a static phenomenon‖ This means that the items

in all materials evaluation checklist reflect the time at which they are conceived

1.3.4.3 The in-depth method

In-depth method consists of a focus on specific features (Cunningsworth, 1995), close analysis of one or more extracts (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987), or throughout examination of two units using predetermined questions (McGrath, 2002) McGrath

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also argued that besides its advantages, this evaluation method has certain disadvantages Firstly, samples selected for analysis may not be representative of the book as a whole Secondly, only a particular section of the material is focused Moreover, this method takes time and requires expert knowledge (McGrath, 2002, p 28)

1.3.5 Criteria for materials evaluation

Criteria for materials evaluation is one of the most difficult problems for materials evaluator during the process of materials evaluation William (1983) suggests seven

criteria: General criteria, Speech criteria, Grammar criteria, Vocabulary criteria Reading criteria, Writing criteria, and Technique criteria It can be seen that the

criteria proposed by William seem to be too general and cannot really be applicable

to all teaching and learning context

Ur (1996) provides the following criteria to evaluate a material:

- Objectives explicitly laid out in an introduction, and implemented in the

materials

- Approach educationally and socially acceptable to target community

- Clear attractive layout; print easy to read

- Appropriate visual materials available

- Interesting topics and tasks

- Varied topics and tasks, so as to provide for different learner levels, learning

styles, interest and so on

- Clear instructions

- Systematic coverage of syllabus

- Content clearly organized and graded (sequenced by difficulty)

- Periodic review and test sections

- Plenty of authentic language

- Good pronunciation explanation and practice

- Good vocabulary explanation and practice

- Frequency practice in four skills

- Encourage learners to develop own learning strategies and to become

independent in their learning

- Adequate guidance for the teacher, not too heavy presentation load

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- Audio cassettes

- Readily available locally

The criteria suggested by Ur seem to be too much detailed but the framework for evaluation of a coursebook is not given so that so it may make difficult for the evaluator to begin the evaluation With the more comprehensive and more brief content, the evaluating criteria proposed by Hutchinson and Waters seems to be more helpful tools to language materials evaluators

Hutchinson and Waters (1987, p 99) present their own checklist of criteria for objective and subjective analysis, which is not an exhaustive list, and is based on the following four aspects: audience, aim, content, and methodology

The audience of the materials: The evaluator should obtain information about and

from the learners to find out whether the materials are suitable to students‘ age, knowledge of English, interest and so on

Aims of the materials: The evaluator has to check if the materials match the aims and

objectives of the course

Content of the materials: The evaluator has to check if the materials‘ language

points, macro-skills/micro-skills, and topic suit the learners‘ needs

Methodology of the materials: The evaluator must find out if the techniques,

guidance, aids provided in the materials satisfy learners and teachers of the course Comparing the above sets of criteria, I find that Hutchinson and Waters‘ (1987) criteria are more practical and helpful for the evaluator as they provide the clear way

to conduct a study on materials evaluation In addition to that, underpinned by learner-centered approach, these criteria seem to be suitable with the scopes of this study As the result, I chose the criteria suggested by Hutchinson and Water to evaluate the coursebook ―English for IT I‖ to see how much it is relevant to learners‘ needs in terms of content, format and methodology

1.3.6 Materials evaluation models

There are several suggestions on developing a reliable framework for materials evaluation The popular frameworks are the ones proposed by Hutchinson and Waters (1987), Littlejohn (1998), Mc Donough and Shaw (1993), Cunningsworth

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(1984) and Ellis (1997) However, for the purposes of this evaluation, I followed the model provided by Hutchinson Waters (1987) applying pertinent criteria to the coursebook used in my working context, model‘s procedural format and flexibility allowed me to fully assess the strengths weaknesses of the coursebook under evaluation Based on the research results, good aspect as well the problematic parts

of the materials can be identified, which may be reliable ground for further suggestions for coursebook improvement

Evaluation by Hutchinson and Waters (1987) is a macro-evaluation model It consists

of four steps of materials evaluation which is illustrated as the following figure:

Figure 1: The materials evaluation process

MATCHING

How far does the material match your needs?

DEFINE CRITERIA

On what bases will you judge materials?

Which criteria will be more important?

SUBJECTIVE ANALYSIS

What realizations of the criteria do

you want in your course?

OBJECTIVE ANALYSIS

How does the material being evaluated realize the materials?

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1.4 Needs analysis

Materials should also be contextualized to the experiences, realities, needs and first

languages of the learners Modern teaching methodology increasingly emphasizes

the importance of identifying and teaching to the individual needs of learners Thus teachers must ensure they know their learners well English language classrooms are diverse in terms not only of where they are situated, but also of the individual learners The starting point of any materials design should be a needs analysis, which, in addition to revealing students‘ learning needs with regard to English language skills, should also aim to determine the students‘ life and educational experiences, their first language and levels of literacy in it, their interests, their aspirations, and their purposes for learning English

Hutchinson & Waters (1987) classifying needs as necessities, lacks and wants cover

a range of interpretations Necessities can be described as what the learner has to know to function effectively in the target situation, and are seen by Richterich (1973,

p 32) as objective needs Lacks are analysed in what is called a deficiency analysis (Allwright & Allwright, 1977) where what a learner already knows is set against necessities Wants then are what learners feel they need in order to operate in a target situation and are also called subjective needs Hutchinson and Waters (1987) expand

on the idea of needs by classifying them into target needs (what the learner needs to

do in the target situation) and learning needs (1987, p 58) Some researchers also make reference to what they call objective and subjective needs (Richterch, 1980) Berwick (1989) provides three categories of needs, which he termed the language proficiency view of needs, the psychological view and the specific purposes view In this thesis, I adapted the checklist suggested by Hutchinson & Waters (1987) to explore and analyze the learners‘ needs (Appendix III) due to it is suitable with the scope as well as the aims of the thesis

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CHAPTER II: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter will first introduce briefly the current ESP teaching and learning at

ICTU including the context of the study, the objective of the course “English for IT I” and the coursebook description Then, it presents the detailed description of methods employed to evaluating the coursebook „English for IT I” at ICTU where

the study is carried out

2.1 An overview of current ESP teaching and learning at ICTU

2.1.1 Context

University of Information and Communication Technology (ICTU), which formerly was Faculty of Information Technology founded in 2001, is one of the member institutions under Thai Nguyen University (TNU) Its specialized training domain is Information and Communication Technology There are five main faculties: Faculty

of IT, Faculty of Electronics and Communication Technology, Faculty of Automation Technology, Faculty of Economic Information Systems and Faculty of Basic Sciences; and two other departments Among them, Faculty of Information Technology is considered the most important one with a largest number of students Like other students of ICTU in general, students of Faculty of Information Technology start the ESP courses in the second academic year The ultimate aim of these ESP courses is to prepare for students the necessary specific English knowledge which they practically need in the future career or further education For

IT students, the ESP courses are divided into two modules with four credits in total,

and use two coursebooks “English for IT I” and “English for IT II” Students

attend the class every three periods per week for 10 weeks To complete each module, except for the points for attendance, students are required to take a 45-minute mid-term test and a final written examination by the end of the course

2.1.2 The objectives of the ESP course “English for IT I”

The course “English for IT I” is designed to:

- Provide students with vocabulary related to different major topics in the field of

Computing and Information Technology

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- Introduce students to some basic knowledge in several areas of Computing and

Information Technology

- Provide students with opportunities to practice and develop their language skills

in general as well as Information Technology contexts

- Develop students‘ language skills in the context of Computing and Information

Technology with emphasis on reading, listening, speaking, and writing

2.1.3 Coursebook description

The coursebook “English for IT I” was compiled in 2009 by four teachers of

English from Department of Basic Sciences at ICTU It consists of 10 lessons and two reviews after every five lessons It is a topic-based coursebook with 10 different topics, such as computer applications, configuration, graphics and multimedia, faces

of the internet and programming To prepare for their future job, the course is designed to introduce students to a full range of IT texts and to give students opportunities to practice their language skills in different IT contexts The materials used in this coursebook are arranged from general to more specialized content so that they can be understood by students easily

A typical lesson consists of the following sections:

- Warm-up section aims to arouse students‘ interest and lead in the lesson in

general and the topic of the lesson in particular This section includes a short activity, such as matching, labeling the items or reordering jumped letters to make a meaningful word

related to the topics of the lesson Students then are required to complete some types

of tasks, such as matching the paragraphs with the pictures, completing the sentences using the words in the box or checking the statements true or false Reading section aims to help students to practice reading micro-skills like scanning for specific information and skimming for gist

- Speaking section: ask students to practice speaking using linguistic input

provided in the reading section or presented in this section Speaking activities diverse from discussing on one or two questions, talking about features of a

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component, describing a process using the diagram or making arguments on one statement These activities are organized to work in pairs, in groups or individually

conversations, dialogues or short talks which usually take place in daily life in the ICT environment This section helps students to practice listening skills like listening for specific information or listening for the main ideas

- Language work section: introduces some grammar content to help students

consolidate their grammar knowledge and can apply these structures to produce sentences or utterance Grammar themes cover common grammatical focuses, such

as present tenses, passive voice or relative clauses which students can meet in

reading sections or listening section

- Writing section: In this section, students are required to write about topics

related to IT domain, such as write the instructions for using a computer or write about features of a software product in a brochure

2.2 Research methods

2.2.1 Research question

This study aims to find out the answer to the following research question:

1 Is the coursebook “English for Information Technology I” relevant to the learners’ needs in terms of content, format and methodology?

2.2.2 Participants

Population

The target population for this study includes approximately 250 second-year students

of Faculty of Information Technology and four English language teachers who are

responsible for teaching the ESP course “English for IT I” at ICTU

Sampling

The researcher used the convenience sampling as it is time-saving and cost effective; therefore, the sample comprises all four teachers of English who are responsible for

teaching the course “English for IT I”, and 80 second-year students who are both

male and female students from three classes: K11A, K11B and K11C of the academic year 2013 – 2014

The students

80 students majoring in IT took part in this study All of them have been studying English for over eight years (seven or nine years at schools and one year at the university) and can use English to communicate at basic level They come from three classes: K11A, K11B and K11C They were required to review thoroughly and evaluate the coursebook according to the criteria basing on their own experience in using the coursebook

2.2.3 Data collection instruments

To evaluate the coursebook pursuant to learners‘ needs in terms of content, format and methodology, two instruments for collecting data used in this study were questionnaires and semi-structured interviews

Questionnaires

Survey questionnaires is a popular instrument in the social sciences as it is helpful to collect opinions and would be extremely beneficial in specifying aims and analyzing the teaching and learning situation (Litz, 2005) They have a lot of advantages among which the most obvious may be the fact that the respondents can complete them without any pressure; as a result, they can express thought freely Besides, closely ended questions are straight forward to answer (Gillham, 2000) In this study, questionnaires were used for both teachers and students to collect their attitude and

information on evaluation of currently used coursebook “English for IT I” Each

questionnaire is divided into four sections, and written in Vietnamese:

Section 1: consists of five questions (questionnaires for students) or four questions

(questionnaires for teachers) aiming at discovering the students‘ English background,

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their expectations as well as their evaluation on the necessity of language aspects of the coursebook Through these analyses of data collected, it helps to identify the learners‘ needs

Section 2: Two questions aim at finding out students‘ and teachers‘ attitude or

evaluation of the content of the coursebook including evaluation of skills allocation, topics, practice tasks, and linguistic aspects

Section 3: is designed to gather students‘ and teachers‘ judgments about the current

coursebook in terms of format

Section 4: is designed to get students‘ and teachers‘ opinions about the methodology

of the evaluated coursebook

Semi-structured interviews

The purpose of the interview is to collect supplementary ideas or to clarify any misunderstandings from teachers and students after they responded to the above questionnaires The interview method also helps to ensure the reliability of responded information Johnson (1992, p 115) stated that response rate from the interview can be quite high and respondents are more likely to answer the questions presented because of their personal involvement with the interviewer Therefore, the interviewer can obtain more meaningful information because he/she can rephrase questions that are not clear to the respondents

For these reasons, the second method used in this study was semi-structured interview The interview questions are quite similar to the questions in the questionnaires, and the interviews were also conducted in Vietnamese Yet to ask for some supplementary ideas or clarify any misunderstanding, the researcher asked

some other questions like “What is the reason for your evaluation?” or “On what bases do you think so?” This type of interview was conducted with four teachers of

English at Department of Basic Sciences and some students at ICTU

2.2.4 Data collection procedure

The researcher carried out the data collection through questionnaires for both teachers and students

- Next, the survey questionnaires for teachers were launched to all four teachers of English

- Finally, to clarify some collected data, the semi-structured interviews were conducted with four teachers of English and some group of students These interviews were conducted after synthesizing the data collected from the questionnaire

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CHAPTER III: MAJOR FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter presents and discusses the results of the survey conducted through questionnaires and interviews Major findings are reported to answer the research question

3.1 About the learners

3.1.1 Learners’ background of learning English

Before any course, the identification of learners‘ level and learners‘ needs is often paid much attention to as it helps teachers to provide the most suitable content

of knowledge and then improve the learners‘ language skills The chart below presents students‘ background of learning English

40%

60% 10 years 8 years

Chart 1: Students’ background of learning English

As can be seen from the chart, majority of students (60%) have been learning English for 10 years The rest (40%) started learning English 8 years ago It can be said that students have a quite long background of learning English

3.1.2 Learners’ level of English

Excellent Good Average Underaverage

Chart 2: Students’ English level at the beginning of the course

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Chart 2 shows that both teachers and students have similar assessments on the

students‘ level of English when students started learning the ESP course ―English for IT I” It can be seen from the chart that the levels of average and underaverage

were mostly selected A little difference comes from the belief of students about themselves 66% of students suppose that they are at average level while teachers‘ judgment about this number is 60% Neither teachers nor students assessed that students are excellent at English There are a significant number of students (26.5%) who admitted that their level of English is underaverage Also, teachers seem not to highly appreciate their students‘ English level when they claimed that few students (15%) has good background of English and 25% of students are bad at English The formal interview with teachers affirmed their assessment on students‘ level because they did have learning results of students in the previous semester In summary, there

is an obvious fact that a vast majority of students in our university have an average level of English

3.1.3 Learners’ purposes and expectations of learning the ESP course “English for IT I”

It is really important for the book writer to get to know the students‘ relevant purposes of a language course so as to choose the most appropriate coursebook and teaching methods for that course The following table shows the importance of

purposes of learning the course “English for IT I” ranked by students

To be able to write IT documents (scientific papers,

reference, graduation projects…) in English 5% 28% 39% 28%

To pass the final examination with the high scores 3% 11% 40% 46%

Table 1: Students’ ranking of the importance of the purposes of learning the course

“English for IT I”

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As can be seen from the table, most students supposed that all the objectives of

learning the course were ―important‖ or “very important” For example, 52% of

them claimed that the development of IT lexis was important and 39% of them

ranked this purpose “very important” 37% and 44% of students supposed that the

oral communication and discussion with foreign people in English was also

“important” and “very important”, respectively A similar portion of students chose

level 3 and level 4 (over 60% for two levels in total) for the next two purposes - reading and writing IT materials in English

Noticeably, a large portion of students (86%) considered the last purpose “To pass the final examinations with the high scores” to be “important” or “very important”

This could tell us that students seemed to consider that learning this ESP course for the high achievements in the final examination was more important than the other objectives which prepare better for their future practical tasks in IT domain The interviews with some students showed that these students admitted passing the final examination with high scores is the most important to them This fact implied that during the course, the teachers should raise the students‘ awareness of the real purposes of the course Regardless of the fact that pursuing the high scores in the final examination was considered more important than other objectives for students,

it could still be concluded that they did aware of the importance of the other learning purposes and learned the course purposefully

3.1.4 Learners’ needs of learning ESP course “English for IT I”

As has already been stated, one of the most challenging tasks English teachers often face with is that of choosing a coursebook suitable for their teaching situation They have to select a coursebook that suits the needs of their students, their unique characteristics and their preferences and one that the teacher believe will motivate them Therefore, that the identifying the needs of the students should be carried out

so that the teacher or the book writer can select or develop a coursebook which can caters or corresponds to the learner‘s needs

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The table below presents the figures regarding students‘ evaluation of the importance

of linguistic aspects that they expected to be improved after finishing the course Through the analysis of these statistics, teachers could understand about the specific needs of their learners

Rating Linguistic aspects 1 2 3 4 5

Ability to read and understand IT materials written

Ability to speak about and present IT issues in English 0% 12% 28% 48% 12% Ability to listen to and understand IT issues in English 0% 6% 32% 50% 12% Ability to write IT materials (books, articles,

Ability to pronounce IT vocabulary correctly 0% 3% 48% 37% 12%

Table 2: Teachers’ and students’ ranking of the students’ needs in terms of aspects of

learning English after completing the course

As can be seen from the table, all linguistic aspects which students expected to be

improved after the course were mostly supposed to be “important”, “very important” or “the most important” by the students In the ranking scale, the most

important level seemed to be agreed among students with a similar percentage of 12%, except for writing ability and the improved amount of IT lexis account for 8%

and 7%, respectively 42%, 48%, 50% and 45% of the students chose “very important” category for reading, speaking, listening and IT lexis improvement,

respectively These large portions reflected that the students‘ needs were highly demanding and catered all aspects of English learning

Particularly, there was a scattered allocation of chosen percentage for writing ability

in which one fourth (25%) of students seemed not to focus on this ability when

labeled it ―not important at all‖ and ―a little important‖ In addition, the selections of

“important” and “very important” levels for writing IT materials in English were

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comparatively low (35% and 32%) The interview results with these students shown that they supposed they would not write English frequently in their future jobs Having been questioned about this, their teachers affirmed that it would be so difficult for students to write complete IT materials, such as a book, an articles or a graduation project in English without outside help

Noticeably, there were remarkable percentage of students (nearly 90% in total)

choosing “important” and “very important” categories for the improved amount of

IT lexis and their correct pronunciations It was reported from the interviews with students that they did complain about their current lack of vocabulary and pronunciation mistakes Trung‘s report was an instance

“In class, sometimes I want to speak out my ideas or opinions with my teachers or my friends, but I do not have enough vocabulary to convey those

In other cases, I speak with them, but they seem not to understand my talks at all because of my poor pronunciations”, said Trung

Trung‘ report also agreed and shared among teachers teaching the course This problematic fact recalls us about one commonly agreed argument in the field of linguistics that most of the communication breakdowns caused by the pronunciation mistakes; and vocabulary limitations could be a barrier for a successful communication Therefore, it can be argued that the improvement of IT lexis and the correct pronunciation of this lexis are the learners‘ most urgent needs The satisfaction of these needs would promote the satisfaction of the other needs

3.2 Learners’ and teachers’ evaluation of the coursebook “English for IT I” 3.2.1 The evaluation of the content

Skills allocation

To meet the learners‘ needs in terms of language performance, the coursebook should cover both receptive skills (reading skills and listening skills) and productive skills (speaking skills and writing skills) Hutchinson and Water suggested that there should be a balance of these four macro-skills in the coursebook The table below presents the evaluation of both students and teachers on the portion of four macro-skills designated in the coursebook

Table 3: Students’ and teachers’ judgments of skills allocations

The table uses three indicators (1 Low proportion, 2 Adequate proportion, and 3 Large portion) to shows how difference of the allocations of four macro-skills

integrated in the coursebook Overall, it can be seen that both teachers and students shared quite similar judgments on the allocations of reading, speaking and listening skills while there is considerably difference in their evaluations of the amount of writing skills According to the figures, 57% of students and 75% of teachers supposed that reading skills was distributed adequately This means that more than half of the students were satisfied with reading skills while the rest considered that their needs for reading skills were not well met (35% of students claimed that reading skills take too much amount, and 8% of them said they need more reading) The speaking and listening skills were poorly evaluated when there was up to 46% - 58% of students and 50% - 75% of teachers reported that the amount of speaking skills and listening skills, respectively, were significantly low The results of the interviews with teachers shown that they could not spend enough time on the skills due to the limitations of teaching facilities and time

Regarding writing skills, it was noticeable that all teachers (100%) supposed that writing skills designated in the courebook take adequate rate and meet the students‘