An evaluation of teaching ESP reading strategies for electrical engineering third year students at hanoi university of industry

DECLARATION I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “An evaluation of teaching ESP reading strategies for Electrical Engineering third-year students at Hanoi University of Industry”

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

-* * * -

NGUYỄN THỊ THANH BẰNG

AN EVALUATION OF TEACHING ESP READING

STRATEGIES FOR ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING YEAR STUDENTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY

THIRD-(ĐÁNH GIÁ CÁC KỸ THUẬT GIẢNG DẠY KỸ NĂNG ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ 3 KHOA ĐIỆN Ở

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC CÔNG NGHIỆP HÀ NỘI)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 6014.0111

HA NOI – 2015

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

-* * * -

NGUYỄN THỊ THANH BẰNG

AN EVALUATION OF TEACHING ESP READING

STRATEGIES FOR ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING YEAR STUDENTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY

THIRD-(ĐÁNH GIÁ CÁC KỸ THUẬT GIẢNG DẠY KỸ NĂNG ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ 3 KHOA ĐIỆN Ở

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC CÔNG NGHIỆP HÀ NỘI)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 6014.0111

Supervisor: Assoc.Prof.Dr Nguyen Phuong Nga

HA NOI - 2015

DECLARATION

I hereby certify that the thesis entitled

“An evaluation of teaching ESP reading strategies for Electrical

Engineering third-year students at Hanoi University of Industry”

is the result of my own study in the fulfillment of the requirement for the

Degree of Master of Arts at Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of

Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi and that it

has not been previously submitted to this University or to any other institutions in

application for admission to a degree, diploma or other qualifications

I also wish to acknowledge all the staff of the Department of Post-Graduate Studies for giving me assistance and the lecturers who conducted the Master course for me with valuable knowledge

I would like to extend my deep appreciation to my colleagues and Electrical Engineering third-year students at Hanoi University of Industry who have encouraged me and helped me with the research data

Last but not least, I am deeply indebted to my beloved parents, my husband, two my children, my siblings, and my post-graduate friends for their love, sacrifice, encouragement and support

ABSTRACT

Hanoi University of Industry (hereafter HaUI) is known as a multidisciplinary

school which has contributed significantly to the training of the technical labor force for the development of the Vietnamese industry Hence, along with general

English-training courses, English for Specific Purposes (hereafter ESP) courses that

has attracted much attention from students at this university For ESP-training context at HaUI, though ESP reading strategies have long been implemented and applied in its programs, nevertheless, up to now, there is no in-depth study to assess the effectiveness of the ESP reading strategies yet Therefore, this study is carried out to evaluate the teaching ESP reading strategie that is being applied for Electrical Engineering third-year students at Hanoi University of Industry to offer recommendations for the purpose of improving the teaching ESP reading strategies

in a more efficient way

The participants selected for the study included 95 Electrical Engineering third-year students and 4 ESP lecturers at HaUI The results from the survey questionnaires for students and lecturers investigate ESP reading strategies currently employed by the English teachers and find out appropriate teaching strategies to contribute more highly teaching quality of lecturers in ESP reading lessons at HaUI Recommendations and suggestions for further researches are given in order to enhance more effectiveness in teaching ESP reading strategies

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Significance of the study 2

5 Research methodology 3

6 Design of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Theoretical Background 4

1.1.1 Definition of reading 4

1.1.2 Reading Comprehension Process 4

1.1.3 Reading Strategies in English for Specific Purposes 7

1.1.4 Factors in Teaching ESP Reading Skill 9

1.1.5 Strategies for Teaching ESP Reading in Each Stage 10

1.1.6 Evaluation of Teaching Reading Strategies 12

1.2 Previous Studies in the Same Field 14

Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY 17

2.1 Context of the study 17

2.2 Methodology 18

2.2.1 Research questions 18

2.2.2 Participants 18

2.2.3 Research instruments 19

2.2.4 Data collection procedures 20

2.2.5 Data analysis procedures 20

Chapter 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 22

3.1 Lecturers‟ teaching ESP reading strategies 22

3.1.1 Lecturers‟ activities in pre-reading stage 22

3.1.2 Lecturers‟ activities in while-reading stage 25

3.1.3 Lecturers‟ activities in post-reading stage 28

3.2 Students‟ perception of the benefits 31

3.2.1 Benefits from pre-reading stage activities 31

3.2.2 Benefits from while-reading stage activities 32

3.2.3 Benefits from post-reading stage activities 33

3.3 Suggestions for enhancement of students‟ benefits 34

3.3.1 Lecturers‟ difficulties in teaching ESP reading texts 34

3.3.2 Students‟ expectations and lecturers‟ suggestions 35

3.4 Comparison between survey results and evaluation criteria 37

PART C: CONCLUSION 39

1 Conclusion 39

2 Recommendations 39

3 Limitations of the study 41

4 Suggestions for further study 41

REFERENCES 43

BIBLIOGRAPHY 45

APPENDICES I

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Tables

Table 3.1: Students‟ evaluation of lecturers‟ activities in pre-reading stage 22

Table 3.2: Lecturers‟ self-evaluation of their activities in pre-reading stage 24

Table 3.3: Students‟ evaluation of lecturers‟ activities in while-reading stage 26

Table 3.4: Lecturers‟ self-evaluation of their activities in while-reading stage 27

Table 3.5: Students‟ evaluation of lecturers‟ activities in post-reading stage 29

Table 3.6: Lecturers‟ self-evaluation of their activities in post-reading stage 30

Table 3.7: Students‟ evaluation of benefits from pre-reading stage activities 32

Table 3.8: Students‟ evaluation of benefits from while-reading stage activities 33

Table 3.9: Students‟ evaluation of benefits from post-reading stage activities 34

Table 3.10: Lecturers‟ difficulties in teaching ESP reading texts 35

Figures Figure 3.1: Students‟ evaluation of lecturers‟ activity organization in pre-reading stage 24

Figure 3.2: Lecturers‟ self-evaluation of their activity organization in pre-reading stage 25

Figure 3.3: Students‟ evaluation of lecturers‟ activity organization in while-reading stage 28

Figure 3.4: Lecturers‟ selfevaluation of their activity organization in while -reading stage 28

Figure 3.5: Students‟ evaluation of lecturers‟ activity organization in post-reading stage 30

Figure 3.6: Lecturers‟ selfevaluation of their activity organization in post -reading stage 31

Figure 3.7: Students‟ expectations 35

Figure 3.8: Lecturers‟ suggestions 36

PART A: INTRODUCTION

This part introduces briefly about the study including rationale, aims, scope, significance of the study, research methodology as well as design of the thesis

1 Rationale of the study

It is not an exaggeration to say that English is one of the most popular languages in this era of globalization and international exchange English has become an extremely useful tool for most countries to access the world of modern technology and update latest achievements in many fields of life In Vietnam, since

1971, English teaching and learning have attracted a great deal of attention Hence, the demand of learning English has increased rapidly In recent years, English has proved its important role as the most popular foreign language that is being taught in all educational levels cover countries in the worldwide It is a compulsory subject, which is not only for tertiary institutions, but also for that from primary to high schools in Vietnam

Hanoi University of Industry (hereafter HaUI) has always been proud of being

a multidisciplinary training school with great contributions to the technological developments as well as industrialization and modernization process Therefore,

along with General English-training course, English for Specific Purposes (hereafter

ESP) course such as English for Business, English for Electrical Engineering, etc.,

that has been received very much attention from students in this university How to teach and learn ESP effectively, however, is not simple

For many students, “reading is by far the most important of the four skills in a second language, particularly in English as a second or foreign language” (Carrel, 1981:1), however, reading comprehension is still considered as one of the least interesting ones for both lecturers and students Though many lecturers of English for Electrical Engineering also try in their best ways in order to make ESP reading lessons more attractive to their students, it seems to be all their efforts that do not capture the desired results

The question of how to deal with English for Electrical Engineering reading more effectively at my university has always been haunted in my mind Although

ESP reading strategies have long been implemented and applied in its programs for ESP-training context at HaUI, up to now, there is no in-depth study to assess the effectiveness of the ESP reading strategies yet Therefore, the researcher have a

desire to perform “An evaluation of teaching ESP reading strategies for Electrical

Engineering third-year students at Hanoi University of Industry” which aims to offer

recommendations to improve the teaching ESP reading strategies in a more efficient way

2 Aims and objectives of the study

The study aims to evaluate the teaching ESP reading strategies that is applied for Electrical Engineering third-year students so as to offer recommendations with purpose to enhance the lecturers‟ quality of teaching ESP reading at HaUI

The specific objectives of this study are to identify the strategies employed by lecturers in teaching ESP reading for Electrical Engineering third-year students and benefits that the students gain from these strategies

3 Scope of the study

Although the ESP course is designed for all the third-year students at HaUI with eight different majors, it would be impossible for the researcher to get them involved in the study due to obstacles of time, duration and expense Instead, the sample of the study consists of the third-year students at Faculty of Electrical Engineering only Besides, each ESP reading lesson often covers reading and writing skills and translation techniques Nevertheless, the scope of this study aims to evaluate lecturers‟ strategies in teaching ESP reading skill, it does not cover all aspects of writing skill and translation techniques The participants of the study are the Electrical Engineering students at HaUI who have already finished the ESP course in the second term of the third-year

4 Significance of the study

This paper wishes to offer a picture of ESP reading strategies employed by lecturers for Electrical Engineering third-year students at HaUI The findings of the study are expected to identify the most appropriate strategies in order to enhance students‟ interests in ESP reading lessons Accordingly, suggestions can be made to

improve the third-year students‟ reading skill

5 Research methodology

In order to achieve the research aims and objectives, the study is to find out answers to the following research questions:

1 What strategies do the lecturers currently employ in teaching ESP reading

for Electrical Engineering third-year students at HaUI?

2 How beneficial are the lecturers’ teaching ESP reading strategies to Electrical Engineering third-year students at HaUI?

To answers the two research questions, the study is conducted by combining

both qualitative and quantitative method The researcher used survey questionnaires for ESP lecturers and Electrical Engineering third-year students The detail of the methodology applied in the study is discussed in Chapter 2

6 Design of the study

The study consists of three main parts as follow:

Part A, Introduction, presents a brief introduction of the rationale for the

study, the aims and objectives, scope, significance, research method as well as design

of the study

Part B, Development, includes the following chapters:

Chapter 1, Literature review, deals with the theoretical background of the

study and results from the previous studies for the issues relevant to the field investigated

Chapter 2, Methodology, describes the context and the research methodology

of the study

Chapter 3, Results and Discussions, presents analysis, discussions and

evaluation basing on results of the study

Part C, Conclusion, summarizes the main issues of the whole study and

indicates limitations of the research as well as suggests for further study In addition, the study also includes sections of References which display the sources of referenced information and Appendices which present the survey questionnaires for students and lecturers

PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides the theoretical background of the study and results from

the recent studies for the issues relevant to the field under investigated

1.1 Theoretical Background

1.1.1 Definition of reading

Reading is by far the most important of all four skills in a second language, particularly in English as a second or foreign language (Carrell, Devine, & Eskey, 1988; Richards & Renandya, 2002) There are different definitions about reading in English depending on each linguist‟s point of view

Goodman (1971: 135) defined reading as “a psycholinguistics process by which the reader, language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display” Williams (1990: 2) shared the same view that “reading is a process whereby one looks at and understands what has been written” In this point of view, in reading process, there are two parallel activities: looking and understanding Thus, readers have to “encode” meanings of a word depending on the context in which it appears

From another view of reading, Rubin and Thompson (1994: 91) pointed out

“reading is active information-seeking process in which readers relate information in the text to what they already know” In this view, the reader‟s knowledge of the world is of importance to their reading success

Moreover, according to the New Criticism, reading is just a process of

„recreating‟ in our mind the mental condition of the authors or the writer (Eagleton, 1996: 41)

Obviously, no definition can capture all the ideas and features of reading All in all, what all the linguists have in common is that reading involves looking, understanding and encoding meanings of a word basing on the context in which appears

1.1.2 Reading Comprehension Process

To improve students' reading comprehension, teachers should introduce the

three reading comprehension processes including the schema of theory, bottom – up and top-down processing As a result, the definition of these concepts will be

discussed in this section

1.1.2.1 The schema theory

In his article entitled Effects on Reading Comprehension of Building

Background Knowledge, Johnson (1982: 504) mentions the theory of schema In his

opinion, this theory focuses on the learners‟ background knowledge which is the leaners‟ previously acquired knowledge It is also stated that the organization of reader‟s past experiences directly influences the comprehension and retention of materials in a passage Thus, learners understand a text by analyzing the text according to their schema

According to Nuttall (1996: 7), the schema “is a mental structure It is abstract because it does not relate to any particular experience, although it derives from all the particular experiences we have had It is a structure because it is organized; it includes the relationships between its component parts.” The schemata are recognized as a useful concept in understanding how we are able to interpret texts Nunan (1999: 201) identifies “schema theory is based on the ideas that past experiences result in a mental framework to understand new experiences.”

In brief, in order to comprehend texts, students need to develop new schemata

of language, text and interpretation, as well as schemata of alternative cultural practices and values According to this schema theory, comprehending a text is

an interactive process This process can be divided into three parts including bottom-up, top-down and interactive processing

1.1.2.2 Bottom – up and Top-down processing

* Bottom – up processing

Initially, the bottom-up approach was introduced by Gough (1972) The bottom-up approach emphasizes that reading moves from part to whole Processing the meaning starts from the text and it is text-based In this approach, the text is of great importance Hence, it is necessary to know the meaning of individual words and promote vocabulary learning

Then, according to Nunan (1991), reading is a linear process by which readers decode the text word by word, link the words into phrases and then sentences In the process of meaning interpretation, the language is translated from one form of symbolic representation to another

Three years later, Silberstein (1994) suggests that comprehending text requires the simultaneous interaction of two models of information processing According to this author, readers get the meaning of a text through recognizing letters and words, working out sentence structures and then interpret paragraphs and the whole text

As shown above, it is clear that the theory of bottom-up processing given by Silberstein (1994) is the most detailed one

* Top-down processing

Goodman (1975) states that the top-down processing focuses on whole text and the role of schemata or background knowledge to interpret the text In this reading model, the readers‟ prior knowledge and past experiences are very important

He also emphasizes on the greatest difference between the top-down processing and the bottom-up one is that readers do not use every piece of information in the text (as cited in Carrell and Eisterhold, 1983) That is to say, the readers select some parts of text according to their current purpose and use them only so as to predict and

to confirm the predicted meanings by relating the readers‟ own previously acquired knowledge (Carrell, 1988a)

In brief, there are two ways that readers can use to deal with a text: using the bottom – up processing to get detail understanding of the text and using the top-down

to understand main ideas about the text Readers may use one of the two ways to comprehend texts; however, readers usually need both of them to deal with difficult texts As a result, this leads to interactive processing which will be mentioned in the following part

1.1.2.3 Interactive processing

It is known that no single method is the best A successful reader should combine top-down and bottom-up processing, which is called interactive reading First, Hayes (1991: 7) points out that “in interactive models, different processes

are thought to be responsible for providing information that is shared with other processes The information obtained from each type of processing is combined to determine the most appropriate interpretation of the printed pages”

Next, Nuttall (1996: 17) mentions the interactive processing employed by readers in practice A reader continually shifts from one focus to another, now adopting a top-down approach to predict probable meaning, then moving to the bottom-up approach to check whether that is really what the writer says

To summarize, interactive theorists appreciate the role of prior knowledge and prediction in interpreting the texts They also show that interactive processing can maximize the strengths and minimize the weaknesses of the bottom-up and top-down processing

1.1.3 Reading Strategies in English for Specific Purposes

This section deals with the recent definitions and the classifications of ESP

which are considered as indispensable components of the theoretical background

1.1.3.1 Definition of ESP

An early definition is the one given by Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 16) who define that ESP is “an approach not a product- does not involve a particular kind of language, teaching materials or methodology” It means that ESP is not a matter

of teaching “specialized varieties” of English, not different in kind from other form of language teaching Later on, ESP is defined by Strevens (1988: 1) as a particular case of the general category of special – purpose language teaching Then, Dudley-Evans and St John (1998: 4) suggest “ESP is designed to meet specific needs

of the learner” that is the most important characteristic Therefore, an ESP course should differ from a general course in selection of skills, themes, topics, situations and functions

As has been presented, even though all the definitions show the nature of ESP,

it is clear that ESP is used for teaching foreign language as well as satisfying special demands of students

1.1.3.2 Definition of Reading Strategies

Reading is regarded as a very necessary skill for students, especially in

academic settings which help the students to obtain a fluent reading One of the requirements for English lecturers are to improve the students‟ reading comprehension

Many authors attempt to provide descriptions for reading strategies; nevertheless, there is a lack of consensus on the definition of reading strategies Garner (1987: 50) defines reading strategies as “generally deliberate, playful activities undertaken by active learners, many times to remedy perceived cognitive failure” Later, another definition suggested by Barnett (1988: 150-162) regards reading strategies as the mental operations included when the reader approaches the text effectively and makes sense of what he reads Some techniques include skimming, scanning, reading for meaning, predicting, activating general information, making inferences and guessing word meanings from context, etc Later, reading strategies are suggested by Carrell (1998: 97) as interest not only for what they reveal about the ways readers manage interactions with written text but also for how the use of strategies is related to effective comprehension

Although the definitions of reading strategies are based on different views, the purpose of reading strategies are to help students approach the text effectively and to have general knowledge, to get specific detail and to find out the main idea or theme

of the reading materials

1.1.3.3 Classifications of Reading Strategies

Different authors suggest different categories of reading strategies Although their studies identify a variety of similar reading strategies, there are significant differences in their strategy groups

According to Wenden & Rubin (1987: 19), reading strategies are divided into

cognitive strategies and metacognitive ones The first one, cognitive strategies are

described by Wenden & Rubin (1987: 19) as “mental steps or operations that learners use to process both linguistics and sociolinguistic content” Later, O‟Malley & Chamot (1990) emphasize that these strategies are used to construct associations between new and existing knowledge of the learners The prominent cognitive strategies include translation, grouping, note-taking, deduction, imagery, keyword,

contextualization, elaboration and inference

Meanwhile, metacognitive strategies are higher critical thinking skills that help

readers achieve awareness of whether they understand a reading text or not (Wenden

& Rubin, 1987: 19) These strategies help learners identify available resources, decide which of these resources are important for the specific task they perform and set goals for comprehension In fact, the effectiveness of the application of those strategies relies on not only the strategy itself but also the factors including (a) who is employing it, (b) how consciously it is employed, (c) what kind of text is being read, (d) when it is being employed and (e) why it is being used (Carrell, 1998; Farrell, 2001) Bishop et al (2005: 207-208) mention that metacognitive deals with various kinds of reading strategies such as imagining, using a variety of senses, making connections, analyzing text structure, recognizing words and understanding sentences, exploring inferences, asking question, determining important ideas and themes, evaluating, summarizing and synthesizing

1.1.4 Factors in Teaching ESP Reading Skill

Many linguistics (Dudley-Evans, St John, Nuttall, etc.) state that the role of ESP teachers and the role of students are always considered as decisive factors to

affect directly teaching ESP reading skill

1.1.4.1 The Role of ESP Teachers

According to Dudley-Evans and St John (1998), the role of ESP teacher as an ESP practitioner seems to be more detailed and completed They distinguish key roles of ESP practitioner as a teacher, a course designer and a materials provider, a

collaborator, a researcher and an evaluator

Firstly, “a teacher” is to create real and authentic communication in the classroom based on the students‟ knowledge Secondly, “a course designer and a material provider” are responsible for planning the course and providing for it Thirdly, “a collaborator” is to have knowledge about the subject skills, tasks, and syllabus, and to discover how the subject integrates with the language in order to bring the suitable material and courses for the learners Lastly, “an evaluator” is to give a feedback for learners and the course achievement through testing the students‟

1.1.4.2 The Role of the Students

Nuttall (2003: 33) mentions several main roles for students in a reading lesson

To begin with, the students‟ responsibility is to take an active part in learning They have to be active and take charge of what they do Next, students need to monitor comprehension in order to understand how texts work and what they do when they read Then, learning to talk about the text in class is an effective way for students to promote reading comprehension Moreover, students have to take the risk of making

mistakes because it is an opportunity to learn Finally, students should aware that

reading will give them enormous advantages such as having better jobs, personal development, interest and enjoyment

In brief, teachers and students are interrelated to each other during the process

of teaching and learning reading skills

1.1.5 Strategies for Teaching ESP Reading in Each Stage

A reading lesson usually consists of three stages: pre- reading, while- reading and post- reading Each of these stages carries its own characteristics and purposes

and requires different techniques and strategies (William, 1984: 37)

1.1.5.1 Pre-reading Stage

This stage is often referred to as “lead-in” The pre-reading stage aims to prepare students for the text, to arouse their interest in the topic of the text and motivate them to read (William, 1984: 37) To achieve these goals, many strategies

for this stage are discussed by different authors

First of all, William (1984: 37) suggests that the teacher should think of questions and find how to introduce the text, to motivate students and to incorporate language preparation Students are encouraged to express their expectations and predictions by discussing, brainstorming, matching, ordering, or answering

questions

Next, Reutzel (1985) proposes another pre-reading activity called reconciled reading lesson, which reserves the sequence in the textbooks where the text is followed by questions Instead, the teacher develops pre-reading questions from the

questions that appear at the end of the reading

Then, Carrell, Pharis, and Liberto (1989) suggest semantic mapping strategy

as a useful way to pre-teach vocabulary Students are asked to brainstorm about the reading topic as the information is displayed on a graphic “map.”

Smith (1994: 19-20) mentions prediction as another pre-reading activity In his

opinion, predictions are questions the readers ask the world and comprehension is receiving the answers He asserts that the prediction makes skilled readers effective when reading texts that contain familiar subject matter

Later, Davies (2000: 93) states some pre-reading activities including guessing the topic of the text from the heading, illustration etc.; brainstorming around a topic word; predicting what the text will say; writing questions that may be answered by the text

As shown above, the strategies suggested by Davies (2000: 93) are the most specific and detailed ones Obviously, without the pre-reading stage, the task (while-reading) might be more difficult and less enjoyable for students

1.1.5.2 While- reading Stage

To begin with, Williams (1984:38) specifies the purposes of this stage to help the students understand the writer‟s purpose and the text structure as well as clarify the text Later on, sharing the same Williams‟ view, Shields (1993:92) suggests a variety

of the while-reading stage activities which are also considered as reading for general understanding (top-down process); reading for extracting specific/ detailed information (bottom-up process); predicting continuing events, then reading to confirm expectation; reading on communicative tasks

Next, the while-reading activities, according to Mathews, Spratt and Dangerfield (1999:67), include understanding the relation between sentences and clauses, recognizing the effect of style, recognizing the organization of a text,

making inferences, extensive reading, skimming for the gist, scanning for specific

information and reading for detail The activities in this stage should be designed

according to the level and standard of the students

Later on, Karakas (2002) also mentions some activities for this stage In his opinion, scanning and skimming work better if they are supported with evaluation activities

To summarize, most of the authors discuss the skimming and scanning activities as the most valuable strategies in while – reading stage

1.1.5.3 Post-reading Stage

In Williams‟ view (1984: 39), the aim of post- reading stage is to consolidate or reflect upon what has been read and relate the text to the learner‟s own knowledge interest or views This stage might be approached in different ways by different

authors

According to Brown and Palinscar (1984) in Doolittle (2006), the post-reading strategies can be predicting, questioning, clarifying, summarizing, monitoring

comprehension, and justifying comprehension

Tierney et al (1990) also recommend some practical strategies for the reading stage including question-answer relationship, direct reading activity, vocabulary self-collection strategy, contextual redefinition, and text structure

post-strategy

Later, summarizing the content as a kind of post-reading strategies is suggested

by Ur (1996) In Ur‟s opinion, the summarizing activity might be given in the

students‟ mother tongue or in English

In summary, each stage is characterized by its own aims and activities It is more effective if teaching ESP reading is carried out into three consecutive stages as

mentioned above

1.1.6 Evaluation of Teaching Reading Strategies

In the evaluation process, “evaluators must take evaluation criteria into account before any evaluation takes place.” (Dudley- Evans and St John (1998) In order to make the teaching of reading effective, it is important for teachers “to take stock of

their perception or the nature of the reading process itself, relevant reading activities, and appropriate classroom management.” (Williams, 1986: 42-45) She also points out “top ten principles” which are important to evaluate successful reading strategies However, obviously, the work of developing and choosing evaluative criteria is rather subjective and depends on what the evaluators consider to be important Within the scopes of this study, the researcher chooses the only eight appropriate criteria to evaluate effectiveness of ESP reading strategies The list of these criteria (Williams, 1986: 42-45) is paraphrased as follow:

(i) The prerequisite in reading process is to have interesting texts as only such

texts enhance readers‟ interest in reading skill

(ii) The primary activity of a reading lesson should be learners reading text It

means that while learning to read, reading as a single-skill is given emphasis Teachers should know “Learners learn to read by reading: there is no other way.”

(iii) It is obligatory for students to own a rich source of vocabulary, deep

knowledge of sentence structure as well as rhetorical forms used in the text

to improve their reading skill; without these kinds of knowledge, all their skills and strategies in the world “will have little effect”

(iv) Classroom procedure should reflect the purposeful, task-based, interactive

nature of real reading, as reading is not only active but also interactive

process; this interactivity can best be fostered in a reading classroom in which pair work and group work are permitted

(v) Teachers should play a role as an instructor, not interfere too deeply into

students‟ reading process as reading activity is an individual task

(vi) Exercise-types should, as far as possible, approximate to cognitive reality

and during the process of real reading, the learner is equipped with the reading strategies and skills to make him/her a more efficient reader

(vii) A reader contributes meaning to a text, as during the reading process,

readers combine their experience, pre-knowledge with what is in the reading text

(viii) Selecting appropriate texts for students‟ level is vital to help them develop

reading skills as a particular text is suitable for a particular purpose

In this evaluation study, the eight appropriate criteria mentioned above are adopted to assess whether the most appropriate ESP reading strategies employed by teachers at HaUI

1.2 Previous Studies in the Same Field

Reading strategies employed by teachers in teaching reading skill have been of great interest to researchers all over the world This section mainly deals with those studies that focus on the teachers‟ strategies in teaching reading skill in order to enhance the students‟ interest

First, the study was conducted by Nurman Antoni (2010), namely “Exploring English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers‟ strategies in teaching reading comprehension” at one junior high school in Riau The aim of this study is to explore EFL teachers‟ strategies in teaching reading comprehension and the students‟ responses toward their teachers‟ strategies in teaching reading comprehension at one junior high school in Riau This study employed a qualitative case study research design which consisted of three data collection techniques: observation, interview and questionnaire All of the data were analyzed by using three major phases of analyses: data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing and verification The participants of this study in SMPN 1 Gunung Toar in Riau were taken from all of EFL teachers with different experiences and the degree of background knowledge Besides, some students were chosen randomly for each class to get the information about their responses toward their teachers‟ strategies in teaching reading comprehension The findings revealed that the teachers had used teaching reading comprehension strategies in three reading stages: pre – reading, while – reading and post – reading stage It also showed that in general, the students‟ responses to their teachers‟ strategies were good enough which were classified into low-level association responses and partly-formed knowledge structure responses The teachers are also suggested to give instructions of teaching strategies to students with low-level association responses before starting the reading activities, and give some guidance to students with partly-formed knowledge Nevertheless, this study only

mentioned an exploration of EFL teachers‟ strategies in teaching reading comprehension, it did not evaluate which strategies are the most appropriate to enhance the students‟ interest in learning reading skill

Another study, named “An evaluation of the techniques used by some teachers

of English in Misurata secondary schools”, conducted by Ahmad Mahdi Shteiwi (2012) also was relevant to this study This paper investigated not only the reading techniques but also the techniques in teaching vocabulary, listening and speaking, grammar, and functions and writing used by some teachers of English in Misurata secondary schools The study used classroom observation, checklist items, students‟ and teachers‟ questionnaire, interview and administering reading tests as the tools to gather data The finding of the study pointed out that teachers‟ activities in the classroom are disappointing Because they did not follow the prescribed student-oriented techniques; instead, they used traditional teacher-oriented methods Furthermore, the majority of teachers often read the texts in front of the class and translate them word by word and sentence by sentence As a result, students played a passive role and the class atmosphere became boring However, the subject of this paper related to all four language skills, namely speaking, listening, reading and writing, the techniques employed by teacher in reading comprehension skill were not mentioned fully and thoroughly

The greatest relevance to this study is the one carried out by Hamidur Rahman (2007) which investigated the current situation of teaching reading skills of English

as well as presented an evaluation of teaching the different sub-skills of reading at the Higher Secondary school Certificate (H.S.C) level in Bangladesh H.S.C in Bangladesh is an equivalent to General Certificate of Education Advanced Level (GCE) A Level in England During the study, the author used five major techniques

to collect data which consists of students‟ and teachers‟ questionnaire survey, students‟ and teachers‟ interview, classroom observation, test of reading skills and evaluation of reading syllabus, material and tests After analyzing data, the author came to a conclusion that teachers did not follow the prescribed student-oriented techniques; instead, they used traditional teacher-oriented methods The teachers

were arbiters, and the students became passive learners in the class The teachers only gave lecture and explained the reading passages word for word in Bangla, they did not engage their students in reading the text in the classroom In addition, the author also gave some suggestions for teachers to stimulate students‟ interest in reading skill

Those researches, which were carried out in different parts of the world on the same subjects, revealed that strategies employed by teachers in teaching reading skill attracted great attention Apart from the international studies, research papers on teachers‟ strategies in teaching reading skill in Vietnamese context were also reviewed by the researcher of this study

One of those related articles conducted by Nguyen Thi Hong Minh (2011) investigated the reality of teaching and learning reading comprehension at Banking Academy – Son Tay training center She used the instruments such as the classroom observation, the semi-structured interviews and questionnaires for collecting data First, she carried out the classroom observation to find out actually how a reading lesson was taught, from this, the researcher interviewed teachers to find the reason why teachers chose this approach and methods for teaching reading Finally, the questionnaires were designed to find out the students‟ preferences towards teachers‟ methods in teachers‟ methods The researcher indicated that most of teachers still used the traditional methods in reading periods and the students had negative attitudes towards these teachers‟ methods of teaching

Those researches, which were carried out in different parts of the world on the same subjects, revealed important issues on the teaching reading comprehension skill and became a useful background knowledge for my study

SUMMARY

In this chapter, the researcher describes elaborately various aspects of teaching ESP reading strategies More importantly, the researcher reviews what related studies found out It is hoped that the literature review provides a milestone background for the discussion of the collected data

Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents the context and the research methodology of the study

2.1 Context of the study

The study was conducted at Hanoi University of Industry (HaUI), which is located in Minh Khai Commune, Bac Tu Liem District, Hanoi At HaUI, English subject is taught in the formal setting with two stages: The first stage – the stage for General English and the second one - the stage for English for Specific Purposes (ESP) The first stage often lasts five terms with 405 periods The textbooks employed in the first stage are New Headway Elementary and Intermediate (Liz and John Soars, 2000) Students study four skills namely: listening, speaking, reading and writing during the first stage These textbooks aim at providing students with fundamental knowledge and four language skills of English

The second stage is for an ESP course which students learn in the second semester of the third year This stage only lasts one term with a total of 45 periods The reading skill accounts for 33 periods while translating, writing and testing are about 12 periods During this stage, students learn ESP related to their major field in order to improve the professional knowledge of English for their future job requirement ESP at HaUI is taught in eight different major fields with the aim of equipping students with reading skills and translation techniques Before entering the ESP course, students have already finished General English stage

For electrical engineering students, they are required to attend three ESP periods every week The ESP course uses the textbook “English for Electrical and Electronics Engineering” which was compiled from various sources of authentic texts by ESP lecturers at HaUI This ESP textbook covers 6 topics in 6 units, each of which lasts from 3 to 9 periods Each reading lesson is taught in 3 periods The aim

of the current ESP textbook is to provide an amount of vocabulary relating to the students‟ major field and develop their ability to read and translate technical materials It focuses on language skills: reading, writing, and translation It also puts greater emphasis on knowledge of students‟ specific major rather than language skills However, for most of the Electrical Engineering students, reading is the most

challenging task

2.2 Methodology

2.2.1 Research questions

The study is to find out the answers to the following questions:

1 What strategies do lecturers employ in teaching ESP reading for Electrical Engineering third-year students at HaUI?

2 How beneficial are lecturers’ teaching ESP reading strategies to Electrical Engineering third-year students at HaUI?

To address the research aims, objectives and research questions, document analysis, students‟ and lecturers‟ survey questionnaires are respectively carried out Following is the details of the participants, research instruments and data collection procedures

These students, from different parts of the country, are at the age from 20 to 22; most of them are male, only 20 are female Most of them come from the rural or remote areas where there are no good opportunities for studying English Although they all passed the examinations of General English course, there remains a wide gap

in English proficiency among students

2.2.2.2 Lecturers

There are 5 lecturers teaching English for Electrical Engineering at HaUI (including the researcher), therefore, four of them were invited to join in the study These lecturers are aged from 25 to 35 The proportion of female teachers to male teacher is prominent, that is three female teachers and only one male teacher Three

of them graduated from the English Department, University of Foreign Languages Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi One graduated from the Faculty of English at Hanoi University of Science and Technology They all have MA degrees and have been teaching ESP at HaUI at least for three years

Reasons for choosing survey questionnaires

Generally, it is accepted that the survey questionnaire is the most plausible and the frequently-used tool in doing research According to Nunan (1992), using this instrument is economical and time saving In theory, this method includes using questionnaires to collect the data, as “questionnaires often seem a logical and easy option as a way of collecting of information from people” (Wisker, 2001:32) Therefore, questionnaires are used in this study to investigate activities which lecturers have employed to teach ESP reading for Electrical Engineering third-year students

2.2.3.1 Survey questionnaire for students

The objectives of this survey questionnaire are to identify the strategies which lecturers have employed to teach ESP reading to Electrical Engineering third-year students as well as the students‟ personal expectations about teaching activities to help them improve their reading comprehension (The survey questionnaire is

available in Appendix A)

The students‟ survey questionnaire consists of 7 questions The survey

questionnaire for students was translated into Vietnamese so that all of students could

properly understand the meaning of all the questions Questions 1, 3 and 5 are

designed to explore the teaching reading activities their lecturers employ at each stage (including pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading stage) and benefits from those activities to students Questions 2, 4 and 6 focus on investigating how their lecturers organize them to do the activities when teaching an ESP reading lesson at each stage Question 7 attempts to find out the students‟ expectation how teaching

would improve their reading comprehension

2.2.3.2 Survey questionnaire for lecturers

The objectives of this survey questionnaire are to explore the strategies which lecturers have employed to teach ESP reading to Electrical Engineering third-year students, their difficulties in teaching ESP reading as well as what they suggest to

improve their teaching (The survey questionnaire is available in Appendix B)

The survey questionnaire for lecturers includes 8 questions Questions 1, 3 and

5 are to investigate activities that the lecturers employ at each stage including reading, while-reading and post-reading stage Questions 2, 4 and 6 explore how the lecturers organize students to practice activities at each reading stage Question 7 focuses on difficulties the lecturers face with in teaching ESP reading texts from their points of view Question 8 is to collect their personal suggestions to improve teaching ESP reading strategies

pre-2.2.4 Data collection procedures

The students and lecturers‟ survey questionnaires were conducted by the researcher herself A hundred copies of the survey questionnaire were sent to students

at Faculty of Electrical Engineering The researcher went to every class and explained the purpose of the survey questionnaire as well as instructed students how

to answer questions in the survey questionnaire before delivering them They were also encouraged to ask if there was something unclear or if they did not understand any survey items The survey questionnaires were collected as soon as students finished them

Four ESP lecturers took part in the survey questionnaires The researcher gave each of the lecturers a survey questionnaire and asked them to return after a day

2.2.5 Data analysis procedures

Though a hundred survey questionnaires were given to students, only 98 were collected However, 3 survey questionnaires were excluded due to a lot of missing information, 95 survey questionnaires were employed for data analysis

Four lecturers‟ survey questionnaires were returned to the researcher on time Therefore, all these data are taken into analysis

Chapter 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

This chapter presents results from the survey questionnaires for lecturers and for students Comparisons and contrasts between students and lecturers‟ opinions are presented in this chapter

3.1 Lecturers’ teaching ESP reading strategies

The term “activities” are used instead of “strategies” for both students and lecturers‟ survey questionnaires because as discussed in Literature Review in chapter

1, each stage of reading is characterized by its own aims and activities

3.1.1 Lecturers’ activities in pre-reading stage

Table 3.1 below reports students‟ points of view about lecturers‟ activities in pre-reading stage

Items Pre-reading stage activities Frequency of use (%)

3 Encourage students to guess the topic of the

reading text through the heading(s) 42.11 37.89 8.42 11.58

4 Encourage students to guess the topic of the

reading text through the illustration(s) 40 41.05 18.95 0

5 Encourage students to guess the topic of the

reading text through the visual aid(s) 84.21 5.26 10.53 0

6 Use language games to introduce the topic of

7 Use music to introduce the topic of the reading

8 Allow students to discuss the topic of the

reading text in pairs or in groups 0 0 10.53 89.47

9 Provide the meaning of new terminologies and

new structures in the ESP reading text 0 0 31.58 68.42

10

Show students how to predict the content of the

reading text through the title(s) or sub-title(s)

or heading(s)

11 Ask students to brainstorm ideas related to the

Table 3.1: Students’ evaluation of lecturers’ activities in pre-reading stage

As can be seen, among eleven popular reading activities in pre-reading stage, firstly, item 8 is the most frequent activity employed by lecturers (89.47%); secondly, item 2 is also frequently used (73.68%); thirdly, item 9 is employed by two-thirds of lecturers (68.42%); fourthly, item 1 attracts 63.16% of lecturers In addition, in pre-reading stage, 56.84% lecturers apply item 11 Unfortunately, two activities (item 2 and item 9) out of five that lecturers use frequently are not key activities in pre-reading stage according to the linguists (William, Smith, Davies) discussed in

chapter 1

On the contrary, the most effective activities for pre-reading stage as suggested

by the authors (William, Carrel et al., Smith, and Davies) are rarely and/ or never used by the ESP lecturers including item 10 (100%), item 7 (90.53%), item 5 (89.41%), item 4 (81.05%), item 3 (80%) and item 6 (72.63%)

The findings of frequency of using activities in teaching ESP reading in reading stage from the lecturers‟ points of views are presented in table 3.2 below

pre-Items Lecturers’ activities (in pre-reading stage) Frequency of use (%)

1 Ask questions relating to the topic of the reading text 0 0 50 50

2 Briefly introduce the topic of the ESP reading text 0 0 25 75

3 Encourage students to guess the topic of the reading

4 Encourage students to guess the topic of the reading

5 Encourage students to guess the topic of the reading

6 Use language games to introduce the topic of the

7 Use music to introduce the topic of the reading text 0 100 0 0

8 Allow students to discuss the topic of the reading text

9 Provide the meaning of new terminologies and new

10 Show students how to predict the content of the reading

text through the title(s) or sub-title(s) or heading(s) 25 75 0 0

11 Ask students to brainstorm ideas related to the reading

Table 3.2: Lecturers’ self-evaluation of their activities in pre-reading stage

As reported in table 3.2, in pre-reading stage, the most usually used activity is item 8 (100%) Then, item 2 and item 9 are frequently employed by two-thirds of lecturers (75%) Finally, half of the lecturers apply both item 1 and item 11 in pre-reading stage (50%)

On the other hand, table 3.2 reveals that items 7 and 10 are rarely and/ or never employed by all the lecturers (100%) Additionally, the lecturers report that they rarely and/ or never use some activities such as items 6, 4 and 5 (75% and 50% respectively) in pre-reading stage

The findings of frequency of using lecturers‟ pre-reading stage activities that present in both students‟ evaluation and lecturers‟ self-evaluation are relatively similar Although the ESP lecturers sometimes do not follow the activities suggested some linguists (William, Carrel et al., Smith, and Davies), there is no evidence to prove that the activities employed by lecturers are not essential in pre-reading stage The results in both students and lecturers‟ survey questionnaires explore the lecturers‟ ways of organizing students‟ activities in pre-reading stage The findings of the two survey are displayed in Figure 3.1 and 3.2 below

Figure 3.1: Students’ evaluation of lecturers’ activity organization

Figure 3.2: Lecturers’ self-evaluation of their activity organization

3.1.2 Lecturers’ activities in while-reading stage

The responses to question 3 are presented and analyzed in table 3.3 and 3.4 as follows

As shown in table 3.3; first, items 1, 2, 10, 13 and 15 are reported to be the most frequent activities used by all the lecturers (100%) in while-reading stage Second, item 8 and 9 (94.74%) is also frequently employed by lecturers Third, item

5 and item 4 attract 89.47% and 84.21% of lecturers respectively Fortunately, all activities that lecturers often employ are key activities in while-reading stage in accordance with the authors (Williams, Sheils, Mathews et al and Karakas) discussed in chapter 1

Nevertheless, it can be seen from table 3.3, item 16 and item 3 are rarely and/

or never employed by the majority of the lecturers (78.95% and 73.68% respectively) The results are quite understandable since it takes ESP lecturers much time to design extra exercises Besides, encouraging students to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words by contextual clues is not an easy task because of depending on

specific subjects and students‟ ability of perceiving

Table 3.3: Students’ evaluation of lecturers’ activities in while-reading stage

Table 3.4 below sums up activities in while-reading stage from lecturers‟ evaluation From this table, items 1, 2, 8, 9, 10, 13, 15 have the highest frequency of use by all lecturers in while-reading stage (100%) Next, two-thirds of the lecturers (75%) reveal that items 4, 5 and 11 are also frequently employed

self-However, as can be seen in table 3.4, two items 3 and 16 are rarely and/ or

Items While-reading stage activities Frequency of use (%)

1 Identify new vocabularies and terminologies in

2 Ask students to find out meanings of new

vocabularies and terminologies in dictionary 0 0 0 100

3 Encourage students to guess the meaning of

unfamiliar words by using contextual clues 0 73.68 26.32 0

4 Translate sentence by sentence in the reading text

5 Skip new vocabularies and terminologies and

6 Make students read the reading tasks first, then read

the text to find out the answers 0 0 47.37 52.63

7 Ask students to read the text first; then, do all

10 Read silently to find the main ideas for each

11 Do all the reading tasks below the reading text 0 0 26.32 73.68

12 Do True/ False exercises to check the understanding

about facts and ideas in the reading text 0 47.37 52.63 0

13 Use the information in the text for completing tables 0 0 0 100

14 Use the information in the text for completing

15 Use the information in the text for doing rephrasing

16 Do extra exercises designed by their lecturer 0 78.95 21.05 0