A study on english vietnamese liaison interpreting in HIVAIDS programs of non govermental organizations in vietnam

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATESTUDIES---***--- LE THI THUY DEVELOPING SUPPLEMENTARY READING AND WRITING

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE

STUDIES -*** -

LE THI THUY

DEVELOPING SUPPLEMENTARY READING AND

WRITING MATERIALS FOR NON-ENGLISH MAJORED UNIVERSITY STUDENTS: A NEEDS-BASED APPROACH

PHÁT TRIỂN TÀI LIỆU ĐỌC-VIẾT BỔ TRỢ CHO SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH THEO ĐƯỜNG HƯỚNG LẤY

NHU CẦU NGƯỜI HỌC LÀM TRUNG TÂM

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology

Code: 601410

HANOI - 2009

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE

STUDIES -*** -

LE THI THUY

DEVELOPING SUPPLEMENTARY READING AND

WRITING MATERIALS FOR NON-ENGLISH MAJORED UNIVERSITY STUDENTS: A NEEDS-BASED APPROACH

PHÁT TRIỂN TÀI LIỆU ĐỌC-VIẾT BỔ TRỢ CHO SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH THEO ĐƯỜNG HƯỚNG LẤY

NHU CẦU NGƯỜI HỌC LÀM TRUNG TÂM

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology

Code: 601410

Supervisor: Vu Mai Trang, M.A

HANOI - 2009

Tables of contents

Candidate’s declaration i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

Tables of contents iv

List of abbreviations vi

List of figures, charts and tables vii

INTRODUCTION 1

1 Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

3 Significance of the study 2

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Methods of the study 3

6 Design of the study (An overview of the rest of the paper) 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Needs analysis 5

1.1.1 Definition of needs 5

1.1.2 The importance of needs analysis 5

1.2 Textbook evaluation and adaptation 6

1.2.1 The Role of Textbooks 6

1.2.2 Textbook evaluation 7

1.2.3 Textbook adaptation 7

1.3 Supplementary materials 8

1.3.1 The importance of supplementary materials 8

1.3.2 Definition of supplementary materials 10

1.3.3 Criteria of developing supplementary reading texts 11

1.4 Reading exercises and reading skills 12

1.4.1 Types of reading exercises 12

1.4.2 Reading skills 13

1.5 Creating activities based on reading texts 14

1.5.1 Skills integration in EFL teaching and learning 14

1.5.2 Creating writing activities from reading texts 14

1.6 Suitability of the present study in the research area 15

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 16

2.1 Description of the context 16

2.1.1 The current syllabus for the third-year students 16

2.1.2 The teaching staff 17

2.1.3 The students 17

2.2 Description of the participants 18

2.3 Methods of data collection 18

2.4 Methods of data analysis 20

2.5 Scope of the research 20

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 21

3.1 Personal evaluation of the coursebook New Headway 21

3.2 The attitudes of students and teachers towards the coursebook New Headway 22

3.3 Students’ preferences for a supplementary material 26

3.4 Teachers’ view on the teaching of reading and writing 30

3.5 Teachers’ view on where to use the supplementary materials 31

3.6 Conclusion 32

CHAPTER 4: DEVELOPING SUPPLEMENTARY READING AND WRITING MATERIALS FOR NON – ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS IN HULIS, VNU 33

4.1 Criteria of developing supplementary reading and writing materials. 33

4.1.1 Criteria of selecting reading materials 33

4.1.2 Developing procedures 34

4.2 An overview of the developed sample material 34

4.2.1 General descriptions of the material 34

4.2.2 Purposes of the material 35

4.3 Recommendations 35

4.4 The sample of supplementary reading and writing materials for NEMS 37

CONCLUSION 38

REFERENCES 41 APPENDICES I

English for Specific PurposesBachelor of Arts

Chart 1: Overall rating of teachers and students on the course book

Chart 2: Students’ attitudes towards the course book’s layout and design

Chart 3: Students’ attitudes towards the topics’ sequence

Chart 4a: Students’ attitude towards the reading passages

Chart 4b: Teachers’ attitude towards the reading passages

Chart 5: Course book evaluation average marking – a comparison between teachers and students Chart 6: Respondents’ view on using the course book

Chart 7: Students’ attitude towards the benefits of reading exercises

Chart 8: Students’ preference of reading texts

Chart 9: Favorite types of exercises

Chart 10: Reading skills students would like to develop more

Chart 11a: The frequency of practicing writing exercises

Chart 11b: Students’ preference of writing exercises

Chart 12 Advantages of using a reading text to teach writing

Chart 13: Techniques used to employ reading texts to create writing activities

Tables

Table: An overview of the coursebooks New Headway

INTRODUCTION

1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study

The diversity of needs of English language learners has long been acknowledged(Tarone & Yule, 1989) Researchers also propose that teachers should identify correctlearner expectations and attitudes about how languages are learned and also explain thereasoning behind classroom methods, in order to reduce any gap between learner andteacher beliefs (Horwitz, 1985; Wenden, 1986; McCargar, 1993; Kern, 1995; Peacock,1999) A learning-centered approach to lessons, materials and syllabus design advocatesthe involvement of learners in contributing to this design Learners should be invited toexpress their views in their needs for learning the language, their preferred learning styles(Willing, 1988) These views can then inform the material design, and they should takepart in assessing the materials once they are applied Therefore, when designing materialsfor NEMS, it is necessary that the teachers have reliable information about their learnervariables so that syllabi, methods of teaching, and methods of testing match learners‟

needs as closely as possible According to Bachman and Palmer (1996): “needs analysis,

or needs assessment, involves the systematic gathering of specific information about the language needs of learners and the analysis of this information for purpose of language syllabus design” (p.102).

A pilot survey was done by the researcher with the aim of learning about the needs ofthe non-English majored students (NEMS) shows that while students want to get goodmarks at final exams (in the format of reading and writing), they also want to enhance theirlanguage competence including reading and writing skills For a majority of studentscoming from such departments as German, Korean, Japanese, Russian, and Chinese whohad chance to learn English at high school, exercises in the coursebook New Headway borethem and discourage them from practicing their skills They really need something morechallenging Students work with the ready-made-text in the coursebook because the text isseen as the main source of providing and acquiring knowledge for both teachers andstudents Supplementary reading texts are „sometimes‟ or „rarely‟ assigned to the students.During the periods of reading skill, they concentrated only on practicing reading exercises

of a unit in the coursebook and dealing with new words appearing in the text The studyalso indicated that most of the students would like to have a full pack of supplementaryreading materials to meet the needs of the students

Selecting or developing reading materials to enhance reading and writing skills hasbecome a popular activity in English Department, HULIS, VNU However, a library searchsuggested that there have been very few researches on designing supplementary materialsfor NEMS in our university, especially those on the integration of reading and writing.This fact urged the researcher to do a research on the subject with the hope that the finalproduct (supplementary reading and writing material) would benefit both teachers andNEMS in HULIS, VNU

2 Aims and objectives of the study

This study investigates NEMS‟ learning needs including their attitudes towards theNew Headway coursebook, their practice of reading and writing strategies The first aim ofthis study is to examine some characteristics of the reading texts and exercises in thecoursebooks „New Headway‟ (Elementary and Pre-intermediate) The second aim is tofind out how well the coursebook matches the needs of students In addition, the researchaims to analyzing students‟ preferences for the choice of topics and types of supplementaryreading and writing exercises To help the students to be aware of the importance ofintegrating reading and writing skills is also an important aim More importantly, theresearcher aims to develop a supplementary material to motivate the students and helpthem to reinforce reading and writing skills

Specifically, this minor thesis would aim to develop a supplementary reading andwriting skills to enhance these skills By that, the study would have to answer the followingquestions:

1 What are students‟ views on the New Headway coursebooks?

2 To what extent does the New Headway coursebooks satisfy students‟ needs?

3 What are students‟ preferences for a supplementary Reading and Writing material?

3 Significance of the study

The findings of this research will provide teachers with insightful information onlearners‟ needs and preferences as an input to materials design, focusing on reading andwriting skills input to materials planning The study demonstrates the importance of a goodunderstanding of learner variables at multi-faculty in HULIS Although the actual needs ofEnglish might vary among different multi-faculty universities, the applied process ofquestionnaire design, validation and data analysis can serve as a model or example for

other NEMS in HULIS or in other universities in VNU Hopefully, the developed materialwould be a reference for both teachers and NEMS to use when teaching and learning thecoursebooks New Headway (Elementary/ Pre-intermediate)

4 Scope of the study

The researcher has no ambition to touch upon every aspect of teaching both readingand writing skills but focuses mainly on selecting reading texts and creating writingactivities based on reading texts In other words, the study is only aimed at guidingstudents to different kinds of writing exercises in which they can use reading texts as thespringboard to generate ideas Therefore, more attention is given to reading exercises.Writing, in this paper, is considered nearly like post-reading stage

Additionally, due to the small scale of the study as well as the limitation of timeand knowledge, the material designed will be applied to third year students learning insession two, including 10 units for 15 weeks, focusing on the integration of reading andwriting, designing the supplementary the materials for developing listening and speakingskills will be the future research

5 Methods of the study

According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987), the best methodology for studyingthe needs of any particular group of students is to use such methods as questionnaires,follow-up interviews, and collection of authentic texts Therefore, in order to find outanswers to the above-mentioned questions, survey questionnaires - a typical time-savingand information- reliable method of quantitative approach will be exploited to collectopinions about the coursebook and teachers and students‟ attitudes towards the readingpassages in New Headway coursebooks taught in the second session Throughquestionnaires, quantities data, truth value of persuasive statistics concerning theinvestigated issues, could be obtained

In addition, information from other sources such as the Internet, journals, andbooks was collected, summarized, analyzed and synthesized Collecting information andanalyzing data from other sources also equip the researcher with background knowledgeand literature of the investigated issue

In summary, through analyzing the information and data collected, the researcherhave flexibly taken advantages of all the above mentioned methods as a source of evidence

to enhance the persuasive value of the study

6 An overview of the rest of the paper

The paper includes four chapters altogether:

Chapter 1 - Literature Review reviews theoretical background on which the whole study is

based, including the theoretical issues of supplementary reading and writing materials

Chapter 2 – Methodology describes in detail the methods and procedures the researcher

uses in conducting this research

Chapter 3 – Data analysis and findings presents the results and discusses the findings as

well as possible interferences from such findings

Chapter 4 – provides some criteria for developing supplementary reading and writing

exercises for NEMS with Recommendations giving pedagogical suggestions for

teachers and students when and how to use this material

we should be able to identify those notions and functions that will be most valuable toteach.

Another definition comes from goal-oriented perspective, needs can be defined aswhat students should be able to do at the end of their language course or “what the user-institution or society at large regards as necessary or desirable to be learnt from a program

of language instruction” (Mountford, 1981: 27)

In this thesis, the definition of Brindley (1984: 28) would be employed According

to him, needs refer to wants, desires, demands, expectations, motivations, lacks,constraints, and requirements From this point of view, needs of students may be in a greatharmony or in opposition to the requirements of course designers

He also stated that when analyzing needs, it is also important to bear in mind andcombine two types of needs: subjective needs and objective needs

Objective needs are those which can be diagnosed by teachers on the basis of the analysis of personal data about learners along with information about their language proficiency and patterns of language use … subjective needs which are often „wants‟, desires‟, „expectations‟ or other psychological manifestations of a lack) cannot be diagnosed as easily (Brindley, 1984:31)

1.1.2 The importance of needs analysis

According to Nunan (1988), needs analysis is considered as the initial process forthe specification of behavioral objectives It is from these objectives that detailed aspects ofthe syllabus such as functions, topics, lexis and structures derived

A needs analysis is usually seen as being most beneficial for an English for SpecificPurposes (ESP) course, “an approach to language teaching which aims to meet the needs ofparticular learners” (Hutchinson & Water, 1987: 21)

In order to meet the various needs of particular learners, it is very important fordesigners to analyze their learners‟ needs so as to design appropriate courses for them tomotivate them and help them learn English faster and more effectively Therefore, needsanalysis is of great importance to the effectiveness of teaching and learning process

Recently, a major trend in language syllabus design as well as materialsdevelopment is the use of information from and about learners

1.2 Textbook evaluation and adaptation

Thanks to the rapid ELT development in the world, more and more textbooks havemade their way to Vietnam markets Although most classroom teachers will not beinvolved in producing textbooks, all teachers have the responsibility for textbookevaluation, selection and adaptation Due to space limitation, in this study, we will focus

on the role of textbooks, and how to evaluate textbooks as well as how to adapt a textbook

According to McGrath (2002), the term „coursebook‟ refers to a textbook on which a course is based, hence, the terms „coursebook‟ and „textbook‟ in this minor thesis will be

used interchangeably by the researcher

1.2.1 The Role of Textbooks

The significant role of textbooks in language teaching and learning process isundeniable In any ESL program, a basic structure or syllabus needs to be formed to enablethe whole process of learning and teaching to work A textbook seems to provide suchbasis It may serve as a language input source for learners By that, they can expose to theauthentic language Also, a textbook can be used as a foundation on which teachers;especially inexperienced ones build their lesson plans and give their instructions in theclass For most of second language learners, besides the input they receive from theirteachers, textbooks serve as a main source of contact with the target language Therefore,textbooks can be said to be the key component in most language programs As Hutchinsonand Torres (1994: 315) suggest:

"The textbook is an almost universal element of [English language] teaching Millions of copies are sold every year, and numerous aid projects have been set up to produce them in [various] countries…No teaching-learning situation, it seems, is complete until it has its relevant textbook "

In this case, „relevant textbook‟ is understood by the researcher as such that atextbook can meet teachers and learners‟ needs as well as the context of teaching andlearning Especially as for non-English majored students, they rarely have a chance to

practise English outside their classrooms and even fewer opportunities to interact withnative speakers Without these opportunities, learners receive less input and produce lessoutput, which affects their learning Therefore, the classroom becomes the uniqueenvironment in which students are exposed to the target language Similarly, the textbook

is the only source that provides them with both linguistic and pragmatic knowledge

1.2.2 Textbook evaluation

It is the fact that not all the textbooks satisfy students‟ needs or every context ofteaching and learning It is, therefore, necessary to evaluate a coursebook McGrath (2002:59) mentioned that four evaluative processes are subsequently involved selection,

rejection, adding, and changing

1 Selection – of coursebook material that will be used unchanged.

2 Rejection – complete (e.g omitting a whole activity or even a whole lesson) or

partial (e.g cutting one or more stages within an activity)

3 Adding – in the form of extension or exploitation of the existing material, this

can be regarded as adaptation; where new materials are introduced, this will be termedsupplementation

4 Changing – i.e more radical forms of adaptation, such as modifications to

produces or changes in context/content (replacement).

Textbook evaluation is aimed to examining how well a textbook matches the needs of

a language program and students McGrath (2002) suggested that an ideal systematictextbook evaluation would be a longitudinal one, which includes „pre-use‟ evaluation,

„whilst-use‟ evaluation and „post-use‟ evaluation In this paper, the researcher is going toemploy the second kind to elicit ideas from students to find out to what extent the textbooksatisfies the students‟ needs

1.2.3 Textbook adaptation

Despite the fact that textbook writers have made great effort to meet the needs of theintended users, when actually used in a particular classroom, they are still in need of beingadapted to satisfy the needs of specific students with different learning styles in differentteaching and learning contexts

Teachers can adapt textbooks at three levels The first one is Macro adaptation, which

is ideally done before the language program begins After comparing what is covered in atextbook and what is required by the syllabus or examination, the teacher may find that

certain areas or even whole units of the book can be omitted, and certain contents need to

be supplemented Macro adaptation is very important because it helps the teacher to avoidwaste of time It also helps the teacher to see in advance what he or she needs tosupplement so that he or she can keep an eye on materials that could be used

The second level of adaptation is adapting a unit This could be reordering theactivities, combining activities, omitting activities, rewriting or supplementing exercisematerial, etc Unit adaptation helps to make the classroom teaching more smooth andcohesive It also helps the teacher to better fulfill the aims of a unit

The third level is adaptation of specific activities in a unit Occasionally an activity ateacher regards as valuable, but it is not well-designed or it is not feasible in a particularclass If the teacher does not want to give up the activity, he or she needs to adapt it

(Evaluating and Adapting Textbooks, retrieved from:

http://zy.swust.net.cn/06/1/zxyyjcjf/unit%2014%20evaluating%20and%20adapting

%20text books.htm)

However, one thing in common the three levels share is that adaptation involvessupplementation, that is, teachers add materials from other resources to textbooks they areusing Taking the above options and levels of adaptation, the researcher chose to adapt theNew Headway coursebooks by developing a supplementary material

The researcher agrees with O‟ Neil (1993) on the view that the coursebooks cannotadequately fulfill the needs of all students who have different background knowledge,learning styles and motivations Over the past decades, it has become increasingly clearthat teachers are strongly recommended to take into account such factors asanthropological and socio-cultural factors which influence the conditions under whichEnglish is taught On the other hand, Alptekin (1993) argues that “writers write materials

in line with their own culture rather than that of the learners” Hence, bridging the gap oftheir individual learners‟ cultural background should be emphasized, which can be done byadapting and producing materials

1.3 Supplementary materials

1.3.1 The importance of supplementary material

As discussed above, much of the language teaching could not take place withouttextbooks No textbook, however, is perfect According McGrath (2002), a singlecoursebook cannot meet all the needs of a specific class of learners, even when the

coursebook has been carefully designed to cater for the needs of learners in that context

Supplementation, according to him, means no more than „adding something new‟ This

definition seems to be fit in such a context that teachers are making an attempt to bridgethe gap between a coursebook and the demands of a public examination, or a coursebookand students‟ needs According to him, we can supplement a coursebook by devising ourown material He argues that „suitable supplementary materials is not available‟, whichmeans supplementary material has to meet the same criteria as coursebook material, butthese are likely to be more strictly applied The researcher, however, believes that inaddition to the core material (textbooks), supplementary material should be flexible so thatteachers can personalize to make it a better teaching resource or individualize it for aparticular group of learners A supplementary material can meet the requirements ofspecific students in a particular context Therefore, there still exist suitable materials

It is the teachers that design supplementary materials as they “know their ownstudents and will be able to „tune‟ the material to suit their level, their aptitude, theirinterests, their needs, and personalize so that it seems even more meaningful” (McGrath,

2002, p 84) Similarly, Block‟s argument (1991, cited in McGrath, 2002) that teachersshould prepare their own material derives from his dissatisfaction with published material

He claimed that teacher-prepared material is likely to be more-up-to-date and morerelevant to students‟ needs and interests than equivalent coursebook material Therefore, it

is necessary to base on an analysis of learner needs When designing this material, theresearcher applied the model of Jolly and Bolitho (1998, cited in McGrath, 2002, p 90)illustrating steps in material design It is a clear and teacher-friendly framework that helpsthe researcher follow steps easily, especially when the research adopts needs-basedapproach Being aware that developing any material derives from the aim of enhancing theteaching and learning process, the needs of teachers or students should be identified interms of attitudes, learning styles, expectations, motivations, and preferences in theirlearning a second language The facing problems are also explored to provide necessaryinformation for teachers To bridge the gap of a particular teaching and learning context,contextual and pedagogical realization is included in the model When designing amaterial, it is essential to take into account its layout and format, which is also mentioned

in the model Although it did meet common requirements of developing a material, themodel only provided a basic scheme on which the material designers can base to build

their specific model and to make it more detailed

IDENTIFICATION by teachers or learner(s) of a need to fulfill or a problem to solve by the creation of materials

EXPLORATION of the area of need/problem in terms of what language, what meanings, what functions, what skills etc.?

CONTEXTUAL REALISATION of the proposed new materials by the finding of suitable ideas, contexts

or texts with which to work

PEDAGOGICAL REALISATION of materials by the finding of appropriate exercises and activities AND the writing of appropriate instructions for use

PHYSICAL PRODUCTION of materials, involving consideration of layout, type, size, visuals,

reproduction, tape length etc.

Figure: A framework for material writing 1.3.2 Definition of supplementary materials

According to To & Nguyen (2006), “Supplementary materials are materialsdesigned to be used in addition to the core materials of a course.”

Supplementary materials are materials used to complement the work done in class

(“Teacher‟s Manual,” 2006)

From the concepts of supplementary materials mentioned above, supplementaryreading materials are understood as materials catering for reading activity These materialsare provided by the textbook‟s authors, the teacher or the students themselves to aim atreinforcing and developing reading skills that have been learnt in class

Lam (2004) claimed that supplementary reading texts should have the same topic asthose in the textbook Nevertheless, “Textbook and learning materials” (2000) suggestedthat supplementary materials expand upon the information in the textbook They may rangefrom “chalk and blackboards to educational television and interactive computerizedlessons” It means that supplementary materials can be further or out of what have beentaught in class

Lam (2004) also added that the language, styles and types of supplementary readingexercises are more diverse, and these exercises can be done in class or at home

Supplementary reading materials are recognized necessary because they have a lot

of benefits First, they provided students more opportunities to reinforce reading skills

Developing any skill always needs a progress, and a variety of materials on a wide range oftopic can encourage reading for different reasons and in different ways Within limitedtime in class, it is hard for one to have good reading skills Therefore, he/she should spendtime on supplementary readings at home In fact, if the reading texts and exercises are ofstudents‟ interests, they would motivate them in reading, and since supplementary readingexercises are often done at home, they would enhance learner independence and autonomy.Second, as mentioned in the previous part, supplementary readings which contain variouscontents would widen their background knowledge Third, supplementary readingmaterials itself is a large language input such as vocabulary, structures and expressions thatwill support students in developing other skills

1.3.3 Criteria of developing supplementary reading texts

There have been a number of criteria for collectors to consider when selecting asupplementary text However, in the researcher‟s opinion, such things should be givenpriority to as: the target students‟ interests, the length and level of difficulty of the readingtext

Students’ interests

Commonly, supplementary readings are recommended to have the same topics orgrammatical focus as main readings However, interest is the first criterion to select areading text (Anderson, 2003 and Hedge, 2000) Reading activity would bring little or noeffect if students had to read a text that they were not interested in According to Jones(2004), in such situation, reading would be not far from a „struggle‟ and students wouldfind ways to avoid reading it

Length of the reading text

Besides, another criterion for selecting texts is appropriate length They should not

be too long Reading a text in a second language is demanding itself, so a lengthy textwould discourage students to read (Rees, 2006) On the other hand, according to manyresearchers, too short texts are not always good ones because they may have beenbeforehand modified or shortened As a result, they would be inefficient in language andinformation content

Level of difficulty of the reading text

To begin with, a good text, as Rees (2006) suggested, is supposed to contain auseful lexical set, some good grammar exponents, interesting syntax and sentence style

Nevertheless, the texts‟ content should be in an appropriate level to target students

“Teacher‟s Manual” (2006) advised that reading materials should be within the linguisticcompetence of the students in terms of vocabulary and grammar

Additionally, it is widely suggested that the texts should be written in standardEnglish They should not have a lot of technical language or culturally specific, slang orinformal language that the students may not be familiar with The texts should also notcontain many words of old-fashioned style and local dialects

To sum up, considering such main criteria of reading texts before assigning tostudents is one essential thing for a teacher to do If the texts are guaranteed with thosecriteria, the teacher has gone half way to the success in developing reading skills for the

students This phenomenon is called „Matthew Effect‟: “Successful reading experiences lead to greater skills levels in reading, which lead to more reading.”(cited in Rasinski &

Padak, 2006)

1.4 Reading exercises and reading skills

1.4.1 Types of reading exercises

There are many types of reading exercises, but the most common types are:

True/False: Statements are given and basing on the text, the student has to decide whether

it is true or false This type of exercises is often used to check comprehension

Comprehension questions: The student has to answer questions after reading to prove

how much they comprehend the text These questions may attach to the content of the passage or may be open-ended ones

Gap-filling (Cloze reading)/ Table-filling: A sentence, dialogue, paragraph or table

containing a blank or multiple blanks The student has to fill in exactly the correct word(s)

in the blank spaces A hint may be sometimes included such as a root verb that need to bechanged, or the first letter of the word This type of exercises usually checks vocabulary orkey words in the reading passage

Matching exercises: The candidate must link items from the first column to items in the

second This could be individual words, words and definitions, parts of sentences, pictures

to words (paragraph) or subheadings and paragraphs Because students can get the rightanswers without knowing the words, if she/he has most of the answers correct, she/heknows the last one left must be right, these exercises often have more words thannecessary

Rearranging facts (Unscramble): is „a reordering task‟ in which the student has to

arrange the scrambled facts presented in the reading passage (Tschichold, 1997)

Multiple - choice: The student is given a number of possible answers and he/she has to

choose the correct one Correct answers may best complete a sentence, give the samemeaning as a sentence or indicate if a sentence is true

Find words in the text: An explanation is given and the student has to find in the text the

word that is closest to that explanation

1.4.2 Reading skills

In classifying and defining reading skills, the researcher adapts from the onlineEnglish dictionary Macmillan (2002), which shows a most clearly and easily understoodlist of important skills: skimming, scanning, identifying key words, guessing meaning,identifying the topic sentence, summarizing, and reading for gist In this minor thesis, thefollowing popular reading skills will be taken into account in designing supplementaryreading exercises:

Skimming: Williams (1986) claimed that the purpose of skimming is simply to see what a

text is about In other words, Grellet (1981) defined skimming as running one‟s eyes over atext to get the gist of it In brief, skimming is looking for the main ideas of a text andpaying little attention to the details

Scanning: From the view of Williams (1986), scanning occurs when a reader go through a

text very quickly to find a particular point of information In other words, scanning isretrieving details in the text that are relevant to one‟s purposes

Identifying key words: This skill is applied when students underline the key words in a

text, or complete a table with key words from the text

Guessing meaning: Students read a passage which contains new words and phrases They

try to guess the meaning of the new words and phrases by their context

Identifying the topic sentence: Students find the sentence in a paragraph which gives the

idea of what the paragraph is about

Summarizing: Summarizing is an example of integrating skills Students read a text and

identify the main points, then use those main points to write a summary (a much shorterversion of the text) containing only the essential information

Reading for gist: This skill is used when reading a passage to get a general idea of what it

is about, but not worrying about understanding the complete content or every specific idea

1.5 Creating activities based on reading texts

1.5.1 Skills integration in EFL teaching and learning

According to Oxford (1990), integrating skills is the application of an integratingapproach for the development of communicative skills in the classroom, in which the fourskills in the acquisition of knowledge of a foreign language can be taught in a coherentway, and practiced together, with a distinction of the importance of once upon the other

The integrated-skill approach, as contrasted with the purely segregated approach,not only helps learners gain a true picture of the richness and complexity of the Englishlanguage as employed for communication but also turns English into a real means ofinteraction and sharing among people In addition, integrating the language skills help topromote the learning of real content, not just the dissection of language forms (Scarcella

et al, 1992)

1.5.2 Creating writing activities from reading texts

The importance of skills integration in EFL teaching and learning can not bedenied The question of why and how writing activities can be created based on the readingtext is linked to the connection between two skills: Reading and Writing Butler and Turbill(1984) agreed that reading and writing are similar and mutually supportive languageprocesses Both skills rely on the reader‟s or writer‟s background knowledge to constructmeaning and both make use of cuing systems (graphic, semantic, syntactic) to allow thereader or writer to predict and confirm meaning In his influential study about therelationship between reading and writing, Stotsky (1983) pointed out one conclusion that

“reading experiences have as great an effect on writing as direct instruction in grammar and mechanics.”

To show how reading and writing are interconnected, Skeans (2000) stated that thetheory of constructivism supported that both comprehending and composing were regarded

as text production processes Hence, "both reader and writer were active participants in themaking or construction of meaning as they interacted with text" (p 70)

Recently, coursebooks and textbooks have shown a shift by leaving a skill – basedreading approach to reading and applying reading-writing components Jeanette andMoseley state it in the preface of their book as:

“ today the idea of integrating writing and reading instruction is gaining increased acceptance because research has indicated its theoretical validity and teachers have discovered its pedagogical effectiveness.

We can find a list of authentic writing activities such as guided writing, writingletters, writing descriptions, reporting experience, writing a narrative based on a picture or

a series of pictures, describe an occasion when you were disappointed (afraid, surprised,etc.) In this paper, the researcher focuses on certain types of writing activities based onreading texts from which students can have chances to improve their language proficiencyand approach the communicative target language more easily

1.6 Suitability of the present study in the research area

So far, as a brief description of aspects of the role of textbooks, supplementarymaterial, teaching integrated skills writing activities, along with related issues, has beenpresented and discussed, there comes the need to clarify how the present study fits into thearea of investigation

Firstly, the researcher found it necessary to utilize texts to improve the teaching andlearning integrated skills for NEMSs Therefore, this paper could be of use as it puts theemphasis on the prospects of designing supplementary materials to integrate reading andwriting skills for NEMS It would make possible suggestions in details on how teacherscan exploit reading texts to promote their teaching writing

Secondly, from the real context of teaching, the researcher has found the necessity

of adapting textbook by designing supplementary materials since up to now, this field hasnot been touched upon Therefore, the present paper, aiming at finding the needs of NEMS,

is by all means necessary

In short, this research is supposed to fill up one among the existing gaps in theresearch field By this, it means that this research would improve the context of learningand teaching reading and writing skills among teachers of Second Foreign LanguageDivision and NEMS in HULIS The research is presented with further information in thefollowing sections

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY2.1 Description of the context

As the study was conducted at HULIS, the researcher found it necessary to give abrief description of teaching and learning context, including the coursebook being used, theteachers as well as non-English majored students

2.1.1 The current syllabus for the third-year students

It is noticeable that these students are following credited syllabus There are fourmodules for NEMSs and they start module 1 in their fourth semester, and finish it in theirseventh semester Being in charge of the second module, the researcher aimed to design acomplete pack of supplementary material to aid the teaching Among four modules,therefore, the second module with four credits was chosen The second module covers tenunits – from unit 11 in Headway Elementary to unit 6 in Headway Pre-Intermediate Ineach module, there are three main types of tests: Progress test 1 (in the format of readingand writing) accounts for 10 percent of the total mark whereas progress test 2 checksspeaking and listening skills (20 percent of the total mark) The third test, the end-of-termtest, makes up of 50 percent of the whole assessment, has reading and writing format.Designing learner-friendly exercises to help the students perform well in the tests is alsoone aim of this study

In terms of the materials, a series of New Headway, formally used as thecoursebook by NEMS, HULIS for two years are considered more up-to-date than Lifelinescoursebooks, which were used by HULIS This material, written by John and Liz Soars,has been quite successful and popular to learners of English all over the world Also theyare widely used in many English courses for the following reasons:

- According to the authors, Headway has been designed for adult and young adultwho would like to use English both for fluency and accuracy and all the four skills are developedsystemically (Soars and Soars, 1993) which makes this book appropriate for all kind of learners

- The book concentrates on traditional approaches such as a clear focus on grammarwith in-depth analysis and clarification, through many exercises and reading material, yet itemploys the “communicative approaches” since students are required to work out rules individually

- The textbooks have been written to satisfy the needs of all kinds of learners fromdifferent countries or backgrounds, they are not merely used for a particular national group andreflect upon their personal opinions

- Student needs and interests present good reasons for choosing the greatly popularHeadway series, which is for students who want to make use of English accurately and fluently,and to communicate with ease in both social and everyday situations (Soars & Soars, 1996).|

Each of the main units is based around a theme and has a main structural focusrecycled and developed through the unit The contents of this module are presented inAppendices

2.1.2 The teaching staff

Division of Second Foreign Language consists of eleven teachers, among whomseven teachers have got BA Degree in language teaching The context of teaching andlearning English for NEMS, HULIS requires some adaptation and adjustment of teachers.Most of them try to integrate the four skills by employing communicative approachwhereas some elderly teachers are reluctant to it These teachers are used to grammar-translation methods and form-focused instructions During the periods of reading skill, theyconcentrated only on practicing reading exercises of a unit in the coursebook and dealingwith new words appearing in the text Students mainly work with the ready-made texts inthe coursebook Writing activities are hardly introduced to students; therefore, there doesnot exist the so-called integration approach In addition, the format of final test whichfocuses on checking reading and writing skills drives the students‟ attention to these twoskills Although what is taught is different from one class to another, depending on both theteachers and the students‟ level of proficiency and their needs, the situation at HULISraises a necessity of designing a supplementary material to meet their needs

2.1.3 The students

Actually NEMS at HULIS can be divided into two groups:

The first is those who took an English test in their entrance examination; the second

is those who did not The first group consists of students studying Japanese, Korean,German, and some Russian, Chinese students By the time they leave high school, most ofthem have studied English for at least seven years; however, they traditionally concentrated

on reading skills, vocabulary and grammatical structures

The second one includes students from French department, and the others fromRussian and Chinese department Generally students from group 1 are better at Englishthan those from group 2; therefore, since academic year 2008-2009, two programs havebeen offered to students aiming at these two different groups The first program is GeneralEnglish (GE), the focus of which is basics of English grammar, structures and vocabulary.The second program is Advanced English which aims at developing students‟communication skills in English; therefore, all the four skills would be well developed Nosooner had the second program been introduced, the demand for better reading exercisesarose for both groups

2.2 Description of the participants

In this study students at HULIS in their third-year and teachers of English weredefined as the participants

150 third-year students were selected randomly Their ages ranged from 20 to 22.They have just started their third module, so they could have the best view of module 2.With regard to teacher population, there were only 11 teachers including theresearcher They were between 24 and 50 years old and their experience of teaching quitevaried, ranging from 2 years to 28 years

2.3 Methods of data collection

As having been mentioned above, in this research, questionnaires were used to getthe sufficient data

Questionnaires have been considered “a vital tool in the collection of data it can provide data economically and in a form that lends itself perfectly to the purposes of the study” (Gajendra, 1999: 117) In this particular research, the researcher will use two sets of

questionnaires: one for teachers and the other for students Both questionnaires are dividedinto two main parts:

The first one, which is a checklist, aims to finding out the attitudes of teachers andstudents towards the coursebook New Headway (questions 1, 2, 3, 6) Then theirviewpoints on the strengths and weaknesses (question 4, 5) are covered Each question inthis checklist is based on either recent research or previously developed checklists(Sheldon 1988, McDonough and Shaw 1993, Cunningsworth 1995, Miekley 2005) Thechecklist is built in such a way that it can meet the needs of this research

In the second part, while students‟ preferences for a supplementary material areshown from question 7 to 12, the teachers‟ views on teaching reading and writing are

- Teachers and students‟ evaluation on the New Headway coursebooks (the first six questions in both questionnaires)

- The students‟ preferences for supplementary material:

+ Students‟ favorite topics

+ Students‟ favorite types of text

+ Students‟ favorite types of reading and writing exercises

150 questionnaires were handed out randomly to NEMSs who have just startedtheir third module The reason for choosing students in their third module is that they havejust been through the second module Among all NEMSs, students in module 3 have thebest view of module 2 in general, and reading passages in Headway textbook in particular

To some extent, they understand quite well the strong points and weak ones of thecoursebook To achieve the highest possible response rates, the questionnaire was given tothe students in the class time The researcher chose randomly students from differentfaculties with a view to accessing a large number of students from different levels, so thenon-response bias can be reduced As the questionnaires were delivered to students duringthe short break, the researcher got back the exact number (150 questionnaires)

Also, the questionnaires were given to 10 teachers who are teaching English toNEMSs All of them were so willing to finish Survey questionnaires were used to collectopinions about the coursebook The aim of the questionnaires is to find out the attitudes ofteachers and students towards the topics, reading passages and types of exercise in NewHeadway coursebook taught in the second module

The steps of constructing the questionnaires were performed as follows:

1 Translate the questionnaires into Vietnamese

2 Pilot the questionnaires

3 Revise the questionnaires

4 Deliver the questionnaires

2.4 Methods of data analysis

Data analysis is “Moving away from the action components of the cycle, where the main focus is on planning and acting, to the research aspects, where the focus changes to more systematic observing and reflecting” (Burnes, 1999: 153) As having been stated

before, the data for this research was collected from questionnaires

In analyzing the data collected from the questionnaires, the researcher worked withboth sets of questionnaires at the same time The data were coded into charts of differentcategories such as the attitudes of students and teachers towards the coursebook NewHeadway, students‟ preferences for the supplementary reading and writing material,teachers‟ viewpoints on teaching integrated reading and writing as well as their opinion onwhere to use supplementary material Obviously, clear identification of the main areas/categories to focus on at data collection stage will make the analysis process convenientand less time-consuming

Based on the opinions and contributions of those who have been involved in thelearning and teaching English as a second foreign language, new reading passages whichare hoped to satisfy students‟ interest and to improve their reading skills are designed anddeveloped

2.5 Scope of the research

Due to the limited time, the survey of student-needs and interests was not carriedout among all NEMSs at HULIS to get their opinions about the reading passages in thetextbook New Headway Besides, the suggested reading materials provided are unlikely tosatisfy each of every student, but they are hoped to meet the majority of teachers andstudents

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

3.1 Personal evaluation of the coursebook New Headway

Topic of the

Types of

Level of Reading

Feelings Telling a story Short answer Ele- scanning

Unit 14 Have

Experiences People‟s lives Short answer Ele- scanning

Unit 1 Getting Personal

Communication Matching Pre-inter scanning

to know you information Short answer skimming Unit 2

Lifestyles Studying and living Short answer Pre-inter scanning

Unit 3

wrong

Unit 4

Let’s go Shopping Short answer Pre-inter

shopping

Unit 5

Hopes and True/False scanning

What do you Teenage life styles Pre-inter

want to do?

Unit 6

Tell me! Famous people Short answer Pre-inter

What’s it like?

Table: An overview of the coursebooks New Headway

The researcher‟s evaluation on the currently used coursebook would be built on thecurrent context of teaching and the contents of New Headway Basing on the criteria in thechecklist of the questionnaires, the researcher expresses opinions abut the coursebook

Looking through the table, we can find that the topics in the textbook are alright butthe information contained in many reading texts is out of date For instance, in unit 2 thesituation of studying and living abroad is now, to some extent, different from the time

when this coursebook was published; or the topic of unit 5 is “teenage life styles”, which

may be out of date in modern times In addition, types of exercises as well as reading skills

are not varied Most of them are Short answer exercises and the students do not have to

exercise much power of judgment and appreciation For example, in unit 1 (page 10),

students are asked to read the text „People – the great communicators‟ to answer the four

questions The same requirement can be seen in unit 2 (page 18)

Considering the reading and writing integration of the coursebook, the researcherfound that the coursebook provided discussion and sometimes writing activities as post-reading activities However, they repeated from one unit to another and could lead toboredom in the teachers as well as the students

With regard to reading skills, there is a limitation of skills (only skimming andscanning) whereas the students should practice more reading skills, including skimming,scanning, identifying key words, guessing meaning, identifying topic sentence,summarizing, reading for gist

In short, from the researcher‟s point of view, there are some problems with thecoursebook being used, which need to be taken into consideration so that the shortcomingscan be remedied Basing on the results of the study in the next parts as well as somepersonal evaluation on the coursebook, a supplementary material would be developed

3.2 The attitudes of students and teachers towards the coursebook New Headway

 Question 1: What is your overall rating of the coursebook New Headway?

When being asked to have an overall rating on the coursebook, the result showedthat the students and teachers share the same view There is little difference in their views

on the same criterion

As can be seen from the chart, no one thinks that the coursebook is excellent 7teachers (70%) accept the coursebook and 102 students (68 percent) Although 20 percent

of teachers (2) and 15 percent of students (10) underestimate the coursebook, both of them

have a favorable attitude towards this coursebook It can be inferred that they all, to some

extent, satisfy with the given coursebook However, like any other coursebooks, once used,

they are doubtless to have weaknesses The users in this research gave a positive response

to the use of the coursebook New Headway However, it is in need of adaptation as to meet

the needs of this particular group of students

100 90 80

70 70

60 60

Teachers 50

30

20 20

10 15

15 10

0

Chart 1: Overall rating of teachers and students on the coursebook

 Question 2 : How well did the coursebook meet the following objectives?

a Layout and design

The students‟ view on layout and design can be illustrated in the above chart They find

the coursebook appropriate and clear In the researcher‟s opinion, it is the illustrations of

the reading passages that make the reading texts more attractive and appealing to students

This strong point is once again emphasized by the students when they list some strong

points of this coursebook Thus it will be taken into consideration by the researcher when

developing the supplementary material

Chart 2: Students’ attitudes towards the coursebook’s layout and design

b The sequence of topics

Here is the topics‟ sequence introduced in module two:

2 Unit 12: Sports 7 Unit 3: Experience and Stories

4 Unit 14: Traveling 9 Unit 5: Ambitions and Hopes

5 Unit 1: Personal Information 10 Unit 6: Places

Generally speaking, the attitude of students toward the sequence of topics in moduletwo is quite good 24 out of 150 students (16%) say that the topics introduced in the secondmodule are well sequenced, 60 think the sequence is good (40%), 48 think it is satisfactory(32%) and the number of students who complained that the topics‟ sequence is poor orvery poor is 18 (12%)

1: the sequence is very good 2: the sequence is good 3: the sequence is satisfactory 4: the sequence is poor 5: the sequence is very poor

Chart 3: Students’ attitudes towards the topics’ sequence

Therefore, those topics are still used as the core ones in the supplementary readingmaterials Another reason to keep the topic unchanged is that the output is hoped to supportthe textbook used in class, not totally replace it By doing so, the module will be viewed as

a form of variety and unity

c The reading passages

As can be seen from the chart below, most students think that the reading topics in

module two are acceptable or in other words, they feel quite satisfied with them Thelength of reading passages is appropriate as nearly 40 percent and 20 percent of studentsthink that it is satisfactory and good respectively The situation is the same with level ofdifficulty However, that is not the case of reading passages‟ content 75 percent ofstudents show their dissatisfaction in this aspect

Chart 4a: Students’ attitude towards the reading passages

In compared with Chart 3b, obviously the answer „satisfactory‟ seems to be favored

by teachers Such aspects as topics, length and level of difficulty of reading passages meetthe need of the teachers (80, 70, and 100 respectively) Surprisingly, both the teachers andstudents are not satisfied with the content of the topics as 6 out of 10 teachers claim that thecontent of topics is very poor or poor It is due to the fact that the coursebook NewHeadway was published long time ago of which the content is no longer informative

Chart 4b: Teachers’ attitude towards the reading passages

 Question 3: How do you specifically evaluate the coursebook?

After collecting and analyzing the data of question 3, the chart above is drawn tosummarize the satisfaction level of both teachers and students It reveals some conclusions.The level of satisfaction of teachers is, on average, higher than that of students After all,

however, all of the participants would decide to use the coursebook again (see Chart 3c).

Thanks to this agreement of students and teachers, the material is hoped to be designed in asmooth way.

Chart 6: Respondents’ view on using the coursebook

3.3 Students’ preferences for a supplementary material

a Students‟ belief in the benefit of reading exercises:

15.3 14

10

enjoy learning morenothing nothing

Chart 7: Students’ attitude towards the benefits of reading exercises

In general, the majority of students are aware of the importance of reading exercises

in English learning 60 students (40%) think reading exercise help them to enrichvocabulary; 30 students (20%) claim that they can learn more structures through readingpassages; only 15 students (10%) students appraise the effect of reading exercises on theirreading ability – that is doing exercises help them read faster and deeper; 21 (14%) puttheir trust in the information from the reading passages as they say their backgroundknowledge will be broadened; as many as 23 students (15.3%) believe that reading makesthem enjoy learning English more; and there is 1 student (0.7%) complains that he/she canlearn or gain nothing from reading passages or exercises

b Favourite types of text

In the questionnaires, types of reading texts are given for students to choose Itcomes with no surprise that short stories are the type that students love to read the most.This type is obviously very interesting; however, in the current situation of English as anon-majored learning and teaching, this type is still exploited limitedly This is mostly due

to the fact that the length of this type is not suitable for a non-English majored student– thetext ranges from 150 – 450 words

Favorite types of text

article texts in the textbook short stories lectures advertisements

Chart 8: Students’ preference of reading texts.

c Favorite types of reading and writing exercises

According to the survey, Fill-in exercise is believed to be the most difficult type.

Ranked second is Vocabulary followed by Summarizing the text Multiple choice, Cloze

reading, Matching, Short answer and True or false exercise are ranked the forth, fifth,

sixth, seventh and eighth respectively

Students stated in the survey that they prefer Multiple choice exercises more than

any other types In the second, third and forth place is True or false, Vocabulary and

Matching respectively Short answer, Fill-in, Cloze reading and Summarizing are not their

favourite; they are ranked number five, six, seven, eighth respectively

100

69

51 12

30

-in vocabulary

choice reading matching answer true/false summarizing

fill

multiple cloze short

Chart 9: Favorite types of exercises

c Students‟ preferences for reading skills developed

According to the survey, three skills that most students wish to develop is

skimming, understanding sentence/ paragraph structure and scanning:

recognizing the author's purpose/points of views

20

understanding the sentence/paragraph strucutre