A STUDY ON DIFFICULTIES IN READING ENGLISH FOR ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING AT VINH TECHNICAL TEACHERS’ TRAINING UNIVERSITY

With some years English teaching experience, the researcher recognized that there are many factors that affect the teaching and learning process such as inappropriate teaching methods an

At VTTTU, after finishing three semesters of GE, students of EEE departments begin

to take 60 ESP periods of EEE

Being an ESP teachers of EEE, the researchers has always been aware of the importance of the important of developing reading skills for EEE students If students read well, they are able to handle subjects related written materials in English and to work with modern technological equipment But in fact, despite the effort of the teachers and students, the researcher finds her students reading skills disappointed, which do not meet the requirements of the college With some years English teaching experience, the researcher recognized that there are many factors that affect the teaching and learning process such as inappropriate teaching methods and classroom techniques, inappropriate attitude of the teachers and learners about the subjects, unsuitable teaching materials…

For all the above reasons, the researcher would like to find out the areas of students reading difficulties at VTTTU when learning English for EEE and the cause of these difficulties It is also hoped that the study will make some suggestions for teachers and learners to improve the teaching and learning English for EEE at VTTTU

2 Aims of the study

The study aims to examine the difficulties in reading English for Electrical and Electronics Engineering of the second year students at VTTTU

To be more specific, the objectives of the study are:

- To investigate the present situation of teaching and learning English for EEE reading

in order to find out the teachers and learners’ areas of difficulties when learning English for EEE

- To suggest the ways to overcome the difficulties and help learners to improving their ESP reading skills

It is hoped that the findings from this study will be of some benefits to the students at VTTTU

3 Methods of the study

With the aims of finding out the area of difficulties in reading English for EEE at VTTTU, this study adopts a case study approach To achieve the aim of the study, the survey questionnaire is used as the main method to collect the needed data from the learners as well

as the researcher’s observation and informal discussion with the students and the college

4 Scope of the study

The study mainly focuses on some problems in ESP reading experience by the second year students of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at VTTTU, then suggest some techniques to help them improve their reading

5 Organization of the study

This study consists of 3 parts: Introduction, development and conclusion

The first part concludes the rationale for choosing the topic of the study, the significance of the study, the research questions, the scope of the study and the design of the study

The second parts inncludes four chapters Chapter one reviews the theoretical backgrounds to the nature of reading and ESP reading Chapter two discusses the current situation of teaching and learning English for EEE at VTTTU Chapter three presents the research methodology, which focuses on the participants, the data collection method and the data collecting procedure; the data analysis and Chapter four suggests some recommendations

to reduce difficulties in reading English for EEE

The last part- Conclusion- summarizes the main issues of the study, points out the limitations and makes some suggestions for further research

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 The nature of reading

1.1 Definition of reading

So far, there are numerous definitions of reading by numerous perspectives- linguists, psychologists, educators and second language researchers Each author defines in different way as seen from his own point of view Goodman (1971; 135) considers reading “a psycholinguistic process by which the reader, a language user, reconstructs, as best as he can,

a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display”

Frank Smith (1985; 102) defined “reading is understanding the author’s thought” Sharing the same opinion, Harmer (1989; 153) considered reading as a mechanical process that “eyes receive the message and the brain then has to work out the significance of the message” Therefore, reading can be viewed as a cylindrical process of recognizing, understanding, comparing, and evaluating the information they encounter

From all the opinions above it is clear that no definition can possibly capture all the ideas and features of reading However, they all try to find out the nature of reading, that is

“understanding”, in which they emphasize on reading process, reading message and readers 1.2 Reading comprehension

Reading comprehension takes an important role in teaching and learning reading It is the ability to get information from the text as efficiently as possible There are three elements involving in the reading process, the text being read, the background knowledge of the readers and the contextual aspects relevant for interpreting the text

According to Gallet (1981; 3), “reading comprehension or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as effectively as possible” Richard and Thomas (11987;9) also points out : “Reading comprehension is the best describe as understanding between the author and the reader”

And according to Swam (1975; 1), “a student is good at comprehension ” if “ he can read accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum information of a text with the

minimum understanding” After reading, readers can master the grammatical structures, words pronunciation, understand the context of the texts and use it in real life as effective as possible

Though these ideas are not exactly the same, they all seem that “reading without comprehension is meaningless” (Karlin and Kartin, 1982:2)

1.3 Classification of reading according to the purpose of reading

According to the purpose of reading Wood (1985), Williams (1986) and Grellet (1990) categorize reading into intensive, extensive, skimming and scanning

1.3.1 Intensive reading

Intensive reading means the careful reading of shorter, more difficult foreign language text with the goal of complete and detailed understanding Francoise (1981: 41) defined: “Intensive reading means reading short texts to extract specific information This is an accuracy activity involving reading for details” And according to Nuttal (1982; 36) “Intensive reading involves approaching the text under the guidance of a teacher or a task which forces the student to focus on the text” That means intensive reading is related to progress in language learning The aim of intensive reading is “to arrive at a profound and detailed understanding of the text: not only of what it means, but also of how the mean is produced” (Nuttal, 1989: 23) 1.3.2 Extensive reading

Extensive reading means to read widely and in quantity According to Grellet (1981;2) , extensive reading means “reading longer texts usually for one’s own pleasure This is a fluency activity, mainly involving general understanding” Hammer (1986,479) also has the same view He states: “extensive reading would normally start with reading for the main idea

or for general comprehension and finally, after much practice, for detailed comprehension”

In fact, most of extensive reading is done silently and out of the classroom and it gives the students opportunities to use their target language knowledge for their own purposes

1.3.3 Skimming

Skimming is a very useful reading skill for students to locate specific item of information that they need Grellet (1981: 19) stated “when skimming, we go through the reading material quickly in order to get its main points out the intension of the writer, but not

to find the answer to specific questions” Because of its nature, the key to skimming is to

know where to find the main idea of different paragraphs and to be able to synthesize them by way of generalization

1.3.4 Scanning

Scanning is another useful skill to locate a specific item of information that we need Williams (1986:100) said: “scanning occurs when a reader goes through a text very quickly in order to find a particular point of information” In contrast with skimming, scanning is far more limited since it only means retrieving needed information This kind of reading is widely used in reading comprehension

In sum, there are different ways of reading In order to understand a text effectively, the readers should not use these ways isolatedly They must know how to use suitable ways to achieve their reading purpose

2 Reading in ESP teaching and learning

2.1 Definition of ESP

There are different definitions of ESP by different linguistics According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987; 16), “ESP- an approach not a product- does not involve a particular kind of language, teaching materials or methodology” In their opinion, ESP is not a matter of teaching specialized varieties“, not different in kind from other form of language teaching” They states ESP “is an approach to language in which all decisions as to content and method are based on the learners’ reason for learning” So an ESP course should differ from a GE course in selection of skills, themes, topics, situation and function And, all ESP courses should be based on the learners’ needs and meet the learners’ needs”

However, Strevens’ (1988) definition of ESP makes a distinction between 4 absolute characteristics and two variable characteristics:

- The absolute characteristics of ESP are:

+ designed to meet specified needs of the learners

+ related in context (that is in its themes and topics) to particular disciplines, occupations and activities

+ centered on language appropriate to those activities in syntax, lexis, discourse, semantics, and so on, and analysis of the discourse

+ in contrast with GE

- The variable characteristics are that ESP:

+ may be restricted to skill to be learned (for example reading only)

+ may not be taught according to any pre- ordained methodology

Robinson’s definition is based on two key defining criteria and a number of characteristics that are found to be true of ESP The key criteria are that ESP is “normally goal-directed” and that ESP courses develop from a need analysis, which “aims to specify as closely as possible what exactly it is that students have to do through the medium of English” (Robinson, 1991:3) 2.2 Reading skills in ESP

In case of reading skills in ESP, Kenedy and Bolitho (1991: 74) designate some necessary reading skills: skimming, scanning, reference skills, relating graphs to text, relating diagram to text, predicting and sequencing the structure of a text, and reading notice and instruction

2.3 ESP reading materials

Materials are very important in teaching and learning process, especially in teaching ESP

ESP is designed to meet specific purpose of the learners Therefore, selecting reading materials is very important Selecting materials involves making choices and decision To make good choices, we need to have good criteria on which to base the decision These criteria such as factors about the learners, the role of materials, the topics, the language, the presentation have been put forwards for the analysis of materials and each of them have validity A good ESP material must contain interesting texts and enjoyable activities which make students think, opportunities for them to use their existing knowledge, skill and content that they and their teacher can cope with; truly reflect what you think and feel about learning process; provide clear and coherent unit structure to guide the students through various

activities to maximize the chances of learning; create a balance outlook which both reflects the complexity of the task, yet make it appear manageable; introduce teachers to new techniques and provide models of correct and appropriate language use (Hutchinson and Waters 1987:107)

CHAPTER TWO: THE CURRENT SITUATION OF TEACHING

AND LEARNING ENGLISH FOR EEE AT VTTTU 2.1 Institution

VTTTU has been operated for over 40 years Initially, it was only a Vocational School Gradually, it was upgraded and became a Technical Teachers’ Training College in 1996, a Technical Teachers’ Training University in 2006 Now its duty is to train students to become upper- secondary school teachers in four major fields: Mechanical Engineering, Mechanical Dynamic Engineering, Electrical and Electronics Engineering and Information Technology

The students are provided with a lot of general educational subjects and different specializations like other institutions, of which English has been regarded as a vital component

in the program But in fact, the conditions for teaching and learning are not ideal due to the large class- size (more than 60 students in total), no language environment, out-of-date reference documents, lack of facilities for language learning and teaching such as videos, tape recorders, multimedia labs, and so on

2 2 Teachers

There are 10 teachers of English at the VTTTU, aged from 26 to 35 Four of them are M.A., the other four are taking M.A course They have responsibility to teach both GE and ESP They are energetic and willing to devote their time and energy to teaching However, they are inexperienced in teaching ESP because none of them has been trained in teaching ESP and they have no specialist knowledge on the subject matter They are unexpectedly required to teach a subject which is new and unfamiliar with them Most of them have little chance to access to the latest alterations of language teaching methods So, they have to face many difficulties, of which the lack of the professional knowledge and the choice of appropriate teaching methodologies seem to be the major concerns The majority of them still adopted a teacher-centered, non-oral approach which emphasizes translation activities, learner conformity in task completion, and success in an examination format Students are passive and only ask the teachers when they encounter difficult words that they cannot find in the

dictionary And the success rests on how flexible and adaptable the individual teacher is to respond to the requirement of the new teaching situation.

2.3 Students

The learners of English at VTTTU are of approximately 18 – 25 in age so they belonged to the same psychological age group They come from different parts of the country Most of them are from the rural or remote areas, where there are no good opportunities for studying English They are varied in terms of English proficiency The others come from cities, who, theoretically, have all finished three years or seven years of learning English at high schools before entering the college, but in fact, their levels are rather mixed Moreover, their length of English learning was different: 32% started learning at grade 6, 51% started learning at grade 10, 10% learn French or Russian and 7% have never learned any foreign languages

To some extent, there are some students whose English is very excellent, but generally the target students’ English proficiency is still of low level

Moreover, the students come to the class with different English background and different attitude, motivation, learning style towards learning the language Some have learnt English at school, some have learnt Russian or French and others have never learnt a foreign language Thus, the first thing the teachers have to do is to improve the students’ level of GE before they can deal with subject matters in this language

Another problem is that most of students do not have the habit of learning independently and tend to depend on the textbooks and the teachers for knowledge These provide the ESP teachers with a basic understanding of the subject of ESP

Besides, the class size is very big (more than 60 students) so it is very difficult for the teachers and students to fulfill their task of teaching and learning

2.4 The teaching and learning English at VTTTU

Due to the particular tasks of our technical college, English at VTTTU is allowed to be non- major and of course not the compulsory subject for entrance exam Like many other

subjects, English is taught in a formal setting (classroom) without language environment and the students have to do two English courses: 120-period GE and 60-period ESP

As far as materials are concerned, some textbooks for GE such as “Kernel-One”;

“Kernel-Plus”; “Streamline (Departure)”, “Headway (Elementary)” and now “New Headway” (Elementary) have been in used recently ESP at VTTTU includes “English for Technical Engineering”, “English for Electrical and Electronics Engineering” and “English for Computer Science”

The ESP textbooks were designed with the stated purposes of providing the students with an amount of vocabulary relating to the investigation topics and training reading skill which would be helpful for their future job They focus on language skills: reading, writing, and translation The ESP textbooks put greater emphasis on content teaching – the knowledge

of the specific areas rather than the language skills However, for most of the students learning these ESP textbooks, reading is the most challenging task

In term of methodology, ESP teachers usually employ the traditional method of teaching Classes are conducted in the form of lecture Teachers often play the key role in the lesson, being the main speaker Students are passive and only ask the teachers questions when they encounter difficult words that they cannot find in the dictionary

Actually, we find it very difficult to obtain effective teaching The reasons for the difficulties are: (i) English is not a compulsory subject for the entrance exam; (ii) students at VTTTU are varied in terms of English proficiency, some of them have learned some English

at schools while others (those from the rural and remote areas) have not; and (iii) ESP is generally not taken into much consideration by the college authority because no ESP training course for teachers has ever been provided

2.5 Summary

This chapter has provided an overview of Vinh Technical Teachers’ Training University, given some information about the institution, the students, the teachers The researcher has also pointed out some problems that the teachers and students at VTTTU face

in the teaching and learning of ESP reading

CHAPTER THREE: THE STUDY

3 1 The participants

The participants of this study were 77 second- year- students of the of Electrical Engineering Department of the VTTTU

The reason for choosing the second year students for this study is as follows: Students

in this university only take the ESP course after finishing a 120- period GE course which was studied in the first year and half of the second year

The 77 students among those of Electrical Engineering Department were selected at random to participate in the research It was difficult to select a random sample of individuals since students had already been assigned to different classes In this case cluster random sampling was more feasible, which means that instead of randomly selecting the individuals, the researcher randomly selected the group or classes for investigation (Fraenkel and Wallen, 1996) This approach is more appropriate and convenient for the researcher to observe the participants who filled in / or completed the questionnaire in classes Besides, 9 other teachers who were teaching at the college were invited to participate in the study for informal discussion

3 2 The data collection method

To reach the primary purpose of the study, a survey questionnaire has been chosen as the main instrument for data collection for this particular research One survey questionnaire with 9 questions were designed for EEE students to identify their opinions on reading lessons and to find out their expectation to achieve better reading competence The questionnaire is constructed based on the literature, the difficulties in reading English for EEE, the researcher’s observation of the students during some years of teaching at VTTTU as well as her discussions with the other 9 teachers of the University

The questionnaire consists of two main parts: Part one aimed to collect information about the students background which included their places of domicile, the number of years they had been learning English and their proficiency levels in English measured by their average marks in English in the first two years Part two aimed to collect information about

the students’ attitude towards reading English for EEE, their difficulties in reading skills and the causes; and their expectations of the teachers’ methodology and materials

Survey questionnaire is intended to serve as the main source of data because it is undeniable that question is valuable tool for investigating the attitude, images, concerns, needs, etc held by a group of interest Hence, it will certainly be valuable for the author in exploring the subjects’ difficulties in reading English for EEE

Moreover, this research tool is also relatively more comfortable, time- saving and economical to administer as compared with other survey methods like interviewing, telephoning, mailing, video taping, especially when it comes to the investigation of ESP reading skill, not other language skills This method is supposed to be of great advantage in the sense that it is easier for the subjects to answer the questions Besides, the survey questionnaire preserves the subjects’ anonymity so they are more likely to give unbiased answers Another advantage is that the researchers can get information from a large population

in a short time On the one hand, it makes the analysis of data easy and simple as all subjects answer the same questions

3.3 Data collection procedure

To collect data for the study, 77 photocopied copies of the questionnaire were delivered to the students during the class time Before giving the questionnaires to the respondents, the researcher explains the purpose of the questionnaires, the requirement for the respondents and answers any questions asked by the respondents The respondents were also encouraged to ask if there was anything they did not understand in the questionnaire Then they were instructed to take as much time as they need to complete the questionnaires

3.4 Data analysis

Data from the questionnaire were classified into different categories such as students’ attitudes towards reading English for EEE, their difficulties in reading in the areas of vocabulary, discourse, reading strategies and cultural background knowledge, the cause of the reading problems and their expectations of the teachers’ methodology Because the number of respondents is small, the data is manually analyzed using descriptive statistics and interpretations The information was then displayed in forms of tables and bar charts

3.4.1 The students’ attitude towards ESP reading

Table 2: Students’ perception about the importance of ESP reading

As can be seen from table 2, the students mainly agree that reading is an important skill in learning English for EEE (85.6%) whereas 14.3% disagree

From figure 3, we can see that most of the students consider that reading English for EEE necessary for their future job (98.7%) Only one student disagrees in this question

3.4.2 Students' perception of ESP reading difficulties

Reading difficulties in English for EEE perceived by our second year students are categorized in terms of vocabulary, grammar, discourse, reading skills Four questions were designed to explore the students' perception of ESP reading difficulties The students were asked to rate on a 4- point scale (4 being "very difficult", 3 being "difficult", 2 being " easy" ,

1 being "very easy ") The responses were then calculated in terms of the mean, the standard deviation and the percentages The means were classified as follows: 1-1.5 means "very easy", 1.6-2.5 means "Easy", 2.6-3.5 means "Difficult", and 3.6-4.0 means "Very difficult"

3.4.2.1 In the area of vocabulary

In Q4, the students were asked to point out the difficulties in some aspects of vocabulary The results are presented in Table 4 and diagrammatically illustrated in Figure 1

Level of difficulty (%) Scale rating

Question 4

a Understanding and remembering

professional technical words

d Guessing the meaning of words

through their formation

Table 4 The difficulties in the areas of vocabulary

As can be seen from the table, the mean in this section ranged between 2.2 and 3.1 Item 4a (Understanding and remembering professional technical words) had the highest mean (M=3.1, SD=0.71) There are 18.1% of students considering that it is very difficult for them to understand and remember professional technical words The percentage perceived it to be

“difficult” is 64.9% Only 1.4% considered it “very easy” and the rest (15.6%) thought that it

is “easy”

Item 4d (Guessing the meaning of words through their formation) had the lowest mean (M=2.2, SD= 0.99) which showed that the meaning of words that have the same root seemed

to be the easiest for students to guess

Item 4b (Guessing the meaning of words from the contexts) had rather high means, with M=3.0 (SD=0.67) This suggested that it was also “difficult” for the students to guess the meaning of the words from the contexts No one found this item as “very easy”

2 8

2 2

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Question 5

a Recognizing the word's part of

speech: Nouns, verbs, adjectives

2.4 0.62 3.9 37.6 53.2 5.3

b Understanding and using verb tenses

and forms

2.8 0.62 11.7 59.7 27.2 1.4

c Understanding and identifying the

types of sentences: simple or complex,

passive and active voice

2.5 0.72 7.8 37.7 49.3 5.2

d Identifying the main and subordinate

clauses in complex sentences

2.7 0.66 10.3 54.6 33.8 1.3

e Understanding the relationship

between clauses of compound and

complex sentences

2.8 0.71 11.7 55.8 28.5 3.9

Table 5 The difficulties in the areas of grammar According to table 5, we can see that the means of the rated difficulties ranged from 2.4 to 2.8 which were lowered than those in the vocabulary

Item 5a had the lowest mean (M=2.4, SD=0.62), which showed that the students had no difficulty in recognizing the word's part of speech: Nouns, verbs, adjectives

Item 5c (Understanding and identifying the types of sentences: simple or complex, passive and active voice) also had a small mean (M=2.5, SD=0.72) Indeed, 45.5% believed that understanding and identifying the types of sentences: simple or complex, passive and active voice caused them no problem at all

it “difficult” and “very difficult” for them to understand and use verb tenses and forms

whereas 67.5% found it “difficult” and “very difficult” to understand the relationship between clauses of compound and complex sentences

Item 5d (Identifying the main and subordinate clauses in complex sentences) had fairly high mean with M=2.7, SD=0.66, which also shows that this item was rated as “difficult” (64.9%) Only 1.3% found it “very easy”

3.4.2.3 In the area of discourse

level of difficulty (%) Scale rating

Question 6

a Understanding the relationship

between sentences in the text

2.6 0.69 6.5 53.2 35.1 5.2

b Understanding the relationship

between paragraphs in the text

2.5 0.79 7.8 41.5 40.3 10.4

c Understanding the graphs, diagrams

and figures

2.5 0.82 10.4 31.1 48.0 10.5

d Identifying and recognizing

conjunctions and discourse markers

2.2 0.88 10.4 23.4 45.5 20.7

e Identifying organization of ideas:

Main ideas, subordinate ideas, topic

sentences

2.7 0.87 12.9 50.6 23.4 13.0

Table 6 The difficulties in the areas of discourse From table 6, we can see that all the items had a mean higher than 2.5 This means that the students had difficulties in all aspects of discourse except item 6d (Identifying and recognizing conjunctions and discourse markers)