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

PART 1: INTRODUCTION Rationale Actually, reading is given the most important account of four skills In comparison with writing, speaking and listening, reading will be used most often in the students’ future work In teaching and learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam, reading has always received a great deal of attention That is because reading is not only the important means to get knowledge but also means of further study By means of English, the learners can take it professionally in their future work as well as reading their specialized materials It is completely true for students of EEE 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 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 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 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 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 Organization of the study This study consists of 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 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 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 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 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) Summary In short, this chapter provides a theoretical framework for the study It provides an overview on the nature of reading in which definitions of reading and reading comprehension as well as classification of reading according to the purpose of reading are mentioned What is more, this chapter also discusses the definition of ESP, reading skills in ESP and ESP reading materials 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 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 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 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 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 Table shows that the students in their own perception found difficulties in all the four areas They found items 4a, 4b, 4c, 5b, 5e, 7a, 7b, 7d the most difficult ones (which had the highest means) Items 4a, 4b, 4c belonged to vocabulary, and other items belonged to grammar and reading skills The items which had the smallest means were 4d, 5a, 5c, 6b, 6c, 7f Among the six easiest items, two items belonged to the grammar section, two to discourse area and one to reading skills Thus, based on the average mean in each area, it can be concluded that vocabulary was the most difficult area for the students (M= 2.77) and the area of discourse seemed to be the least difficult for the students (M=2.58) Grammar, reading skills and discourse presented nearly the same mean (M=2.68 and M=2.64 respectively) 3.4.3 The causes of difficulty Question investigated the sources of difficulties in reading English for EEE The causes are to with the reading materials, the teachers and the students themselves The results are calculated by percentage and illustrated in table Question Yes No a The texts are too long and full of new words 64.9 35.1 b The texts are full of new grammar structures 14.3 85.7 c The teacher doesn’t teach you sufficient reading skills 64.5 45.5 d The teacher is too demanding 3.9 96.1 e You lack motivation 20.8 79.2 f You lack ESP vocabulary 77.9 22.1 g You lack knowledge about the topic you are reading 62.3 37.7 Table 9: Students’ views of sources of difficulties 3.4.3.1 The reading materials As can be seen from table 8, 64.9% of the students found the main cause of their difficulties to be the very/ too long texts which contained a lot of new words, whereas only 14.3% (11 out of 77 students) stated that the texts are full of new grammar structures Indeed, in ESP text, there were not many complex grammatical problems Most of them were studied carefully in GE course for the three terms before students started studying ESP 3.4.3.2 The teachers As a matter of fact, the success of the reading lesson depends largely on the ways the teachers teach the students Therefore, students encounter difficulties in their learning process, teachers may be partly responsible for their difficulties As it is played in table 8, 64.5 % of the students complained that their teachers didn’t teach them sufficient reading skills Through the interview and small talk, the students reported that they not know how to use appropriate techniques or strategies to deal with different types of texts They just look at every single word, sometimes get stuck when encountering new vocabularies or structures They even not know which words are unimportant to ignore They think that is not good because they should understand every detail These problems clearly prevent the students from improving their reading abilities The teacher’s attitude also affects the learning atmosphere of the class The too strict teacher will make the lesson more difficult For item 8d, only 3.9% of the students complained that the teacher was too strict Most of them agreed that their teachers even were very sympathetic with them 3.4.3.3 The learners We can see from table that most of the students (78%, 60 out of 77 students) found the cause of their difficulties was the vocabulary of ESP This finding is quite consistent with the results presented in Figure 7: Students found the area of vocabulary the most difficult of all Lacking knowledge about the topic is also a problem for the students in reading ESP 62.3% reported that they lack knowledge about the topic they were reading Only 20.8% of the students not interest in ESP reading Our students will be technical officers and they are aware of the importance of reading skill in their future jobs as electric and electronic engineers Thus most of them have a positive attitude to learn and clear motivation in learning ESP 3.4.4 The learners’ expectation in term of methodology Question looked into the learners’ expectations about the teachers’ methodology in teaching ESP reading Question Yes No I expect the teacher to give and carefully explain the ESP 81.8 18.2 66.2 33.8 59.7 41.3 70.1 29.9 72.7 27.3 terminologies b I expect the teacher to explain more carefully unfamiliar grammatical structures in the texts c I expect the teacher to help us to choose suitable reading strategies for each reading texts d I expect the teacher to provide more exercises to remember vocabulary more easily e I want the teacher to check us more often about the new words and translation f Others…………………… Table 10: The learners’ expectation in term of methodology The results showed that 81.8% of the students expected the teacher to give and carefully explain the ESP terminologies found in the text before reading (9a) and 70.1% preferred to be provided more exercises to remember vocabulary more easily (9d) We know that how important the new words are So it is very necessary for the students to know what a words or a terminology means Therefore, they expect the teacher to teach the new words or terminologies in the ways that the students not only be able to know the meaning of words but also retain them in their memory An other finding is that 75% of the participants wanted to provide more background knowledge related the topic they were reading (9e) and 59.7% expected to be taught suitable reading strategies for each reading text (9c) This finding perfectly matches with the finding presented in table about the causes of reading difficulties We also can see in table that 66.2% of the students expected the teacher to explain more carefully unfamiliar grammatical structures in the texts (9b) It is very necessary for the students to have a good knowledge of grammar so that they can understand the text well And there are only 42.7% expected the teacher to examine them more often about the new words and translation 3.4.5 Summary In this chapter the researcher has presented methodology of the study included the participants, the data collection methods, the data collection procedure, the data analysis To reach the aims and objectives of the study, the researcher decided to use the survey questionnaire, informal discussion with the teachers and informal interview of a focused group By employing these different instruments, the researcher hopes to achieve a triangulation of data, which help to make data more reliable This chapter has also presented the difficulties in ESP reading and the causes of them, and the learners’ need in term of teacher’s methodology Firstly, based on the results of the questionnaire as well as small talk and interview, we can see that the students face difficulties in all the four areas of language The most common difficulties is in the area of vocabulary The discourse appears to be the least difficult of all Secondly, according to the students, reading difficulties might come from different sources: the students’ limitation of background, inadequate linguistic knowledge, the teaching methods as well as the students’ negative attitude Thirdly, the students suggested that in order to teach and learn ESP effectively, the teaching method should be tailored to suit the level of the students The following chapter will suggest some techniques which can help to improve the students’ ESP reading efficiency CHAPTER FOUR: RECOMMENDATIONS As have seen from this research, reading skill was a problem for many second year students at VTTTU Thus, within the scope of the study I would like to put forwards some recommendations to reduce the students’ difficulties in reading English for EEE and improve the teaching and learning of English for EEE 4.1 Increasing students’ reading interest and motivation According to the results of the research, one of the causes of difficulties in reading English for EEE is that 13% of the students in VTTTU have a negative attitude, low interest and motivation in ESP reading So, in order to reduce the difficulties, teacher should enhance the students interest and motivation by making the ESP course useful and the lessons fun From the results in Question 8, 64.9% of the students found the texts too long and full of new words So, it makes the lessons boring and not motivating enough for students Therefore, teacher should make his reading lessons fun Firstly, teacher should provide easy reading lessons by simplifying, adapting the materials to suit students’ level of proficiency so that they will find themselves at ease and read on Then, teachers should diversify the techniques such as using pictures, real objects, … to introduce the lessons at the pre-reading texts so as to stimulate the students After that, while reading, teacher should create exciting reading atmosphere by requiring students to work individually, in pairs or in groups…Finally, teacher should vary reading activities and give different reading tasks to students in different lessons to avoid boredom For example, in order to teacher Unit 5- Electric motor, firstly, teacher should give some pictures about electric motors (both direct current and alternating current motors) to introduce These pictures help students to have a fully sight about electric motors so they will be interested in reading the text At while- reading stage, teacher should require whole class to read the first paragraph in order to have a full sight in electric motor, then divide students into groups The first group reads about the rotor (the second and third paragraph), the second reads about the stator and the last- operating principle After that, teacher requires students to present the main point of the paragraph they have read to the class Finally, teacher can give them some more activities such as requiring them to answer the questions about the text, translating the text into Vietnamese, summarizing the text Figure 5: Eletric motor Figure 7: DC Motor Operating principles As mention above, ESP reading is very important and useful for students’ future job So, it is very necessary for the teacher to help the students to be aware of how useful reading is When students realize the importance of ESP reading they will have high motivation to read and manage to overcome difficulties 4.2 Training students become efficient readers In order to help students to read effectively, teacher should teach them with different reading strategies to deal with the texts as well as encourage their positive and extensive reading habit 4.2.1 Teaching students different reading strategies According to Wallace (1993:146), reading strategies are ways of reading, which are employed flexibly and selectively depending on the text-type, the content and purpose of reading Different texts need different strategies, so it is useful to equip students with a variety of reading strategies including skimming, scanning, guessing the meanings of words, predicting, inferring, etc *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 So, in order to teach skimming, teacher should ask the students to read the first and the last paragraph in full, the first and the last sentences of each paragraph in between and pick up the main ideas because all information in the text is often introduced in the first paragraph and summarized in the last paragraph And the main idea of a paragraph is often written at the beginning or at the end of the paragraph So, if students read the first and the last paragraphs in full and the first and the last sentences of each paragraph carefully, they can get the main points of the text as well as the paragraphs easily Teacher should also create some kinds of exercises such as finding the misplaced sentences in a paragraph, matching topic sentences with particular paragraphs, creating a title for a paragraph or a text etc for students to *Scanning: Scanning is another useful skill to locate a specific item of information that we need Readers pass over irrelevant information and focus only the particular point of information they wanted This kind of reading is widely used in reading comprehension So, when reading a text, readers must be clear of the reading purpose, then look at scanning question if available to get more concentrated and be aware of the details they are looking for, search for some specific information in a certain time allowance For example, if you want to search dates, you should use the key word “When” If you want to know the time, please look for “What time”, in order to look for definitions, see the words define, definition, mean, refer to Ignore other information and finally write down the specific required information *Guessing the meanings of words from the context: If students master this skill, they can work out the meaning of many unknown words or phrases without dictionary There are two ways to work out the meaning of new words or phrases without dictionary: Using structural formation and using context clues + Using structural formation: The meaning of new words can be worked out by referring to their information such as suffixes or prefixes + Using context clues: Meanings of new words or phrases also can be deduced by using the meanings of other words such as synonyms and antonyms in the same sentence of paragraph 4.2.2 Encouraging students to develop extensive reading habit As shown in the study, most of the students reported that the most difficult part in reading English for EEE is vocabulary This means that they lacked necessary vocabulary related to the subject matter and limited knowledge of the subjects So, teacher should encourage students to form the positive and extensive reading habit Reading extensively outside the classroom can help them enrich their vocabulary and knowledge of the subject matter According to Nuttal (1996:168), “the best way to improve your knowledge of a foreign language is to go and live among its speakers The next best way is to read extensively in it” Teacher should provide students with the materials related to the topics they are learning, the source of these materials (from some books, websites ) and the way to read effectively Besides, teacher also should provide a variety reading exercises such as summarizing, finding new words, answering the questions about the passage, translating, making outline, with different levels of difficulty These exercises may be given to students after each lesson The students should be encouraged to these exercises individually, in pairs or in groups Then, teacher should give assessment to them and ask students to point out the difficulties they may encounter when doing the tasks It is very important for the teachers to know the students’ difficulties to help them overcome 4.3 Applying different approaches to teach vocabulary As can be seen from the findings of the study, most of the students found the most difficult thing in reading English for EEE is vocabulary So, what teacher should is finding the ways to enrich students’ vocabulary sources Teacher should provide students with different techniques or strategies such as guessing the meanings of words from contexts or through formation, using dictionary, games, pictures, real objects, synonyms/ antonyms …to find out the meaning of new words Besides, teacher should teach students to kip unimportant words if they don’t know their meanings 4.4 Giving homework and checking previous lesson frequently In order to form a habit of frequent study for students, teacher should give them a variety of exercises such as summarizing, finding new words, answering the questions about the passage, making outline, translating, with different levels of difficulty Then, these exercises must be checked in the next class by requiring students to go to the board to homework, presenting the topics, translating, answering the questions about the passages or texts they have read, If the teacher doesn’t check homework frequently, student will become lazy and then their reading will go worse 4.5 Improving teachers’ professional knowledge about EEE and teaching methodology 4.5.1 Improving teachers’ professional knowledge about EEE It is undeniable that teachers play a very important role in the students’ success So, they should be trained in terms of EEE background knowledge and teaching methodology The poor knowledge of subject mater is a matter of all ESP mater As mentioned above, these teachers are teachers of GE who have unexpectedly required to teach students with special needs So they have to face so many difficulties, of which the gap of knowledge in the subject mater seems to be their concern If teacher doesn’t have basic knowledge of the fundamental principles of the target discipline, it is very difficult for them to teach effectively That is why teachers of EEE should master the specialized content as much as possible Moreover, teachers of English for EEE should be provided with some further in-service training in EEE field by EEE specialists Besides, attending workshops or lectures given by the specialists and contacting with subject teachers and specialists are essential for teachers to improve their professional knowledge about EEE 4.5.2 Improving teachers’ teaching methodology It is advisable to train English for EEE teachers in teaching methodologies applied to ESP classroom One of the good ways is to get the teacher involved in the material development In addition, they should work together to share and exchange their teaching experience with each other They can share and discuss their lesson plans to find the best activities and to choose the most appropriate supplementary materials for their students’ level Besides, it is necessary for them to prepare visual aids such as pictures, real objects, …for the lessons These visual aids will motivate students and make them have greater interest in the lessons Another good idea is that teachers should attend and observe their colleagues’ lessons so they can learn from the others 4.6 Summary This chapter has dealt with some suggestions to reduce difficulties that students at VTTTU encounter when reading English for EEE The suggestions have been made for improvement of teaching and learning They include increasing students’ reading interest and motivation, training students become efficient readers, giving homework and checking previous lesson frequently, applying different approaches to teach vocabulary, improving teachers’ professional knowledge about EEE and teaching methodology PART III: CONCLUSION I Summary of the study No one can deny the importance of reading English for EEE It is obvious that both students and teachers often encounter difficulties when teaching and learning English for EEE The aims of this study is to provide an analysis of some difficulties perceived by the second year students at VTTTU in reading English for EEE and present some useful techniques for improving teaching and learning English for EEE In order to find out the problems in teaching and learning English for EEE, a survey questionnaire has been carried out with the participation of 77 second-year students of Electrical Engineering Departments at Vinh Technical Teachers Training University to examine their attitudes towards English for EEE reading, their reading difficulties and the causes of these difficulties The results of the study clearly show that the teaching and learning English for EEE is still far from satisfactory There are many causes for this Although the students are aware the importance of reading in learning English for EEE, some of them had a negative attitude towards reading it, which made their reading more difficult Besides, the students were not equipped with necessary reading skills to become successful readers Another cause of difficulties is the reading materials, which are claimed to contain many difficult terminologies and not very interesting Finally, inefficient teaching methods, classroom techniques and teachers’ poor specialized EEE knowledge are other problems Based on the results of the study, the researcher has presented some suggestions for both teaching and learning English for EEE These include the ways to make English reading more interesting and useful, to train the students to become efficient readers, to increase students’ reading interest and motivation, to encourage students to develop extensive reading habit and to improve teachers’ professional knowledge about EEE and teaching methodology It is hoped that the study might be benefit for both learners and teachers at Vinh Technical Teachers Training University in teaching and learning reading English for EEE It is also hoped that the study will be worth reading for those who are concerned with this problem II Limitation In most research projects, limitations are inevitable The study in this thesis is of no exception Firstly, because of the limitation in teaching English for EEE reading experience and knowledge of the subject matter of the researcher, the suggestion in chapter are likely to be subjective and incomplete, leaving the issue open for debate Secondly, in terms of methodology, in the thesis the data may not fully reflect all aspects of ESP reading difficulties in the areas of vocabulary, grammar, discourse and reading skills Thirdly, within the scope of the study, the researcher has not fully addressed other important factors affecting the reading process such as reader's aptitude, attitude, intelligence, personality, etc This calls for further research REFERENCES Anderson, JC & Urquhart, AH (1984), Reading in a foreign language Essex: Longman group Limited Anderson, RC (1984) Handbook of reading research New York: Longman Beatrice S,Mikulecky (1984), A short course in teaching reading skills London Longman Carrel et al(1981)(Ed), Interactive approaches to second language Reading Cambridge Cambridge University Press Carrel, P.L (1981), ‘Culture- specific Schemata in L2 Reading comprehension In R Orem & J Haskell (Ed.)’, Selected paper from the ninth Illinois TESOL/BE annual convention and the first Midwest TESOL conference Chicago 123-132 II: TENSOL/BE Carrel, P.L (1984), The effect of rhetorical organizations on ESL readers TENSOL Quaterly, 18, 441-469 Cook, L & Mayer, R (1989) Teaching readers about the Structure of Scientific Text Journal of Education Psychology Douglas, D (2000), Assessing Language for Specific Purpose Cambridge 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Psychology of Second Language Learning Cambridge: CUP 13 Grellet, F (1981) Developing Reading Skills A practical Guide to Reading Comprehension Exercises Cambridge: CUP 14 Harmer, J (1989) The Practice of English Language Teaching Harlow: Longman 15 Harper, D (1986), ESP for the University Oxford: Pergamon Press 16 Hudson, J (1982) The effect of included schemata on the short “circuit” in L2 Reading Non-decoding factors in L2 reading performance Language Learning, 32(1), 1-31 17 Hutchinson, T & Waters, A (1986), English for specific Purposes Cambridge Cambridge University Express 18 Hutchinson, T & Waters, A (1987), English for specific Purposes A learners center approach Cambridge: Cambridge University Express 19 Nunan, D (1991) Language teaching Methodology New Jersey: Prentice Hall International 20 Nuttall, C (1982) Teaching reading skill in a foreign Language London: Heinemanr Educational Books 21 Samuels, S.J & Kamil, M.L (1988) Models of the reading process Cambridge: CUP 22 Smith, F (1971) Understand Reading: A Psycholinguistic Analysis of Reading and Learning to Read New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston 23 Smith, F (1995) Reading Cambridge: Cambridge University Express 24 Steffensen, M.F., Joag-Dev, C & Anderson, R.C (1979) ‘A Cross-cultural Perspective on Reading Comprehension’ Reading Reseach Quarterly, 15, 10-29 25 Strang, R (1972) ‘The Nature of Reading’ In Melnik, A & Merritt, J (Ed.) Reading Today and Tomorrow Open Milton Keynes, 67-117 26 Swan, M (1975) Inside Meaning Cambridge: CUP 27 Ur, P (1996) A Course in Language Teaching Cambridge: CUP 28 Wallace, M.J (1993), Reading Oxford: Oxford university Press 29 William, E (1990), Reading in the classroom New York: Macmillan Publisher 30 Wood, J (1990), Reading on Reading University of Technology, Sydney ... 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... 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. .. 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