Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS designing an ESP reading syllabus for the third year student of physics at thai nguyen university of education

INTRODUCTION

Aims of the study

The study aims at designing an ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of physics at TUE

In order to achieve this aim, the following objectives will be carried out:

- To investigate the students’ learning needs and target needs

- To propose an ESP reading syllabus suitable to the third-year students of physics at TUE

- To give suggestions about material selection, teaching methodology as well as student assessment.

The scope of the study

The study limits itself to designing an ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of physics at TUE The author of the study is concerned with the importance of reading skills for the students of physics in this proposed syllabus because reading helps enrich their vocabulary in the specific field and also helps students obtain information about the subject they are studying so that it can give students both authentic reading materials and authentic reading purposes.

Research questions

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

1 What are the target needs and learning needs of the third-year students at TUE?

2 What is a suitable ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of physics at TUE?

Organization of the thesis

The research will be organized into three parts, a list of reference and appendices

Part I, Introduction, presents the rationale, aims and objectives, the scope of the study, the research questions as well as the organization of the study

Part II, Development, consists of

 Chapter I, “Literature Review” reviews such the relevant theories for ESP reading materials as an overview of ESP, syllabus design, and reading

 Chapter II, “The study” describes and comments on learning and teaching situation at TUE, subjects of the study, the instruments for collecting data, and the findings of the study resulting from a statistical analysis of the collected data

 Chapter III presents some recommendations for “designing an ESP reading syllabus for students at TUE”

Part III, Conclusion, offers a summary of the study, limitations and suggestions for further research.

LITERATURE REVIEW

An overview of ESP

There have been many researchers and scholars trying to answer the question what

ESP is? They have different points of view

Hutchinson and Waters (1987) regard ESP as an approach rather than a product, by which they meant that ESP does not involve a particular kind of language, teaching material or methodology They suggest that “the foundation of ESP is a simple question: Why does this learner need to learn a foreign language?” The answer to this question relates to the learners, the language required and the learning context, and thus establishes the primacy of need in English

Robinson (1991) also accepts the primacy of needs analysis in defining ESP Her definition is based on two key defining criteria: (i) ESP is “normally goal-directed”, (ii) ESP courses develop from a needs analysis to specify as closely as possible what exactly the students have to do through the medium of English

Streven defined ESP by identifying its absolute and variable characteristics, and Streven’s definition (1988) makes a distinction between four absolute and two variable characteristics:

1 Absolute characteristics: ESP consists of English Language Teaching which is: (1) designed to meet specified needs of the learner; (2) related to content (i.e in its themes, topics) to particular disciplines, occupations and activities; (3)centered on language appropriate of those activities in syntax, lexis, discourse, semantics, etc, and analysis of the discourse; (4)in contrast with General English

2 Variable characteristics : ESP may be, but is not necessarily: (1) restricted as to the language skills to learn (e.g reading only); (2) not taught according to any pre-ordained methodology

In 1998, Dudley-Evans and St John modified Streven’s definition The revised definition they postulate is slightly different from Streven’s one They have removed the absolute characteristic that in contrast with General English and added more variable characteristics They assert that ESP is not necessarily, either at a tertiary level institution or in a professional work situation, although it could be used with young adults in the setting of a secondary school But that is not all They also note that ESP is generally designed for intermediate or advanced students; that is, most ESP courses assume basic knowledge of the language system, but it can be used with beginners (1998, pp.4-5)

In short, each linguistic has his own point of view but most authors have agreed that an ESP course would have the following features: it is purposeful and aims at the successful performance of occupational or educational roles by an individual or a group; it is based on an analysis of the students’ needs; it may differ from another general language course in its selection of skills, topics, situations, language and methodology However, as for the strong points of Dudley- Evans and St John above, it will act as the working definition in this study

There are many types of ESP and many acronyms According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987) in the “Tree of ELT”, ESP is broken into three branches: English for

Science and Technology (EST), English for business and economics (EBE) and English for Social Studies (ESS) Each of these subject areas is divided into two branches: English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) The former is related to the English needed in an educational context, usually at a university level or in a similar institution, and may be at a school level The later is concerned with professional purposes such as those of working lawyers, doctors, bankers or business people

According to Robinson (1991) and Munby (1978), there is a major distinction between English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) involving work-related need and training and English for Academic Purposes (EAP) with the involvement to academic study needs To make the difference from the occupational / educational distinction that can be found in most taxonomy of ESP, Munby (1978) developed the other kind of ESP classification; figure 1 presents two other categories: English for Science and Technology (EST) and other distinction as follows:

In-study/ post-study Independent

According to Strevens (1988), the learners whose purposes are concerned with science and technology are usually referred to EST It differs from other courses in which it processes a set of features that characterizes “science English” including the linguistic rules for creating scientific text, the terminology of the particular scientific purposes appropriate to an EST course and the purposes of science The courses that do not process these features are called “other ESP”

Strevens’ three-way helps us to distinguish the learner who learns English while he is being trained or after trained Similarly, it distinguishes the learner who learns English before he studies the discipline from the learner who learns English while he is studying or after he has studied the discipline This distinction is very important because learner’s experience has a great influence on his progress in study as well as the materials and method used in a course Thus, the content of an English program for some actually engaged, for example, on a secretarial course with its acquisitions for practice skills and theoretical knowledge is going to be different from that of a program for someone who is already a qualified secretary but now needs to operate in English

In short, it is useful for English teachers to know the various types of ESP as they provide an overall picture of the main group learners they are going to work with

This will be an important step into the success of their making needs analysis and designing an appropriate syllabus for a specific group of learners At TUE, EAP is taught for students who need to learn English as a part of the study Thus, the appropriate type of ESP syllabus for them is EAP.

Syllabus design

To define syllabus, some researchers advocate the narrow view, which draw a clear distinction between syllabus design and methodology whereas others adopt a broader view, which argue methodology as an integral part of the syllabus

Hutchinson and Waters (1987) share the same idea with Nunan (1988) that

“syllabus design is seen as being concerned with the selection of learning tasks and activities”

In contrast, Yalden (1984, p.14) point out that:

The syllabus replaces the concept of “method” and the syllabus is now seen as an instrument by which the teacher, with the help of the syllabus designer, can achieve a degree of “ fit” between the needs and the aims of the learners (as social being and as individual), and the activities which will take place in the classroom

It is clear that there have been various points of view on syllabus The term syllabus has been defined by two conflicting views: one sees method as an integral part of the syllabus and the other sees as a separated issue In this study, syllabus is seen under the latter approach: syllabus has been considered as specification, documents of grading of content for a particular institution, organized in subsections defining the work of a finite group A syllabus is designed with the aim of making teaching a more effective process

1.2.2 The importance of syllabus design:

It is obvious that a syllabus is an integral component in the process of course design Hutchinson and Waters (1987, p.83-84) explains why we should have a syllabus by identifying the roles of a syllabus The syllabus, in defining the constituent parts of language knowledge, is a practical basis for the division of assessment, textbooks and learning time In addition to its practical benefits, a syllabus also gives more support to the teacher and learners in that it makes the language - teaching task appear manageable A syllabus is an implicit statement of view on the nature of language and learning A syllabus will normally be expressed in terms of what is taken to be the most important aspect of language learning A syllabus then tells the teachers and learners not only what is to be learned, but implicitly why it is to be learned Furthermore, a syllabus provides a set of criteria for materials selection and/ or writing In which teaching is intended to lead a learner to a particular state of knowledge, there need to be criteria against which success or failure in reaching that state will be assessed Therefore, a syllabus provides a visible basis for testing It is clear from the list that a syllabus is a document of great importance in teaching and learning process In order to design it appropriately, a syllabus designer needs to be aware of the different roles that the syllabus plays

1.2.3 Approaches to language syllabus design

In 1987, Hutchinson and Waters stated that there are three main types of approaches: the language-centered, the skills-centered and the learning-centered

- The language-centered approach: Hutchinson and Waters (1987, p.65-66) pointed out that this design process “aims to draw as direct a connection as possible between the analysis of the target situation and the content of the ESP course.” This approach seems to be very logical and straightforward but it has a number of weaknesses Firstly, only restricted area is taught instead of taking the whole of English and teaching it to the learner Secondly, it is criticized for being a static and inflexible procedure Thirdly, this model appears to be systematic, and it engenders the false belief that the systematic analysis and presentation of language data will produce systematic learning in the learner Also, the language-centered model does not acknowledge the important factor contributing to the creation of any course

Finally, its analysis of the target situation data is just at the surface level

- Skills-centered approach: with the aims of helping learners to develop skills and learning strategies after the ESP course, and making the learners into better processors of information This approach, therefore, certainly take the learners more into account than the language-centered model In general, this approach sees the learner as a user of language rather than as a learner of language With this distinction, skill-centered approach may be a reasonable solution

- A learning-centered approach: Hutchinson and Waters (1987:72) “reject the term a learner-centered approach in favor of a learning-centered approach to indicate that the concern is to maximize learning” They remark that learning should “be seen it the context in which it takes places” and that “learning is not just a mental process, it is a process of negotiation between individuals and society.”

In general, the first approach pays attention to competence and performance of the learners, while the skill-centered approach views learners as users rather than a learner of language The language-centered model makes the ESP course dependent on the target situation That is the reason why the writer will take this way into consideration to apply this interactive approach to designing ESP reading syllabus for the students of Physics at TUE

There are different ways to classify types of syllabuses

According to Dubin & Olshtain (1986), syllabus can be classified into four types such as structural-grammatical syllabus, the semantico-notional syllabus, the functional syllabus and the situational syllabus

Krahnke (1987) divides syllabuses into six major types: structural syllabus, notional/functional syllabus, skill-based syllabus, situational syllabus, task-based syllabus and content-based syllabus He also said that skill-based syllabus is the one in which the current of the course is a set of specific abilities, such as linguistic competence (pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, reading, …), generalized types of behavior or other language skills can be chosen as the main focus of the course

In task-based syllabus, the teaching is organized around the series of complex and purpose full tasks that the learners need or want to perform, using English Content- based syllabus focuses on disciplinary content or subject matter, which learners acquire through English It may be also called a typical or thematic syllabus

Hutchinson and Waters (1987) discuss syllabus in a different way, all together not in terms of design characteristics of content, but in terms of the stage, through which content passes before it reaches the mind of the learner They divided syllabus into evaluation syllabus, organizational syllabus, materials syllabus, teacher syllabus, classroom syllabus and learner syllabus

All the types of the syllabuses have advantages and disadvantages Therefore, how to design a good syllabus is still a big question for many people Hutchinson

(1987:89) points out that teaching materials should operate some syllabuses at the same time, which can be a good way to design the syllabus Thus, to meet the students’ needs as learning situation, skill-based and topic-based syllabuses are chosen for designing the ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of Physics at TUE This mixture between the two syllabuses above is likely to be the best one to have an appropriate, practical, feasible and enjoyable syllabus for them The characteristics, differences, strengths and reasons for choosing this mixed syllabus are presented as follows:

The assumption of this syllabus type is that “underlying any language behavior are certain skills and strategies, which the learner uses in order to produce or comprehend discourse” (Hutchinson, 1987:69)

Skill-based syllabus “is something of a half way house between content or product syllabuses on the other side and method or process syllabuses on the other”

In essence, skill-based syllabus “focuses exclusively or principally on one of the four traditionally skills” (Robinson, 1991:37)

The reason accounting for the choice of an ESP skill-based syllabus is that it thinks of the student as a language user and not a language learner As the students’ most important need is proficiency in reading skills, at the first sight, this seems to be the right solution The syllabus should contain reading activities that are built on the students’ specialist topics

The topic-based syllabus is organized around topics For ESP course, the topics deploy the content of the students’ work, specialist study or specialist subject areas

This type of syllabus is certainly important in ESP because one objective of the ESP course may in fact to teach this specialist content

Richard (2001:157) defines this type of syllabus as the one that is organized around the themes, topics, or other units of content With topic-based syllabus, content rather than grammar, functions or situations is the starting point in syllabus design

The topic-bases syllabus is chosen for the study because of its advantages which are cited by Richards (2001:158) that they facilitate comprehension; content make linguistic form more meaningful and serves as the best basis for teaching the skill areas; they address students’ needs and motivate learners

Reading

In this part, the definition of reading, reading process and reading skills will be investigated

There have been a lot of definitions of reading As its simplest, reading is understanding messages in written or printed materials To get further understanding, we discuss some writers’ opinions

In Harmer’s words, reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain The eyes receive message and the brain has to work out the meaning that is to interpret the meaning of what is being read (Harmer, 1998)

Goodman (1971:135) sees reading as a psycholinguistic process by which the reader, a long user, reconstructs, as best as he can a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display A similar view on reading expressed by Williams (1984:3), especially on the act of reconstruction like Goodman shows that the written texts often contain more than we need to understand them The efficient reader makes use of this to take what he needs, or no more to obtain meaning

Generally, all definitions share the same idea that reading is a receptive process of reading silently for the ultimate purpose of understanding a written form as effectively as possible

The notion of reading as an interactive process of bottom-up, top-down and metacognitive skills is now well consolidated in both first language and second language instructional frameworks In this part, three models of reading, the bottom-up, the top-down and the interactive model will be discussed

First, the bottom-up models, as the name of the model suggests the reader does begin with the written text In the model, the data from the text must be received before the high-level mental stages of understanding transform and re-code the data

Specially, the basis for this process is linguistic knowledge of the reader, so this model can be considered as skill-based or data-driven

Secondly, the top-down model move from the top and is originated from meaning- based theory or meaning processes with the active role of readers in their interaction with the text Decoding the form of the text, that is letters and words, is preceded by the preconstruction of meaning and followed by the meaning reconfirmation

Goodman (1971) suggests this process as a kind of “psycholinguistic guessing game” Nevertheless, this model does emphasize high-level skills such as guessing meaning from context or background knowledge

Also, the interactive model, according to Stanovich (quoted in Nunan, 1988) and Hayes (1991), is the outcome of the concession between bottom-up and top-down theories In this model, readers can look for information for the bottom-up process to compensate for the top-down process and vice versa to make “the most appropriate interpretation of the printed page” (Hayes 1991:7)

In the final analysis, three dominant theoretical models have provided the fundamental understanding of the nature of the reading process The interactive seems to compensate for those short comings of the two models above This is the reason why while teaching the reading materials in ESP, the teachers should know how to use three models appropriate but give more weight to interactive models to develop the learners’ reading strategies

According to McDonough & Shaw (1993:101), reading skill is clearly one of the most important skills, particularly in cases where students have to read English materials for their own specialist subject but many never actually have to speak the language

There are many ways to classify reading skills which are good for learners to master Kennedy and Bolitho offer some reading skills such as skimming, scanning, reference skills, relating graphs, diagrams, texts, predicting and sequence the structure of a text, reading notices and instructions

Dudley-Evans and St John (1998) also summarized a list of key skills of ESP reading such as selecting what is relevant for the current purpose; using all the features of the text such as headings, layout, typeface; skimming for content and meaning; scanning for specifics; identifying organizational patterns; understanding relations within a sentence and between sentences; using cohesive and discourse markers; predicting, inferring and guessing; identifying main ideas, supporting ideas and examples; processing and evaluating the information during reading; and transferring or using the information while or after reading

From these, the syllabus designer must choose the appropriate reading skills to equip their learners methods of reading effectively

Richards (1985) said that task in language teaching is an activity or action which is carried out as the result of processing or understanding language Patrick Howarth

(2006) divides the reading process into three stages: pre-reading, while-reading and post reading as well as some tasks in each stages For example, tell your partner what you know about the topic; do a quiz in pairs to find out what you know about the topics; look at some pictures related to the topics; and skimming the first paragraph for gist and then predicting, running and reading is to encourage the students to read as quickly as possible in a race, slashed text, using websites, jigsaw reading, creating a class text bank,…discussions about the text, summarizing texts, using “follow-up” speaking task related to the topic…

Grellet (1990) focuses on tasks for improving skimming and skinning reading skills

Besides, he also gives many kinds of tasks such as cloze text, recognizing word formation and derivation, completing a table after reading a text, multiple choice, comprehension questions,…

Briefly, basing on the objectives of the ESP course as well as the learners’ level, the designers choose the necessary tasks in order to help learners to improve their reading skills

In summary, this chapter presents some theoretical issues which are as the basis for the design of an ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of Physics at TUE

The first part focuses on the relevant theories for ESP with its types The second one is syllabus design with the discussion of approaches to language syllabus design, stages in syllabus design as well as needs analysis Finally, due to the ultimate purpose of the study is to design a reading syllabus, the last item of this chapter deals with theory on reading, reading process, reading skills and reading tasks In the next chapter, we will describe the methodology of the study.

THE STUDY

Introduction

In order to meet the aims of this thesis, in this chapter the writer will present the results of need analysis as the base for designing an ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of Physics at TUE One questionnaire was designed to analyze the students’ needs and another one was for English teachers who have experienced to teach English for Physics That is the reason why a numbers of factors such as the students’ background information, resources, their needs and teaching and learning situation at TUE are mentioned in this part of the thesis.

The teaching/learning situation at Thai Nguyen University of Education

2.2.1 The target students and English teachers

The third-year students of Physics at TUE are likely to have mastered the English language skills, the vocabulary, as well as grammatical rules at the pre-intermediate level More important is the fact that most of these students’ needs are only to pass the exams with good results, while the rest may think that English is useful for their future All in all, Physics students seem to be equipped with basic knowledge about their fields by Physics teachers, which helps them to be capable of learning Physics knowledge in English However, their English knowledge is still poor, so the English teachers need to provide them with necessary language knowledge by selecting/designing an appropriate syllabus which helps them to overcome their difficulties in learning English for Physics

There are 5 teachers of English who teach English for Physics at TUE All of them have graduated from the Foreign Language Faculty Four of them are M.A and one is taking the MA Course They have been teaching English for Physics for several years, but they are not adequately trained for Physics That is the reason why they have some certain difficulties in teaching English for Physics

As what we referred to in the first part of this thesis, GE is taught in two terms (90 class hours) and ESP is the second part in the whole English course at TUE English for Physics is the compulsory subject for every student of physics at TUE It is taught in 60 periods

At TUE, the main material used for General English is New Cutting Edge – Pre- intermediate English for physics is taught with materials collected or designed by English teachers However, these materials are not appropriated for the students for some reasons; for example, there are only four units for the 60 periods; the content of the texts are not related to physics, so students are not exposed to Physics terminologies; there are some unnecessary parts in each units which do not improve the students’ skills That is the reason why English teachers find it difficult to teach English for Physics effectively and students find it hard to upgrade their English reading skill or enlarge their vocabulary

For these above reasons, it is necessary for the teachers to design an appropriate ESP reading syllabus which meets the demands of the educational purpose of TUE and the students’ needs.

The study

The purpose of the study is to design an ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of Physics at TUE It is aimed at answering these questions:

1 What are the target needs and learning needs of the third-year students at TUE?

2 What is a suitable ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of physics at TUE?

Seventy second-year students of Physics, who have finished pre-intermediate GE course during 2 terms, are the subjects of the study, so are five teachers of English teaching English for Physics

Data for this study was collected through one questionnaire for the second-year students to investigate learners’ needs, wants and lacks (see appendix 1) Another questionnaire for the English teachers was used to see the teachers’ experiences on some matters related to ESP reading syllabus (see appendix 2)

First of all, the questionnaire was administered to 70 second-year students of Physics who have just finished GE course All questions were translated into Vietnamese to help students understand them easily and answer them willingly and promptly All the questions in this questionnaire helped identify reliable data relating to the student’s needs such as their purposes of learning ESP course, their expectations of the ESP course, their background, their learning strategies

Secondly, the questionnaire was carried out among 5 English teachers The questions in this part were designed to find out suggested topics and necessary exercises for the syllabus

In conclusion, 70 copies of questionnaire were sent to informants in May, 2012, and all responses were collected and manually analyzed To get an accurate and effective interpretation, frequencies are used to find out the percentage of each item to work out the populations’ ideas about the target situation needs

This part describes the initial results reflected through the collected data from the questionnaires

As we mentioned in chapter 1, the data was used to find out learning needs and target needs Therefore, in this part the results will reflect them

According to Hutchinson and Water (1987), learning needs is a journey in which lack is regarded as the starting point, necessities as the destination and how we are going to get from the starting point to destination indicate learning needs which show how they expect learners study the language items, skills and strategies that they use In other words, learning needs involve identifying such circumstances of language learning as students’ background, their learning purpose, learning strategies, expectation of the language course as well as the types of exercises they prefer in the course a The students’ background information

Students’ background information includes information of their age, gender This information was collected from the first two questions in the questionnaire for students

As the table 1 presents, the number of males is twice more than the number of females, and 87 percent of the students are over 20 b The students’ purpose of taking the ESP course

Question 3 in the questionnaire elicited the students’ purpose of taking the ESP course at university

- To pass the English exam

- To read materials of Physics in English

- To take part in conversation

- To enrich students’ specialist knowledge

Table 2: Students’ purpose of taking an ESP course

As can be seen from the table, most of the students wanted to study ESP because they wished to overcome the final test of ESP Three quarters of the number of the students took the course with the purpose of reading materials of the subject matter in English, while only a half students wanted to be able to communicate in English

A large number of students wished to improve their knowledge of the subject matter through the ESP course From the survey result, it can be concluded that most of the students acknowledged the importance of the ESP course This is good for the students before they begin to study ESP The students wanted to learn ESP for one or another reasons However, whatever they study ESP for, we can be sure their positive attitudes towards the ESP course c Students’ expectations

This part summarizes what students hope to get through as ESP course It can be seen in the following table

- To translate the document into Vietnamese

- To read and understand English materials related to your subject matter

- To take part in seminars and communicate with foreigners

Table 3 shows what students expect to achieve after they take an ESP course at university The most important thing that all of the students hope to get is to read and understand English materials related to their subject matter Likewise, to translate the document into Vietnamese is also the concern of 64 % of the students

While, only 15 students, accounting for 21%, expect to be able to use English they study during the ESP course in seminars or in communications The survey result suggests that students expected the course would provide them with specific vocabulary and materials related to Physics Therefore, a course that enriches students’ specialist knowledge in English will highly motivate them d Types of English materials the students often read

Presented below are the results for question 6 in which students gave the types of English materials they often use

- Newspapers and magazines in English

- Physics course books in English

Table 4: English materials read by students

Table 4 presents the number of the students read English documents and what types of documents they read It is worth noting at this point that only 10 among 70 students, accounting for only 14%, read Physics course books in English They are more interested in other English books because more than a half of the students chose this item; while, newspapers and magazines in English are also the choices of

The results above helped identify the sources of English reading materials that reflected the needs of the students of Physics at TUE e Students’ learning strategies

This part, consisting of three questions (from question 7 to question 9), was aimed at finding out the students’ reading habits

Question 7 - Predict what you are going to read

- Read instructions for exercise only

63 (90%) Question 8 - Translate the text into Vietnamese

- Read quickly to get general ideas for the whole text and read carefully if necessary

- Pay attention to topic sentence to guess main ideas

Question 9 - Look them up in the dictionary

- Guess the meaning of the words from the context

As shown in tables 5, before reading, the most common activity of the student is to read the requirements of the exercises only The percentage of the students who do this takes up 90 % It means that thinking about something related to the text is not much paid attention Only 8% of them predict what they are going to read

While reading, the students were aware of translating the text into Vietnamese rather than guessing main ideas through the topic sentence This can be seen from the result of question 8 82% of the students translated the text into the mother tongue to understand compared with 21% of the students who paid attention to topic sentence to guess main ideas Interestingly, there are up to 42% of the students who know how to skim to get general ideas of the text

It can be seen from the result of question 9, 56 students, accounting for 80%, often try to understand every word in the text In contrast, few students, only 10%, get the meanings of new words from the context, from the words or phrases around them, and the same percentage of the students ignore new words

Generally, the result from table 5 shows that the students had not developed good f Types of exercise needed in the ESP reading course

The table below is the results of question 10 in which the students were asked about the types of exercises needed

Number Exercises Number of choice (%)

2 True-False-No information question 47 (67%)

4 Identifying the topic of a paragraph 15 (21%)

5 Choosing topic sentences to fill in each paragraph 40 (57%)

7 Read and complete the chart / diagrams 40 (57%)

10 Matching words to their meanings 34 (48%)

11 Read and summarize the content 20 (28%)

13 Guessing meanings of words from the context 35 (50%)

Table 6: Types of exercises needed by students

Table 6 presents what exercises should be included in ESP course to help students to improve their reading skills As can be seen from the table, the students were most interested in gap-filling exercise (87% of the students chose it) and multiple choice with 85% of the students choosing it compared with the least interested exercises, such as synonym-antonym, identifying the topic of a paragraph, or read and summarize the content 75 % of the students liked comprehensive questions exercise and nearly the same number of the students liked exercise of translation

Summary

This chapter has presented the results of analyzing the students’ needs In order to collect information about their needs, different methods have been used (questionnaires) with various subjects (teachers and students) These results have led to some major findings which are useful to help the researcher to propose an appropriate ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of Physics at TUE.

DESIGNING AN ESP READING SYLLABUS FOR THE THIRD-

The selection of the type of syllabus for the third-year students of Physics at TUE

As mentioned in chapter I, there are different types of ESP syllabuses Each type has its own strong points and weak points as well Nevertheless, the combination or integration of syllabuses will be a good solution because the practice of a single type of syllabus can not guarantee the effectiveness of the course Robinson (1991) confirms “the real issue is not which syllabus to put first It is how to integrate them into a sensible teaching program… We should not treat all syllabuses as being simultaneously available and try to find what is most suitable for a particular situation” (p.40)

Basing on the result analysis of the students’ needs and on the learning situation at TUE, the researcher proposes that the topic-based and skill-based syllabus as the primary organizing feature is chosen for designing the ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of physics at TUE For this ESP syllabus, it will be planned in terms of topics, skills and vocabulary The level of organization might be topical with skills, and vocabulary items selected according to the demands of different topics.

Aims and objectives

Establishing the basic aims of the syllabus is very important because such aims will in fact govern the whole process of syllabus design as well as the syllabus implementation They determine the selection of contents and teaching procedures and activities There is an invaluable guide to evaluation as well For these reasons, the aims and objectives should be clear, precise and appropriate

Nunan (1988) proposes that “objectives can be useful, not only to guide the selection of the structures, notions, tasks and so on, but also to provide a sharper focus for teacher” The students of physics at TUE are people who have low English proficiency and are not specialized in English, so they often concentrate on learning general grammar and vocabulary They need to be provided the basic term of their subject matter and to know how to read materials in English Most of them just want to learn to pass the exam although they all know that English is really necessary for their study and their future job

Based on the students’ needs analysis and the data analyzed in chapter II, the aims of the ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of Physics at TUE are set as follows:

1 to provide students with a basic knowledge of English of Physics

2 to help the students to develop reading skills through practice Objectives are the illustrations for aims of the syllabus because they force syllabus designer and teachers to be precise in designing where they intend to go and what they intend to be about

The objectives of this course have been considered basing on the analysis of the survey results At the end of the course, students will be able to:

1 To comprehend different texts related to Physics

2 To read and understand general concepts of Physics

3 To build up terms related to Physics which are used in textbooks or documents about Physics

4 To employ reading techniques to read texts for information.

The selection of content of the ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of Physics at TUE

As mentioned in the first section of this chapter, the ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of Physics at TUE will be designed in the light of skill-based and topic-based with the following units which have been surveyed and analyzed in the chapter 2 a Topics in the syllabus

In chapter 2, the questionnaire for the second-year students and the interview for English teacher suggested topics in the course except for topics 6, 9 and 15

Therefore, the topics included in the syllabus should be:

1 Physics and scope of physics

12 Optics b Reading skills and exercises: b.1 Reading skills:

As mentioned in chapter 1, there have been many different theories on reading skills According to Nuttall (1982), reading approaches, which are classified according to the purpose of reading, can include: extensive reading and intensive reading

First of all, Extensive reading, whose objective is to train students to read directly and fluently in a foreign language for his own enjoyment without the aid of the teacher to achieve a general understanding of a text, includes skimming and scanning The purpose of skimming is to get the gist or the general ideas of the text but not to find the answer to particular questions, whereas the purpose of scanning is to go through a text very quickly to find a particular and relevant details or information

Another factor of no les importance is intensive reading Intensive reading means

“reading short texts to extract specific information, this is an accuracy activity involving reading for details” (Grellet, 1990), another linguist defines “intensive reading involves approaching the text under the guidance of a teacher or a task which forces the student to focus on the text” Obviously, intensive reading whose objective is to understand a text in details requires readers a very deep understanding of the black marks on the paper with short texts Intensive reading, consequently, trains primarily strategies for students to encounter with other texts

In general, in reading, different styles of reading, reading speed and techniques should be adapted according to the readers’ purposes to achieve their aims In case of reading skills in ESP, it should be both extensive and intensive readings to help ESP learners with all effective to cope with sophisticated texts and tasks appropriately, skillfully b.2 Reading exercises:

The result of the questionnaire for students and the one for the teachers reveals what types of reading exercises should be included in the ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of Physics at TUE With the results achieved from the questionnaires, all items of exercises are chosen as the following details:

To develop skimming skill, the exercises needed are:

1 Choosing topic sentences to fill in each paragraph

2 Identifying the topic of a paragraph

To develop scanning skill, the exercises needed are:

6 Read and complete the charts or diagrams

To enlarge the students’ vocabulary, the exercises are:

8 Matching words to their meanings

10 Guessing meaning of words from the context Other exercises:

13 Read and summarize the content

Time schedule of the syllabus

This syllabus is designed for one semester which occurs about 60 periods (4 fifty- minute periods per week x 15 weeks) b The structure of the syllabus:

Based on the results of the surveys on the teachers’ and students’ opinions, the ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of Physics at TUE is designed The items of the ESP reading are distributed in 12 units with the topics in part 3.3.2 (a)

After 6 periods, the students have 4 periods for revision and a progressive test

Thus, the students have two progressive tests and one final test Besides, each unit consists of the objectives, one suggested material designed as the reading text, activities for practice prepared by the teachers The teachers are required to fulfill their tasks of teaching the compulsory units with the chosen topics, and to add the extra exercises related to the fields if necessary.

The proposed ESP reading syllabus for the third-year

This syllabus is a guide for teachers who are involved in teaching the third-year students of Physics at TUE ESP only The texts can be collected from different sources; namely available text books and articles on the internet… Based on the results of the questionnaires for students and for the teachers, the ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of Physics at TUE can be presented as in appendix 4.

Summary

This chapter focuses on showing the ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of Physics at TUE The topics and skills are regarded as the principle components Additionally, the selection of type of syllabus, the aims and objectives and the selection of the content in the syllabus are also described in the first part of the chapter All in all, this syllabus can be seen as a guide for the ESP teachers in selecting and adapting teaching materials for their target students.

CONCLUSION

There is a widespread agreement that ESP syllabus designing is very important for the learning process for ESP learners in many universities This does mean that designing an appropriate, practical, feasible and enjoyable ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of Physics at TUE is of great necessity

With the above-mentioned aim, this study focuses on designing an ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of Physics at TUE The study consists of three main parts; Introduction, Development and Conclusion The first part of the study discusses rationale, aim and objectives, research questions, scope of the study, research methodology and design of the study The second part, the development, includes three chapters The first chapter is Literature Review which presents the relevant theories for ESP reading materials It consists of an overview of ESP, syllabus design, the importance of syllabus design, approaches to language syllabus design, reading and some techniques of reading The second chapter, The Study, presents the teaching and learning situation at TUE, the subjects of the study, the instruments for collecting data, as well as the results and the finding of the study after analyzing the collected data This chapter has answered two research questions completely The results of Need Analysis conducted by ESP teachers and the second-year students of Physics can be extracted briefly as follows:

1 The aims and the objectives of the ESP course are:

(i) to provide students with a basic knowledge of English of Physics, (ii) to help the students develop reading skills through practice, (iii) to comprehend different texts related to the students’ academic study, (iv) to read and understand general concepts of Physics, (v) to build up terms related to Physics which are used in textbooks or documents about Physics, (vi) to employ reading techniques to read texts for information

2 12 necessary topics should be included in the syllabus

3 13 kinds of reading exercises should be included in the syllabus in order to develop skimming skill, scanning skill, vocabulary exercises

Obviously, the answers for the research questions about the target needs and learning needs of the students of Physics at TUE and the appropriate content of the syllabus for the students of Physics have been clarified in chapter II The third chapter presents some recommendations for designing an ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of Physics at TUE This proposed syllabus is designed for one semester with 60 periods (4 fifty-minute periods each week x 15 weeks) The ESP reading syllabus includes 12 units with different topics related to Physics field

After every 6 units there are 4 periods for the students to review and practice what they have learned in 6 units The students will have to take two progress tests after every 6 units and one final test after they finish the ESP course With this syllabus, the students are exposed to various topics related to Physics and different reading skills and exercises will motivate the students to learn Finally, Part III, Conclusion, presents a summary of the study to review what have been achieved in this study

The researcher also finds that this study also has some limitations The questionnaires have been conducted by a small population, so the data analysis may affect the results and findings

All in all, it is of great significance to carry out the study on designing ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of physics at TUE Also it is recommended that some other studies should focus on compiling the dictionary on Physics for these target students at TUE

1 Brown, L.D (1995) The elements of language curriculum and syllabus design for ELT London British Council

2 Dubin, F & Olshtain, E (1986) Course design: developing programmes and materials for language learning Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

3 Dudley-Evans, T & St John, M (1998) Development in ESP: A multi- disciplinary approach, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p.4-5

4 Goodman, K.S (1971) Psycholinguistic universals in reading progress psychological for second language learning Cambridge: Cambridge

5 Graves, K (1996) Teachers as Course Developers Cambridge Cambridge

6 Grellet, F (1990) Developing reading skills Cambridge: Cambridge

7 Harmer, J (1998) How to teach English London: Longman

8 Hayes, B.L (1991) Effective strategies for teaching reading Boston: Allyn and Bacon

9 Howarth, P (2006) Making reading communicative Teachingenglish.org.uk

10 Hutchinson, T and Waters, A 1987 English for Specific Purposes: A learning – centered approach Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

11 Kennedy, C and Bolitho, R (1991) English for specific purposes

12 Krahnke, K (1987) Approaches to syllabus design for FLT UK: Prentice

13 McDonough, J & Shaw, C (1993) Materials and methods in ELT: A teacher’s guide Oxford: Oxford University Press

14 Munby, J (1978) Communicative syllabus design Cambridge : Cambridge

15 Nunan, D (1988) Syllabus Design Oxford Oxford University Press

16 Nuttall, C (1982) Teaching Reading Skills in a foreign language, London:

17 Oxford Advanced Learners’ Encycopedic Dictionary

18 Richards, J (2001) Curriculum development in language teaching

19 Richards, J., Platt J, and Weber, H (1985) Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics Great Britain Richard Clay Ltd (253)

20 Robinson, P.C (1991) ESP today: A practitioner’s guide Pretence Hall

21 Strevens, P (1988) ESP aster twenty years: a re-appraisal in M Tickoo

ESP: State of the Art Singapore: SEAMEO regional language center

22 Tran Ngoc Hoi & Pham Van Thieu Vat ly dai cuong: Cac nguyen ly ung dung tap 1

25 William, E (1984) Reading in language classroom New York: Macmillan

26 Yalden, J (1984) Syllabus design in general education In C.J Brumfit

QUESTIONAIRE (For second year students who have finished General English course)

The purpose of the questionnaire is to collect ideas of the second-year students of physics at TUE to design an appropriate reading syllabus for students Please help us by responding to all questions in each of the following parts Thanks for your cooperation

3 Why do you plan to take the ESP course at university?

(You can tick as many boxes as you wish)

 To pass the English exam

 To read the materials of the subject matter

 To take part in conversation

 To enrich your specialist knowledge

4 What do you expect to gain from the course?

 To translate the document into Vietnamese

 To read and understand English materials related to your subject matter

 To take part in seminars and communicate with foreigners

5 The topics you think should be in the ESP reading course: (Put a tick  in

6 Which of the following types of English materials do you often read?

 Newspapers and magazines in English

 Physics course books in English

7 Before reading an English text, do you often:

- Predict what you are going to read Yes No

- Read instructions for exercise only Yes No

8 While reading a text, do you often:

- Translate the text into Vietnamese Yes No

- Read quickly to get general ideas Yes No for the whole text and read carefully if necessary

- Pay attention to topic sentence to guess main ideas Yes No

9 What do you do with new words while reading an English text?

 Look them up in the dictionary

 Guess the meaning of the words from the context

10 Which of the following task types / exercises that you think should be included in the ESP reading course to practice and consolidate the reading skill?

(Tick in the box “necessary” if you choose)

15 True-False-No information question

20 Read and complete the chart / diagrams

26 Guessing meanings of words from the context

APPENDIX 2 THE QUESTIONNAIRE FOR THE TEACHERS

The purpose of the questionnaire is to collect ideas of the ESP teacher of physics at TUE to design an appropriate reading syllabus for students Please help us by responding to all questions in each of the following parts as frankly as possible Thanks for your cooperation

1 The topics you think should be in the ESP reading course:

2 Which of the following task types / exercises that you think should be included in the ESP reading course to practice and consolidate the reading skill?

(Tick in the box “necessary” if you choose)

2 True-False-No information question

7 Read and complete the chart / diagrams

13 Guessing meanings of words from the context

APPENDIX 3 Item Topics English teachers’ opinions

Second-year physics students’ opinions (Number of choices) Necessary Not necessary

Table 9: Topics necessary for the course

APPENDIX 4 The proposed ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of Physics at Thai Nguyen University of Education

Time Unit Topics Reading skills

- Skimming: to discover the main ideas in the reading texts

- Scanning: to get the specific details in the reading texts

- General terms of physics (text based)

- Translate the text into Vietnamese

- Terms related to Matter and measurement (text based)

- Matching words to their definitions

- basic particles in physics (text based)

4 Motion - Skimming: to discover the main ideas in the reading texts

- Finding synonyms and antonyms of words or phrases in the reading texts

- Choosing topic sentences to fill

- terms related to motion(text based)

- Translation in each paragraph in the reading text

5 Gravitation - Skimming: to discover the main ideas in the reading texts

- Guessing meaning of words from the context

- True-False-No information questions

- terms related to weight and mass (text based)

- matching words to their definitions paragraph

7 Energy - Skimming: to discover the main ideas in the reading texts

- terms related to energy (text based)

- Identifying the topic of a paragraph

8 Magnetism - Skimming: to discover the main ideas in the reading texts

- Guessing meaning of words from the

- terms related to magnetism (text based)

- Choosing topic sentences to fill in each paragraph

- terms related to electric charge (text based)

- True-false-no information questions

- Finding synonyms and antonyms of words or phrases in the text

- terms related to nuclear (text based)

11 Heat - Skimming: to discover the main ideas in the reading texts

- Matching words to their meanings

- Read and summarize the content

- identifying the topics of paragraphs

12 Optics - Skimming: to discover the main ideas in the reading texts

- Choosing topic sentences to fill in each paragraph

Tiêu đề	Designing An Esp Reading Syllabus For The Third Year Student Of Physics At Thai Nguyen University Of Education
Tác giả	Nguyễn Thị Minh Trang
Người hướng dẫn	Kim Văn Tất, MA
Trường học	Vietnam National University, Ha Noi University of Languages and International Studies
Chuyên ngành	English Teaching Methodology
Thể loại	ma minor thesis
Năm xuất bản	2012
Thành phố	Ha Noi

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