Đang tải... (xem toàn văn)
Xét về quan niệm của bài đọc khó, kết quả bước đầu cho thấy, độ dài của bài đọc hiểu và chủ đề không quen thuộc gây khó khăn nhiều hơn cho giáo viên so với học sinh. Trong khi đó, từ mới và cấu trúc ngữ pháp phức tạp cản trở học viên nhiều hơn. Nhà nghiên cứu Đào Thu Hương (2007) cũng tìm ra những khó khăn tương tự đối với học sinh ở trường trung học phổ thông Lê Hồng Phong. Ngoài ra, giáo viên và học viên ở EQuest đã thừa nhận rằng từ vựng là mảng khó khăn lớn nhất họ gặp phải khi dạy và học phần đọc hiểu TOEIC. Khi so sánh với nghiên cứu của Yorio (1971) và Vũ Thị Thu Hà (2010), kết quả cũng chỉ ra đều tương tự. Những khó khăn đáng quan ngại khác xuất phát từ việc học viên có xu hướng nghỉ học ở EQuest vào giai đoạn gần cuối khóa khi mà phần đọc hiểu TOEIC được giảng dạy và kĩ năng đoán từ vựng trong văn cảnh còn hạn chế. Về chiến thuật đọc, nhiều học viên dường như chưa có sự chuẩn bị chu đáo trước khi học phần đọc hiểu trên lớp, bài tập về nhà cũng chưa được làm thật sự đầy đủ. Ngoài ra, đối với giáo viên, phương hướng đọc tương tác (interactive approach) được nhận thức và khai thác tốt hơn so với học viên.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS During the time of finishing this study, I owe deep indebtedness to many people for their generous supports and invaluable contributions. First of all, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor Nguyen Thi Ngoc Quynh, Ph.D. for her enthusiastic support, helpful guidance and constant encouragement which are the guiding stars in leading me through great hindrances and inspiring me to conduct the study successfully. I am indebted to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Hung Tien & Dr. Pham Thi Thanh Thuy for their valuable and interesting course in Research Methodology and Le Van Canh, Ph.D. for his precious lecture in Reading skills in TESOL Methodology course which has helped me build up data of literature review. My deep thanks are also extended to all staff, lecturers and members at Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their work and services. Words of thanks are sent to my friends of group 20, especially my K20B classmates for their advice and useful documents. My study would probably not have been completed without the active participation of my colleagues and their students at EQuest Academy in data collection process using survey questionnaire and semi-structured interview. Finally, my special appreciations go to my parents and my younger brother, Pham Duc Tuan, who have always given me their head over heels in love, intensive care and positive encouragement. i ABSTRACT This study was conducted to find out (1) what problems EQuest Academy (EQ) teachers and EQ students had in the teaching and learning to prepare for TOEIC reading comprehension skills (part 7). Furthermore, (2) the teachers and students’ perspectives s on the strategies which they had employed were expected to be discovered. In order to obtain the intended goal, 90 students of TOEIC class and 15 teachers in charge of TOEIC course undertook the data collection method of questionnaires and interviews. The findings figured out that length of the reading texts and their unfamiliar topics caused the teachers more trouble compared with the students whereas unknown words and complex structures hindered the students more than the teachers. The results from the students were remarkably consistent with Dao (2007) at Le Hong Phong high school. More strikingly, vocabulary was perceived as the biggest hindrance by both EQ teachers and students in reading comprehension as found in Yorio (1971) and Vu (2010)’s paper. The other top problems consisted of the lack of skills relating to guessing new words in the contexts and the students’ infrequent participation in the in-class reading lessons. Regarding their strategies, surprisingly, the large number of TOEIC learners did not sound well-prepared before lessons in the class in term of doing homework or asking the teachers for the outside classroom supplementary materials. Besides, the TOEIC trainers put much more emphasis on interactive approach than the TOEIC learners. Based on the findings, several pedagogical suggestions for further exploitation were offered for both the teachers and the students in EQuest Academy to improve the current situation of the teaching and learning of TOEIC reading comprehension. TABLE OF CONTENTS ii DECLARATION I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS II ABSTRACT III TABLE OF CONTENTS IV LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS VII ABBREVIATIONS VIII PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 1. The statement of the problem and the rationale for the study 1 2. Research aims and research questions 2 3. Scope of study 2 4. Method of study 3 PART II: DEVELOPMENT 4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4 1.1. Reading 4 1.1.1. Definition of reading 4 1.1.2. Reading process 5 1.1.3. The teaching and the learning of reading 6 1.2. TOEIC 6 12.1. TOEIC definition, origin, benefit and topic 6 1.2.2. TOEIC reading 8 1.2.2.1. TOEIC reading background 8 1.2.2.2. Some factors affecting the teaching and learning of TOEIC reading comprehension skills 11 1.2.2.3. TOEIC reading comprehension strategies 11 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 13 2.1. Setting 13 2.2. Research design 13 2.2.1. Participants 13 2.2.2. Data collection 14 iii 2.2.2.1. Instruments 16 2.2.2.2. Procedure 16 2.2.2.3. Data analysis 17 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 19 3.1. Research question 1 19 3.1.1. Perceptions about difficult reading text 19 3.1.2. Areas of difficulties 20 3.1.3. Reading skills 23 3.1.4. The students’ performance in class 25 3.1.5. Difficulties with the teachers’ lecture 27 3.2. Research question 2 28 3.2.1. Types of reading texts often exploited 28 3.2.2. Strategies before TOEIC reading comprehension lessons 30 3.2.3. Reading approach 32 3.2.4. Priority of reading passages 34 3.2.5. Teacher’s advice to deal with reading text 36 3.2.6. Learners’ strategies to deal with reading text 38 PART III: CONCLUSION 40 1. Major findings of the research 40 2. Pedagogical suggestions for a more effective exploitation of reading comprehension in Equest Academy 43 2.1. For students 43 2.2. For teachers 44 3. Limitations of the research 46 4. Suggestions for further studies 47 REFERENCES 48 APPENDIXES 53 Appendix 1: Survey questionnaire for students (Vietnamese+ English version) 53 iv Appendix 2: Survey questionnaire for teachers (Vietnamese and English version) 57 Appendix 3: Plan for semi-structured interview questions 61 Appendix 4: The flyer “Khóa luyện thi TOEIC” 62 Appendix 5: Sample of TOEIC reading session parts 63 Appendix 6: Reading strategies from Longman preparation series for the TOEIC test: Intermediate course 66 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: TOEIC topics 8 v Table 2: TOEIC reading comprehension structure 10 Table 3: Teachers’ difficulties with the students’ performance in class 25 Table 4: Students’ difficulties with the lecturers’ lecture 27 Table 5: Teachers and students’ types of reading texts often exploited 28 Table 6: Teachers’ advice to deal with reading text 36 Table 7: Learners’ strategies to deal with reading text 38 Figure 1: Teachers and students’ perception about difficult reading 19 Figure 2: Teachers and students’ areas of difficulties 20 Figure 3: Teachers and students’ difficulties with reading skills 23 Figure 4: Teachers and students’ strategies before TOEIC reading comprehension lessons 30 Figure 5: Teachers and students’ exploitation of reading approach 32 Figure 6: Teachers’ and students’ reponses related to priorty of reading passages 34 Figure 7: Teachers’ and students’ reasons for reading single passages first 34 ABBREVIATIONS & and vi EQ EQuest Academy p page T Teacher TOEIC Test of English for International Communication vii PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. The statement of the problem and the rationale for the study Recently, in Vietnam, learning foreign languages especially English has been taken more notice as a result of intense and extensive world economic integration which occurs in a “flat, hot and crowed” world as the present (Friedman, 2008). Noticeably, in such a competitive global economy, those who achieve an excellent level of using English are highly well-qualified for good jobs. The TOEIC test, regarded as the worldwide standard for measuring English proficiency in the workplace, is a leading factor into “(1) screen[ing] employees for overseas business trips or postings; (2) urg[ing] workers to make greater efforts to learn English; and (3) asses[ing] the effectiveness of company-sponsored English training programs” (The Daily Yomiuri, 1997, p. 9 cited in Karn & Forster, 1998, p.3). Therefore, the success in the TOEIC test seems to be a mandatory requirement for the majority of successful job candidates. In the report “[l]earn about TOEIC test-taker worldwide” by Educational Testing System (2011, p.2), 30% TOEIC test-takers chose reading as the most frequently- used English language skill. It can be inferred that TOEIC reading is popular in daily lives or working environment among TOEIC examinees. As the teacher of TOEIC course training in EQuest Academy (EQ), the researcher realizes that TOEIC reading comprehension (part 7) has been a heated topic discussed not only among the teachers in EQuest Academic Department but also TOEIC learners in EQuest Academy for a long period of time but there has not been any paper which collects and synthesizes the difficulties and strategies from the EQuest trainers and learners in order to make the learning and teaching of TOEIC reading comprehension better. Furthermore, except for the study by Nguyễn Thị Yến (2010) on “difficulties in teaching TOEIC speaking skills” and the research by Nhữ Hà Phương (2012) on “the common errors in the TOEIC listening test”, it appears that no thesis paper about the issues relating to TOEIC 1 reading comprehension in the post-graduate faculty’s library may has been carried out. For the two main reasons stated above, it is very necessary and urgent to conduct a study with the title “[a]n exploratory study on the teaching and learning of TOEIC Reading Comprehension skills at EQuest Academy”. 2. Research aims and research questions Firstly, the study is conducted to find out what difficulties EQ students have had when practicing TOEIC Reading Comprehension to prepare for the TOEIC test and EQ teachers’ problems in teaching TOEIC Reading Comprehension. Secondly, their (teachers and student’s) viewpoints on the strategies which they have employed are expected to be detected. In specific, a detailed investigation is carried out to specify the strategies EQ students have used during the process of reading comprehension and the strategies EQ teachers have employed in the process of teaching. In brief, this study aims to address two following research questions: 1. What are the difficulties encountered by teachers and students at EQuest Academy in the teaching and learning to prepare for the TOEIC reading comprehension test? 2. What are the strategies proposed by teachers and students at EQuest Academy towards the teaching and learning to prepare for the TOEIC reading comprehension test? 3. Scope of study Despite the fact that the topic is about “[a]n exploratory study on the teaching and learning of TOEIC Reading Comprehension skills at EQuest Academy”, the researcher only concentrates on a few aspects of the teaching and learning of TOEIC Reading Comprehension skills namely the difficulties in learning, the difficulties in teaching, the strategies in learning and the strategies in teaching. The samples of the study were, due to the time limitation and the small scale of research, restricted to 90 EQ students in 373 Hoang Quoc Viet, in 55 Nguyen 2 Khang and on 2 nd floor of HESCO Building, Km 10 Nguyen Trai. At the same time, 15 EQ teachers were involved in the research. 4. Method of study To address the two research questions presented above, a combined data collection process using survey questionnaire and semi-structured interview had been used. Survey questionnaire consisting of two sets of questionnaire (a set for students and the other is for teachers) was employed to collect information from 90 EQ students and 15 EQ teachers. They were offered to tick or circle the answer that best reflects their viewpoints. Besides closed-ended questions, open-ended ones were also exploited so that the students could specify any additional comments on the situations given. Next, semi-structured interviews were conducted. 23 interviewees (15 EQ students and 8 EQ teachers) who had taken part in the questionnaire provided in-depth information about their viewpoints in the questionnaire. With the aim of making the respondents most confident in the interview, the used language was Vietnamese. Noticeably, typical statements from 23 interviews recorded with the respondents’ permission were taken advantage to represent the arguments in the chapter “Results and Discussion”. 3 [...]... randomly from 5 TOEIC preparation classes in EQuest Academy They had learned TOEIC from 2 to 7 month(s) Some of them were pre-intermediate level of English Most of the participated students had already attended TOEIC preparation courses while others had already been trained reading skills in TOEIC reading comprehension 15 teachers were also invited to participate in the survey The majority of EQuest teachers... Banking Academy and National University of Education for 1 to 3 years and become EQuest teachers for 6 months till 2 years Before teaching TOEIC, the teachers had taught Foundational Academic Course and upgraded their vocabulary, grammar and listening, speaking, reading and writing skill to have high capacity for TOEIC preparation course 5 of EQuest teachers achieved more than 900 points for the real TOEIC. .. introduced by the majority of TOEIC teachers to their students because in their belief, advertisement was the most prominent form of reading text in the TOEIC preparation course in EQuest The first interviewed teacher (T1) affirmed that the TOEIC reading preparation course in Equest consisted of four units for reading comprehension (from unit 9 to 12) Students in both TOEIC A and B class were 28 all... reading and writing to prepare for next higher course TOEIC course 2.2 Research design 2.2.1 Participants In accordance with ETS statistics, TOEIC test-takers in 2010 were comparatively young 40% were between 21 and 25 years old while 23% were at younger age, below 20 years old (ETS, 2011, p.8) The students registering for in-2013 -TOEIC course in EQuest Academy seemed to be younger than those from ETS statistics... considerable time on training students with these skills It was true for some TOEIC B teachers “many TOEIC B students moved from TOEIC A classes, so I think that it is not necessary to teach again what they have trained before” (T7 and T4’s statements) It was clearly seen that some TOEIC B students who did not move from TOEIC A classes might have the serious hindrance towards understanding the theory... 12 EQuest Academy where the researcher has been teaching TOEIC for 2 years is one educational organization which highly majors in educating students or workforce to take English standardized tests such as TOEFL iBT (Test Of English as a Foreign Language), IELTS (International English Language Testing System) and TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) Among these training courses, TOEIC. .. subsections, one for the difficulties in teaching TOEIC reading comprehension (in the teachers’ questionnaire) and in learning TOEIC reading comprehension (in the students’ questionnaire) and the other is the strategies Step 2: 16 115 questionnaire papers were printed and delivered to 90 students and 15teachers of TOEIC randomly chosen in different branches of EQuest Hanoi after the researcher had contacted... Testing Service) from the originally proposed request by Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Suzuaki & Daza, 2004, p.16) In the TOEIC Report on Test-takers worldwide, Japan and Korea were two countries which TOEIC test results were the most popularly exploited (63% and 29% respectively) (cited in Suzuki & Daza, 2004, p.16) Thirdly, in term of TOEIC benefits, the test is considered a golden... explanations from the interviewed teachers could bring a much more realistic picture of the issue studied 100% TOEIC A and TOEIC B teachers insisted that at the beginning, the class was crowed with the eager students The number of the TOEIC learners gradually decreased T8 announced that “students in EQuest were very rich, each lesson cost about 100 000 VND but some students was absent from class for a half... difficult words Similarly, 90% Equest TOEIC teachers were highly assessed for providing the Vietnamese equivalent explanations for the complicated new words Astonishingly, both 87% English teachers in both Equest and Ke Sat high school (Vu, 2010, p.22) were strongly praised for correcting the reading tasks carefully A valid conclusion may be drawn out that the difficulties with the TOEIC trainers hardly originated . 6 1.2. TOEIC 6 12.1. TOEIC definition, origin, benefit and topic 6 1.2.2. TOEIC reading 8 1.2.2.1. TOEIC reading background 8 1.2.2.2. Some factors affecting the teaching and learning of TOEIC. teacher of TOEIC course training in EQuest Academy (EQ), the researcher realizes that TOEIC reading comprehension (part 7) has been a heated topic discussed not only among the teachers in EQuest. students at EQuest Academy in the teaching and learning to prepare for the TOEIC reading comprehension test? 2. What are the strategies proposed by teachers and students at EQuest Academy towards