activating prior knowledge in improving listening skills of high school students = kích hoạt kiến thức nền để nâng cao kĩ năng nghe cho học sinh trung học phổ thông

POST GRADUATE STUDIES ******** LƯU THỊ LAN PHƯƠNG THE DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED BY FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJOR STUDENTS AT ACADEMY OF FINANCE WHEN LEARNING THE READING SKILL IN THE COURSE

POST GRADUATE STUDIES

********

LƯU THỊ LAN PHƯƠNG

THE DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED BY FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJOR STUDENTS AT ACADEMY OF FINANCE WHEN LEARNING THE READING SKILL IN THE COURSE BOOK INTELLIGENT BUSINESS (PRE-INTERMEDIATE)

NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN MÀ SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT CHUYÊN ANH, HỌC VIỆN TÀI CHÍNH, GẶP PHẢI KHI HỌC KỸ NĂNG ĐỌC TRONG GIÁO TRÌNH

INTELLIGENT BUSINESS, PRE-INTERMEDIATE

MA Minor Programme thesis Field: English Methodology Code: 60.14.10

Supervisor: M.A Lâm Phúc Hân

HANOI- SEPTEMBER 2009

CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT ………… ……….i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ……… ………ii

ABSTRACT ……… ……iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS…… ……… ……… iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS… ……… ……… v

LIST OF FIGURE AND TABLES……… ……… vi

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationales ……… ……… 1

1.2 Significance and aims of the study ……… 2

1.3 Research Questions …… ……… 2

1.4 Methods of the study ……… ……… 3

1.5 Scope of the study ……… ……… 3

1.6 Design of the study ……… 4

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 An overview of reading and reading comprehension ………5

2.1.1 Definition of reading and reading comprehension ……… 5

2.1.1.1 Definition of reading ……… 5

2.1.1.2 Definition of reading comprehension ……… 6

2.1.2 ESP and Reading comprehension in ESP ……… 7

2.1.2.1 Definition of ESP and reading comprehension in ESP ……… .7

2.1.2.2 Types of reading exercises in ESP ……… 9

2.1.3 Reading difficulties for language learners ……….9

2.1.3.1 Reading skill problems … ……….……… 10

2.2 An introduction of course book “Intelligent Business” (pre-intermediate) and the

current context of learning reading skill in this book ……… …14

2.2.1 General description of course book “Intelligent Business” (pre-intermediate) 14

2.2.1.1 Aims and approaches ………14

2.2.1.2 Design and organization ………15

2.2.2.3 Language content ……… 15

2.2.1.4 Skills ……… 16

2.2.1.5 Topics ……….……17

2.2.2 Characteristics of reading texts and reading exercises ……… …….17

2.2.2.1 Characteristics of reading texts ……….17

2.2.2.2 Characteristics of reading exercises ……… 18

2.2.3 Current situation of teaching course book ……… 19

2.2.3.1 Length of the course and time allocation for reading skill ………19

2.2.3.2 Teaching facilities ……….19

2.2.3.3 Students and their background ……… 20

2.2.4 Summary ……… 20

Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY 3.1 Context of the study ………21

3.2 The subject and participants ………22

3.3 Data collection instruments ……….22

3.4 Data collection procedure ………23

Chapter 4: RESULT AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Difficulties encountered by the students when learning reading skill ………26

4.1.1 Data analysis of the classroom observation ……….26

4.1.2 Students’ reading difficulties in terms of reading skills ……… …28

4.1.3 Students’ reading difficulties in terms of background knowledge ……… …30

4.1.4 Students’ reading difficulties in terms of vocabulary ……… 32

4.1.5 Students’ reading difficulties in terms of other areas ……… 33

4.2 Pedagogical implication and suggestions ………34

4.2.1 Training students to become efficient readers ……… 35

4.2.1.1 Training students with different reading strategies ……….……… 35

4.2.1.2 Assigning and checking students’ fulfillment of homework ………37

4.2.1.3 Encouraging students’ extensive reading habits ……… ….37

4.2.2 Improving economic background knowledge for the first year students at FFL 38 4.2.3 The teachers’ being aware of their students’ needs ……….………39

4.2.4 The Academy of Finance’s being aware of the needs of the students at FFL 39

4.3 Summary ……….40

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION 5.1 Summary of the study ……… 41

5.1 Limitations and Suggestions for further study ……….42

REFERENCES… ……….i

APPENDICES………ii

Figure 2: The Virtuous Circle of a Good Reader

Tables

Table 1: Students’ reading difficulties in terms of reading skills

Table 2: Students’ reading difficulties in terms of background knowledge Table 3: Students’ reading difficulties in terms of vocabulary

Table 4: Students’ reading difficulties in terms of other areas

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationales

It is the fact that nowadays English has been widely used in every field, especially in business, in which it plays an important role in communication in general, and in business transaction in particular Thus, there is a growing demand for English language teaching to meet the needs of a new generation of learners who want to learn English to “gain access to the required knowledge that is available, either exclusively or most readily, in English” (Munby, 1978: 3) or to serve other different specific purposes That leads to the coming into being of English for Specific Purposes (ESP)

Being thoroughly alert to the importance of ESP, Academy of Finance decided to officially set up the Faculty of Foreign Languages which specializes in training the students with economics knowledge in English In the faculty, English is considered as a major subject and it is taught with the purpose that the students will take it professionally in their future work Thus to make English study fully suitable for the learners’ practical needs, great attention is paid to teaching and learning English of economics

In teaching and learning Business English, reading has always received a great deal of attention Generally, this is understandable since teaching English in Vietnam provide students with the abilities to understand the written materials and to communicate in English Moreover, English is learnt and taught in a non- native environment That is the reason why reading is not only an important means to gain knowledge but also a means by which further study takes place Carrel (1981: 1) asserts that “for many students, reading is by far the most important of the four macro-skills, particularly in English as a second foreign language” This

is extremely true to the first year students of the FFL at Academy of Finance because reading helps them to make extensive use of academic materials written in English and this is a good way to enable them to improve their professional knowledge in their specific or specialized fields However, there is plenty of evidence that the students at FFL often face difficulties as follows:

- There has been almost no research work touching upon reading difficulties of the students at FFL

- Most first year students at FFL have not had experience in learning ESP before

- The students are not of equal level of English

- The course book Intelligent Business is totally new to them

The aforesaid situation of ESP learning at FFL, Academy of Finance has aroused the researcher’s interest and forced her to dedicate her efforts to the writing of “The difficulties encountered by first-year English-major students at Academy of Finance when learning the reading skill in course book Intelligent Business (pre-intermediate).”

1.2 Significance and aims of the study

This study may provide information about the reading difficulties that the first year students at FFL face Pedagogical implication and suggestions given in this study are believed

to be relevant to improving the learning of reading at FFL Hopefully, the study will make some contributions to the improvement of teaching and learning reading economics at FFL, Academy of Finance

The study is aimed at:

1) Better understanding the concepts of reading, reading comprehension and reading comprehension in ESP

2) Finding out some difficulties in dealing with reading skills in the course book

Intelligent Business

3) Giving some pedagogical implication and suggestions to improve the learning of reading skill at FFL, Academy of Finance

1.3 Research Questions

The above aims of the study can be realized by the following research questions:

(i) What is the present context of learning reading in course book Intelligent Business, pre-intermediate?

(ii) What are reading difficulties encountered by the first year students when dealing with the Intelligent Business, pre-intermediate?

(iii) What are possible solutions to help them overcome those difficulties?

In order to find out the answers to the research questions, some sub-questions shall be dealt with:

(i) What are students’ reading difficulties in terms of reading skills?

(ii) What are students’ reading difficulties in terms of vocabulary?

(iii) What are students’ reading difficulties in terms of back ground knowledge?

Once difficulties are found, feasible solutions to overcome those difficulties will be suggested

1.4 Methods of the study

The study is carried out in terms of both theory and practice First, the theoretical background of the study mainly relies on many published books written by different authors famous for ESP teaching and learning Second, the study is carried out with data collected from two different sources: (1) a survey done on 112 FFL first-year students to collect information about their views of reading difficulties and causes of them (2) class observations

on three classes of first year students at FFL to observe students’ reaction, involvements, etc,

in reading classes which are needed to help design questions in survey questionnaire

1.5 Scope of the study

It is impossible to cover every aspect of language theory and practice in this study Therefore, the study focuses on difficulties in learning reading encountered by students at FFL, Academy of Finance It is not proposed to deal with other skills: speaking, writing or listening skills And other subjects of the study are the first year students and limited to course book Intelligent Business, pre-intermediate

1.6 Design of the study

The study is divided into five chapters:

- Chapter one introduces rationales, significance and aims of the study, research questions, methods as well as scope of the study

- Chapter two deals with an overview of the theoretical background of the research It

is concerned with the issues relevant to the topic of the research: reading and reading comprehension, ESP and reading comprehension in ESP, the reading difficulties experienced by language learners and an introduction of course book Intelligent Business and the current context of learning reading skill in the book

- Chapter three presents the research methodology in details covering context of the study, the subject and participants, data collection instruments, data collection procedure and data analysis procedure

- Chapter four mentions the result of the study including the exploration of difficulties encountered by the students when learning reading skill and it also gives some pedagogical implication and suggestions

- Chapter five is the conclusions summarizing the main issues in the study and mentioning limitation and suggestions for further study

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

With the aim of providing a theoretical background to this study, this chapter will deal with a review of issues most relevant to the thesis’s topic: Definition of reading and reading comprehension, ESP and Reading comprehension in ESP, and an introduction of the course book “Intelligent Business” (pre-intermediate) and the current context of learning reading skill in this book

2.1 An overview of reading and reading comprehension

2.1.1 Definition of reading and reading comprehension

2.1.1.1 Definition of reading

Reading is one of the most complicated forms of information processing Different scholars have looked at reading from different angles and have reached somewhat different conclusions about the nature of reading Discrepancy of views has partly been the result of the different purposes with which researchers have approached reading While some have studied reading to uncover the underlying processes, others have tried to identify its sub-skills for teaching and testing purposes Each view on reading reflects what reading is to the scholar who presents that view Williams, E (1990: 2) stated that reading “is a process whereby one looks at and understands what has been written”

According to Goodman (1971: 135), reading “is 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” From Goodman’s point of view, this act of reconstruction is viewed as “a cyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing, and confirming”

Taking the same view on reading, especially on the “act of reconstruction” as Goodman, Nuttall (1982: 4) asserts that “reading is getting a message from a text” According

to Harmer (1989: 153), reading “is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain The eyes receive messages and the brain then has to work out the significance of these messages” Harmer also focuses on the speed of this mechanical process “a reading text moves at a speed

of the reader” which means that the reader is the one who decides how fast he wants to read the text

In addition, reading is defined as “a developmental process” We learn reading not only

to learn how to read the text, to master grammatical structures, the sound, etc but also to understand the content expressed in the text or to develop the ability of re-expressing the author’s ideas in our own words

To sum up, attempts to define reading have been numerous, and various among different scholars However, no definition can reveal all the features and ideas of what reading

is It is clear that all the definitions are concerned with the nature of reading that is the interaction between readers and authors- the reader read the author’s thought not only the author’s words

Now it is important to understand thoroughly the definition of reading comprehension

2.1.1.2 Definition of reading comprehension

Reading comprehension is a very complex process and in order to grasp how readers make sense of written symbols, it is essential that the process of reading comprehension and the role of factors leading to the product of this process be understood properly Richards (1992) described reading comprehension as an understanding between the author and the reader This view point focuses on the reader’s understanding of the message based on his/her background knowledge

Grellet (1981: 3) stated that “reading comprehension or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as effectively as possible” Reading comprehension is the process in which the readers, as they read, can recognize the graphic form and can understand the relation between it and the meaning After reading, learners can master the grammatical structures, word pronunciation, understand the content of the text and use it in real life as effective as possible This means that the learners can demonstrate their understanding on the text by re-expressing its content in many different ways such as note- taking, summarizing the text, answering the questions, etc

Concerning ways to exploit reading texts, Nuttall (1996: 48-120) pointed out several reading skills of which some basic ones consist of:

 Guessing the meaning of words based on structural and contextual clues

 Understanding syntax

 Recognizing and interpreting cohesive devices

 Interpreting discourse markers

 Recognizing text organization

 Recognizing implications and making inferences

to which their predictions are accurate is one of the factors that influence their reading This process, therefore, has three elements involved, that is, the text that is read, the background knowledge of the reader and the contextual aspect relevant to interpret the text

2.1.2 ESP and Reading comprehension in ESP

2.1.2.1 Definition of ESP and reading comprehension in ESP

The letters “E-S-P” stand for “English for Specific Purposes” Definition of ESP can be varied among different authors Some view it as an entirely different development from English Language Teaching (ELT), while others view it as “essentially a pragmatic response

to a developing situation” in global ELT Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 19) assert that E.S.P should be seen as an approach and not a product It is an approach which is directed by specific and apparent reasons for learning E.S.P student’s purpose of learning a second language might acquire not only general linguistics competencies but also academic and job-related skills Widdowson placed the specification of objectives in ESP course design in a close relation with training “ESP is essentially a training operation which seeks to provide

learners with a restricted competence to enable them to cope with certain clearly defined tasks These tasks constitute the specific purposes which the ESP course is designed to meet” (Widdowson, 1983: 6)

From the viewpoints mentioned above, it is clear that two central areas in ESP are content and methodology

* Content is about how narrow or broad the scope of a particular course is, when compared with the totality of the language For some people, for example, a course named

“English for Business Purposes” will be too broad, and the course will be appropriate if it is tailored for their specialization within the field of business, namely a course in accounting, in advertising, in marketing, etc

* Methodology also plays an extremely important role in ESP Because ESP course aims at developing linguistic skills relating to particular spheres of activity, not only the nature

of the linguistic items are introduced, but the ways in which they are introduced and how they are practiced, are highly significant

According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 8) “the growth of ESP was brought about

by a combination of three important factors: the expansion of demand for English to suit particular needs and developments in the field of linguistics and educational psychology”

It is undeniable that reading comprehension is of crucial importance in ESP To this kind of reading course, English is taught with the purpose of not only improving the students’ reading skills, but also familiarizing them with specialized English language used in many fields in terms of vocabulary, terminology and registers In other words, after an ESP course, students are supposed to be able to interpret texts of their specialized subjects with the aim of getting information for their further studies and for their job in the most appropriate way When reading goals are realistic and ESP students are competent in reading English for Specific Purpose, they can expand certain specific concepts as a basis for them to move ahead

in their future job

It can be concluded that, reading comprehension plays the first and foremost important role in ESP Now we are going to have a close look at types of reading exercises in ESP

2.1.2.2 Types of reading exercises in ESP

According to Grellet (1995: 45), there are a number of exercise-types focusing on the formal organization and the content of the text to develop reading skills They are classified into four main types: reading techniques, analysing the form of the text, understanding the meaning in the text, and assessing the text Among the exercises, some are believed to be used more often in ESP reading such as:

- In reading techniques, predicting, skimming, scanning, and inferring are of common use

- In analyzing the form of the text, there exists such exercises as chronological sequence, classification

- In understanding the meaning of the text, chronological sequence, matching, completing a document (table, chart), question types (multiple-choice, True/False, completing

a summary, completing sentences, error finding) are the typical exercises

- In assessment of the text, deciding fact or opinion, finding the writer’s intention are the popular exercise types

However, exercise types may vary basing on characteristics of each type of ESP course

2.1.3 Reading difficulties for language learners

According to many scholars (Goodman 1971, Nuttall 1982, Harmer 1989) in many countries in the world a reading knowledge of a foreign language is regarded to be important

to academic studies, professional success, and personal development However, reading in a language which is not the learner’s mother tongue language is a source of considerable difficulty Problems with foreign language reading are stated to be either reading problems or language problems, depending on the readers’ abilities and skills However, in this part the researcher would like to focus on three main problems that foreign language learners often face with, that is, background knowledge problems, language problems, and reading skill problems

2.1.3.1 Reading skill problems

Student’s limited reading skills create many problems such as reading slowly, failing to understand and summarize main ideas of the reading text, unabling to guess or predict the meaning of new words or phrases used in that context, etc According to Jolly (1978), the first language reading ability of one person plays a more important part in reading success than his level of the target language does, since foreign language reading requires the transference of old skills, not the learning of new ones Consequently, students who do not read adequately in their first language will fail to read in the foreign language because they either do not possess the “old skill”, or because they have failed to transfer them

Sharing the same opinion, Coady (1979) assumes that foreign language reading is a reading problem and not a language problem These two writers assert that if the reader has a poor reading ability in his first language, then, he can not read well in a foreign language According to the scholars, the problems of reading in English would be vastly reduced if they learned to read properly in their mother tongue language

Bernhardt and Kamil (1995: 17) view that “reading performance in a second language

is largely shared with reading ability in a first language” Sarig (1987: 118) also assumes that

“the same reading strategy types accounted for success and failure in both languages to almost the same extent It can be concluded, then, that reading processes from the first language do appear to transfer to the foreign language”

It can be seen clearly that the students with poor reading skills encounter many problems Very frequently, students seem to read in a foreign language considerably more slowly than they reportedly read in their first language Some students who read too slowly will easily get discouraged They do not know how to use the appropriate ways to move their eyes from one word group to another word group They just look at every single word, and as

a consequence, they fail to catch the general meaning of the passage Sometimes, they may encounter a long text with a lot of vocabularies or an unfamiliar topic, which discourages them from concentrating well on the text and when they get to the last paragraph they may not recall what they have read in the first ones

Reading is an active skill, involving guessing, predicting, making inference, etc it is common that there are new words, new structures and ideas in a reading text for every language learner If a learner is not good at guessing and can not make full use of grammatical, logical and cultural clues, he will read the text with less comprehension than he expected Obviously, poor reading comprehension may result in disinterest in reading As a result of this, the reader is trapped in a vicious circle:

Doesn’t understand Reads slowly

Doesn’t read much Doesn’t enjoy reading

Figure 1: the vicious circle of the weak readers

of the language, (2) ability to predict or guess in order to make the correct choices, (3) ability

to remember the previous cues, and (4) ability to make the necessary associations between the different cues that have been selected Yorio indicated that the reader’s knowledge of the foreign language is not like that of the native speakers; the guessing or the predicting ability necessary to pick up the correct cues is hindered by the imperfect knowledge of the language; the wrong choice of cues or the uncertainty of choice makes association more difficult; the memory span in a foreign language in the early stages of its acquisition is usually shorter than

in our native language; recollection of previous cues then is more difficult in a foreign

language than in a mother tongue; and at all levels, and at all time, there is interference of the native language Yorio (1971: 108)

Sharing the same idea as Yorio, Clarke (1980) and Alderson (1984) both agreed that a lack of appropriate linguistic knowledge constrains the transfer of reading skills and strategies from L1 to L2 It is suggested that low competence in the target language restricts the language learners’ ability to read in the target one In other words, “a given amount of second language grammatical/linguistic knowledge was necessary in order to get first language reading knowledge to engage” (Bernhardt and Kamil, 1995: 17)

Another difficulty that readers encounter while reading is the “vocabulary problems” Readers encounter a lot of difficulties in dealing with proverbs and idioms, synonyms and antonyms, polysemantic vocabulary, etc., which can be regarded to have an impact on the readers’ motivation “Knowing vocabulary and structures is necessary for getting meaning from a text.” (Alderson, 1997: 138)

To put every thing in a nutshell, if the amount of vocabulary and grammatical structures are limited, the readers will encounter difficulties As a result, the readers will be unwilling to explore the text

2.1.3.3 Background knowledge problems

Background knowledge is extremely important to reading comprehension Inappropriate background knowledge leads to a completely inappropriate model of text meaning It has been shown that differences in background knowledge may indeed account for a significant portion of variance in comprehension performances in normal reading situations, and such differences affect the ease or difficulty with which one understands a text

Cultural knowledge gains importance when a reader reads a text with cultural elements with which he/she is less familiar

Many scholars (Johnson, 1981; Steffensen et al., 1979; Carrell, 1981) have asserted that culture plays a central role for many text topics and that comprehension of culturally unfamiliar text is more difficult than comprehension of a culturally familiar text because

readers faced with unfamiliar cultural content may mistranslate or misinterpret the text according to their own cultural experiences

For example, a beginning Iranian EFL learner may become puzzled on reading that Johnny goes to school on Fridays and that the school is closed on Saturdays and Sundays The simple reason for this is that he/she uses his/her L1 cultural knowledge in understanding the text but since there is a mismatch between L1 and L2 situations in this regard, the attempt for comprehension fails (In Iran, and many other Islamic countries, weekend days are Thursday

and Friday, rather than Saturday and Sunday) (Karim Sadeghi, 2007)

Also a Vietnamese EFL learner reading texts about traffic regulations may find it hard

to understand that drivers should keep left rather than right while driving, as it is the normal practice in the UK and some other countries

As a result, this leads to distortions and misapprehensions of the text It can be seen that the cultural origin of a text has greater influence on comprehension than syntactic or semantic complexity of the text

Fries (1945, 1963) claimed that meaning at the social level is the meaning that transcends the language code and is related to the background knowledge of the native speakers of that code Comprehension of the total meaning of a sentence happens only when the linguistic meaning of the sentence is fitted into “a social framework of organized information” To master a foreign language, Fies (1945: 100) stated that “one must find some substitute for the kind of background knowledge he has in his own language”

According to Strang (1972), different readers will have different levels of comprehension of the same text because they start off from different positions Sharing the same idea with Strang, Osman (1985) indicated that readers from different cultural background interpret texts differently because of the differences in the high-level cultural schemata that were activated

In conclusion, readers from a different linguistic environment and speaking a standard dialect may face problems in reading not only because of sub-culture differences but also because of differences in linguistic knowledge Therefore, there is no doubt that

non-background knowledge plays a great role in reading comprehension, and so is linguistic knowledge, without them no reading may exist at all

2.2 An introduction of course book “Intelligent Business” (pre-intermediate) and the current context of learning reading skill in this book

2.2.1 General description of course book “Intelligent Business” (pre-intermediate)

Intelligent Business Pre-Intermediate Course Book, written by Johnson, Christine was published in 2006 by Longman It is a dynamic and flexible new course with an integrated range of components to develop students' knowledge of the business world and the skills to work within it The topic-based course book provides an accessible introduction to the concepts and language of today's business world Using authentic texts from the well-respected Economist magazine, the Intelligent Business course material is informative, up-to-date and highly motivating Intelligent Business is fully benchmarked alongside the BEC business English exam suite and the Common European Framework

2.2.1.1 Aims and approaches

Today the demand for Business English is greater than ever As a result, the learning of Business English is playing an increasingly important role in business studies This book, therefore, is designed to aim at helping students at a business school understand business itself, not only the English language Actually, the aim of the course book corresponds closely with the aims of teaching programme and with the need of the students That is to say, it is to help students studying business English full time learn business through medium of the English language

At the English faculty at Academy of Finance, Business English is the students’ major This means that students need to study English to equip themselves with necessary English in business which is always used in their future jobs For this reason, Intelligent Business Pre-Intermediate Course Book is suited to the learning as well as teaching situation at FFL The book covers comprehensively most of what is needed and it is really a good resource for both teachers and students For example, it covers so many aspects of the business field as activities, data, etiquette, image, success, future, location, job-seeking, selling, price,

insurance, service, productivity, creativity, motivation In addition, the approaches to it are flexible, that is, it allows different teaching and learning styles, for example pair work, team work, group work, etc

2.2.1.2 Design and organization

Students’ books, teachers’ books, workbooks, CDs and style guide are the components that make up the total course package of Intelligent Business The content is right for the learners and it is organized according to the topics Each topic is presented within one unit There are totally 15 units in the course book Each unit consists of such parts as reading, language, vocabulary, career skills and dilemma and decision The content is sequenced on the basic of complexity, from the simpler aspects of business field like activities, data, future to more complex ones such as selling, price, insurance, productivity, etc What’s more, there is relatively adequate recycling and revision in the book The reference sections for grammar and other materials suitable for individual study also exist in Intelligent Business The layout of the book is clear with a good book map appearing on its first page It can be concluded that design and organization of Intelligent Business are of the appropriate and logical components, content, and layout

pre-The grammar structure covers words, sentences and tenses Most of the words in the book exist in the form of stem e.g profit, premium, bankruptcy Sometimes there occurs prefixes and suffixes A prefix is what comes before the stem and does not change the part of speech such as inefficient, disrespectful, impractical, inappropriate, etc A suffix is what is

attached to the end of the stem and changes the meaning of the stem by changing the word from one part of speech to another e.g competitive, accidental, reasonable, profitable, etc

Sentences in the book are of various types, but simple and complex sentences are used regularly For example: Prices have fallen in the food because of advances in food production and distribution technology Consumers have benefited greatly from those advances People who predicted that the world would run out of food were wrong (unit 10- Price, page 87)

The sentences are presented in both active and passive voice E.g The process begins when a policyholder reports a claim to the company’s automated telephone system The system informs policyholders that their call may be monitored for fraud-prevention and detection purposes (Unit 11- Insurance, page 96)

Verb tenses used in this book are limited to present simple, present continuous, past simple, present perfect, future simple Comparatives and superlatives, conditional 1 and 2 are also presented in the book The Course book is generally designed on a pre-intermediate grammar syllabus, therefore, grammar structures, to some extent, are some what simple

The language style and appropriacy are related to each other, language style is matched

to social situation Vocabulary teaching in the book is relatively adequate in terms of quantity and range of vocabulary, with the emphasis placed on vocabulary development, strategies for individual learning However, the course book does not include any material for pronunciation work, such as individual sound, word stress, or intonation

2.2.1.4 Skills

All four skills are adequately covered in Intelligent Business, Pre-intermediate Actually, it is the material for integrated skills work The listening material is extremely well-recorded, authentic and it is accompanied by background information, questions and activities which help comprehension The material for spoken English such as dialogues, role plays, etc are quite well-designed to equip the students for real- life interaction Writing activities are suitable with respects to amount of guidance, degree of accuracy, organization of longer pieces of writing and use of appropriate styles Especially, the reading passages and associated activities are suitable for students at pre-intermediate level Topics in the reading passages are

extremely various, authentic and related to different aspects of the business world That is the reason why the reading passages in the book interest the students at FFL

2.2.1.5 Topics

The course book covers 15 various topics (divided into15 units) related to business activities (see Appendix 1), which satisfy the needs of variety and range of topics This enables the students to discuss the social and cultural contexts presented in the course book These topics will help expand the students’ awareness and enrich their experience Such topics

as activities, image, success, future, location, job-seeking, etc are sophisticated enough in content, but within the learners’ language level

2.2.2 Characteristics of reading texts and reading exercises

2.2.2.1 Characteristics of reading texts

English for Business is usually taught to students in economics colleges or those who study and work in the field Actually, the language for Business is very distinctive Unlike English for other purposes, English for Business has some typical features Texts on Business English generally associate with negotiations, contracts, marketing, selling, buying and the like

It is the fact that any Business English materials today need to draw on authentic sources and achieve a high degree of validity in the eyes of the learners and teachers who use them It is true to Intelligent Business, which is developed in collaboration with The Economist magazine Therefore, reading texts in Intelligent Business draws on this source of authoritative and topical articles on the business world

The organization of information in the reading texts of this course book, on one hand, shares the common characteristics of other reading texts, on the other hand, has its own characteristics That is, the information is grouped into topics Topics are extremely various, authentic and related to different aspects of the business world It is easily recognized that reality and authenticity of the topics as well as language in use are one of the most striking features of the reading texts

In addition to it, cohesion is the main characteristic of text structures in the course book reading texts According to Halliday (1976:4), “cohesion refers to relations of the meaning that exist within the text and that define it as a text” Cohesion is part of the language system and it is expressed partly through grammar and vocabulary There is no text without these characteristics It is true for English for Business That is to say, the lowest frequency belongs

to “substitutions” and “conjunctions” such as “and, or for example, also, in addition, moreover, etc” This may due to the features of ESP texts that are required to be exact and clearly stated In contrast, “references” and “repetitions” are major grammatical cohesive devices References include demonstrative pronouns such as this, that, these, those and personal pronouns like it, they They refer to a word or words mentioned earlier in the sentence or paragraph Their function is to take the readers’ thought back to something that has already been mentioned In addition to the grammatical cohesion, lexical cohesion is expressed through “synonyms” The appearance of this category is about as twice as that for

“substitutions” Therefore, it is important to provide students with knowledge of cohesion in order to help them comprehend a certain paragraph or an entire reading text in the course book

2.2.2.2 Characteristics of reading exercises

Like typical exercises in ESP reading, reading exercises in the course book comprise such types as comprehension questions, true or false, multiple choice, matching, gap filling, sentence completion, summarizing and vocabulary exercises Among these, comprehension questions and true or false are the most popular types of exercises Let us take an example The reading text titled “The kids are all right in unit 15, Motivation”, (see appendix 2) includes the following types of exercises:

1 Read the article on the opposite page and find four reasons why some companies are trying to attract young workers

2 Read the article again and answer the following questions

1 What does Capital One offer its employees?

2 What five things are the most important to young people in their work?

3 Which of the following things were generally true in the past (P) and which are true today (T), according to the article?

1 Office culture is formal

2 People only become top managers after years of loyal service

3 Companies can grow rapidly and also fail suddenly

4 Workers have to show respect for their superiors

5 Companies prefer workers who understand e-business

6 People work for the same company all their lives

7 Young people have many opportunities to show their creativity

2.2.3 Current situation of teaching the course book

2.2.3.1 Length of the course and time allocation for reading skill

Intelligent Business (pre-intermediate) is used as a main source of material at faculty of foreign language, Academy of Finance to 1st year students major in English The total time for the course book is 200 periods (= 12 credits), which is divided into two terms of the academic year Out of it, the time for reading skill is 60 periods (= 4 credits) Each week the students have three 45minute periods for reading skill In general, in the course book, Intelligent Business (pre-intermediate), reading skill is taught integratedly with other skills in each unit Each unit lasts between 12 and 15 periods depending on the length and difficulty of its content

2.2.3.2 Teaching facilities

Teaching facilities are considered significant and may affect the teaching process positively or negatively Actually, the teaching facilities at Faculty of Foreign Languages are poorly equipped There are two laboratories for Foreign Languages, yet two of them have been out of order for five years There is one library but it largely provides books of Economics written in Vietnamese, not in English Even in the Academy’s library, there is not a series of books Intelligent Business, so we had to order the book directly from the publisher abroad Both overhead projector and projector are equipped in classrooms Unfortunately, no sound devices are attached to them Teachers, therefore, can not employ them efficiently during their teaching hours The classroom is also not specially designed for language learning It is very

big, housing over 70 students A board, chalk, cassette player and textbook are main teaching equipment in every class

2.2.3.3 Students and their background

The students learning Intelligent Business (pre-intermediate), at Faculty of Foreign Languages are the full-time students at 1st year, aging from 17-20 Most of them are female students On average, 2 to 3 out of 32 students in a class are male students English is one subject that they have to take in their entrance exam Therefore, they are supposed to have acquired good General English But it is the fact that their English competence is not equal Another fact is that the students come from different areas in Vietnam Some of them are from the countryside while others come from the cities As a consequence, there have existed problems related to individual difference in learning styles, background, attitudes, motivation, etc

What is more, although students have learnt English for at least three years, this is the first time they have had opportunity to deal with English in economics Therefore, most of them have to face difficulties when having discussions about topics related to business such as Price, Insurance, Productivity, etc due to the lack of terminology in business

Another problem on the part of students is that, many students do not have the habit of learning independently and tend to depend largely on the given textbooks and the teachers for knowledge They become passive in English class This dependent habit of learning is an obstacle to their learning process

2.2.4 Summary

This chapter has presented some theoretical background for the study to the extent of reading and reading comprehension, ESP and Reading comprehension in ESP In addition, course book “ Intelligent Business” ( pre-intermediate) and the current context of learning reading skill in the book have been introduced with a view to work out problems encountered

by the students at FFL, Academy of Finance The next chapter will be a closer look into the methodology used to carry out the study

3.1 Context of the study

This study was conducted at the faculty of foreign languages, Academy of Finance, which is one of the main universities that train accountants, auditors, bankers, financial controllers, and people of professions who need English in their jobs The faculty of foreign languages (FFL) has been in operation for 2 years Students at the FFL have to take a four-year course in which English is their major subject Since the last two years, the number of students who study at the FFL has accounted for only a very small proportion of all the students at Academy of Finance, which is about 240 students FFL is a newly-established one Therefore, it has received a lot of attention from many people, that is, from the Director to other colleagues in Academy of Finance

Like many other subjects, English is taught in a formal setting, namely a classroom The teaching of English is divided into two stages During the first stage (consisting of the first two years) the students have to deal with two main text books, including Intelligent Business (both course book and skill book) and North Star (for four language skills) Usually, two or three teachers are in charge of a class, and each of them is responsible for teaching two language skills using either Intelligent Business or North Star In the second stage, students are required to learn English in Accounting, Finance, Economics, Auditing, grammar, phonetics, semantics and other subjects in English such as English and American literature, cross-cultural communication, etc

The students have English classes almost every working day However, class time allocation for the reading skill might not be sufficient There are only three 45minute periods

of reading per week for the first and second year students, the third-year students have only two periods and the fourth-year students do not have any It is obvious that at the faculty

specializing in English, students do not have much time to learn and practice the reading skill

in class Yet, they are supposed to read a wide variety of English materials in accounting, finance, insurance, etc Clearly, this is one of the causes of the problems that students encounter when trying to comprehend the texts

What is more, the students at FFL learn English in the Vietnamese context and do not have any opportunities to be in contact with English-speaking people In other words, they are learning English in a non-English language environment This is another difficulty to their mastery of English in general, and the reading skill in particular

The students’ first language reading habits also have influence on their reading behavior in English At schools, Vietnamese pupils are taught to read aloud to achieve correct pronunciation, fluent and impressive reading Vietnamese schools do not teach the four language skills separately and L1 reading skills and strategies are not properly taught As a result, the students have the habits of reading aloud in a foreign language, which makes it more difficult for them to comprehend the reading texts

3.2 The subject and participants

The study was carried out with the participation of 112 students of English who are learning English at FFL, Academy of Finance In fact, they were in their second term of the first year at Faculty of foreign languages, Academy of Finance They were actually going to finish their school year in a month These students were at the age of between 17 and 20, and both male and female They all had somewhat similar backgrounds, that is, they all had finished their upper secondary schools and passed an entrance exam to the Academy of Finance As mentioned earlier, there are not so many students in the FFL, so all the first year students were selected to answer the survey questionnaire

3.3 Data collection instruments

In order to obtain a sufficient collection of reliable and valid data for the study, questionnaire and class observation were fully employed

Class observation was employed as the basis for designing the questions in the survey questionnaire for the study Classroom observation was carried out during the researcher’s and

her colleagues’ lessons to identify the difficulties students face when dealing with the reading texts The researcher of the study observed three different classes (K46 51/01, 02, 04) The observation was carried out three times for three different units in these classes The researcher observed in 45 minutes for each unit

In addition to class observation, survey questionnaire is intended to serve as the main source of data collection instrument since it is undeniable that the questionnaire is a valuable tool for researching the attitudes, images, concerns, etc held by a group of interest (www.statpac.com/surveys/advantages.htm) Thus, it will be actually valuable for the researcher in identifying the subjects’ difficulties in learning ESP reading In addition, this research tool is also relatively more comfortable, time-saving and economical to administer in comparison with other survey methods like telephoning, mailing, videotaping, particularly when it comes to the investigation of ESP reading skill, not other language skills This method

is also supposed to be of great advantage in the sense that it is easier for the subjects to answer the questions (www.statpac.com/surveys/advantages.htm) What’s more, the survey questionnaire preserves the subjects’ anonymity so they are more likely to give unbiased answers Another advantage is that the researcher can get information from a large population

in a short time and it also makes the data analysis easy and simple as all the subjects answer the same questions

The survey questionnaire (see Appendix 3) was designed with 23 questions based on thechecklist from class observation for the first year students at FFL to find out their opinions

on their reading texts and difficulties they may encounter when dealing with reading texts in the course book Intelligent Business Specially, the survey questionnaire consists of four main parts The first part is intended to explore the students’ opinion on the difficulties in reading skills The second one is to identify their difficulties in background knowledge The third is to find out the problems the students might have in terms of vocabulary The last part is aimed at exploring difficulties in other areas

3.4 Data collection procedure

The procedure of collecting data could be divided into three main phases as follows

* Phase 1: the thorough preparation for the data collection was made at this stage

Firstly, a checklist of criteria for class observation scheme and questions for questionnaire were properly designed based on the research questions In addition, a checklist for the observation (see appendix 4) was set including the students’ reaction to the lectures, their involvement in the activities and their attitudes towards the teacher’s activities The checklist also focuses on the difficulties students encounter when doing reading

The draft questionnaire was an adaptation of a wide variety of sources taken from literature on this field The survey questionnaire was also given to some colleagues, who have expertise in the area for judgment and comments, and then it was tested with a sample of 15 students for feedback on interpretation and possible ambiguity After analyzing the data obtained in the pilot study, following discussion with the colleagues and the students involved, the formal and final questionnaire was set up Some items were omitted and some were changed because they were not discriminative enough – weak differences between high and low scores or were unable to elicit the necessary information

* Phase 2: At this phase observations were carried out in three different classes (K46

51/01, 02, 04) with the checklist of criteria set

Also at this phase the survey questionnaire was delivered to 112 students of English who are learning English at FFL, Academy of Finance In fact, they were in their second term

of the first year The students were willing and enthusiastic to co-operate with the researcher All questionnaires delivered were completed

* Phase 3: Data collected from survey questionnaire and observation was synthesized

and classified at this phase The data were arranged in accordance with the research questions

3.5 Data analysis procedure

All the data were summarized and presented in the form tables which show the first year students’ difficulties in reading in three categories such as vocabulary, reading skills and background knowledge The study makes use of the mean score method of descriptive statistics The procedure followed in the analysis of the findings was allocate a score ( see the column ) for the level of difficulty to each item in the list A four-point scale was used, with four points for Very Difficult (VD), 3 points for difficult (D), 2 points for Easy (E), and 1