Những thử thách sinh viên khoa ngoại ngữ trường đại học lạc hồng

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING LAC HONG UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES Y”Z Some Challenges English Majors at Lac Hong University Often Encounter When Being Taught By NESTs Advisor: Nguyen Ngoc Yen, M.A Student: Duong Viet Ngoc Oanh Class: 05AV3 December 2009 Some challenges English Majors often encounter when being taught by NESTs 12/2009 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First of all, deep in my heart I would like to express my special thanks to Ms Nguyen Ngoc Yen – my advisor who gave her time for useful advice, great guidance and precious materials as well as always encouraging me to complete the research I would also like to say grateful thanks to all the Faculty of the Foreign Languages and those who taught me in the past four years at Lac Hong University Moreover, I am very grateful for their cooperation and support First, all of the students of day-time classes batch 2006 for their willingness to complete the questionnaire My thanks also go to all the students of classes 07AV111, 07AV112, 07AV113 who were kind enough to spend their time for the interview In addition, my great appreciation is for all the native teachers in VMG, in VUS foreign language centers as well as Mr Tompkins from UNESCO Especially, I appreciate the kindness of Mr Denis Voight and Mr Daniel Caroll who have their own experience in teaching English majors at Lac Hong University Their willingness to complete the questionnaire and be interviewed was very helpful and appreciated Finally yet importantly, I would like to thank my family and friends who give me a strong warm spirit to cope with any troubles I faced when reaching my goal of completing the research Student: Duong Viet Ngoc Oanh Page i Some challenges English Majors often encounter when being taught by NESTs 12/2009 ABSTRACT The research paper aims to figure out some challenges English majors at Lac Hong University often encounter in NESTs’ (Native English Speaking Teachers) classes The intention is that both English majors and NESTs are aware of potential problems in advance to work more constructively With this practical aim, the writer tries to point out some differences in linguistics, which make students afraid to talk to NESTs The paper also draws attention to providing as much information as possible about the differences in working habits between NESTs and Vietnamese students At the same time, it also draws focus to students’ purposes in learning English Finally, some suggestions are given to English majors at Lac Hong University as well as to NESTs who want to teach English as a foreign language to Vietnamese students There are also some suggestions for the Faculty of Foreign Languages to create the best environment for study for English majors Student: Duong Viet Ngoc Oanh Page ii Some challenges English Majors often encounter when being taught by NESTs 12/2009 TABLE OF CONTENTS ‫٭٭٭٭٭٭٭٭‬ Page Acknowledgements i Abstract ii Table of Contents iii Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the Study 1.2 Statement of the Problems 1.3 Justification 1.4 The Scope of the Study .5 1.5 The Research Question .6 1.6 Hypothesis 1.7 Organization of the Research .6 Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .8 2.1 Definition of the Term Native Speakers .9 2.2 A Review of Previous Studies Related to the Problem 10 Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURE 13 3.1 Description of population 14 3.2 Research Instruments 15 3.2.1 Questionnaire .15 3.2.1.1 Questionnaire for English majors .15 3.2.1.1 Questionnaire for NESTs 15 3.2.2 Interview 16 3.2.3 Observation 16 3.3 Research Procedure 17 Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS .18 4.1 How Well English Majors Can Understand NESTs’ Lectures 19 4.2 Problems in Communication 23 Student: Duong Viet Ngoc Oanh Page iii Some challenges English Majors often encounter when being taught by NESTs 12/2009 4.3 Differences in Learning Attitude 26 4.4 Differences in Working Habit 29 Chapter 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS .33 5.1 Conclusion .34 5.2 Recommendations 35 5.2.1 Recommendations for English majors .35 5.2.2 Recommendations for NESTs 36 5.2.3 Recommendations for the Faculty of Foreign Languages .37 5.2.4 Recommendations for Further Studies .37 REFERENCES 38 Appendix 1: Questionnaire for English Majors 39 Appendix 2: Questionnaire for NESTs 42 Appendix 3: Interview questions for English Majors .44 Appendix 4: Interview questions for NESTs 44 Appendix 5: Result of Questionnaire .45 Student: Duong Viet Ngoc Oanh Page iv Some challenges English Majors often encounter when being taught by NESTs 12/2009 CHAPTER INTRODUCTION Student: Duong Viet Ngoc Oanh Page 12/2009 Some challenges English Majors often encounter when being taught by NESTs 1.1 Background of the Study Crystal (1987, cited in Medgyes 1992:1) once contented that a great number of people who speak English as their mother tongue, as a second language or foreign language has risen by 40% since the 1950s Moreover, in Medgyes’ paper (1992) he gave a point of the conservative estimates that “English is the official or semi-official language in more than 60 countries over the six continents.” Medgyes also noted Kachu’s words (1982) that if the trend goes on continuously by the end of the 20th century the number of people who speak English as their mother tongue will be less than the number of people who use English as second or foreign language Actually, English has become the primary language in many fields for communicating all over the world such as scientific, industry, commerce, mass media, sport, transportation, etc… In fact, “English is a precondition for countries to gain access to, or remain in the mainstream of global communication.” (Medgyes, 1992) Thus, millions of young people spend thousands of hours trying to learn English The ability to speak and write English is considered to be a passport for them to get better jobs in the future Hence, the demand of learning English is higher and further than the supply Catching the need of learners, many foreign language centers, colleges and universities invite Native English Speaking Teachers (NESTs) in great numbers because NESTs can draw the attention from students as they really trust to NESTs (Medgyes, 1992) NESTs provide English learners the way to use the right vocabulary in real contexts, sentences Though there are a number of dictionaries to show learners the correct use of vocabulary, they not show whether a word should be used appropriately in a certain situation (Medgyes, 1992) In addition, English learners can approach and imitate the oral fluency from NESTs as well as their beautiful intonation However, how to gain those benefits from NESTs is still a great challenge to students Student: Duong Viet Ngoc Oanh Page Some challenges English Majors often encounter when being taught by NESTs 12/2009 Recently, English majors at Lac Hong University have had many chances to be taught by NESTs in many subjects such as speaking, pronunciation, cross culture, etc… Nevertheless, looking back on the writer’s survey, there are some challenges English majors have to face to when being taught by NESTs Only 1% out of 90 respondents noted in the questionnaire that he could understand completely his NESTs’ lectures while 14% claimed that they could not understand anything from NESTs’ lectures This figure shows an alarm to the writer to seek for the reasons why English majors could not understand their NESTs’ lectures 1.2 Statement of the Problems It is true that English majors find it quite challenging to understand their NESTs’ lectures at the first few times Though they have learned English from secondary to high school, they were asked to focus on grammar and comprehension only They may know well the rules of English grammar but it is not likely that they know the way to give appropriate responses in a real conversation (Vietnam Reader, 1996) As a result, their listening and speaking skills are unqualified to understand native speakers Students have to take time to get familiar with the real native accents from their NESTs as most of the students have few chances to talk to native speakers before In addition, the role of culture also plays an important element in the classroom Because NESTs and students not share the same language and culture, it must be a barrier for them in teaching and learning NESTs are able to provide more information about an English speaking country’s culture but they cannot give students little advice about the process of language learning, as they are not learners of English (Medgyes, 1992) For NESTs who have spent time in the students’ country and learnt the students’ mother tongue should be more perceptive to the students’ difficulties than those who have not Actually, both NESTs and students have little information about each other’s culture so they may be afraid of having unexpected manners in classroom Therefore, it makes both NESTs Student: Duong Viet Ngoc Oanh Page Some challenges English Majors often encounter when being taught by NESTs 12/2009 and students unable to understand each other to give the suitable teaching and learning methods In this paper, the researcher hopes that she can seek the potential challenges that English majors may cope with when being taught by NESTs On the other hand, delivering some suggestions to solve those challenges for English majors is also the writer’s purpose in this paper 1.3 Justification The writer of this paper is seeking for the challenges of English majors when being taught by NESTs After taking time to observe several classes and collecting the questionnaires’ figures, the writer found that English majors have great challenges in native teachers’ classes The survey shows that 14% students could not understand any points of the lessons that were taught by NESTs 85% respondents felt ambiguous about the lessons, only 1% out of 90 students said that he could understand completely what NESTs were teaching In addition, in the first few days of being taught by an American teacher the writer recognized that most of the third year English majors could not comprehend at once, even some of them could not give appropriate responses in some simple sentences The teacher in those classes once claimed that half of the students in these classes could not understand what he was talking about Though students in these three classes had been taught by an Australian teacher in previous course, they still found difficulties when being taught by NESTs Because students were unable to understand the lessons clearly, they could not improve much the knowledge, which the certain subjects require Seeking for the reasons, the researcher figures out that firstly the students’ English ability are limited; therefore, they could not understand the lessons clearly Moreover, NESTs speak the target language in class only so students could not sometimes understand deeply the lectures Whether students know that they can stop their NESTs for questioning or Student: Duong Viet Ngoc Oanh Page Some challenges English Majors often encounter when being taught by NESTs 12/2009 asking an explanation, they rarely so as question is not expected at Vietnamese schools Consequently, after taking time in NESTs’ classes students could not improve much Recognizing these troubles, the writer carried out the topic “Some challenges English majors at Lac Hong University often encounter when being taught by NESTs” with the hope that it can find out the challenges to English majors and help students face those in a wise way 1.4 The Scope of the Study The advantages of being taught by NESTs are obvious, such as students can widen their knowledge about the culture and custom of an English speaking country Students can gain their listening skills, improve speaking skills, and boost their vocabulary that is used in real English countries However, those benefits are not mentioned in the paper due to the limitation of sources and time The writer just focuses on the challenges when English majors at Lac Hong University are taught by NESTs Within the five weeks, it is a limited time for the writer to draw a plan, search information, and collect data before analyzing them Therefore, the researcher applied the questionnaire to the three day-time classes of the batch 2006 only In addition, the researcher observed 07AV111, 07AV112, 07AV113 in their intercultural lessons delivered by an American professor Moreover, some of the students in these above classes were interviewed by the writer to get good data The questionnaire for NESTs was applied by e-mail instead of having appointments with them in flesh, which are costly Besides, the interviews to NESTs were carried to a few NESTs because of the limited time and finance Concisely, the research focuses on the difficulties of English majors who have chances to be taught by NESTs Student: Duong Viet Ngoc Oanh Page