I certify my authorship of the minor thesis submitted today entitled “An evaluation of the material Basic English III for the second year non-English major students at Bac Giang Teachers’ Training College”
i VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POST- GRADUATE DEPARTMENT GIAP THI YEN AN EVALUATION OF THE MATERIAL “BASIC ENGLISH III” FOR THE SECOND YEAR NON- ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT BAC GIANG TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE (Đánh giá giáo trình “Tiếng Anh Cơ Bản III” dành cho sinh viên không chuyên năm thứ hai Trường Cao Đẳng Sư Phạm Bắc Giang) MINOR PROGRAM THESIS FIELD : MOTHODOLOGY CODE : 601410 HA NOI- 2008 ii VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POST- GRADUATE DEPARTMENT GIÁP THỊ YẾN AN EVALUATION OF THE MATERIAL “BASIC ENGLISH III” FOR THE SECOND YEAR NON- ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT BAC GIANG TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE (Đánh giá giáo trình “Tiếng Anh Cơ Bản III” dành cho sinh viên không chuyên năm thứ hai Trường Cao Đẳng Sư Phạm Bắc Giang) MINOR PROGRAM THESIS FIELD CODE : METHODOLOGY : 601410 SUPERVISOR: ĐINH HẢI YẾN, M.A noi - 2008 i i CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the minor thesis submitted today entitled “An evaluation of the material Basic English III for the second year non-English major students at Bac Giang Teachers’ Training College” in terms of the statement of requirements for the thesdis and the field study reports in Masters’ programs is the result of my own work, except where otherwise acknowledged and that this minor thesis or any part of the same had not been submitted for a higher degree to any other universities or institution Signature Date: August 29th, 2008 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS On the completion of the thesis, I would like to thank the following people: I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Ms Dinh Hai Yen, for her patient guidance, helpful suggestions, encouragement and constructive supervision in the course of writing this research Without her help, this work would have been impossible I would like to acknowledge my gratitude to Mr Le Hung Tien, Head of the Department of Post- Graduate Studies, and all the professors and lecturers at College of Foreign Language (CFL), Vietnam National University (VNU) for their insightful lectures, invaluable assistance and useful guidance I am also grateful for the valuable materials provided by Ms Le Thu Ha- the librarian at the post- graduate studies library of CFL, VNU I would like to take this opportunity to express my thankfulness to all of my English staff at Bac Giang Teachers’ Training College for their great help and kind cooperation in completing the questionnaires for the thesis I wish to extend my thanks to all of my friends who have been most helpful and supportive to me during the completion of my research Last but not least, my sincere thanks go to my parents whose love and encouragement have been equally important to my educational endeavors, especially my little son who has given me so much inspiration, energy, and support in accomplishing this challenging work iii ABSTRACT It is obvious that materials evaluation is one of the essential aspects of language teaching and learning Within this regard, the thesis was carried out to evaluate the material “Basic English III” which is currently in use for the second year non- English major students at Bac Giang Teachers’ Training College (BGTTC) since 2006 with the hope that practical suggestions would be given for further improvements of the material in the near future to meet the target of ensuring the effectiveness of the teaching and the learning English at BGTTC The data collection instruments used in this study were questionnaires and document analysis In this sequence, the material in use is analyzed basing on the criteria suggested by Hutchinson and Waters’ (1987) with an aim to determine how the material realizes the course requirements A survey on the teachers' opinions about the extent to which the material meets the requirements of the course in terms of the aims, content and methodology is conducted Research results have revealed some strengths and weaknesses of the material which allows the author to conclude that the material is not very relevant to the course aims, content and methodology Based on the findings, the thesis suggests some recommendations on materials adaptation such as addition, deletion, and replacement that should be made to remedy the weaknesses of the material so that the students can benefit more from it in future courses iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Trang PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the thesis Aims of the thesis .1 Significance of the thesis Scope of the thesis Design of the thesis .2 PART 2: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Literature Review 1.1 Materials in Language Teaching and Learning .4 1.1.1 Roles of Teaching Materials in General English Courses 1.1 Types of Materials .5 1.2 Materials Evaluation .7 1.2.1 Definitions of Materials Evaluation .7 1.2.2 Purposes of Materials Evaluation 1.2.3 Types of Materials Evaluation .8 1.2.4 Materials Evaluators .9 1.2.5 Models for Materials Evaluation 10 1.2.6 Criteria for Materials Evaluation .13 1.3 Materials Adaptation 14 1.4 Summary .16 Chapter 2: Research Methodology .17 2.1 An overview of current English Teaching and Learning at BGTTC 17 2.2 Research Methods 18 2.2.1 Research questions .18 2.2.2 Participants 18 2.2.3 Data collection procedures 18 2.3 Summary .21 Chapter 3: Data Analysis and Discussion 22 3.1 Document Analysis .22 3.1.1 The Suitability of the Material to the Aims of the Course 22 v 3.1.2 The Suitability of the Material to the Content Requirements of the Course 25 3.1.3 The Suitability of the Material to the Methodology Requirements of the Course29 3.2 Survey Results .31 3.2.1 The Suitability of the Material to the Aims of the Course 31 3.2.2 The Suitability of the Material to the Content Requirements of the Course 32 3.2.3 The Suitability of the Material to Methodology Requirements of the Course 39 3.2.4 Teachers’ suggestions for the materials improvement 40 3.3 Summary of major findings 41 3.4 Recommendations for material improvements .43 3.5 Summary .45 PART 3: CONCLUSION .46 Summary of previous parts .46 Conclusions .46 Limitation and suggestions for further research 46 References .I Appendixes III Appendix III Appendix VII Appendix VIII Appendix X Appendix XV vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CFL : College of Foreign Language VNU : Vietnam National University BGTTC : Bac Giang Teachers’ Training College BEIII : Basic English III vii LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figures Figure 1: Materials Evaluation Model of McDonough and Shaw Figure 2: The materials evaluation model of Hutchinson & Waters Tables Table 2.1: Types of information in the teacher questionnaire Table 3.1: The vocabulary list of unit (Basic English III, p 87) Table 3.2: The content requirements for the third term Table 3.3: The methodology requirements of the course Table 3.4: Teachers’ opinions about the suitability of the material (Q 1- 6) Table 3.5: Teachers’ opinions about language points and languages skills covered in this material (Q7-8) Table 3.6: Teachers’ opinions about effectiveness of sub-skills (Q 9) Table 3.7: Teachers’ opinions about the topics in the material (Q10- 11) Table 3.8: Teachers’ opinions about the text- types in the material (Q14) Table 3.9: Teachers’ opinions about the organization and sequence of content (Q12- 13) Table 3.10: Teachers’ opinions about time allocation in the material (Q15) Table 3.11a: Students’ learning strategies and preference (Q16) Table 3.11b: Students’ learning strategies and preference (Q17) Table 3.11c: Students’ learning strategies and preference (Q18) Table 3.12: Teachers’ opinions about tasks and activities of language points and language skills (Q19- 22) Table 3.13: Teachers’ opinions about teaching/ learning techniques in the material (Q2324) Table 3.14: Teachers’ opinions about the methodology guidance in the material (Q25) ... TRAINING COLLEGE (Đánh giá giáo trình “Tiếng Anh Cơ Bản III” dành cho sinh viên không chuyên năm thứ hai Trường Cao Đẳng Sư Phạm Bắc Giang) MINOR PROGRAM THESIS FIELD CODE : METHODOLOGY : 601410... GIÁP THỊ YẾN AN EVALUATION OF THE MATERIAL “BASIC ENGLISH III” FOR THE SECOND YEAR NON- ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT BAC GIANG TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE (Đánh giá giáo trình “Tiếng Anh Cơ Bản III”. .. of aims, content and methodology Therefore, the author decided to choose one of those in- house materials named “Basic English III” (BEIII) for evaluation with the intention that it will not only