Designing an ESP reading syllabus for the third-year student of Physics at Thai Nguyen University of Education

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE NGUYỄN THỊ MINH TRANG DESIGNING AN ESP READING SYLLABUS FOR THE THIRDYEAR STUDENT OF PHYSICS AT THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION (THIẾT KẾ CHƯƠNG TRÌNH ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ KHOA VẬT LÝ, TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SƯ PHẠM THÁI NGUYÊN) MA MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10 HA NOI, 2012 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE NGUYỄN THỊ MINH TRANG DESIGNING AN ESP READING SYLLABUS FOR THE THIRDYEAR STUDENT OF PHYSICS AT THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION (THIẾT KẾ CHƯƠNG TRÌNH ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ KHOA VẬT LÝ, TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SƯ PHẠM THÁI NGUYÊN) MA MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10 Supervisor: Kim Văn Tất, MA HA NOI, 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS Pages Declaration…………………………………………………… i Acknowledgement…………………………………………… ii Abstract………………………………………………………… iii Table of contents……………………………………………… iv List of abbreviations…………………………………………… v Part I: INTRODUCTION……………………………………… 1.1 Rationale of the study…………………………………… 1.2 Aims of the study………………………………………… 1.3 The scope of the study…………………………………… 1.4 Research questions………………………………………… 1.5 Organization of the thesis………………………………… Part II: DEVELOPMENT……………………………………… CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW……………………… 1.1 An overview of ESP……………………………………… 1.1.1 Definition of ESP…………………………………… 1.1.2 Types of ESP………………………………………… 1.2 Syllabus design…………………………………………… 1.2.1 Definitions of syllabus……………………………… 1.2.2 The importance of syllabus design…………………… 1.2.3 Approaches to language syllabus design…………… 1.2.4 Types pf ESP syllabus………………………………… 10 1.2.5 Stages in syllabus design……………………………… 12 1.2.5.1 Needs analysis………………………………… 12 1.2.5.2 Goal setting (Aims and objectives setting)……… 13 iv 1.2.5.3 Selecting and grading content…………………… 14 1.3 Reading……………………………………………………… 15 1.3.1 Definition of reading………………………………… 15 1.3.2 Reading process……………………………………… 16 1.3.3 Reading skills………………………………………… 17 1.3.4 Reading tasks………………………………………… 17 CHAPTER II: THE STUDY…………………………………… 19 2.1 Introduction………………………………………………… 19 2.2 The teaching/learning situation at Thai Nguyen University of Education………………………………………………… 19 2.2.1 The target students and English teachers……………… 19 2.2.2 Materials……………………………………………… 19 2.3 The study…………………………………………………… 20 2.3.1 The research questions………………………………… 20 2.3.2 The subjects…………………………………………… 20 2.3.3 Instrument for collecting data………………………… 21 2.3.4 The findings…………………………………………… 21 2.3.4.1 Learning needs…………………………………… 21 2.3.4.2 Target needs……………………………………… 28 2.4 Summary………………………………………………… 29 CHAPTER III: DESIGNING AN ESP READING SYLLABUS FOR THE THIRDYEAR STUDENTS OF PHYSICS AT TUE…………………… 30 3.1 The selection of the type of syllabus for the third-year students of Physics at TUE……………………………… 30 3.2 Aims and objectives………………………………………… 30 3.3 The selection of content of the ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of Physics at TUE……………… v 31 3.4 Time schedule of the syllabus……………………………… 34 3.5 The proposed ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of Physics at TUE……………………………………… 34 3.6 Summary…………………………………………………… 35 Part III: CONCLUSION………………………………………… 36 REFERENCES…………………………………………………… 38 APPENDICES vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS TUE: Thai Nguyen University of Education ESP: English for specific purposes EAP: English for Academic Purposes EOP: English for Occupational Purposes EST: English for Science and Technology EBE: English for business and economics ESS: English for Social Studies ELT: English Language Teaching GE: General English vii PART I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study: The Thai Nguyen University of Education, trains students of different fields of science including physics Here, English is a compulsory subject for all students Therefore, every student has to take and pass the English course before finishing university However, the students are mainly from mountainous provinces where the students not have many chances to improve their English, so their English level is low Even some of them have never studied English before This is considered the biggest problem for all English teachers at this university In order that the students are able to read materials on their major in English, they have to study English well So as to accomplish this target, every student at Thai Nguyen University of Education studies English for three terms, - The first two terms (90 class hours) are for General English covering the textbook New Cutting Edge Pre-intermediate by Sarah Cunningham During this period, the students should acquire the basic English communication skills, common vocabulary, and grammar structures - The third term (60 class hours) is for ESP in which the students are provided with different ESP courses according to their majors However, up to now, there has not been any suitable ESP syllabus for physics That is why it is an urgent task for all ESP teachers at TUE to design ESP course to fulfill the language target set by the University Management Moreover, this ESP course also need to fit the students’ learning needs and target needs in order to facilitate their study Fully aware of the situation, I decide to carry out an investigation to propose a suitable ESP syllabus to help improve the effectiveness of teaching ESP reading comprehension to students of physics and to provide necessary information for the development of effective ESP reading materials for the future generations of physics students 1.2 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 1.3 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 1.4 Research questions: The study is to find out the answers for the following research questions: What are the target needs and learning needs of the third-year students at TUE? What is a suitable ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of physics at TUE? 1.5 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 `PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW As the study aims at designing an ESP reading syllabus for the students of physics, in this chapter the writer will have a careful look at the theoretical background information of issues relevant to the thesis topic First, an overview of ESP, including the definition of ESP, its types and its characteristics, will be discussed Second, an overview of reading theories will provide reading theories in general and ESP reading in particular Then, syllabus design and ESP syllabus design will be presented with definition of syllabus, types of syllabus, which will function as the major bases for the study Finally, need analysis in syllabus design will be mentioned to show needs analysis and how to conduct needs analysis 1.1 An overview of ESP 1.1.1 Definition 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 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: REFERENCES Brown, L.D (1995) The elements of language curriculum and syllabus design for ELT London British Council Dubin, F & Olshtain, E (1986) Course design: developing programmes and materials for language learning Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Dudley-Evans, T & St John, M (1998) Development in ESP: A multidisciplinary approach, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p.4-5 Goodman, K.S (1971) Psycholinguistic universals in reading progress psychological for second language learning Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Graves, K (1996) Teachers as Course Developers Cambridge Cambridge University Press (28) Grellet, F (1990) Developing reading skills Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Harmer, J (1998) How to teach English London: Longman Hayes, B.L (1991) Effective strategies for teaching reading Boston: Allyn and Bacon 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 Macmillan Press Ltd 12 Krahnke, K (1987) Approaches to syllabus design for FLT UK: Prentice Hall 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 University Press 15 Nunan, D (1988) Syllabus Design Oxford Oxford University Press 38 16 Nuttall, C (1982) Teaching Reading Skills in a foreign language, London: Heinemann, p.36 17 Oxford Advanced Learners’ Encycopedic Dictionary 18 Richards, J (2001) Curriculum development in language teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 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 23 Tran Ngoc Hoi & Pham Van Thieu Vat ly dai cuong: Cac nguyen ly ung dung tap 24 Tran Ngoc Hoi & Pham Van Thieu Vat ly dai cuong: Cac nguyen ly ung dung tap 25 William, E (1984) Reading in language classroom New York: Macmillan 26 Yalden, J (1984) Syllabus design in general education In C.J Brumfit (Ed) 39 APPENDIX 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 Age: Gender:  Male  Female Why 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 What you expect to gain from the course? (You can tick as many boxes as you wish)  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 The topics you think should be in the ESP reading course: (Put a tick  in “Yes” or “No”) Item Topics 16 Physics and scope of physics 17 Matter and measurement 18 Elementary particles 19 Motion 20 Gravitation 21 Photoelectrical physics 22 Weight and mass I Yes No 23 Energy 24 Quantum physics 25 Magnetism 26 Electric charge 27 Nuclear physics 28 Heat 29 Optics 30 Applied physics Which of the following types of English materials you often read? (You can tick as many boxes as you wish)  Newspapers and magazines in English  Physics course books in English  English for Physics documents Before reading an English text, you often: - Predict what you are going to read Yes No - Read instructions for exercise only Yes No While reading a text, you often: - Translate the text into Vietnamese Yes No - Read quickly to get general ideas Yes No Yes No for the whole text and read carefully if necessary - Pay attention to topic sentence to guess main ideas What you with new words while reading an English text? (You can tick as many boxes as you wish)  Look them up in the dictionary  Guess the meaning of the words from the context  Ignore them II 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) Items Exercises 14 Multiple-choice 15 True-False-No information question 16 Comprehension questions 17 Identifying the topic of a paragraph 18 Choosing topic sentences to fill in each paragraph 19 Gap-filling 20 Read and complete the chart / diagrams 21 Synonym-Antonym 22 Word formation 23 Matching words to their meanings 24 Read and summarize the content 25 Translation 26 Guessing meanings of words from the context III Necessary APPENDIX 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 The topics you think should be in the ESP reading course: Item Topics Physics and scope of physics Matter and measurement Elementary particles Motion Gravitation Photoelectrical physics Weight and mass Energy Quantum physics 10 Magnetism 11 Electric charge 12 Nuclear physics 13 Heat 14 Optics 15 Applied physics Yes No 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) Items Exercises Multiple-choice True-False-No information question IV Necessary Comprehension questions Identifying the topic of a paragraph Choosing topic sentences to fill in each paragraph Gap-filling Read and complete the chart / diagrams Synonym-Antonym Word formation 10 Matching words to their meanings 11 Read and summarize the content 12 Translation 13 Guessing meanings of words from the context V APPENDIX Item Topics English teachers’ opinions Second-year physics (Number of choices) students’ opinions (Number of choices) Necessary Not Necessary necessary Physics and scope Not necessary (80%) (20%) 50 (71%) 20 (29%) (100%) (0%) 62 (88%) (12%) (80%) (20%) 46 (65%) 24 (35%) Motion (100%) (0%) 65 (92%) (8%) Gravitation (60%) (40%) 42 (60%) 28 (40%) Photoelectrical (20%) (80%) 24 (34%) 48 (66%) Weight and mass (100%) (0%) 57 (81%) 13 (19%) Energy (80%) (20%) 47 (67%) 23 (33%) Quantum physics (40%) (60%) 30 (43%) 40 (57%) 10 Magnetism (60%) (40%) 49 (70%) 21 (30%) 11 Electric charge (80%) (20%) 51 (72%) 19 (28%) 12 Nuclear physics (100%) (0%) 60 (85%) 10 (15%) 13 Heat (60%) (40%) 36 (51%) 34 (49%) 14 Optics (80%) (20%) 40 (57%) 30 (43%) 15 Applied physics (40%) (60%) 32 (45%) 38 (55%) of physics Matter and measurement Elementary particles physics Table 9: Topics necessary for the course VI APPENDIX The proposed ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of Physics at Thai Nguyen University of Education Time Unit Topics Reading skills Vocabulary Homework /exercises periods Physics and - Skimming: to - General - Translate the scope of discover the terms of text into physics main ideas in the physics (text Vietnamese reading texts based) - Scanning: to get the specific details in the reading texts - Comprehension questions - Gap- filling periods Matter and - Skimming: to - Terms - Write measurement discover the related to summary main ideas in the Matter and reading texts measurement - Scanning: to (text based) get the specific details in the reading texts - Multiple choice questions - True – False – No information questions VII periods Elementary - Skimming: to - basic - particles discover the particles in Comprehension main ideas in the physics (text questions reading texts based) - Scanning: to get the specific details in the reading texts - Word formation - Matching words to their definitions periods Motion - Skimming: to - terms discover the related to main ideas in the motion(text reading texts based) - Scanning: to get the specific details in the reading texts - Finding synonyms and antonyms of words or phrases in the reading texts - Choosing topic sentences to fill VIII - Translation in each paragraph in the reading text Gravitation periods - Skimming: to - terms - discover the related to Comprehension main ideas in the “gravitation” questions reading texts (text based) - Scanning: to get the specific details in the reading texts - Guessing meaning of words from the context - Gap-filling periods Weight and - Skimming: to - terms - matching mass discover the related to words to their main ideas in the weight and definitions reading texts mass (text - Scanning: to based) get the specific details in the reading texts - True-False-No information questions - Identifying the topic of IX a paragraph Revision (Unit – Unit 6) periods Test Energy periods - Skimming: to - terms - discover the related to the topic of a main ideas in the energy (text paragraph reading texts based) - Write - Scanning: to Identifying summary get the specific details in the reading texts - Multiple choice - Word formation - Translation periods Magnetism - Skimming: to - terms - Multiple discover the related to choice main ideas in the magnetism questions reading texts (text based) - translation - Scanning: to get the specific details in the reading texts - Comprehension questions - Guessing meaning of words from the X context periods Electric - Skimming: to - terms - Word charge discover the related to formation main ideas in the electric - True-false-no reading texts charge (text information - Scanning: to based) questions get the specific details in the reading texts - Choosing topic sentences to fill in each paragraph - Gap- filling periods 10 Nuclear - Skimming: to - terms - translation physics discover the related to - write main ideas in the nuclear (text summary reading texts based) - Scanning: to get the specific details in the reading texts - Comprehension questions - Finding synonyms and antonyms of words or phrases in the text XI 11 Heat periods - Skimming: to - terms - identifying the discover the related to topics of main ideas in the “heat” paragraphs - Skimming: to - terms - Multiple discover the related to choice main ideas in the “optics” - Gap-filling reading texts - Scanning: to get the specific details in the reading texts - Matching words to their meanings - Read and summarize the content - Translation periods 12 Optics reading texts - Scanning: to get the specific details in the reading texts - Choosing topic sentences to fill in each paragraph - Word formation XII - True-false- no information questions - Revision (Unit – Unit 12) periods - Test Revision for the final test periods XIII