A study on the problem face by students in reading english for business at university of economics and business administration thai nguyen university and some implications

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES -o0o ĐẶNG THỊ NGỌC ANH A STUDY ON THE PROBLEMS FACED BY STUDENTS IN READING ENGLISH FOR BUSINESS AT UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINSTRATION – THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY AND SOME IMPLICATIONS Tìm hiểu khó khăn việc đọc hiểu tiếng Anh Thương mại sinh viên trường Đại học Kinh tế Quản trị Kinh doanh – Đại học Thái Nguyên số giải pháp M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 HANOI – 2010 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES -o0o - ĐẶNG THỊ NGỌC ANH A STUDY ON THE PROBLEMS FACED BY STUDENTS IN READING ENGLISH FOR BUSINESS AT UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINSTRATION – THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY AND SOME IMPLICATIONS Tìm hiểu khó khăn việc đọc hiểu tiếng Anh Thương mại sinh viên trường Đại học Kinh tế Quản trị Kinh doanh – Đại học Thái Nguyên số giải pháp M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Supervisor: Phạm Thị Hạnh, MA HANOI – 2010 TABLES OF CONTENTS PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale 11 The significance of the study 12 Aims of the study 12 Method of the study 12 Scope of the study 12 Organization of the study 13 Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 14 1.1 ESP Teaching and Learning 14 1.1.1 Definitions of ESP 14 1.1.2 Types of ESP 15 1.1.3 The differences between General English and ESP 18 1.2 Business English – a type of ESP 20 1.2.1 Introduction of Business English 20 1.2.2 Characteristics of Business English 21 1.2.3 Performance objectives for Business English 22 1.2.4 Content of Business English course 23 1.3 Summary 24 Chapter 2: THE PRESENT SITUATION OF TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH FOR BUSINESS AT THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (TUEBA) 25 2.1 Introduction of Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration and its students 25 2.2 Objectives of the ESP course at TUEBA 26 2.3 Materials of the ESP course 26 2.4 The problems in teaching and learning ESP at TUEBA 27 2.4.1 Problems on the part of the teachers 27 2.4.2 Problems on the part of the students 27 2.5 Summary 27 Chapter 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 29 3.1 Research questions 29 3.2 Participants 29 3.3 Data collection method 30 3.3.1 Data collection instrument 30 3.3.2 Data collection procedure 30 3.3.3 Data analysis 31 3.4 Summary 31 Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 32 4.1 Questionnaire Results and Interpretation 32 4.1.1 Student’s purposes of learning English and learning to read English 32 4.1.2 Attitudes towards foreign language skills in the students’ future work and the role of ESP teaching and learning 33 4.1.3 Views on ESP teaching and learning materials 35 4.1.3.1 Students’ favorite reading materials 35 4.1.3.2 Difficult materials to teach and learn 35 4.1.3.3 Attitudes towards the current ESP reading materials 36 4.1.4 Students’ difficulties in dealing with the ESP reading materials 37 4.1.4.1 Vocabulary 37 4.1.4.2 Grammar 39 4.1.4.3 Reading skill 39 4.1.5 The causes 41 4.1.6 Students’ expectations to improve their ESP reading skill 42 4.1.6.1 Materials 42 4.1.6.2 Teaching methodology 43 4.1.6.3 Students’ activities 45 4.2 Discussions 45 4.2.1 The students’ difficulties in dealing with ESP reading texts and materials 46 4.2.2 The causes of the students’ difficulties 46 4.3 Summary 47 Chapter 5: IMPLICATIONS FOR IMPROVING READING SKILLS OF BUSINESS ENGLISH FOR STUDENTS AT TUEBA 47 5.1 For the students 48 5.1.1 Awareness of the importance of reading skill and role of the ESP course 48 5.2.2 Development of reading strategies and techniques 48 5.2.3 Development of extensive reading habits 50 5.2 For the teachers 50 5.2.1 Improvement of background knowledge of Business 50 5.2.2 Enhancement of ESP teaching methodology 51 5.3 For the materials 55 5.3.1 Improvement of reading materials 55 5.2.3 Awareness of the student’s needs in designing the materials 56 5.4 Summary 57 PART THREE: CONCLUSION 58 Summary of the study 58 Limitations and suggestions for further study 59 REFERENCES 60 APPENDIX Questionnaire for the students (English version) Questionnaire for the students (Vietnamese version) Questionnaire for the teachers (English version) LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EAP English for Academic Purposes EBP English for Business Purposes EFL English as Foreign Language EGAP English for General Academic Purposes EGBP English for General Business Purposes EGP English for General Purposes ELP English for Legal Purposes ELT English Language Teaching EMP English for Medical Purposes EOP English for Occupational Purposes ESP English for Specific Purposes EST English for Science and Technology TNUT Thai Nguyen University of Technology TUAF Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry TUEBA Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration TABLE OF FIGURES AND CHARTS Figure 1: ESP classification by experience (Robinson, 1991: 3-4) 16 Figure 2: ESP classification by professional area (Evans, T D and St John, 1998: 6) 17 Figure 3: Continuum of ELT course types (Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998:9) .18 Chart 1: Student’s purposes of learning English .32 Chart 2: Student’s purposes of learning to read English 33 Chart 3: Attitudes towards foreign language skills in students’ future work 34 Chart 4: Views of the role of ESP course 34 Chart 5: Students’ favorite reading materials 35 Chart 6: Types of difficult texts and materials 36 Chart 7: Attitudes towards current ESP reading materials 37 Chart 8: Students’ difficulties in vocabulary .38 Chart 9: Students’ difficulties in grammar 39 Chart 10: Students’ difficulties in reading skill 40 Chart 11: Causes of students’ difficulties 41 Chart 12: Students’ expectations of ESP reading materials 43 Chart 13: Students’ expectations of teaching methodology 44 Chart 14: Students’ activities to improve their ESP reading skill .45 PART ONE: INTRODUCTION Rationale English for Specific Purpose, or ESP for short, is a pedagogy in which the syllabus, contents and methods are determined according to the needs of learners' specialized subjects (Ping Duan & Weiping Gu, 2004:1) In the past 20 years, the explosion in business and communication technology has revolutionized the field of English language teaching, and has radically shifted the attention of course designers from teaching English for Academic Purposes to teaching English for more specialized purposes ESP can be regarded as an indispensable part of our life, without which a lot of good opportunities may be missed ESP teaching has become a popular trend in English language teaching in the world in general and in Vietnam in particular, especially since Vietnam joined the international economy Nowadays, ESP is one of the main subjects taught in the curriculum in most universities and colleges in Vietnam The main objective of ESP courses is to prepare thousands of specialists for the language required by the learner’s future work, or overseas studies English for Business is a novel development of English for Specific Purposes brought about by the demand of society for improving students' abilities in communicating business information At Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration (TUEBA), the students are trained with their Business profession mostly in their mother tongue After completing General English in the first three semesters, they advance from the first glimpse to more in-depth lessons of English for Business with the aim of acquiring the ability to read and understand their professional knowledge in English and serving their further study as well as future jobs However, the problem is that the students are rarely satisfied with their reading comprehension in reading ESP text and materials despite their efforts They are sometimes blamed for having poor reading skill or not making enough effort Nevertheless, the students are not always at fault Other factors such as materials, teaching methods, the teaching and learning attitude must also be considered As a matter of fact, it is necessary to have a close look at and find out the reasons for the difficulties students’ encounter at TUEBA in dealing with their materials in English for Business On identifying the problems, it is hoped that the study will propose some possible suggestions for improving students’ ESP reading skills The significance of the study The study highlights the difficulties that students at Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration (TUEBA) encounter when dealing with their specialized materials Basing on these, solutions can be proposed in order to help students to overcome the problems and improve their reading comprehension in English for Business effectively It is hoped that the findings of this study will be useful for both students and teachers of ESP at TUEBA and other institutions as well Aims of the study The primary purposes of this study are to describe the problems of ESP students in dealing with their reading materials at TUEBA, their causes and how to reduce the difficulties In particular, the study is designed with the hope to achieve the aims as follows:  To discover students and teachers’ attitudes towards ESP teaching and learning at TUEBA;  To investigate the present situation of ESP teaching and learning at TUEBA in order to identify the students’ difficulties in ESP reading and their causes;  To propose some recommendations to help students overcome the challenges in order to improve their ESP reading skills Method of the study For the purpose of the study, data is collected through the application of the questionnaire technique The information from the survey will then be paraphrased in order to find out the situation of ESP teaching and learning at TUEBA; students’ problems and their causes As such, descriptive statistics of simple percentages will be used The instruments used to develop this study are chosen according to the needs of the students such as: pen, paper and questionnaire format Scope of the study The focus of the study is mainly on investigating some linguistic problems related to ESP reading skills of the students at Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration After that, suggestions will be recommended so as to reduce the difficulties and help students learn ESP more effectively Organization of the study There are three main parts in this study including: Introduction, Development and Conclusion The Introduction part of the study covers the rationale for the study, the significance, aims, methods, scope as well as the organization of the study The Development part of the study consists of chapters as follows: Chapter provides a theoretical framework for the study, including, definitions and types of ESP, ESP related issues, and typical features of English for Business Chapter discusses the present situation, materials, as well as the objectives of teaching and learning English for Business at TUEBA The main focus is placed on the problems faced by the students when reading English texts and document for Business Chapter reports the methodology used in the research including research questions, participants, instruments and the procedures for data collection and analysis Chapter reports and discusses the major findings Chapter 5, the last part of this section, offers suggestions to reduce difficulties and help the students to effectively improve their ESP reading skills The Conclusion part summarizes what is addressed in the study, points out the limitations, draws pedagogical implications and provides some suggestions for further study etc That is the reason why a lot of students often have passive attitudes towards learning reading Therefore, it is necessary that, in order to activate and motivate the students to read, more attention should be paid to the selection of the reading materials, preferably based on the level of difficulty and the relevance of the subject matter Further more, it is also important to raise student’s interest in the texts by making full use of the text, giving various types of tasks for the students in order to make them attracted and focused The material designers can refer to the paradigm for material preparation put forward by Adwina & Cozaron (1997), which consists of steps as follows: Step Reviewing the existing materials Step Identifying goals for the materials project Step Develop a plan for the design of the materials and the collaboration arrangement Step Gather and collect prose and non-prose texts Step Evaluate collected texts’ potentials for tasks and exercises Step Draft tasks, exercises and units Step Revise the materials Step Train teachers and staff Step Pilot the materials Nevertheless, we should never forget the student factor in ESP They are the consumers of our materials so the analysis of students’ needs should be concentrated on (Duong, T.N., 2007) 5.2.3 Awareness of the student’s needs in designing the materials As Brieger, N (1997) said, “Business English belongs to ESP, the key to which is the degree of specific city of the course in relation to the student’s needs”, students’ need analysis has a vital role The specificity of the course can be viewed different ways as follows: − The content should be based around the students’ professional background − The language knowledge (Specialist vocabulary) should be drawn from the students’ professional background − The communication skills taught should practice the skilled needed in the real professional world − The raining style should be adapted to the students’ preferences − The program may include content-based training, provided by specialists in professional content, management skill or corporate culture While it is admitted that these points are not exclusive to the Business English classroom, the researcher unexpectedly finds out from the study that a large number of the students are unfamiliar with the long and academic texts They may not find the things they want to learn in the book Though many of them try to read from other source, they are not satisfied with their results Therefore, it is crucial for the teachers and the material designers to take all these into consideration in order to make the materials up to the expectation in teaching and learning process, besides, it is also a good way to motivate the students in learning 5.4 Summary This chapter is a full investigation of the students’ difficulties in dealing with their reading texts and materials; their possible causes Basing on these several solutions have been made to solve the problems The solutions cover all three key factors involving ESP teaching and learning practice as students, teachers and ESP materials PART THREE: CONCLUSION Summary of the study It is no doubt that reading skill is inevitable for the students in learning English for Business Actually, a large number of the students often encounter difficulties when dealing with Business reading materials in English The study was carried out in order to make out the students’ difficulties, their possible causes and present some useful suggestions to improve the students’ reading skills to read English for Business The study starts with a brief review of relevant literature on ESP teaching and learning; and Business English as the core content of the section, which make the teachers and students have a full understanding about the addressed issues In order to find out the problems and their causes of the students in learning to read Business texts and materials in English at Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration, a survey was conducted with 120 students and ESP teachers who are currently involving ESP teaching and learning activities at TUEBA The content of the survey questionnaire covers two main parts as: the personal information of the informants and the questions covering the attitude towards learning English and learning to read; the opinions of ESP teaching and learning and the ESP materials at TUEBA; students’ difficulties and their causes by the view of both students and teachers, and students’ expectations to help them improve their ESP reading skill The findings from the survey show that the teaching and learning ESP reading at TUEBA is far from satisfactory The students face a lot of difficulties in learning to read ESP texts and documents The reasons for the problems come from all the three factors of the process such as the students themselves, the teachers and the materials The biggest problems concerning to the students is that they lack seriously of business vocabulary and terminology Form the teachers’ part, it is because they not equip the students with the appropriate reading strategies and techniques to deal with various types of reading texts and materials Finally, the materials are also blamed for having long texts with many new words and grammatical structures and the contents are too academic for the students to obtain The thesis suggests several implications to help enhance the students’ ESP reading competence in all three aspects causing the students problems Firstly, in order to learn ESP better the students must be clearly aware of the role of reading skill in their future job More importantly, they need to be developed with reading strategies and techniques Besides, it is necessary to encourage them to develop extensive reading habits For the teachers, one of the most important solutions is to improve their background knowledge of business Moreover, the teachers should try to have suitable teaching methodologies for the subject Finally, there should be some adjustments in terms of the contents of the ESP course books in order to fit the level of the students while meeting the requirements of the course In addition to this, students’ needs also need to be taken into consideration when designing materials It is hoped that the study would contribute significantly to better the current teaching and learning English for Business at TUEBA Great as efforts have been, certain errors are unavoidable The researcher herself would highly appreciate every reader’s comments and tolerance for the shortcomings and deficiencies of the study Limitations and suggestions for further study It is widely admitted that limitations of almost researches are inevitable; this study is also of no exception Firstly, in terms of methodology, the study is limited in the fact that the data may not fully reflect all aspects of reading difficulties in all the areas The informants sometimes contradict themselves in giving their responses; therefore, the perceptions may not be always accurate and reliable Secondly, the researcher’s experience in teaching ESP is limited; thus, the solutions suggested are likely to be subjective and incomplete, leaving other issues for debate Finally, within the frame of the thesis, the researcher merely focuses on the students’ difficulties and their causes There was no chance for her to deal with other factors affecting the reading process like students’ general knowledge, language aptitudes, language exposure and personal factors This is called for other further study REFERENCES Aebersold, J.A and Field M.L (1997), From Reader to Reading Teacher, Cambridge University Press Cambridge Anthony, L (1999), ESP in Japan – Background and Current Issues, ASOCOPI ESP Review 3, pp 2-3, Colombia Association of English teachers, Colombia Al-Khatib, M.A (2005), “English in the Work Place An Analysis of the Communication Needs of Tourism and Banking Personnel”, Asian EFL Journal (2), http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/June_05_akh.php Blay, R.; Mercado, K.A.; and Villacorta, J (2009), “The Relationship between Motivation and Second Language Reading Comprehension among Fourth Grade Filipino Students”, Philippine ESL Journal 2, pp 5-31 Bui, T.N.H (2006), A study on Reading 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Forum, April, pp 21-23 Muhammad Ali Salmani-Nodoushan (2002), Text familiarity, reading tasks, and ESP test performance: A study on Iranian LEP and non – LEP University students, a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Faculty of foreign languages, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman Le, T.T.H (2006), A study on how to improve ESP reading skills for the students of Information Technology, M.A Minor Thesis, Vietnam National University, Hanoi Picket, D (1986), Business English: Falling between two stools Comlon 26, pp 16-21 Ping, D & Gu, W (2004), “Teaching trial and analysis of English for technical communication”, Asian EFL Journal 6(1), Retrieved March 5th, 2009 from http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/04_pd_wg.php Robinson, P (1991), ESP Today: a Practitioner’s Guide, Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall International S Čepon (2005), Business English in Practical Terms, Scripta Manent 1(1), pp 45-54, Journal of the Slovene Association of LSP Teachers, ISSN: 1854-2042 Strevens, P (1988) “ESP after twenty years: A re-appraisal”, In M Tickoo (Ed.), ESP: State of the Art, pp 1-13 Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Centre Varaprasad, C (1997), “Some classroom strategies: developing critical literacy awareness”, English Teaching Forum, No.3, July, pp 35 Websites: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/effective-teaching-reading-comprehension-strategies.html, Effective Teaching: Reading Comprehension Strategies http://www.dvc.edu/english/Learning_Resources/ATutorsAnalysis.htm http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainstorming http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/transform/teachers/specialist-areas/business-english, Business English - Introduction APPENDIX I PHIẾU ĐIỀU TRA NGHIÊN CỨU (Vietnamese version) Bảng câu hỏi nhằm phục vụ cho nghiên cứu tìm hiểu khó khăn việc rèn luyện phát triển kỹ Đọc môn Tiếng Anh Chuyên ngành sinh viên năm thứ trường Đại học Kinh tế Quản trị Kinh doanh Thái Nguyên, nguyên nhân gây khó khăn nhằm đưa số giải pháp giúp sinh viên học tốt môn Tiếng Anh Chuyên ngành Các câu trả lời mà bạn cung cấp có ý nghĩa quan trọng nghiên cứu Dữ liệu điều tra sử dụng cho mục đích nghiên cứu, ngồi khơng có mục đích khác Chỉ người nghiên cứu có quyền sử dụng thơng tin phiếu điều tra thơng tin bảo mật mong bạn trả lời theo suy nghĩ Sự giúp đỡ bạn đánh giá cao A Thông tin cá nhân  Giới tính: Nam/ Nữ Tuổi: …………  Gia đình bạn sống đâu: Nơng thơn  Thành thị   Trước học trường Đại học Kinh tế Quản trị Kinh doanh Thái Nguyên, bạn có học Tiếng Anh khơng? Có  Khơng  - Nếu câu trả lời bạn CÓ, bạn bắt đầu học năm nào? …………… - Nếu câu trả lời bạn KHƠNG, bạn học ngoại ngữ nào? - Điểm trung bình mơn Tiếng Anh đại cương kì bạn (khoảng) bao nhiêu? ……… B Nội dung câu hỏi I Quan điểm/ thái độ việc học tiếng Anh học kỹ đọc hiểu tiếng Anh chuyên ngành Mục đích học Tiếng Anh bạn gì? A Để đọc tài liệu tiếng Anh B Để du học nước sử dụng tiếng Anh C Để giao tiếp làm việc với người nước ngồi D Để dễ dàng tìm việc sau tốt nghiệp E Khác (hãy rõ): ……………………………………………………………… Mục đích học kỹ Đọc hiểu bạn gì? A Để mở rộng kiên thức chuyên ngành B Để nâng cao kiến thức Tiếng Anh kiến thức chuyên ngành C Để đọc tài liệu, sách, báo giải trí tiếng Anh D Khơng có mục đích E Khác (xin rõ): ………………………………………………………………… Theo bạn kỹ ngoại ngữ quan trọng nhất/ sử dụng nhiều công việc bạn sau tốt nghiệp? A Nghe B Nói C Đọc D Viết Bạn nghĩ việc học tiếng Anh chuyên ngành? A Rất cần thiết B Cần thiết C Không cần thiết D Không cần thiết II Quan điểm/ thái độ loại tài liệu tiếng Anh Bạn thích đọc loại tài liệu tiếng Anh nhất? A Sách, báo, tạp chí có liên quan đến chuyên ngành bạn B Các tài liệu bắt buộc mơn học giáo trình, sách tham khảo, tra cứu C Các tác phẩm văn học, ấn phẩm giải trí D Các loại tài liệu khác (hãy rõ): ……………………………………………… Loại khóa tiếng Anh chuyên ngành thường gây cho bạn nhiều khó khăn nhất? A Các viết học thuật lĩnh vực cụ thể kinh tế, thương mại B Các báo, phân tích kinh tế, thương mại C Các tài liệu giao dịch kinh tế, thương mại (thư tín, hợp đồng, thơng cáo báo chí, …) D Khơng có khó khăn E Ý kiến khác (hãy rõ): ………………………………………………………… Bạn nghĩ tài liệu đọc hiểu mà giáo viên dạy tiếng Anh chuyên ngành bạn sử dụng để dạy bạn ỏ lớp? A Khó tẻ nhạt B Khó hay hữu ích C Phù hợp trình độ D Dễ tẻ nhạt III Những khó khăn việc học đọc hiểu tiếng Anh chuyên ngành nguyên nhân Về từ vựng, bạn gặp khó khăn việc: A Hiểu nhớ thuật ngữ thương mại B Phát âm nhớ cụm từ dài C Tìm nghĩa phù hợp từ đa nghĩa D Hiểu nhớ cụm từ thành ngữ, phép ẩn dụ, cụm động từ, cụm danh từ E Ý kiến khác: …………………………………………………………………… Về ngữ pháp, bạn gặp khó khăn việc: A Phân biệt từ loại (danh từ, động từ, tính từ, …) B Hiểu sử dụng động từ, dạng động từ C Hiểu sử dụng giới từ, cụm giới từ D Hiểu sử dụng cấu trúc câu không quen thuộc E Phân biệt loại câu đơn, câu phức, chủ động, bị động F Ý kiến khác: ………………………………………………………………… 10 Về kỹ đọc hiểu, bạn gặp khó khăn việc: A Đọc lướt để lấy ý B Đọc nhanh để tìm thơng tin chi tiết C Đốn nghĩa từ đoán nội dung đọc dựa theo ngữ cảnh D Hiểu hàm ngơn đọc E Tóm tắt đọc F Trả lời câu hỏi đọc hiểu G Ý kiến khác: ……………………………………………………………………… 11 Theo bạn, nguyên nhân gây khó khăn cho bạn việc đọc hiểu tiếng Anh chuyên ngành? A Bài đọc dài nhiều từ B Bài đọc có nhiều cấu trúc ngữ pháp, nhiều câu phức, câu ghép dài C Nội dung xa lạ D Bạn thiếu vốn từ vựng, lĩnh vực kinh tế, thương mại E Bạn khơng có động học tập F Giáo viên khơng dạy bạn kỹ đọc G Giáo viên không giải thích luyện tập cho bạn từ vựng cấu trúc ngữ pháp trước đọc hiểu H Ý kiến khác: ……………………………………………………………………… IV Mong đợi sinh viên để giúp học tiếng Anh chuyên ngành tốt 12 Để giúp cho việc đọc hiểu tiếng Anh chuyên ngành bạn tốt hơn, theo bạn giáo trình tiếng Anh chuyên ngành nên có điều chỉnh, bổ sung nào? A Các đọc nên sát với thực tế nghề nghiệp B Các đọc chuyên ngành nên giảm tính học thuật C Các đọc nên ngắn gọn D Các đọc có lượng từ vừa phải E Nội dung đọc nên phong phú đa dạng F Ý kiến khác: …………………………………………………………………… 13 Để giúp bạn học đọc tiếng Anh chuyên ngành tốt hơn, bạn mong muốn điều giáo viên việc dạy đọc? A Giải thích kỹ tượng ngữ pháp đọc B Giải thích cung cấp nghĩa tiếng Việt thuật ngữ chuyên ngành C Cung cấp thêm kiến thức theo lĩnh vực chuyên ngành D Giải thích cung cấp thủ thuật đọc phù hợp với E Cung cấp nhiều dạng tập để giúp sinh viên thực hành dễ nhớ từ vựng F Kiểm tra nhiều khả dịch thuật G Ý kiến khác: …………………………………………………………………… 14 Bạn nghĩ bạn làm để tự nâng cao khả đọc hiểu tiếng Anh chuyên ngành mình? A Luyện đọc hàng ngày tài liệu tiếng Anh chuyên ngành bạn B Chăm tự giác học tiếng Anh chuyên ngành C Học thuộc từ vựng thuật ngữ tiếng Anh chuyên ngành D Tìm hiểu phát triển chiến lược học đọc E Củng cố thêm kiến thức tiếng Anh F Ý kiến khác: APPENDIX II QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS This survey is designed to find out the difficulties of the student in learning to read English document and materials for Business Purposes and their causes Besides, it aims to make out the way to help students improve their reading skills of English for Business Your assistance to complete this questionnaire is highly appreciated Your answers to the questions will be studies in the teacher’s point of view upon the student’s difficulties and their possible causes It is secured that this is for research purpose only and that you will not be identified in any discussion of the data So please response to each statement or questions as frankly and accurately as possible Thank you very much for your assistance A Personal information − Gender: male/ female Age: ……………… − How long have you been teaching English for Business? ……………year(s) B Questions I Teacher’s attitudes towards English learning and learning to read English for Business Which of the following English language skills you think is used most frequently by the students in their future job? A Listening B Speaking C Reading D Writing What you think about teaching and learning English for Business at your university? A Very essential B Essential C Not very essential D Not essential at all II Teachers’ opinion of English materials Which types of materials of English for Business you find difficult to teach? A Academic texts in particular fields of Economics and Business B Journals and analysis in the field of Economics and Business C Document in business transactions (business letters, contracts, press announcement) D There is no difficulty E Others: ………………………………………………………………………… What you think of the ESP reading materials you are teaching? A Difficult and boring B Difficult but interesting and helpful C Suitable to the student’s knowledge D Easy and boring III Students’ difficulties in reading Business texts and materials in English and the causes In the area of vocabulary, which difficulties you think the students have? A Understanding and remembering business terminologies B Understanding and remembering lengthy words and phrases C Finding appropriate meaning of polysemantic words D Understanding and remembering idiomatic expression, metaphors, verb phrases and noun phrases E Others: In the area of grammar, which difficulties you think the students have? A Recognizing part of speech such as: nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc B Understanding and using verb tenses and forms C Understanding and using prepositions and preposition phrases D Understanding and using unfamiliar syntactic structures E Understanding and identifying types of sentences such as: simple or complex sentences, passive or active voice F Others: In terms of reading skill, which difficulties you think the students have? A Skimming to get the main ideas B Scanning to get specific information C Guessing meaning of new words and predicting the content of the text D Recognizing the implication of the text E Summarizing the text F Answering comprehension questions G Others: In your opinion, which of the following can cause students problems in their ESP learning? A The texts are too long and full of new words B The texts have a lot of new and complex grammar structures C The topics of the texts are not very familiar D Students lack vocabulary, especially ESP vocabulary E Students lack motivation F Teachers not teach sufficient reading strategies G Teachers not explain enough and give enough exercises for students to practice H Others: ... materials, teachers and students 2.1 Introduction of Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration and its students Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration. .. the demand of society for improving students' abilities in communicating business information At Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration (TUEBA), the students are trained... THE PRESENT SITUATION OF TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH FOR BUSINESS AT THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (TUEBA) 25 2.1 Introduction of Thai Nguyen University