A survey research on methods to improve students’ TOEIC test taking skills at vietnam maritime university

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES **************** ĐOÀN THỊ SỬ A SURVEY RESEARCH ON METHODS TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ TOEIC TEST TAKING SKILLS AT VIETNAM MARITIME UNIVERSITY Nghiên cứu khảo sát phương pháp nhằm nâng cao kỹ làm thi TOEIC cho sinh viên Trường Đại học Hàng hải Việt Nam M A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Hanoi – 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES **************** ĐOÀN THỊ SỬ A SURVEY RESEARCH ON METHODS TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ TOEIC TEST TAKING SKILLS AT VIETNAM MARITIME UNIVERSITY Nghiên cứu khảo sát phương pháp nhằm nâng cao kỹ làm thi TOEIC cho sinh viên Trường Đại học Hàng hải Việt Nam M A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dr Nguyễn Huy Kỷ Hanoi - 2014 DECLARATION I certify that this research is entirely my work I have provided fully documented references to the work of others The material in this research has not been submitted for assessment in any other formal course of study Hanoi, 10 August 2014 Đoàn Thị Sử i ABSTRACT In an attempt to investigate the obstacles encountered by the students at Vietnam Maritime University (VIMARU) while sitting for the TOEIC test and giving some recommendations to improve their test taking skills, the main purposes of the study were to find out (1) the main difficulties affecting the students’ test results, (2) and giving the students some suggestions to better test taking skills The subjects of the study were 85 third – year students and TOEIC teachers The students were invited to answer a survey questionnaire The result of the research showed that lack of test taking skills led to bad results for the students Besides, the study reveals that teachers played an important role in instructing the students about necessary techniques in the hope that they would gain better scores ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my very affectionate and deeplyfelt thanks to my supervisor, Dr Nguyễn Huy Kỷ, for his effective instructions and invaluable advice during the preparation and completion of this paper I also wish to acknowledge my debt to all the lecturers of the Faculty of Post- Graduate Studies at Vietnam National University, Hanoi – University of Languages & International Studies, whose lectures and ideas have inspired my thesis My appreciation also goes to the lecturers and students at Vietnam Maritime University for their valuable assistance in completing my survey questionnaire and providing me with a lot of useful information Finally, I would like to send my great thanks to my family, my friends for their encouragements and advice On the whole, without all their help my paper would not have possibly been completed iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS TOEIC: Test of English for International Communication TOEFL: Test of English as a Foreign Language IELTS: International English Language Testing System VIMARU: Vietnam Maritime University FLC: Foreign Language Center ETS: Educational Testing Service iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: Students’ attitute towards TOEIC test (Questions 1, &3) Table 2: Students’ attitude towards TOEIC listening classes (Questions 4, 5, & 6) Table 3: Factors that cause difficulty in TOEIC listening texts (Question 7) Table 4: Factor that causes difficulty in TOEIC reading texts (Question 10) Table 5: Students’ attitude towards TOEIC reading classes (Questions 8, 9) Table 6: Students’ preparation for the TOEIC test (listening skill) (Questions 11, 12) Table 7: Students’ preparation for the TOEIC test (reading skill) (Questions 13, 14, 15, 16) Table 8: Students’ expectation from the teachers (17, 18) Table 9: Students’ attitude towards TOEIC supplementary materials (Questions 19, 20, 21, 22) v TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration i Abstract .ii Acknowledgements iii List of abbreviations iv List of tables and figures v Table Of Contents vi PART A: INTRODUCTION 1.Rationale of the study 2.Objectives of the study 3.Methods of the study 4.Research questions 5.Scope of the study 6.Organization of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 The TOEIC test 1.2 An overview of the previous studies 1.3 Theoretical background 1.4 Summary 13 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 14 2.1 An introduction about VIMARU and FLC 14 2.2 Students and learning requirements 15 2.3 Teachers and teaching methods 16 2.4 Materials and Assessments 16 CHAPTER 3: DATA COLLECTION, DATA ANALYSIS, MAJOR FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 18 3.1 Selection of subjects 18 3.2 Data collection instruments 18 vi 3.3 Data analysis, findings and discussion 19 3.4 Summary 29 CHAPTER 4: SOME SUGGESTED METHODS TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ TOEIC TEST TAKING SKILLS AT VIMARU 31 4.1 Suggestions for the teachers 31 4.2 Suggestions for the students 34 PART C: CONCLUSION 39 1.Recapitulation 39 2.Conclusions 39 3.Teaching implications 40 4.Limitations of the study 41 5.Suggestions for further study 41 REFERENCES 42 APPENDIX I vii PART A: INTRODUCTION In the first chapter, the researcher introduces the reasons for chosing the thesis, as well as the scope, methods, objectives, and the organization of the study The research questions are also stated Rationale of the study There is no doubt that the role of English in the life of any society in the world today has been becoming more and more important The widespread need for English as an international language puts a considerable pressure on the education resources of any countries In case of our country, since our government carried out the open door policy to attract foreign investment and co-operate with other countries, teaching and learning English has become necessary Moreover, it is the English that is used as an effective medium of international communication It is the language of trade, science, technology, tourism, sport, music and many other fields of life That is the reason why at present, learning English is not only the interest but also the great and practical demand for many people, especially for students who always want to assess the modern world Therefore, English is now taught as a compulsory subject to all students at university in our country English plays an important part in the growth and global intergration Nowadays, the criteria for evaluating one’s English ability for people who wish to get a good job by A, B, C certificates is out of date IELTS, TOEFL, TOEIC have been the best choices Together with other requirements, TOEIC certificate is really necessary for any job seekers That’s why many people are trying their best to be successful in the TOEIC test At VIMARU students are required to get TOEIC certificate as a condition to graduate The required score depends on the course that the students are taking in From my observation as a lecturer of English, my students hardly their test well right at the first test They have to the test again and again to achieve the score they need before graduation They have to sit for a Listening and Reading much better prepared when they actually listen The second strategy is to listen and elimilate incorrect answer choices 4.2.1.1.2 For Part This part of the test is a pure listening challenge as there are no clues students can use to predict what they are going to hear Students should not expect the kind of set- pattern responses they may have studied in school Responses here are authentic and students must often listen for the implied meaning of the response to realize it is the correct one 4.2.1.1.3 For Part Here are two key test strategies for scoring Part well Firstly, the studenst should answer the questions as quick as they can, if possible while listening text is still being read Secondly, use the time between conversations to skim the next three questions, predict what they are likely to hear and isolate exactly what they should be listening for 4.2.1.1.4 For Part In this part, the students have to listen to longer texts given by single speaker with different topics It is important that the students have an exact idea of what they are listening for in advance – listening first and considering the questions later will not work because there is simply too much text to remember And to well on this part, students must learn to recognize paraphrasing 4.2.1.2 For Reading comprehension section 4.2.1.2.1 For Part One recommended approach for handling this part effectively is called “2 – Pass” technique On the first Pass the students go through quickly answering all the questions they find easy If they not know the answer within ten seconds, they skip to the next question On the second Pass, the students go back to the difficult questions left blanks If they are not still sure the correct answer after thirty seconds 35 they should guess and move on This technique ensures that students not get stuck on the more challenging questions and end up wasting a lot of time 4.2.1.2.2 For Part This part of the test brings the same kind of challenges as Part Students should be encouraged to go straight to the first gapped sentence and use the techniques described for Part as these will work for the majority of Part questions However, at least one item in each passage will not have enough information in the sentence alone to answer the question In this case, the students must skim the surrounding sentence to help them choose 4.2.1.2.3 For Part From the researcher’s observation, when the time runs out, students are left with a string of blank answers or random guesses while doing Part To avoid that happening, time management is critical It is advisable that students should (1) Part before Parts and 6.There is no rule that parts have to be done in the order presented If students not know the key words needed to get the answer to questions in Parts and 6, spending extra time is not going to help In Part 7, however having an extra time on on a difficult question could make a huge difference in the search for the correct answer, (2) the students should not start by reading the passage Jumping blindly into the text can be terrifying for lower level students and ineffectively for students of all level Students should go straight to the questions and not to look at the passage until they know exactly what they are looking for, (3) the students should identify the easier questions and those first There are sound reasons for this approach If students run out of time, at least they can be certain they have not missed out on any easy points 4.2.2 Developing TOEIC test taking skills In addition to test – specific practice outlined above, students will benifit from developing their core listening and reading skills 36 4.2.2.1 Developing listening skills Pre-listening activity should be taken into account to Listening comprehension section effectively Students who build good pre-listening skill may know what they are listening for and predict the content of the text before the recording is played This technique is mostly useful for doing Parts and as the questions are printed on the page So by glancing the questions allows students to glean a lot of information about the context and develope an initial “schema” Exposuring to different accents and connected speech can be considered as important factors for the students while building up TOEIC listening skill The TOEIC test listening passages include speakers from the US, Canada, Britian and Australia Listening regularly to recordings from BBC UK or CNN may help the students get accustomed to different accents and connected forms Building vocabulary should be the most important thing that students need to everyday From the major findings, vocabulary is probably the single most important factor influencing success on the TOEIC test.It is essential that new vocabulary should be enriched day by day by keeping notes while studying in class and practicing reading at home 4.2.2.2 Developing reading skills Scanning means reading quickly to find specific details In the TOEIC test, with time a key factor, this skill is extremely important, both for the specific information and vocabulary questions in the Listening and Reading Section students are encouraged to quickly scan the answer choices and pick out key words to help focus their attention before the listening begins The key to develope this skill is to pratice with tight time limits As their ability increases with practice, they will gian confidence Gradually reduce the time allowed Skimming means reading to get the main idea of a text To get the gist of a text, the students should look for the titles or headings first, after that quickly read the first and the last sentence of each paragraph, then skim the passage, reading only nouns 37 and verbs Such practice, if done regularly and under timed conditions, can sharpen the students’ skill and accustom them to spotting the same sort of lexical relationship under test conditions 4.3 Summary From the findings in chapter 3, the researcher gives some suggestions for both the teachers and the students in this chapter From experiences of a TOEIC teacher, the researcher would like to share her own teaching experiences to her coteachers to build their better lesson plans And from her understanding the students’ needs and difficilties that her students are facing with, the reseracher gives them some essential techniques in the hope that if these are done regularly, they will improve their test taking skills Thus their test scores are better improved 38 PART C: CONCLUSION In this part, the researcher will summarize some major findings and conclusions of the thesis Limitation is unavoidable with any studies so the researcher will also give some suggestions for further studies Recapitulation In order to answer three research questions, the study is based on the status of teaching and learning TOEIC test taking skills at FLC of VIMARU in particular By reading, analyzing and summarizing materials and books relating to the thesis in combination with doing the survey questionnaire, the major findings and solutions to the thesis questions are found Conclusions The students at FLC of VIMARU are fully aware of their mission while sitting for the TOEIC test They have good motivation in learning for it However, they are facing with some difficulties that lead to bad TOEIC test results Firstly, their poor vocabulary can be considerd as the first reason for an unsuccessfull TOEIC test It is a barrier to read and listen effectively The students often find it hard to comprehend the listening section with full of new word long texts They also find it depressed while reading long texts with too much new word that they not know Secondly, poor listening and reading skills can be regarded in the second place leading to failure in TOEIC test The students not knoe how to deal with Listening and Reading sections effectively They not know effective techniques to listen and read effectively The students are aware of the diffficulty of the test so most of them always try to practice listening and reading at home However, they not practice these two skills in an appropriate way so that the test results are not improved 39 The teachers at FLC play an important role in guiding their students with better methods to study for TOEIC From the researcher’s observation, they are very enthusiastic in teaching However, because of unequal students’ level so it is hard for them to design a suitable lesson plan that meets all the students’ needs The supplementary materials they choose sometimes are not suitable for their students There are several factors that cause bad TOEIC test results for the students at FLC of VIMARU To be successful in this tets, there are recommendations for both the teachers and the students at FLC of VIMARU Firstly, the teachers should spend more and more time designing appropriate lesson plan for their each TOEIC class Besides, they should provide their students with methods to improve their test taking skills and help them become more efficient and effective test takers Secondly, long-term recommendation is that students work hard to increase their overall knowledge of English and their receptive skills Encourage lots of reading, effective notation and review of vocabulary and extensive listening practice Teaching implications The receptive skills (listening/reading skills) tested on the TOEIC test can be used to access productive ability There is very high correlation between scores on the TOEIC and the scores on the Language Proficiency Interview Overall, the researcher would tend to indicate that the test is a fairly good indicator of oral ability The researcher would own experience accords with this view and the students in classes she taught where placement was on the basic of TOEIC score had a fairly consistent spoken English ability Especially when the students know how to practice Part II of the test effectively, they will find little difficulty in everyday conversations On the issue of written scores, there is a high correlation between the TOEIC and direct writing measure The researcher has found that there is a marked variation in the writing ability of students with similar TOEIC scores 40 Limitations of the study In any research papers, limitations are unavoidable The study presented in this minor thesis is of no exception Firstly, the study has already dealt with the difficulties faced by third year students at FLC of VIMARU, has not dealt with students of all level but just third year students while all students should be assisted to have better TOEIC test taking skills What’s more, the techniques suggested though proved to be useful and effective within the two TOEIC classes at FLC have not been proved to have good effects to students of lower or higher proficiency In addition, the techniques suggested are just those that have been collected during the process or teaching or with the experience of the researcher but not those actually invented Sugggestions for further studies The researcher of this study hopes that in the coming time she can have a thorough study on students of all classes at FLC and their difficulties in learning for TOEIC test Moreover, teachers with the challenges they are facing in teaching at large classes should also become the key participant in her further study More ambitiously, she expects to work out her own techniques or strategies for better TOEIC test taking skills for her students but not just collecting them from different sources appropriate to the situation at FLC The researcher will highly appreciate further remarks on her paper from teachers and friends to improve further study both in the content and in the form 41 REFERENCES Allen, W.P (1977) Selecting reading material for foreign students Rockville, Mt: English Language Service Doff, A (1988) Teaching: a training course for teachers Cambridge: CUP Duffy, GG & Rochier, L.R (1986) Improving Classroom Reading Instruction:A decision Making Approach New York: Random House Goodman, K.S, (1970) Reading a psycholinguistics guessing game In H Singer & B.R.Ruddell (Eds), Theoretical models and processes of reading Newark Delaware: International Reading Association Greenwood, J (1985) The teaching of English as an International language Collins: Glassgow and London Grellet, F (1981) Developing reading skills Cambridge: CUP Hayes, B.L (1991) The effective teaching of reading In B.L Hayes (Eds), Effective strategies for teaching reading, 3-12 Boston: Allyn & Bacon Harmer, H (1989) The practice of English language teaching Harlow: Longman Lewis, M & Hill, J (1985) Practical techniques for language teaching London: Commercial Color Press 10 Nunan, D (1991) Language teaching methodology Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education 11 Nuttal, C (1982) Teaching reading skills in a foreign language London: Heineman 12 Pearson Ian (1981), The Functional Notional Approach in Language Teaching, p 80 13 Robinson, R & Good, T.L (1987) Being an effective reading teacher: Harper and Row Publisher 14 Rummerhart, D (1977).Towards an interactive model of reading In S Dordic (Eds) Attention and Performance IV Academic Press 42 15 Samuels, S.J & Hamil, M.L (1988) Models for the reading process Cambridge: CUP 16 Simon, Gr& Michael, S (1993) Effective Reading Cambridge: CUP 17 Stanovich, K (1980) Towards an Interactive compensatory models of individual differences in the development of reading fluency Reading Research Quarterly 18 Swam, M (1975) Inside meaning Cambridge: CUP 19 Ur, P (1996) A course in language teaching Cambridge: CUP 20 Wilga.M.Rivers, Teaching Foreign Language Skills, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 1968, p 135 21 Williams, E (1986) Reading in the language classroom Oxford: Macmillan Publisher 43 APPENDIX SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE (FOR THE STUDENTS) This survey questionnaire is designed for my research into methods to improve TOEIC test – taking skills for the students at Vietnam Maritime University Your assistance in completing the survey is highly appreciated All the information provided by you will only used for the study purpose So, please answer the questions as honestly as possible Thank you very much for your cooperation Đoàn Thị Sử, Teacher of English at Foreign Language Center, Vietnam Maritime University I Personal information  Your gender : Male  Female   Class: II Your opinions on the TOEIC test, teachers and ways of teaching and learning TOEIC, Question 1: Why you study for the TOEIC test? a) to gain TOEIC certificate before graduating b) to communicate with others c) to entertain d) to study abroad Question 2: What you think of TOEIC test? a) easy b) difficult c) quite difficult d) very difficult Question While sitting for a TOEIC test, how you feel about the time limitation? I a) long b) short c) suitable Question 4: What the teachers usually with TOEIC listening sections in the class? a) all the four parts for the students b) give the students answers c) give detailed explainations about the students’ errors d) give the students listening techniques Question What kinds of exercises your teachers often ask you to in TOEIC listening lesson? a) listen to the text then decide the statements are true or false b) listen to the text then answer the questions c) listen to the text then identify the mistakes and correct them in given statements d) listen and fill in the blanks (gap – filling) e) listen and complete the chart / form Question In TOEIC listening lesson, who decides to stop or replay the record? a) the teacher b) the students Question 7: What you find most difficult when you listen to a TOEIC recording? a) unfamiliar topic b) speech of the speakers c) the accent of the speaker II d) vocabulary and structure of the recording e) unfamiliar context Question What your teachers often in every TOEIC reading lesson? a) help you understand the task of the text b) provide you with any new words and structures you ask for c) make the task simple by asking you to read immediately d) translate the text Question 9: What are you often told to before reading TOEIC text? a) answer the questions raised by the teacher b) look for new words and grammatical items, after that, asking the teacher to explain c) read the questions first d) scan the text Question 10 What you find most difficult when you read a TOEIC text? a) vocabulary b) understanding the text quickly c) remembering grammatical items d) writing styles Question 11: How often you practice listening skill for TOEIC at home? a) rarely b) every day c) 2-3 times a day d) once a week Question 12: At home, what will you if you not clearly understand the text you are listening to? a) listen to the text once more III b) listen to the text again sentence by sentence c) listen again and again until we understand the text d) see the tapescript when there is something that we not understand Question 13: How you prepare for your TOEIC reading exercises before class? a) not carefully b) carefully c) very carefully d) without preparation Question 14: How often you read TOEIC supplementary materials? a) Always b) Usually c) Sometimes d) Never Question 15: How you deal with new words in the TOEIC text while reading? a) find their meanings in the dictionaries and learning them by heart b) ask our teacher or our friends for help c) guess their meanings by the context clues d) ignore them and continue reading Question 16 What you often to improve your reading skill for TOEIC test? a) read a lot b) many kinds of the exercises c) enrich our vocabulary as much as possible IV d) try to get better understanding of grammar Question 17: What would you expect from your teachers to help you with your listening skill for the TOEIC test? a) show us the techniques right at the beginning of our course b) design TOEIC listening test to evaluate our level at the end of each course c) provide us with different listening sources d) help us identify the task of listening exercises Question 18 Do you like your teacher’s methods of teaching reading comprehension text? a) Yes, because the teacher helps us to translate the text into Vietnamese b) Yes, because the teacher always varies the way of teaching c) No, because the teacher only focuses on explaining new words and translating the text into Vietnamese d) No, because the teacher never provides us with any techniques to read Question 19: How you find the current TOEIC materials in class linguistically? a) too easy b) too difficult c) suitable Question 20: How you find the current TOEIC materials in class in terms of topics? a) various b) interesting c) boring d) unfamiliar Question 21: How you feel about the length of the current TOEIC materials in class? V a) suitable b) long c) too long Question 22: How you feel about the grammar of the current TOEIC materials in class? a) easy to understand b) complicated c) a bit complicated d) very complicated ************* Thank you very much for your help ************* VI ... reading comprehension are also introduced 1.1 An overview on the TOEIC test TOEIC is an acronym that stands for Test of English for International Communication The TOEIC test measures one’s ability... questions, the study is based on the status of teaching and learning TOEIC test taking skills at FLC of VIMARU in particular By reading, analyzing and summarizing materials and books relating to. .. collection instruments To arrive at the reliable data, survey was conducted and questionnaire was administered to 85 students at two TOEIC classes The questionnaire was used as instrument for data