The development and evaluation of authentic supplementary materials for first year students in general english course at tháibình university

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ******************* VŨ MAI DUYÊN THE DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF UTHENTIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS IN GENERAL ENGLISH COURSE AT THÁI BÌNH UNIVERSITY PHÁT TRIỂN VÀ ĐÁNH GIÁ TÀI LIỆU CHÂN THỰC BỔ TRỢ CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT TRONG KHÓA HỌC TIẾNG ANH CƠ BẢN TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC THÁI BÌNH M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Hanoi, 2015 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ******************* VŨ MAI DUYÊN THE DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF UTHENTIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS IN GENERAL ENGLISH COURSE AT THÁI BÌNH UNIVERSITY PHÁT TRIỂN VÀ ĐÁNH GIÁ TÀI LIỆU CHÂN THỰC BỔ TRỢ CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT TRONG KHÓA HỌC TIẾNG ANH CƠ BẢN TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC THÁI BÌNH M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dương Thu Mai, PhD Hanoi, 2015 DECLARATION I certify that I am the sole author of this thesis All the material in this study which is not my own work has been identified and acknowledged This thesis has not been submitted for assessment in any other university or institution wholly or partially I also accept all the requirements of ULIS relating to the retention and use of M.A graduation thesis deposited in the library Vũ Mai Duyên i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I owe my deepest gratitude to my supportive supervisor, Duong Thu Mai, Ph.D, for her whole-hearted assistance, encouragement as well as the profound guidance she gave me while I was doing my research I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to all my teachers and lecturers in Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their valuable instruction and assistance throughout the realization of this thesis I am heartily thankful to the administrators, my colleagues, and first-year students at Thái Bình University for their willingness to participate in the research Without their help, this project could not be fulfilled Last but not least, I am indebted to my beloved family and friends who have unfailingly inspired me to complete this study Hanoi, September 2014 ii ABSTRACT This study attempts to develop and evaluate a set of authentic supplementary materials for students in a General English course at Thái Bình University.Approaches, principled frameworksand selection criteria are identified to serve as basic guideline for the process of developing materials The material evaluation proceeds using survey questionnaire and interview Quantitatively and qualitatively analytical results revealed that the developed materials appeared to bring about positive enhancement in students’ learning English.Bothstudents and teachers demonstrated highly supportive judgments toward the materials’ effectiveness in nearly all aspects but not much in writing skill Man-Whitney U test result indicatedsignificant relations between students’ evaluations and their English proficiency Based on the findings, the thesis provides pedagogic implications and suggestions for further research which would be of considerable interest to English language teachers, learners as well as material developers and evaluators iii LISTOF ABBREVIATIONS ASM set of Authentic Supplementary Materials C/F Credit / Fair (students) CLT Communicative Language Teaching ELT English Language Teaching ESP English for Specific Purposes G/vG Good, very Good (students) HOTS High-Order Thinking Skill LLT Language Teaching and Learning MoET (Vietnamese) Ministry of Education and Training SD Standard of Deviation SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences TBU Thái Bình University ULIS University of Language and International Studies VNU Vietnam National University, Hanoi iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LISTOF ABBREVIATIONS iv LIST OF FIGURES viii LIST OF TABLES viii PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Aims of study and research questions Scope of the study Method of the study Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Material Development in English Language Teaching 1.1.1 Materials in English language teaching 1.1.2 Process of Material Development in English language teaching 1.1.3 Process of Authentic Supplementary Material Development in ELT 1.2 Material Evaluation in English Language Teaching 12 1.2.1 Approaches to Material Evaluation 13 1.2.2 Principles for Material Evaluation 14 1.2.3 Material Evaluators 15 1.2.4 Criteria for Material Evaluation 16 1.2.5 Factors relating to Material Evaluations 19 1.2.6 Authentic Material Evaluation Framework in English language teaching 19 v 1.3 Review of related studies 1.4 Chapter summary CHAPER II: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Context of the study 2.1.1 Thái Bình Univ 2.1.2 General Englis 2.2 The study 2.2.1 The Developm 2.2.2 The Evaluation 2.3 Chapter summary CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 3.1 Strengths and weaknesses of the ASM (Research qu 3.1.1 Theoretical wo 3.2.2 Practical Utiliz 3.3 The impacts of the ASM (Research question 2) 3.3.1 Impactson ling 3.3.2 Impactson com 3.3 Differences between the evaluationsof thetwo group 3.3 Future use of the ASM 3.4 Chapter summary PART C: CONCLUSIONS Summary of the findings and discussion 1.1 The developme 1.2 The evaluation Conclusions Recommendations Limitations vi Suggestions for further research 51 REFERENCES and BIBLIOGRAPHY 52 APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS I APPENDIX 2: RELIABILITY STATISTICS VII APPENDIX 3: Mean scores of evaluations on the ASM VIII APPENDIX 4: Results of Mann Whitney test on two groups’ evaluations IX APPENDIX 5: LEARNING STYLES XI vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1-1: Typical Forward design lesson plan Figure 1-2: Stages in the Backward design process Figure 1-3: A teacher’s path through the production of new or adapted materials .7 Figure 2.2-1: Steps of developing materials 24 Figure 3.1-1: General appropriateness of the ASM 36 Figure 3.1-2: The appropriateness of the ASM’s content 38 Figure 3.1-3: Difficult level of the ASM’s content 38 Figure 3.1-4: The appropriateness of the ASM’s topics/themes 39 Figure 3.1-5: Practical Utilizing of the ASM 40 Figure 3.1-6: Classroom interactions 41 Figure 3.3-1: Impacts of the ASM on macro linguistic skills 42 Figure 3.3-2: Impacts of the ASM on extra-linguistic skills 43 Figure 3.3-3: Impacts of the ASM on linguistic competence 44 Figure 3.3-4: Impacts of the ASM on other components of communicative competence 45 Figure 3.4-1: Significant differences in the evaluations between two student groups .46 LIST OF TABLES Table 2.2-1: Forms of authentic materials in the ASM 26 Table 3.1-1: Students’ learning styles 39 Table 3.1-2:Means on Practical Utilizing 40 Table 3.3-1:Means on linguistic skills 42 Table 3.4-1: Future use of the ASM 47 viii APPENDICES APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS This survey questionnaire is designed for a research of developing and evaluating AUTHENTIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS for First-Year Students in General English Course at ThaiBinh University Your assistance in completing the survey is highly appreciated All the information provided is solely for the study purpose Participants can be confident that all the information achieved from this questionnaire would be dealt with anonymously Thank you very much for your corporation! Part 1: Choose numbers from to in the Scale Column to show your degree of AGREEMENT about the statements in the table below about the Authentic Supplementary Materials (ASM) used in General English Course, in which indicates the highest degree of agreement and indicates the lowest degree o N Statements A General appropriateness The ASM compare favourably with the objectives of the subject The ASM compare favourably with the course-book Learning activities are appropriate with your learning style The difficulty level of the content in ASM is appropriate to students Please specify:  Far higher  Higher B Themes/Topics and Contents Themes and topics in the ASM are relevant to the students’ real life Themes and topics in ASM are update Contents in the ASM are real C Practical Utilizing The appearance (visuals, layout, typography etc.) of color-printed ASM is attractive Instructions in the ASM are clear 10 Technical/technological equipment (Power Point Show – visual aids, CD,cassette….) is effectively utilized 11 Price fortechnical/ technological aids for students’ learning as well asdoing homeassignmentsis suitable to the students’ situational context I 12 Learning activities allow communicative interactions between teacher and students (Students receive feedback about linguistic competence and proficiency level.) 13 Learning activities allow communicative interactions between/among students D Learning activities 14 Learning activities integrate language skills 15 Learning activities help students acquire and use listening skill 16 Learning activities help students acquire and use speaking skill 17 Learning activities help students acquire and use reading skill 18 Learning activities help students acquire and use writing skill 19 Learning activities help students acquire and use presentation skill 20 Learning activities help students acquire and use team-work skill 21 Learning activities promote students’ independence (students are responsible for the English learning) 22 Learning activitiesencourage students’ active involvement in the learning process 23 Learning activities stimulatethinking skills (remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create; critical thinking ; problem solving) E Benefits of Authentic Materials compared with inauthentic materials 24 Grammaris lively presented within real context 25 ASM broaden students’vocabulary of popular topics 26 ASM provide a differentaccents(native, non-native English, ) 27 ASM provide a wide range of text types 28 ASM expand students’ social-cultural knowledge 29 ASM present natural genuine language use by real persons in real situations 30 ASM expose students to meaningful real life experiences 31 Realistic experiences help students memorize the content more easily 32 ASM equips students with practice better learning as well as daily life strategies Part 2: Your general opinion about the ASM (Please tick the box of your choice)  Good (use immediately)  Fair (need improving) II  Not good (abandon) Please express other opinions about the strengths and weaknesses of the ASM Strengths Weaknesses Part 3: Please provide some other information about your English Proficiency Result of the previous General English course  Credit, Fair – C, D (< 7);  Good – B (7,0-8,49);  Very good, excellent (>= 8,50) Thank you very much for your corporation! III APPENDIX : Survey Questionnaire (Vietnamese version) CÂU HỎI ĐIỀU TRA VỀ TÀI LIỆU CHÂN THỰC BỔ TRỢ DÙNG TRONG KHÓA HỌC TIẾNG ANH CƠ BẢN Phiếu điều tra thiết kế nhằm thu thập thông tin đánh giá sinh viên tài liệu chân thực bổ trợ dùng khóa học tiếng Anh Việc trả lời bạn giúp nhiều việc đánh giá, chỉnh lý tài liệu Mọi thông tin cá nhân bạn không bị tiết lộ phần phân tích số liệu Xin chân thành cám ơn bạn tham gia trả lời câu hỏi Phần 1: Hãy chọn thang từ đến cột Mức độ để thể ý kiến bạn tiêu chí đưa bảng sau tài liệu chân thực bổ trợ sử dụng khóa học, ứng với mức độ đồng ý cao mức độ thấp TT Tiêu chí A Độ phù hợp nói chung tài liệu Tài liệu phù hợp với mục tiêu môn học Tài liệu phù hợp với giáo trình Tài liệu phù hợp với nhiều phong cách học tập Kiến thức ngôn ngữ kỹ ngôn ngữ tài liệu cung cấp phù hợpvề độ khóso với trình độ sinh viên Nếu bạn cho kiến thức ngôn ngữ kỹ ngôn ngữ tài liệukhông phù hợp vềđộ khó so với trình độ SV, xin chí 4A  Quá cao so với trình độ SV Quá thấp B Chủ đề Nội dung tài liệu Chủ đề nội dung gắn liền với thực tế sống SV Chủ đề nội dung tài liệu mang tính cập nhật Nội dung tài liệumang tính xác thực C Thực tiễn sử dụng tài liệu CHÂN THỰC Hình thứcthiết kế tài liệu in màu thu hút người sử dụng Hướng dẫn tài liệu cho hoạt động học tập rõ ràng 10 Trangthiết bị kĩ thuật(Power Point Show, CD,cassette….) có tính hỗ trợ cao 11 Chi phí cho trang thiết bị (kĩ thuật, công nghệ…) cần thiết phục vụ việc học làm tập sinh viên phù hợp với điều kiện thực tế IV 12 HĐHT tạo điều kiện cho giảng viên sinh viên giao tiếp hiệu (SV có hội nhận phản hồi từ giảng viên trình độ lực ngôn ngữ) 13 HĐHT tạo điều kiện cho sinh viên giao tiếp hiệu với D Hoạt động học tập (HĐHT) thiết kế dựa tài liệu CHÂN THỰC 14 HĐHT kết hợp kỹ ngôn ngữ 15 HĐHT tạo hội cho sinh viên nắm bắt sử dụng kỹ nghe 16 HĐHT tạo hội cho sinh viên nắm bắt sử dụng kỹ nói 17 HĐHT tạo hội cho sinh viên nắm bắt sử dụng kỹ đọc 18 HĐHT tạo hội cho sinh viên nắm bắt sử dụng kỹ viết 19 HĐHT tạo hội cho sinh viên nắm bắt sử dụng kỹ thuyết trình 20 HĐHT tạo hội cho sinh viên nắm bắt sử dụng kỹ làm việc nhóm 21 HĐHT phát huy tính độc lập SV, SV chịu trách nhiệm với việc học 22 HĐHT khuyến khích tham gia tích cực sinh viên 23 HĐHT kích thích tư bậc cao (ghi nhớ, hiểu biết, ứng dụng, phân tích, đánh giá, sáng tạo; tư phê phán khả giải vấn đề) SV E Lợi ích tài liệu CHÂN THỰC 24 Kiến thức ngữ pháp đượcthể tài liệu cách sinh động 25 Tài liệu mở rộng lượng từ vựng chủ đề quen thuộc cho SV 26 Tài liệu cho phép sinh viên tiếp cận với nhiều loại ngôn ngữ Anh (tiếng Anh chuẩn người xứ, xứ, tiếng địa phương, ) 27 Tài liệu cho phép sinh viên tiếp cận với nhiều loại văn khác 28 Tài liệu cung cấp cho SV kiến thức văn hóa- xã hội đa dạng, lạ 29 Tài liệu cho phép sinh viên tiếp xúc với ngôn ngữ sử dụng người thật tình có thật 30 Tài liệu điều kiện cho SV trải nghiệm thực tế 31 Trải nghiệm chân thực giúp SVghi nhớ kiến thức ngôn ngữ dễ dàng 32 Tài liệu trang bị cho sinh viên chiến lược để sử dụng tiếng Anh cách hiệu học tập sống hàng ngày Phần 2: Xin đánh dấu vào ô tương ứng với ý kiến bạn hướng sử dụng tài liệu CHÂN THỰC BỔ TRỢ  Tốt, tiếp tục sử dụng  Đạt (cần chỉnh sửa) V  Không đạt Ý kiến khác bạn Điểm mạnh Điểm yếu tài liệu chân thực bổ trợ Điểm mạnh Điểm yếu Phần 3: Xin cho biết số thông tin bạn! Kết học tập môn tiếng Anh bạn trước tham gia khóa học TB, TB – C, D (5 -6,9); Khá – B (7,0-8,4) Giỏi – A (8,5-10) Một lần xin chân thành cám ơn bạn tham gia trả lời câu hỏi! VI APPENDIX 2: RELIABILITY STATISTICS Cronbach's Alpha 804 The ASM’s general appropriateness 721 The ASM’s practical utilizing 738 The ASM’s impacts on linguistic knowledge 807 The ASM’s impacts on linguistic skills 798 The ASM’s impacts on extra-linguisticskills 803 The ASM’s impacts on communicative competence VII APPENDIX 3: Mean scores of evaluations on the ASM Items 19 Content from real life (authentic) Presenting skill Instructions_clear 28 Social cultural knowledge 29 Real persons/situations 30 20 10 25 27 26 17 Experiences_meaningful Teamwork Themes/Topics_relevant Tech_helpful Vocabulary Content_update Text-types_various Accents_ various Reading skill Comparable objectives 14 15 12 Integrate_skills Listening skill Teacher_student interact Attractive_print 16 11 Speaking skill Price_reasonable 22 23 31 32 24 Comparable with course-book Sts_active involvement High-order thinking skill Memorize easily Strategies Grammar 21 Sts independence Appropriate to sts’ learning styles Content_difficult 18 Writing skill 13 Sts_sts interactions Grand mean Note: Min: – lowest degree of agreement; – low degree; – normal, – high Max: – highest degree of agreement ; SD – Standard of Deviation VIII APPENDIX 4: Results of Mann Whitney test on two groups’ evaluations Items 1 2 7 Presentation Writing skill Grammar Price_reasonable Sts independence High-order thinking skill Speaking skill Text-types_various Integrate_skills Accents_various Reading skill Content_difficult Theme_relevant Memorize easily Comp_w_coursebook Tech_helpful Instruction_clear Attractive_print Social_cultural Strategies Comparable_w_objectives Teacher_sts interact Listening skill Teamwork Real_E/people/situation Appropriate to sts’learning styles Experiences_meaningful Content_update Sts_sts interactions Content_authentic Active_involvement 2 Vocabulary Note: critical z > 1.96 ; critical p < 0.05 X APPENDIX 5: LEARNING STYLES The four categories of learning styles listed below were first described by Knowles (1982),however, the questionnaire and theory based on that categories were developed by Willing (1988) and Nunan (1991) (1) Concrete learners demonstrate interest in information that has immediate value They would like to see real-life applications for what they are learning They probably learn best through performing practical tasks with verbal, visual, physical experiences and entertained activities (2) Authority-oriented learners are responsible, dependable These “compulsive note- takers express their likes and needs for new contents presented in clear and ordered sequence They prefer what they are doing to be clearly explained They perhaps will not react well to the negotiation of syllabus (3) Communicative learners need personal feedback and interactions; they like to be able to see social usefulness of what they are learning They like to learn by watching, listening, hearing and talking to friends or native speakers outside class They may learn well from discussion and group activities (4) Analytical learners prefer a systematic presentation of new learning materials, they long for logical problem-solving activities These independent learners are more likely to enjoy studying grammar, and reading books, working well by themselves (finding their own mistakes, working out the problems and developing principles) XI ... stage inthe ongoing process of material development 1.2 Material Evaluation in English Language Teaching Evaluation is the “systematic gathering of information” to “judge the fitness” of something... materials for first- year students at TBU in order to compensate for certain unsuitability of the set course- book.Secondly, the studyinvolves itself in the process ofinvestigating the evaluations of. .. developing and evaluating a set of authentic supplementary materials for a General English course 1.1 Material Development in English Language Teaching 1.1.1 Materials in English language teaching