Investigating some problems confronted by teachers and the second year students of hanoi university of sport and physical education in teaching and learning reading esp in sport

Vietnam national university, Hanoi University of Languages and international studies faculty of Post-graduate Studies NGUYEN THI HOAI MY Investigating some problems confronted by teachers and the second-year students of Hanoi university of sports and physical education in teaching and learning reading ESP in sports (Nghiên cứu đánh giá số khó khăn mà giáo viên sinh viên năm thứ hai tr-ờng Đại học SP TDTT Hà Nội phải đối mặt dạy học môn đọc tiếng Anh chuyên ngµnh ThĨ thao) MA MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Supervisor: Phạm Thị Ngọc Ph-ợng, M.A Hanoi, 2010 Vietnam national university, Hanoi University of Languages and international studies faculty of Post-graduate Studies NGUYEN THI HOAI MY Investigating some problems confronted by teachers and the second-year students of Hanoi university of sports and physical education in teaching and learning reading ESP in sports (Nghiên cứu đánh giá số khó khăn mà giáo viên sinh viên năm thứ hai tr-ờng Đại học SP TDTT Hà Nội phải đối mặt dạy học môn đọc tiếng Anh chuyên ngành Thể thao) MA MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Supervisor: Phạm Thị Ngọc Ph-ỵng, M.A Hanoi, 2010 iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Students’ perceptions of the texts in the course book 19 Table 2: Students’ perceptions of vocabulary in the texts 19 Table 3: Students’ ways to get the meanings of specialized vocabulary 20 when reading the texts Table The difficulties in the areas of reading skills 21 Table 5: Students’ views of sources of difficulties 22 Table 6: Students’ pre-reading activities 23 Table 7: Students’ ways of reading 24 Table 8: What help students to understand the text 24 Table 9: Students’ post-reading activities 25 Table 10: The frequency of the students in using supplementary materials 26 Table 11: The students’ desires from their teachers in term of methodology 26 Table 12: The students’ expectations in term of materials 28 v TABLE OF CONTENT Certificate of originality of the thesis i Acknowledgement ii Abstract iii List of tables iv Table of content v Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Significance of the study 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Methodology 1.6 Organization of the study Chapter 2: Literature review 2.1 Reading comprehension in Foreign language learning and in ESP 2.1.1 What is reading and reading comprehension? 2.1.2 ESP reading 2.1.2.1 What is ESP? 2.1.2.2 Reading comprehension in ESP 2.1.3 Differences between ESP and EGP 2.2 Challenges in ESP reading comprehension 2.2.1 Language problems 2.2.2 Reading skill problems 2.2.3 Methodology and Materials 2.3 The roles of ESP teachers 10 2.4 The ESP learners 11 2.5 Learners’ learning strategies 12 2.6 Learner-centeredness in ESP and Learning-Centeredness 13 Chapter 3: Methodology 14 vi 3.1 The setting of the study 14 3.1.1 Purposes of teaching and learning reading English in Sports at HUSPE 14 3.1.2 English language teachers and their methods of teaching 14 3.1.3 Students and their background knowledge 15 3.1.4 Materials 16 3.2 Research questions 16 3.3 The participants 17 3.4 The instruments 17 3.5 Data analysis 18 Chapter 4: Results and Discussion 19 4.1 Data analysis and discussion of students’ survey questionnaires 19 4.2 Data analysis and discussion of the teachers’ interviews 29 4.2.1 Teachers’ opinions on the course book they are teaching 29 4.2.2 Teachers’ ways to deliver their lessons 30 4.2.3 Teachers’ difficulties in teaching reading English for Sports 30 4.2.4 What have you been doing to overcome difficulties? 32 4.2.5 The frequency of teachers in using supplementary materials in 32 teaching ESP reading Chapter 5: Conclusion 33 5.1 Summary of major findings 33 5.1.1 Teachers’ problems 33 5.1.2 Students’ problems 34 5.1.3 In term of course book 35 5.2 Recommendations 35 5.2.1 Training EFL teachers for ESP teaching 35 5.2.2 Applying different approaches to teach vocabulary 36 5.2.3 Treating a reading text as meaning first 37 5.2.4 Making students reading with a purpose 37 5.2.5 Developing students’ reading skills 37 5.2.6 Encouraging students’ active thinking 38 5.2.7 Using post-reading activities 38 vii 5.2.8 Improvement of materials 38 5.3 Limitations for the study 39 References 40 Appendix I Appendix II -1- CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale With the globalization of trade and economy and the continuing increase of international communication in various fields, the demand for English for Specific Purposes is expanding, especially in countries where English is taught as a foreign language Teaching reading comprehension to students plays a very important role in foreign language teaching in general, and in English teaching in particular It is much more important, if teaching and learning conditions are out of the target language environment In specialized non-language universities students learn English as a school curriculum subject, not as their future specialty Most of them consider that the aim of their English learning at university is successfully passing term examinations and if it is possible, using English to read their professional materials that not exist in Vietnamese At Hanoi University of Sports and Physical Education where I work, English is not considered a major subject but it is a compulsory one in the curriculum It is taught with the purpose that students will use it to communicate basically with others and to fulfill their work in the future and for their future study In English, students have to learn both General English (GE), using „New Headway Elementary‟ book and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) with „Giao trinh tieng Anh chuyen nganh The thao‟ ESP plays a very important role with the objective to enhance students‟ specialized knowledge and provide them with a system of terms related to Sports in English In the curriculum of English for Sports, we mainly focus on Reading skill because it is reading that will be made use of by students in the future work And if students want to follow the present knowledge explosion, they should learn to read so they can arm their minds with the recent achievements in scientific research Carrell (1989: p1) states that “for many students, reading is by far the most important of the four macro-skills, particularly in English as a second foreign language” ESP reading courses offer students a new field, fresh bridge of understanding Unfortunately, while teaching and learning reading, both teachers and their students may run across many problems, such as new words, difficult sentences, lack of reading skills, inappropriate teaching methods, lack of teaching facilities, lack of reference books relating to sports subject etc In this paper, I would like to improve reading command for the students by working out some problems which may negatively influence -2- their learning reading English for Sports and then suggest some possible solutions to overcome these problems 1.2 Aims of the study: The study is aimed at: - Investigating the difficulties that teachers and students are coping with in their daily teaching and learning of English for sports reading - Proposing some possible solutions to overcome those difficulties and to improve reading comprehension for students in their reading English for sports 1.3 Significance of the study This study is beneficial in shedding lights on the difficulties the teachers and the secondyear students confronted while teaching and learning ESP reading for sports at Hanoi University of Sports and Physical Education and to find out the causes for those difficulties From this result, the study will make some possible suggestions to overcome those difficulties and to improve students‟ reading comprehension for English sports In addition to this, these instructions are also hoped to help teachers of English at Hanoi University of Sports and Physical Education in their teaching careers 1.4 Scope of the study The study mainly focuses on ESP reading problems confronted by both ESP teachers and students of Sports at Hanoi University of Sports and Physical Education Then, the suggestions will be recommended to overcome these obstacles and to gain better teaching and learning reading ESP in the phase 1.5 Methodology The study is carried out in terms of both theory and practice The theoretical background of the study mainly relies on many published books written by different authors famous for ESP teaching and learning In terms of practice, the major method used in this study is the quantitative one That is all comment, consideration, suggestions given in the thesis are based on the analysis of the statistics from the survey questionnaires with the students at Hanoi University of Sports and Physical Education Besides, the informal interviews are also used to record information from teachers Two approaches to data collection will, hopefully, provide fresh insights into teachers and students‟ difficulties in teaching and learning reading ESP for Sports Based on the results -3- obtained, the researcher will propose some recommendations to improve students‟ reading comprehension in ESP 1.6 Organization of the study This thesis consists of five chapters Chapter 1: Introduction, presents the rationale, the aims, scope significance, methodology and organization of the study Chapter 2: Literature review provides an overview of the theoretical background of the study It is concerned with the issues relevant to the topic of the research: reading and reading comprehension, ESP reading, differences between ESP and EGP, challenges in ESP Reading Comprehension, learners‟ learning strategies and learner-centered approach Chapter 3: Methodology In this chapter, the researcher focuses on the methods used to gather and analyze data First, the setting of the study is addressed Second, the researcher gives the research questions Then, the instruments for data collection, the subjects of this study and the procedure to carry out the study are described Chapter 4: Results and discussion In this chapter, results of questionnaires and the formal interviews are reported and discussed Chapter 5: Conclusion This chapter summarizes the major findings, gives recommendations for teaching and learning reading ESP for sports at Hanoi University of Sports and Physical Education The researcher also points out some limitations of the study and proposes directions for further study -4- CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Reading comprehension in Foreign Language Learning and in ESP 2.1.1 What is reading and reading comprehension? First of all, according to Frank Smith (1985:102) “Reading is to understand the author‟s thought” It is a process through which the reader draws out the full amount of information and understands what the writer wants to say through the message William, E (1990: 2) stated that “reading is a process whereby one looks at and understands what has been written” The problem still remains how the reader understands the message In reading, we have to put the words into contexts because the meanings of a word depend on the context in which it appears One more definition of reading is offered by Goodman (1971: 135) In his viewpoint, reading is “a psycholinguistics process by which the reader, a language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display” He considered this act of reconstruction as “a cyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing, and confirming” Besides, reading is defined as “a developmental process” We learn reading not only to learn how to read the text, to master grammatical structures, the sound, etc., but also to understand the content expressed in the text or to develop the ability of reexpressing the author‟s ideas in our own words Reading comprehension is the process of constructing meaning from text The goal of all reading instruction is ultimately targeted at helping a reader comprehend text Reading comprehension involves at least two people: the reader and the writer The process of comprehending involves decoding the writer's words and then using background knowledge to construct an approximate understanding of the writer's message Grellet (1981: 3) indicated that “reading comprehension or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as effectively as possible” According to Richards (1992), “reading comprehension is best described as an understanding between the author and the reader” This point of view concentrates on the reader‟s understanding of the message based on the individual‟s background knowledge (Swan, 1992: 1) “A student is good at comprehension we mean that he can read accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum information from a text with the minimum of misunderstanding” The student can show his understanding by re-expressing the content of the text in many ways such as summarizing the text, answering questions etc -32- 4.2.4 What have the teachers been doing to overcome these difficulties? Answering for this question, two of them said that they haven‟t had much change in delivering ESP reading lesson They still play the central role because there are too many vocabulary, terms and specialized knowledge they have to explain to students or they will fail to understand the reading texts This will make students ESP reading worse One of them is honest when saying that she only uses different reading strategies when she has model lessons She recognizes the importance and efficiency of the learner-centered approach in foreign language teaching and learning, they cannot make use of that approach in their daily work because according to her, it takes her much time and effort to prepare for lesson Besides, students‟ linguistics knowledge is limited and the reading texts are difficult and long are obstacles for doing so Plus, they were under such great pressure to prepare their students to pass the examinations Therefore, reading still has been taught in a way which treated it as a subject, instead of a tool of communication From that result, the teachers should use different methods for teaching reading ESP, not the same teaching method in every lesson and the teachers help their students choose and practice suitable reading strategies for each reading text as their desires from the result of question 11 This will create their interest and motivation and they will not feel learning ESP reading difficult any more 4.2.5 The frequency of teachers in using supplementary materials in teaching ESP reading All the interviewed teachers see the importance of supplementary materials in teaching reading because no single ESP textbook covers all the language aspects of a certain field However, only one of them sometimes uses them, the rest never does it They explain that firstly, due to the lack of reference materials and even time for reading class; secondly, preparing for suitable and interesting supplementary materials takes their time so they often ignore it And finally, according to them, it is not necessary because the things they teach in the course book are too much for their students From the interview result, teachers not know how to use or ignore the use of the supplementary materials which not only improve students‟ vocabulary and specialist knowledge but improve their reading skills as well Therefore, teachers should select and add more materials which are more appropriate and useful for students and ESP course -33- CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 5.1 Summary of major findings We have discussed about the results obtained from descriptive statistical calculation of the research Having studied these points, the author realized that there are some major problems confronting both the teachers and students In this section, the researcher would like to summarize the main findings of the study into the teachers and students at Hanoi University of Sports and Physical Education 5.1.1 Teachers’ problems First, in term of teaching method, the original method was based on a grammatical analysis and involved the work with classroom reading under the explanation of the teacher The prime focus was mostly on language lessons The aim was to help learners construct detailed meanings from the text, to develop reading skills, such as identifying main ideas and recognizing text signals, and to enhance vocabulary and grammar knowledge Learners complained that it was more like intensive reading and that it was difficult and dull In class, teachers kept on talking while learners were busy writing down notes, because they had to memorize the notes taken in class in order to pass the final tests at the end of each term If teachers quickened the pace of teaching, learners could not follow them It seemed that the learners learned reading mechanically The role that the students play is rather passive while the teacher plays a dominant role Meanwhile, teachers neglect to cultivate students‟ reading comprehension ability to give a global idea of an article In the guidance of this teaching method, students have the capability to know the meanings of each word or expression, but they find it hard to draw a conclusion about what the certain reading deals with Facing with the inadequacies in the approach to teaching reading, many teachers and researchers have tried different approaches to develop an effective way of instruction They find that traditional EFL reading instructors usually adopt the “bottom-up” model in reading instruction, in which reading begins from vocabulary to the sentence level But one limitation of such a reading model is that if students pay too much attention to decoding individual words, their understanding of the overall meaning will be impeded Because the short-term memory has a limited duration, a slow decoder is likely to forget the message of the previous part Worse still, they become weak in higher-order processing ability such as inferring ability during the reading process And it often happens that even after a careful reading, they not apprehend the writer‟s intention and other implicit messages As a -34- result of such a reading model, many students‟ reading ability does not significantly improve even after years of learning Secondly, like most of ESP teachers, teachers of English for Sports have limited knowledge of the specialized sports This is due to the fact that they are trained to teach GE and they have not received any form of training on the field Besides, ESP has just been included in the University‟s curriculum for few years and teachers were obliged to teach ESP without any preparation prior to their teaching Therefore, they have difficulty in giving satisfactory explanations of the specialized terms or understanding them properly For instance, when teaching some sports at SEA Games such as Squash, trampoline etc., if teachers never watch or read about them, they will not understand themselves let alone help students to understand To discuss this problem, Robinson, P (1991: 21) wrote: What emerged that the teachers were not only ignorant of the meanings of technical terms, but that they could not identify when ‘common language words’ were being used technically, misunderstood the meaning – in context – of certain modal verbs, connectives and even punctuation and, because of their lack of specialist knowledge, did not in fact realize what the purpose of the entire article and its main content were 5.1.2 Students’ problems The first problem revealed from the questionnaire is the students‟ limited linguistic knowledge The result shows that most of the students (82%) think vocabulary poses a big problem for reading ESP texts This is due to both students and the texts Students‟ vocabulary is limited, whereas the texts in the course book are long, difficult and have much vocabulary Knowing vocabulary and structures is necessary for getting meaning from a text, especially for second or foreign language readers who frequently say that they need more vocabulary and structures so that they can understand the meaning of the sentences Therefore, when the amount of vocabulary, especially specialized terms, and structures is limited, the readers will encounter difficulties As a result, they will be unwilling to explore the text Difficulties in reading strategies are a concerned matter According to the result, 73% of students have trouble guessing words or terminologies through contexts or definitions 49% of them find scanning to get the specific information difficult and 67% have difficulty skimming to get the main ideas And up to 42 % of students cannot summarize the text This is because students have a habit of reading word by word and reading sentence by -35- sentence and thus, they usually ignore reading strategies One more reason, the teacher does not usually teach and provide them practice of suitable reading strategies Another major problem is that students tend to rely too much on the teacher In some reading classrooms, students are seldom given a chance to think or to make predictions actively and independently Teachers explain nearly everything and solve all the problems for students If there are language items which are not included in the syllabus, they will take them out If there are ideas or concepts that students are not familiar with, they will explain them beforehand So all students need too is mechanically note down what the teacher offers and memorize it They are always in a protected position, and thus tend to realize much on the teacher But in their actual work experience, there will be no teacher to help them They will have to manage by themselves 5.1.3 In terms of course book As can be seen from the result of the questionnaires and interviews, the texts in the course book are long and difficult with a large amount of vocabulary and terminologies So, long and difficult texts with high new word density and the students‟ limited linguistic knowledge may cause students to have too many doubts, as well as too much distraction, and may force them to focus on the linguistic code with a consequent overload on memory, hence hindering the reading task In addition to this, some contents and ideas in the texts are out of date, thus worthless Therefore, selecting, adapting and updating the course book is an essential in organizing each course It may happen that learners‟ needs and expectations are not met due to wrong choice of materials “Materials provide a stimulus to learning Good materials not teach; they encourage learners to learn.” 5.2 Recommendations 5.2.1 Training EFL Teachers for ESP Teaching As mentioned before, ESP teaching requires a special approach to the training of the teachers who are supposed to teach English through content First of all, EFL teachers should be provided with the necessary knowledge and tools to deal with students‟ special field of study, because they are not specialists in the field, but in teaching English, their subject is English for the profession but not the profession in English They are expected to help students, who know their subject better than them, develop the essential skills in understanding, using, and/or presenting authentic information in their profession (Bojovic`, -36- 2006) This is a quite challenging task to perform with any knowledge of content through which they will teach English as it facilitates learners‟ acquisition of formal schema of academic texts Both prospective ESP teachers and those who are already in profession can be equipped with necessary tools in a couple of ways; Pre-service/In-service training: Similarly, for currently working EFL teachers, in-service training programs can be helpful Language teachers and prospective language teachers can attend professional development workshops to let themselves acquire a second field of expertise, such as medicine, engineering or law In these settings entailing continuous participation in situational decision making and professional involvement in the disciplinary culture in which the learners in question communicate, a prospective ESP practitioner can conceptualize appropriate notions for teaching approaches (Chen 2000) Collaborative work (Team teaching); Chen (2000) holds that the language teacher should not be expected to possess sophisticated content knowledge, but basic concepts are needed to design an ESP syllabus that backs up the content course Indeed, language teachers have not been trained to teach content subjects but they could definitely be a competent ESP teacher if they participate in content teaching classes and thus develop the flexibility to undergo disciplinary acculturation In this regard, the content teacher shares the responsibility not only of providing opportunities for the language teacher to overcome the fear of a lack of content knowledge but also of introducing him/her to the modes of disciplinary thought and values Therefore, language teachers can ask for assistance from content teachers When this is the case, it is possible, through collaboration and cooperation, for both language and content teachers to develop the confidence and the competence to effectively integrate language and content instruction in ESP teaching, which entails 1) analysis of texts, materials, and curriculum; 2) classroom observation, reflection, and feedback; 3) collaborative action research and reflection; 4) development of integrated or complementary lessons, materials, or curricula; 5) collaborative or team teaching (Crandall, 1998) 5.2.2 Applying different approaches to teach vocabulary We classify the new words into three groups: active, passive and good-bye words Each group is dealt with in different ways Active words are those we expect our students to be able to use in speaking and writing They are treated more thoroughly, including their -37- formations, meanings and usage Usually we either present the students with the meaning of a word or phrase or ask the students to use their dictionaries to find out the meaning themselves We also provide examples to illustrate the usage and sometimes we ask the students to make sentences with them The guessing strategy of vocabulary attack is chiefly used for those passive ones, which we only expect our students to be able to understand As for the last group of words, if they not hinder comprehension, they may well be ignored Vocabulary treatment is often carried out after skimming and scanning, but the key words are sometimes treated before the students begin to skim and scan 5.2.3 Treating a reading text as meaning first Before we actually discuss the teaching method, it is necessary to clarify the nature of reading Reading comprehension means that readers extract the required information from a written text as efficiently as possible So we can infer that reading is not just a linguistic exercise but also a process of getting useful or required information from a written passage During this process understanding the meaning of the passage is more important than merely recognizing the language forms Therefore, our goal as language teachers in a reading class should be to train our students to efficiently understand the message conveyed in a text rather than just teach the usage of individual words or grammatical rules 5.2.4 Making students read with a purpose In real life, we normally read with a purpose, either for pleasure of for extracting information But in a language classroom, students generally have no purpose for reading a text In this case, the way to make students read efficiently may be to give them a purpose by setting some tasks before asking them to read This can be done at the pre-reading stage Teachers may ask students to predict information about the time, the place, the character and the event itself before or while students are reading Having been given a reason to read, students will read the text with more attention an interest 5.2.5 Developing students’ reading skills Different types of reading (depending on the purpose) require different reading skills This means the teachers not use only one skill to deal with all the different types of written passages Our students may need to read different types of written passages for different purposes after they leave the classroom Therefore, teachers should attach great importance to the development of the reading skills of the students Reading involves a variety of -38- skills, such as skimming, scanning and intensive reading Of course, a teacher would not try to develop all the skills in one text He or she can choose certain skills to develop in the students 5.2.6 Encouraging students’ active thinking It has been suggested that reading is an active process; it constantly involves guessing, predicting, checking and asking oneself questions This suggests that reading should be a hypothesizing process in which readers use their knowledge of the acquired language and experience of the „real world‟ to guess or to predict what they are going to read As reading processes, they constantly ask themselves questions and confirm or reject their understandings Hence, teachers should encourage their students to take risks, to guess, and give students „hints‟ so that they can predict what‟s coming It will make them better and more engaged readers 5.2.7 Using post-reading activities The role of teacher is to be a facilitator of learning and to provide opportunities for individual learners to acquire knowledge and construct meaning through their own activities, and through discussion, reflection and sharing ideas with other learners with minimal corrective intervention Therefore, after reading, students may be required to have pair or group discussions on the content of the text Teachers may encourage the students to express their own ideas in their own words During this process, the teacher can act as a participant, trying not to intervene unless it is necessary This provides opportunities for the students to use the information and some relevant vocabulary items in the text to express their own ideas freely This kind of activities tends to be very motivating, and it is motivation which makes learners acquire the language efficiently 5.2.8 Improvement of materials In defining good materials Hutchinson and Waters (1986) assume that they should contain interesting texts; enjoyable activities which encourage the learners‟ thinking capacities; opportunities for learners to use their existing knowledge and skills and content which learners and teacher can cope with However, the results of research shows that both teachers and students are not satisfied with the texts since the course book does not come up to the expectations mentioned above The texts should not be too authentic If you give low-level students a copy of The Times or The Guardian (which are certainly authentic for native-speakers), they will probably not -39- be able to understand them at all There will be far too many words they have never seen before, the grammar will be (for them) convoluted and the style will finish them off A balance has to be struck between real English on the one hand and the students‟ capabilities and interests on the other For long texts or prose, we may want to offer our students texts which, while being like English, are nevertheless written or adapted especially for their level The important thing is that such texts are as much like real English is possible Teachers should concern about students‟ desire about adding glossary after the texts Words from a course book‟s glossary may form a meaningful word list for them to study Their reading will become easier as they become familiar with the meanings of the words on the list Another thing that needs to be taken into consideration is the additional materials Teachers should select and add more materials and handouts which are more appropriate and useful for ESP course because the value of supplementary materials lies in the fact that they help students to work more independently, provide guidance, and can be used in future consultation when learners have to work on their homework, study for tests, or just for reviewing was what learned in the classroom It also helps students improve their vocabulary and reading skills Carrell, et al, (1989:88) said that “our long-range goal as reading teachers is to develop independent readers outside EFL/ESL classroom.” 5.3 Limitations for the study Although much effort has been made, the limitations of this research are unavoidable First, the author‟s practical experience in teaching English reading for sports and the knowledge of the subject matter are limited, therefore, the suggestions in chapter are likely to be subjective and incomplete, leaving the issue open for debate Second, due to the time constraint and within the scope of the study, other factors affecting the reading process such as students‟ motivation, attitude, aptitude, etc are not dealt with Once more, the data from the survey questionnaire and interviews may not fully reflect all aspect of ESP reading difficulties in the areas of vocabulary, reading skills and materials All the existing limitations of this study call for further research -40- REFERENCES Alderson, R.C & Urquhart, A.H (1984) Reading in a foreign language Longman Group Limited, Essex Bernhardt, E.B and Kamil, M.L (1985) Interpreting Relationship between L1 and L2 Reading Consolidating the linguistic threshold and linguistic interdependence hypotheses Applied Linguistics, 16 (1), 15, 15-34 Bojovic`, M (2006) Teaching Foreign Language for Specific Purposes: Teacher Development Application of Teacher Education in Europe 31st Annual ATEE Conference, 2006 www.pef.uni-lj-si/atee Brian Tomlinson (1998) Materials development in language teaching CUP Carrell, P L., J Devine and D E Eskey 1989 Interactive Approaches to Second Language Reading Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Chen, Tsai-Yu (2000) Self training for ESP through action research English for Specific Purposes Vol 19, Issue 4, 15 December 2000, pp: 389-402 Clarke, M.A (1980) The short circuit hypothesis of ESL reading Modern Language Journal Crandall, J (1998) Collaborate and Cooperate: Teacher Education for Integrating Language and Content Instruction FORUM Vol 36, No 1, January-March 1998 p.2 Dudley-Evans, T & Jo St John, M (1998) Developments in English for Specific Purposes Cambridge.Cambridge University Press 10 Eskey, D E & Grabe, W (1995) Interactive models for second language reading: perspectives on instruction In P L Carrell, J Devine, & D E Eskey (Eds), Interactive approaches to second language reading (pp 223-238) New York: CUP 11 Goodman, K.S (1971) Psycholinguistics universals in the reading process, in P Pimsleur & T.Quinn (ed), CUP 12 Grellet, F (1981) Developing Reading Skills Cambridge University Press 13 Harmer, J (1992) The practice of English Language Teaching Longman Group Lmt 14 Hutchinson, T & Waters, A (1986) English for Specific Purposes A learner-centered approach Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 15 Hutchinson, T and Water, A (1987) English for Specific Purposes A learningcentered approach Cambridge: CUP -41- 16 Johns, A M & Dudley-Evans, T (1991) English for Specific Purposes: International in Scope, Specific in Purpose TESOL Quarterly 25:2, 297-314 17 Jordan, R R (1997) English for Academic Purposes: A guide and resource book for teachers Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 18 Kennedy, C (1980) Fundamental Problems in ESP In Team Teaching in ESP ELT Documents: 106 London: British Council Information Centre 19 Nunan, D (1992) Methods in Language Learning Cambridge University Press 20 Nutall, C (1982) Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language London Heinemann 21 Oxford, R.L (1990) Language learning strategies: what every teacher should know New York: Newbury House 22 Richards, C J (1992) The context of Language Teaching Cambridge: CUP 23 Richarts, J & C Lockhart (1994) Reflective Teaching in Second Language Classrooms Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 24 Ridgway, T (1997) Reading in a foreign language Threshold of the background knowledge effect in foreign language reading 25 Robinson, P (1991) ESP today-A practical guide Prentice Hall international Ltd 26 Sarig, G (1987) High Level Reading in the First and in the Foreign Language Washington, D.C: TESOL 27 Selinger, H.W., and E Shohamy (1989) Second Language Research methods Oxford University Press 28 Smith, F (1985) Reading Cambridge Cambridge University Press 29 Streven, P (in Tickoo, 1988) ESP after twenty years: a reappraisal in Makhan Tickoo (ed), ESP: State of the art SEAMEO Regional Language Centre 30 Swan, M (1992) Inside meaning Cambridge: CUP 31 Tomitch, L (1996) Individual differences in text organization perception and working memory capacity Revista da ANPOLL, v.2, p.71-93 32 Widdowson, H.G (1983) Learning purpose and Language use, Oxfoxd University Press, Oxford 33 William, E (1990) Reading in the language classroom Macmillan Publisher 34 Yorio, C.A (1971) Some sources of Reading Problems for Foreign Language Learners I APPENDIX INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR TEACHERS Do you think the course book you are teaching is suitable for your students of Sports? Why (not)? Which methods of teaching you usually use to teach your students reading ESP? What problems are you coping with in teaching reading English for Sports? What have you been doing to overcome these difficulties? Do you use any supplementary materials in teaching reading for Sports? Why (not)? II APPENDIX QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS Các bạn học viên thân mến, Để giúp bạn học môn tiếng Anh chuyên ngành thể dục, thể thao tốt hơn, tiến hành nghiên cứu tìm hiểu khó khăn bạn học môn đọc hiểu tiếng Anh theo giáo trình “Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành thể thao” sử dụng trường ta Rất mong bạn trả lời cách trung thực câu hỏi cách khoanh tròn câu trả lời phù hợp với suy nghĩ bạn Xin bạn vui lòng cho biết: * Bạn học tiếng Anh thời gian trước học tiếng Anh chuyên ngành? A 0-3 năm B 4-5 năm C 6-8 năm D 10 năm * Điểm trung bình mơn tiếng Anh đại cương bạn bao nhiêu? …………………… Theo bạn đọc hiểu giáo trình là: A Rất khó dài B Khó dài C Tương đối khó D Dễ hiểu phù hợp với trình độ tơi E Dễ Theo bạn, lượng từ vựng chuyên ngành thể dục, thể thao đọc giáo trình là: A Quá nhiều so với thời lượng khóa học B Nhiều khó C Vừa phải D Quá Khi đọc hiểu giáo trình, gặp phải từ chuyên ngành mà bạn khơng biết nghĩa, bạn sẽ: A Cố gắng đồn nghĩa từ qua ngữ cảnh, tình đọc B Bỏ qua C Sử dụng từ điển D Sử dụng từ đồng nghĩa từ trái nghĩa E Hỏi cô giáo bạn nghĩa tiếng Việt III F Sử dụng kiến thức chuyên ngành Thể dục Thể thao biết Về kĩ đọc hiểu, bạn gặp khó khăn việc A Đọc lướt để tìm ý đọc B Đọc để tìm thơng tin chi tiết đọc C Tóm tắt đọc D Đoán từ thuật ngữ qua ngữ cảnh định nghĩa E Tơi khơng gặp khó khăn Theo bạn, ngun nhân gây khó khăn việc đọc hiểu tiếng Anh chuyên ngành thể thao là: (Bạn có lựa chọn) A Bạn thiếu vốn từ vựng từ vựng tiếng Anh chuyên ngành B Tốc độ đọc chậm C Bạn thiếu kiến thức chủ đề học D Cấu trúc ngữ pháp nhiều phức tạp E Bài đọc dài nhiều từ F Bạn không học kĩ đọc G Giáo viên đòi hỏi cao bạn Trước đọc, bạn thường ………… (bạn có lựa chọn) A Đoán nội dung khóa thơng qua tiêu đề đọc B Thảo luận số câu hỏi theo nhóm đọc C Biết ý đọc D Tìm hiểu nghĩa từ cụm từ đọc E Tơi khơng làm mà đọc ln nội dung F Ý kiến khác (nếu có) ……………………… Khi đọc đọc hiểu giáo trình bạn thường đọc nào? A Đọc từ B Đọc câu từ đầu đến cuối C Đọc lướt qua toàn thật nhanh để nắm đại ý D Sau đọc lướt nhanh toàn nắm đại ý đọc lại chậm để hiểu nội dung chi tiết Khi học đọc, bạn hiểu khóa khi: A Bạn biết nghĩa tất từ, thuật ngữ B Giáo viên dịch hết tiếng Việt IV C Bạn sử dụng kiến thức chuyên ngành Thể thao mà bạn biết trước D Sau làm xong tập liên quan đến khóa E B¹n tìm ý sâu vào ý nhỏ F Cách khác (nếu có) …………… Bạn thường làm sau đọc xong khóa: A Dịch tồn đọc tiếng Việt B Học thuộc từ cấu trúc C Thảo luận theo nhóm nội dung khóa sử dụng tiếng Anh D Tóm tắt khóa tiếng Anh 10 Ngồi giáo trình học bạn có thường đọc thêm tài liệu mơn chun sâu tiếng Anh không? A Thường xuyên B Thỉnh thoảng C Hiếm D Khơng Nếu có, bạn thường tìm tài liệu từ nguồn nào? ………………………………………………………………………………………… 11 Bạn mong muốn điều giáo viên để giúp bạn học tiếng Anh chuyên ngành hiệu hơn: (bạn có lựa chọn) A Em muốn giáo viên giải thích xác thuật ngữ chuyên ngành B Em muốn giáo viên cung cấp thêm kiến thức theo chủ đề giáo trình C Em muốn giáo viên thường xuyên lấy ví dụ minh họa cụ thể cho phần kiến thức chuyên ngành D Em muốn giáo viên thiết kế giao thêm tập để giúp chúng em học nhớ từ vựng kiến thức chuyên ngành E Em muốn giáo viên cung cấp thêm đọc thêm liên quan đến chủ đề có giáo trình F Em muốn giáo viên hướng dẫn thủ thuật đọc cho phù hợp với G Em muốn giáo viên giúp chúng em làm việc theo cặp theo nhóm H Em muốn giáo viên sử dụng phương pháp khác để dạy đọc hiểu Em muốn giáo viên giúp chúng em nhận thức mục đích việc học đọc V 12 Để giúp nâng cao việc học đọc tiếng Anh chuyên ngành, theo bạn giáo trình tiếng Anh chuyên ngành nên điều chỉnh bổ xung nào? (bạn có lựa chọn) A Chọn lựa đọc phù hợp với trình độ sinh viên B Các từ mới, ký hiệu phiên âm, thuật ngữ tiếng Việt tương đương nên liệt kê sau đọc C Các tập nên phong phú đa dạng D Những đọc kiện Thể thao luật thi đấu nên cập nhật chỉnh sửa cho phù hợp D Ý kiến khác (nếu có) …………… Rất cảm ơn cộng tác bạn! ... difficulties the teachers and the secondyear students confronted while teaching and learning ESP reading for sports at Hanoi University of Sports and Physical Education and to find out the causes for those... teachers of English at Hanoi University of Sports and Physical Education in their teaching careers 1.4 Scope of the study The study mainly focuses on ESP reading problems confronted by both ESP. .. their success in language learning -14- CHAPTER Methodology 3.1 The setting of the study 3.1.1 The purposes of teaching and learning reading English in Sports at Hanoi University of Sports and