CHAPTER II: EVALUATION ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE MATERIALS
2.2.2. Students' evaluation on the effectiveness of the materials
Student’s survey is analyzed to find out students’ opinion on the suitability of the materials to the audience and the suitability of objective’ course in terms of skills, course’s content in terms of the speaking lessons and its methodology.
2.2.2.1. The suitability of the course to the audience
To find out the evaluation of the students on the suitability of the materials in terms of audience the study begins with analyzing the student’s result in the previous term and their attitudes, expectations toward the material to have initial comprehension on audience’s need.
In so far as I am concerned, the number of the students in a class is nearly 40. That is not to mention the fact that they come from different places and experienced different learning conditions. Their result of tourism English last term is, therefore, not equal. This idea will be reinforced by the results of the students' learning tourism English in the 3rd term which are presented in table 1:
Degree Excellent Good Average Under average Percentage of the students 10% 35% 55% 0%
Table 2.1: Students' results of learning tourism English in the previous term
The results given in table 1 validate the fact that the number of the students excellent at the third part of tourism English was not very small (10%) while 55% confirmed that their tourism English level was average. Optimistically, 35% of the students affirmed that they were good at tourism English, whereas, none of them had to admit that they were still bad at English when they entered the fourth part of Tourism English course.
Obviously, there is a definite possibility that the students' tourism English, in general, is quite good. Frankly, most of the students wished that more consideration from the teachers would be taken on their real tourism English level so that suitable teaching methods in English for tour guide would be reasonably selected. Most students showed
their positive attitudes to the next tourism English course. They had already recognized the close relationship between English and their profession areas. They were fully aware of the fact that English for Tourism purpose course – about tourism destinations in Vietnam was really important and necessary for their future work. Table 2 depicts that 85% of the students considered English for Tour guide course very important for them while 15% found it important and no students asserted the course was of slight importance or the course put no influence on them.
Importance Very
important
Important Not very important
Not important
Percentage of the students 85% 15% 0% 0%
Table 2.2: Students' attitudes towards an “English for Tour guides” course
At the same time, the students were willing to express their expectations from the course.
Interestingly, students' stress seemed to be put on Speaking English in tourism settings (95%), Making presentation on tourism destinations (up to 85%) and improving students’
vocabulary about destinations in Vietnam (80%). No doubt, it is very possible that the students laid great emphasis on improving their language skills especially speaking skill.
60% students thought that they really wanted to improve their pronunciation and intonation. While 40% of them said that developing reading strategies is necessary and only 45% students want to write tourism documents in English
Amazingly, 50% of the students confessed that a good introduction of grammar may create in the students the desire to study tourism English better and the ability to deal with other skills more confidently. Yet, only 35% sated that their aim was at translating texts into Vietnamese and vice verse.
Students' expectations from the course Percentage of the students
Getting to know grammatical structure 50%
Developing reading strategies 40%
Speaking English in tourism settings 95%
Writing tourism documents in English 45%
Improving your vocabulary about destinations in Vietnam 80%
Translating texts into Vietnamese and vice verse 35%
Making presentation on tourism destinations 85%
Improving Students’ pronunciation and intonation 60%
Table 2.3: Students' expectations from an “English for Tour guides” course
Properly presented, the students were really sincere when they alleged that their basic English was not good enough, that focus should be put on not only four language skills but also on grammatical item presentation and that they were excited about being involved in an English for Tour guide course.
2.2.2.2 The suitability of the skills to the course’s objectives
The evaluation of the students on the objectives of the course in terms of skills is carried out based on analyzing their opinion on skill’s importance and skills need to improve. When being asked about their opinion on the importance of 4 skills, they answered enthusiastically and these are the number.
Skills Students’ opinion on skill’s importance
Listening 60 %
Speaking 95%
Writing 50%
Reading 55%
Table 2.4: Students’ opinion on skill’s importance
From the survey result we can see that 60% students agreed that listening is important, 50%
of them chose writing, 55% students chose reading and most of them 95% students thought that speaking is the most important to them. In the interview, most of students also talked that all the skills are important, but in fact, in the future they would be tour guides or do some jobs related to tourism field, whatever jobs they do, they really want to communicate well with foreign visitors, and then speaking is the key to the success to have a better job, to have more money. And they really paid much attention to training this skill.
To find out problems in the content of the materials especially in skills, the writer gave out the question “Which skill is needed to be improved”. And these are students’ answer.
Skills Skills need to improve in the course
Listening 40%
Speaking 90%
Writing 35%
Reading 30%
Table 2.5: Students’ opinions on their skills need to improve in the course
The students' opinions on their skills need to be improved after the course has been, in details, presented in table 6. The results overall indicate that more suitability had apparently been
made with the two skills: writing and reading. More clearly, only 35% of the students regarded that their writing need to be improved while the percentage of those who considered the reading need to be improved was 30 %. 40% students think that their listening skill needs to be improved respectively. And clearly, many students (90%) think that the speaking skill should be improved. In so far as I am concerned from my class observations, the focus seemed to be very much on speaking rather than on the other skills. And let’s consider speaking lesson carefully and find out of 16 speaking lessons, which is not suitable and which ones need to be improved and adapted.
2.2.2.3 The suitability of the course’s content in terms of the speaking lessons
Unit Very
suitable
Suitable Normal Not very suitable
Not suitable
Unit 1: Traveling around Vietnam 30% 52.5% 17.5% 0% 0%
Unit 2: Haiduong’s Attractions 0% 12.5% 20% 25% 42.5%
Unit 3: Hanoi’s Attractions 5% 10% 12.5 22.5% 50%
Unit 4: Traditional handicraft villages 50% 30% 20% 0% 0%
Unit 5: Historical places in Vietnam 37.5% 42.5% 20% 0% 0%
Unit 6: National Parks in Vietnam 0% 10% 15% 30% 45%
Unit 7: Celebrations in Vietnam 50% 37.5% 12.5% 0% 0%
Unit 8: Museums in Vietnam 0% 7.5% 10% 37.5% 45%
Unit 9: Sa pa 25% 52.5% 20% 2.5% 0%
Unit 10: Ha Long Bay 5% 7.5% 17.5% 20% 50%
Unit 11: Phong Nha Cave 25% 37.5% 35% 2.5% 0%
Unit 12: Hue Citadel 30% 40% 30% 0% 0%
Unit 13: Hoi An 25% 50% 25% 0% 0%
Unit 14: Nha Trang 30% 45% 20% 5% 0%
Unit 15: Da Lat 32.5% 42.5% 125% 0% 0%
Unit 16: Ho Chi Minh City 55% 25% 20% 0% 0%
Table 2.6: Students’ opinion on the suitability of the speaking lessons
From the result of the survey, we can see that most of the lessons are evaluated that they are very suitable and suitable with high percentage ratio such as Unit 1: Traveling around Vietnam (82.5%); Unit 4:Traditional handicraft villages (80%), Unit 5: Historical places in Vietnam (80%), Unit 7: Celebrations in Vietnam (87.5%),Unit 9: Sa pa (77.5%), Unit 11:
Phong Nha Cave (62.5%), Unit 12: Hue Citadel (70%), Unit 13: Hoi An (75%), Unit 14:
Nha Trang (75%), Unit 15: Da Lat (75%), Unit 16: Ho Chi Minh City (80%). And most of the rest students think it is normal. For these units No student thinks that they are not very suitable or not suitable except in Unit 9 and Unit 10 there are 2.5% of students consider that they are not very suitable and in Unit 14 this number of students is 5%. Clearly, the content of the speaking in these lesson meet the demand of students. So they aren’t necessary to adapt.
However, in the case of 5 units: Unit 2, Unit 3, Unit 6, Unit 8 and Unit 10, the results are completely different. In Unit 2: Con Son – Hai Duong no student think that it is very suitable, there are only 12.5% of students say that it is suitable and there are 67.5% of students say that it is not very suitable and not suitable. In the interview, students talked that this speaking lesson is not suitable because the requirement of 2 tasks are too general, and there is no suggestion for students to do the task, so It is difficult for them to do it well.
In the Unit 3: Hanoi’s Attractions, the result is a bit better, 2% of students think it is very suitable, 4% of them think it is suitable but 72.5% of the students say this speaking lesson is not suitable. They shared honestly in the interview that this lesson is aim at speaking about Hanoi and its attractions but there are not much information related to this destination. Therefore, students didn’t have many chances to practice speaking about Hanoi. In the case of Unit 6: National Parks in Vietnam, 75% of the students think that it is not suitable because the content of the lesson tend to practice grammar more than speaking. They wish to have opportunity to talk about some famous national parks in Vietnam based on given brief information. In the Unit 8: Museums in Vietnam, there are 7.5 % of the students think it is suitable while 82.5% of them say that it is not suitable. And the reason for this is the same as in the case of Unit 2: Hai Duong’s attractions. Unit 10 is considered to be better with 12.5% of the students accept the content of the lesson, but 70% of them disapproved and think it should be adapted by giving students more chances to train their speaking skill about this topic.
General speaking, most of the students want to have opportunity to practice situations and topics related to the main topic of the lessons.
2.2.2.4. The suitability of the speaking lessons in terms of methodology.
The students’ evaluation on the suitability of the speaking lessons in terms of methodology is presented in the following table:
Methodology Very suitable
Suitable Normal Not very suitable
Not suitable
Kinds of exercise/ tasks 5% 15% 10% 55% 15%
Teaching learning techniques 10% 30% 20% 25% 15%
Teaching aids 35% 20% 15% 20% 10%
Flexibility of the materials 50% 30% 20% 0% 0%
Support for teaching the course 37.5% 42.5% 20% 0% 0%
Table 2.7: Students’ opinion on the suitability of methodology of the speaking lessons We can see that most of the students agree with the methodology used in the material.
More than 50% of the students think that the teaching learning technique, teaching aid, flexibility of the material and support for teaching the course are very suitable and suitable.
However, when mentioning to kinds of exercises/ tasks, 70% of students consider that they are not suitable. In the interview they said that the kinds of exercises should be various and practical.
2.2.2.5. Students’ suggestion for the speaking lessons
Each unit has a speaking lesson. Students will have chances to practice the main topic and main ideas of the entire lesson. So beside this what are the other aims of the speaking lesson? These ideas were once again reinforced when the question of the aim(s) of the speaking lesson was willingly given answer to by the students. The detailed figures in table 10 will make things clearer:
Students’ suggestion for the speaking lessons
Percentage of the students
Knowledge of tourism destinations 90%
Cultural knowledge 35%
Vocabulary 55%
Grammatical items 25%
Table 2.8: Students’ suggestion for the speaking lessons
As has been shown, 90 % of the students claimed the book should be aimed at providing knowledge of tourism destinations. This is easy to understand because the main purpose of the syllabus is to provide knowledge of tourism destinations and then help students to make good presentation on these destinations. 55% of the students thought the goal was at vocabulary because they said that there are some topics such as talking about a certain pagoda, temple or museum, they met a lot of difficulties for shortage of words and phrases related to these field. Only 35% of students think that the speaking lessons are aimed at
cultural knowledge. According to them this rate should be higher because cultural knowledge of each regions and countries will really necessary for students when they work in the future. Grammatical items should be noted down clearly and easier to understand so that students can remember and use in talking about destinations.
Thus far, I have synthesized much of the research into what the students expect when learning the materials in such aspects: the importance of the skills, Skills need to improve and the suitability of the speaking lessons. At the same time, Students’ suggestions for the speaking lessons are also aimed at.
Concluding remarks
The results from the students and the teachers' survey questionnaires have offered the genuine reflection of the matches and the mismatches in the students and the teachers' ideas on the book as well as their awareness of the real teaching and learning in the class.
However, the serious problems which seem to be paid much attention from both the teachers and the students are some unsuitable speaking lessons especially on the content, kind of exercises, and the illustration of these speaking lessons. Those elements put together show tremendous demand for the material adaptation, which will be tackled in the next chapter.