CHAPTER II: EVALUATION ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE MATERIALS
2.2.1 Teacher’s evaluation on the effectiveness of the materials
In the case of the teachers, there are 17 teachers of English in the Foreign Languages &
Tourism Department at Sao Do Industrial College. Four of them taught the materials
“English for Tour guides”. Most of these are quite young with from 3 to 7 years teaching English and from 1 to 3 years teaching English for tourism. There are 3 female teachers and one male teacher. All of them have learnt higher education in methodology and have had chances to learn how to evaluate a material. Therefore, they have enough ability to evaluate a material, especially the materials they have taught. The writer of this thesis is one of them.
Objectively, according to the regulation of SIC, the entire materials must be designed by the teachers who teach them, so that they are in-house materials, and every three years these materials must be adapted to suitable with the learners at that time. “English for Tour guides” is no exception.
Subjectively, in the process of teaching, and with the experiences of 2 years teaching this materials, the writer of this thesis recognized the advantages and disadvantages of this one and took part in the process of evaluation and adaptation this materials.
The teaching staff held a meeting with the participation of all the teachers who taught the materials “English for Tour guides” Part IV- Tourism destinations in Vietnam and discussed on the evaluation and adaptation of this materials. And the writer has major responsibility in this evaluation and adaptation of this materials. The survey questionnaires and interview questions as well as discussions were used in evaluation this materials.
2.2.1.1. The evaluation of the teachers in terms of audience, aims, content, methodology
In discussion, the teaching staff based on criteria of Hutchinson (1987) in Materials
evaluation. And these are detailed analysis.
1. Audience
The materials is intended for 2nd year students of tourism major. They are of the age from 18 to 21 years old. They are of both genders: male and female. They are tourism majored students, in the future they will work as a tour guide so English especially English for tour guides is very important for their work. It is their work to introduce places to tourists. A material which presents and provides information about places in Viet Nam is really useful for them. Moreover, most of students are from countryside so their English language knowledge is not good and perfect. They may be good at grammar but their speaking and listening skill are weak. They rarely have chance to communicate with foreigners while studying. The materials have met the demand of the students at SIC.
2. Aims
The aims of the course are:
- To provide students knowledge related to tourism destinations in Vietnam,
- To train and practice students’ speaking, listening, reading and writing about famous places in Vietnam
- To revise and reinforce Students basic grammar
- To help student make a good presentation about interesting places - To widen students’ vocabulary and train students’ pronunciation - To provide a reference book about tourism
The materials, in general, are suitable with most of the given objectives of the course.
However, the providing knowledge related to tourism destination in some speaking lesson is not enough. Therefore student’s practice in speaking is not very effectiveness.
3. Content
About kind of language description, Language in the materials is mainly structural based related to tourism knowledge and functional discourse based for example: writing a job application, writing about a festival, giving direction, or reading about destinations in Vietnam.
Concerning Language points, languages points are covered in the materials are particular structures, vocabulary related to destinations and functions necessary for a tour guide.
Mentioning to proportion of work on each lesson: There are lessons for four skills in each unit but the proportion of reading is higher. In some parts we can integrate skills to have
the best result. Text type includes reading text, letter, dialogue, visual text (picture, charts, and table), listening text and some other kinds.
Subject matter areas are required: tourism destinations in Vietnam for third year students of Sao Do Industrial College. Topics related to tourism are needed. The topics are given about factual destinations and to raise human interest about visiting these places.
The content in the materials is organized by topic as I mention above. Organizing by this way makes students get information easily and systematically. Students approach tourist destinations in detail and vocabulary source is arranged in topic and this is a suitable way to organize materials for students of tourism major.
The content in the materials is sequenced in cycle, from topic to topic. No topic is more difficult than others so it doesn’t make students feel embarrassed when choosing which topic study first. Within the lesson, the content is sequenced from comprehension to production, from accuracy to fluency. It follows 3 steps: presentation, practice, and production.
The last but not least, the sequence of the content in each unit, it is from guided to free, from comprehension to production, from accuracy to fluency
The materials are based on book “Viet Nam – the destination of the new millennium” – a book for tourist guides and foreign tourists published by tourist Agency.
The purpose of the materials is to enhance students to discover Vietnam and to master their speaking skill after finishing the course.
4. Methodology
The book attracts students by giving suitable kinds of tasks and exercises: from guided to free, comprehension to production, from one right answer to many possible right answer and with various actions: work in pair, work in group, individual, role play, games, drama.... In order for students to increase their language competence, a great amount of time is devoted to students’ presentation action. Teacher organizes students into group and points a leader. This leader guides the group, synthesis ideas and then present before class.
This teaching technique helps student be confident and it applies CLT (communicative language teaching) in teaching and learning.
To use this materials effectively, there must be some aids such as: cassette recorders, overhead projectors, wall charts, video, pictures... These aids are necessary and they make the lessons more interesting and accessible.
About support for teaching the course: There are only tests. There are no statements of aim, list of vocabulary and language skills points, language guidance, technical information, methodological directive or hints, suggestion for the further work. So it needs to be edited. What about flexibility of the materials? In Each unit, each part shouldn’t begin at different point. But the units can be used in different orders. And the material can be linked to other materials. General speaking, the material is quite good except the content of speaking skill in some lessons.
2.2.1.2. The evaluation of the teachers on the effectiveness of the materials in terms of speaking lessons
From the survey as well as discussion, the teacher shared the same ideas that there are some problems with speaking lessons, especially in their content, kinds of exercises, and the illustration for these speaking lessons about destination. In general, the content of these lessons are quite simple, they should be added and modified to provide students with more knowledge and bring students more chances to practice speaking. There are five units which are necessary to be adapted: Unit 2: Hai Duong’s attractions; Unit 3: Hanoi’s attractions, Unit 6: National parks in Vietnam; Unit 8: Museums in Vietnam; and Unit 10 Ha Long Bay.
In detailed, in unit 2: Hai Duong, the content is too simple with two tasks without providing enough necessary information. Moreover, this is the second lesson; students don’t have enough knowledge and skill to speak about famous destinations in Hai Duong successfully which makes the lesson less effective.
In Unit 3: Hanoi’s attractions with the purpose of Asking and giving information about Hanoi, the lesson gave out some information for students to practice speaking. However, Hanoi is a famous destination with many beauty spots, it is necessary to give out more information about these places in Hanoi to widen students’ knowledge.
In Unit 6: National Parks in Vietnam, the content of the speaking lesson isn’t completely suitable; it should be changed because there is nothing related to practice speaking about national parks in Vietnam. The problems in Unit 8: Museums in Vietnam is similar to Unit 2: Hai Duong. And the problem in Unit 10: Ha Long Bay is the same as the problems in Unit 3: Hanoi’s attractions.
2.2.1.3. The suggestions of the teachers in terms of speaking lessons
When being asked “What should we do to improve the speaking lessons” all the teachers agree that all the ideas given out in the survey are suitable and necessary to consider in the process of adaptation the materials. They are: Provide more knowledge of Tourism destinations in Vietnam; add vocabulary, structures related to the speaking topic; Provide cultural knowledge suitable with the speaking topic; illustrate the topics with more beautiful pictures; add some more kinds of exercises and add grammatical items to express the topic effectively. Depending on the problem of each lesson, there will be detail solutions for them to make it become good speaking lessons