3.1. THE APPROPRIATENESS OF THE MATERIAL TO THE STUDENTS’
3.1.2. Results from the Survey 1. Teacher Interviews
The information collected from the interview with ten teachers of English is presented in two tables so that any analysis, observation and comparison on the data will be easier.
(Table 4.1 and 4.2)
Teachers’ opinion Number of choice Percentage 1. The material is for elementary level.
2. The material is relevant to your students’
level of English.
3. The material is difficult for your students.
8 3 7
80 % 30%
70%
Table 4.1: Teachers’ Opinions of the Appropriateness of the Material to the Students’ Level of English
As can be seen from Table 4.1, most of the teachers interviewed agreed that the material is for elementary level (80%). The other 20% said they found some parts of the material more difficult than elementary level, and they mentioned Writing and Case Study as these parts.
Also, as many as 7 teachers out of 10 perceived that the material was difficult for the students while only three said it was relevant to the students’ level of English.
Grammar Vocabulary Reading Listening Writing Skills Case study Number of
choice 2 0 0 3 7 4 8
Percentage 20% 0% 0% 30% 70% 40% 80%
Table 4.2: Teachers’ Opinions on the Difficulty of Different Parts of the Material
Table 4.2 is the synthesis of the data collected from the teachers’ answers to question 4 in the interview. It is noticeable that Case Study and Writing are agreed to be the most difficult parts of the material by most of the teachers, and some of them find the parts of listening, skills, and grammar hard for the students. The following part is the presentation of the reasons why the teachers think some parts of the material are difficult.
The information was collected through question 5 in the interview.
80% of the teachers interviewed thought that Case Study was very difficult for the students. Some of them also said this section was quite challenging even for them to teach.
According to them, it was hard for several reasons. Firstly, the students’ speaking skills were almost zero before the course, which made them feel unconfident and uncomfortable
when having to participate in some demanding activities of the Case Study, in which they are required to discuss in a group to solve a problem of business. Secondly, there is not much guidance available in the book on the strategies of the discussions, so without effective assistance from teachers, students would not know which steps to take in such open discussions. Thirdly, the students do not have the background knowledge of business to participate actively in the activities. The teachers pointed out that the students, as a result, often avoid using English to discuss or argue on the problems. Instead, they use Vietnamese to carry out their conversations and reach the conclusion despite the teachers’
efforts to take them back to English. Then they translate every word of their plan into English by writing, or they use the supporting file at the end of the book and try to learn all the words there by heart without having any strategies of how to use them more effectively and creatively to improve their speaking skills. Therefore, when it comes to their presentations in front of other students, they often rehearse what they have already learnt by heart. This fact does not reflect the picture of an effective speaking class.
In addition to Case Study, Writing is agreed by 70% of the teachers to be a difficult area in the material. The reason they give for the difficulty of this skill is that the material does not give enough attention to writing. Although a different type of writing is required at the end of each unit in the book, it is hard to find enough guidance and instructions in the material for such types of writing. Students are only assisted with some writing samples at the end of the book.
Skills is also a part which is considered difficult by half of the teachers interviewed.
Just like Case Study, this part of the material involves speaking activities but mostly pair work not group work like in Case Study. According to some teachers, this part, however, is easier than Case Study for two reasons: firstly, the students are provided with enough vocabulary and expressions right before getting into the talk; secondly, there is a listening exercise at the beginning of the part which can function as a sample conversation for them to follow, so they know where to go in this part. Nevertheless, their limited ability of speaking English still makes this task rather difficult for them to accomplish.
Next, Listening is thought to be a difficult area of the material by 40% of the teachers. They said, based on their observation in class, a number of students could not do the listening exercises and often explained it was too fast and difficult to listen.
As regards Grammar, only 2 out of 10 teachers think there is not enough grammar
practice in the material. They believe this makes the grammar appear quite hard to their students. Meanwhile, the other 8 teachers think the amount of grammar practice given both in the Course Book and the Practice File is enough.
Finally, Vocabulary and Reading are the two sections in the material that are agreed by 100% of the teachers to be a bit challenging but suited to the students’ level of English.
3.1.2.2. Student Questionnaire
All the students (n=100, = 100%) responded to the questions on the difficulty of the material. Their opinions are shown in Tables 4.3 and 4.4, of which the former indicates the students’ perception of the difficult sections in the material, and the latter reveals the reasons why they consider them as being difficult.
Items Strongly
Disagreed
Disagreed Neutral Agreed Strongly Agreed
% % % % %
The grammatical structures are difficult. 2 12 58 24 4
The vocabulary tasks are difficult. 0 3 63 29 5
The listening tasks are difficult. 0 3 24 52 21
The reading texts are difficult. 1 11 60 25 3
The Skills tasks are difficult. 0 4 56 34 6
The Case Study tasks are difficult. 0 3 46 42 9
The writing tasks are difficult. 0 3 40 49 8
Table 4.3: Students’ Assessment of the Difficult Sections in the Material
Tables 4.3 and 4.4 respectively show the students’ assessment of the difficulty of different sections in the material and the reasons why they think certain sections are difficult.
As can be seen from Table 4.3, among the seven sections, Listening was surprisingly viewed as the toughest part to accomplish. Up to 73% of the informants perceived this section as being either difficult or very difficult. Reasons for this seemed greatly various but mostly fell on the tape speed as 65% agreed the tape was too fast (Table
4.4). 20% thought too little practice of listening could be a reason while another 10%
blamed the teaching methods.
Items Grammar Vocabulary Listening Reading Skills Case Study
Writing
% % % % % % %
Too little practice 15 8 20 0 2 8 31
Too little guidance in the book
8 3 2 0 5 32 40
Too many new words & expressions
2 30 15 18 25 17 12
Too many requirements
0 0 0 6 5 28 6
Too long 0 0 4 1 0 15 3
The tape is too fast 0 0 65 0 0 0 0
Ineffective teaching methods
5 7 10 4 6 16 15
Table 4.4: Students’ Opinions on the Reasons Why Some Sections are Difficult
Case Study was also judged as an arduous part to study. A feature easily noticed is that the students chose a wide variety of reasons for the difficulty of this part. 42% of the students regarded the section as being difficult and another 9% thought it was very difficult (Table 4.3). Table 4.4 showed quite a number of reasons why this area of the material was found challenging. A considerable number of students (32%) agreed that Case Study was a hard section because there was not enough guidance in the material. 28% thought there were too many requirements while 17% found it was hard because of having too many new words and expressions. It is especially noticeable that 16% of the informants put it down to ineffective teaching methods.
Next, Writing was shown to be one of the three hardest areas in the material. As can be seen from Table 4.3, more than half of the respondents (57%) considered it either difficult or very difficult. Table 4.4 provides a variety of explanations for this. As much as 40% of the students believed there was too little guidance for this part in the book.
Meanwhile, 31% found a lack of writing practice in the course. What’s more, a remarkable
15% of the informants placed the responsibility on the teachers’ methods of teaching.
Apart from the above sections, Skills, Vocabulary, Reading, and Grammar share one common feature of difficulty. As shown in Table 4.3, all of them have the difficulty ratio below 50%. Skills has 40%, Vocabulary 34%, Grammar and Reading 28% both.
According to the data in Table 4.4, having too many new words is the most popular reason explaining for the difficulty of the three sections, Skills, Vocabulary as well as Reading (with 25%, 30%, and 18% respectively). Meanwhile, Grammar was agreed by 15% of the respondents to be difficult mostly for having too little practice.