VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** TRAN THI THU HUONG AN EVALUATION OF THE TEXTBOOK ENGLISH FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES AT USSH, VNU (Đánh giá giáo trình Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành dành cho học viên cao học ngành xã hội nhân văn, trường Đại học Khoa học xã hội Nhân văn, Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội) M.A Combined Programme Thesis English methodology Major code: 60 14 10 Hanoi - 2011 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** TRẦN THỊ THU HƢƠNG AN EVALUATION OF THE TEXTBOOK ENGLISH FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES AT USSH, VNU (Đánh giá giáo trình Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành dành cho học viên cao học ngành xã hội nhân văn, trường Đại học Khoa học xã hội Nhân văn, Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội) M.A Combined Programme Thesis English methodology Major code: 60 14 11 Supervisor: Nguyễn Thúy Hƣơng, M.A Hanoi - 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter I: Introduction 10 1.1Background to the study 10 1.2 Aims of the study 13 1.3 Research questions 13 1.4 Scope of the study 14 1.5 Design of the study 14 Chapter II: Literature review 16 2.1 Materials in language teaching and learning 16 2.1.1 Roles of teaching material EFL/ESL classes 16 2.1.2 Types of materials 18 2.2 ESP and ESP materials 20 2.2.1 A brief overview of ESP 20 2.2.2 The role of ESP materials 23 2.3 Materials evaluation 25 2.3.1 Definitions of materials evaluation 25 2.3.2 Techniques of materials evaluation 26 2.3.3 Criteria for materials evaluation 28 2.3.4 Types of materials evaluation 33 Models for material evaluation 34 Material adaptation 38 2.4.1 Reasons for adaptation 38 2.4.2 Techniques for adaptation 39 2.5 Previous studies on materials evaluation 41 Summary 43 Chapter III: Methodology 45 3.1 Research questions 45 3.2 Data collection instruments 45 3.2.1 Document analysis 45 3.2.2 Questionnaires 47 Summary 50 Chapter IV: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 51 4.1 Results of data analysis 51 4.1.1 Document analysis 51 4.1.2 Data collected from questionnaires 57 4.2 Major findings 71 4.2.1 The suitability of the ESP material to the aims 71 4.2.2 The suitability of the ESP material to the content of the material 71 4.2.3 The suitability of methodology 73 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 75 5.1 The strengths and weaknesses of the material 75 5.1.1 Strengths 75 5.1.2 Weaknesses 76 5.2 Recommendations 76 5.2.1 To the content 77 5.2.2 To the methodology 78 5.3 Limitations 79 5.4 Suggestion for further study 79 5.5 Conclusion 79 REFERENCES………………………………………………………………….74 List of abbreviations CFL College of Foreign language VNU Vietnam national university, Hanoi USSH University of Social Sciences and Humanities ESP English for special purposes ESL English as second language ELT English Language Teaching EFL English as a Foreign Language TESOL Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages Lists of Figures and Tables Figure 1: Materials Evaluation Model of McDonough and Shaw (1993, p.3) Figure 2: Material Evaluation process (Hutchinson and Waters, 1993, p.98) Figure 3: Teachers‟ experience of teaching graduate students at USSH Figure 4: Number of ESP classes of each teacher Figure 5: Students‟ working experience in their specialist field Figure 6: Student‟s purposes of taking ESP course Figure 7: Opinions of the ESP teachers and ex-students on the aims of the material Figure 8: Students‟ opinions on the difficulty level of the language items in the material Figure 9: Teachers‟ opinions on the difficulty level of the language items in the material Figure 10: Opinions of the ESP teachers and ex-students on the specialist vocabulary Figure 11 : Opinions of the ESP teachers and ex-students on the topics of reading texts Figure 12 Figure 13 : Opinions of the ESP teachers and ex-students on grammar structures : Opinions of the ESP teachers and ex-students on the frequency of different types of class-arrangement Table : The Selected criteria checklist for materials evaluation by Hutchinson and Waters (1993) and Cunningsworth (1984) Table : The frequency of specialist topics students read Table : Description of language focus in the material Table : The frequency of skills covered in the material 10 Chapter I Introduction 1.1Background to the study 1.1.1 An overview of English teaching and learning for graduate students at USSH, VNU The University of Social Sciences and Humanities (USSH) is a prestigious educational institution where thousands of students of social sciences and humanities at different levels, ranging from undergraduate to graduate ones are being trained They are trained to work in different fields of social sciences, including Journalism, Tourism, History, Sociology, etc After graduation, a large number of learners will need English for their jobs Therefore, English is taught as a compulsory subject, aiming at providing learners sufficient knowledge and skills During the whole course of graduate study, English accounts for credits, equal to 105 class hours According to the syllabus, there are two main stages: General English (GE) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) In stage comprising the first credits, students are to achieve Basic English level C with general English knowledge and communication skills 45 periods of English for Specific Purposes are expected to be covered in stage However, for years, there was no ESP material for use, so during this stage, teachers and learners had to use the last units in New Headway Intermediate by Liz and John Soars (1998) instead 1.1.2 The graduate learners To become a graduate student at the university, one has to be in the top group in entrance written exam of English and a specialized subject of their field; their results of English test scores must be from 50 out of 100 points at the minimum It means that their English should be at pre-intermediate level Thus, graduates are quite good at grammar, vocabulary and have fairly good writing skill Moreover, before taking ESP 11 course, the graduates have already finished the GE stage with 60 class hours and at the end of this stage they are assumed to have achieved the intermediate level of proficiency In addition, they pay much attention to ESP because they are aware of the importance of English language in general and ESP in particular to their future job and study However, most of them have very limited access to documents in English, even in their field of work 1.1.3 The teaching staff The Department of Foreign languages at USSH, VNU, has now become a unit under ULIS, VNU since 2009 It has a large teaching staff of English, both full-time and part-time teachers and all of them have to pass a serious recruitment exam which involves both English knowledge and skills and teaching skill, which helps to select qualified teaching staff 1.1.4 The ESP material Graduates of social sciences and humanities are from different fields: Literature, Journalism, Psychology, International studies, Tourism, etc whose demands for terminologies and specialized English expressions are varied Practically, providing a helpful ESP program that can meet the demands of different sub-groups of learners of social sciences and humanities is a great challenge To be more precise, with one textbook, not only learners of Tourism but also other groups of students like Journalism or International studies can get useful knowledge and skills As has been mentioned previously, for many years, the English teachers at USSH used the last units in New Headway Intermediate by Liz & John Soars together with teaching materials designed or selected by themselves for the 45 periods for ESP However, the demand of a specially designed ESP material for an ESP training course of social sciences and humanities was increasing, which forced the authorities of USSH to find a solution, and English for graduate students of social sciences and humanities, compiled by the Dean of the Department of Foreign 12 language, Dr Lam Quang Dong, who is the most experienced teacher with more than 10 years teaching English at USSH, was the result This material has been officially used as the core teaching material for students of social sciences and humanities at USSH since 2008 This material contains topic areas: Population and economic issues, Superstitions and customs, and Religions Each unit is organized in such sections as follows: Language focus, Reading, Listening, which in some lessons is replaced by Writing Language focus section deals with certain grammatical points in which learners are required to rewriting exercises, gap-fill and correcting mistakes exercises or translating sentences from English into Vietnamese and vice versa In the reading section, students read a passage on some topics related to their studying fields, like What is in a name?, Black cats and broken mirrors, Customs, and so on Learners are provided tasks to gain some new terminologies, cultural and social knowledge and they also have much chance to practice reading and translating skills For Listening, teachers in charge of each class have to select their own listening passages to teach their students In the writing section, the author provides different kinds of exercises varying from gap-fill to matching, writing stories or essays and describing graphs or charts, etc in order for students to build sentences and extend them into paragraphs and essays The material was highly appreciated by the administrators, teachers and students at USSH because it seemed to meet learners‟ needs 1.1.5 Arising problem However, after two semesters using the new course-book, there have been a lot of reflections from both teachers and learners on the appropriateness of the material and the learning outcomes Some reflections were positive but some were extremely negative Therefore, an investigation into the appropriateness of this textbook to ... OF THE TEXTBOOK ENGLISH FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES AT USSH, VNU (Đánh giá giáo trình Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành dành cho học viên cao học ngành xã hội nhân văn, trường... presents the data analysis and findings concerning students? ?? language levels in an ESP course, the present situation of using English for graduate students of social sciences and humanities at USSH... find a solution, and English for graduate students of social sciences and humanities, compiled by the Dean of the Department of Foreign 12 language, Dr Lam Quang Dong, who is the most experienced