1

Vietnam national university, Hanoi
University of Languages and international studies
faculty of Post-graduate Studies
KIỀU THỊ THU HÀ THE NON-MAJOR ENGLISH STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE
TEACHING OF ENGLISH IN ELECTRONICS READING AT HAI DUONG
COLLEGE OF ECONOMICS AND TECHNOLOGY

(Thái độ của sinh viên không chuyên đối với việc dạy đọc hiểu tiếng Anh
chuyên ngành Điện tử tại trƣờng Cao đẳng Kinh tế - Kỹ thuật Hải Dƣơng)
MA. MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10

Hanoi, 2010
5 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

HCET: Hai Duong College of Economics and Technology
GE: General English
ESP: English for Specific Purposes
EE: English in Electronics

Table 1: Students’ Attitude towards English in Electronics at HCET
Table 2: Students’ Awareness of the Importance of English in Electronics at HCET
Table 3: Students’ Awareness of Teachers’ roles in EE Reading Teaching at HCET
Table 4: Students’ Evaluations to the Teachers’ Approaches in EE Reading Teaching at HCET
Table 5: Students’ Evaluations to the Teachers’ Techniques in EE Pre-reading Teaching at HCET
Table 6: Students’ Evaluations to the Teachers’ Techniques in EE While-reading Teaching at HCET
Table 7: Students’ Evaluations to the Teachers’ Techniques in EE Post-reading Teaching at HCET
PART A: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale………………………………………………………………………
1
2. Aims of the Study………………………………………………………………
2
3. Research Questions…………………………………………………………….
3
4. Research Methodology…………………………………………………………
3
5. Scope of the Study……………………………………………………………
3
6. Design of the Study…………………………………………………………….
3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1. The Nature of Reading Comprehension……………………………………
5
1.1.1. What is Reading and Reading Comprehension?
5
1.1.1.1. What is Reading?
5
1.1.1.2. What is Reading Comprehension?
6
1.1.2. Reading Comprehension Process…………………………………….
6
1.1.2.1. The Schema Theory………………………………………
6

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

2.1. Research Context……………………………………………………………
15
2.1.1. ESP Course and the Objectives of the Teaching of EE Reading at HCET…
15
2.1.2. The Background of the EE Classroom at HCET……………………
16
2.1.2.1. The Teachers’ Problems……………………………………………
16
2.1.2.2. The Students’ Problems…………………………………………….
16
2.1.2.3. Materials……………………………………………………………
17
2.2. Research Questions……………………………………………………………
18
2.3. Research Approach…………………………………………………………
19
2.4. Participants……………………………………………………………………
19
2.4.1. Population……………………………………………………………
19
2.4.3. Sampling……………………………………………………………
19
2.4.2. Description of Participants…………………………………………
19
2.5. The instrument………………………………………………………………
20
2.6. Data Collection Procedure……………………………………………………
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4.2. Implications……………………………………………………………………
36
4.2.1. Building up Good Basic Background Knowledge…………………
36
4.2.2. Improving Learning Environment…………………………………….
36
4.2.3. Enhancing Teachers’ Professional Knowledge………………………
36
4.2.4. Employing the Blend of Two Approaches…………………………
37
4.2.5. Using Various Activities in Three Reading Stages…………………
38
4.2.6. Developing the Reading Materials…………………………………
38
4.2.7. Recommending a Sample Lesson Plan………………………………
38
PART C: CONCLUSION

1. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………
39
2. Limitations of the Study………………………………………………………
39
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3. Recommendations for further Research…………………………………….
39
Reference
Appendices
A Sample Lesson Plan

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PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
With the strong and rapid development of science and technology, more and more inventions are
born and applied for daily life demands of human beings. The question is that all materials of
advanced technology are in English while not all people in the world can use English smoothly,
especially English in science and technology. Therefore, there is a growing demand for English
teaching to meet the needs of learners who want to “gain access to the required knowledge that is
available, either exclusively or most readily, in English” (Munby, 1978, p.3) or to serve other
specific purposes. This leads to English for specific purpose (ESP).
Being aware of the importance of ESP, Hai Duong College of Economics and Technology (HCET)
has added ESP teaching for students finishing General English with the aim that ESP can provide
students with background knowledge, a system of terms related to the fields which they are
studying (economics, electrical engineering and electronics) and more importantly, some
approaches as well as techniques of reading ESP materials. These will help them develop their
own communicative competence and self – study on ESP materials. According to Carrell (1981,
p.1), “reading is by far the most important of the four macro-skills, particularly in English as a
second foreign language” that is true for General English and is extremely true for ESP in general
and English in Electronics (EE) in particular. Thanks to ESP subject, the non-major English
students can make extensive use of academic materials written in English and then increase their
professional knowledge in their specialized fields.
However, ESP reading teaching in general and EE reading teaching at HCET in particular remains
teacher-centered, and for many English language teachers, ESP reading teaching means teaching
terminologies. This can be rooted in the Vietnamese traditional philosophy of education who views
a knowledge transmission as the ultimate goal of the education process. In this process, students
are passive and they learn whatever teachers “pour”. As a result, not only knowledge but also
learning styles are imposed on students by teachers. What is more, when they face up with new

2) What are the implications for the teaching of English in Electronics reading at HCET?
4. Research Methodology
In this research, various sources of data were used through one questionnaire, involving the non-
major English students at Hai Duong College of Economics and Technology. The questionnaire
was designed in such a way that both closed and open-ended questions to ensure deep data. The
data was analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively.
5. Scope of the Study
As it has been stated above, the study is designed to explore the non-major English students’
attitudes towards the teaching of English in Electronics reading in order to make some
methodological recommendations for English in Electronics reading teaching. This study is,
therefore, descriptive by nature. The other subjects of the study are the non-major English students
at Hai Duong College of Economics and Technology, the “specific purposes” of the course are
confined to “English in Electronics”.
6. Design of the Study
This study consists of three parts:
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Part A: Introduction. This part supplies an overview of the study with specific reference to the
rationale, the aims, the methodology and the design.
Part B: Development. In this part, four chapters are presented.
Chapter 1 deals with an exploration of the theoretical background of the research. It is concerned
with the issues relevant to the topic of the research: reading and reading comprehension, an
overview of English for Specific Purpose and English in Electronics, approaches and techniques to
teach reading EE.
Chapter 2 is the methodology which the study is presented. This chapter presents the background
information of the subjects of the study, the instrument used to collect the data, the procedure of
data collection.
Chapter 3 is aimed at describing data analysis in detail and a thorough discussion of the findings
of the study. Some explanations and interpretations of the findings are also presented in this
chapter.

1.1.1.1. What is Reading?
Reading is an interactive process that goes on between the reader and the text, resulting in
comprehension. The text presents letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs that encode meaning.
The reader uses knowledge, skills, and strategies to determine what that meaning is. So far reading
has been defined differently by lots of scholars, however no single definition is acceptable to
everyone.
Goodman (1971, p.135) stated that reading is “a psycholinguistics process by which the reader,
language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a
graphic display”. In his opinion, readers not only learn how to read the text, to master grammatical
structures…but also understand the content expressed in the text.
Having the same point with Goodman, William, E. (1990, p.2) said that “reading is a process
whereby one looks at and understands what has been written”. According William, in reading
process, there are also two parallel activities: looking and understanding. Therefore, readers have
to “encode” meanings of a word depend on the context in which it appears.
One more definition offered by Harmer (1989, p.153) showed us his opinion and two above
authors have a lot of things in common “reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain.
The eyes receive messages and the brain then has to work out the significance of these messages”.
Thus, obviously, definitions of reading have been various in using words and expressions but they
all focus on two activities: looking with eyes and understanding with brains in which the latter is
more important. The most noticeable thing in the latter is that the interaction between readers and
authors – readers not only read authors’ words but also read authors’ thought.
1.1.1.2. What is Reading Comprehension?
Reading comprehension results in the fact that when readers know which skills and strategies are
appropriate for types of texts and understand how to apply them to accomplish reading purpose.
Swan (1975, p.1) stated that “A student is good at comprehension we mean that he can read
accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum information of a text with the minimum of
understanding”. It is obvious that the student can show his understanding only by doing some tasks
such as summarizing the text, answering questions, making true or false etc.
To sum up, reading becomes meaningless without comprehension since only reading
comprehension can appreciate how much readers understand the text. Therefore, how to help

According to Silberstein (1994), “text comprehension requires the simultaneous interaction of two
models of information processing”.
The bottom – up processing occurs when readers get the meaning of a text through recognizing
letters and words, working out sentence structures and then interpreting paragraphs and the whole
text. According to this view, reading is a linear process by which readers decode the text word by
word, linking the words into phrases and then sentences. When first reading makes readers
confused or they are not really sure of what writers intended, understanding of the meaning a
sentence can have on its own will help readers fully grasp what writers conveyed.
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In the top – down processing, reading is not just extracting meaning from a text but a process of
connecting information in the text with the knowledge readers bring to the act of reading. Reading,
in this sense, is a dialogue between the reader and the text. It is seen as an active cognitive process
in which readers’ background knowledge plays a key role in the creation of meaning (Tierney and
Pearson, 1994). This is called knowledge-based or conceptually driven information processing.
In short, there are two ways that readers can use to deal with a text: using the bottom – up
processing to get detail understanding of the text and using the top-down to understand main ideas
about the text. Readers may use one of the two ways to comprehend texts, however, readers
usually need both of them to deal with difficult texts. As a result, this leads to interactive
processing.
1.1.2.3. Interactive Processing
It is known that no single method is the best. A successful reader should combine top-down and
bottom-up processing, which is called interactive reading:
“In practice, a reader continually shifts from one focus to another, now
adopting a top-down approach to predict probable meaning, then moving
to the bottom-up approach to check whether that is really what the writer
says”. Nuttall (1996, p.17)
According to Hayes (1991, p.7),
“in interactive models, different processes are thought to be responsible
for providing information that is shared with other processes. The

and activities;
3) centered on language appropriate to Electronic activities in syntax, lexis discourse,
semantics and so on, and analysis of the discourse;
1.3. Approaches to Teach Reading
In fact, there are quite a lot of approaches of teaching GE reading in general and ESP reading in
particular. However, in this study, I would like to mention about two approaches which are most
commonly used in teaching ESP reading: Grammar – Translation approach and Communicative
Language Teaching approach.
1.3.1. Grammar – Translation Approach
The Grammar Translation Approach is the oldest approach of teaching in the world. A number of
approaches and techniques have been evolved for the teaching of English and also other foreign
languages in the recent past years, yet this approach is still in use in teaching. The main principles
on which the Grammar Translation Approach are based are the following:
1. Translation interprets the words and phrases of the foreign languages in the best possible
manner.
2. The phraseology and the idiom of the target language can best be assimilated in the process
of interpretation.
3. The structures of the foreign languages are best learned when compared and contrast with
those of mother tongue.
Advantages:
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1. The phraseology of the target language is quickly explained. Translation is the easiest way
of explaining meanings or words and phrases from one language into another.
2. Teachers’ labor is saved when they use their mother tongue in teaching and learners will
not have much difficulty in responding to questions on the mother tongue.
Disadvantages:
1. Exact translation is not possible. Translation a language with various customs, traditions
and modes of behavior is, indeed, a difficult task and exact translation from one language
to another is not always possible.

In reading comprehension, tasks are especially important since they will guide reader in a correct
reading procedure and help them have thorough understanding about reading texts.
Advantages
1. Task-based learning is more student-centered, allows for more meaningful communication, and
often provides for practical extra-linguistic skill building.
2. Tasks are likely to be familiar to students who are more likely to be engaged, which may further
motivate them in their language learning.
Disadvantages:
There have been criticisms that task-based learning is not appropriate as the foundation of a class
for beginning students. Others claim that students are only exposed to certain forms of language,
and are being neglected of others, such as discussion or debate.
1.4. Techniques to teach EE reading
1.4.1. In Pre-reading
At this important stage, teachers should make sure that students have the relevant schema for
understanding the text. This is achieved by having students think, write, and discuss every thing
they know about the topic employing the most common techniques such as prediction, semantic
mapping and reconciled reading.
Prediction is defined as “the prior elimination of unlikely alternatives”. Smith (1994, p. 19).
According to him, predictions are questions readers ask the world and comprehension is receiving
the answers.
Previewing occurs when students look at titles, headings, and pictures, and read the first few
paragraphs and the last paragraph; these activities can then help students understand what texts is
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about by activating their formal and content schemata and making them familiar with the topic
before they begin reading.
Semantic mapping is another pre-reading that Carell, Pharis, and Liberto (1989, p.651) describe as
a useful way to pre-teach vocabulary and to “provide the teacher with an assessment of the
students’ prior knowledge or schema availability on the topic”. This activity asks students to
brainstorm about the reading topic as the information is displayed on a graphic “map”.


CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
2.1. Research Context
2.1.1. ESP Course and the Objectives of the Teaching of EE Reading at HCET
Hai Duong College of Economics and Technology (HCET) is originated from Hai Duong College
of Finance and Accounting, which dated in 1988 with the principal objective is to train accountants
for companies and factories in or out of the province. With the turn of society and economy, the
college has expanded another field called Technology in order to train technicians for growing
industrial zones as well as other technological companies for the past ten years.
At Hai Duong College of Economics and Technology, English is not regarded as the main subject.
However, it is considered as a means to communicate and complete the students’ certain activities
at work in their future career. ESP at HCET consists of three different fields such as: English in
Economics, English in Electrical Engineering and English in Electronics. Before taking part in
ESP course, students had experienced General English in the first year and they had been equipped
with certain knowledge of their major. In the second year, they shifted to English in Electronics,
which is set with the following aims:
- To provide the students with some terminologies relating to their Electronics.
- To improve the students’ reading skills so as to help them approach ESP materials
effectively.
For the electronic students, they also set for themselves two goals in learning English in
Electronics:
- To get good marks in three tests during the term and in the end-term exams. English in
Electronics is a rather difficult subject and they are frightened of failing, even re-sitting for
the exam.
- To meet the society’s demand is to communicate with foreigners or to read materials
written in English.
2.1.2. The Background of the EE Classroom at HCET
2.1.2.1. The Teachers’ Problems
Department of English at HCET includes 10 teachers aging from 28 to 49, four of whom are in
charge of teaching English in Electronics. Most of them are the teachers of General English,

2) the types of learners who will be learning the language
Materials exist in various forms such as a textbook, a workbook, a cassette, a photocopied handout,
a newspaper, etc. In term of teaching and learning ESP, it can be classified into two resources of
materials: public materials and in-house materials. The current EE material for the non-major
English students at HCET belongs to the latter. The course book is entitled with the name “English
in Electronics and Telecommunications”, which originated from a book “English in Electronics
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and Telecommunications” by a group of Vietnamese editors: Nguyen Cam Thanh, Dang Duc
Cuong and Vuong Dao Vy. The course book was born thanks to the cooperation of the teachers in
Department of Electronics and Telecommunication and Department of English with an expert (also
a supervisor) from Ha Noi University of Technology, Prof. Nguyen Lan Trang.
The book which is a collection of reading in Electronics and Telecommunications has been in use
for the non-major English students in the second year for 7 years. The book consists of ten units
with texts as well as tasks for comprehension and three units of grammatical points called
“Language Focus”. The reason why the teachers choose only ten units is to make the students
unstressed and be not pressured in EE lessons. In addition, the teachers’ goal is that the students
acknowledge a little rather than nothing. The contents of the texts are chosen and simplified to
adapt the language level of the students. Difficult terms are provided with Vietnamese equivalents
in the word lists right below the texts. The structure of each unit is organized into 5 parts: Text,
Words and Expressions, Comprehension Questions with three tasks, Comprehension Terms with
two tasks and Translation with English – Vietnamese translation and vice versa. After unit 3, unit 6
and unit 10, there is one unit focusing grammatical points in its previous units so as to consolidate
learnt knowledge and skills for the students for three tests during learning. At the end of the book
is the appendix of Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations to support them in comprehending the
texts.
With all above characteristics, the book aims at building up the students’ terms about Electronics
and equipping them necessary skills to approach EE materials, especially reading skill. However, it
remains some limitations for both the teachers and the students:
- The reading texts are still long and difficult for the students at HCET with not very high

2.4.2. Sampling
In a survey research, sampling is always to be a crucial methodological issue. Since it is usually
not feasible to survey the entire group of interest (225 students), a subgroup or a sample with 100
students was selected. The sample who affects the conclusions that can be drawn about the results
is similar to the population of interest in important ways.
The students in this study were randomly chosen without any previously fixed criteria. They were
also explained that their answers to the questionnaire were anonymous in order to ensure the
honesty and accuracy.
2.4.3. Description of the Participants
This study was conducted with the two non-major English classes consisting of 100 second-year
students at Hai Duong College of Economics and Technology. Each class had 50 students, both
male and female with the same two-year course of English.
All participants in this research were major in Electronics but English was a compulsory subject.
Also, they are taught by Vietnamese teachers of English.
As I stated in 3.4.1, the participants in this study had at least four-year experience of learning
English and they also had certain knowledge about their major, as a result, they were believed to
have more to say about EE teaching.
2.5. The instrument
Only one instrument was employed to gain data for the study: survey questionnaire (see Appendix
1 and 2).
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It is known that one of the most common methods of data collection in second language research is
to use questionnaire of various kinds. This is due to its advantages: research time, research effort
and financial resources. “If the questionnaire is well-constructed, processing the data can also be
fast and relatively straightforward.” (Zoltan Dornyei, 2003, p.9). A closed-ended question is used
when the answer is factual one and fairly predictable, therefore most questions are closed-ended.
Furthermore, rating scales are in use because according to Zoltan Dornyei (2003, p.36), “they
require the respondent to make evaluative judgment of the target by marking one of a series of
categories organized into a scale”.

- Students’ style preferences for EE reading teaching.
The data were then analyzed both descriptively and interpretively. The quantitative data were
presented in the form of charts while qualitative data from open-ended questionnaire items.

2.8. Conclusive Remarks
This chapter presented the research context, the research questions, research approach, participants
and instruments of data collection. In this study one instrument was decided to use. Furthermore,
two lessons were designed to teach reading EE traditionally and communicatively to the
questionnaire respondents who were then asked to evaluate both lessons and choose one they
would prefer. In the chapter four, data analysis and discussion will be presented.
(%)
Don’t like EE at all
(%)
Neither like nor
dislike
(%)
100
70
18
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Table 1. Students’ attitude towards English in Electronics at HCET
Looking at the Table 1, it can be said that the second-year students were interested in English in
Electronics. They also gave out their own reasons which are typically presented here.
 Knowing English in Electronics helps me to find a good job in an industrial zone (a male
student – class K8.06.01).
 I think English in Electronics is useful and necessary for my future job relating my major (a
male student – class K8.06.02).
 English in Electronics will equip me with an effective approach to EE materials (a female
student – class K8.06.01).
 I can exchange with foreign employees about work relating to Electronics when I work for
an Electronic company, therefore I can make promotion (a male student – class K8.06.02).