VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
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HOÀNG THỊ THU INVESTIGATING THE DIFFICULTIES IN READING
ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES EXPERIENCED BY
THE SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS AT THAI NGUYEN
UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
(KHẢO SÁT NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN TRONG VIỆC HỌC ĐỌC
TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM
THỨ HAI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KỸ THUẬT CÔNG NGHIỆP
THÁI NGUYÊN) MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 601410

Hanoi – 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABSTRACT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
2. Aims of the study
3. Methods of the study
4. Scope of the study
5. Organization of the study
PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: Literature review
1. The nature of reading
1.1 Definition of reading and reading comprehension
1.2 Reading process
1.3 Reading comprehension skills
2. ESP reading

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14 1. Introduction to Thai Nguyen University of Technology
2. Syllabus, materials and assessment
3. Teachers and methods of teaching
4. Students
5. Summary
Chapter 3: Research Methodology
1. Research questions
2. The participants
3. The data collection instrument
4. Procedure for data collection
5. Data analysis
Chapter 4: Findings and discussion
1. Students‟ attitude towards ESP reading
2. Students‟ opinion of ESP reading difficulties
2.1 In the area of vocabulary
2.2 In the area of grammar
2.3 In the area of discourse
2.4 In the area of reading skills

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35 3.1 Making students aware of the nature of reading process
3.2 Making students fully aware of their purpose of reading
3.3 Teaching students a variety of reading strategies
3.4 Encouraging students to develop extensive reading habits
4. Improvement of teachers‟ teaching techniques in the classroom
4.1 Employing three phases in ESP reading lessons
4.2 Giving homework and checking the previous lessons frequently
4.3 Adjusting teaching time and imposing time limits
5. Summary
PART THREE: CONCLUSION
1. Conclusion
2. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study

FL: Foreign Language
GE: General English
L1: First Language
L2: Second Language
M: Mean
SD: Standard Deviation LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1: Students‟ attitude towards ESP reading
Table 2: The difficulties in the area of vocabulary
Table 3: The difficulties in the area of grammar
Table 4: The difficulties in the area of discourse
Table 5: The difficulties in the area of reading skills
Table 6: The difficulties in the area of background knowledge
Table 7: The average mean of the items in each area of difficulties
Table 8. Learners‟ view of sources of difficulties

Figure 1. Schematization of the Top-down Approach
Figure 2 The vicious circle of the weak reader
Figure 3. Mean number of difficulties in the area of vocabulary
Figure 4. Mean number of difficulties in the area of grammar
Figure 5. Mean number of difficulties in the area of discourse
Figure 6. Mean number of difficulties in the area of reading skills
Figure 7. Mean number of difficulties in the area of background knowledge
Figure 8. Average mean number of areas of difficulties

follows:
- To investigate the students‟ attitude towards ESP reading. - To find out the students‟ areas of difficulty and the sources of difficulty.
- To examine the students‟ needs in terms of reading material and teaching
methodology.
- To suggest ways to reduce the difficulties and help them to improve their reading
comprehension.
3. Methods of the study
To achieve the aims of the study, both qualitative and quantitative methods are used.
By means of qualitative method, the researcher has to refer to different materials,
previous researches and relevant issues related to reading and ESP reading. By means
of quantitative method, a survey questionnaire is used. The survey questionnaire is
done on 100 second-year students at Thai Nguyen University of Technology.
4. Scope of the study
Because of the size of this minor thesis, the study is only focused on investigating
some linguistic and reading skills problems and background knowledge difficulties in
ESP reading faced by the second-year students at Thai Nguyen University of
Technology.
5. Organization of the study
The thesis includes three parts.
The first part “Introduction” comprises a rationale for the study, the aims, the
method, the scope of the study and the organization of the thesis.
The second part “Development” consists of five chapters:
Chapter 1 is concerned with the theoretical background related to the research topic
such as the nature of reading, ESP reading and ESP reading difficulties for non-native
learners.
Chapter 2 examines the current situation of teaching and learning ESP reading at
Thai Nguyen University of Technology.

accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum information of a text with the
minimum understanding”. Whereas, Grellet (1981:3) pointed out “reading
comprehension or understanding a written text means extracting the required
information from it as effectively as possible”.
Although their ideas are not exactly the same, they all agree that reading
comprehension is the process in which the readers, as they read, can recognize the
graphic forms of the reading text and understand what is implied behind these forms.
1.2 Reading process
There exist three models of reading process: bottom-up, top-down and interactive.
The first model is the bottom-up one: According to Cambourne (1979) it became the
basis of a large number of reading schemes. In this model, the reader begins with the
written text, and constructs meaning from letters, words, phrases and sentences found
within, and then processes the text in a linear fashion. In the process of meaning interpretation, the language is translated from one form of symbolic representation to
another. (Nunan, 1991)
In this text-driven model, the reader plays a relative passive role as he/she builds
comprehension by moving eyes from letters to letters, words to words, phrases to
phrases, sentences to sentences to identify their exact meaning.
In short, the bottom-up model tends to be linear as it starts with the printed stimuli
and proceed to higher–level stages, one step after another. The basis for bottom-up
processing is linguistic knowledge of the readers. There is now a great deal of evidence
pointing to the shortcomings of the bottom-up reading model. For example, Samuels
and Kamil (1988:31) point out that the lack of feedback, “in that no mechanism is
provided to allow for processing stages which occur later in the system to influence
processing which occurs earlier in the system” makes it “difficult to account for
sentence-context effects and the role of prior knowledge of text topic as facilitating
variables in word recognition and comprehension.”
The second model is top-down model: The reading process moves from the top, the

researchers, these models still reveal certain shortcomings because they sometimes fail
to distinguish adequately between beginning readers and fluent readers. Moreover, a
purely top-down concept of the reading process makes little sense for a reader who can
be stymied by a text containing a large amount of unfamiliar vocabulary. What is more,
in top-down models, the generation of hypotheses would actually be more time-
consuming than decoding (Stanovich, 1980).
The third type - interactive models of the reading process - derives from the
perceived deficiencies of both bottom-up and top-down models. Interactive theorists
appreciate the role of prior knowledge and prediction and at the same time emphasize
the importance of rapid and accurate processing of the actual words of the text.
Rumelhart (1977:573) suggests that reading is a perceptual and a cognitive process.
He believes that the reading process is neither bottom-up nor top-down and
comprehension is the result of the interaction between the two. Comprehension
depends upon how well readers do both.
Stanovich (1980) argues that in Rumelhart‟s interactive model the strength in one
processing stage can compensate for the weakness in another. The problems in both
models can be alleviated and successful reading, then, is an interplay between bottom-
up and top-down processing.
1.3 Reading comprehension skills
Reading is a complex process involving an interaction between the reader and the
text. Readers use mental activities in order to construct meaning from the text. These
activities are usually referred to as reading skills. To be an efficient reader, one needs
to develop a number of reading skills. And these skills should relate to both the bottom-
up and the top-down processing.
Nuttall (1982: 65-124) provides a list of main reading skills as follows:
Macro skills
Word-attack skills:
Micro skills
Morphological information; Structural clues; Inference (or
guessing the meanings of unfamiliar words) from context;

use his linguistic knowledge as well as background knowledge and both bottom-up and
top-down processing.
2. ESP reading
2.1 Definition of ESP
Over the past decades, an area of ESL that has been a subject of increasing interest
among the theorists in the field is ESP. Many of them have attempted to define ESP in
order to result in a clearer concept. Hutchinson and Waters (1987:19) explained that “ESP is an approach to language
teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based on the learner’s
reason for learning.” So an ESP course should differ from a GE course in the selection
of skills, themes, topics, situation and function. All ESP courses should be based on the
learners‟ needs and meet the learners‟ needs.
Strevens‟ (1988) definition of ESP makes a distinction between four absolute
characteristics and two variable characteristics:
- The absolute characteristics of ESP are: designed to meet specific needs of the
learners, related in context (that is in its themes and topics) to particular disciplines,
occupations and activities, centered on language appropriate to those activities in
syntax, lexis, discourse, semantics, and so on, and analysis of the discourse, and in
contrast with GE.
- The variable characteristics of ESP are: may be restricted to skill to be learned (for
example reading only) and may not be taught according to any pre-ordained
methodology.
It can therefore be concluded that the purpose of ESP reading is to develop the
readers‟ reading skills in the contents relevant to their occupations or fields of studies.
2.2 Reading skills in ESP
Dudley-Evans and St. Johns (1998:96) show some of the key skills: selecting what is
relevant to the current purpose; using all the features of the text such as headings,
layout, typeface; skimming for content and meaning; scanning for specifics; identifying

activities to maximize the chances of learning; create a balance outlook which both
reflects the complexity of the task, yet make it appear manageable; introduce teachers
to new techniques and provide models of correct and appropriate language use.
3. Reading difficulties for non-native learners
Reading in a foreign language is important to personal development, professional
success and academic studies. However, this can cause considerable difficulties for the
learners. The studies by Jolly (1978), Coady (1979), Yorio (1971) and others indicate
that problems with foreign language reading may exist either in learners‟ reading skills,
language proficiency or cultural and background knowledge.
3.1 Reading skills problems
As for Jolly (1978), one‟s first language reading ability plays a more important role
in reading success than his level of the target language because foreign language
reading requires the transference of old skills, not learning of new ones. Thus students
who fail to read adequately in the first language will fail because they do not possess
„old skills‟ or because they have failed to transfer them. This view is the same as that of Reads slowly
Doesn't understand
Doesn't read much
Doesn't understand
Coady (1979) who asserts that foreign language reading is a reading skill problem, not
a language problem. These two writers believe that if the reader has a poor reading
ability in his mothertongue, then, he cannot read well in a foreign language.
Students‟ limited reading skills create many problems. Students reading in a foreign
language seem to read considerably slower than they reportedly read in their first
language. Some students who read too slowly will easily get discouraged. They do not
know how to use the appropriate ways to move their eyes from word group to word
group. They just look at every single word, and consequently fail to grasp the general
meaning of the passage. Sometimes, readers may encounter a text which is too long.

students and the grammatical structures might be also new, too. As a result, they cannot
understand it. The readers will find the text very challenging and might not have any
motivation left to keep on reading.
The second is the “vocabulary problems”. As everyone knows, grammatical
knowledge accounts for a great deal of competence in reading. However, knowledge of
vocabulary is a great deal more important as a factor of reading comprehension than
awareness of grammatical structures (O‟Donnell, 1961: 313-316). Readers encounter a
lot of difficulties in dealing with proverbs and idioms, synonyms and antonyms,
polysemantic and subtechnical vocabulary. Metaphor, metonymy and other types of
transference of meaning also cause great difficulty for readers.
3.3 Cultural and background knowledge and reading difficulties
According to Fries (1963), meaning at the social level is the meaning that transcends
the language code and is related to the background knowledge of the native speakers of
that code. Comprehension of the total meaning of a sentence occurs only when the
linguistic meaning of the sentence is fitted into “a social framework of organized
information”.
Many studies (Steffensen et al., 1979), Carrell, (1981) have demonstrated the effect
of cultural knowledge on the product of comprehension, appealing to the processes of
distortion and elaboration to account for the differences between a recall of text and the
original text. Readers facing with unfamiliar content may mistranslate or misinterpret
the text according to their own cultural experiences.
From what we have discussed, it seems that there are three main factors that affect
reading comprehension: reading ability or reading skills/strategies; language
proficiency or linguistic knowledge; and cultural and background knowledge.
4. Summary
In this chapter, the relevant literature which has helped form the theoretical and
conceptual framework for the present study is presented. Firstly, it provides an overview on the nature of reading, in which the definitions of

Regarding the assessment, the commonly-used form includes written achievement
tests (a mid-term and an end-of-term one) and a daily test.
3. Teachers and methods of teaching
Our university has got 15 English teachers, aged from 25 to 50. Thirteen of them
had formal ELT training in different tertiary institutions inside Vietnam, and only two
had an in-service ELT training course. The oldest teacher has nearly 30 years of
teaching experience and the youngest teacher has two years.
Each of us has the duty to teach both GE and ESP. Only three of us have been
training in teaching ESP in Hanoi University of Technology. Therefore we still have to face many difficulties, of which the lack of the content knowledge and the choice of
appropriate teaching methodologies seem to be the major concerns.
As far as the methodology is concerned, ESP teachers usually employ the traditional
method of teaching in ESP reading lessons. Classes are conducted in the form of
lectures. Most of the time the teachers play a key role in the lesson, being the main
speaker working with the text. The teachers often explain new words, new structures,
and even translate the text into Vietnamese. Students are passive and only ask the
teachers questions when they face difficult structures or words that they cannot find in
the dictionary. And the success rests on how flexible and adaptable the individual
teacher is to respond to the requirement of the new teaching situation.
4. Students
Students at TNUT come from different provinces of the country and have the
following characteristics: Most of the students are male; they have a good sense of
responsibility and self-adjustment and they are highly self-conscious and well-aware of
their purpose in learning.
Although they have learnt English at school, their English proficiency is low
because they come from mountainous areas in the North and Centre of Vietnam. They
did not pay much attention to English. They did not consider English as important as
other subjects which helped them to enter university such as mathematics, physics and

were female and the rest were male. They came from different provinces in the North
and Centre of Viet Nam. Their age was from 19 to 22. Although they had finished New
Headway Elementary, their proficiency of English was varied because their length of
learning English at school (before entering TNUT) was different. Some of them started
learning English at grade 6, others started at grade 10.
The reason for choosing the second-year students for this study is as follows:
students only take ESP course after finishing GE course (New Headway elementary)
which was studied in the first year.
Those students were selected at random to participate in the research. It was difficult
to select a random sample of individuals since students had already been assigned to
different classes. In this case, cluster random sampling was more feasible, which means
that instead of randomly selecting the individuals, the researcher randomly selected the groups or classes for investigation. This approach is more appropriate and convenient
for the researcher to observe the participants who filled the questionnaires in classes.
3. The data collection instrument
The main instrument for data collection in this study was a survey questionnaire.
Survey questionnaire was chosen because it allowed the researcher to collect a large
amount data in a relatively short time. Therefore, it was certainly valuable for me to
explore the students‟ difficulties in reading ESP.
The questionnaire was constructed based on the literature on ESP learners‟ reading
difficulties, my observation of my students during 4 years of teaching at TNUT and my
discussion with the other teachers of English of the faculty. Before given to the
students, the questionnaire was piloted on a group of 20 second-year students of TNUT
to check if the questionnaire could provide the kind of information it was intended and
if its wordings would cause confusion and misunderstanding to the respondents. After
that, necessary changes were made to improve the questionnaire.
The questionnaire is divided into two main parts: part one aimed to collect
information about the students‟ background which included their place of domicile, the

interpretation. Then the information is displayed in forms of tables and figures. CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter presents the results from the analysis of the data collected from the
questionnaire. The presentation is divided into four parts. The first part presents the
students‟ attitude towards ESP reading. The second part describes the findings on
English reading difficulties faced by TNUT students when dealing with the material.
The third part gives detailed information about the causes of their difficulties. And the
last part discusses some recommendations of the students towards reading materials
and teaching methodology.
1. Students’ attitude towards ESP reading
Three questions in the questionnaire are to explore the students‟ attitudes towards
ESP reading. They were asked to choose among “strongly agree” (SA), “agree” (A),
“disagree” (D), “strongly disagree” (SD). The results are presented in Table 1.
Questions
Percent responses (%)
SA
A
D
SD
1. Reading is an important skill in
ESP learning.
35
61
4
0
2. ESP reading is very necessary for
our future job.
59