VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
****************

ĐOÀN THỊ SỬ A SURVEY RESEARCH ON METHODS TO IMPROVE
STUDENTS’ TOEIC TEST TAKING SKILLS AT VIETNAM
MARITIME UNIVERSITY
Nghiên cứu khảo sát những phương pháp nhằm nâng cao
kỹ năng làm bài thi TOEIC cho sinh viên
Trường Đại học Hàng hải Việt Nam M. A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

Hanoi – 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
****************

Hanoi, 10 August 2014 Đoàn Thị Sử ii

ABSTRACT
In an attempt to investigate the obstacles encountered by the students at
Vietnam Maritime University (VIMARU) while sitting for the TOEIC test
and giving some recommendations to improve their test taking skills, the main
purposes of the study were to find out (1) the main difficulties affecting the
students’ test results, (2) and giving the students some suggestions to better
test taking skills. The subjects of the study were 85 third – year students and 5

My appreciation also goes to the lecturers and students at Vietnam
Maritime University for their valuable assistance in completing my survey
questionnaire and providing me with a lot of useful information.
Finally, I would like to send my great thanks to my family, my friends
for their encouragements and advice.
On the whole, without all their help my paper would not have possibly
been completed. iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
TOEIC: Test of English for International Communication
TOEFL: Test of English as a Foreign Language
IELTS: International English Language Testing System
VIMARU: Vietnam Maritime University
FLC: Foreign Language Center
ETS: Educational Testing Service

20, 21, 22)
vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Declaration i
Abstract ii
Acknowledgements iii
List of abbreviations iv
List of tables and figures v
Table Of Contents vi
PART A: INTRODUCTION 1
1.Rationale of the study 1
2.Objectives of the study 2
3.Methods of the study 2
4.Research questions 3

5.Suggestions for further study 41
REFERENCES 42
APPENDIX I
1

PART A: INTRODUCTION
In the first chapter, the researcher introduces the reasons for chosing the thesis, as
well as the scope, methods, objectives, and the organization of the study. The
research questions are also stated.
1. Rationale of the study
There is no doubt that the role of English in the life of any society in the world
today has been becoming more and more important. The widespread need for
English as an international language puts a considerable pressure on the education
resources of any countries. In case of our country, since our government carried out
the open door policy to attract foreign investment and co-operate with other
countries, teaching and learning English has become necessary. Moreover, it is the
English that is used as an effective medium of international communication. It is the
language of trade, science, technology, tourism, sport, music and many other fields
of life. That is the reason why at present, learning English is not only the interest
but also the great and practical demand for many people, especially for students
who always want to assess the modern world. Therefore, English is now taught as a
compulsory subject to all students at university in our country.
English plays an important part in the growth and global intergration. Nowadays,
the criteria for evaluating one’s English ability for people who wish to get a good
job by A, B, C certificates is out of date. IELTS, TOEFL, TOEIC have been the best
choices. Together with other requirements, TOEIC certificate is really necessary for
any job seekers. That’s why many people are trying their best to be successful in the
TOEIC test.
At VIMARU students are required to get TOEIC certificate as a condition to
graduate. The required score depends on the course that the students are taking in.

Besides, this thesis is also carried out through a variety of methods such as
class observation, informal interview and discussion with the teachers and students
at FLC of VIMARU.
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4. Research questions
The study was intended to answer three following questions:
(1) What are the obstacles encountered by the students while sitting for the
TOEIC test?
(2) What have the teachers done to prepare their students before the TOEIC test?
(3) What is the current studying situation on the preparation for the TOEIC test
of the students at FLC?
In seeking answers to these questions, the researcher looked into the following
issues:
 What was the attitute of the students towards teaching methods of the
teachers and the TOEIC test?
 What activities and techniques did teachers use to provide their students with
test –taking skills?
5. Scope of the study
Due to the limit of time and knowledge, this study merely focuses on
methods to improve TOEIC test taking skills of the students at FLC of
VIMARU. The researcher can just conduct survey on students to investigate some
problems showing the TOEIC test bad results experienced by these students then
suggest certain techniques to help them better their TOEIC reading and listening
test taking skills. Also, such follow-up aspects such as other factors affect the
students’ performance on the TOEIC test are left untouched.
6. Organization of the study
The thesis is divided into three main parts:
Part A (Introduction) presents the reasons for the choice of the study, aim
and objectives of the study as well as the scope, methods and organization of the 5

PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, some of the most important issues in the theories related to
the study will be taken into consideration. It is an overview on the TOEIC test,
introduction of previous studies, as well as theories of listening and reading
comprehension are also introduced
1.1. An overview on the TOEIC test
TOEIC is an acronym that stands for Test of English for International
Communication. The TOEIC test measures one’s ability to use English in daily
business situations covering such topics as corporate development, finance and
budgeting, corporate property, IT, manufacturing, purchasing, offices, personnel,
technical matters, meetings, telephone communications, health and business travel,
etc. Educational Testing Service (ETS) began developing the TOEIC test in 1978 as
a way of measuring the communicative ability of business people. The test is paper-
based, with students using a pencil to mark their answers on a special machine-
readable answer sheet.The test has two sections: Listening Comprehension (100
multiple choice questions) and Reading Comprehension (100 multiple choice
questions). The total time allowed for the test (including administrative tasks) is
approximately 2.5 hours. The Listening section takes 45 minutes; the Reading
section takes 75 minutes. The content of the TOEIC is not specialized, the
vocabulary and content are familiar to those inviduals who use English in daily
activities. The TOEIC test is scored on the scale of 10 to 990. Only correct
responses count toward TOEIC score. Listening TOEIC test is divided into four
parts including Picture Description, Questions and Responses, Short Conversations

importance of listening, classification of listening and listening process are also introduced.
1.3.1. Reading comprehension
1.3.1.1.An Overview on the Nature of Reading
1.3.1.1.1.Definition of Reading
Attempts have been made to give a definition of what reading is. However, the act
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of reading is not completely understood nor easily described.
Rumelhart (1977) defines “reading involves the reader, the text, and the interaction
between the reader and the text”. It means the role of learners and reading texts are
placed an important position in reading act.
According to Goodman (1971:135), reading is “a psycholinguistic process by which
the reader, a language users, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has
been encoded by a writer as a graphic display”, and the act of reconstruction is
viewed as “a cyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing and confirming.”
William (1986:3) shares the same view on reading when he argues that “written
texts, then, often contain more than we need to understand them. The efficient
reader makes use of this to take what he needs, and no more, to obtain meaning.”
Harmer (1989:153) views reading from a different perspective. He considers
reading as a mechanical process that “eyes receive the message and the brain has to
work out the significance of the message.”
Though definitions of reading are numerous, none can certainly capture all the ideas
and features of what reading is. However, what they all share is that they try to find
out the nature of reading, and reading act, in which the readers, reading process, and
reading message are emphasized.
1.3.1.1.2.Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension plays a key role in teaching and learning reading a foreign
language. It can be understood as the ability to obtain the information as required in
the reading lessons as efficiently as possible. Thus, three elements - reading text,
background knowledge of the reader, and the contextual aspects relevant for the

knowledge of the subject, knowledge of and expectations about how language
works, motivation, interest and attitudes towards the content of the text.
Apparently, the strong points of top-down models outnumber those of the bottom-
up as the reader – the central of the reading process as we personally assume –
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proves his active role. However, to some researchers, these models still reveal
certain shortcomings because it sometimes fails 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 – is proposed in the
thought of 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.
Hayes (1991:7) proposes “in interactive models, different processes are thought to
be responsible for providing information that is shared with other processes. The
information obtained from each type of processing is combined to determine the
most appropriate interpretation of the printed pages.”
To sum up, the appearance and popularity of interactive models show that
interactive models can maximize the strengths and minimizes the weaknesses of the
separate use of either bottom-up or top-down models.
1.3.1.1.4.Classification of Reading
Classification according to Manner
Reading, according to manner, is divided into reading aloud and silent reading in
which “reading aloud involves looking at the text, understanding it and also saying
it.” (Doff, 1988:70). Though reading aloud is considered a way to convey necessary

information and often we do not even follow the linearity of the passage to do so.”
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Though these two reading techniques are important for quick and efficient
reading, they should not be selected separately because a text can be best tackled
by a combination of strategies.
Unlike skim-read and scan-read which to some extent still have something in
common, extensive and intensive reading are viewed differently. While
extensive reading is associated with reading outside the classroom and fluency
and pleasure in reading are expected as reading fruits while intensive reading,
also called study reading, involves the close guidance of the teacher and require
great attention to the text. Students need to “arrive at a profound and detailed
understanding of the text not only of what it means but also of how the meaning
is produced” (Nuttal, 1989:23)
1.3.2. Listening Comprehension
1.3.2.1. The importance of listening
It is now widely accepted that oral communication can not take place
without listening and listening plays a central and possibly predominant part in the
whole process of language learning. Listening, speaking, reading and writing are the
four skills of parts of that “indivisible range called communication”. They are
interrelated and interdependent . According to Pearson Ian. (1981), The Functional
Notional Approach in Language Teaching, p. 80 , listening is tied to the essential
cognitive elements of comprehension and understanding. In order to take part in
oral communication, clearly, the first thing anyone must have is the ability to absorb
the pieces of information from the speaker by listening. When nobody listens to a
speaker or when a listener fails to understand the message, communication is
considered unsuccessful. Moreover , listening is an important way of acquiring the
language , a good way of picking up vocabulary and structures. Teaching listening
to spoken language is ,therefore, of primary importance .
“ Teaching the comprehension of spoken language is therefore of primary

great concentration and stretching effort.
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1.3.2.2.2. Extensive listening
Extensive listening is free and general listening to natural language for
general ideas, not for particular details. The listening passages for extensive
listening can be long (reports, talks, etc) or short (introductions, instructions, phone
messages,etc). The language that is used in this type of listening is often within the
students’ current ability so that students find it pleasing and interesting when they
are listening. Students feel satisfied as they can understand the passage well. They
are not asked to do any language work and they can do their listening freely without
any pressure. Moreover the topics are various and entertaining, it, therefore,
motivates students to develop their listening skill as well as exposes them to
valuable extra contact with spoken language.
1.4. Summary
In short, this chapter focuses on the concepts which are useful for the
accomplishment of the paper. Firstly, it is an overview of the TOEIC test. Next, it is
overview of the previous related studies to this thesis. And then that is an
introduction of theories about reading and listening comprehension.

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courses to meet the students’ needs, for example Japanese classes, English classes
for marine purposes, etc. However, FLC mainly trains TOEIC test – taking skills for
VIMARU’s students as well as students from other universities in Haiphong city. A
TOEIC training – course may last from 50 to 100 hours. Students can choose
suitable time to attend any courses. Each TOEIC class may have from 25 to 45
students. It is potential for the lecturers at this center to access to students of
different levels and variable TOEIC test score requirement, thereby they can
develope their teaching methods as much as they can.
Alongside with many of evening classes, FLC has full-time classes and classes for
TOEIC training. Apart from this, the center also has training cooperations with
other colleges, universities, or institutes within Vietnam such as Hanoi University of
Science and Technology; Vietnam National University, Hanoi; International School
of Education, etc.
With its new position as a member of Vietnam Maritime University, the Center
goes on with upgrading teaching and learning facilities, training teachers, expanding
the teaching areas.
2.2. Students and learning requirements at FLC
Students who join TOEIC classes normally come from VIMARU. There are also
many students who come from other universities in Haiphong city as Haiphong
Medical University, Haiphong Private Univerisity as well as Haiphong University.
They can be freshmen or final – year students. But most of them have the same
purpose to gain TOEIC certificate. The students come from different departments of
VIMARU and levels of English. Normally, those who come from Maritime
Economics Faculty are better than any other Falcuties. However, these students are
trained with the same course book Starter TOEIC in 6 periods of English per week.
They have to study English at least three times a week and within 15 weeks of
studying, each class has 3 TOEIC-based progress tests designed by the teacher of
the class. The content and length of the tests are different from classes. At the end
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