VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES


NGO THI MY BINH

AN EVALUATION OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE MATERIALS ON
ENGLISH FOR TOUR GUIDES FOR THE 3 RD YEAR STUDENTS OF
FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND TOURISM DEPARTMENT AT SAO DO
INDUSTRIAL COLLEGE AND SUGGESTIONS FOR ADAPTATION

Đánh giá hiệu quả của giáo trình Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành H-ớng dẫn
Du lịch cho sinh viên năm thứ 3 khoa Du Lịch Ngoại ngữ tr-ờng Cao
đẳng Công nghiệp Sao Đỏ và gợi ý cho việc hiệu chỉnh

M.A. Minor Thesis

Field: English teaching methodology
Code: 60 14 10

Hai Duong 2010


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES


NGO THI MY BINH



Acknowledgements

iv

List of figures, tables and charts

v

List of abbreviation

vi

Abstract

vii

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1

I.

Rationale and aims of the study

1

II. Scope of the study

2


1.1.2. Types of Materials

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1.2 Materials Evaluation

7

1.2.1. Reasons for Materials Evaluation

7

1.2.2. Definitions of Materials Evaluation

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1.2.3. Types of Materials Evaluation

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1.2.4. Materials Evaluators

9

1.2.5. Sources of the Data

10

1.2.6. Models for Materials Evaluation


iii

2.1. Method of data collection and procedures
2.1.1. Survey questionnaires

19
19

2.1.1.1. Participants of the survey

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2.1.1.2. Description of the survey questionnaires

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2.1.2. Formal interview to teachers, students and class observations

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2.2. Findings and Discussion

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2.2.1 Teacher’s evaluation

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2.2.1.1. The evaluation of the teachers in terms of audience, aims, content,

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2.2.2.5. Students’ suggestion for the speaking lessons

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2.3. Evaluation findings
CHAPTER III: SUGGESTIONS FOR THE TEXTBOOK’S ADAPTATION
3.1. Suggestions for the adaptation of speaking lessons
3.1.1 Suggestions for the adaptation of speaking lesson in Unit 2: Hai Duong’s
attractions
3.1.2. Suggestions for the adaptation of speaking lesson in Unit 3: Hanoi’s
attractions
3.1.3. Suggestions for the adaptation of speaking lesson in Unit 6: National parks
in Vietnam
3.1.4. Suggestions for the adaptation of speaking lesson in Unit 8: Museums in
Vietnam
3.1.5. Suggestions for the adaptation of speaking lesson in Unit 10: Ha Long Bay
3.2 Evaluation of the adaptation

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34
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35
37
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39
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Figures
Figure 1

The Materials Evaluation Model of Hutchinson and Waters (1993:98)

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Figure 2

Preparing a presentation

36
Page

Tables
Table 2.1

Students' results of learning tourism English in the previous term

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Table 2.2

Students' attitudes towards an “English for Tour guides” course

26

Table 2.3


Students’ suggestion for the speaking lessons

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vi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

SIC

Sao Do Industrial College

FLTD

Foreign Languages and Tourism Department

ETP

English for Tourism Purpose

EFT

English for Tour guides

ESP

English for specific purposes

ELT

and may be unaware of how to judge which texts best suit their situation. That research gap
has propelled me to choose materials evaluation as the theme for this master thesis.
The second reason for this option lies in the fact that in recent years there have emerged
diverse opinions of both the learners and teachers on the actual effectiveness of the
materials “English for Tour guides”- an in-house materials used in teaching ESP for the
third year students at FLTD at SIC in Hai Duong. Arguments have encompassed both the
potentials and the limitations of the materials for guiding students through the learning


2

process as well as the needs and preferences of the teachers and learners who are using it.
Other issues that have lately arisen include the textbook content, the methodology validity,
the role of textbooks in innovation, the authenticity of materials in terms of their
representation of language and the appropriateness of some speaking lessons. It is
essential, therefore, that we should establish and apply a wide variety of relevant and
contextually appropriate criteria for the evaluation of the textbook to assess its
appropriateness against the learning purposes.
The last but not least, being a teacher of foreign languages and having taught the course of
“English for Tour guides” at SIC more than two years, I have found out that there are some
problems with the materials of the course which are needed to be adapted. With the hope
of improving the quality and minus the limitation of the materials to benefit both the
learners and teachers, I conduct this research to discuss and describe the evaluation process
that is to be undertaken at the FLTD at SIC of the textbook “English for Tour guides” used
in this particular learning environment and thus lead to further thought on improving the
quality of the materials by suggestions for the textbook’s adaptation especially in speaking
lessons. These are also the aims of the study.
II. Scope of the study
The study is about the evaluation of effectiveness of the in-house materials “English for
Tour guides” - Part IV – Tourism destinations in Vietnam. Its curriculum consists of 120

was a combination of document analysis, survey questionnaires, informal interviews and
class observation. The researcher's belief was that a combination of different methods to
collect data could provide more reliable and valid information for the evaluation.
IV. Research questions
The study is to find out the answers to the following research questions:
1. How do the materials “English for Tour guides” used at SIC meet the requirements of
the course and meet the demands of students in terms of objectives, content, and
methodology especially the content of the speaking lessons?
2. What suggestions should be made to contribute to the improvement of the speaking
lessons in the materials?
To answer these research questions, the researchers employed the following evaluation
procedures:
 The involvement of the researcher as the evaluator who analyzed the materials under
evaluation by conducting survey questionnaires for teachers and students to get their
opinions about the textbook they have used and carrying out informal interviews with
teachers and students to clarify issues which are raised in the surveys.


4

 The findings are expected to provide convincing evidences for the contribution to the
improvement of the textbooks for future use.
V. Statement of the problem
SIC is a famous college in Hai Duong province located in Chi Linh District. The school is
40 years of foundation. It has more than 500 teachers and 15.000 students. It is known all
over country with electrical and mechanical field. FLTD is a young one- only 5 years old.
The number of students is only about 300 students. The students related to this study are 80
students of the third year. The program of English for Tourism consists of 300 periods,
divided into 4 different parts. In the first Year, they learn knowledge related to hotel’s
work. In the second year they learnt about the tourists on holiday and common knowledge

with regards to their role in language teaching and types of materials. The second part
presents the review of literature concerning major issues in materials evaluation: reasons
for materials evaluation, definitions of materials evaluation, who carries out materials
evaluation, who provides data for materials evaluation, models for evaluation, and criteria
for evaluation. The third part discusses some of the previous research on materials
evaluation in different contexts that the author referred. This chapter also includes some
theoretical discussions about materials adaptation to help forming the recommendations
for materials improvement.
1.1. Teaching Materials in Language Teaching and Learning
Materials are used in all language teaching and play an important role in the process of
language teaching and learning. The roles of teaching materials in language teaching will
be discussed in more details in the next part of this section.
1.1.1. The Roles of Teaching Materials
Crucial roles that teaching materials play in language teaching are indicated by different
authors in the literature. Richards and Rodgers (cited in Nunan, 1991) view instructional
materials as detailed specifications of content, and guidance to teachers on both the intensity
of coverage and the amount of attention demanded by particular content or pedagogical
tasks. Richards and Rodgers' perspective is supported and clarified by Richards (2001),
who points out that teaching materials can serve as the basis for much of the language input
that the learners receive and as the source for much of the language practice that occurs in
the classroom. Richards further explains that materials provide basis for the content of the
lesson, the balance of skills taught, and the kind of language practice students take part in. In
addition, good teaching materials are of great help to inexperienced teachers or poorly
trained teachers (Nunan, 1991; Richards, 2001). They can serve as "a form of teacher
training" (Richard, 2001: 251) and teachers can get ideas on how to plan and teach the
lesson from the materials.
Obviously, teaching materials are a key and crucial component in any language teaching


6

As stated above, there are both advantages and disadvantages in using published materials
as well as in-house materials, so which one to use must depend on the purposes of the


7

course as well as the facilities and constraints of a particular situation. Based on the
literature definitions of types of materials, it can be said that the textbook under evaluation
in this research is necessary to judge the appropriateness to the intended students.
1.2. Materials Evaluation
Decision on which textbook to use or whether the materials in use are suitable or not is
obviously of great importance in the process of learning and teaching of language. And this
decision can be achieved only by the means of a comprehensive evaluation.
The next part of this chapter is the review of reasons for materials evaluation, definitions, types
of materials evaluation, materials evaluators, source of the data, models for materials evaluation
and criteria for materials evaluation.
1.2.1. Reasons for Materials Evaluation
There are two main reasons for carrying out materials evaluation. Firstly, there may be a
need to choose among the materials available the most suitable ones to use for a particular
situation. Secondly, there can be a need for materials evaluation to determine whether the
materials which has been chosen works for that situation after it has been used for a period
of time (Ellis, 1997).
An evaluation of teaching materials helps to identify particular strengths and weaknesses of
the materials in use. Thus it will help to determine whether the materials are effective and
efficient. As a result, the decision whether to use the materials again or not and what should
be changed to the material can be made for better use in the future.
In short, the findings of materials evaluation will provide input for responsible people to
evaluate the effectiveness of the materials.
1.2.2. Definitions of Materials Evaluation
There are many ways of defining evaluation. According to Brown (1995) evaluation is

According to a number of researchers, outsiders will bring "fresh" and "objective"
perspectives into the evaluation, which is the advantage of evaluation carried out by
outsiders. However, there may be some disadvantages: outsiders as evaluators will have
their own views on language teaching methods. They may not understand the teaching and
learning situation in which the evaluation is being carried out. So, as Robinson (1991)
suggests, they may be unsympathetic and it may take more time for them to get to know
the local situation such as learners' needs, facilities as well as constraints. Consequently, it
may be hard for them to make exact judgments and realistic recommendations; or may be
what they find has already been found (Dudley - Evans & St. John, 1998).
1.2.4.2. Materials Evaluation by Insiders
Materials Evaluation by insiders has some advantages especially if the overall purpose of
evaluation is for "development" and thus for better use in the future. As they have already


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involved in the program, they will understand the teaching and learning situation well
(Tomlinson, 1998). Tomlinson’s view is strongly supported by Holliday (cited in Dudley Evans &St. John, 1998) and Richards (2001). According to Holliday (1998:296), the
evaluator's understanding of "cultural and political factors" of the institution in which the
evaluation takes place would be very important for the evaluator to make exact judgments
and realistic recommendations. Richards (2001) holds the view that the involvement of the
insider plays a very important part in the success of evaluation because "as a consequence,
they will have a greater degree of commitment to acting on its results". Richards also points
out insiders, especially teachers, can 'monitor' when the materials are being used, they
therefore can determine if and to what extent the materials 'work' for their purposes and thus
they can make modifications to improve the effectiveness of the materials. However, the
insiders "may be too close and involved" (Dudley - Evans and St. John, 1998: 131) so the
evaluation may be influenced by their teaching experience and their subjective points of
views.
In short, who will carry out the evaluation outsiders or insiders should be determined

reliable evaluation, it is advisable that information about the same point should be obtained
from different sources (Robinson, 1991). Especially, also according to Robinson, the
teachers and the learners should be involved in the evaluation because they have taken part
in designing or selecting and using the materials. This idea taken from his own judgment
that learners can give information of how effective the materials are for their work whereas
teachers can be helpful in providing practical suggestions for improvement. However,
Robinson (1991) also warns that the teachers are likely to feel that the objective of the
evaluation is to "put up" them, and very often it's assumed that "any resultant evaluation"
document will be negatively critical" (Robinson, 1991: 69). He then advises that it's
necessary for the evaluator to inform the purposes and methodology plans of the evaluation
to people who will provide information for the evaluation, especially the teachers who have
used the materials.
1.2.6. Models for Materials Evaluation
There are different models and criteria for materials evaluation suggested by different
authors in the literature. The popular models are the ones suggested by Hutchinson and
Waters (1993), McDonough and Shaw (1993) and Ellis (1997).
1.2.6.1. Evaluation Model by Ellis (A Micro - Evaluation)
A micro - evaluation is the evaluation of one particular teaching task which the evaluator
has a special interest in (Ellis, 1997). In this model Ellis suggests the practice of a detailed


12

empirical evaluation and focuses on evaluation at the task level with reference to its actual
teaching-learning context. The aim in this model is to identify the match between task
planned and task in use. He also suggests that dimensions focused on macro - evaluation
(e.g. approach, purpose, focus, scope, evaluators, timing, and types of information) can also
be applicable to micro evaluation. This type of evaluation can only be conducted when the
materials are being used in the classroom. The steps involved in the evaluation model
suggested by Ellis (1997) are: Choosing a task to follow; Describing the task with

a particular situation. In their model, Hutchinson and Waters (1993: 96) define material
evaluation is a "matter of judging the fitness of something for a particular purpose". In this
view, the evaluation is divided into 4 steps (see Figure 1).
Define criteria
On what bases will you judge materials?
Which criteria will be more important?

Subjective analysis
What realizations of the criteria do you
want in your course?

Objective analysis
How does the material being evaluated
realize the criteria?

Matching
How far does the material match your needs?

Figure 1: The Materials Evaluation Model of Hutchinson and Waters (1993:98)
As can be seen in Figure 1, this model presents a logical procedure for material evaluation.
To examine whether the materials are suitable for a certain group of learners or not, there
must be certain criteria against

which our judgments or evaluation are based. It is also a

must to determine the objectives or the requirements for the materials because we cannot
measure the success of a particular activity or a whole set of materials if there is no clear
objective for it.
In summary, although these three models vary in the processes and the nature of the
purposes, they all serve to evaluate whether the set of the materials is appropriate to a

suggested such as the price and availability of the materials.
From the two sets of criteria by Sheldon (1988) and Hutchinson and Waters (1993)
presented above, it is remarkable that almost all aspects of teaching materials can be
evaluated when using the set of criteria suggested by Sheldon (1988). This, however,
would require a lot of time and effort, and even hard to apply because to evaluate
everything at the same time is unrealistic (Dudley - Evans & St. John, 1998). In reality,
criteria defined by Hutchinson and Water appear to be more manageable and suitable to
condition in Vietnam. That is also the reason why Criteria Defined by Hutchinson and Waters
are chosen for this study.


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1.3 Previous Research on Materials Evaluation
There have been a certain number of studies carried out by researchers to evaluate published
or in-house teaching materials, each of which may make use of different approaches to
materials evaluation, they all, however, demonstrate how materials evaluation provides
feedback for improvement and modification. The major purpose of these studies is to evaluate
the effectiveness of the materials in use or its suitability to the course aims. However, there
are no evaluation related to tourism field, especially there have not been any studies mention
to evaluation of the in-house materials “English for Tour guides” used for the third years
students at Foreign Languages and Tourism Department at SIC.
1.4. Materials Adaptation
1.4.1. Reasons for Adapting
Once the materials have been evaluated, potential problem areas can be identified: What the
materials offer can not be exactly what our learners' need; The materials methodology may
not match our own; Our general aims may not match the aims of the materials; The aims of
a particular lesson/unit in the materials may not match our lesson - by - lesson aims. We
will have to prioritize and select. We may need to supplement the materials.
There are 5 main ways of modifying materials: Adding, including expanding and

- Rewriting may relate activities more closely to learners' own background and interest,
introduce model of authentic language, or set most purposeful problem-solving tasks
where the answers are not always known before the teacher asks the question.
- Restructuring: For many teachers who are required to follow a course book rather
strictly, changes in the structuring of the class are sometimes the only kind of adaptation
that is realistically possible. For example, the materials may contain role-play activities
for groups of certain size. The logistic of managing a large class (especially if they all
have same LI) are complex from many points of view, and it will probably be necessary
to assign one role to a number of pupils at the same time. Obviously the converse where the class is too small for the total number of roles available - is also possible if
perhaps less likely.
1.4.2.4. Simplifying
The technique of simplification is a type of modification, namely a "rewriting" activity. The
elements of a language which can be simplified are: the instructions and explanations that


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accompany exercises and activities, and even the visual layout of materials so that it becomes
easier to see how different part fit together. However, texts, most often reading passages are
applied this technique. Usually, the emphasis has been on changing various sentences - bound
elements to match the text more closely to the proficiency level of a particular group of
learners. Simplification could be in the following forms: Sentence structure; Lexical content,
and grammatical structures.
Simplification has a number of further implications. Firstly, once linguistic items are
changed, stylistics will be affected, and therefore the meaning of intention of the original
text is changed. Secondly, simplification of content is required when the complexity of the
subject-matter is regarded as being too advanced. Thirdly, simplification can refer to the
ways in which the content is presented: we may decide not to make any changes to the
original text, but instead to lead the learners through it in a number of graded stages.
1.4.2.5. Re-ordering

first research question whether the material “English for Tour guides” used at SIC meet the
requirements of the course and meet the demands of students in terms of objectives,
content, and methodology especially the content of the speaking lessons.
2.1. METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION AND PROCEDURES
Survey questionnaires for the third year students and for teachers of English in my institution
are considered to play an important part in the data collection process of my study. Equally
important, informal interview to both teachers and students and class observations are at the
same time involved in the process.
2.1.1. Survey questionnaires
2.1.1.1. Participants of the survey
Giving our 6 survey questionnaires for teachers and 9 ones for students were thoroughly
completed by 4 teachers of EFT and by 80 third year students in SIC right after the course
finished. Necessarily, some characteristics of the Tourism English course, of the surveyed
students and the teachers should be briefly introduced.
As a matter of fact, in SIC, students are scheduled to study English in six terms, two of which
are for Basic English with the in-house Basic English materials and the last four terms spent
on EFT with 4 materials: English for Tour guides part I, II, III and IV.
The surveyed students are of class 03 HDDL 2 and 03 HDDL 2. There are 80 students. Those
students are of pre-experience (low-experience) at the very early of their career and the
course for them here is English for Tour guides focusing on tourism destinations in
Vietnam. There is a strong possibility that they are basically different from those of jobexperiences in view of the expectations. As for the surveyed teachers, they have not been