An evaluation of the material reward for the first-year non-English major students at Hai Phong Private University = Đánh giá giáo trình reward dành cho sinh

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

NGUYỄN THỊ MINH NGUYỆT

AN EVALUATION OF THE MATERIAL “REWARD”
FOR THE FIRST-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS
AT HAIPHONG PRIVATE UNIVERSITY
(Đánh giá giáo trình “Reward” dành cho sinh viên năm thứ nhất khơng chun
của trường Đại học Dân lập Hải Phịng)

M.A. MINOR THESIS

Field:

English Teaching Methodology

Code:

60 14 10

HA NOI, 2010


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

NGUYỄN THỊ MINH NGUYỆT

AN EVALUATION OF THE MATERIAL “REWARD”
FOR THE FIRST-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS
AT HAIPHONG PRIVATE UNIVERSITY
(Đánh giá giáo trình “Reward” dành cho sinh viên năm thứ nhất khơng chun
của trường Đại học Dân lập Hải Phịng)

M.A. MINOR THESIS

Field:

English Teaching Methodology

Code:

60 14 10

Supervisor: Vũ Thị Thu Thủy, M.A.

HA NOI, 2010


iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION …………………………………………………………………... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………... ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………………... iii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS……………………………………………………...

vi

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES………………………………………………. vii

Part A: Introduction……………………………………………………………......

1

1. Rationale of the study…………………………………………………………...

1

2. Aims of the study………………………………………………………………..

1

3. Methods of the study……………………………………………………………. 2
4. Scope of the study……………………………………………………………….

2

5. Design of the study……………………………………………………………...

2

Part B: Development……………………………………………………………….. 4
Chapter 1: Literature review………………………………………………………...

4

1. Textbook, course book and materials…………………………………………...

4

1.1. Definitions………………………………………………………………….

4

1.2. The role of materials in a language program………………………………..

4

2. Materials evaluation…………………………………………………………….

5

2.1. Definition……………………………………………………………………

6

2.2. Types of materials evaluation………………………………………………

6

2.3. Criteria of materials evaluation……………………………………………..

7

2.4. Materials evaluation procedure…………………………………………….

8

3. Materials adaptation…………………………………………………………….

8

4. An overview of Communicative Language Teaching………………………….

9

4.1. Communicative competence………………………………………………..

9

4.2. Communicative Language Teaching………………………………………..

10


iv

4.2.1. Definition of CLT……………………………………………………….

10

4.2.2. Principles of CLT……………………………………………………….. 11
4.2.3. Good points and limitations of CLT…………………………………….

11

Chapter 2: The study………………………………………………………………… 13

1. Description of data collection instruments and procedures……………………..

13

1.1. Survey questionnaires……………………………………………………….

13

1.1.1. Participants……………………………………………………………… 13
1.1.2. Description of the survey questionnaires………………………………..

13

1.2. Formal interviews and class observation……………………………………

14

2. Preliminary results and analysis. ……………………………………………….

14

2.1. Students’ English background and their expectations from the course……..

14

2.1.1. Students’ English learning time and their results. ……………………… 14
2.1.2. Students’ difficulties in learning English……………………………….

16

2.1.3. Students’ expectations from an English course…………………………

17

2.2. Students’ improvement after learning the textbook………………………… 17
2.2.1. Students’ level of fluency in language points…………………………...

17

2.2.2. Students’ tasks completion ……………………………………………... 19
2.2.2.1. Students’ reading tasks completion………………………………..

20

2.2.2.2. Students’ writing tasks completion………………………………..

20

2.2.2.3. Students’ speaking tasks completion………………………………

22

2.2.2.4. Students’ listening tasks completion………………………………. 23
2.2.2.5. Students’ satisfaction level in each skill and teachers’ assessment
on their skill improvement…………………………………………………………...

24

2.3. Teachers’ and students’ evaluation on the content of the materials………...

25

2.3.1. Topics of the textbook…………………………………………………... 25
2.3.2. Skills allocation ………………………………………………………… 26
2.3.3. Aims of the units………………………………………………………...

26

2.3.4. Tasks and exercises in the textbook…………………………………….

27


v

2.4. Teachers’ and students’ evaluation on the methodology of the book………. 28
2.5. Teachers and students’ opinions on the textbook’s appearance and current
time for teaching and learning the textbook…………………………………………. 29
Chapter 3: An evaluation of the textbook “Reward” for the first-year non-English
major students at Haiphong Private University……………………………………..

31

1. Materials requirements of the course……………………………………………

31

1.1.Objectives……………………………………………………………………. 31
1.2.Contents……………………………………………………………………...

31

1.3.Methodology…………………………………………………………………

32

2. Analysis of the material “Reward Pre – intermediate” …………………………

33

2.1. Objectives of the material…………………………………………………...

33

2.2. Contents of the material…………………………………………………….

34

2.3. Methodology of the textbook……………………………………………….. 35
3. Evaluation findings ……………………………………………………………..

36

4. Suggestions for the textbook’s adaptation………………………………………

38

4.1. Supplementing………………………………………………………………

38

4.2. Editing………………………………………………………………………. 39
4.3. Expanding…………………………………………………………………...

39

4.4. Personalizing………………………………………………………………..

40

4.5. Simplifying………………………………………………………………….

40

4.6. Localizing or modifying cultural/ situational content………………………. 41

PART C: Conclusion……………………………………………………………….

42

REFERENCES …………………………………………………………………….. 43
APPENDICES………………………………………………………………………

I

Appendix 1……………………………………………………………………….. I
Appendix 2………………………………………………………………………

VII

Appendix 3……………………………………………………………………….

XIII


vi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CLT:

Communicative Language Teaching

ELT:

English Language Teaching

ESP:

English for Specific Purposes

GE:

General English

HPU:

Haiphong Private University

Ss:

Students

Ts:

Teachers


vii

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Figure 1:

The materials evaluation process (by Tom Hutchinson & Alan Waters)

Table 1:

Students’ English learning time

Table 2:

Teachers’ and students’ assessment of students’ results in learning English

Table 3:

Students’ difficulties in learning English

Table 4:

Students’ expectations from an English course

Table 5:

Students’ level of fluency in language points

Table 6:

Students’ reading tasks completion

Table 7:

Students’ writing tasks completion

Table 8:

Students’ speaking tasks completion

Table 9:

Students’ listening tasks completion

Table 10:

Students’ satisfaction level in each skill

Table 11:

Teachers’ point of view on students’ improvement in each skill

Table 12:

Students’ point of view on the aims of the units

Table 13:

Teachers’ and students’ opinions on the tasks and exercises of the textbook

Table 14:

Teachers’ and students’ points of view on the methodology of the book

Table 15:

Teachers’ and students’ opinions towards the layout of the textbook and the
current time for teaching and learning the book

Table 16:

The distribution of tasks in each unit


-1-

PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
Responding to the changes brought by the international integration tendency, mastering
foreign languages, especially English, has become one of the prerequisites for success. English
is, hence, necessary for both undergraduates and on-the-job employees. The demand of
English study has resulted in the development of ELT industry as well as ELT materials.
Publishing commercial textbooks is considered a million – dollar industry and serves as an

abundant materials resource so that English teachers and learners have quite a wide range of
selection of the textbooks that are suitable for their own purposes.
Regarded as “an inevitable teaching partner” and “the visible heart of any ELT program” by
Sheldon (1988, p.237), ELT materials in general and textbooks in particular have been proving
themselves one of the most important factors in every English class, functioning as the
teaching and learning tool, the tutor, guidebook as well as gauge. However, among various
textbooks commercially available in the market, choosing the one that is appropriate to the
students‟ learning purposes and that can help students enhance their communicative
competence is not an easy job. It is, therefore, necessary for the teachers to be good at
assessment skill for the evaluation of materials so as to ensure that their students can get much
benefit from their textbooks. The importance of materials evaluation to the teachers of English
in an ELT program has urged me to choose it as the theme of this study.
The second reason for this choice originated from the fact that in the recent two years, there
have been different opinions of both teachers and learners on the actual effectiveness of the
textbook Reward Pre – intermediate by Simon Greenall currently used in teaching English for
first – year non – English major students at Haiphong Private University. The textbook itself
has revealed many potentials as well as shortcomings in the teaching and learning
environment of HPU. It is really essential that we should conduct an evaluation of the
textbook to assess its appropriateness against the learning purposes and then find out the
solutions to improve the quality of English teaching in the university.

2. Aims of the study
The purpose of the research projects are:
- To investigate the evaluation methods discussed by a number of researchers and choose the
most appropriate one for the project.


-2-

- To evaluate the currently-adopted textbook Reward Pre – intermediate from the viewpoints

of both teachers of Foreign Languages Department and first – year non - English major
students at Haiphong Private University.
- To give suggestions for the textbook‟s adaptations.

3. Methods of the study
The following methods are employed to collect data for the study:
-

Survey questionnaires designed for both teachers and first – year non – English major
students at Haiphong Private University who have experienced using the book.

-

Formal interviews with the teachers and students regarding their experience in teaching
and learning the textbook.

-

Direct class observations

Among these, survey questionnaire serves as the major instrument for data collection while the
interviews and direct class observation are applied with an aim to get more information for
any confirmation of the evaluation findings.

4. Scope of the study
The study limits itself at evaluating the student‟s book, excluding the accompanied teacher‟s
book, workbook and cassette tape with the focus on the evaluation of post-used textbook.
The evaluation criteria enclosed in the thesis is largely based on Communicative Language
Teaching approach and the objectives set in the syllabus of the first and second semester
designed for first – year non - English major students at Haiphong Private University.

5. Design of the study
The thesis is divided into three parts:
Part A Introduction presents the rationale, aims, scope, methods and design of the study
Part B Development consists of three chapters
Chapter 1 handles the literature review of the issues relating to materials, materials
evaluation and adaptation and CLT approach. Definitions of materials, materials evaluation,
evaluation types, models and criteria, its role in materials development and materials
adaptation have been discussed there. Also, readers are provided with a brief introduction of
communicative language teaching, the approach that is applied in the evaluation of the
textbook Reward Pre – intermediate, in this chapter.


-3-

Chapter 2 is devoted to the analysis of the survey questionnaire of the textbook
evaluation implemented at Haiphong Private University in which objectives, description, data
collection and analysis are discussed in detail.
Chapter 3 deals with the evaluation of the textbook Reward Pre – intermediate for the
first – year non – English major students at Haiphong Private University in terms of the
materials requirement of the course, the analysis of the textbook, and gives out the evaluation
findings as well as encloses suggestions for the textbook adaptation.
Part C Conclusion summarizes all the obtained results and includes suggestions for further
study.


-4-

PART B: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: Literature review

1. Textbook, course book and materials
1.1. Definitions
Textbook, course book and materials are commonly - used terms in ELT and they are defined
in many ways by different authors.
Textbook is generally defined as a teaching tool which presents the subject matter set by the
curriculum. A university textbook is required to contain the complete overview of the subject,
including the theories, as well as to be of a more permanent character. A textbook seen from
this view is closely related to the fixed curriculum and it serves as the basis in the teaching and
learning process.
The term “course book” is used by Tomlinson (1998, p.ix) to refer to “a textbook which
provides the core materials for a course.” A course book is specifically selected by a teacher to
suit the teaching and learning purposes in a certain teaching context, in other words, a
particular course. A course book may be accompanied by other supplementary materials.
Regarding the definition of materials, Tomlinson (1998, p.xi) claims that materials is
“anything which is used to help teach language learners”. It can be “in the form of a textbook,
a workbook, a cassette, a CD-Rom, a video, a photocopied handout, a newspaper: anything
which presents or informs about the language being learned.” From his viewpoints, materials
can be understood in a broader sense because it covers both textbook and course book.
The three terms textbook, course book and materials can be used interchangeably; therefore, in
the thesis, the subject Reward Pre – intermediate by Simon Greenall can be referred to as the
above mentioned terms.

1.2. The role of materials in a language program
The role of materials in language teaching has been discussed by different authors with
two main opposing points of view. For some, commercially available materials may “deskill
teachers and rob them of their capacity to think professionally and respond to their students
(Crawford, 2002, p.80). Particularly, Littlejohn (in Hutchinson & Torres, 1994, p.316), a
representative for the group of authors who have negative attitudes towards the role of
textbooks in a language program, claims that textbooks “reduce the teacher‟s role to one of

-5-

managing or overseeing preplanned events”. However, there are still quite a number of
scholars recognizing the importance of textbooks. A textbook can serve different purposes for
teachers: as a core resource, a source of supplementary materials, an inspiration for classroom
activities and even the curriculum itself (Garinger, 2002). 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 (2001, p.66) explains that materials provide
a basis for the content of the lesson, the appropriate proportion of skills taught, and the type of
language practice students take part in. Besides, useful teaching materials provide great
assistance to inexperienced teachers or poorly trained teachers (Nunan, 1991, in McGrath,
2002, p.11). It is obvious that in many cases, teachers and students rely much on textbooks and
the textbooks control the content, method as well as procedure of learning and teaching.
Therefore, to some extent, materials are the center of instruction and one of the most important
factors influencing what happens in the classrooms.
Confirming the important role of teaching materials, Hutchinson and Torres (1994, p. 315)
state “…No teaching-learning situation, it seems, is complete until it has its relevant textbook”,
adding that textbooks can support teachers through potentially disturbing and threatening
change processes, demonstrate new and/or untried methodologies, introduce change gradually,
and create scaffolding upon which teachers can build a more creative methodology of their
own.

2. Materials evaluation
Despite the acknowledged importance of materials, Cunningsworth (1984, p.15) warns
“course materials for English should be seen as the teacher‟s servant and not his master”,
which means that materials should not be regarded as a controller but an assistant of the
teaching activities. It is the teachers, those in a crucial position in language teaching and
learning, who are responsible for choosing suitable content and teaching methods to their

students. Their assessment skill is, therefore, becoming more and more important in sorting
out the most appropriate materials among the masses of books available in the market.


-6-

2.1. Definition
In his overview, Hutchinson (1987, p.96) claims that “evaluation is a matter of judging the
fitness of something for a particular purpose”. And by extension, materials evaluation is a
matter of judging the fitness of materials against specific teaching and learning goals.
Similar to Hutchinson (1987, p.96) but more specifically, Tomlinson. (1998, p.xi) defines
materials evaluation as “the systemic appraisal of the value of materials in relation to their
objectives and to the objectives of the learners using them”. The focus of materials evaluation
in this point of view is put on measuring the value of materials in a systemic approach to work
out whether or not the language points of the materials are potentially suitable to the learners
and whether the materials can meet the demands of learners. Obviously, with his learnercentered approach, the learners‟ opinion plays an important part in the process of evaluating
the materials.
Let us have a look back Hutchinson‟s viewpoint (1987, p.96). He affirms that “evaluation is
not simply a process of obtaining information; it is also a decision – making process” while
Dudley-Evans. and St. John (1998, p.28) claim “evaluation is a whole process which begins
with determining what information to gather and ends with bringing about the change in
current activities or influencing future ones”. Generalizing from many opinions of different
researchers regarding the definition of materials evaluation, it is viewed as a process of
deciding whether the materials is suitable to the teaching and learning objectives based on
collected data and suggesting actions to make changes.

2.2. Types of materials evaluation
A number of researchers including Tomlinson, McGrath, Ellis and Cunningsworth use the
similar terms when discussing the types of materials evaluation.
According to Tomlinson (1998, p.xi), evaluation can be “pre – use” and focused on

“prediction of potential value”, it can be “whist – use” and focused on awareness and
description of what the learners are actually doing whilst the materials are being used”, and it
can be “post – use” and focused on analysis of what happened as a result of using the materials.
McGrath (2002, p.14) offers the way of classifying materials evaluation as a cyclical process
including pre-use, in-use and post-use evaluation. According to him, pre-use evaluation
establishes potential suits, in-use evaluation gathers data on planning decisions,


-7-

implementation and response and this may stimulate preliminary reconsiderations and post-use
evaluation, considered “the most reliable when it draws on the experiences of several teachers
and several groups of learners” by McGrath (2002, p.15), uses data on in-course use and data
on effects to assess the suitability of selection.
The focus of the thesis is put on post – use evaluation to work out the value of the materials by
drawing on the teaching and learning experience of teachers and first – year non – English
major students at Haiphong Private University.

2.3. Criteria of materials evaluation
One of the most difficult problems of any materials evaluators is to identify the evaluation
criteria.
According to Ur (1996, in McGrath, 2002, p.31), there are two types of criteria including
general (i.e. the essential features of any good teaching – learning material) and specific (or
context-related) criteria.
For more specific criteria, Tomlinson (1999, in McGrath, 2002, p.32) suggests the four
categories including media – specific criteria which relate to the particular means used,
content – specific criteria which relate to the nature of the materials, age – specific criteria, or
in other words, the suitability of the materials and lastly local criteria which means the
appropriateness of the materials for the particular environment in which it is to be used.
Hutchinson (1987, p.99-104) suggests a very detailed evaluation checklist with five main

criteria regarding audience, aims, content, methodology and other criteria. According to
Hutchinson (1987), the criterion of audience refers to the target learners‟ background
including ages, gender, nationality, major, interests, etc., aims refer to the purpose of learners‟
course and materials, content refers to language points, proportion of work on each macro and
micro-skill, text-types and the subject matters, methodology is concerned with learners‟
expectations from the course, kinds of tasks, teaching techniques and the aids available for use,
and other criteria include price range and the possibly available quantities of the materials.
The evaluation checklist in the thesis is largely based on the above five criteria with some
suitable adjustments so as to fit the research setting.


-8-

2.4. Materials evaluation procedure
Hutchinson (1987, p.97) suggests the following materials evaluation process.
Defining 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 process (by Tom Hutchinson & Alan Waters (1987, p.97)
In order to carry out the above evaluation process, it is necessary to work out the objective and
subjective criteria. Then, Hutchinson (1987, p.104) also suggests some other steps that need to
be followed in using the checklist, that is, identifying the evaluator‟s requirement, analyze the
materials and compare the findings from objective and subjective analyses by awarding points.
At the same time, he reminds that the highest number of points does not necessarily indicate
the most suitable materials as the points may be concentrated on one area.

3. Materials adaptation
It is likely that the most expected activity after the process of materials evaluation is
adaptation with the aims to make the materials more appropriate to the circumstances in which
it is being used, in other words, as McDonough and Shaw (1993, p.85, in McGrath, 2002, p.64)
put it “to maximize the appropriacy of teaching materials in context” and to supplement for


-9-

the inappropriateness of the materials such as “lack of authenticity, out-of-datedness,
linguistics inaccuracies, etc.” (Madsen & Bowen, 1978, in McGrath, 2002, p.64).
Tomlinson (1998, p. xi) defines materials adaptation as an act of “making changes to materials
in order to improve them or to make them more suitable for a particular type of learner.
Adaptation can include reducing, adding, omitting, modifying and supplementing. Most
teachers adapt materials every time they use a textbook in order to maximize the value of the
book for their particular learners”.

There are also a number of other techniques for teachers to employ when they want to adapt
materials such as “supplementing, editing, expanding, personalizing, simplifying, modernizing,
localizing or modifying cultural/ situational content” (Madsen and Bowen, 1978, in McGrath,
2002, p.64) or “retaining, rejecting, re-ordering and modification” (Ellis,1986, p.47, in
McGrath, 2002, p. 64)

4. An overview of Communicative Language Teaching
Emerging in the 1970s and 1980s, a new teaching style namely CLT has been widely adopted
by many educators around the world. It is currently used as a dominant approach in teaching
English in Haiphong Private University and the evaluation criteria in the checklist are also
largely concerned with this approach; therefore, a brief introduction of CLT is absolutely
necessary.

4.1. Communicative competence:
Informed by Hymes (1972), the notion of communicative competence is viewed as the contrast
to Chomsky‟s theory of competence. Chomsky (1965, p.3) claims that
Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker – listener, in a completely
homogeneous speech community, who knows its language perfectly and is unaffected by such
grammatically irrelevant conditions … in applying his knowledge of language in actual performance.

(in Brumfit, C. J. & Johnson K., 1979, p.5)
For Chomsky, “competence” is simply understood as “knowledge of language system”, or in
other words, “grammatical knowledge”. This point of view seems to be much narrower than
Hymes‟s when he claims that “rules of use without which the rules of grammar would be
useless” (Hymes , 1972, p.15, in Brumfit, C. J. & Johnson K., 1979, p.14). Put it in other
words, if a speaker made grammatical sentences without considering the circumstances in


- 10 -

which they were being used, he would be considered deranged. The notion of “communicative
competence” offered by Hymes includes several sectors such as possibility (or grammaticality
used by Chomsky) which is concerned with whether a language permits a structure as
grammatical or rejects it as ungrammatical, feasibility which is concerned with whether a
grammatically possible structure can be feasible, appropriateness which is concerned with
whether a grammatically possible and feasible structure can be appropriate to a certain context
and accepted usage which is concerned with whether a sentence which is possible, feasible,
appropriate in fact occurs .

4.2. Communicative language teaching
4.2.1. Definition of CLT
It has become known under a variety of names including notional – functional, teaching for
proficiency, proficiency – based instruction and CLT.
There are two versions of CLT namely “strong” and “weak” version of CLT distinguished by
Howatt (1984, p. 279)
… The weak version… stresses the importance of providing learners with opportunities to use
their English for communicative purposes and, characteristically, attempts to integrate such activities
into a wider program of language teaching. The strong version….advances the claim that language is
acquired through communication, so that it is not merely a question of activating an existing but inert
knowledge of the language, but of stimulating the development of the language system itself.

(in Le Van Canh (2004, p.80)
Most of the definitions of CLT are based on the “weak version” of CLT “favoring interaction
among small numbers of learners in order to maximize their talking time” (Le Van Canh, 2004,
p. 80). Inferring from the literature, CLT can be defined as “an approach that focuses on the
interaction among learners to achieve the goal of developing their communicative
competence”
CLT is developed basing on the theory of language as communication, therefore, its goal is to
create a realistic teaching and learning environment where learners can develop their
communicative competence as well as develop procedures for teaching of the four language

skills that acknowledge the interdependence of language and communication. (Le Van Canh,
2004, p.79) In this approach, it is believed that “skill” is much more important than “content”.


- 11 -

4.2.2. Principles of CLT
Three major principles of CLT include communication principle, task principle and
meaningfulness principle, of which, the first emphasizes activities that involve real
communication promote learning, the second stresses that activities in which language is used
for carrying out meaningful tasks promote learning and the third claims that language that is
meaningful to the learners support the learning process. (Le Van Canh, 2004, p.83)
More specifically, Richards and Roger (2001, p.172) suggest a diverse set of principles that
reflect a communicative view of language and language learning as follow
- Learners learn a language through using it to communicate. It is obvious to see that this
principle is quite necessary in CLT because its goal is to develop learners’ communicative
competence. How is it enhanced without communication?
- Authentic and meaningful communication should be the goal of classroom activities. One
way to assist learners in promoting their competence is to involve them in the classroom
activities that are realistic and meaningful.
- Fluency is an important dimension of communication. In the light of CLT, much attention is
paid to fluency but not accuracy like other approaches.
- Communication involves the integration of different language skills, that is, CLT focuses on
the combination of all the language skills without any special priority given to a particular
skill.
- Learning is a process of creative construction and involves trial and error. Applying this
approach, teachers may become facilitators assisting the communication process among
participants in the classroom and helping learners correct their mistakes in an appropriate way.
Errors made by learners are welcome because that serve as a good way to promote their
fluency.

4.2.3. Good points and limitations of CLT
CLT has manifested itself to be the most productive approach in ELT till now because it
incorporates many of the progressive characteristics of the previous applied methodologies
while at the same time avoiding their disadvantages. In the light of CLT, the traditional
“presentation – practice – production” model is recommended to be replaced by a more top –


- 12 -

down model where learners begin with a communicative task which is monitored by the
teacher who is also responsible for error correction. (Le Van Canh, 2004, p.85)
It is undeniable that CLT has quite a lot of advantages in promoting learners‟ ability in using
language to communicate, however, some limitations of the approach also need to be taken
into consideration. According to Le Van Canh (2004, p.86-87), firstly, it is obvious that CLT
is not always appropriate in any contexts and cultures. A school culture of teacher – centered
classrooms with a focus on transmission of knowledge will have been influenced in part by
wider cultural notions of the teacher‟s authority as expert and leader. Secondly, things like
rote-learning, memorization, display questions and teacher talk mean bad with CLT while in
fact none of them is bad. Thirdly, the notion of “communicative competence” only applies to
the competence in the first language of native speakers and cannot be transferred to foreign
language teaching contexts. Put it in other way, communicative competence can mean
different things for different groups of foreign learners. Finally, even though CLT rejects the
theory of “structuralism” which was supposed to be based on behaviorism, its communicative
goals are all described in typical behaviorist terms.
No teaching method or approach proves itself to be the best. Consequently, when applying
CLT to ELT, teachers should use their knowledge of context, goals and characteristics of a
specific groups of learners so as to take advantages of CLT‟s benefits in motivating learners in
their study..

- 13 -

Chapter 2: The study
1. Description of data collection instruments and procedures
1.1. Survey questionnaires
1.1.1. Participants
139 survey questionnaires were randomly delivered to 129 first – year non – English major
students and 10 teachers of English at Haiphong Private University right after the second term
of the academic year 2009 – 2010 had already finished. The questionnaires were directly
distributed to the students and the author herself was also present in the classrooms when the
students wrote down their answers with an aim to explain questions from the students about
the questionnaires.
The author also found it necessary to give a brief introduction of the surveyed teachers and
students as well as the English course in the university itself. Non – English major students at
Haiphong Private University are scheduled to study English in five terms, two of which are for
general English with the materials “Reward Pre – intermediate” by Simon Greenall and the
last three are spent on their ESP. Regarding surveyed students, they come from class QT1301,
XD1303, MT1301 and VH1302. Those students are from different cities and provinces in the
country; consequently, their level of English is not the same. Ten teachers taking part in the
survey are all experienced in teaching general English using the textbook “Reward Pre –
intermediate” by Simon Greenall for two years in a row. In addition, they have all completed
or pursuing master courses. Though being young at age, the teachers have been adequately
trained to teach and evaluate the materials; therefore, their answers to the questionnaires are
reasonably reliable.

1.1.2. Description of the survey questionnaires
The survey questionnaires are designed for the teachers and students separately.
Questionnaire 1 (for the students) includes five sections. Section 1 with three questions aims
at discovering the students‟ English background and their expectations from the English

course at the university. Meanwhile, the last four sections deal with the materials‟
appropriateness in terms of objectives, contents, methodology and some other aspects in
comparison with the course as well as the students‟ expectations. Section 2 with three
questions tries to find out the students‟ improvement in language points, tasks completion and
their satisfaction level towards their advance in each language skill. Section 3 consists of five


- 14 -

questions aiming at getting the students‟ opinions about the content of the materials including
the topics, skills allocation in each lesson and practice exercises. Section 4 puts its focus on
finding out the appropriateness of the methodology of the assessed textbook. Finally, the
students‟ opinions about some other features of the book such as its layout, its organization,
the usefulness of its appendices and vocabulary list are all surveyed in section 5 with three
questions.
Questionnaire 2 (for the teachers) is the same to the students‟ in terms of the objectives.

1.2. Formal interviews and class observation
As mentioned above, the survey questionnaire serves as the key research method; however, in
order to be able to get firm conclusion from the questionnaire results, it is essential to conduct
formal interviews with teachers and students as well as class observation in the class QT1301,
XD1303, MT1301 and VH1302 where the survey questionnaires are completed by the
students.
Formal interviews and class observation will be employed as the supplementary methods to
ensure that the results of the survey as well as the findings of the study are reasonably reliable.

2. Preliminary results and analysis.
The results of the survey and analysis are to be viewed basing on the criteria of target learners,
objectives, content, methodology and some other aspects as ordered in the questionnaires,
accompanied with the comparison between the teachers‟ and students‟ answers towards each

item in the questionnaire.

2.1. Students’ English background and their expectations from the course
2.1.1. Students’ English learning time and their results.
It is necessary for the teachers to get to know their students‟ background in English so as to
find out the most appropriate teaching methods. One of the main factors affecting the English
learning results is the length of time they study English, which is clearly shown in Table 1
below.
Ss‟ starting point

Primary school Secondary school High school Never

Percentage of the Ss

10%

17%

Table 1: Students’ English learning time

67%

6%


- 15 -

From Table 1, it can be seen that the students‟ factual time of English learning is quite
different. Only five of 110 students affirmed that they had started learning English since they
were at their primary schools. 19 students, making up 17 %, studied English at their secondary

schools while a large number of the surveyed students (67 %) said that they learnt English at
their high schools. There are even seven students, equivalent to 6%, who have never
experienced learning English. When being interviewed, those students said that it is, for
example, French or even Russian to be their compulsory subjects at school but not English.
With the above information about the students‟ English learning time, it is much easier to
understand their own assessments on their English level.
Degree

Excellent

Good

Average Under average

Percentage of the Ts

0%

0%

70%

30%

Percentage of the Ss

1%

25%

51%

23%

Table 2: Teachers’ and students’ assessment of students’ results in learning English
Table 2 figured out the fact that both teachers and students had a similar assessment on the
starting point of English learning at university, that is, the high percentage is put on the levels
of average and under average; however, the students seemed to be more self-confident in
themselves when some of them believed that they were good and even excellent at English. In
the students‟ assessment, the number of those excellent at English was extremely small (only
1%) while 51% confirmed that their English was average. Only 25% of the students affirmed
that they were good at English whereas 23 % admitted that they were still bad at this subject
when they entered the university. The teachers, more pessimistically than their students, with
their pedagogical knowledge in teaching and evaluating, claimed that none of their students
had excellent or good background knowledge of English. Most of them (70%) judged the
students‟ English level was at average while there are even three teachers, making up 30% of
the group surveyed, reflecting that their students‟ English level was even under average. To
the three teachers in the interview with the author, they asserted that many of their students
were really bad at English and that they were not able to catch up with the learning speed of
the others. Obviously, it is definitely possible to say that the students‟ English background in
general is average.


- 16 -

2.1.2. Students’ difficulties in learning English
Even though the students‟ English level may meet the requirements of the course as well as
the materials, the students themselves still pointed out a number of difficulties when learning
English as can be seen from table 3 below.
Difficulties

Percentage of
Ts

Ss

Lack of vocabulary

100%

90%

Poor grammatical structures

70%

85%

Bad listening skill

100%

95%

Poor pronunciation

90%

87%

Difficulties in using English in daily conversations

90%

40%

Table 3: Students’ difficulties in learning English
As what is stated in Table 3, 90% of the students confirmed that their vocabulary was not
sufficient enough for them to confidentially complete their tasks in class. 85 % got into trouble
with grammatical structures. A similar rate (87%) also admitted their poor pronunciation,
which is one of their biggest problems when learning English. Listening skill appeared to be
the most challenging to the students when 95 % divulged that they were bad at it. Many
students were honest to say that they found listening really difficult and they could not fulfill
any listening exercises without the teachers‟ assistance. It seems that the lack of vocabulary,
poor grammatical structures, bad listening skills and pronunciation has led 40 % of them to the
failure of using English in their daily conversations.
Similarly, all ten teachers taking part in the survey complained that the students were
confronted with difficulties in listening and insufficient vocabulary. Additionally, most of the
teachers (90%) maintained that poor pronunciation and difficulties in using English in daily
conversations were some other problems that the students encountered in their English
learning while 70% revealed the fact that the students were also not good at grammatical
structures. Apart from main problems mentioned in the table, the teachers gave out some other
problems of the students such as their lack of confidence in speaking English, the influences of
their mother tongue on their English acquisition and their low motivation in English classes,
etc.


- 17 -

2.1.3. Students’ expectations from an English course

Percentage of

Ss‟ expectations

Ts

Ss

Getting to know and bettering grammatical structures

80%

90%

Communicating in English in daily conversations

100%

100%

Developing reading skills

20%

80%

Writing some normal types of documents in English

30%

75%

(such as informal letters, short paragraphs about given
topics)
Table 4: Students’ expectations from an English course
Looking at Table 4, it can be seen that understandably the surveyed students hoped that they
could be good at communicating in English in daily conversations, which is also considered
the final goal of GE course in the university. Most of the respondents (90%) wanted to know
how to make grammatically correct sentences. The percentage of the students who wished to
be able to develop their reading skills and write some normal types of documents in English is
quite big, 80 % for the former and 75% for the latter. At the same time, some others expressed
their hope that they could not only widen their vocabulary in daily topics but also familiarize
themselves in specialist terms which they are going to study in the following semesters.
However, there is a discrepancy between the teachers‟ and students‟ opinions. While the
students (80-85%) were ambitious to be able to develop their basic reading and writing skills,
only 20-30% of the teachers thought that developing reading skills and writing some normal
types of documents in English are appropriate for the students‟ needs in a general English
course. They just believed, similarly to the students‟, that communicating in English in daily
conversations and then getting to know and bettering grammar are the most appropriate
objectives to meet the students‟ needs.

2.2. Students’ improvement after learning the textbook
2.2.1. Students’ level of fluency in language points
Fluent

Not so fluent

Bad

Language points

Ts

Ss

Ts

Ss

Ts

Ss


- 18 -

Present simple tense

100(%)

71(%)

0(%)

18(%)

0(%)

11(%)

Articles

20

25

70

61

10

14

Plural

40

48

50

42

10

10

Present continuous tense

70

63

20

19

10

18

Past simple tense

50

57

30

25

20

18

Comparison

30

45

50

32

20

23

Relative clauses

20

30

60

29

20

41

Past continuous tense

50

51

30

32

20

17

Past perfect tense

0

41

80

33

20

26

Conditional sentence type 2

0

61

70

28

30

11

90

70

10

18

0

12

Expressions of future time

60

43

20

35

20

22

Prepositions of place

70

45

20

38

10

17

Prepositions of time

70

47

20

34

10

19

Expressions of quantity

60

50

30

22

10

28

Present perfect tense

30

40

50

37

20

23

Modal verbs

70

48

30

37

0

15

Present simple passive

20

39

30

41

50

20

Conditional sentence type 1

60

49

30

37

10

14

Possessive „s/

Possessive

adjectives

Table 5: Students’ level of fluency in language points
The data displayed in Table 5 above showed a close convergence between two groups of
respondents. The results indicated that the language points that a high percentage of the
students admitted that they could use them fluently include simple present tense (72%),
conditional sentence type 1 (61%), possessive‘s/ possessive adjectives (70%). Whereas, the
low percentage put on such language points as comparison, past perfect, present perfect and
simple past tense. Such structures as conditional sentence type 2, expressions of future time,
prepositions of place and time appeared not to be so difficult to them. In addition, when being
interviewed, a large number of the students confirmed that the reason why they could
successfully used simple present tense, conditional sentence type 1 and possessive’s and