Designing an ESP reading syllabus for the third-year student of Physics at Thai Nguyen University of Education = Thiết kế chương trình đọc hiểu Tiếng Anh chuyên

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE





NGUYỄN THỊ MINH TRANG





DESIGNING AN ESP READING SYLLABUS FOR THE THIRD-
YEAR STUDENT OF PHYSICS AT THAI NGUYEN
UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION.

(THIẾT KẾ CHƯƠNG TRÌNH ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH
CHUYÊN NGÀNH CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ 3 KHOA
VẬT LÝ, TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SƯ PHẠM THÁI NGUYÊN)
MA MINOR THESIS



Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60.14.10

HA NOI, 2012
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE





NGUYỄN THỊ MINH TRANG





DESIGNING AN ESP READING SYLLABUS FOR THE THIRD-
YEAR STUDENT OF PHYSICS AT THAI NGUYEN
UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION.

(THIẾT KẾ CHƯƠNG TRÌNH ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH
CHUYÊN NGÀNH CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ 3 KHOA
VẬT LÝ, TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SƯ PHẠM THÁI NGUYÊN)
MA MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60.14.10
Supervisor: Kim Văn Tất, MA







HA NOI, 2012

iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Pages
Declaration…………………………………………………… i
Acknowledgement…………………………………………… ii
Abstract………………………………………………………… iii
Table of contents………………………………………………. iv
List of abbreviations…………………………………………… v

Part I: INTRODUCTION……………………………………… 1
1.1. Rationale of the study…………………………………… 1
1.2. Aims of the study…………………………………………. 2
1.3. The scope of the study…………………………………… 2
1.4. Research questions………………………………………… 2
1.5. Organization of the thesis…………………………………. 2

Part II: DEVELOPMENT……………………………………… 4

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW……………………… 4
1.1. An overview of ESP……………………………………… 4
1.1.1. Definition of ESP…………………………………… 4
1.1.2. Types of ESP…………………………………………. 5
1.2. Syllabus design…………………………………………… 7
1.2.1. Definitions of syllabus……………………………… 7
1.2.2. The importance of syllabus design…………………… 8
1.2.3. Approaches to language syllabus design…………… 9
1.2.4. Types pf ESP syllabus………………………………… 10
1.2.5. Stages in syllabus design……………………………… 12
1.2.5.1. Needs analysis………………………………… 12
1.2.5.2. Goal setting (Aims and objectives setting)……… 13

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1.2.5.3. Selecting and grading content…………………… 14
1.3. Reading……………………………………………………… 15
1.3.1. Definition of reading………………………………… 15
1.3.2. Reading process……………………………………… 16
1.3.3. Reading skills…………………………………………. 17
1.3.4. Reading tasks………………………………………… 17

CHAPTER II: THE STUDY…………………………………… 19
2.1. Introduction…………………………………………………. 19
2.2. The teaching/learning situation at Thai Nguyen University
of Education………………………………………………… 19
2.2.1. The target students and English teachers……………… 19
2.2.2. Materials………………………………………………. 19
2.3. The study……………………………………………………. 20
2.3.1. The research questions………………………………… 20
2.3.2. The subjects……………………………………………. 20

2.3.3. Instrument for collecting data………………………… 21
2.3.4. The findings……………………………………………. 21
2.3.4.1. Learning needs…………………………………… 21
2.3.4.2. Target needs……………………………………… 28
2.4. Summary…………………………………………………. 29

CHAPTER III: DESIGNING AN ESP READING SYLLABUS FOR THE THIRD-
YEAR STUDENTS OF PHYSICS AT TUE…………………… 30
3.1. The selection of the type of syllabus for the third-year
students of Physics at TUE……………………………… 30
3.2. Aims and objectives…………………………………………. 30
3.3. The selection of content of the ESP reading syllabus
for the third-year students of Physics at TUE……………… 31

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3.4. Time schedule of the syllabus……………………………… 34
3.5. The proposed ESP reading syllabus for the third-year
students of Physics at TUE………………………………………. 34
3.6. Summary……………………………………………………. 35
Part III: CONCLUSION…………………………………………. 36

REFERENCES…………………………………………………… 38
APPENDICES

vii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
TUE: Thai Nguyen University of Education
ESP: English for specific purposes
EAP: English for Academic Purposes
EOP: English for Occupational Purposes
EST: English for Science and Technology
EBE: English for business and economics
ESS: English for Social Studies
ELT: English Language Teaching
GE: General English

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PART I: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale for the study:
The Thai Nguyen University of Education, trains students of different fields of
science including physics. Here, English is a compulsory subject for all students.
Therefore, every student has to take and pass the English course before finishing
university. However, the students are mainly from mountainous provinces where
the students do not have many chances to improve their English, so their English
level is low. Even some of them have never studied English before. This is
considered the biggest problem for all English teachers at this university. In order
that the students are able to read materials on their major in English, they have to
study English well.
So as to accomplish this target, every student at Thai Nguyen University of
Education studies English for three terms,
- The first two terms (90 class hours) are for General English covering the
textbook New Cutting Edge Pre-intermediate by Sarah Cunningham. During

this period, the students should acquire the basic English communication
skills, common vocabulary, and grammar structures.
- The third term (60 class hours) is for ESP in which the students are provided
with different ESP courses according to their majors.
However, up to now, there has not been any suitable ESP syllabus for physics. That
is why it is an urgent task for all ESP teachers at TUE to design ESP course to
fulfill the language target set by the University Management. Moreover, this ESP
course also need to fit the students’ learning needs and target needs in order to
facilitate their study.
Fully aware of the situation, I decide to carry out an investigation to propose a
suitable ESP syllabus to help improve the effectiveness of teaching ESP reading
comprehension to students of physics and to provide necessary information for the
development of effective ESP reading materials for the future generations of
physics students.

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1.2. Aims of the study:
The study aims at designing an ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of
physics at TUE.
In order to achieve this aim, the following objectives will be carried out:
- To investigate the students’ learning needs and target needs.
- To propose an ESP reading syllabus suitable to the third-year students of
physics at TUE.
- To give suggestions about material selection, teaching methodology as well
as student assessment.
1.3. The scope of the study:
The study limits itself to designing an ESP reading syllabus for the third-year
students of physics at TUE. The author of the study is concerned with the
importance of reading skills for the students of physics in this proposed syllabus
because reading helps enrich their vocabulary in the specific field and also helps

students obtain information about the subject they are studying so that it can give
students both authentic reading materials and authentic reading purposes.
1.4. Research questions:
The study is to find out the answers for the following research questions:
1. What are the target needs and learning needs of the third-year students at
TUE?
2. What is a suitable ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of physics
at TUE?
1.5. Organization of the thesis
The research will be organized into three parts, a list of reference and appendices.
Part I, Introduction, presents the rationale, aims and objectives, the scope of the
study, the research questions as well as the organization of the study.
Part II, Development, consists of
 Chapter I, “Literature Review” reviews such the relevant theories for ESP
reading materials as an overview of ESP, syllabus design, and reading.

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 Chapter II, “The study” describes and comments on learning and teaching
situation at TUE, subjects of the study, the instruments for collecting data,
and the findings of the study resulting from a statistical analysis of the
collected data.
 Chapter III presents some recommendations for “designing an ESP reading
syllabus for students at TUE”.
Part III, Conclusion, offers a summary of the study, limitations and suggestions
for further research.

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`PART II: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
As the study aims at designing an ESP reading syllabus for the students of physics,
in this chapter the writer will have a careful look at the theoretical background
information of issues relevant to the thesis topic. First, an overview of ESP,
including the definition of ESP, its types and its characteristics, will be discussed.
Second, an overview of reading theories will provide reading theories in general and
ESP reading in particular. Then, syllabus design and ESP syllabus design will be
presented with definition of syllabus, types of syllabus, which will function as the
major bases for the study. Finally, need analysis in syllabus design will be
mentioned to show needs analysis and how to conduct needs analysis.
1.1. An overview of ESP

1.1.1. Definition of ESP
There have been many researchers and scholars trying to answer the question what
ESP is? They have different points of view.
Hutchinson and Waters (1987) regard ESP as an approach rather than a product, by
which they meant that ESP does not involve a particular kind of language, teaching
material or methodology. They suggest that “the foundation of ESP is a simple
question: Why does this learner need to learn a foreign language?” The answer to
this question relates to the learners, the language required and the learning context,
and thus establishes the primacy of need in English.
Robinson (1991) also accepts the primacy of needs analysis in defining ESP. Her
definition is based on two key defining criteria: (i) ESP is “normally goal-directed”,
(ii) ESP courses develop from a needs analysis to specify as closely as possible
what exactly the students have to do through the medium of English.
Streven defined ESP by identifying its absolute and variable characteristics, and
Streven’s definition (1988) makes a distinction between four absolute and two
variable characteristics:

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1. Absolute characteristics: ESP consists of English Language Teaching which is: (1)
designed to meet specified needs of the learner; (2) related to content (i.e. in its themes,
topics) to particular disciplines, occupations and activities; (3)centered on language
appropriate of those activities in syntax, lexis, discourse, semantics, etc, and analysis of the
discourse; (4)in contrast with General English.

2. Variable characteristics: ESP may be, but is not necessarily: (1) restricted as to the
language skills to learn (e.g. reading only); (2) not taught according to any pre-ordained
methodology.

In 1998, Dudley-Evans and St John modified Streven’s definition. The revised
definition they postulate is slightly different from Streven’s one. They have

removed the absolute characteristic that in contrast with General English and added
more variable characteristics. They assert that ESP is not necessarily, either at a
tertiary level institution or in a professional work situation, although it could be
used with young adults in the setting of a secondary school. But that is not all. They
also note that ESP is generally designed for intermediate or advanced students; that
is, most ESP courses assume basic knowledge of the language system, but it can be
used with beginners. (1998, pp.4-5)
In short, each linguistic has his own point of view but most authors have agreed that
an ESP course would have the following features: it is purposeful and aims at the
successful performance of occupational or educational roles by an individual or a
group; it is based on an analysis of the students’ needs; it may differ from another
general language course in its selection of skills, topics, situations, language and
methodology. However, as for the strong points of Dudley- Evans and St John
above, it will act as the working definition in this study.

1.1.2. Types of ESP:
There are many types of ESP and many acronyms. According to Hutchinson and
Waters (1987) in the “Tree of ELT”, ESP is broken into three branches: English for

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Discipline-based
School subject
Science and Technology (EST), English for business and economics (EBE) and
English for Social Studies (ESS). Each of these subject areas is divided into two
branches: English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Occupational
Purposes (EOP). The former is related to the English needed in an educational
context, usually at a university level or in a similar institution, and may be at a
school level. The later is concerned with professional purposes such as those of
working lawyers, doctors, bankers or business people.
According to Robinson (1991) and Munby (1978), there is a major distinction

between English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) involving work-related need and
training and English for Academic Purposes (EAP) with the involvement to
academic study needs. To make the difference from the occupational / educational
distinction that can be found in most taxonomy of ESP, Munby (1978) developed
the other kind of ESP classification; figure 1 presents two other categories: English
for Science and Technology (EST) and other distinction as follows:














Figure 1: Types of ESP
ESP

EST
Other
Occupational
Educational
Post-experience
Teachers’ conversation
Pre-study

In-study/ post-study
Independent
Integrated
Pre-experience

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According to Strevens (1988), the learners whose purposes are concerned with
science and technology are usually referred to EST. It differs from other courses in
which it processes a set of features that characterizes “science English” including
the linguistic rules for creating scientific text, the terminology of the particular
scientific purposes appropriate to an EST course and the purposes of science. The
courses that do not process these features are called “other ESP”.
Strevens’ three-way helps us to distinguish the learner who learns English while he
is being trained or after trained. Similarly, it distinguishes the learner who learns
English before he studies the discipline from the learner who learns English while
he is studying or after he has studied the discipline. This distinction is very
important because learner’s experience has a great influence on his progress in
study as well as the materials and method used in a course. Thus, the content of an
English program for some actually engaged, for example, on a secretarial course
with its acquisitions for practice skills and theoretical knowledge is going to be
different from that of a program for someone who is already a qualified secretary
but now needs to operate in English.
In short, it is useful for English teachers to know the various types of ESP as they
provide an overall picture of the main group learners they are going to work with.
This will be an important step into the success of their making needs analysis and
designing an appropriate syllabus for a specific group of learners. At TUE, EAP is
taught for students who need to learn English as a part of the study. Thus, the
appropriate type of ESP syllabus for them is EAP.
1.2. Syllabus design:
1.2.1. Definitions of syllabus

To define syllabus, some researchers advocate the narrow view, which draw a clear
distinction between syllabus design and methodology whereas others adopt a
broader view, which argue methodology as an integral part of the syllabus.
Hutchinson and Waters (1987) share the same idea with Nunan (1988) that

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“syllabus design is seen as being concerned with the selection of learning tasks and
activities”.
In contrast, Yalden (1984, p.14) point out that:

The syllabus replaces the concept of “method” and the syllabus is now seen as an
instrument by which the teacher, with the help of the syllabus designer, can achieve
a degree of “ fit” between the needs and the aims of the learners (as social being
and as individual), and the activities which will take place in the classroom.

It is clear that there have been various points of view on syllabus. The term syllabus
has been defined by two conflicting views: one sees method as an integral part of
the syllabus and the other sees as a separated issue. In this study, syllabus is seen
under the latter approach: syllabus has been considered as specification, documents
of grading of content for a particular institution, organized in subsections defining
the work of a finite group. A syllabus is designed with the aim of making teaching a
more effective process.
1.2.2. The importance of syllabus design:
It is obvious that a syllabus is an integral component in the process of course
design. Hutchinson and Waters (1987, p.83-84) explains why we should have a
syllabus by identifying the roles of a syllabus. The syllabus, in defining the
constituent parts of language knowledge, is a practical basis for the division of
assessment, textbooks and learning time. In addition to its practical benefits, a
syllabus also gives more support to the teacher and learners in that it makes the
language - teaching task appear manageable. A syllabus is an implicit statement of

view on the nature of language and learning. A syllabus will normally be expressed
in terms of what is taken to be the most important aspect of language learning. A
syllabus then tells the teachers and learners not only what is to be learned, but
implicitly why it is to be learned. Furthermore, a syllabus provides a set of criteria
for materials selection and/ or writing. In which teaching is intended to lead a
learner to a particular state of knowledge, there need to be criteria against which
success or failure in reaching that state will be assessed. Therefore, a syllabus

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provides a visible basis for testing. It is clear from the list that a syllabus is a
document of great importance in teaching and learning process. In order to design it
appropriately, a syllabus designer needs to be aware of the different roles that the
syllabus plays.
1.2.3. Approaches to language syllabus design
In 1987, Hutchinson and Waters stated that there are three main types of
approaches: the language-centered, the skills-centered and the learning-centered.
- The language-centered approach: Hutchinson and Waters (1987, p.65-66) pointed
out that this design process “aims to draw as direct a connection as possible
between the analysis of the target situation and the content of the ESP course.” This
approach seems to be very logical and straightforward but it has a number of
weaknesses. Firstly, only restricted area is taught instead of taking the whole of
English and teaching it to the learner. Secondly, it is criticized for being a static and
inflexible procedure. Thirdly, this model appears to be systematic, and it engenders
the false belief that the systematic analysis and presentation of language data will
produce systematic learning in the learner. Also, the language-centered model does
not acknowledge the important factor contributing to the creation of any course.
Finally, its analysis of the target situation data is just at the surface level.
- Skills-centered approach: with the aims of helping learners to develop skills and
learning strategies after the ESP course, and making the learners into better
processors of information. This approach, therefore, certainly take the learners more

into account than the language-centered model. In general, this approach sees the
learner as a user of language rather than as a learner of language. With this
distinction, skill-centered approach may be a reasonable solution.
- A learning-centered approach: Hutchinson and Waters (1987:72) “reject the term a
learner-centered approach in favor of a learning-centered approach to indicate that the
concern is to maximize learning”. They remark that learning should “be seen it the
context in which it takes places” and that “learning is not just a mental process, it is a
process of negotiation between individuals and society.”

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In general, the first approach pays attention to competence and performance of the
learners, while the skill-centered approach views learners as users rather than a
learner of language. The language-centered model makes the ESP course dependent
on the target situation. That is the reason why the writer will take this way into
consideration to apply this interactive approach to designing ESP reading syllabus
for the students of Physics at TUE.
1.2.4. Types of ESP syllabus:
There are different ways to classify types of syllabuses.
According to Dubin & Olshtain (1986), syllabus can be classified into four types
such as structural-grammatical syllabus, the semantico-notional syllabus, the
functional syllabus and the situational syllabus.

Krahnke (1987) divides syllabuses into six major types: structural syllabus,
notional/functional syllabus, skill-based syllabus, situational syllabus, task-based
syllabus and content-based syllabus. He also said that skill-based syllabus is the one
in which the current of the course is a set of specific abilities, such as linguistic
competence (pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, reading, …), generalized types
of behavior or other language skills can be chosen as the main focus of the course.
In task-based syllabus, the teaching is organized around the series of complex and
purpose full tasks that the learners need or want to perform, using English. Content-

based syllabus focuses on disciplinary content or subject matter, which learners
acquire through English. It may be also called a typical or thematic syllabus.
Hutchinson and Waters (1987) discuss syllabus in a different way, all together not
in terms of design characteristics of content, but in terms of the stage, through
which content passes before it reaches the mind of the learner. They divided
syllabus into evaluation syllabus, organizational syllabus, materials syllabus,
teacher syllabus, classroom syllabus and learner syllabus.
All the types of the syllabuses have advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, how
to design a good syllabus is still a big question for many people. Hutchinson

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(1987:89) points out that teaching materials should operate some syllabuses at the
same time, which can be a good way to design the syllabus. Thus, to meet the
students’ needs as learning situation, skill-based and topic-based syllabuses are
chosen for designing the ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of Physics
at TUE. This mixture between the two syllabuses above is likely to be the best one
to have an appropriate, practical, feasible and enjoyable syllabus for them. The
characteristics, differences, strengths and reasons for choosing this mixed syllabus
are presented as follows:
* Skill-based syllabus:
The assumption of this syllabus type is that “underlying any language behavior are
certain skills and strategies, which the learner uses in order to produce or
comprehend discourse” (Hutchinson, 1987:69)
Skill-based syllabus “is something of a half way house between content or product
syllabuses on the other side and method or process syllabuses on the other”
(Robinson,1991:37).
In essence, skill-based syllabus “focuses exclusively or principally on one of the
four traditionally skills” (Robinson, 1991:37)
The reason accounting for the choice of an ESP skill-based syllabus is that it thinks
of the student as a language user and not a language learner. As the students’ most

important need is proficiency in reading skills, at the first sight, this seems to be the
right solution. The syllabus should contain reading activities that are built on the
students’ specialist topics.
* Topic-based syllabus:
The topic-based syllabus is organized around topics. For ESP course, the topics
deploy the content of the students’ work, specialist study or specialist subject areas.
This type of syllabus is certainly important in ESP because one objective of the ESP
course may in fact to teach this specialist content.

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Richard (2001:157) defines this type of syllabus as the one that is organized around
the themes, topics, or other units of content. With topic-based syllabus, content
rather than grammar, functions or situations is the starting point in syllabus design.
The topic-bases syllabus is chosen for the study because of its advantages which are
cited by Richards (2001:158) that they facilitate comprehension; content make
linguistic form more meaningful and serves as the best basis for teaching the skill
areas; they address students’ needs and motivate learners.
In short, mixed syllabuses seem to be flexible and suitable for many teaching and
learning situations. The decision as to which syllabus types to employ will result
from consideration of the learners’ needs and the objectives of the course, together
with the institution bias of the teaching institution (Robinson, 1991:41)
1.2.5. Stages in syllabus design:
Nunan (1988) proposed four steps to design the syllabus such as: (1) Needs
analysis; (2) Goal setting; (3) Selecting and grading content; (4) Selecting and
grading tasks. In designing the syllabus for the target students at TUE will adapt a
logical sequence of three main stages, that is, i) needs analysis, ii) Goal setting, and
iii) Selecting and grading content.
These three stages’ details are discussed as follows:
2.2.5.1. Needs analysis
Needs are differently defined by many researchers. In general term, Brown

(1995:35) said that: “needs analysis refer to activities involved in gathering
information that will serve as the basis for the developing a curriculum that will
meet the learning needs of a particular group of students”. Needs analysis is also
defined by Richards (2001:32) as: “the process of determining the needs for which a
learner or a group of learners requires a language and arranging the needs according
to priorities”. The importance of Needs analysis is considered by Nunan (1988) that
it is the initial process for the specification behavioral objectives, which lead to
detailed aspects of syllabus such as functions, topics, lexis and structures.

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In order to design an appropriate syllabus for students, it is necessary for designers
to understand the learners as well as their needs by conducting Needs Analysis
before the beginning of the ESP studying program. Thus, in this section, some
aspects of needs analysis will be discussed as follows:
A. Need Analysis approaches: there are different needs analysis approaches such as
Language-centered approach, Skill-centered approach, and Learning-centered
approach.
B. Learning Needs: Hutchinson and Waters (1987:60) use the analogy of ESP
course as a journey in which “lacks” is regarded as the starting point, “necessities”
as the destination and “how we are going to get from the starting point to
destination” indicates “learning needs”.
Hutchinson and Waters also suggest a simple framework for analyzing learning
needs:
 Why are the learners taking this course?
 How do the learners do?
 What resources are available?
 Who are the learners?
 Where will the ESP course take place?
 When will the ESP course take place?
C. Target Needs: Target Needs can be defined as “what the learner needs to do in

the target situation” in which the learner will use the language they are learning
(Hutchinson & Waters, 1987, p.54). It is more useful to refer to the target situation
in terms of Necessities, Lacks and Wants.
The framework for analyzing target needs is proposed by Hutchinson and Waters as
follows:
 Why is the language needed?
 How will the language be used?
 What will the content areas be?
 Who will the learner use the language with?

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 Where will the language be used?
 When will the language be used?
1.2.5.2. Goal Setting (Aims and Objectives setting)
Generally, aims tend to have a rather broader character than objectives, and they
refer to the underlying reasons for purposes of a course and are long-term goals. In
another way, the objectives present the description of exactly what a learner to be
able to do at the end of a period if instruction, they serve to determine the selection
of contents, teaching process and activities. Therefore, they should be clear, precise
and appropriate. Objectives are defined by Nunan (1988:61) as follows: “objectives
are specific before contents and activities because their principle role is to act as a
guide to the selection of the other elements in the curriculum”. Nunan, in this case,
does point out the usefulness of objectives that they not only guide the selection of
structures, tasks, notions, situations, and so on, but also to provide a shaper focus
for the teachers, and a clear idea of what learner can expect from a language
program, to help in developing means of assessment and evaluation, and so on. That
is the reason why objectives are nothing more than a particular way of formulating
or stating content and activities.
1.2.5.3. Selecting and grading content
Content is defined as “which is written or spoken about in a book, an article, a

program…” (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Encycopedic-Dictionary). Thus, selecting
content of a syllabus refers to the “what” that should be included in the syllabus.
A. Selecting content:
According to Richards, Platt and Webber (1985:253), selection in language teaching
is “the choice of linguistic content (vocabulary, grammar, etc.) for a language
course, textbook, etc. procedures for selecting language items to include in a
language course include the use of frequency counts, needs analysis and pedagogic
grammar”. Therefore, in the process of selecting content, selecting texts, selecting
grammatical components, selecting tasks and notional components, and the
integration of tasks, grammatical and notional components should be taken into

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consideration. Furthermore, in this research, it is necessary to conduct the
integration of tasks, elements of topics, grammar, and notions so that the writer will
be able to select the right content for ESP reading syllabus for students of Physics at
TUE.
B. Grading content:
After selecting content, grading content is the next step that the designer should
carry out. Grading is defined as
“the arrangement of the content of a language course or a textbook so that it is presented in a
helpful way. Gradation would affect the order in which words, word meanings, tenses,
structures, topics, tasks, skills, etc. are presented. Gradation may be based on the complexity
of an item, its frequency in written or spoken English, or is importance for the learner”
(Richards, Platt and Weber, 1985:125)
Graves (1996) said that there are two principles of sequencing: building and
recycling. Building, in this case, can be from more concrete to more open-ended,
from the simple to the complex, while recycling refers to mentioning the previous
items in other ways; namely in different types of activities. With this, the teaching
and learning items in ESP, can motivate learners to acquire the knowledge and
languages. Eventually, the syllabus for the students of Physics at TCE will be

designed with these two criteria, building and recycling.
1.3. Reading:
In this part, the definition of reading, reading process and reading skills will be
investigated.
1.3.1. Definition of reading:
There have been a lot of definitions of reading. As its simplest, reading is
understanding messages in written or printed materials. To get further
understanding, we discuss some writers’ opinions.
In Harmer’s words, reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain. The
eyes receive message and the brain has to work out the meaning that is to interpret
the meaning of what is being read. (Harmer, 1998)

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Goodman (1971:135) sees reading as a psycholinguistic process by which the
reader, a long user, reconstructs, as best as he can a message which has been
encoded by a writer as a graphic display. A similar view on reading expressed by
Williams (1984:3), especially on the act of reconstruction like Goodman shows that
the written texts often contain more than we need to understand them. The efficient
reader makes use of this to take what he needs, or no more to obtain meaning.
Generally, all definitions share the same idea that reading is a receptive process of
reading silently for the ultimate purpose of understanding a written form as
effectively as possible.
1.3.2. Reading process:
The notion of reading as an interactive process of bottom-up, top-down and
metacognitive skills is now well consolidated in both first language and second
language instructional frameworks. In this part, three models of reading, the
bottom-up, the top-down and the interactive model will be discussed.
First, the bottom-up models, as the name of the model suggests the reader does
begin with the written text. In the model, the data from the text must be received
before the high-level mental stages of understanding transform and re-code the data.

Specially, the basis for this process is linguistic knowledge of the reader, so this
model can be considered as skill-based or data-driven.
Secondly, the top-down model move from the top and is originated from meaning-
based theory or meaning processes with the active role of readers in their interaction
with the text. Decoding the form of the text, that is letters and words, is preceded by
the preconstruction of meaning and followed by the meaning reconfirmation.
Goodman (1971) suggests this process as a kind of “psycholinguistic guessing
game”. Nevertheless, this model does emphasize high-level skills such as guessing
meaning from context or background knowledge.
Also, the interactive model, according to Stanovich (quoted in Nunan, 1988) and
Hayes (1991), is the outcome of the concession between bottom-up and top-down
theories. In this model, readers can look for information for the bottom-up process

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to compensate for the top-down process and vice versa to make “the most
appropriate interpretation of the printed page”. (Hayes. 1991:7)
In the final analysis, three dominant theoretical models have provided the
fundamental understanding of the nature of the reading process. The interactive
seems to compensate for those short comings of the two models above. This is the
reason why while teaching the reading materials in ESP, the teachers should know
how to use three models appropriate but give more weight to interactive models to
develop the learners’ reading strategies.
1.3.3. Reading skills:
According to McDonough & Shaw (1993:101), reading skill is clearly one of the
most important skills, particularly in cases where students have to read English
materials for their own specialist subject but many never actually have to speak the
language.
There are many ways to classify reading skills which are good for learners to
master. Kennedy and Bolitho offer some reading skills such as skimming, scanning,
reference skills, relating graphs, diagrams, texts, predicting and sequence the

structure of a text, reading notices and instructions.
Dudley-Evans and St John (1998) also summarized a list of key skills of ESP
reading such as selecting what is relevant for the current purpose; using all the
features of the text such as headings, layout, typeface; skimming for content and
meaning; scanning for specifics; identifying organizational patterns; understanding
relations within a sentence and between sentences; using cohesive and discourse
markers; predicting, inferring and guessing; identifying main ideas, supporting ideas
and examples; processing and evaluating the information during reading; and
transferring or using the information while or after reading.
From these, the syllabus designer must choose the appropriate reading skills to
equip their learners methods of reading effectively.
1.3.4. Reading tasks:

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Richards (1985) said that task in language teaching is an activity or action which is
carried out as the result of processing or understanding language. Patrick Howarth
(2006) divides the reading process into three stages: pre-reading, while-reading and
post reading as well as some tasks in each stages. For example, tell your partner
what you know about the topic; do a quiz in pairs to find out what you know about
the topics; look at some pictures related to the topics; and skimming the first
paragraph for gist and then predicting, running and reading is to encourage the
students to read as quickly as possible in a race, slashed text, using websites, jigsaw
reading, creating a class text bank,…discussions about the text, summarizing texts,
using “follow-up” speaking task related to the topic…
Grellet (1990) focuses on tasks for improving skimming and skinning reading skills.
Besides, he also gives many kinds of tasks such as cloze text, recognizing word
formation and derivation, completing a table after reading a text, multiple choice,
comprehension questions,…
Briefly, basing on the objectives of the ESP course as well as the learners’ level, the
designers choose the necessary tasks in order to help learners to improve their

reading skills.

In summary, this chapter presents some theoretical issues which are as the basis for
the design of an ESP reading syllabus for the third-year students of Physics at TUE.
The first part focuses on the relevant theories for ESP with its types. The second
one is syllabus design with the discussion of approaches to language syllabus
design, stages in syllabus design as well as needs analysis. Finally, due to the
ultimate purpose of the study is to design a reading syllabus, the last item of this
chapter deals with theory on reading, reading process, reading skills and reading
tasks. In the next chapter, we will describe the methodology of the study.




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CHAPTER II: THE STUDY
2.1. Introduction
In order to meet the aims of this thesis, in this chapter the writer will present the
results of need analysis as the base for designing an ESP reading syllabus for the
third-year students of Physics at TUE. One questionnaire was designed to analyze
the students’ needs and another one was for English teachers who have experienced
to teach English for Physics. That is the reason why a numbers of factors such as the
students’ background information, resources, their needs and teaching and learning
situation at TUE are mentioned in this part of the thesis.
2.2. The teaching/learning situation at Thai Nguyen University of Education.
2.2.1. The target students and English teachers
The third-year students of Physics at TUE are likely to have mastered the English

language skills, the vocabulary, as well as grammatical rules at the pre-intermediate
level. More important is the fact that most of these students’ needs are only to pass
the exams with good results, while the rest may think that English is useful for their
future. All in all, Physics students seem to be equipped with basic knowledge about
their fields by Physics teachers, which helps them to be capable of learning Physics
knowledge in English. However, their English knowledge is still poor, so the
English teachers need to provide them with necessary language knowledge by
selecting/designing an appropriate syllabus which helps them to overcome their
difficulties in learning English for Physics.
There are 5 teachers of English who teach English for Physics at TUE. All of them
have graduated from the Foreign Language Faculty. Four of them are M.A and one
is taking the MA Course. They have been teaching English for Physics for several
years, but they are not adequately trained for Physics. That is the reason why they
have some certain difficulties in teaching English for Physics.