Sử dụng tài liệu đọc bổ trợ cho giáo trình Business Basics nhằm nâng cao hiệu quả của việc dạy và học kỹ năng đọc cho sinh viên năm thứ hai trường Cao đẳng Cô

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************


Dao thi hoa

Using Supplementary Reading Materials with the
Course book Business Basics to Improve the Efficiency
of reading teaching and learning for Second-year
Students at Bac Ha College of Technology

Sử dụng tài liệu đọc bổ trợ cho giáo trình Business Basics nhằm nâng
cao hiệu quả của việc dạy và học kỹ năng đọc cho sinh viên năm thứ
hai tr-ờng Cao đẳng Công nghệ Bắc Hà

m.a minor thesis

Field: Methodology
Code: 60 14 10
Supervisor: Phan Thi Van Quyen




Hanoi - 2010

5
Table of contents
Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………… i
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………. ii
List of tables and charts………………………………………………………………… iii
Table of contents………………………………………………………………………… iv
Part a: Introduction
1. Rationale………………………………………………………………………………… 1
2. Aims of the study……………………………………………………………………… 2
3. Significance of the study……………………………………………………………… 2
4. Research questions……………………………………………………………………… 2
5. Methodology……………………………………………………………………………. 3
6. Design of the study……………………………………………………………………… 3
Part B: development
Chapter 1: Literature review
1.1. An overview of reading……………………………………………………………… 4
1.1.1. Definitions of reading comprehension…………………………………………. 4
1.1.2. Models of reading .…………………………………………………………… 4
1.1.3. Reading skills and types of reading skills……………………………………… 5
1.1.3.1. Definition of reading skills……………………………………………… 5
1.1.3.2. Types of reading skills………………………………………………… 5
1.2. Materials development in language teaching…………………………………………. 7
1.2.1. Definition of language teaching materials……………………………………… 7
1.2.2. Processes in materials development……………………………………………. 7
1.2.2.1. Materials evaluation……………………………………………………… 8
1.2.2.2. Types of materials evaluation…………………………………………… 8
1.2.2.3. Criteria for materials evaluation………………………………………… 9
1.2.3. Supplementary materials in teaching reading skills………………………… 10
1.2.3.1. Definition of supplementary materials………………………………… 10

1.2.3.2. Criteria for selecting supplementary materials………………………… 10
1.2.3.3. How to use supplementary materials……………………………………. 11
Summary



6
Chapter 2: Methodology
2.1. Background to the study…………………………………………………………… 14
2.1.1. The setting……………………………………………………………………. 14
2.1.2. The textbook Business Basics……………………………………………… 14
2.1.3. Participants…………………………………………………………………… 15
2.1.3.1. The teachers…………………………………………………………… 15
2.1.3.2. The students…………………………………………………………… 16
2.2. Instrument for data collection……………………………………………………… 16
2.2.1. The questionnaire for teachers……………………………………………… 16
2.2.2. The questionnaire for students……………………………………………… 17
2.3. Data collection procedure……………………………………………………………. 17
Chapter 3: Data analysis, findings and discussion
3.1. Data analysis…………………………………………………………………………. 18
3.2. Findings and discussion……………………………………………………………… 27
3.2.1. The teachers’ and the students’ evaluations of the current textbook
Business Basics……………………………………………………………………… 27
3.2.2. The teachers’ and the students’ expectations of supplementary
reading materials…………………………………………………………………… 28
Chapter 4: Recommendations
4.1. Suggestions for selecting supplementary materials………………………………… 29
4.2. Designing tasks and activities for reading passages…………………………………. 30
4.3. Sample supplementary readings……… ……………………………………………. 30
Part C: conclusion

1. Conclusion of the study……………………………………………………………… 37
2. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study……………………………. 37
References 3
9
Appendices
Appendix 1: Questionnaire for teachers
Appendix 2: Questionnaire for students



4
Lists of tables and charts

Tables
Table 1: The teachers’and students’ evaluations on level of difficulty, content and length
of reading texts in the textbook
Table 2: The teachers’ opinions on reading exercises in the textbook Business Basics
Table 3: The students’ opinions on reading exercises in the textbook Business Basics
Table 4: Topics in the textbook need supplementary reading
Table 5: Teachers’ expectations of the supplementary reading materials
Charts
Chart 1: The teachers’ purpose of using supplementary materials in teaching reading
lessons
Chart 2: The teachers’ suggestions on the types of exercises to be used in the
supplementary materials
Chart 3: Teachers’ sources to get supplementary reading

7


Part a: introduction
1. Rationale
Nowadays, in the time of globalization, English plays an essential role in the
increasing development of science, technology, politics, economics, tourism, culture and
so on. English language is not only considered as a means of communication but also a key
to access the important achievements of science and technology. Therefore, learners of
English should acquire this language and teaching and learning English become popular in

our country.
Among four language skills, reading is very important in learning a foreign
language as reading helps students to widen their knowledge and understand different
academic materials written in English. Carrel (1981: 1) also emphasizes “for many
students, reading is by far the most important of the four skills in a second language,
particularly in English as a second or foreign language”. It is necessary for the second year
students at Bac Ha College of Technology to develop reading ability effectively because
reading provides a lot of useful information as well as enrich their language vocabulary
and structures. Reading will be an effective way to help students enhance their English
proficiency especially their reading skills. Nevertheless, despite the teachers‟ and students‟
efforts, the students at Bac Ha College of Technology have a poor reading result that
makes them uninterested in learning English in general and in learning reading skill in
particular.
The students‟ English proficiency at Bac Ha College of Technology is not the
same. It is due to the fact that they come from different places. Most of them come from
the countryside so they can not have preferable English learning condition. The others
come from towns and cities where they have more convenient condition of learning
English. This results in low English proficiency of the students because of their limited
vocabulary and grammar. In addition, they do not have appropriate reading strategies and
background knowledge. Therefore, students face a lot of difficulties in reading and
understanding the long texts especially the texts relating to economic fields which they are
studying. As a result, they find it hard to be successful in their reading and they are not
interested in reading.



8
With the purpose of improving their English knowledge, it is very important for the
teachers to provide them as many opportunities to read as possible. Nuttall in the book
“Teaching reading skills in a foreign language” (1982) states that “reading as a purposeful

activity, we can make teaching more purposeful and classes livelier, even in the difficult
circumstances”.
All the above reasons have inspired me to carry out the study on “Using
Supplementary Reading Materials with the Course book Business Basics to Improve the
Efficiency of Reading Teaching and Learning for Second-year Students at Bac Ha College
of Technology”, with a hope to improve the teaching and learning English as well as the
teaching and learning reading comprehension.
2. Aims of the study
The purpose of the study is to find ways of developing the effective reading materials so as
to improve the teaching reading skill of the teachers as well as to enhance the students‟
learning reading. The specific aims of this research are as follows:
- To find out some different evaluations made by teachers and students towards the
textbook Business Basics, which is currently used by the second year students at Bac Ha
College of Technology.
- To examine the teachers‟ and the students‟ expectations of supplementary reading
materials.
- To give recommendations for selecting supplementary materials to improve teaching
reading of the teachers as well as learning reading of the students.
3. Significance of the study
This study is of great importance to the author herself as well as to all teachers of English.
It helps to reinforce students‟ English proficiency and suggests ways to improve the
teaching of English in general and reading in particular at Bac Ha College of Technology
and most schools and universities that share the same mandate.
4. Research questions
On the basis of the problems, the following research questions were formulated to
conduct this study.
1. What are the teachers‟ and the students‟ evaluations of the textbook Business
Basics?

9
2. What are the teachers‟ and the students‟ expectations of supplementary reading
materials?
5. Methodology
The methods used in the study is quantitative and qualitative. A questionnaire is used as a
main instrument for data collection. Two sets of questionnaires were designed and
delivered to the teachers and the second-year students at Bac Ha College of Technology in
order to find out answers to the research questions. The data were collected, synthesized
and analyzed from the survey questionnaires for both teachers and students on their
evaluations of the current textbook and their expectations of supplementary reading
materials.
6. Design of the study
This study is divided into three parts.
Part A is the introduction in which the rationale, aims of the study, significance, research
questions, methodology and design of the study are stated.
Part B is the development, the main part of the study. In this part, there are four chapters.
Chapter 1 reviews the literature concerning an overview of reading, reading
comprehension with models of reading process, the theory of materials development and
supplementary materials in teaching reading skills.
Chapter 2 presents methodology of the study consisting of the background to the study. It
covers the setting, the textbook Business Basics, the participants, the instrument as well as
data collection procedure.
Chapter 3 goes into details of the data analysis, findings and discussion.
Chapter 4 briefly deals with recommendations of the study.
Part C comes up with the summary of the study in which limitations of the study and
suggestions for further research are also presented.

10
Part B: Development
Chapter 1: Literature review
1.1. An overview of reading
1.1.1. Definitions of reading comprehension
Reading comprehension plays an important role in teaching and learning a foreign
language. It has the nature of communication, in which reading activity acts as a means of
communication between the writer and the reader.
Reading comprehension can be affected by world knowledge, with many
demonstrations that readers who possesses rich knowledge about the topic of a reading
usually understand the reading better than classmates with lower knowledge. Roe, Stood
and Burns (1987: 2) indicate “Reading comprehension is reconstruction, interpretation and
evaluation of what author of written content means by using knowledge gained from life
experience”.
Sharing the same point of view, Grellet (1981: 3) consider “reading comprehension
or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as
effectively as possible”. In his definition, reading comprehension simply means reading
and understanding. Reading comprehension is not merely decoding-translating written
symbols into corresponding sounds.
Though these definitions are not exactly the same, what comes up a common point
is that reading comprehension is the process in which the readers, as they read, can
recognize the graphic forms of the reading text and what is implied behind these forms.

While reading, learners of language need to have critical thinking to understand and
analyze what is written. Then readers can learn both grammar and vocabulary after
reading. From that, they will easily understand the content of the reading.
1.1.2. Models of reading
In terms of the reading process, many language researchers (Nuttall, 1996; Ur,
1991; Alderson, 2000, etc) share the same viewpoint that there are three different ways of
processing a text namely the bottom-up, the top-down and interactive models.
The bottom-up models: The basis of bottom up models is linguistics knowledge of
the reader. In these models, the reader starts with the written text (the bottom), and
constructs meaning from the letters, words, phrases and sentences found within and then



11
processes the text in a linear fashion. The bottom-up models analyze reading as a process
in which small chunks of text are absorbed, analyzed, and gradually added to the next
chunk until they become meaningful.
The top- down models: The top- down process moves from the top, the higher -
level mental stages, down to the text itself. In these models, the reading process is driven
by the reader‟s mind at work on the text (reader- driven models). The reader rather than the
text is at the heart of the reading process.
Interactive models of the reading process are proposed in the light of the perceived
deficiencies of both bottom- up and top- down models. Like top- down models, they are
reader- driven. This means the reader uses his or her previous understanding to guess about
text content and as in bottom- up models, the reader is dependent upon what is in the text.
Hayes (1991) supposes that “Interactive models are more than a compromise
between bottom- up and top- down theories. In interactive models, different processes are
thought to be responsible for providing information that is shared with other processes. The
information obtained from each type of processing is combined to determine the most
appropriate interpretation of the printed page”.

In brief, interactive models are more adequate than the bottom- up and top- down
models because they maximize the strong points and minimize the weak points of the use
of both bottom- up and top- down models. Thus, the language users need combine and
practice both bottom- up and top- down strategies to gain efficiency in the reading process.
1.1.3. Reading skills and types of reading skills
1.1.3.1. Definition of reading skills
Reading skill is one of the four important skills in learning language. Paris, Wasik and
Turner (1991: 611) also confirm “Reading skills refer to information – processing
techniques that are automatic, whether at the level of recognizing grapheme – phoneme
correspondence or summarizing a story. Skills are applied to a text unconsciously for many
reasons including expertise, repeated practice, and compliance with directions, luck, and
native use”.
1.1.3.2. Types of reading skills
- Skimming
Skimming is used to quickly gather the most important information. Grellet, F. (1981: 19)
says “When skimming, we go through the reading material quickly in order to get the gist



12
of it, to know how it is organized, or to get an idea of the tone or the intention of the
writer”.
Hedge, T. (2000: 195) points out that “Skim reading is used to get a global impression of
the content of a text. An example would be previewing a long magazine article by reading
rapidly, skipping large chunks of information, and focusing on headings and first lines of
paragraphs”.
- Scanning
Scanning occurs when a reader looks quickly through the text searching for a specific piece
of information or to see if the text is suitable for a specific reading purpose. Hedge, T.
(2000: 195) suggests that “Scanning involves searching rapidly through a text to find a

specific point of information, for example, the relevant times on a timetable, items in a
directory, or key points in academic text”. Scanning is the reading skill we use when we
want to find the answer to a specific question. Scanning is an useful reading skill that may
at first strange to a learner who is used to reading everything in a foreign language with the
same degree of attention.
- Predicting
This is an important skill of efficient readers. Predicting uses knowledge of the subject
matter to make predictions about content and vocabulary and check comprehension as well
as knowledge of the text type and purpose to make predictions about discourse structure.
Next, it uses knowledge about the author to make predictions about writing style,
vocabulary, and content.
- Inference
Inference means making use of syntactic, logical and cultural clues to discover the
meaning of unknown elements. If these are words, then word-formation and derivation will
also play an important role. When dealing with a new text, it is better not to explain the
difficult words to the learners. Students should be encouraged to make a guess at the
meaning of the words they do not know rather than look them up in a dictionary. If they
need to look at the dictionary to get the meaning, they should only do so after having tried
to work out a solution on their own. Therefore, it is very essential to develop the inference
skill.





13
- Critical thinking
Critical thinking involves determining the meaning and significance of what is observed or
expressed, or, concerning a given inference or argument, determining whether there is
adequate justification to accept the conclusion as true. Hence, Fisher & Scriven define

critical thinking as "skilled, active, interpretation and evaluation of observations,
communications, information, and argumentation".

While Moore & Parker define it more
naturally as the careful, deliberate determination of whether one should accept, reject, or
suspend judgment about a claim and the degree of confidence with which one accepts or
rejects it.
Critical thinking employs not only logic but broad intellectual criteria such as clarity,
credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, significance and fairness.
- Summarizing
Summarizing involves putting the main idea(s) into your own words, including only the
main point(s). Once again, it is necessary to attribute summarized ideas to the original
source. Summaries are significantly shorter than the original and take a broad overview of
the source material. Effective summarizing leads to an increase in student learning.
Summarizing helps students recognize how information is structured and it will help them
summarize what they read or hear.
1.2. Materials development in language teaching
1.2.1. Definition of language teaching materials and types of materials
According to Tomlinson (1998: 2), the term “language teaching materials” is
defined as anything which is used by teachers or learners to facilitate the learning of a
language. In this sense, language teaching materials consist of not only course books or
grammar books but also videos, CD-ROMS, cassettes, dictionaries, pictures, photocopied
exercises.
He categorizes language-teaching materials into two main types: published
materials and prepared materials. Crawford (2002) shares the same point of view on
talking about classification of materials that there are two different types of materials: pre-
prepared and self-prepared materials.
1.2.2. Processes of materials development
Tomlinson (1998) also asserts that “materials development refers to anything which
is done by writers, teachers or learners to provide sources of language input and to exploit

14
those sources in ways which maximize the likelihood of intake”. Therefore, language
teachers become materials developers with the aim to promote language learning. There
are two main steps of the process of materials development mentioned: materials
evaluation and materials adaptation.
1.2.2.1. Materials evaluation
It is undeniable that the evaluation of materials is obviously of great importance in
the process of language learning and teaching. Materials evaluation helps language
teachers to identify specific strengths and weaknesses of the materials in use. Thus, EFL
teachers need to evaluate the effectiveness of the materials well.
Materials evaluation is defined differently by different authors. According to
Hutchinson and Waters (1993), evaluation is defined as really a matter of judging the
fitness of something for a particular purpose. “Given a certain need, and in the light of the
resources available, which out of number of possibilities can represent the best solution?
There is no absolute good or bad – only degree of fitness for the required purpose”.
Brown (1995: 218) gives different viewpoint on defining evaluation. In his point of
view, “Evaluation is the systematic collection and analysis of all relevant information
necessary to promote the improvement of a curriculum, and access its effectiveness and
efficiency, as well as the participants‟ attitudes within the context of the particular
institutions involved”. This definition requires that information be gathered and analyzed
in a systematic manner and that only relevant information should be included.
Nunan (1998) states that evaluation be “a process not a final product” that means it
takes place at any time of the material design. The first emphasis of evaluation is to
determine whether the goals and objectives of a language program are being gained.
From the above definitions, it can be inferred that materials involves the
determination of the objectives and requirements for the materials, and the judgments of
the value of the materials being evaluated in relation to the objectives and requirements

determined.
1.2.2.2. Types of materials evaluation
On talking about types of materials evaluation, Tomlinson (1998) categorized
materials evaluation into three types namely pre-use evaluation, whilst-use evaluation and
post-use evaluation.



15
Pre-use evaluation relates to making predictions about the potential value of
materials for their uses. Making an evaluation criterion-referenced can reduce subjectivity
and can certainly help to make an evaluation more principled, rigorous, systematic and
reliable.
Whilst-use evaluation involves measuring the value of materials whilst using them
or whilst observing them being used. It can measure short-term memory through observing
learner performance on exercises but it cannot measure durable and effective learning
because of the delayed effect of instruction.
Post-use evaluation is probably the most valuable type of evaluation as it can
measure the actual effects of the materials on the users. It can measure the short-term effect
as regards motivation, impact, achievability, instant learning, etc., Post-use evaluation can
measure the long-term effect as regards durable learning and application.
1.2.2.3. Criteria for materials evaluation
Criteria for materials evaluation is one of the important issues evaluators must
consider before any evaluation can take place. Criteria for materials evaluation depend on
what is being evaluated and why they need to be evaluated (Dudley – Evans and St. John,
1998).
Sheldon (1998) suggests a wide range of criteria that can be used to evaluate almost
all aspects of materials. The criteria given by Sheldon consists of rationale, availability,
user definition, layout, accessibility, linkage, selection/ grading, physical characteristics,
authenticity, sufficiency, cultural bias, educational validity, stimulus/ practice/ revision,

flexibility, guidance, and overall value for money.
However, reading materials is the major concern of the study, therefore a checklist
for evaluation of reading texts suggested by Hutchinson and Waters (1993) will be
specifically stated as follows:
* Offer exercises for understanding of plain sense and implied meaning
* Relate reading passages to the learners‟ background
* Select passages within the vocabulary range of the pupils
* Select passages reflecting a variety of styles of cotemporary English



16
Criteria for reading texts evaluation
(Williams, D. ELT Journal. Volume 37/3 July 1983)
* the completeness and appropriateness of the items presented;
* the activities suggested for practising the items selected;
* the sequencing of vocabulary, particularly the functional load, rate and manner of entry
and re-entry;
* the relevance of its contexts and situations
1.2.3. Supplementary materials in teaching reading skills
1.2.3.1. Definition of supplementary materials
Tomlinson (1998) in Materials Development in Language Teaching proposed
several basic terms in which materials is defined as “anything which is used to help to
teach language learner. Materials can be in the form of a textbook, a workbook, a cassette,
a CD, a video, a photocopied handout, a newspaper, a paragraph written on a whiteboard,
anything which presents or informs about the language being learned”.
The term “supplementary materials” is also defined as follows:
“materials designed to be used in addition to the core materials of a course. They are
usually related to the development of skills of reading, writing, listening or speaking rather
than to the learning of language items”.

1.2.3.2. Criteria for selecting supplementary materials
It is obviously that materials play a crucial role in language teaching. So selecting
criteria of extra materials should be considered carefully.
According to Nuttall (1996 – 170), there are three major criteria influencing the
selection of texts: suitability of the content, exploitability, and readability. In his point of
view, suitability of the content means the text‟s ability to address the students‟ needs and
the course‟s objectives. Reading texts should interest the readers by providing new,
interesting information that suit the course‟s objectives. A text with interesting content
makes the learners‟ task far more rewarding and the classroom more effective. This
requires the teachers of English to find out what their students like reading and select texts
for classroom study. Some classroom texts should represent the kind of materials, students



17
will need to handle after they leave the foreign language class. It is better to begin on
materials chosen chiefly for enjoyment.
Exploitability means facilitation of learning. When you exploit a text, you can make
use of it to develop the students‟ competence as readers. A text cannot exploit is no use for
teaching even if the students enjoy reading it. Therefore, different kinds of tasks should be
designed to best exploit the text so that the course‟s objectives could be obtained. Also, the
focus in the reading lesson is neither language nor content, but the two together. An ideal
reader would be able to extract the content from any text at all. If the reader exploits the
text effectively, he/ she will develop his/ her strategies that can be applied to other texts.
Readability refers to the combination of structural and lexical difficulty. That
means the text must be suitable with students‟ English proficiency levels in terms of
vocabulary, syntax, and style. The teacher must know what their students‟ language
proficiencies are to find out what vocabulary and structures the students are familiar with
so as to choose texts at the right level and balancing different level of proficiencies. If the
students have varied backgrounds, a period of trial and error is unavoidable. However, a

series of cloze tests can give you an ideal of their level. Once you know the students‟
vocabulary level, you can count the new lexical items (words or phrases) in a text,
including new uses of familiar words and new idiomatic combinations. Then you have to
decide what proportion of new items is acceptable. This partly depends on the purpose: if
you only want students to get the gist of a text, they can skip unfamiliar words; on the
other hand, for intensive reading which is slow and careful anyway. It may be acceptable
to have quite a lot of new words. The nature of new items, and whether they are well
spread out, is also relevant.
1.2.3.3. How to use supplementary materials
* Materials adaptation
Materials adaptation is considered as one of the two important issues in the process
of materials development. As 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; the general aims may not be suitable with
the aims of the materials; the aims of a specific unit in the materials may not match our
lesson. We have to select, make changes to materials so as to improve them or to make



18
them more suitable for a particular type of learner. So we need to supplement the materials
to learners.
There are five major ways of adapting materials:
* Adding, including expanding and extending
When adding to published materials the teacher is supplementing the existing materials and
providing more materials. The teacher can do this by either extending or expanding.
+ Extending
When extending an activity the teacher supplies more of the same type of materials, thus
making a quantitative change in the materials.
+ Expanding

Expanding classroom materials is different from extending in that it adds something
different to the materials, the change is qualitative. For example, the teacher may feel her
students need to be made aware of the different sounds of verb endings when used in the
past simple tense but the course book does not address this phonetic issue. As a result, she
may add an activity or series of activities that deal with the phonetics of the past simple. It
is important to note that additions to materials can come at the beginning, at the end or in
the middle of the materials being adapted.
* Deleting, including subtracting and abridging
As with the technique of adding, materials can be deleted both quantitatively (subtracting)
or qualitative (abridging). When subtracting, for instance, a teacher can decide to do five of
the questions practicing the simple past tense instead of the ten in the course book. When
abridging, however, the teacher may decide that focusing attention on pronunciation may
inhibit the learner‟s fluency and decide not to do any of the pronunciation exercises in a
course book.
* Simplifying
When simplifying, the teacher could be rewording instructions or text in order to make
them more accessible to learners, or simplifying a complete activity to make it more
manageable for learners and teachers.
* Reordering
When reordering, the teacher has decided that it makes more pedagogic sense to sequence
activities differently. An example is beginning with a general discussion before looking at
a reading passage rather than using the reading as a basis for discussion.



19
* Replacing materials
When replacing materials a teacher may decide that a more appropriate visual or
text might serve an activity better than the ones presented in the published materials. This
is often the case with culturally specific or time-specific activities. A teacher may decide to

replace an illustration for one that students could identify with more closely or use
information concerning a popular figure with whom the students are familiar rather than
the one presented in the published materials.
Teachers may also decide to replace a whole activity depending on the goals of a particular
class or lesson. For instance, a reading activity might be replaced with a listening activity.
These ways of modifying materials may overlap but the final aims of adapting is to
make the materials more relevant to the learners, the language teaching and learning more
effective. It can be said that a good teacher needs to adapt the materials when he/ she uses
their textbook in order to maximize the value of the book for the specific learners. Thus, it
is believed that adapting materials is a necessary task for the EFL teachers to make full use
of the appropriateness of the materials in their teaching process.

Summary

In this chapter, the researcher has tried to present all the relevant literature which
has helped to form the theoretical background and conceptual framework for the study.
Firstly, definitions of reading comprehension, reading skills, types of reading skills
and models of reading process are mentioned in this part. It can be inferred that each model
still remains its weaknesses but all these models play an important role in the reading
process.
Secondly, theory of materials development has been given so as to provide the
useful way to adapt currently-used textbook Business Basics. Moreover, criteria to choose
supplementary materials have also been viewed so that teachers and learners of language
can select the appropriate supplementary materials.
In the next chapter, the researcher describes background to the study, instrument
and procedure of data collection. The findings of the research will be presented clearly
under the light of the above theories.

20
Chapter 2: Methodology
2.1. Background to the study
2.1.1. The setting
The study was conducted at Economics Department at Bac Ha College of
Technology, which was established to train students to work in many fields such as
banking, accounting, information technology, biotechnology, electricity and electronics
and so on. Students at this department have to take a three-year course of economics in
which English is not a major subject. English is taught in a formal setting with two stages.
Students are organized to study general English in the textbook Lifelines written by Tom
Hutchinson during the first stage (including the first year). They are required to study four
language skills such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing as well as revise the
grammar and structure that they have learned at secondary and high school. The first stage
is considered to be important to the students‟ development because they have more time
and chances to practice their skills systematically.
In the second stage, students have to learn economic English with the textbook
“Business Basics”, which is a textbook for commerce, edited for those who are doing
business and for those who are majored in economics. They need to widen their knowledge
and basic skills to work in international commerce environment.
The training program of the second year is divided into two semesters. Each
semester lasts fifteen weeks (two periods a week). There are total thirty periods per
semester. All students are learnt four integrated skills: listening, speaking, reading and
writing. One teacher is usually in charge of a class and use the same textbooks selected by
the department but supplementary materials chosen by the teachers themselves. In this
stage, the current textbook including twelve units in accordance with specific topics in
order to develop language skills and working skills in business environment.
2.1.2. The textbook Business Basics
For the past four years, the textbook Business Basics has been used as an official
economics English textbook for teaching reading to the second year students at Bac Ha

College of Technology. Students have only thirty periods (two periods per week) of
learning reading each semester. However, the teacher has to cover all the texts in reading



21
part of the book. The book consists of twelve units with different reading texts. Each
reading text with various types of exercises is designed to develop a specific reading skill
namely checking comprehension, true/ false questions, extracting main ideas, and so on.
Secondly, the current textbook Business Basics is not suitable for the students.
Many of them complained that some texts in this book are uneasy for them to read because
of too many new words related to economics. The others said that some reading texts are
too long and some topics in the reading passage are unfamiliar to them. Some types of
exercises are quite challenging for the students to deal with. For example, exercises in
Reading of Unit 4, which describe company structure (p.51), are quite difficult for the
students. The requirements of this reading are read the text about the French company
Perrier Vittel and use the information from the text to complete the missing information of
the available organization chart. Then they are required to draw a similar chart for their
company or a company they know and they have to describe it to a partner. This kind of
exercise is too difficult for the students to do because of their poor vocabulary and limited
grammar structure.
Finally, some of the reading texts in the textbook lack pre-reading and post-reading
activities that are very useful for motivating students to read. Pre-reading activities
introduce and arouse interest in the topic and provide some language preparation for the
text. Post-reading activities help to understand the writer‟s purpose and the content of the
text. The textbook Business Basics also lacks the list of vocabulary. The list of new words
and expressions designed before or after each text can support the students know what they
are going to read and remember as well as systematize what they have learnt. The list of
words and expressions help them a lot in practicing speaking English requiring using
words and structures in the reading passage. More importantly, time allocation for reading

is not sufficient (only two periods per week).
2.1.3. Participants
2.1.3.1. The teachers
The study was carried out with the participation of twelve teachers at Bac Ha
College of Technology. Half of them graduated from Hanoi Foreign Languages Teachers‟
Training College. The rest had in-service ELT training course. One teacher has got M.A
degree and two of them are taking the M.A course at VNU. They are aged from 27 to forty
two. Most of them have at least three years‟ teaching experience. They are always willing



22
to adjust to new thinking to collect useful supplementary materials for their students to
help them improve their knowledge in general and English in particular.
2.1.3.2. The students
The total number of students who participated in the research was 120. They
consist of both male and female aged from 19 to 22, but the female outnumber the male.
They have learned English for at least five years, three years at high schools and nearly
two years at college. Many students have learnt English since they studied at grade six.
However, their English proficiency is not good. It is due to the fact that they are taught
almost grammar, reading, and a little bit writing whereas listening and speaking are not
paid much attention to within other skills. In addition, the students‟ awareness is too
limited because of their bad marks in the entrance examination. They scored only from two
to six in English and a large number of them got under the average marks in this subject.
Consequently, when they enter the college, they do not have enough learning strategies to
become effective learners of English. The students are not successful in equipping their
reading comprehension strategies. They find it difficult to understand the content of the
whole reading text so they can not answer the reading comprehension questions. And they
need to practice reading more so as to improve their English proficiency as well as reading
comprehension.

2.2. Instrument for data collection
The major means of data collection is questionnaire that is considered as one of the
best and the most useful ways. Two sets of survey questionnaires were administered to
twelve teachers of English and 120 second year students to obtain data for the study. Two
questionnaires consist of Wh-questions so that the researcher can collect brief information
from respondents. One with seven questions was designed for the teachers and the other
with five questions for the students. There are three similar questions for both teachers and
students from question 1 to question 3. However, the rest questionnaires for teachers are
different from the rest ones for students.
2.2.1. The questionnaire for teachers
Questionnaire designed for the teachers aims at finding out:
Question 1: Teachers‟ evaluations on level of difficulty, content and length of
reading texts in the textbook Business Basics
Question 2: Teachers‟ opinions on reading exercises in the textbook



23
Question 3: Teachers‟ opinions on topics that need supplementary reading
Question 4: Teachers‟ purpose of using supplementary materials in teaching
reading lessons
Question 5: Teachers‟ suggestions on the types of exercises to be used in the
supplementary materials
Question 6: Teachers‟ sources of supplementary reading materials
Question 7: Teachers‟ expectations of the supplementary reading materials
2.2.2. The questionnaire for students
Questionnaire designed for the students aims at finding out:
Question 1: Students‟ evaluations on level of difficulty, content and length of
reading texts in the textbook Business Basics
Question 2: Students‟ opinions on reading exercises in the textbook

Question 3: Students‟ opinions on topics that need supplementary reading
Question 4: Students‟ evaluations on the benefits of supplementary materials
Question 5: Students‟ expectations of the supplementary reading materials
2.3. Data collection procedure
Two sets of questionnaires, one for teachers and one for students at Bac Ha College
of Technology were administered. The questionnaire for teachers was delivered to 12
teachers and the researcher was always willing to answer any questions raised by the
teachers. After the teachers of English finished the questionnaire, the researcher collected
them immediately.
The other questionnaire was given to 120 students in classes KT1 and NH2 at the
end of the school year in order to get the data for the study. The students are allowed to
complete the questionnaire in 30 minutes. Before giving the questionnaire to the students,
the researcher had clear and brief explanation in both English and Vietnamese the aim of
the survey questionnaire to make sure that they fully understand all questions. Then they
could be free to answer all the given questions strictly and independently.








24
Chapter 3: Data analysis, findings and discussion
3.1. Data analysis
Question 1: What are the teachers’ and the students’ evaluations of the current textbook
Business Basics?
Question 1 is to investigate the teachers‟ and the students‟ evaluations on level of language
difficulty, content and length of reading texts in the textbook Business Basics.

Evaluation on

Teachers
Students

a) level of difficulty


- too difficult
- too easy
- relevant
58,33%
16,67%
25%
71,66%
9,16%
19,16%


b) content






- interesting
- boring boring □
- familiar □

- unfamiliar


66,67%
0%
16,67%
16,67%

55,83%

20,83%

12,5%
20%
c) length of reading texts
- too long
- too short
- relevant
33,33%
16,67%
50%
30,83%
4,16%
65%

Table 1: The teachers’and students’ evaluations on level of difficulty, content and length of
reading texts in the textbook
As illustrated in the above table, the majority of the teachers and the students say
that the current textbook is not easy. 58,33% of the teachers think that the textbook is too
difficult. As much as 71,66% of the students share the same opinion on this point.

However, the percentage of the students is higher than the percentage of the teachers. Only
16,67% of the teachers and 9,16% of the students claim that the textbook is too easy.
While the percentage of the teachers and students think that the textbook is relevant to the
students‟ proficiency is a bit higher (25% and 19,16% respectively). The reason for various



25
evaluations of teachers and students on the level of difficulty is that teachers at Bac Ha
College of Technology usually expect a lot from their students while students have poor
English proficiencies and different reading strategies. Students who have good English
proficiencies and good reading strategies will find the texts easy and relevant but those
who have inappropriate reading strategies will find them too difficult to exploit the reading
texts in the textbook.
Also, when being asked to give evaluation on the content of the textbook, 66,67%
of the teachers and 55,83% of the students claim that the textbook Business Basics is
interesting. 16,67% of the teachers who assume that the content of the textbook is familiar
equal to 16,67% of the teachers who assume that the content of the textbook is unfamiliar.
Obviously, the percentage of the students who find content of the textbook unfamiliar is a
bit higher than the percentage of the students who find the content of the textbook familiar
(20% and 12,5% respectively). It is noticeable that none of the teachers and the students
says that the content of the textbook is boring.
In terms of the length of reading texts, 50% of the teachers and 65% of the students
state that the length of reading texts is relevant. The percentage of the teachers who
propose that the reading texts are too long is quite equal to the percentage of the students
(33,33% and 30,83% respectively).
Question 2: What are the teachers’ and the students’ opinions about the reading exercises
in the textbook?
Reading exercises
No of respondents

Percentage (%)
1. of various types
8
66,67
2. of a few types
4
33,33
3. too difficult
10
83,33
4. too easy
3
25
5. too few exercises
6
50
6. too many exercises
7
58,33
Table 2: The teachers’ opinions on reading exercises in the textbook Business Basics



26
Reading exercises
No of respondents
Percentage (%)
1. of various types
51
42,5

2. of a few types
27
22,5
3. too difficult
78
65
4. too easy
11
9,16
5. too few exercises
32
26,67
6. too many exercises
65
54,16
Table 3: The students’ opinions on reading exercises in the textbook Business Basics
As described in the two tables 2 and 3, the biggest portion of teachers (83,33%) is
for the idea that reading exercises in the textbook are too difficult for the students while
65% of students share the same viewpoint. Besides, 25% of the teachers answer that
reading exercises are too easy. Similarly, only 9,16% of the students find reading exercises
too easy. The result indicates that the percentage of the students who believe that reading
exercises are too easy is lower than the percentage of the teachers. Also, this percentage of
the students is the lowest percentage of all percentages of the students who give their
opinions on reading exercises in the textbook. When being asked to give comments on the
types of exercises, 66,67% of the teachers and 42,5% of the students think that reading
exercises are of various types. Furthermore, 33,33% of the teachers and 22,5% of the
students support the idea that reading exercises are of a few types.
The table also shows that the percentage of the teachers who answer that there are
too many exercises for each reading text is nearly equal to the percentage of the students
who agree with this viewpoint (58,33% and 54,16% respectively). However, there is a big

difference in the percentage of the teachers and the students who give their opinions on
reading exercises. Obviously, the percentage of the teachers who believe that there are too
few exercises in the book is higher than the percentage of the students. 50% of the teachers
and 26,67% of the students say that there are too few reading exercises for each reading
text.



27
Question 3: Which topics in the current textbook need supplementary reading?
The purpose of this question is to find out which topics both teachers and students need
supplementary reading.
Topics
Teachers’
percentage (%)
Students’ percentage
(%)
Visiting a company
58,33
82,5
You and your company
50
60
People at work
41,67
27,5
Preparing a trip
33,33
65
Getting a job

33,33
46,67
Away on business
25
75,83
New developments
25
37,5
Life stories
25
61,67
Dealing with problems
16,67
50,83
The world of work
16,67
43,33
Arrangements
16,67
20,83
Describing and comparing
8,33
73,33
Table 4: Topics in the textbook need supplementary reading
The very noticeable thing that can be realized from the table is that both teachers and
students put visiting a company as their top priority. This topic is selected by the greatest
percentage from the respondents (58,33% of the teachers and 82,5% of the students).
However, the teachers‟ and students‟ opinions about other topics vary a lot. Topics you and
your company and people at work are ranked at the second scale by the teachers (50% and
41,67% respectively). Meanwhile, the topics away on business and describing and

comparing are chosen with the second highest percentage from the students (75,83% and
73,33% respectively). Both topics preparing a trip and getting a job are selected by
33,33% of the teachers and three topics away on business, new developments and life
stories are chosen by equal percentage (25% of the teachers). Topics preparing a trip, life
stories, and you and your company are the students‟ choice with the third high percentage
(65%, 61,67% and 60% respectively). Next, topics dealing with problems, the world of