Authentic materials as supplementary materials

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

Introduction

Research questions

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

Text book

2.1.1 Textbook Description

2.1.2 Textbook Evaluation

2.2 Authentic materials for ESP course book

2.2.4. The role of reading materials

2.2.1. Definition of authentic materials

2.2.2. The role of authentic materials

2.2.3. Advantages of authentic materials

2.2.5. The criteria of selecting reading authentic materials

2.3. Applying authentic materials in extensive reading program

2.3.1. Applying authentic materials in extensive reading program

2.3.2. Post-reading activities

2.4. Motivations

2.4.1. Definition of motivation

2.4.2. Factors effecting motivation

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY

3.1 Kind of research

3.2 Participants

3.2.1 The researcher

3.2.2 Selection of the subject

3.3 Data collection instruments

CHAPTER IV: RESULD AND DISCUSSION OF THE DATA

4.1 Comparison of experimental and control group’s reading proficiency after the experiment

4.2 Comparison of economics reading proficiency in the pre-test and post- test

4.3 Comparison of economic reading proficiency between two classes

4.4 Subjects’ preference of the post reading activities

4.5 Attitude to the post reading activities

4.6 Discussion and implication

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

APPENDICES

Appendix 1: The Pre-Test and Post-Test

Appendix 2: Answer to the pre-test and post-test

Appendix 3: The post – program questionnaires

Appendix 4: Result of the pretest and posttest

ABSTRACT

This research was carried out at faculty of economics at Luong The Vinh Univesity (LTV) to prove the assumption that authentic materials could enhance motivation of economic students in reading proficiency.

Fifty 3rd year economics students at the faculty of economics at LTV University divided in to two groups serve as the subjects for this research. The target class uses the Market Leader- Pre- Intermediate as the course book with authentic materials as a supplement. The other class uses Market Leader- Pre- Intermediate as course book only. The research was conducted in the twelfth week of the syllabus with three teaching hours (of forty-five minutes each) per week. Authentic materials were the reading texts selected from different sources and were chosen by the researcher at the faculty of English and ensured of reliability. The same topics, similar types of exercise and teaching methods were designed by the researcher to evaluate proficiency levels of students in the 2 groups and to use them as evidence for the reliability of the assumption. The researcher uses pre-test, post-test and questionnaire as data collection instruments. Results from the experiment prove that the target group with authentic materials as supplementary materials to the course book was the group where student motivation in reading was significantly enhanced.

The results of the research state that the role played by authentic materials in language classes, particularly in English for Specific Purpose (ESP) class was of great significance. Authentic supplementary reading materials are hoped to be used for the third- year students at economics faculty at LTV in the near future. With the result of this research, it is recommended that authentic materials should be used for English classes in general and third- year ESP classes in particular at economics faculty at LTV University.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1. Introduction

In Viet Nam, English for Specific Purpose (ESP) has long been considered as an important subject because of its practicality-related demand. To meet the demand of the real economic-social life, ESP is used in the curriculum of Vietnamese universities and colleges and Luong The Vinh University is no exception. At the University, ESP courses in different discipline areas such as Economics, Construction Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Foreign language and Tourism, Informatics Technology, and Agricultural sciences are taught with strong interests from the discipline students. In response to these interests of the students much attention has been paid to the use of ESP text books and materials that develop professional skills. Robinson &, Nunan, (1991) assert that materials in general play a key part in language learning. Materials not only provide learners a wide range of useful and fascinating information but they also can play a part in enhancing learners motivation- one of the essential issues in language learning- thus, facilitating their acquisition (Dudley- Evan & St John, 1998, Nonaka, 2001). However, collecting materials that best serve the learners’ interests and needs is an obstacle for many teachers. There arise such questions related to this obstacle as what teaching materials should be selected? Where a teacher should start? What a teacher should do to boost the motivation of the students and whether authentic materials boost motivation of students in reading. These questions should be considered as authentic materials can surely provide students with fresh knowledge, “expose” them to the world of authentic language, while they can bring the real world into the classroom and enliven the class (Martinez, (2002), Kaprova, (1999), Leloup & Ponterio, (2000), Dumitrescu, (2000) )

The aim of this research is to investigate the role of authentic materials in enhancing third- year-students’ motivation in classes for non-English majored students, to be more specific, students of economics at LTV University.

To investigate ways to motivate third- year economics students at LTV University to read by using authentic supplementary reading materials and

To give recommendations on how to use authentic reading materials efficiently.

To enhance economics students’ English reading proficiency and suggest ways to motivate the teaching of ESP in general and ESP reading in particular at LTV University as well as other universities that share the same mandate.

The specific objectives of this research are as follows:

– to investigate the effects of the authentic supplementary materials on the students” reading proficiency level.

– to find out about the students’ attitude to the use of authentic materials as a means to enhance motivation of students in post reading activities.

This research is organized in 5 chapters, with a list of references and appendices.

Chapter one: Introduction and research questions

Chapter two: Literature review

Chapter three: Methodology

Chapter four: Findings and discussions

Chapter five: Conclusion

Research question

Question 1: To test the assumption if there is a significant difference between the English reading proficiency level of the control group (students who do the course with the textbook only) and those of the target group (students who do the course with the textbook plus supplementary authentic materials).

Question 2: To test the assumption of the role of authentic materials in enhancing students’ motivation in reading activities.

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

English Reading Textbook

2.1.1 Textbook Description

At LTV University, Market Leader Pre-Intermediate is the text book used for third year students of economics. This course book is written by Cotton. D., Falvey. D., & Kent S.

The course book consists of twelve units which can be completed in thirty two weeks with three periods of forty-five minutes per week in eight 4 per week 45 minutes class period each. The total time of 120 periods is divided equally in to two terms of the academic year. Third – year economic students complete 4 periods and each period lasts 45minutes a week. The usual format of each unit is coherence among Starting up, Vocabulary, Discussion, Reading, Listening, Languages, Skill, and Case study. The book also contains four revision units, based on materials covered in the preceding three course book units. This course book is intended for pre-intermediate students taking the course of English in Economics. By the end of the term, students are designed to acquire and develop essential business communication skills:

1 – Getting for information and note taking.

2- Making presentation, taking part in meetings, negotiating, telephoning, and using English in social situations.

3- Scanning and skimming, learning and increasing business vocabulary.

Students are required to read book able to participate in class regularly and involve in the lessons, to do mid-term test at week 8th and the final test at the end of the term.

2.1.2 Textbook Evaluation

Mentioning the issue of evaluating the textbooks Nunan (1988) provides his reader with valuable data resulting from evaluation, which may assist them in deciding whether a course needs to be modified or altered in someway; therefore adequate objectives may be achieved more effectively. According to Cunningsworth (1995: 15-17), there are four general guidelines with special emphasis on the syllabus and methodology such as the following.

Guideline one: Course books should correspond to learners’ needs. They should match the aims and objectives of the language learning program.

Guideline two: Course books should reflect the uses (present and future) which learners will make of the language. Select course books which will help to equip students to use language effectively for their own purposes.

Guideline three: Course books should take account of the students’ the needs as learners and should facilitate their learning processes, without dogmatically imposing a rigid “method”

Guideline four: Course book should have a clear role as a support for learning. Like teachers, textbooks mediate between the target language and the learners.

Looking at the English textbook being used at the LTV University, it is found that the main aims of the course book Market leader- pre-intimidate is to offer opportunities for either students or businesspeople to improve their English communication skills in general, their English for business purpose in particular. According to Richards and Rodgers, (1986: 66), the nature of communicative approaches is to (a) make communicative competence the goal of language teaching and (b) develop procedures for the teaching of the four languages skills that acknowledge the interdependence of language and communication.”. To realize these (ie. communicative competence and interdependence between language and communication), the course book being used at LTV University functions as the major supplier of teaching materials in 12 topic-based units and four revision units. Each unit consists of language review and vocabulary development activities. Additionally, key business functions are focused on a regular basis and students can practice the language which they have learned during the unit in the section on Case Study.

In sum, the textbook is essential for teachers, business men and business students to cater for their needs.

With regard to students following the course at LTV University, third- year economics students have studied some economic majors since they are students majoring in economics. Reading texts in the course book seem to be not challenging to them (as it is easy for them to acquaint themselves with English economic terms and vocabularies related to economics).

However, evaluating the Textbook which is currently used for teaching ESP at LTV University is needed for ESP teachers to identify the strengths and weakness of a currently used textbook.

2.2. Authentic materials for ESP course book

2.2.1. The role of reading materials

To all Vietnamese students in classes for non-language majors in general and to economics students at Luong The Vinh University in particular, reading is a task that they do everyday, it is an integral part of their work to pass the exam or to improve their knowledge. Karlin & Kartin, (1998:2) states that “Reading without reading comprehension is meaningless.” Alderson (2000) defines reading as “…an enjoyable, intensive, private activity, from which much pleasure can be derived, and in which one can become totally absorbed.” How to collect materials plays an important part in developing reading skill. Referring to materials Alderson (2000: 28) defines reading materials as “anything which is used to help to teach language learners.”. Brown (1985: 139) defines materials as “any systematic description of the techniques and exercises to be used in classroom teaching.” If the materials are interesting to students, they will be far more likely to want to read them. Dudley-Evans & St John (1998:171) show some reasons why materials are used: (i) as a sort of language: (ii) as a learning sport: (iii) for motivation: (iv) for references. “Materials then play a crucial role in exposing learners to the language, which implies that the materials need to present real language, as it is used, and the full range that learners requires.”

2.2.2. Definition of authentic materials

Wallace (1992: 145) defines authentic text as “…real-life text, not written for pedagogic purposes.” (p.145), it is used for native speakers and contains genuine language. According to Peacock (1997) authentic materials are materials that have been produced to fulfill some social purposes in language communities. It means that they are aimed for learning proposes. Richards (2001) holds that authentic materials refer to the use in teaching of text, photographs, videos selection, and other teaching recourse that were not specially prepared for educational purposes. There are many different viewpoints which view authentic materials from different angles but all the authors share things in common in their definitions: Authentic materials refer to “exposure to real language and its use in its own community”, “appropriateness” and “quality” in terms of goals, objectives, learner needs, interest and “naturalness” in terms of realized and meaningful communication.

2.2.3. Advantages of authentic materials

There are a number of books and journals which refer to the advantages of using authentic materials, especially in ESP brand.

Firstly, authentic materials have a positive effect on learner motivation. One of the main motivations for learning a new language is to get closer to native speaker, to understand them better and to take part in their lives, authentic materials strongly utilize this motivation by their linguistic gentility and flavour of everyday life. “Authentic text can be motivating because they prove that the language is used for real life purpose by real people.” Nuttall (1996:172). When students are highly motivated, they prefer to work with authentic materials, finding it more interesting, more up to date than the text book. They can produce a sense of achievement (Martinez, 2002)

Secondly, authentic materials provide exposure to real language. Many authors who support the use of authentic materials have shared idea of authentic materials: that are authentic materials provide students with “language exposure”- the benefit students get from being exposed to the language in authentic materials (Martinez, 2002). Authentic materials give students more chance to gain real information and real-to-life language that help bring the real world into the classroom. Authentic materials and media can reinforce for student the direct relationship between the language classroom and the outside world (Briton, 1991). The link between the classroom and real world enables students to comprehend the relationship between learning and practicing.

Thirdly, authentic materials provide authentic cultural information. Authentic texts bring learners closer to the target language culture with the materials of native speaker. Books, articles, newspapers, and so on also contain a wide variety of text types, language styles not easily found in conventional teaching materials (Martinez, 2002)

Because of these benefits, authentic materials result in an overall increase in motivation, a more positive attitude towards learning as well as active involvement and interest in the subject matter.

2.2.5. The criteria of selecting reading authentic materials

Three main criteria for selecting text suggested by Nuttal (1996:170) are useful in application of selecting authentic reading materials.

Firstly, authentic reading materials are selected on the basis of “suitability of content”, which means that authentic reading texts should be suitable to learners’ age, background knowledge, interest and need. Authentic materials should interest the readers by providing new, interesting information through natural and learnable language that suits the course objectives. Furthermore, it should be the type of material that students will use outside of the class for enhancing students’ reading skill. They should fit the proficiency level of students; the input should be challenging enough to sustain their motivation so materials which are compatible to the proficiency levels of the students or slightly above the level of students should be collected. Kennedy and Bolitho (1984) strongly suggest the use of authentic materials appropriate to the conceptual level of learners. Authentic reading materials should be used in accordance with ability of students, with suitable tasks so they feel more confident more secure when handing authentic materials. They are designed not only for the purpose of entertainment but also for practice of reading skill as well. They should be applicable to the students’ knowledge of their foreign culture or to their functional needs.

Secondly, authentic reading materials should match up with the criterion of “readability”. This refers to the combination of structure and lexical difficulty. It is important to know at which level the students’ language proficiency is in order to find out about what vocabulary and structures the students are familiar with and choose authentic reading materials at the right level balancing different levels of proficiency. How to choose materials appropriate to students is suggested by Widdowson (1990: 67) as follows: “It has been traditionally supposed that the language presented to learners should be simplified in some ways for easy access and acquisition.” (p. 67) besides, the sources of authentic reading materials are infinite. Teachers can collect them from the most common sources such as; internet, television, magazines, newspapers, literature and mammal but some of them are full of errors, typos, and spelling mistakes so teachers should check the quality of the materials while selecting and consider the organization of the text are clear and the content appropriate with the text or not. More important, the impression authentic reading materials should make is: the students feel that they are interacting with quality materials because there is “…an essential interaction between language and thought…” Goodman (1988: 12)

Thirdly, authentic materials should meet the criterion of “exploitability”. These materials should facilitate learning. Authentic reading texts will be exploited if it can develop ESP reading skills with various kinds of activities that are designed not only for the purpose of entertainment but also for language practice. Davies (1984:192) gives an interesting explanation of what an authentic material really is: “It is not that a text is understood because it is authentic but that it is authentic because it is understood. …Everything the learner understands is authentic for him.”

2.3 Applying authentic materials in extensive reading program

2.3.2 Applying authentic materials in extensive reading program

Nuttall (1996) regards an extensive reading program (ERP) as the single most effective way of improving skills in general. An extensive reading brings in students to be dynamic of reading as it is done in real life by including such key elements of real life reading as choice and purpose. And in fact, authentic materials have been defined as “…real life texts, not written for pedagogic purposes” Wallace (1992)

They are, therefore, written for native speaker and contain the “real”. Hedge (2000) indicates, before any training in the use of authentic materials can be effective, it may be the case that a certain level of language competence is necessary. Since reading extensively with authentic materials are the preeminent choice for the third – year economics students who study English with a bit authentic environment.

2.3.3 Post-reading activities

Post reading activities provide students a good chance to review, summarize, and react to the reading passage. Williams (1984), Greenwood (1988), and Jacob (2002)’s hold that the purposes of the post reading stage, is (i) to consolidate or reflect upon what have been read, (ii) to relate the text to the learner’s own knowledge, interest, or view. Davies (2000) offers some activities in the final stage: discussing what is new or interesting in the text, discussing or debating the topic of the text if it is controversial; doing tasks on the language or the structure of the text, summarizing the text either orally or in writing.

Jordan (1997:143) states that ESP students read for a purpose. To achieve the goal, the ESP teacher, should provide the students with different sub- reading skill though a big variety of reading activities dealing with contextual differences, rephrasing. The activities are engendered by the text and are used to extend its potential for meaningful language work, a variety of exercises follow the post reading selection. These are intended to help students acquire English reading skill. The exercises may be

Asking students to do the close exercises which relates the text to individual personal details

Asking students to summarize the economic reading text to list some sentences encouraging students to perform their ability about finding out the main ideas of the text, and make them possible to express their ideas in their own of words.

Asking students to present what they have learned from the text in order to together make plans, monitor and review its progress.

Asking student to write business letters or reports which activities provide an opportunity for students to apply their new vocabulary to an authentic and personally relevant.

Asking students to play a role so as to persuade audients to involve in the activities.

It is an important stage which assists students in linking up what they have read with their background knowledge and experience. Greenwood (1988) regards this stage as stimulating students’ reflection upon what has been read and enabling them to expand, and reinforce their perception.

2.4 Motivation

So far, the role of motivation in second language learning has been the concern of many language researchers. They all agree that learners with positive attitudes towards the subject and high motivation are more likely to be successful when learning a second language.

2.4.1 Definition of motivation

Crookes and Schmidt (1991) indicated that motivation is the learner’s desire that relates to the goal of learning a second language. In the same vein, Dornyei and Ottó (1998) assert that “motivation energizes human being and provides direction.” Brown (2000: 160) adds “motivation is some kind of internal drive which pushes someone to do things in order to achieve something.” Although motivation is very difficult to define in second language field, the main characteristics of motivation can be summarized as: (i) attitudes towards the learning a language, (ii) the desire to learn a language and (iii) motivational intensity.

2.4.2 Factors effecting motivation

According to Oxford and Shearin (1994) there are twelve motivational theories or models, including those from social- psychology, cognitive development, and social cultural psychology, and identified six factors that impact motivation in language learning.

Attitude

Belief about your self

Goals

Involvement

Environmental support

Personal attributes

Based on our discussion with colleagues, we learn that these factors are interrelated and if one of the factors is positively effected, all the other factors will accordingly be influenced and motivation is therefore increased.

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

3.1 Kind of research

In order to achieve the aim of the research, pre-experimental research is used by the researcher. Pre- experimental research used in this study is to find out how much students’ reading motivation improved with time and to investigate the effect of authentic materials on enhancing motivation of students in reading. Nunan (1990) stresses that experiments are often carried out exploring the strength of the relationship between the variables. Salkind (2006) points out those casual relationships between variables may be established with this type of research.

3.2 Participants

3.2.1 The researcher

The researcher has been an experienced teacher of English for 8 years and been teaching English for business for more than four years

3.2.2 The selection of the subjects

Fifty 3rd year economics students at faculty of economics, LTV University were divided into two groups as subjects for the experiment. They are both males and females aged from 20 to 22. They come from different provinces in Viet Nam especially many of them are from the southern area of the Red River Delta in the North of Viet Nam. They all had similar educational background. These students have been acquired the equal background knowledge and skills of English by studying General English for two years in a 240 hour teaching programme at the university. New Headway Elementary and Pre- intermediate has been adopted for the syllabus. In the third – year, they have learnt ESP for four months before the experiment.

Data collection instruments

The experiments were carried out in two classes, which are called target group and control group.

The target group uses Market Leader- Pre- Intermediate as course book and authentic materials as supplement

The control group uses Market Leader- Pre- Intermediate as course book only. The research was conducted in the 12 weeks programmer with three teaching hours of forty-five minutes each.

The researcher used the T-test to find out the mean (M), the standard deviation (Sd), and the ratio of each group to analyze the data collected from the research. The data needed were taken from a test which is used to identify the student’s achievements. The information on the students reading proficiency, motivation and attitude towards the evaluation were collected by a pre-test, and a post-test.

The researcher uses the same test before and after the experiment to measure exactly the different level of reading proficiency of two groups before and after the experiment. The tests were taken from www.about.com and Cambridge University. The test is focus on such specific reading skill as

Guessing vocabulary from the context

Matching a word with its appropriate definition

Comprehension

Multichoice

The test consists of 40 questions divided in to 4 part based in topic of economic plan, deliveries and suppliers, economic terms, business people.

The period between the pre-test and post-test was 12 weeks. The time allowance for each test is 60 minutes and the test was delivered for both groups and then collected and graded by the researcher.

Firstly, the researcher gave students a pre-test to find out about their level of reading proficiency without using authentic supplementary materials. A Post test was given to the students to find out about how much students’ improved the motivation in reading with time and to investigate the effect of authentic materials on enhancing motivation of students in reading from the research.

Beside the tests, questionnaires were also used as data collection instruments so as to evaluate the experimenter techniques were used of the researcher and the materials. Questionnaires also were collected; the data of the questionnaires were only gathered in experiment class. Brown (1995) suggests that questionnaires are more efficient for gathering information on a large scale than other approach.

The questionnaire consists of 12 questions divided in to four sections. The first section consists of 3 questions in order to get information on the attitude of stud