Tài liệu English language macro-skills of freshman vietnamese students in selected colleges in bacgiang city input to intervention measures (sum)

Thai Nguyen University Socialist Republic of Vietnam Batangas State University Republic of Philippines NGO THI THU HUONG ENGLISH LANGUAGE MACRO SKILLS OF FRESHMAN VIETNAMESE STUDENTS IN SELECTED COLLEGES IN BAC GIANG CITY: INPUT TO INTERVENTION MEASURES Speciality: English language and literature Ph.D DISSERTATION SUMMARY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE THAI NGUYEN, 2014 The Dissertation was completed in: THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Advisor: Matilda H. Dimaano, PhD Reviewer No.1: ............................................. Reviewer No.2: ............................................. Reviewer No.3: ............................................. The Dissertation will be evaluated at the State Council held at: ……………………………………………………………………….. At: hour ... date ... month ...year 2014 Dissertation can be found at the libraries: - National library of Vietnam; - Learning Resource Center - Thai Nguyen University; - Library of International Training and Development Center; - Library of Batangas State University, Philippines. 1 THE PROBLEM In this summary dissertation, all figures and tables are numbered as in dissertation” With the increasing integration of Vietnam into the world, English has proved its significant role as a medium of communication which brings Vietnam to the world and brings knowledge of the world to every individual who knows how to make use of it. English has gained a strong position in Vietnamese people when more and more people learn English with clearly-defined purpose in mind. For students, English enables them to get access to a wide variety of materials which help them to meet their study and job requirements. Studying at colleges or universities can be well regarded as a preparatory period when students accumulate enough basic knowledge and skills to get ready to their later work. At Bacgiang colleges, more and more attention has been paid to English language leaning, especially general English language for first year students. However, there are difficulties of second language learners in macroskills. Among the difficulties second language learners experience in learning are having difficulties with reading, writing and spelling; pronouncing or reading multi-syllabic words; having reduced or limited vocabulary and word knowledge in comparison to their peers; having poor retrieval of information due to problems with meaning; and having poor literacy in their first language. The behaviours manifested relative to these deficiencies learners are easily destructed include: poor organizational skill; show reluctance to learn or get involved in classroom activities, work slowly or too 2 quickly and inaccurately; demonstrate lack of motivation and have poor self- esteem. On the part of the teacher, mastery of the elements or features of a language is significant in the second language situation since it helps assess the needs of the learners on the aspect of communication skills. As a college instructor teaching Basic English Course at Bac Giang College, I am interested to investigate the English Language Macro Skills of Freshmen students with the end view of proposing an Intervention measures to enhance the Macro skills of freshmen students. 3 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1. BACKGROUND OF STUDY In learning, there are five macro skills that are needed by learners to communicate effectively and these are listening, speaking, reading, writing and viewing. In communication process these skills are very essential. These skills may approach or solve future problems in communication most especially in our day to day tasks such as in learning or gaining information, presenting, or holding a successful meeting. The knowledge regarding the use of these five macro skills is of vital importance. Consistently seeking improvement along these macro skills will contribute to the self-development, effective communication and success in many different environments and contexts of the learners. Absence of these macro skills to a person pose difficulties on his movement through life and to thrive in the varied areas such as education and career. Attaining the language skills on the part of the learners need mastery of the language which takes years to learn. But, it can be attained for teachers are required to note the oral and written difficulties encountered by learners and address the difficulties by energizing students to varied learning activities gearing towards enhancing language proficiency. It is of vital importance for teachers to determine the needs and difficulties of students for her to design appropriate instructional materials for the enhancement of learner’s language proficiency. 4 Fully aware of the fact, the researcher is encouraged to investigate the English Language Macro Skills of Freshmen students with the end view of proposing an Intervention measures to enhance the Macro skills of freshmen students. 1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM This study focuses on the Freshmen Vietnamese students’ English Language Macro Skills among selected Colleges in Bacgiang City. Specifically, it seeks to answer the following questions: 1. What are the learning contents of a general English course offered to Freshman students? 2. What is the level of students’ performance in the macro-skills of 2.1: Reading 2.1.1: Word recognition skills 2.1.2: Comprehension Skills 2.1.3: Utilization Skills 2.2: Writing 2.2.1: sharpening writing skill 2.2.2: sentence correction 2.3 Speaking 2.1.1: pronunciation 2.1.2: comprehension 2.1.3: grammatical accuracy 5 2.4 Listening 2.4.1: comprehension 2.4.2: homonym 2.4.3: correct stress of the word 2.4.4: use of words 3. Are there significant relationships between pairs of macro- skills in English language? 4. What difficulties do students have in the following macro-skills? 4.1. Reading 4.2. Writing 4.3. Speaking 4.4. Listening 5. Which among the difficulties appear to be more relatively serious? 6. What intervention measures may be proposed to enhance macroskills of students? 1.3. SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY This study was focused on the English Language Macro skills of First Year College students among selected Colleges in Bac Giang City. It covered the learning contents of a general English course offered to Freshmen students as well as the level of students’ performance in the macro-skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening. This also determined the significant differences among the 6 macro-skills in English language and the proposed intervention measures to enhance the macro-skills of the First year students among the selected colleges in Bac Giang Province. The study covered the three (3) colleges in Bac Giang City namely: Vocational College, College of Technology and Bac Giang Ngo Gia Tu College. This study is limited on the results of the gathered data. Fifty one 51 faculty members who were presently teaching Basic English and 299 students from the three (3) colleges were part of this study. Results of the study was limited on the information from the respondents in the Academic year 2013-2014. 1.4. SIGNIFICANT OF THE STUDY Administrators of Bac Giang College. This study can guide them in the Curriculum development by evaluating the different English proficiency enhancing activities. This study will serve as a guide for the realignment of the existing curriculum of Basic English to meet their institutional goals and objectives. Faculty of Basic English. This study will serve as a guide to the faculty teaching Basic English as they may be aware of the present level of students’ performance in macro-skills. This study will provide them insights on what classroom learning activities will be appropriate to enhance the Language proficiency of their students. First Year Students. The findings of this study will make them aware of their present level of macro skills. This would give them a challenge to improve their weak points and enhance their over all performance in Basic English. 7 Parents. Through this study, parents of the first year students will become aware of the English performance of their children which will make them more supportive and cooperative in school activities specifically on the improvement of the skills in the Basic English of their children. Future researchers. This study will serve as reference for their undertaking. CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDY 2.1. REVIEW OF RELATED STUDY. This section presents of some literatures related to the topic. 2.2. RESEARCH PARADIM INPUT PROCESS OUTPUT A. Learning contents of a general English course B. Level of students’ performance in the macro-skills of:  reading  writing  speaking  listening C. Difficulties of the students in the macro- skills Assessment made through: Documentary Analysis Teacher Made Test Figure 1: Research Paradigm Proposed Intervention Measures 8 The research paradigm explains the relationship of the inputprocess-output of the study. The input covers the learning contents of the general English course, level of students’ performance in the macro-skills and the difficulties of the students in the macro-skills; the process is assessment through documentary analysis and teacher made test; while the output is the proposed intervention measures for first year students in Bacgiang colleges. 9 CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY 3.1. RESEARCH DESIGN The study made used of the descriptive method of research. It will be deemed appropriate for this study in determining the required information through analysis and interpretation of the information which will be gathered. To accomplish the objectives of the study, information were gathered pertinent to the present undertaking through teacher made test for the student respondents. 3. 2. SUBJECTS OF THE STUDY The subjects of the study are composed of 299 first year college students taking up Basic English course in the three colleges in Bacgiang namely Ngo Gia Tu College, Industry and Technology College and Vocational College. Table 1 shows the distribution of student respondents in the three colleges. Table 1: Distribution of student respondents in the three colleges Name of Colleges Population(N) Class No.of Respondents (n) Bacgiang Ngo Gia Tu College 476 10 120 Industry and Technology College 384 8 97 Vocational College 328 7 82 TOTAL 1188 25 299 10 Of the 299 recovered answer sheets, one was not included in the analysis due to incomplete answers. Thus only 298 answer sheets were subjected to statistical analysis. 3.3 DATA GATHERING INSTRUMENT This study made used of the following data gathering instruments. Documentary Analysis. This was used to gather information regarding the learning contents of the subject Basic English course I. In Bac Giang Ngo Gia Tu Colleges, this was used through the Detailed Outline of General English I for Diploma Degree Program with English Language as field issued by the Ministry of Education and Training of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Teacher Made Test. This instrument is designed to determine the English language macro-skills of Freshman Vietnamese students. Macro-skills pertain to the four macro-skills in communication which are listening, speaking, reading and writing. These macroskills are the basic skills required to communicate effectively in the English language. The macro-skills of the students are evaluated based on the component skills of each macro-skill. One test question is formulated corresponding to the subcomponent items of each component skill or macro-skill. The component skills in reading include word recognition skills with six subcomponent items such as context clues, phonetic analysis, root words, contractions, compound words, ands syllabication, In comprehension skills the six subcomponent items are finding the main idea, sequence, finding details, predicting outcome, recognizing cause and effect, and distinguishing between fact and opinion. and utilization skills with 11 five subcomponent items namely: skimming for information, using titles in lessons, using index, classification, and outlining. In writing, the skills involve are sharpening of writing skills with five subcomponent items such as spelling, using words effectively, making smooth transition, sentence, paragraphs and messages, and structuring phrases and clauses and sentence correction. As for listening skill, this includes five subcomponent items namely; comprehension one, homonym, comprehension two, correct stress of the word, and the use of words. In speaking three subcomponent items are included. These are pronunciation, comprehension, and grammatical accuracy. A total of 32 test items are included in the test for reading, writing and listening. Three scoring areas are listed as additional items to capture the rating of the students in the speaking test. Their audio-recorded speech is rated based on the three scoring areas as they answer the three given questions: The Likert scale followed for these three scoring areas. Numerical Scale Description: 5- No error Very proficient 4- Few errors (1-3 errors): Proficient 3- Moderate errors (4-6 errors): Moderately proficient; 2 - Several errors (7-10 errors): Less proficient; 1 - Plenty of errors (>10 errors): Not proficient. 3.4. DATA GATHERING PROCEDURES A test questionnaire for students was constructed and submitted to the adviser for review and comments. Through the help of the 12 adviser, the final drafts were produced. The teacher made test was pilot tested to college students of Batangas State University to test the strength and weaknesses of the said test. In validating the instruments, letters of requests were then sent to the members of the panel and expert on the field to go over the research instruments, to give their comments and suggestions for the improvement of the questionnaire. After incorporating all the suggestions, final copies of validated test were produced for administration. Another set of letters of request was written for the administration of Bacgiang Colleges for permission to administer the teacher made test to students. With the approved letter of the administrators, the questionnaires were administered to the 299 student respondents. After the administration of the test, test papers were retrieved, checked, tallied and analyzed. The speaking test was conducted last with each participant taken to a separate room where they were asked to answer the questions one by one with their replies audio-recorded. The recorded data were later scored following the scale above. 3.5. STATISTICAL TREATMENT OF DATA The study applied the following statistical treatment: Cronbach alpha. This was used to measure internal consistency of the scores of the respondents. Frequency Distribution and Percentage. This was used to provide meaningful description of the respondents’ performance in macro skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening. 13 Weighted Mean. This was used to quantify the student’s performance in the macro skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening. Standard Deviation. This was utilized to determine the level of students’ performance in the macro skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening. Student’s T- test. This was used to test the significant difference among the macro skills in English Language. 14 CHAPTER IV RESULTS AND DISCUSSION This chapter presents the results of the data gathering process from the respondents of the study, the data analysis and its interpretation. Learning Contents of a General English Course Offered to Freshman Students Level of Students’ Performance in the Macro-Skills of the English Language: Performance of student respondents in the different skill areas of the Reading test, Writing test, Listening test and Speaking test Performance of student respondents in the different skill areas of the Significant Differences in the Students’ Performance among the Macro-Skills in English Language: Student's t-test comparison of the mean % scores for each test group shown as p-values Difficulties Students have in the Macro-Skills of the English Language: difficult item for student respondents in the teacher-made tests on macro-skills in English language. Rank of 1- Most Difficult (MD), Mean % of < 50% - Difficult (D), Mean % > 50% - Not Difficult (ND) Difficulties in Macro-Skills that appear to be relatively more serious: Most difficult items for student respondents in the teachermade tests on macro-skills in English language Intervention Measures that may be proposed to Enhance the Macro-Skills of students 15 CHAPTER V SUMMARY, FINDINGS, CONCLUSION, RECOMMENDATION 5.1. SUMMARY This study aimed to assess the Freshman Vietnamese students’ English Language Macro Skills among selected Colleges in Bacgiang City. This study sought to find out the learning contents of a general English course offered to Freshman students, the level of students’ performance in the macro-skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening, the relationships between pairs of macroskills in English language, the difficulties students have in the macro-skills, the difficulties appear to be more relatively serious and the intervention measures proposed to enhance macro- skills of students The study made used of the descriptive method of research to determine the English language macro-skills of Freshman Vietnamese students among selected colleges in Bacgiang. There were 299 students from three colleges of Bacgiang and 30 teachers who were the respondents of the study. 5.2. FINDINGS Based on the objectives of the study, the findings are as following: 1. Learning Contents of a General English course offered to Freshman Students General English courses cover skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing as well as essential vocabulary, idioms and 16 colloquial language. They are designed to give students confidence to communicate effectively in real life and provide them with effective training in English for work, study and travel. In Bac Giang Colleges, the course General English I required students to attend and participate in all class activities and do homework and this is given ten percent weight. Students are also required to take progress test in grammar, vocabulary, reading and writing and assigned also ten percent of weight and a midterm test in the same area with twenty percent allocated weight for each. General English I Course is given five units credits with 60 hours- time allocation for the first semesters. English I has the learning objectives of providing students with guidance in the study of English Alphabet, vowels, consonants, stress, intonation and, English basic structures; develop their ability to use these structures in different contexts; enrich their knowledge in vocabulary and grammar and improve their ability to communicate effectively by providing comprehensive re-enforcement activities in the four macro-skills of English language. Under this course, students are expected to develop competencies in these skills like in listening, it is expected that students can listen and understand basic words or phrases and answer simple questions to oneself while in speaking, students are expected to communicate, ask and respond to questions. In terms of reading, it is expected that students can employ scanning and skimming in searching for main ideas or details in varied reading while in writing, expressing in written language topics such as completing a form, informal email, etc. are expected to students. 17 In addition, the course outline of General English I course is divided into five units where each unit has six components namely: grammar, vocabulary, reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Each unit also comprises overall objectives. In unit I, the overall objectives are for the students to get to know to each other and introduce themselves and other people. Each unit has its respective learning contents covering the four areas in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. In Unit II, the overall objectives are for the students to be able to ask for personal information. Given focused are Grammar, and vocabulary. In Unit III on the other hand are for the students to be able to use the present simple with personal pronouns. For Unit IV, the overall objectives are for the students to use the present simple, to talk and to write about shopping, likes and dislikes, free time and leisure activities and for the students to be familiar with situations in an English class. As Unit V, the objective is for the students to describe the place where students live and for them to ask and to give directions. The learning contents of this unit include grammar, reading covers the practice of scanning for specific information; writing gears toward describing a holiday through a written report; speaking focuses on talking about stories and practice police interview and in listening the focus is on listening for specific information. 18 2. Level of students’ performance in the macro-skills in reading, writing listening and speaking the English language The level of students’ performance in the macro-skills were analyzed to probe the different component skills under the macroskills of reading, writing, listening and speaking. In reading, 17 students’ skilIs were grouped under three major skills namely: word recognition skills which include six items, comprehension skills which include items seven to twelve and utilization skills which include items 13 to 17. The mean % of correct score of the students in all the items is widely distributed across different values ranging from 4%to 96% with equivalent description of borderline to superior. This means that the macro-skill of the freshman students in reading are widely distributed and highly dispersed. This suggests that the students’ performance is on the average level based on the given population of student respondents. In writing, a range of scores was obtained by the student respondents from mean % correct score of 15% to 86% with equivalent ratings of low average to high average. Majority of the skills however had a rating of average that is six out of ten items. This is confirmed by the total scores where the mean % score is 49.5% and a percentile rank of 49% or equivalent to average which means that the students’ performance in writing is on the average level of the given student population. When the skill items were grouped under two major skills in writing, it can be observed that there were more high average scoring items that belong under sharpening writing skills than sentence correction. This means that the students were performing better in this skill area than the latter.