Designing authentic tasks in the materials development of secretarial english

1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ****** NGUYỄN THỊ THU PHƯƠNG DESIGNING AUTHENTIC TASKS IN THE MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT OF SECRETARIAL ENGLISH THIẾT KẾ CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG MANG TÍNH THỰC TIỄN TRONG VIỆC BIÊN SOẠN GIÁO TRÌNH TIẾNG ANH VĂN PHÒNG M.A THESIS Course: #13 Field: Methodology Code: 601410 Supervisor: NGUYỄN THỊ VƯỢNG, M.A HA NOI, 2007 2 Certificate of originality of study report I certify my authority of the study entitled: DESIGNING AUTHENTIC TASKS IN THE MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT OF SECRETARIAL ENGLISH In partial accomplishment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. Nguyễn Thị Thu Phương July, 2007 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to acknowledge my supervisor, Nguyen Thi Vuong for her precious advice, suggestions and especially generous assistance and continual encouragement without which this thesis would not have been accomplished. I am grateful to all the lectures of the M.A course at VNU for their teaching and instructions which are of great value to my study and my thesis. I am also appreciative of my colleagues at the English Department of Bac Ninh Teacher Training College, and all the post-students of English for their cooperation in the process of data collection for this thesis. Last but not least, my heartfelt gratitude goes to my family for giving me endless supports and encouragements during my three-year course at VNU and during the time I carried out and fulfilled the research. Ha noi, 2007 NguyÔn ThÞ Thu Ph−¬ng M.A #13 4 ABSTRACT Many areas of English Language Teaching (ELT) have undergone a lot of changes in order to meet the requirements of English learners. In recent years, ELT has been showing an inevitable tendency of shifting from General English to English for Specific Purposes (ESP) as the number of ESP has been rising. This has led to a corresponding increase in the materials development of ESP in which designing authentic tasks plays an important part in enabling learners to master the target language. This research aims at finding out the most effective techniques to create authentic tasks in the materials development of Secretarial English, which is to be a compulsory subject in the curriculum to train English majors at Bacninh Teachers Training College. This research report is composed of three main parts. It begins with the introduction, which states the rationale, aims, scope and methods of the study. Part two includes three chapters, the first reviews the related literature, the second presents the study in details and the third deals with major findings from the data analysis and offers recommendations on how to design authentic tasks in the materials development of secretarial English. Part three is the conclusion, which summarizes the whole study and gives suggestions for further research. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgement………………………………………………………………………….....3 Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………......4 Table of content………………………………………………………...………......................5 List of abbreviations, tables and figures………………………...……………......................7 PART A: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………...……………….....8 1. Rationale of the study ……………………………………………………………....…8 2. Aims and significance of the study………………………...………………………......9 3. Scope of the study………………...………………………………………………........9 4. Methods of the study………………………………...……………………………......10 5. Design of the study…………………………………………………………...............10 PART B: DEVELOPMENT………………………………………………………………..11 CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………...…………………...11 I.1. An overview of materials development in English Language Teaching ...……………...11 I.1.1. Definition and categories of ELT materials…………………...……………......11 I.1.2. Materials development ……………………………………………....................11 I.1.2.1. Definition of materials development………………………………....11 I.1.2.2. Basic principles of Second Language Acquisition relevant to thematerials development for the teaching of languages ………………….11 I.1.2.3. The process of developing materials……………………..………......16 I.2. Task authenticity as one of the core parts of materials development …………................16 I.2.1. The nature of authenticity in ELT materials development…………..................16 I.2.2. Authentic materials ...…………………………………...……..….....................17 I.2.3. Authentic tasks …...……………………………………..........…………….......17 I.2.4. Task authenticity and input authenticity…………………..................................18 I.3. Materials development, syllabus design and teaching methodology……..........................19 I.3.1. Materials development and syllabus design ………………...................19 I.3.2. Materials development of secretarial English and the adopted teaching approach ………......................................................................23 CHAPTER II: THE STUDY ……….....................................................................................28 II.1. Background to the study ……….......................................................................................28 II.1.1. The settings of teaching and learning ................................................................28 II.1.2. The teachers ………...........................................................................................28 II.1.3. The learners and their needs...............................................................................28 II..1.4. The overall objectives and purpose of the materials to be designed ...…….....29 6 II.2. The problems and research questions ...............................................................................30 II.3. The surveys ………...........................................................................................................30 II.3.1. Selecting the population ....................................................................................30 II.3.2. Data collection instruments................................................................................31 II.4. Data analysis and discussion ............................................................................................31 CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ON HOW TO DESIGN AUTHENTIC TASKS IN THE MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT OF SECRETARIAL ENGLISH .............................................................................................................................................39 III.1. Major findings and discussion ........................................................................................39 III.2. Recommendations on how to design authentic tasks in the materials development of secretarial English .......................................................................................................40 III.2.1. A suggested model to enhance task authenticity in the materials development of secretarial English ....................................................................41 III.2.2. The selection of teaching techniques ...............................................................41 III.2.3. Suggested activities ..........................................................................................42 III.2.4. Authentic class resources .................................................................................44 PART C: CONCLUSION .....................................................................................................46 1. Conclusion ...........................................................................................................................46 2. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research .............................................47 REFERENCES .........................................................................................................................48 APPENDICES .........................................................................................................................50 7 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS, TABLES AND FIGURES List of Abbreviations ELT: English Language Teaching EFL: English as a Foreign Language ESP: English for Specific Purpose SLA: Second Language Acquisition TBLT: Task-based Language Teaching TBL: Task-based Learning List of Tables Table 1: A summary of frequency of responses to question 1 for teachers…….…………..26 Table 2: A summary of frequency of responses to question 2 for students……….………..26 List of Figures Figure 1: The rating of teachers' answers to question 2 ……………………….....................28 Figure 2: The rating of students' answers to question 3 ……………………….....................28 Figure 3: Students’ rating to question 1………………………..............................................29 Figure 4: The rating of teachers' responses to question 3 & students' responses to question 4......30 Figure 5: The rating of teachers' responses to question 4 and students' responses to question 6 ...30 Figure 6: The rating of students' responses to question 5.....................................................31 8 PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale As English language has become an important medium for international business, politics and other fields, a good command of the English language is particularly important for those who want to go on to work in an English-speaking environment. The development of English for interacting professionally as a result of the integration and globalization processes has been rapidly increasing in almost all workplaces in our country. However, the situation of teaching and learning English in our country hasn’t met such demands. The fact is that English is taught as a foreign language (EFL), it is a compulsory subject in all curricula of any schools. But English is not often used outside the classrooms. A great number of students do not need English to engage in day-to-day life functioning or to participate in society. There is little or no motivation to learn a new language when they can communicate only in their first language. As a result, low achievement in teaching and learning English has been gained. In recent years, the communicative approach in language teaching has become more and more predominant. However, the real quality of the outcomes proves to be a matter of concern of all language teachers and learners. The fact is that a lot of learners’ linguistic performance is quite good in class learning, but when they engage in real-life communication in which the target language is used, they seem to be hindered by many factors such as linguistics problems, inappropriate responses, communicative skills, etc. Especially, ESP students face a great deal of obstacles when using the target language at their workplaces. The problems begin the moment the students step outside the classroom into the real world. They are surrounded by a vast range of spontaneous and unpredictable language. They have no control over the range of vocabulary they may encounter or the kind of things they will hear or need to respond to. It is the fact that a lot of students who do very well in the classroom find it difficult to express when faced with a 'real' situation. Perhaps we simply haven't taught them in a way that will help them cope with this. It is not a joke that a number of students and graduates rush to their language teachers and ask questions like: “Why is English used inside classroom different from outside communication?”, “Is English in learning too bookish”… On the other hand, the writer often hears complaints from her colleagues: “Students seem so quiet and lazy during the lessons. It is so difficult to get them involved in learning activities”. Such matters may rest with many reasons, including teaching materials, characteristics of learners, teachers’ proficiency, classroom methodology as well as classroom learning activities, among which learning tasks account for a very important part firstly in motivating 9 and getting students involved in the lessons, then in helping them achieve the goal of using the target language in real-life communication. That is why the concerns of all EFL teachers share an agreement that it is essential to design interesting classroom activities which can motivate the enthusiasm and involvement of learners in an EFL classroom, and particularly for ESP learners such activities should be useful and related to their future jobs. If so, the aims of the lessons will be achieved. As a result, the quality of English language teaching and learning will be improved as well. Things considered, the writer would like to conduct a mini-research on finding suitable techniques to design authentic tasks in the materials development of secretarial English, which is one of compulsory subject in the curriculum of the writer’s college to train English majors. As the goals of teaching secretarial English is to give students intensive experience in the use of general and professional English for the sake of their career, to help students to develop their communication skills effectively, to express themselves confidently and to provide students with the opportunity to gain first hand experience which can be adapted to the future workplace situations. In order to achieve these aims, teachers should find ways to create authentic tasks to increase the students’ confidence and ability in using English in such environment and also develop their cognitive processing skills so as to enable them to understand and express ideas, attitudes and feelings, to think and respond creatively. In other words, students will get used to using the target language appropriately by performing authentic tasks in contextualized situations, so that they will be capable of using the target language effectively in their future workplace. In sum, everything is to be done with a view to enhancing the quality of teaching and learning secretarial English. 2. Aims and significance of the study This study aims at - Investigating the attitudes of teachers of English and college/ university graduates working as secretarial or administrative staff towards the effectiveness of techniques used to create authentic tasks in teaching and learning English; - Finding out the most effective techniques to design authentic tasks in the materials development of secretarial English; If the study is successfully completed, the quality of teaching and learning secretarial English will be bound to be better. As a result, English majors who might work as secretarial and administrative staff will be more competent in using their target language at their workplace. 3. Scope of the study The study focuses on finding techniques to design authentic tasks in the materials development of Secretarial English for third-year English majors at Bacninh Teacher Training 10 College. 4. Methods of the study The methods used are questionnaires and individual interviews. Then an analysis of the collected data will be quantitatively discussed together with qualitative analysis of the results of the individual interviews. 5. Design of the study The study is divided into three parts which are briefly presented as follows: Part A is the Introduction which states rationale, aims and significance, scope and research method of the study. Part B is the Development of the study, consisting of three chapters: Chapter one reviews the literature concerning an overview of the materials development in ELT, task authenticity as one of the core parts of materials development and the relationship between materials development, syllabus design and teaching methodology. Chapter two presents the background to the study, the problems and research questions, the surveys and the data analysis and discussion according to the research questions. Chapter three shows major findings from the data analysis and offers recommendations on how to design authentic tasks in the materials development of secretarial English. Part C is the Conclusion which summarizes the overall study and states its limitations and suggestions for further research. 11 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW I.1. An overview of materials development in ELT I.1.1. Definition and categories of ELT materials Most people associate the term “language-learning materials” with course books because that has been their main experience of using materials. However, Tomlinson (1998) refers the term to “anything which is used by teachers or learners to facilitate the learning of a language”. Materials can obviously be in the form of textbooks, work books, cassettes, videos, CD-Roms, dictionaries, grammar books, readers, workbooks or photocopied exercises. They could also be any realia such as newspapers, food packages, photographs, or even live talks by invited native speakers, instructions given by a teacher, tasks written on cards or discussions between learners. In other words, they can be anything which presents or informs about the language being learnt. According to McGrath (2002), there are three main categories of materials as follows: published materials; authentic materials and supplementary ones. The first kind includes course books, students’ books, teachers’ books, workbooks, which can be utilized in a number of ways. The second consists of plentiful materials which do have a place in language learning such as newspapers, magazines, leaflets and brochures, videos and songs, etc. The third type can also be very useful for teachers and learners. They are dictionaries, grammar books, charts, games etc. Other types of materials used in language teaching and learning can be grouped in the mode of perceptions and specific uses. I.1.2. Materials development I.1.2.1. Definition of materials development Tomlinson (1998) refers materials development to anything which is done by writers, teachers or learners to provide sources of language input and to exploit those sources in ways which maximize the likelihood of intake: in other words the supplying of information about and/or experience of the - language in ways designed to promote language learning. Materials developers might write textbooks, tell stories, bring advertisements into the classroom, express an opinion, provide samples of language use or read a poem aloud. Whatever they do to provide input they do so in principled ways related to what they know about how languages can be effectively learned. I.1.2.2. Basic principles of SLA relevant to the materials development for the teaching of languages According to Methold (1972) good materials will have the following characteristics: 12 - set out to teach a predetermined body of knowledge, e.g., what is contained in a syllabus; - be divided into teachable segments; - take into account such principles as variety, weighting, the content validity of exercises and the need for recycling ; - take into account local conditions (the classroom environment, conventional teaching and learning practice, the teachers’ linguistic and methodological competence. In order to design good materials, Tomlinson (1998) has proposed an extensive set of principles which are said to be really valuable in the development of materials. The most noticeable are listed as follows: 1. Materials should achieve impact Impact is achieved when materials have a noticeable effect on learners, that is when the learners' curiosity, interest and attention are attracted. If this is achieved there is a better chance that some of the language in the materials will be taken in for processing. Materials c