An Investigation into Non-English Major Students’ Problems in Taking Aptis Listening and Reading
Keywords:
non-English major students, problems, Aptis listening, Aptis readingAbstract
In order to standardize non-English major students' English skills, Hoa Sen University develops English-language graduation criteria at the B1 level on the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). The university adopted Aptis as a standardized examination since it was created by British Council specialists in language testing and is based on the most recent assessment research. Therefore, the students have a continual struggle to obtain suitable Aptis test scores. Within the boundaries of the study paper, the objective of the piece was to identify the challenges that students commonly experience when doing two Aptis components: listening and reading. The participants are 67 non-English major students enrolling in Aptis preparation courses for the summer semester of 2021. After the pre-test, the first online questionnaire was sent out, and the second was delivered immediately following the post-test. After that, the data's average value, percentage, and standard deviation were calculated. Despite the fact that the Aptis pre-test caused substantial problems in every category, there were substantial changes in students' views after the post-test. Furthermore, students believed that the classes assisted them in improving their vocabulary, grammar, and confidence.
References
Anderson, J. R. (1995). Cognitive psychology and its implications (4th ed.). New York: Freeman.
Atikah, I. (2009) Analysis on the students' linguistic problems in reading comprehension (Master's thesis). UIN Syarif Hidayatullah.
British Council. (2014). Annual report 2013-14. London: British Council.
British Council. (2018). Aptis–VSTEP comparability study: investigating the usage of two EFL tests in the context of higher education in Vietnam. London: British Council.
Brown, A. (1993). The role of test-taker feedback in the test development process: test-takers’ reactions to a tape-mediated test of proficiency. Language Testing.
Bui, T. T. N., & Nguyen, H. T. M. (2016). Standardizing English for educational and socio-economic betterment-a critical analysis of English language policy reforms in Vietnam. In English language education policy in Asia (pp. 363–388). Cham: Springer.
Bui, T.N. (2021). Students' attitudes to online reading in the era of technology at theUniversity of Transport and Communications. AsiaCALL Online Journal, 12(3), 1-8. Retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/28/24
Chapelle, C. A., & Voss, E. (2016). 20 years of technology and language assessment in language learning & technology. Language Learning & Technology. Language Learning & Technology, 20(2), 116-128.
Check, J., & Schutt, R. K. (2012). Research methods in education. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Chonprakai, S. (2009). A Study of Undergraduate Listening Problems. Bangkok: King Mongkut's University of Technology North Bangkok.
Cohen, D. (2006). The Coming of Age of Research on Test-taking Strategies. Language Assessment Quarterly, 3(4), 112 – 125.
Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods.
Dornyei, Z. (2007). Research Methods in Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Erling, J. E., & Seargeant, P. (2013). English and development: Policy, pedagogy, and globalization. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Garcia, Y. P., Ramayan, A. J. R., Sepe, A. P., & Silor, A. C. (2014). Difficulties in reading comprehension and metacognitive strategies for technology livelihood education students. Proceeding of The Global Summit on Education GSE.
Gilakjani, A., & Ahmadi, A. (2011). A study of factors affecting EFL learners' English listening comprehension and the strategies for improvement. Journal of Language Teaching and Research.
Goh, C. (2000). A cognitive perspective on language learners’ listening comprehension problems. System, 28, 55-75.
Hall, L. A. (2012). The role of reading identities and reading abilities in students’ discussions about texts and comprehension strategies. Journal of Literacy Research.
Hayes, B., & Read, J. (2004). IELTS test preparation in New Zealand: Preparing students for the IELTS academic module. In L. W. Cheng, Y. J. Watanabe & A. Curtis (Eds.), Washback in language testing: Research contexts and methods (pp. 97– 111). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Jin, Y. & Cheng, L. (2013). Affective factors that impact on the validity of high-stakes tests. Modern Foreign Languages, 62–69.
Kantarin, R., Metas, P., & Neil,C. (2013), An Investigation into Student Problems and Solutions in taking TOEIC.
Khamprated, N. (2012). The Problems with the English Listening and Speaking of Students
Le, V. C. (2017). English language education in Vietnamese universities: National benchmarking in practice. In E. S. Park & B. Spolsky (Eds.), English education at the tertiary level in Asia: From theory to practice (pp. 283–292). New York: Routledge.
Nguyen, H. T. (2018). English-medium-instruction management: The missing piece in the internationalisation puzzle of Vietnamese higher education. In Internationalisation in Vietnamese Higher Education (pp. 119–137). Cham: Springer.
Nguyen, T. H. N. (2021). Developing Bottom-up Listening Skills in a Google Classroom-based EFL module. AsiaCALL Online Journal, 12(3), 47-57. Retrieved from https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/45
Nguyen, T. N. H. (2007, May). Effects of test preparation on test performance – the case of the IELTS and TOEFL iBT listening tests. Paper presented at Teaching English to Speakers of Other Language (TESOL) in the Internationalization of Higher Education in Vietnam, Hanoi, Vietnam.
O’Sullivan, B. (2012). Aptis test development approach. Aptis Technical Report (ATR-1). British Council.
Phuong, H. Y. (2017). Improving English language teaching in Vietnam: Voices from university teachers and students. Current Politics and Economics of South, Southeastern, and Central Asia, 26(3), 285–310.
Rowley, J. (2014), Designing and using research questionnaires, Management Research Review, Vol. 37 No. 3, pp. 308-330. https://doi.org/10.1108/MRR-02-2013-0027. Studying at a Private Vocational School. Nakhon Si Thammarat: Walailak University.
Suradej Anandapong. (2011). A Study of English Listening Problem and Listening Proficiency of Business Students at Bangkok University. Bangkok: Thammasat University.
Sewell, HD. (2005). The TOEIC: Reliability and Validity within the Korean Context.
Tartila, Yasin, A., & Rozimela, Y. (2013). The implementation of genre based approach in English teaching at Islamic Senior High School Model. Universitas Negeri Padang.
Tokunaga, M. (2008). Students’ assumptions for TOEIC classes. JALT 2007 Conference Proceedings. Tokyo: JALT, The Educational Testing.
Underwood M. (1989) Teaching listening. New York: Longman
Zuhra. (2015). Senior high school students’ difficulties in reading comprehension. English Education Journal.
Tokunaga, M. (2008). Students’ assumptions for TOEIC classes. JALT 2007 Conference Proceedings. Tokyo: JALT, The Educational Testing
Ward, A. M., & Xu, L. (1994). The relationship between summarization skills and TOEFL scores. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Baltimore, MD.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Tran Quang Hai
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The copyright of all articles published in the International Journal of TESOL & Education (ijte) remains with the Authors, i.e. Authors retain full ownership of their article. Permitted third-party reuse of the open access articles is defined by the applicable Creative Commons (CC) end-user license which is accepted by the Authors upon submission of their paper. All articles in the ijte are published under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license, meaning that end users can freely share an article (i.e. copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and adapt it (i.e. remix, transform and build upon the material) on the condition that proper attribution is given (i.e. appropriate credit, a link to the applicable license and an indication if any changes were made; all in such a way that does not suggest that the licensor endorses the user or the use) and the material is only used for non-commercial purposes.
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository, in a journal or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
