Các đoạn hội thoại ngắn trong mục nghe hiểu của TOEFL ITP dưới ánh sáng của ngữ pháp chức năng hệ thống

Võ Việt Cường Tạp chí KHOA HỌC & CÔNG NGHỆ 109(09): 45 - 49

45

SHORT CONVERSATIONS IN THE LISTENING COMPREHENSION SECTION

OF TOEFL ITP IN LIGHT OF SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR

Vo Viet Cuong*

College of Economics and Technology – TNU

SUMMARY

TOEFL ITP (Test of English as a Foreign Language: Institutional Testing Program) is now used as

part of the test format designed by Vietnam National Foreign Language Project 2020 to test the

English proficiency of Vietnamese. However, they tend to do poorly in the listening

comprehension section of the tests of the Project, in which short conversations between two people

in part A are the first challenge. Besides the high speaking speed of the native speakers in the

recordings, the grammatical structures that convey the meaning of each conversation seem to be

one of the linguistic components affecting the students’ understanding of each conversation.

Realizing the students’ problem above, we have conducted an analysis of clause expansion in three

selected short conversations consisting of requests and their responses in part A of the listening

comprehension scripts of the book “TOEFL Preparation Kit Workbook 2002-2003, Volume 1”

designed and introduced by ETS, in light of Systemic Functional Grammar. The results of the

analysis suggest further studies on more conversations of this kind.

Key words: TOEFL ITP, short conversations, challenge, clause expansion, requests and their

responses, Systemic Functional Grammar.

INTRODUCTION*

Besides IELTS (International English Language

Testing System), TOEFL ITP (Test of English

as a Foreign Language: Institutional Testing

Program) is now used as part of the test format

designed by Vietnam National Foreign

Language Project 2020 to test the English

proficiency of Vietnamese. In addition, a

considerable number of international institutions

still accept TOEFL ITP score for admissions to

them. These indicate that TOEFL ITP is still

popular in Vietnam.

As teachers of English at Thai Nguyen

University, we are experienced in instructing

quite a large number of students in TOEFL

ITP. For many years of teaching TOEFL ITP,

we have found that listening seems to be a

challenge to them. To explain this, we, to

some extent, need to depend on Schiffrin

[5.389-390]’s statement:

In order for communication to proceed at all,

people must share certain basic knowledge,

e.g. knowledge about the world, about the

language to be used, and so on.

*

Tel: 0983 187 258, Email: [email protected]

She also introduced the principle of

intersubjectivity which is the process of

dealing with the sharing of knowledge or

experience, in which shared knowledge is one

product of communication. She also added

that intersubjectivity both allows

communication and is achieved by

communication [5.389-390]. Our students are

graduates, so they probably have the

necessary experience and knowledge about

the world. The knowledge about the language

to be used – English, however, is a challenge

to them because a majority of them hasn’t

been in contact with English since graduation.

Thus, they tend to do poorly in the listening

comprehension section of the tests by

Vietnam National Foreign Language Project

2020, in which short conversations between

two people in part A are the first challenge.

Besides the high speaking speed of the native

speakers in the recordings, the grammatical

structures that convey the meaning of each

conversation seem to be one of the linguistic

components affecting the students’

understanding of each conversation. Realizing

the students’ problem above, we have

Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu – Đại học Thái Nguyên http://www.lrc-tnu.edu.vn