THE DIFFICULTIES IN ESP READING COMPREHENSION ENCOUNTERED BY ENGLISH–MAJORED STUDENTS

Abstract

This study aimed at exploring difculties of ESP (English for specifc purposes) reading comprehension faced by English-majored students at one university in Vietnam. Eighty English-majored students were involved in answering a close-ended questionnaire, and three ESP teachers were invited to participate in semi-structured interview. The findings showed that students did not have much trouble in dealing with reading ESP texts; nonetheless, it was sometimes seen that two common areas of difficulties in ESP reading comprehension students were faced with were unknown words and background knowledge of subject matters. This study further revealed that students did not confront much with difficulties of text coverage, organization structure, and grammar used in ESP reading texts.