HANOI UNIVERSITY
ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES DEPARTMENT
Critical Reading
Pair Reading Project – Term 3
Student name: 1. Dương Ngọc Khánh
2. Daichi Ishikawa
Student ID#: 1. 2201040090
2.
Lecturer: Ms. Vũ Hà
Class: 1C22-ACN
2022 - 2023
ESPD - Critical Reading Term 3
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Pair Reading Project Guideline
Reading is an input skill, and its mastery is clearly illustrated by an output product; thus, reading project
is needed for the on-going assessment process of the course. The project also encourages your extensive
reading related to your major. It enhances your teacher’s interaction with you in the same way as
between a reader and a writer, through a real cycle of reading and writing. You read then write, your
teacher reads your work, then writes feedback for you to read.
A. Pair Reading Project consists of the following tasks.
1) Task 1 - Extensive Reading:
- Your pair select and read an article in English.
- Topic MUST be academic or formal.
- Your article can be a research article, journal article or news article. Journal/ research
articles related to your major are highly recommended.
- IT MUST be from one of the reliable sources in the list given below. Remember to
include the source link.
- It is at least 800 words in length, of A4 paper size with Times News Roman - font 12.
- For online lesson, your project must include a soft copy of the article: copy the content
and paste it in this file – or take a photo and insert the picture into this file. For offline
lesson, a printed hardcopy must be submitted.
- Reading texts can be refused if they fail to meet the requirements above.
- First, you are required to create a mind map or an outline (that summarizes the article).
Do not write a complete summary paragraph.
- Second, you are asked to answer 5 sets of critical reading questions about the article,
type the answers and explain your answers.
- These five sets of questions are related to the critical analysis and discussion questions in
the textbook and lessons 1 to 7.
- All work must be typed using the forms provided below (and printed in offline class).
- Submit Task 1 in Lesson 9 for marking. Teacher will give feedback to you later.
- For online class, you will send the project to the Teacher online. For offline class, you
will submit the hardcopy version.
2) Task 2 - Critical Review: 1 pair written paper & 1 brief presentation
Written critical review (of 300 – 400 words)
o Your pair use the same English article (in the previous Task 1- Extensive Reading).
o You are required to write a critical review of this article. The critical review should be at
least 300 – 400 words in length.
o Submit Task 2 in Lesson 10 for marking. Teacher will give feedback to you later.
o For online class, you will send the project to the Teacher online. For offline class, you
will submit the hardcopy version.
o A critical review includes a summary (introducing topic & stating main ideas of the
article) and a critique (a synthesis of answers to critical reading questions)
Presentation about your critical review (maximum 5 minutes)
o Your slides/A0 size poster display your critical review (article summary & critique).
ESPD Critical Reading Project
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o One student presents the critical review’s content in Lesson 11 (one speaker only).
o Oral critical review must be the same as the last version of the written review. Otherwise,
the score for both members will be halved.
o Absent student receives half of the mark for Task 2 - critical review.
Note:
Do NOT use the same reading text as your classmates, or copy any other students’ work. You
will receive score zero, or have to find a new reading text.
Late submission: Your score will be deducted if you do not complete your tasks on time.
B. Resources of reading texts for Pair Reading Project:
Research articles & journal articles from:
Google Scholar
http://scholar.google.com.vn/
Directory of Open Access Journal (DOAJs):
https://doaj.org/
SAGE open access journals
https://journals.sagepub.com/home/sgo
Taylor & Francis Journal
http://www.tandfonline.com/page/openaccess
Free source:
http://www.freefullpdf.com
HANU library
lib.hanu.vn
Vietnam Journals Online
http://.vjol.info/index/about/
National Library of Vietnam
http://dl.nlv.gov.vn/
ScienceDirect
https://www.sciencedirect.com/
Wiley Online Library
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Education Resource Information Centre (ERIC):
https://eric.ed.gov/
Research Gate
http://www.researchgate.net/
(“Open access” means “free to download or copy”. Some articles in the links above
may not be free)
News articles from: e.g. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Reuters,
BBC, The Guardian, Financial Times, Washington Post, or other reputable/ reliable English
newspaper.
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The following RESOURCES are NOT ACCEPTED for the Pair Reading Project:
(1) posts on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram;
(3) personal opinion, reader’s opinion in Opinion Column on newspaper;
(2) blogs;
(3) YAHOO.COM news reports;
(4) Wikipedia and other similar websites;
(5) Viet Nam News, or other Vietnamese newspapers
(6) textbooks for English language learning
(7) IELTS texts
You MUST select formal or academic topics.
C. Please type your project in the following pages:
TASK 1 (30%) – EXTENSIVE READING (submitted in Lesson 8)
Title: Mass Layoffs and Absentee Bosses Create a Morale Crisis at Meta
Reference https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/12/technology/meta-layoffs-employees-management.html
source/ web link:
A. For online class, insert the article here:
(For offline class, print the hardcopy of the article)
Mass Layoffs and Absentee Bosses Create a Morale Crisis at Meta
Workers at Facebook’s parent have been increasingly alarmed by job cuts and the company’s direction.
By Sheera Frenkel and Mike Isaac
Reporting from San Francisco
April 12, 2023
“Raise your hand if you know who is getting fired?” a Meta employee wrote in an online chat group for the
company’s engineers this month. “Fire emoji if you think it’s a dumpster fire.”
In response, his colleagues posted dozens of tiny flame emojis.
“I’m already fired,” added a former Meta employee who worked in the company’s business division for nearly
four years before most of his team was laid off this year. “But who can keep track?”
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, has declared that 2023 will be the “year of efficiency” at his company.
So far, efficiency has translated into mass layoffs. He has conducted two rounds of cuts over the past six months,
with two more to come; these will eliminate more than 21,000 people. Mr. Zuckerberg is also closing 5,000 open
positions, which amounts to 30 percent of his company’s work force.
At the same time, some of Meta’s top executives have moved away and are managing large parts of the Silicon
Valley company from their new homes in places like London and Tel Aviv.
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The layoffs and absentee leadership, along with concerns that Mr. Zuckerberg is making a bad bet on the future,
have devastated employee morale at Meta, according to nine current and former employees, as well as messages
reviewed by The New York Times.
Employees at Meta, which not long ago was one of the most desirable workplaces in Silicon Valley, face an
increasingly precarious future. The company’s stock price has dropped 43 percent from its peak 19 months ago.
More layoffs, Mr. Zuckerberg has said on his Facebook page, are coming this month. Some of those cuts could be
in engineering groups, which would have been unthinkable before the trouble started last year, two employees
said.
“So many of the employees feel like they’re in limbo right now,” said Erin Sumner, a global director of human
resources at DeleteMe, who was laid off from Facebook in November. “They’re saying it’s ‘Hunger Games’
meets ‘Lord of the Flies,’ where everyone is trying to prove their worth to management.”
Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is not the only big tech company that has hit the brakes
on spending. Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Salesforce and others have laid off thousands of workers in recent
months, shed office space, dropped perks and pulled back from experimental initiatives.
But Meta appears to face the most challenges. Last year, the company reported consecutive quarters of declining
revenue — a first since it became a public company in 2012.
Layoffs in Big Tech
After a pandemic hiring spree, several tech companies are now pulling back.
• A Growing List: Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Zoom are among the tech giants that have cut jobs amid
concerns about an economic slowdown.
• A Crisis at Meta: Mass layoffs, an absentee leadership and concerns about the business’s precarious future
have devastated employee morale at Facebook’s parent company.
• Salesforce: The company said it would lay off 10 percent of its staff, a decision that seemed to go against the
professed commitment of its co-founder and chief executive, Marc Benioff, to its workers.
• New Parents Hit Hard: At tech companies that spent recent years expanding paid parental leave, parents have
felt the whiplash of mass layoffs in an especially visceral way.
While Meta’s peers are chasing a wave of innovation in artificial intelligence, Mr. Zuckerberg has made a big bet
on the metaverse, an immersive online world. But it is unclear if consumers will embrace his vision in the way he
hopes. While the company has sold 20 million virtual reality headsets — more than any other company producing
similar tech — it has struggled to keep customers returning regularly to use the product.
Many workers at Meta had already been skeptical of Mr. Zuckerberg’s shift toward the metaverse. Those
concerns have grown as consumer enthusiasm for the virtual world has lagged, the employees said.
The absence of many top executives from Meta’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., is compounding worries.
Mr. Zuckerberg, 38, is on parental leave after the birth of his third child, three Meta employees said, but is
regularly meeting with executives on important topics. (A.I. is at the top of that list.)
Even though Mr. Zuckerberg has encouraged rank-and-file employees to return to the company’s headquarters,
several of his top lieutenants have moved away.
Naomi Gleit, one of Meta’s first employees and now head of product, recently moved to New York, joining three
other senior Meta managers and executives based there. Guy Rosen, Meta’s chief information security officer,
moved back to Tel Aviv, where he lived when his company, Onavo, was acquired. Adam Mosseri, the head of
Instagram, is living in London. And Javier Olivan, Meta’s chief operating officer, is splitting his time between
Europe and Silicon Valley.
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While the executives have been joining Meta’s weekly meetings through video chats, their absence from the
Menlo Park offices has been felt, employees said, especially since Mr. Zuckerberg recently stressed that he
expected employees to return to the office.
A spokesman for Meta said its executives continued to travel regularly to the Silicon Valley offices.
Within Meta, there is pressure to demonstrate that people are working hard, two employees said. Intense scrutiny
has come in recent workplace reviews. Workers, especially in middle management, are being asked to justify why
their jobs are crucial to Meta’s goals.
Some employees are trying to make themselves look busier, two people said. That has made people more
possessive about their work, the people said, which has meant less collaborating with co-workers. One person
described the atmosphere as “cutthroat.”
Meta declined to comment on internal matters.
While the first two rounds of layoffs largely affected business and recruiting teams, the cuts expected this month
will focus on tech departments, including engineers, which has surprised employees, said four employees, who
were not authorized to speak to reporters. Insiders expect engineering cuts to hit teams inside WhatsApp,
Instagram and Facebook, they said.
In one of his regular question-and-answer sessions with employees this year, Mr. Zuckerberg said that there was
no “perfect way to do” layoffs, and that he wanted to err on the side of providing more information about
upcoming layoffs as news of the cuts began to leak to the press. The Information previously reported on the
meeting.
Meta employees have created memes and inside jokes about how much time workers have left. In messaging
groups and workplace chats in recent weeks, they have been using skull-and-bones emojis to signal to one
another that they may be part of the layoffs, according to screenshots seen by The Times.
Those remaining have griped about reduced bonuses and perks. One engineer created a bot that would
automatically calculate the loss in the value of Meta stock held by employees, part of their compensation
package.
The cutbacks include trimming Meta’s real estate. The company has terminated leases for offices across the Bay
Area, including space in San Francisco, Fremont, Sunnyvale and Menlo Park, according to two people familiar
with the cuts. In February, the company announced that it would pay to end leases early and cut Meta’s real estate
contracts in some areas.
The company is also cutting back on some of its lavish perks, once considered necessary to attract top talent. Last
year, Meta ended its free laundry service for employees and pushed dinner service later into the evening — a way
to cut down on workers’ loading up free food to take home.
Workers complained in internal chat rooms that the company was cutting back on amenities. One was frustrated
that there was no more cereal in the worker’s office, and that snacks in “micro-kitchens” were not being
restocked as regularly. Many believed that cafeteria options had gone downhill.
Employee travel expenses are also being scrutinized more closely, and workers have been asked to cut down on
nonessential travel.
At WhatsApp, Meta’s popular messaging product, insiders are anticipating fewer cuts and structural changes on
the business side than in the rest of the company, two current employees said. Mr. Zuckerberg wants to increase
the cadence of delivering new, revenue-generating features in WhatsApp, which he bought nine years ago for $19
billion.
While employees complain they aren’t hearing enough from Mr. Zuckerberg, he still surprised some this year
when he dropped into a discussion group for Metamates, the name given to employees.
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Workers were gossiping about a recent news article that noted Sergey Brin and Larry Page’s return to Google to
assist with the company’s artificial intelligence strategy, two employees who witnessed the exchange said. One
worker joked how the founders’ return might inspire Mr. Zuckerberg to get back to coding at Facebook.
Later, Mr. Zuckerberg replied to the employees, who didn’t know he was lurking in the discussion.
“I never left,” he wrote.
B. Mind-map or outline:
Create a mind-map or an outline that summarizes the article. (Length: No more than ONE A4 paper)
Teacher may provide the class with samples of mind map or outline.
C. Answer the following Critical Reading Questions about the article and explain your answers:
FIVE SETS OF CRITICAL QUESTIONS
1. Question Set 1:
- Where was this text published? (in a peer- reviewed academic journal or a non-academic source?)
- When was this text published? Is the text up-to-date or outdated?
YOUR ANSWERS with explanation:
2. Question Set 2:
- Who is the author of the reading text? What are his/her credentials, profession and educational
background?
- Is the text biased or objective? (Does it present one-sided arguments or a balanced view?)
YOUR ANSWERS with explanation:
3. Question Set 3:
- Who was the text written for? (general audience or academic audience?)
- Why did the author write the text? (to contribute knowledge about the topic, to convince/ entertain/
warn the audience, to give advice, advertise a product/service, or report information?)
YOUR ANSWERS with explanation:
4. Question Set 4:
Does the author present or imply his/her opinion about the topic in the text? What is his or her opinion?
Does the text present a convincing argument or reliable information about its topic? (Briefly explain why
it is convincing/ reliable, or why not).
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YOUR ANSWERS with explanation:
5. Question Set 5:
Has the author done empirical research about the topic? (YES or NO?)
a) If “YES”, answer the following questions:
What are the major research results/ findings? What is the author’s conclusion? Are charts and graphs
used in text?
b) If “NO”, answer the following questions:
Do the author use such types of evidence as anecdotes, visual items, statistics, quotations to support
his/her points? Is the evidence convincing and effectively used?
If there is no evidence, how are the author’s points supported?
YOUR ANSWERS with explanation:
TASK 2 (60%) – CRITICAL REVIEW (submitted in Lesson 9)
(The whole project is submitted in Lesson 11)
ESPD - Critical Reading Term 3
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