INTRODUCTION
Statement of the problem
English has nowadays become the language of international communication As Phillipson points out,
English has a dominant position in science, technology, medicine, and computers; in research, books, periodicals, and software; in transnational business, trade, shipping, and aviation; in diplomacy and international organizations; in mass media entertainment, news agencies, and journalism; in youth culture and sport; in education system, as the most widely learnt foreign language
Therefore, students have more opportunities to build up their knowledge by reading a variety of materials in English Also, they have more chances to perform qualified work abroad Obviously, in order to do these activities, students need to have certain knowledge of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) vocabulary related to their subjects or fields This ESP vocabulary will help them adjust to their working environment and meet requirements of their future jobs
Vocabulary is an inseparable part of any teaching syllabus However, “Teaching vocabulary especially in ESP course is becoming a challenge for English Language
Teachers” (Xhaferi, 2010: 231) Working as ESP teachers at Hanoi College of Economics and Technology (HCET), my colleagues and I face many difficulties in teaching ESP vocabulary, such as lack of specialized knowledge and terminologies
Also, learning ESP vocabulary is a very difficult task for our second-year students of Accounting They have limited knowledge of vocabulary and English grammar
They do not actively study new words and build up their vocabulary Their poor vocabulary results in their bad results each term
Realising above problems, the teachers of English of HCET want to do something to change the ways of teaching and learning vocabulary in order to improve the students’ learning effectiveness to help them succeed in their future jobs Therefore,
I have decided to conduct a research to find out main difficulties in teaching and learning English vocabulary of accounting at HCET Then, I would like to suggest some solutions to overcome these difficulties.
Aims of the study
to teaching and learning ESP vocabulary.
Research questions
1 What difficulties do HCET’s teachers have in teaching ESP vocabulary?
2 What major difficulties do accounting students face in learning ESP vocabulary at HCET?
3 What are solutions to improving Accounting English vocabulary teaching and learning at HCET?
Scope of the study
The study has limited itself to the investigation of difficulties in teaching and learning ESP vocabulary in the course book “English for Finance” for the students who major in Accounting at Hanoi College of Economics and Technology The suggested solutions are also provided to help improve teaching and learning of ESP vocabulary at HCET.
Design of the study
Part one is the Introduction of the study, which states the problem, the research questions, aims, scope, methods and the design of the whole paper
Part two is the Development, which consists of three chapters Chapter one presents the theoretical background related to the topic Chapter two describes the context and the methodology of the study in detail Chapter three includes data analysis, findings and suggested solutions for better teaching and learning ESP vocabulary at HCET
Part three is the Conclusion, which summarizes major findings of the investigation, provides suggested solutions, limitations and suggestions for further studies.
DEVELOPMENT
LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, the author addresses some theoretical issues, such as overview of ESP, ESP vocabulary, teaching and learning ESP vocabulary, roles of ESP teachers and difficulties in teaching ESP vocabulary
1.1 Overview of ESP 1.1.1 Definition of ESP
ESP, which stands for “English for Specific Purposes”, has become an essential part in “the Teaching of English as a Foreign or Second Language movement” (Howatt,
1984 cited in Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998: 1) To understand the term ESP correctly, we will ponder on certain following clarifications There have been a lot of attempts to define ESP
Hutchinson and Waters (1987:19) define ESP as “…an approach to language teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based on the learners’ reason for learning” They confirm that ESP must be seen as an approach not as a product ESP is neither a particular kind of language or methodology, nor includes a particular type of teaching material Teaching ESP does not mean teaching a special form of the language It is an approach to language teaching, which is based on specific and apparent learners’ needs and interests
Strevens (1988: 1) states: “ESP is a particular cause of the general category of special purpose language teaching" Robinson’s definition of ESP (1991: 3) is based on two criteria: 1) ESP is normally ‘goal-directed’, and 2) ESP courses develop from a needs analysis which aims to specify what exactly it is that students have to do through the medium of English, and a number of characteristics which explain that ESP courses are generally constrained by a “limited time period” in which their objectives have to be achieved and are taught to “adults” in
“homogenous classes” in terms of the work or specialist studies that students are involved in (cited in Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998: 3)
Munby (1978: 2) says that ESP courses are those of which the syllabus and materials must be designed and determined on the base of the prior analysis of the communication needs of the learner Learners usually have different needs and interests, which would have an important influence on their motivation and attitude to learn
The above definitions stated at different time periods by different authors obviously show that the growth of ESP is a combination of the expansion of demand for English to suit particular needs and developments in the fields of linguistics and educational psychology (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987:19) In other words, any ESP course must be based on learners’ needs
There are many types of ESP, which are classified in different ways Traditionally, ESP can be divided into two main groups according to when they take place:
English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) Robinson (1991) shows the distinction between these two areas in the following tree diagram
Figure 1: ESP Classification by experience
(Robinson, 1991, cited in Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998:6)
Pre-experience Simultaneous/ in- service Post-experience
As a school subject For study in a specific discipline
Kennedy and Bolitho define the two types of ESP:
English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) is taught in a situation in which learners need to use English as a part of their work or profession Meanwhile, English for Academic Purposes (EAP) is taught generally within educational institutions to students needing English in their studies
From the above diagram, we can see that the ESP course depends on whether it can be classified as EOP or EAP This division of ESP is vital because “they will affect the degree of specificity that is appropriate to the course” (Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998:6) However, Hutchinson and Water (1987: 16) do note that it is not “a clear-cut distinction” because people can work and study at the same time, “it is also likely that in many cases the language learnt for immediate use in a study environment will be used later when the student takes up, or returns a job".
In “the Tree of ELT” (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987:16), ESP is broken down into three branches: English for Science and Technology (EST), English for Business and Economics (EBE), and English for Social Studies (ESS) Each of these subject areas is further divided into two sub-branches: English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) An example of EOP for the EBE branch is “English for Secretaries” whereas an example of EAP for the EBE branch is “English for Economics”
Figure 2: Types of ESP (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987: 16)
Another division of ESP divides EAP and EOP according to “discipline or professional area” in the following way:
Figure 3: ESP Classification by professional area (Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998:6)
From figure 3, it is obvious that ESP which is taught to students majoring in Accounting at Hanoi College of Economics and Technology belongs to English for Management Finance and Economics and it is a type of English for Academic Purposes
In brief, various types of ESP are like an overall picture to help ESP teachers choose teaching materials and classroom activities, design or/and adapt an appropriate ESP course for their target students
Strevens (1988) makes a distinction between four “absolute characteristics” and two “variable characteristics” of ESP He distinguishes two kinds of characteristics
English for Occupational Purposes English for Academic Purposes
English For (Academic) Medical Purposes
English For (Academic) Legal Purposes
English For Management Finance and Economics
- ESP is designed to meet specified needs of the learners;
- ESP is related in content (that is in its themes and topics) to particular disciplines, semantics, occupations and activities;
- ESP is centred on the language appropriate to those activities in syntax, lexis, discourse, semantics and so on, and analysis of the discourse;
- ESP is in contrast with “General English”
- ESP may be restricted as to the learning skills to be learned (for example reading only);
- ESP may not be taught according to any pre-ordained methodology
(cited in Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998: 3)
Then, ten years later, Dudley-Evans and St John (1998: 4-5) identified ESP with three absolute characteristics and four variable characteristics
- ESP is designed to meet specific needs of learners;
- ESP makes use of the underlying methodology and activities of the disciplines it serves;
- ESP is centered on the language (grammar, lexis, and register), skills, discourse and genres appropriate to these activities
- ESP may be related to or designed for specific disciplines;
- ESP may use, in specific teaching situations, a different methodology from that of general English;
- ESP is likely to be designed for adult learners, either at tertiary level institution or in a professional work situation IT could, however, be used for learners at secondary school levels;
- ESP is generally designed for intermediate or advanced students Most ESP courses assume basic knowledge of the language system, but it can be used with beginners
Thus, the absolute and variable characteristics of ESP determine what ESP is and what ESP is not ESP should be seen as simple as an “approach” to teaching, based on the analysis of learners’ needs and their own personal knowledge of using English for real communication
1.2 ESP vocabulary 1.2.1 Definition of ESP vocabulary
Vocabulary is the words we teach in the foreign language However, a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single word: a compound of two or three words or multi-word idioms
In other words, vocabulary is the total number of all the words that a language possesses, including a single word or multi-word idioms whose meaning can be understood in the sentence, or in the context
English vocabulary, in general, includes grammatical words, basic lexical words and auxiliaries In addition, “special lexical items appear in most professions, and every field has special vocabulary to cover abstract concepts” (Hatch and Brown, 1995: 312) Nation (2001: 198) defines ESP vocabulary as a word or a group of words used as a special lexical unit in a specific field with specific meaning to the field
Linguists have come up with various definitions of terminology In Longman
Dictionary of Applied Linguistics (1985: 290), terminology is defined as “the special lexical which occur in a particular discipline” Cabré (1999) insists:
METHODOLOGY
This chapter describes in detail the context and the method of the study The context is a description of the course book; the students and their background; the teachers and teaching method In the method of the study, research questions, participants, data collection instruments, data collection procedure, data analysis are also presented
2.1 Context of the study 2.1.1 Course book
English is a compulsory subject for students of all departments at HCET The English course is composed of two parts: General English (GE) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) The GE is taught in the first two terms with the course book “New Headway” by Liz and John Soars, Oxford University Express, 2011 In this part, the major aims are to develop students’ basic communicative skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing The GE also a stepping-stone for students to proceed the ESP course
The ESP course is introduced in the third term with the aim to provide students with a number of technical terms and develop students’ reading comprehension and translation so that they are able to use English for their study and future careers, such as reading books and materials related to their major The course book chosen for students of Accounting Faculty at HCET is “English for Finance” This course book is written by teachers of the English Faculty of Academy of Finance (AOF) for the second-year non-English-major students and published by the Finance Publishing House It consists of 42 units and it is also included in the curriculum of teaching and learning English at AOF
There are different topics discussed in this course book, such as economics, money and banking, finance, accounting and auditing, financial analysis, marketing and international business Each unit includes 5 parts: The reading text, comprehension questions, language focus, word study and vocabulary In part I, the reading texts contain from 300 to 500 words on particular financial topics These texts often deal with the conceptions of the topics For example, the first unit is about economics including: What economics is, what the fields and subfields of economics are Part
II, which has from 5 to 10 questions related to the reading text, is designed to help students understand the content of the text Part III, Language focus, presents grammar issues in both theory and practice Part IV and part V are about vocabulary Part IV focuses on vocabulary practice exercises which has a variety of exercises such as: blank-filling, matching, finding the opposites, word-formation, etc These ones help students revise the content and vocabulary as well Part V, which is designed at the end of each unit, is a list of vocabulary items and their explanations in English and then meanings in Vietnamese
The syllabus consists of 60 periods of 45 minutes and is delivered within 10 weeks in the third term, covering 20 first units The teachers and the students meet twice a week, each time for three-45 minutes periods From my own experience and other teachers’ ideas, the topics mentioned in this course book are interesting and practical However, the number of exercises is limited and language skills like listening, speaking and writing are not covered in this course book Therefore, it cannot help students improve their listening, speaking, or writing except for reading comprehension
In fact, there are five second-year Accounting-major classes with students aged from 19 to 23 Most of them have finished three-year or seven-year English curriculum at secondary and high schools before entering HCET
However, in terms of English proficiency, there is no much difference between groups of students in each class Most are at the elementary level Moreover, the learning style of the students at HCET is quite dependent on the teachers In other words, they are really “passive” in learning Most of them experienced the traditional method of English teaching, the “Grammar-translation method”, at high schools, which emphasizes the learning of the grammar rules of the language, not the acquisition of language skills Their vocabulary learning methods are quite traditional such as using a wordlist or writing a word many times to remember it
English teachers have been working at the English Faculty at HCET, aged from 28 to 55 All of them graduated from universities of foreign languages such as University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University and Hanoi University Most of them have got their Master degrees in Vietnam Two teachers are taking MA courses at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University All of them have classes in GE and ESP
None of them, however, has been trained in teaching ESP Therefore, they are facing many difficulties in teaching ESP such as lack of the specialized knowledge, the choice of appropriate teaching materials and methodologies seem to be major concerns
The common method of ESP teaching is the traditional teacher-centered one In classes, teachers play a key role and speak most of the time They explain new words, new structures and even translate the text For most teachers, teaching vocabulary involves writing new words on the board, giving Vietnamese meanings, getting the class to repeat words in chorus, asking some of the students to read words aloud and make sentences with each word Meanwhile, the students often listen and take notes passively They raise questions only when they do not know Vietnamese meanings of new words or new structures It is apparent that student- centered approach has not been widely used in teaching English at HCET
As a result, the vocabulary activities are not interesting and motivating enough and students’ vocabulary competence is not improved We should apply more appropriate teaching techniques to improve the situation of teaching ESP vocabulary at HCET
This study is conducted with the participation of 6 out of 7 teachers of English, including 3 teachers who are teaching Accounting English and 50 second-year students from Faculty of Accounting at HCET These 6 teachers of English are chosen for the investigation as all of them have been teaching ESP and have at least 3 years’ experience in teaching ESP They are 5 females and 1 male The reason for choosing these 50 students is that only the second-year students can learn ESP after they finish GE course in the first year They are randomly chosen from five accounting classes at HCET, aged from 19 to 23 Most of them are female
The number of participants is limited but in comparison with the total of 7 teachers who are responsible for teaching English at HCET, it is not small at all
Furthermore, 50 students are considered representatives for others because the level of students in all these five classes is not much different
In order to collect information for the study, the researcher uses survey questionnaires for both teachers and students and informal interviews for the teachers
According to Wisker (2001: 147), questionnaires are used to gather information directly by asking people questions and using them as data for analysis They are often used to collect information about attitudes, behaviours, activities, and responses to events This method is chosen because it is easy to construct, extremely versatile and uniquely capable of gathering a huge amount of information in a short time (Dornyei, 2003: 9) To gain the data for the research, 2 questionnaires have been administered to the respondents One has been designed for the teachers and the other for the students The question items are both close-ended and open-ended so that the respondents have been able to give adequate answers The questions are asked in order to find out challenges encountered by teachers and students in their teaching and learning ESP vocabulary and their suggestions to overcome these difficulties
Questionnaire for Teachers: The questionnaire designed for the teachers consists of seven questions It aims at investigating the teachers’ attitude, perceptions of teaching ESP vocabulary; challenges for their second-year students; their methods and techniques in teaching ESP vocabulary and their suggestions to improve ESP vocabulary teaching The questionnaire is written in English is provided in appendix 1
DATA ANALYSIS, MAJOR FINDINGS AND SUGGESTED
This part deals with the results from the questionnaires to the teachers and the students and from informal interviews with teachers The findings from these results will lead to the suggested solutions to make improvement for teaching and learning ESP vocabulary
The data from questionnaires were analyzed by means of both quantitative and qualitative statistics The raw data were transformed and illustrated in tables and charts for easy understanding and comparison
Question 1: What are your purposes of teaching ESP vocabulary?
To help students read specialized materials 2 33.3
To help students enrich their vocabulary with technical terms
To help students communicate with foreigners about specialized matters
To help students pass the exam 5 83.3
Table 1: The purposes of teaching ESP vocabulary
The answers to this question indicate that a great number of teachers (83.3%) pay attention to ESP vocabulary teaching in the hope of helping their students pass the exam Besides, 60% of them want to build up their students’ vocabulary because they highly appropriate the importance of vocabulary The minority of the teachers teach vocabulary with the purpose of helping students communicate with foreigners about specialized topics respectively) It can be referred that the teac goal when they help the students pass the exam As a result, the students may most vocabulary items they have learnt after a short time.
Question 2: What do you think about teaching ESP vocabulary in the course book “English for Finance”?
Chart 1: Teachers’ attitudes towards teaching ESP
From the findings in chart ESP vocabulary as a difficult teachers consider teaching ESP vocabulary a very difficult one shows that it is not very difficult to teach ESP vocabulary However, nobody is to confirm that teaching ESP vocabulary is not difficult at all.
16.7% topics and read specialized materials (16.6% and 33.3%
It can be referred that the teachers just pay attention to the the students pass the exam As a result, the students may most vocabulary items they have learnt after a short time
What do you think about teaching ESP vocabulary in the course for Finance”?
Teachers’ attitudes towards teaching ESP vocabulary in the course book chart 1, we can see that most of the teachers evaluate teaching difficult task, which account for 66.6% Besides, 16.7 teaching ESP vocabulary a very difficult one The same figure not very difficult to teach ESP vocabulary However, nobody is to confirm that teaching ESP vocabulary is not difficult at all
Very difficult Difficult Not very difficult Not difficult at all and read specialized materials (16.6% and 33.3% tion to the short-term the students pass the exam As a result, the students may forget
What do you think about teaching ESP vocabulary in the course vocabulary in the course book evaluate teaching Besides, 16.7% of the The same figure not very difficult to teach ESP vocabulary However, nobody is sure
Not very difficultNot difficult at all
Question 3: What do you think of students’ learning ESP vocabulary?
When being asked this question, students must remember too much vocabulary in one class teachers remark that their students cannot remember laziness Meanwhile, most of the teachers (83.3%) complain that their students do not have enough background know matter, when being interviewed students do not seem to review answers in class Teacher
At the beginning of my lesson, I often ask my students to explain or give the definitions of what I am going to teach their understanding I realize that most of them cannot although they have approached their majors do not have specialized
Question 4: What are your difficulties in teaching ESP vocabulary?
A B do you think of students’ learning ESP vocabulary?
2: Teachers’ evaluation about students’ learning ESP vocabulary
When being asked this question, only 33.3% of the teachers answer students must remember too much vocabulary in one class Besides, 66.6% of the teachers remark that their students cannot remember vocabulary because of their
Meanwhile, most of the teachers (83.3%) complain that their students do not have enough background knowledge to understand terms Regarding to this hen being interviewed, three teachers have the same idea that to review their vocabulary at home and copy their classmates’ eacher 2 (T2) added:
At the beginning of my lesson, I often ask my students to explain or give the definitions of what I am going to teach in Vietnamese with the aim of checking their understanding I realize that most of them cannot answer my questions although they have approached their majors in Vietnamese It is apparent that they do not have specialized knowledge to understand the terms
Question 4: What are your difficulties in teaching ESP vocabulary?
A They are too lazy to learn vocabulary
B They do not have enough knowledge to understand terminologies
C They must remember too much vocabulary in one class do you think of students’ learning ESP vocabulary? n about students’ learning ESP vocabulary only 33.3% of the teachers answer that their
Besides, 66.6% of the vocabulary because of their Meanwhile, most of the teachers (83.3%) complain that their students do
Regarding to this three teachers have the same idea that most of their their vocabulary at home and copy their classmates’
At the beginning of my lesson, I often ask my students to explain or give the with the aim of checking answer my questions clearly It is apparent that they
Question 4: What are your difficulties in teaching ESP vocabulary?
A They are too lazy to learn vocabulary
B They do not have enough background knowledge to understand terminologies
C They must remember too much vocabulary
Chart 3: Teachers’ difficulties in teaching ESP vocabulary
As we can see from the figure been officially trained knowledge of the subject they are responsible for teaching
I myself have to improve information on the Internet or discuss with the subject my deeply understanding
Accordingly, there exists a gap of content knowledge or in other words, it is a major concern of ESP teachers (83.3%).
Additionally, 66.6% of the teachers stated that they have difficulties in finding Vietnamese equivalents because not all ESP words and terminologies have equivalents in Vietnamese mention another obstacle is that the students in each class are too crowded The large-size classes make i vocabulary and create more activities for students to practice new words teachers have many difficulties in controlling all the students in such crowded classes Teacher 1 (T1 )mentioned:
There are so many students in one class Noise and competence make me confused to choose an appropriate method to teach
: Teachers’ difficulties in teaching ESP vocabulary the figures above, all the teachers of ESP at HCET trained to become ESP teachers nor provided with specialized knowledge of the subject they are responsible for teaching When being asked, to improve my specialized knowledge by searching economic information on the Internet or discuss with the subject teachers during the break deeply understanding
Accordingly, there exists a gap of content knowledge or in other words, it is a major of ESP teachers (83.3%)