Rationale
In the article “Today‟s students‟ gaps in English for specific purposes” on the Labor newspaper, the director of Petech Corporation said that a number of today‟s young employees were not good at English for specific purposes and they were unable to get promoted in their jobs He mentioned inappropriate trainings in ESP as the main reason for the fact that lots of them were unable to read English specialized documents, or to translate their transaction documents from Vietnamese to English and vice versa, causing backwardness in their jobs In another article (Mạnh Trường, 2014), the manager of human resources of Panasonic System Networks Vietnam Company stated that knowledge of ESP was a great barrier of many Vietnamese graduated students in career promotion, especially at enterprises with foreign direct investment
The mentioned above facts raise out a question for educational institutions and educators that whether or not the ESP training programs they offer are suitable for their students and manage to skill them up to today‟s increasingly demanding employment requirements More importantly, as cited by Dudley-Evans and St John (1998: 13), it is really necessary for ESP practitioners to follow up with their students after the course in order to assess whether the students have been able to make use of what they learned and to find out what they were not prepared for
Since the establishment of HHT University‟s Faculty of English Language in 2007, the faculty‟s teaching staff has compiled some ESP coursebooks, including one for Financial Accounting, as materials for the ESP teaching and learning at the university The ESP coursebook for the 2 nd year students of Financial Accounting was brought into use in
2009 with the aims of providing the students with English vocabulary relevant to their major and skills marketable for their future employment However, whether or not the cousebook is suitable to the course syllabus is still of a great concern by the university‟s management board and ESP teachers This study on the ESP coursebook evaluation is therefore an effort to help them deal with this concern.
Aims of the study
The study aims to assess how suitable is the coursebook “English for Finance”
(Cao Xuân Thiều, 2008) used for the second year students of financial accounting at Hà
Hoa Tiên University to the course‟ objectives in terms of aims, contents, and methodology
It also aims to offer some recommendations for further improvements of the coursebook seeking for subsequent uses for in-coming courses at the university After all, it is carried out in an attempt to help the university‟s management board to deal with its common concern about how well its university‟s students of financial accounting have been prepared for their future employment with the ESP and whether or not they can use what they have learned from the course.
Scope of the study
There are many criteria to be taken into consideration when evaluating the coursebook, such as audience, physical appearance, needs, and so on However, the study only focuses on a summative evaluation on the suitability of the coursebook‟s aims, contents, and methodology to the course‟s objectives.
Research question
This study is going to deal with the university‟s common concern about if the university‟s graduated students of financial accounting are able to use what they have learned with the ESP course and what they have been not prepared for Thus, the research question to be answered is: “How suitable is the ESP coursebook for the 2 nd year students of Financial Accounting at Hà Hoa Tiên University to the course‟s objectives in terms of aims, contents, and methodology?”.
Research method
The study follows a survey research approach The research question was addressed by using both quantitative and qualitative data A survey questionnaire was used to collect the needed data, and aimed at exploring the opinions and attitudes of the on-studying students and graduate ones Besides, informal interview questions with the three ESP teachers were also used for better understanding of the participants, as well as their learning condition.
Significance of the study
The results of this study will benefit the students, the ESP teachers, then the university administrators This study is significant because it will provide valuable facts about the students and teachers‟ needs, attitude and opinions over the in-use ESP material
The ESP teachers will better understand the difficulties and strength in using the material thereby reconstructing their lessons, in terms of aims, contents, and methodology, to obtain the course‟s objectives and to well prepare the students for their future jobs
This study will serve as the basis for future plans of action by the university administrators with regards to the necessary actions for any investments in ESP teaching materials Furthermore, it will join a common effort in providing stimuli for further studies of the same nature.
Design of the study
The study encompasses three parts as following:
- Part A, Introduction, provides information on the rationale, aims, scope, research question, methods, significance and design of the study
- Part B, Development, is comprised of three major chapters i) Chapter 1, Literature Review, provides theories related to ESP coursebook evaluation and material adaptation ii) Chapter 2, Research Methodology, represents the context of the study, the participants, data collection instruments, data collection procedure, and data analysis procedure iii) Chapter 3, Data Analysis and Discussions, presents the subjective analysis on the course‟s objectives, collected data analysis on the coursebook evaluation, and discusses the findings that arise from the data, then it presents some recommendations for material improvement
- Part C, Conclusion, presents major findings, limitation of the study, and suggestion for further studies.
LITERATURE REVIEW
ESP course evaluation
According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 152), the ESP course, like any course, should be regularly demonstrated that its continued existence in its present form is justified Since the ESP course exists to satisfy a particular educational need, evaluation helps to show how well the course is actually fulfilling the need There are four main aspects of ESP course evaluation (Alderson and Waters, 1983) and one more added by Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 96) to be considered as below
1.1.1 What is meant by evaluation?
The term “evaluation” is introduced by Dudley-Evans and St John to refer to “the process of establishing the effectiveness” (1998: 121) They put that “fundamentally evaluation is asking questions and acting on the responses” (1998: 128) More specific than these linguists‟ definition, Hutchinson and Waters‟ one is concerned with “matching needs to available solution” (1987: 97) Evaluation, in this sense, is basically a matching process which should be done as objectively as possible In Brown‟s words (1989: 231), coursebook evaluation is to systematically collect and analyze all relevant information for the purpose of later improving a curriculum It also concerns with a necessary assessment regarding to the curriculum‟s effectiveness and efficiency, as well as the participants‟ attitudes within the context
From the above definitions, evaluation can be understood as a systematic process of considering whether the content, the language area, and the methodology of the coursebook are appropriate and useful to the learners, whether what they want and need is likely maximized, and whether the goals of the course are matched Thus, it is indeed important to take the ESP teachers and learns‟ opinions into account, not only the objectives sated in the coursebook
1.1.2 Why should the evaluation be carried out?
There are a number of reasons for conducting coursebook evaluation Sheldon (1988: 237-246) has suggested several reasons for it The author states that the selection of a textbook is indicator of an educational decision in which there is considerable professional, financial, and even political investment Sheldon further argues that through evaluation, teachers will become familiar with the content of available coursebooks and recognize the weakness and strengths of them Ellis (1997: 36-42) cited that one reason for evaluating teaching materials is to make a choice of the most suitable material among the available ones before for the courses takes place The author also mentioned another reason that evaluation is carried out to decide whether to continue using the material or to replace it with a better one after it has been used for a period of time
It can not be denied that the coursebook evaluation is an exceedingly complex activity It is really important to the class-room teachers, supervisors and administrators in directing as well as guiding teaching and learning Evaluation also helps to measure the validity and reliability of teaching techniques, aids in devising more effective instructional materials, and helps teacher to discover the needs of students It stimulates students to study and is helpful to teachers indeed
1.1.3 When should the evaluation be occurred?
The evaluation can be taken place before an ESP course begins, or while the course is ongoing, or at the end of the course According to Robinson (1991: 59), before an ESP course begins, the evaluation is namely preliminary evaluation Having much in common with Robinson‟s viewpoint, McGrath (2002: 14-15) defines the evaluation at the beginning of ESP course as pre-use evaluation According to him, pre-use evaluation is to examine the future or potential performance of a textbook
McGrath names the evaluation during the ongoing course as in-use evaluation which is designed to examine the currently used textbook (2002: 15) The evaluation at this stage is termed formative evaluation by Robinson (1991: 58) The term is also reintroduced by Dudley-Evans and St John (1998: 128), and they further argue that it consists of a series of mini-evaluations and helps to make necessary modifications to the course including materials and books
Sharing Robinson‟s viewpoint, they differentiate the formative evaluation from summative evaluation which takes place at the end of the course or when the course is finished in a sense that the summative one is used to measure the usefulness of the course and make improvement in subsequent versions of the course or materials Terming the evaluation post-use evaluation, Ellis (1997: 36-42) also puts that the evaluation of this type helps to decide how to improve the given textbook for subsequent use Generally speaking, in their argument, the evaluation is said to be valuable for durable course
1.1.4 How can the evaluation be carried out?
Ellis (1997: 41) advocates that evaluation should be taken place on empirical basis
It can be of benefit to teachers if they involve themselves in formalizing the procedures used to carry out micro-evaluation as they must go beyond impressionistic assessments
Recently, Chambers (1997: 32-33) also looks at the evaluation on an empirical basis He cites that it deserves mention as it attempts to be time-conscious and concise in its lay-out
However, Sheldon (1988: 241-245) provides the evaluator with more concise
“common-core factors” for choosing and evaluating texts The coverage includes very practically-based criteria such as “guidance” (how teachers and students should use the material) and “flexibility” (does the material require the teacher to do too much preparation?) Such inclusion of even visual and financial criteria would be of direct relevance to many evaluators Rational use of checklist as a way to evaluate ESP courses is also advocated by Hutchinson and Water (1987: 99-104) Their checklist is not exhaustive in comparison with Sheldon‟s one, allowing evaluators to find other criteria which they feel are important They also introduce four steps of materials evaluation, including defining criteria, subjective analysis, objective analysis, and matching (1987: 97) As suggested by them, evaluation criteria should be set out in a form which will make it easy to compare different sets of materials, and the subjective analysis is seen as a fixed set of requirements
In theory, there are many ways in which the ESP course can be evaluated, ranging from stimulations to suggestion boxes (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987: 153) However, according to Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 153-154) in practice, most ESP courses are evaluated using one or more of such techniques as test results, questionnaires, discussions, interviews, informal means (unsolicited comment, causal charts, etc.) Which techniques to be used will depend on what suits teaching situation best
1.1.5 Who should be involved in the evaluation
Chambers (1997: 34) advises that selection and evaluation of materials should be conducted by a “wide range of users” in order to encourage “ownership” of any decision made The extent of involvement of any group will vary, but in practice, it is likely that the bodies most closely concerned will be the ESP teaching institution, the ESP teachers, the learners, and the course sponsors (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987: 154) Hutchinson and Waters put that evaluation will be concerned with people‟s perceptions of value and their views will vary according to their own interests and concerns They all agree that who to be asked and how to ask will affect what to be found out.
Materials, coursebook and textbook
Tomlinson (1998: xi) defines teaching materials as “anything which is used to help teaching language earners” The author adds that materials can be “in the form of a textbook, a workbook, a cassette, a CD-Room, a video, a photocopied handout, a newspaper, a paragraph written on a whiteboard” Both Tomlinson (1998: ix) and
McGrath (2002: 7) consider a coursebook as a textbook which provides the core materials for a course The core materials which are used in teaching are usually paper-based, then coursebook is somehow the core material serving as „source of language‟ and learning support, and used for motivation and reference (Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998: 170-
Materials Adaptation
1.3.1 Definition and principles of materials adaptation
Adaptations are stated as teaching and assessment strategies especially designed to accommodate a student‟s needs so he or she can achieve the learning outcomes of the subject or course and to demonstrate mastery of concepts (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2009: 2) Concerning with determining how to best use an assigned textbook rather than how to best select an appropriate textbook, McGrath (2002: 59) describes the process of adaptation as the „extension or exploitation of the existing material‟ for use in a specific teaching context that has its own unique demands McGrath focuses much more on an exploration of current understanding of the benefits and drawback of textbooks and how to evaluate them with the ultimate goal of adaptation of the textbook for use in a foreign teaching environment
Grant (1987) has listed the following principles for materials adaptation: i) Making dialogues communicative ii) Making learning activities relevant and purposeful iii) Meeting your learners‟ needs, both external and psychological iv) Using models of real, authentic language
In an investigation, Chunmei Yan (2007) states that teachers base their adaptation on four principles, namely to integrate traditional and communicative methods, to cater for students‟ needs, to integrate as multiple language skills as possible, and to meet their own preferences and needs She advocates Grant‟s viewpoint in a sense that materials adaptation should focus on meeting students‟ needs and preferences
Adaptation involves supplementation, that is, teachers add materials from other resources to the textbook they are using It is believed that authentic materials are better than non-authentic materials for supplementation So teachers who make a point of collecting authentic materials find it much easier to adapt textbooks This is especially true in ELT contexts where authentic English materials are not always readily to hand
McDonough and Shaw (1993: 79-89) mention five techniques, including: adding, deleting, modifying, simplifying, and reordering
- By the word “adding”, the author implies that materials are supplemented by putting more into them, while considering the practical effect of time allocation
- Deleting is the opposite process to that of addition This technique includes such activities as subtraction (i.e the quantitative reduction of the content without any methodological changes in the content) and abridgement (i.e influencing both the methodology and the content)
- Modifying includes such steps as rewriting and restructuring Rewriting is utilized when the content of the materials needs modification; whereas, restructuring applies to classroom management
- Simplifying can be utilized for the purpose of adapting language materials As
McDonough and Shaw put it, simplification can be used for such parts of course materials as sentence structure, lexical content, grammatical structure, and so on
- Reordering refers to the possibility of putting the parts of a textbook in a different order This many mean the adjustment of presentation sequence within a unit or taking unit in a different sequence from that originally intended
Maley (1998) also introduces a number of options for a teacher who wants to adapt materials, including omission, addition, reduction, extension, rewriting and modification, replacement, reordering, and branching In practice, language teachers will not use all the techniques for a particular unit of a lesson Instead, techniques can be used individually or in combination with others depending on the teacher‟s decision underlying the adaptation towards particular part of a given teaching material.
Previous studies
It is said that there have been a variety of studies on cousebook evaluation, particularly ESP coursebook evaluation Nemati‟s study published on a journal of language (2009: 91-99) has been introduced as one specialized in a systematic vocabulary evaluation Another study can also be mentioned here, that is a study on a textbook evaluation for the students of speech therapy by Jamshidi (2013) This study aimed to evaluate an ESP textbook in terms of McDonough and Shaw (2003) based on external and internal evaluation This evaluation revealed that the ESP textbook would be appropriate with some modifications and also with some additional materials to meet the needs of the students of computer sciences Differently from Jamshidi, Baleghizadeh and Rahimi
(2013) attempt to describe a process that was undertaken to evaluate the textbook English for the Students of Sociology: Social Science Texts taught at the University of Tehran The purpose of their research project was to determine the overall pedagogical value and suitability of the book toward this specific language program
In Vietnam, there seem to be not many M.A minor theses relevant to evaluation of ESP coursebook of financial accounting From the database of VNU-ULIS, the electronic records of M.A minor theses in 2010 show some typical evaluations of ESP coursebooks for geography engineering (Nguyễn Thị Kiều Giang , 2010), tour guide (Ngô Thi ̣ Mỹ Bình,
2010), and so on , and in 2013 evaluations of ESP coursebooks for marine engine (Lương Thị Minh Thu, 2013), pharmaceutical course (Nguyễn Thi ̣ Thảo, 2013), and economics and business management (Nguyễn Thị Mai Hương , 2013) The common things among these researchers lie in their use of Hutchinson and Water‟s four major steps of evaluation, and their evaluations are summative
There have not been many researchers interested in evaluating ESP coursebook for financial accounting so far In Hà Hoa Tiên University alone , there have not been any evaluation conducted in terms of coursebook in general and ESP coursebook in particular
Therefore, my study on evaluating ESP coursebook for the second year students of Financial Accounting at this university is really in need and plays a significant role.
Chapter summary
Though coursebook evaluation and materials adaptation are understood and presented in different ways by different theorists or linguists, works relevant to coursebook evaluation and materials adaptation introduced so far by them have been found as theoretical framework for any researches in this area Under a summative evaluation approach, the current study was underway basing on Hutchinson and Water‟s four major steps of evaluation For the purpose of the current study, rational use of checklist would be of good choice, one presented by Hutchinson and Water would be adapted.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Context of the study
The study has been taken place in Hà Hoa Tiên (HHT) university, a private university established seven years ago in Hà Nam province The total university population is accounted for 421, with 219 students majoring at financial accounting It has been offering the students of financial accounting a two stage course of ESP as below:
- Stage 1 (semester 3) consists of 45 credit hours of ESP1
- Stage 2 (semester 4) consists of 45 credit hours of ESP2 Accordingly, the ESP is taught to FOFA‟s students in the third and the fourth semesters following 120 credit hours of English for general purposes (EGP) in the first and the second semesters, 60 credit hours of EGP for each The course is compulsory to the students It is to train students with skills in English reading comprehension and translation, enhance their English grammar knowledge, and provide them with English technical vocabulary relevant to economics, finance, banking, accounting, marketing, business administration and so on Finishing the course, the students are expected to be able to read English written documents on financial accounting, translate financial and accounting documents from English to Vietnamese and vice versa, and make transaction documents in English They are hoped to be skillful up to requirements of their future jobs
The coursebook has been kept the same since it was first employed in the university in 2009 Its title is „English for Finance‟ comprising of 42 units which are categorized into six major topics including economics, money and banking, finance, accounting and auditing, financial analysis, and international business Of the 42 units, only twenty units were selected for the ESP course of FOFA‟s the second year students Ten units for the first stage of the course cover the topics of economics, money and baking, including:
Unit 1: Economics Unit 2: Economic system
Unit 3: Microeconomics Unit 4: Macroeconomics Unit 5: Demand and supply Unit 6: Raising money for investment Unit 7: Money and its functions Unit 8: Money and banking Unit 9: Banks and interest rate Unit 10: Banking business Other ten units for the second stage cover the topics of accounting and auditing, financial analysis, and international business, including
Unit 2: The balance sheet Unit 3: Auditing
Unit 4: The roles of auditors Unit 5: Distinction between accounting and auditing Unit 6: Financial analysis
Unit 7: Financial evaluation Unit 8: International business Unit 9: Trade and surplus deficits Unit 10: What is the balance of payment?
Each unit has three main sections, including reading comprehension, language focus, and word study
Types of tasks and exercises in the coursebook are pointed out as following:
- Reading comprehension: answering given questions, multiple choices, true or false
- Language focus: gap filling, sentence completion, sentence transformation, matching, mistake identification
- Word study: sentence completion, matching, gap filling, word formation, multiple choices
Since its establishment in 2009, the faculty‟s teaching of EGP and ESP has been underway by both permanent and non-permanent teaching staffs The permanent teaching staffs cover an estimated 70% of the teaching jobs, and there are about three ESP teachers who are the university‟s permanent staffs and in charge of teaching the second year students of Financial Accounting with ESP courses There has not been a fully equipped lab for teaching English in the university so far Two CD players and the coursebook serve as the main materials of teaching and learning ESP at the university As the coursebook consists of no listening tasks, the two CD players play no role in this case
The participants in the study involve 53 second year students of financial accounting who have just finished their ESP course Their age is ranged from 22 to 23 and they are both male and female Most of these students have been learning English for no less than five years None of them starts learning English after being admitted to the university
The second group of participants encompasses 13 graduate students who have experienced the ESP course at the university and are working as accounting staffs at different companies They are selected at random to participate into the research via email contact
The third group involves three ESP teachers of the university They are from 32 to
35 years old and are female All of them have taught second-year students with the material They have experienced in teaching English for Financial Accounting at least for a year It is noticeable that they are all non-majoring at Financial Accounting Two of them have master degree and one is attending a master course.
Data collection
The research made use of the instruments of questionnaire and informal interviews to collect data
The survey questionnaires were designed to evaluate the ESP coursebook from perceptions of the targeted 53 the second-year students who have just finished the ESP course and 13 graduate students who have ever experienced the ESP course at Hà Hoa Tiên University The survey questionnaires consisted two parts The first was to get the participants‟ personal information The second one contained questions designed in the form of Likert scale type making use of five scales ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree The survey questionnaires seeked to find out the participants‟ opinions toward the coursebook The results from the survey questionnaires were used to assess the fitness of the coursebook to the course‟ objectives in terms of aims, contents, and methodology
These were unstructured interviews which were intentionally free talks with the three ESP teachers seeking for their opinions on the coursebook in terms of aims, contents, and methodology They were conducted based on the teachers‟ agreement about where and when the interviews were convenient for them Their opinions were recorded on an interview report
2.2.2 Data collection procedures 2.2.2.1 For the questionnaire
- Step 1: Designing questionnaires for the students in the form of Liker five rating scale type
- Step 2: Delivering questionnaires to the 2 nd year students after their lessons and the students were requested to complete the questionnaire during the class time; those to the graduate group were sent via email, they were kindly asked to reply within three days
- Step 3: Handling the process of questionnaires‟ fulfillment by the 53 second year students who were gathered in one room, answering their questions, is any, to make sure that the students clearly understood the survey questions, and collecting the papers, 53 ones in total; keeping in touch with the selected 13 participants of graduated group to ensure that the questionnaires would be sent back on due date, and to explain the questions if anyone were in need to make them clear, 13 questionnaires were collected at the end
The interviews were conducted with the three ESP teachers during their relaxing time at their offices Open-ended questions were used to elicit the needed data
The process was divided into three stages, objective analysis, subjective analysis, and the matching
The first stage aimed to subjectively realize the course‟s objectives by looking carefully at the course syllabus itself
The second stage was to objectively evaluate the coursebook from the targeted 2nd- year students, graduate students, and the ESP teachers‟ perceptions It focused on exploring their opinions and attitudes toward the coursebook in terms of aims, contents, and methodology The stage made use of different tables to represent its results
The last stage was to match the results of the stages of objective analysis and subjective analysis basing on one-by-one comparison for the purpose of evaluating the suitability of the coursebook with the course‟s objectives This stage made use of Hutchinson and Waters‟ way of awarding points (1989: 104) as below:
0 = does not match the desired feature
1 = partially match the desired feature
2 = closely match the desired feature
Chapter summary
In brief, the course of ESP for HHT‟s students of financial accounting is divided into two stages with 90 credit hours in total The study involved 69 people, including the second-year and graduate students of financial accounting, and the ESP teachers For the given purposes of evaluating the suitability of the coursebook to the course syllabus, the researcher made use of two important instruments of questionnaire and informal interview to collect the needed data Descriptive strategy and some analysis tools of tables were used to present the results.
DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS
Subjective analysis
This section puts its emphases on subjectively realizing the course‟ objectives by looking carefully at the course syllabus itself; other points included in the course syllabus, like the prerequisites, time allocation, grading plans, tentative schedule, and so on are not introduced, and may need further studies later The course is to:
- Introduce students topics on financial accounting which are closely relevant to their background knowledge and beneficiary for their future career
- Introduce students to typical English concepts, terms relevant to financial accounting, thus enhance their English technical vocabulary
- Introduce students to such certain points of English grammar as as if clause, the passive and active voices, result clauses with so…that… and such…that…, relative clauses, compound nouns, verb tenses (past simple, present perfect), subordinate clauses, the gerunds, use of must/have to, infinitive of purpose, preposition of amount and difference, defining and non-defining relative clauses, adjective modification, and prefixes
- To provide students with opportunities to develop English reading comprehension and translation skill, from English to Vietnamese and vice versa, in respect to financial accounting, thus help them to be able to read and translate English reference documents for updating their knowledge and serving well for their future employments
- To provide students with training in English writing comprehension, then they can make and understand transaction documents in English relevant to their future jobs
- To raise students‟ awareness of the importance of the ESP to their future jobs.
Objective analysis
The collected data shows different opinions among the 53 second year students on the coursebook in terms of aim as can be seen in the following table
Table 1: Statistics on the 2 nd year students’ opinions on the coursebook in terms of aims
Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree
(%) The coursebook enriches your English vocabulary relevant to financial accounting
The coursebook improves your English grammar
The coursebook provides you opportunities to practice English reading comprehension and translation in area of financial accounting
The coursebook helps you to train with English oral communication in area of financial accounting
The coursebook provides you opportunities to practice English writing comprehension skill
From the table, it can be seen that high percentages of 73.58%, 94.34%, and 66.04% were respectively set aside for those who agreed that the coursebook enriches their English vocabulary, provides them opportunities to be trained with English reading comprehension and translation in the area of financial accounting, and improves their English grammar knowledge Likewise, data collected from the survey questionnaire for the graduated students also shows a strong agreement among them with the statement that what they have learned with the ESP, including English reading comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, and translation, are really useful for their works The statistic data is pointed out in the table below:
Table 2: Statistics on the 13 graduated students’ opinions towards the statement 1 (appendix 1)
There were only 7.7% of the graduated students did not think that they get benefited from what they have learned from the ESP course Those who neither agree nor disagree with the statement accounted for 15.38% Most of the graduated students agreed that there is no need for English oral communication in their professional works, accounting for 84.62% in total, as in Table 3.2.1.3 below
Table 3: Statistics on the graduated students’ opinions toward statements 4 and 5 (appendix 1)
Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree
English oral communication in relevant to financial accounting
It is suitable and socially acceptable for the coursebook to focus on English reading comprehension, translation, vocabulary, and
07 53.85 03 23.08 02 15.38 01 7.69 0 0.0 grammar because there is no need for oral communication with your job
As can be seen from the table, 76.93% in total of the students from the graduated group agreed and strongly agreed with the statement that the coursebook‟s emphasis put on English reading comprehension, vocabulary, grammar and translation is socially accepted and suitable to their current job requirements The same statistic data was also collected from the interview with the three ESP teachers The interview‟s reported result (appendix
3) shows that all of them shared the same idea that with the coursebook, their students would be able to comprehensively read English documents relevant to financial accounting, improve their English grammar knowledge, and enrich their English vocabulary in financial accounting
The interview report (appendix 3) also points out that there was only one of them mentioning that the coursebook provides their students opportunities to practice English oral communication And 100% of them mentioned nothing about the idea relating to opportunities for their students to be trained with English writing comprehension
Meanwhile, there were not many graduated students who thought that they have been given many opportunities to train with English writing comprehension from the coursebook The statistic figures are clearly shown in Table 3.2.1.4 as following
Table 4: Statistics on the 13 graduated students’ opinions towards the statement 6 (appendix 1)
Only one from the graduated group, as can be seen from the table above, had opposite idea to the interviewed teachers There was also a strong agreement from the second year students, accounting for 83.02% in total as being shown in Table 3.2.1.1 above, with majority of graduated ones and the interviewed teachers‟ idea relating to this point
In the interview, all three participated teachers had the same idea that their students have been provided with topics closely related to their major (appendix 3) Their point was also advocated by 37 out of 53 students from the un-graduated group, accounting for 69.81% in total The following table shows the details about this
Table 5: Statistics on the 53 second year students’ opinions towards the statement 6 (appendix 2)
From the table, it is seen that only a minority of the second year students, accounting for 13.21%, did not agree with the statement However, the result from the survey questionnaire with the graduated group shows a majority of them seeing that there are still some topics irrelevant to their existing works
Table 6: Statistics on the 13 second year students’ opinions towards the statements 7 and
From the table above, nearly 70% of the students agreed and strongly agreed that most, not all, topics given in the coursebook closely relate to their existing works In addition, more than 84% chose to agree and strongly agree with the statement 8 (appendix
1) These students mentioned such irrelevant topics as marketing, international businesses, financial analysis, economics, investments, and pricing strategies
It is stated by the interviewed teachers that their students found it difficult to answer reading comprehension questions given in the coursebook (interview report, appendix 3) Relating to this point, the 2 nd year students shared their viewpoint as being shown in the following table
Table 7: Statistics on the 2 nd year students’ opinions toward statements 7 and 8 (appendix 2)
Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree
(%) Tasks/Exercises of reading comprehension are boring and monotonous
The reading comprehension questions require much Ss.‟ background knowledge in financial accounting
Nearly 80% of the students thought that there need background knowledge in financial accounting to answer such questions Furthermore, the table shows great number of the students, 90.56% in total, finding the reading comprehension exercises/tasks boring and monotonous Also, the interviewed teachers stated that the students are more motivated with multiple choices and true or false tasks than reading comprehension questions like these (interview report, appendix 3)
The teachers also said their students have not been motivated with grammar and words study‟s tasks as individual works (interview report, appendix 3) Besides, there was a consensus among the students from the un-graduated group with the statement 9 (appendix 2) as can be seen in the table below
Table 8: Statistics on the 53 second year students’ opinions towards the statement 9 (appendix 2)
As can be seen from the table, 33 of the 53 students agreed and strongly agreed that grammar and words study exercises/tasks are diverse and motivating to them 15.09% was entered under the number of those who strongly disagreed with the statement
Evaluating the coursebook in regards with the guidance or language support, the second year students showed their viewpoints as in the table below
Table 9: Statistics on the 2 nd year students’ opinions toward statements 10 and 11 (appendix 2)
Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree
(%) The coursebook provides specific instructions to help
The coursebook provides guidance and suggestion for further study at the end of every part or unit
It is pointed out from the table that there was no one thinking the coursebook provides students guidance and suggestion for further study at the end of every part or unit
Findings and discussions
The matching table (appendix 6) shows the result that the coursebook is only partially suitable to the course‟s objectives in terms of aims, contents, and methodology
3.3.1 Suitability of the coursebook in terms of aims
The course aims at preparing students well in English reading comprehension, writing comprehension, and translation, thus they would be able to make good use of these in their future employment Undeniably, the coursebook was evaluated to provide students majority of training for English reading comprehension and translation However, except grammar exercises for practicing sentence construction, verb tense, etc there was no training with informal or formal writing given in the coursebook, resulting in few opportunities for students to practice English writing Consequently, they would not know clearly how to make transaction documents in English, how to write emails for business transactions, or how to make reports on financial analysis, and so on Students‟ failure of making such documents in their future jobs upon requests from their future bosses might cause them great difficulty in getting promoted in their career For this reason, the coursebook is said to be partially suitable to the course in terms of aims
3.3.2 Suitability of the coursebook in terms of contents
Though the topics included in the coursebook were evaluated to be closely related to the students‟ background knowledge in financial accounting, there are some topics assessed to be irrelevant to their future accounting practice For instance, the reality shows that accounting works have nothing to do with communicating the value of a product or service to customer for the purpose of selling that product or service It is because this process of communication is of marketing works Similarly, setting prices is also said to be out of accountants‟ jobs and responsibility The reason is that in small companies, prices are often set by top management rather than financial accounting department or marketing department; whereas in large companies, pricing is typically handled by divisional and product-line managers Thus, accountants are not in charge of setting prices
From all of these mentioned above, the topics given in the coursebook are concluded to be understandable to the students of financial accounting, but some of them are not practically and directly relevant to their future accounting practice As result, they would get benefited not much from English concepts, terms, or technical words in such topics for current or future needs of reading professional documents, or job requirements of making business transactional documents in English In short, in terms of contents, the coursebook is partially suitable to the course‟ objectives
3.3.3 Suitability of the coursebook in terms of methodology
Generally speaking, it is found out that the coursebook does not closely and well fit the course‟s objectives because of unsuitable types of reading comprehension exercises and task, and the lack of guidance and suggestion for further study and practice
First, referring to the types of exercises and tasks given in the coursebook, the survey results point out that while grammar and words study ones are diverse and motivating to the students, the reading comprehension ones, particularly open-ended reading comprehension questions, are evaluated to be monotonous, boring, and some difficult due to a need of specialized founding knowledge in financial accounting Clearly, the reading comprehension exercises and tasks of this type de-motivate students, resulting in an un-participated learning atmosphere and reducing effectiveness of training students with English reading comprehension skill Thus, the course‟s objective of helping students to be able to read comprehensively English documents in financial accounting would be put at risk of not being obtained
Second, undeniably, the survey results from observation show common interest among the students in team-works and pair works This fact likely proves a great possibility of applying such teaching-learning techniques with exercises and tasks given in the coursebook Such application would contribute effectiveness and efficiency of the ESP training lessons However, the lack of specific guidance on teaching-learning techniques as well as suggestions for further study and practice is said to be not good of the coursebook Such guidance and suggestions are necessary to help students performs tasks more easily and effectively These also help teachers to avoid time-consumed activities in classroom.
Recommendations for the coursebook’s adaptation
Generally speaking, the coucrsebook fits the course‟ objectives in these points, but not in some others Adaptation will be a powerful technique to make the lessons more interesting and motivating to the students Based on what were found out as mentioned in the section 3.3, some recommendations for the coursebook‟s adaptation are given out as below
Beside English reading comprehension, technical words, and grammar, the coursebook should also aims to provide the students with English writing comprehension
As non-English major students, the students should at least get acquainted with some types of formal and informal writing relating to their field of financial accounting Thus, they could come up with making some types of documents specialized in this area
3.4.2 In terms of contents Adding
It can be seen as the foremost adapting technique to make it more suitable with the students‟ needs It is to be done to provide the students with training in English writing comprehension, for the coursebook lacks this part, and more in translation, for it provides little translation training For instance, English writing comprehension and translation parts can be added to unit 1 - Economics (ESP stage 1) as being shown in sample 1 (appendix 4)
By doing so, the students will be provided more chances to be trained with English writing comprehension and translation
The 20 units of the English for finance for the second year students cover only seven major topics of economics, money, banking, accounting, auditing, financial analysis, and international businesses The units of the same major topic can be replaced by others of different topics Take the series of units for the first stage of the ESP course for example Of the five units about economics, and economic system, the unit 2 – Economic systems can be replaced with another about taxation, the unit 5 – Demand and supply with another about insurance Similarly, such other topics as marketing, stock market, labor, investment, inflation, and so on can be used to replace some units specialized on the same topics The replacement will make the ESP course of stage 1 less monotonous and provide the students chances to increase their knowledge of the subject
To fill the gap between the coursebook and the students‟ need of the course more specialized on their major and future career, finance and accounting, supplementing is to be a good choice This technique will be used efficiently with the ESP course of stage 2
For example, some short readings texts shown in samples 2 and 3 (appendix 4) can supplement the reading texts of units 1 – What is accounting? These are for further reading or optional reading By doing so, the students will be offered more practice with reading comprehension, and get out of boredness with monotonous and uninteresting topics
This is the best choice to help the coursebook more suitable with the students‟ needs in terms of organization of contents throughout the course The contents will be reordered in accordance with the ascendance of topic popularity, reading text length, and exercise/task complexity Furthermore, the students‟ interest can also be a basis for reordering the contents in a way that what is more interesting to the students will precede what less
Such adapting techniques as simplifying, expanding, editing, and replacing can be made use of as following
This is to be done with the reading questions that require so much the students to deduce the answers from their background understandings, not from what they understand from the given reading texts, thus not motivate the students The simplification can be done by providing the students with some hints or suggestions The purpose of doing so is to help the students find it easy to deal with the tasks The sample 4 (appendix 4) is an example of simplifying the reading comprehension tasks of unit 4 – The roles of auditors, the ESP course of stage 2
For an efficient avoidance from boredness and demotivation with monotonous types of answering given reading comprehension questions at the end of every reading text, the expanding technique can be used The reading part of unit 1-What is accounting?, the ESP course of stage 2, will be expanded with some pre-reading, while-reading, and post- reading as in sample 5 (appendix 4)
This is applied with long reading texts likes those of units 5, 7, 8 for the ESP course of stage 1, and most of units for the ESP course of stage 2 The technique will aim to lower difficulty and complexity of the reading texts and distress the students in reading tasks
The application can be done by cutting the texts into appropriate sections, then the reading comprehension exercises are to be edited accordingly
If the reading comprehension exercises or tasks cause the students to draw much from their background knowledge of subject, or there is no connection between the exercises/tasks and the reading texts, or they are so difficult for the students, then they should be replaced with more suitable ones The reading comprehension exercise of the unit 2 – The balance sheet, the ESP course of stage 2, can be seen as a typical case in need for replacement with multiple choice and matching The sample 6 (appendix 4) is an example
Modification allows us to provide the students with clearer and more directive instructions for every tasks Such instructions are needed for both teachers and students to save their limited time in classroom and do the tasks more efficiently We can modify the given requirements of exercises and tasks by stating clearly what kind of teaching-learning techniques to be used, like “In pairs, reading the text again, and map the structure of the balance sheets, you and your partner have to draw it out and then describe it, you may represent your work to the whole class” With such clear instruction, the students will quickly and easily know what to do and how to do to complete the task
It is used to deal with the coursebook‟s lack of suggestions for further work and study as needed by the students Suggestions for recommended reading to help the students better understand some concept, procedure, process, so on; or those for extra works to give them more practice can be added at the end of one part or at the end of the unit.
Chapter summary
Under the objective analysis, the coursebook was evaluated basing on the 2 nd year students, graduated students, and three ESP teachers‟s opinions and attitudes toward the coursebook in terms of aims, contents, and methodology A subjective analysis was also used to realize in details the course‟s objectives The matching of the two analysis stages showed certain unsuitability of the coursebook to the course‟s objectives in terms of aims, contents, and methodology Based on the matching results, some recommendations for the coursebook‟s adaptation are made for the purpose of filling the gap between the coursebook and the course‟s objectives in terms of aims, contents, and methodology
Recapitulation
The fact that a significant number of today‟s young employees are not good at English for specific and the ESP is seen as a barrier to their job promotion causes a great concern for Hà Hoa Tiên University‟s management board and its English teachers With use of the existing ESP coursebook for the second year students of financial accounting, they concern about whether or not it is suitable to their course‟s objectives, and if their students can make use of what they have learned with the ESP in their future jobs and what they have not been prepared for This is reason for the current study to be carried out
Theoretical framework of the study dealt with five major questions of ESP course evaluation, including what is meant by evaluation, why, when, and how the evaluation is carried out, and who should be involved in the evaluation In addition, notions of materials, coursebook, textbook, and material adaptation were also reviewed
To deal with the research question, “How suitable is the coursebook “English for
Finance” for the second-year students of financial accounting at Hà Hoa Tiên University to the course‟s objectives in terms of aims, contents, and methodology?”, the study made use of approach of survey research with data collection instruments of questionnaires in form of Likert scales type, informal interviews, and with the involvement of 69 informants
Among different types of coursebook evaluation, summative evaluation was chosen seeking to have significant improvements for subsequent use Steps of evaluation process were based on Hutchinson and Waters‟ ones, while the evaluation checklist was also adapted from their one After matching the subjective realization of the course‟s objectives with the objective analysis of the coursebook, major findings on the suitability of the coursebook to the course‟s objectives were worked out as basis for some recommendations on the coursebooks‟ adaptation presented later.
Concluding remarks
The coursebook is concluded to be partially suitable to the course‟s objectives in terms of aims, contents, and methodology
It does not fit the course‟s objectives in terms of aims in a sense that it provides the students not much training in English writing comprehension, whereas the course aims to prepare them with this skill, allowing them to be able to make business transactional documents in their future employment The strength of the coursebook is that it matches the course‟s objectives in regards with providing the students opportunities to practice English comprehensive reading skill, translation skill, widening their English vocabulary with terms and technical words in financial accounting, and improving their English grammar knowledge
Course topics are of emphasis of the coursebook evaluation on its fitness to the course‟s objectives in terms of contents From major findings, it much likely comes to conclusion that the topics given in the coursebook are understandable to the students of financial accounting, but some of them are not practically and directly relevant to their future accounting practice
Undeniably, as being shown in the findings, the coursebook is good indeed at providing students with diverse, interesting, and motivating grammar and words study exercises and tasks However, it offers unsuitable types of reading comprehension exercises and task, and lacks guidance and suggestion for further study and practice For this reason, the coursebook is concluded not to motivate students in training with English reading comprehension, resulting in much likely failure of the coursebook in obtaining this objective of the course
In a word, there are both suitable and unsuitable points of the coursebook in terms of aims, contents, and methodology while matching it with the course‟s subjectively realized objectives The coursebook would likely be of subsequent use for incoming ESP courses at Hà Hoa Tiên University However, seeking for effectively and completely obtaining given objectives of the course, ESP lessons for the second year students of the university should be more interesting, and motivating to them, and importantly more closely relevant to their future accounting practice Therefore, there should be necessary improvements to be made with the coursebook in terms of language components, reading topics, types of exercises and tasks, guidance and suggestion for further study and practice as recommended in the study.
Limitations of the study
First, the evaluation results were drawn upon opinions and attitudes of only 69 participants The data collected from a very limited number of graduated students might not be informative enough for the researcher to make conclusions about if the students could make use of what they have learned with the ESP and what they have not been prepared for
Second, the study took only the course‟s objectives into consideration and put the coursebook users‟ needs out of the evaluation‟ emphasis when assessing the suitability of the coursebook In addition, the used checklist is not broad enough to cover many other criteria as mentioned by Hutchinson and Waters Thus, the study might not be comprehensive and insightful; and the evaluation results might be changed in a more or less positive way if other points would be included
Third, there may be other universities and colleges who could also bring the coursebook into use However, any findings pointed out in this study might not workable for these institutions because the study was based on the context of Hà Hoa Tiên university alone, whereas different educational institutions would have different educational strategies and be specialized by their own teaching and learning conditions Students in different universities would be also characterized by different learning styles, aims, interest, and even initial recruitment quality
Basing on the major findings and limitation of the study, further studies should be extended to:
- Evaluate the suitability of the coursebook to the needs of its, including students, teachers, and employers
- Evaluate the effectiveness of the coursebook adaptation techniques
- Investigate possible effects of the coursebook adaptation techniques towards students‟ learning motivation
- Investigate the needs of the freshmen students at the university in learnig ESP
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3 Alderson, J.C and Waters, A (1983), A Course in Testing and Evaluation for ESP teachers, Lancaster Practical Papers in English Language Education, Vol 5,
4 Baleghizadeh, S & Rahini, A.H (2011), Evaluation of an ESP Textbook for the Students of Sociology, LTR Journal, Vol 2, No.5, pp 1009-1014, http://dx.doi.org/10.4304/jltr.2.5.1009-1014
5 Brown, J.D (1989) Language Program evaluation: a synthesis of existing possibilities In R K Johnson (Ed.) (1989) The Second Language Curriculum
6 Ngô Thi ̣ Mỹ Bình (2010), An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the Materials on English for Tour Guides for the Third Year Students at Sao Đỏ Industrial College and Suggestions for Adaptation, VNU-ULIS
7 British Columbia Ministry of Education (2009), A Guide to Adaptations and Modifications
8 Chambers, F (1997), Seeking Consensus in Coursebook Evaluation, ELT Journal,
9 Dudley-Evans, T & St John, M (1998), Development in ESP – A Multi-disciplinary
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Students at Marine Engine Department, Vietnam Maritime University, VNU-ULIS
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APPENDIX 1 Phiếu khảo sát sinh viên khoa Tài chính kế toán đã tốt nghiệp và hiện đang làm việc tại các doanh nghiệp khác nhau
Phiếu khảo sát này nhằm thu thập các ý kiến của sinh viên khoa Tài chính kế toán đã tốt nghiệp ra trường và hiện đang làm việc tại các doanh nghiệp khác nhau về giáo trình
“English for Finance” mà họ đã học tại trường Đại học Hà Hoa Tiên Những thông tin ba ̣n cung cấp rất cần thiết và quan tro ̣ng , được dùng làm cơ sở để đưa ra những kết luâ ̣n xác đáng trong nghiên cứu của t ôi về đánh giá mức đô ̣ phù hợp của giáo trình Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành kế toán với mục tiêu của môn học Những thông tin này được đảm bảo chỉ sử du ̣ng cho mu ̣c đích nghiên cứu này của tôi Bạn hãy vui lòng trả lời đầy đủ và chính xác các câu hỏi hoặc đánh dấu () vào ô bạn chọn
Xin chân thành cảm ơn!
3 Bạn đã đang làm việc ở vị trí nào? ………
4 Bạn có sử dụng tiếng Anh chuyên ngành trong công việc của mình không?
II Ý kiến đánh giá của bạn
Bạn hãy đọc những câu dưới đây và chọn câu trả lời gần nhất với ý kiến của bạn bằng cách đánh dấu () vào ô mà bạn chon
Hoàn toàn đồng ý Đồng ý Ý kiến trung lập
1 Nội dung ngữ pháp, từ vựng, đọc hiểu tiếng Anh và luyện dịch của giáo trình rất có ích cho công việc hiện nay của bạn
2 Giáo trình đã giúp bạn luyện đọc hiểu và dịch tiếng Anh trong lĩnh vực tài chính kế toán
3 Bạn được luyện thực hành ngữ pháp tiếng Anh khi học tiếng Anh chuyên ngành
4 Công việc hiện nay của bạn cần giao tiếp khẩu ngữ tiếng Anh liên quan đến lĩnh vực chuyên ngành
5 Việc giáo trình chú trọng nhiều vào kỹ năng đọc hiểu, từ vựng chuyên ngành, và ngữ pháp là phù hợp, vì công việc của bạn không cần phải giao tiếp khẩu ngữ tiếng Anh
6 Bạn ít có cơ hội luyện kỹ năng viết tiếng Anh khi học giáo trình “English for finance”
7 Các chủ đề được đề cập tới trong giáo trình gắn liền với công việc hiện nay của bạn
8 Một vài chủ đề đươ ̣c nêu trong giáo trình không liên quan nhiều lắm đến công việc hiện nay của bạn
Hãy nêu một vài ví dụ về một số chủ đề không liên quan nếu bạn chọn đồng ý/hoàn toàn đồng ý : ………
9 Các bài đọc hiểu giúp bạn hiểu thêm các khái niệm chuyên ngành, quy trình, thao tác nghiệp vụ kế toán
10 Các chủ đề về ngữ pháp tiếng Anh được đề cập tới trong giáo trình phù hợp với nhu cầu của bạn
Chân thành cảm ơn sự hợp tác của bạn!
APPENDIX 2 Phiếu khảo sát sinh viên năm thứ hai khoa Tài chính kế toán
Phiếu khảo sát này nhằm thu thập các ý kiến của sinh viên năm thứ 2 khoa Tài chính kế toán về giáo trình tiếng Anh chuyên ngành mà họ vừa học xong Những thông tin bạn cung cấp rất cần thiết và quan tro ̣ng , được dùng làm cơ sở để đưa ra những kết luâ ̣n xác đáng trong nghiên cứu của tôi về đánh giá mức đô ̣ phù hợp của giáo trình Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành kế toán với mục tiêu môn học Những thông tin này được đảm bảo chỉ sử du ̣ng cho mục đích nghiên cứu này của tôi Bạn hãy vui lòng trả lời đầy đủ và chính xác các câu hỏi hoă ̣c đánh dấu () vào các ô bạn chọn
Xin chân thành cảm ơn!
1 Giới tính: Nam: Nữ:
3 Bạn đã học tiếng Anh được bao lâu rồi? ……… năm
Bạn hãy đọc những câu dưới đây và chọn câu trả lời gần nhất với ý kiến của bạn bằng cách đánh dấu () vào ô mà bạn chon
Hoàn toàn đồng ý Đồng ý Ý kiến trung lập
1 Giáo trình tiếng Anh trang bị cho bạn vốn từ vựng chuyên ngành
2 Giáo trình giúp bạn củng cố và nâng cao kiến thức ngữ pháp tiếng Anh
3 Giáo trình giúp bạn thực hành luyện kỹ năng đọc hiểu, dịch tiếng Anh trong lĩnh vực tài chính kế toán
4 Giáo trình giúp bạn thực hành kỹ năng giao tiếp khẩu ngữ trong lĩnh vực tài chính kế toán
5 Bạn có cơ hội được luyện kỹ năng viết tiếng Anh khi học giáo trình này
6 Hầu hết các chủ đề được đề cập đến trong giáo trình gắn liền với kiến thức chuyên ngành của bạn
7 Các dạng bài đọc hiểu trong giáo trình không đa dạng và nhàm chán
8 Các câu hỏi đọc hiểu mang tính suy luận và đòi hỏi vận dụng nhiều đến kiến thức nền trong lĩnh vực tài chính kế toán
9 Các bài tập liên quan đến từ vựng và ngữ pháp đa dạng, tạo hứng thú cho người học
10 Các bài tập đều có những gợi ý, hướng dẫn cụ thể giúp người học có thể vận dụng để thực hiện các yêu cầu của bài
11 Cuối mỗi phần, hoặc mỗi bài đều có gợi ý giúp bạn có thể thực hành thêm, hoặc đọc thêm
Chân thành cảm ơn sự hợp tác của bạn!
APPENDIX 3 The teachers’ views on the ESP coursebook in terms of aims, contents, and methodology as stated in the interviews
1 The teachers‟ opinions toward the coursebook in terms of aims
The coursebook provides students opportunities to………
1 Communicate orally in English in the area of financial accounting
Comprehensively read English documents relevant to financial accounting
Comprehensively make English written documents relevant to financial accounting
4 Improve knowledge in English grammar
5 Enrich English vocabulary in financial accounting
6 Present topics of financial accounting in
Key: = mentioned by the teacher
= not mentioned by the teacher
2 The teachers‟ opinions toward the coursebook in terms of of contents
1 Students are provided with topics closely related to their major
The course units should be organized in a way suitable to the students‟ needs and quality
Key: = mentioned by the teacher
= not mentioned by the teacher
3 The teachers‟ opinions toward the coursebook in terms of methodology
Students find it difficult to answer reading comprehension questions They are more motivated with multiple choices and true/false tasks
Students have been not motivated with grammar and words study‟s individual works
3 There should be specific guidance and suggestions for further study
Key: = mentioned by the teacher
= not mentioned by the teacher
APPENDIX 4 Recommended samples for adapting the coursebook
Part 4: Writing comprehension Write a brief description (no more than 300 words) about economics beginning with the following sentence, using structures of simple sentence:
“Economics is defined as a study of how goods and services get produced, and how they are distributed.”
- A compound noun is a noun composed of two or more words that are used together to form a single noun
- Some basic structures of noun compounding method Noun + Noun: sales manager: giám đốc bán hàng Adjective + noun: distressed-sale: nhu cầu bán gấp Preposition + noun: by- product: phụ phẩm
Noun + preposition + noun: cost of capital: chi phí vay vốn door to door (service): dịch vụ tận nơi Noun + preposition: bail out: cứu trợ tài chính
Noun + verb_er: share-holder: cổ đông been-counter: kế toán
- To translate these nouns, start at the end or consider the context to get their meanings correctly an executive search company: a company that searches for executive a government training course: a course of training provided by the government
* Exercises for practice Task 1: In pairs, work out the meanings of these following compound nouns, you can use your dictionary if necessary
Commodity-types products Buyer-choice behavior Product-line manager
Sales manager Production manager Finance manager Exchange rate Manufacturing productivity Manufacturing exports
Task 2: Work with your partner and translate the following sentences from English to Vietnamese and vice versa
27 An economic system is supposed to be regulated by the law of supply and demand
28 Economics is about the everyday things of life, how we get our living, and why sometimes we get more and sometime less
29 I can also report that manufacturing grew last year by 1.6%, manufacturing productivity grew by 4.4%
30 Giám đốc tài chính có vai trò quyết định trong việc đưa ra các chiến lược định giá sản phẩm
31 Kinh tế học nghiên cứu cách thức đưa ra các quyết định của các thành viên tham gia vào nền kinh tế
Cost accounting involves the techniques for determining the costs of products, processes, projects, etc in order to report the correct amounts on the financial statements, and assisting management in making decisions and in the planning and control of an organization
For example, cost accounting is used to compute the unit cost of a manufacturer's products in order to report the cost of inventory on its balance sheet and the cost of goods sold on its income statement This is achieved with techniques such as the allocation of manufacturing overhead costs and through the use of process costing, operations costing, and job-order costing systems Cost accounting assists management by providing analysis of cost behavior, cost-volume-profit relationships, operational and capital budgeting, standard costing, variance analyses for costs and revenues, transfer pricing, activity-based costing, and more
Cost accounting had its roots in manufacturing businesses, but today it extends to service businesses For example, a bank will use cost accounting to determine the cost of processing a customer's check and/or a deposit This in turn may provide management with guidance in the pricing of these services
(extracted from an online article retrieved from www.businessdictionary.com/definition/cost-accounting.html)
What is accounting for sales discount?
A sales discount is a reduction in the price of a product or service that is offered by the seller, in exchange for early payment by the buyer A sales discount may be offered when the seller is short of cash, or if it wants to reduce the recorded amount of its receivables outstanding for other reasons