Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS cách hiểu và thực tế giảng dạy của giáo viên tiếng anh chuyên ngành trong bối cảnh việt nam doctor of linguistics 621401

Statement of the problem

Keeping pace with continuous changes of our society and rapid growth of globalization, English language teaching (ELT) has become a challenging and demanding occupation

“One of the effects of the growing importance of global English in professional contexts has been the rise of ESP teaching at all levels” (Huttner, Smit & Mehlmauer-Larcher,

2009, p 99) ESP teaching has become a growing trend and mainstream in many areas and regions, especially in Asia, as what Johns and Dudley-Evans (2001) confirm that

“the demand for English for specific purposes continues to increase and expand throughout the world” (p 115) In fact, since its emergence, a lot of efforts have been made by researchers, educators and teachers in order to find better ways and initiatives to facilitate ESP teaching and learning

In Vietnam, ESP teaching is still in its development Within the allocated time frame for the English curriculum by the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET), most teachers of English who work in non-English major universities or vocational colleges normally take charge of at least one ESP course (Dung & Anh, 2010; Khanh,

2015) Although there are articles and studies detailing the reality of ESP teaching as well as the challenges of implementing ESP courses within Vietnamese contexts (Hong, 2005; Oanh, Chau & Chi, 2005; Tuan, 2007; Dung & Anh, 2010; Huong, 2013; Khanh, 2015), little evidence was given about the ways ESP teachers really think and act, i.e how they understand about ESP teaching; how they deliver their ESP classes; and what factors might influence their thinking and behaviors In order to depict accurately the picture of ESP teaching in Vietnamese context, it is necessary to take those issues under ESP teachers‟ lenses into consideration

In addition, since teaching and learning has been reconceptualized over the last 50 years, “when considering the nature of teaching and what teachers have to learn, conceptions have moved from process-product perspectives that focus on teaching as a technical transmission activity to conceptions of teaching as requiring contextualized decision making” (Schnellert et al., 2008, p 4) This leads to a focus of research on how teachers‟ cognition affects their behaviors in classrooms This trend has been seen through a myriad of studies examining teachers‟ cognition from different aspects (e.g Dobson & Dobson, 1983; Pearson, 1985; Thompson, 1992;

Woods, 1996; Aguirre & Speer, 2000; Phipps & Borg, 2009; Kuzborska, 2011;

Melketo, 2012) However, with regard to the ESP field, such type of research is still very limited, leaving ESP teachers‟ perceptions and practices in the “strange and uncharted land” (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987, p 158) of ESP far from being fully explored and documented The present study, thus, tried to fill in such research gap of teachers‟ cognition and practices within ESP domain in both global and Vietnamese contexts

Furthermore, a personal and intrinsic motivation to conduct the research comes from my own experience as an ESP teacher, working at a medical university in Vietnam

Since my initial steps of teaching ESP seven years ago, I have had opportunities to observe the teaching practices of teachers at my university and reflect on my own practice During such a long time, I have not seen much improvement in the way ESP courses are taught; we are still teaching the same old book year after year; and our teaching seems to be routinized I have wondered if the same situation is happening in other contexts of ESP teaching; and if we want to improve such stagnant situation, what should be done and what will be the first step As aforementioned, although a wide range of challenges and difficulties of ESP teaching were pointed in current studies in Vietnam, along with some suggestions such as changing the course book, designing suitable materials, extending the timeframe and reconsidering the course assessment format, they seemed to be the mere description of common ESP teaching situations in Vietnam from the authors‟ experiences rather than deep exploitation of the root causes Not until four years ago when I started to read about teachers‟ cognition and its impacts on teachers‟ practices did I identify the importance of researching teachers‟ thoughts and behaviors in relation to contextual factors so as to figure out the real teaching situation Therefore, with close examination in teachers‟ perceptions and practices, the implementation of this present study helped me to depict a clearer picture of ESP teaching in Vietnam from the lens of those important insiders- ESP teachers- with reference to influential factors in their teaching contexts

From that, I could see some ways out for my own situation in particular and give some suggestions for the improvement of such practices to wider contexts in the country.

Research aims

The overall aim of this study is to explore the perceptions and practices of some groups of ESP teachers working at some medical universities in Vietnam and the influential factors In particular, the study seeks to answer the following research questions:

(1) What are teachers‟ perceptions of ESP teaching?

(2) To what extent are those ESP teachers‟ perceptions reflected in their teaching practices?

(3) What factors affect those ESP teachers‟ perceptions and their practices?

To address these questions, the research adopted the qualitative approach, using a multiple-case study in collecting and analyzing data.

Scope of the study

This study did not aim at covering all ESP realms or all of the university teachers of English but within the scope of a qualitative multiple-case study, it focused on examining nine cases at three selected medical universities in the northern part of Vietnam, which fitted the research conditions and the established research purpose

Although there are different mental constructs related to the concept of teacher cognition, in this study, the notion of teachers‟ perceptions is used as a type of teacher cognition which means “what teachers think, know and believe” (Borg, 2003, p 81) Therefore, in this study, the term “teachers‟ perceptions” is used interchangeably with teachers‟ cognition Within this study, teachers‟ perceptions about different aspects relating to ESP teaching such as ESP teachers‟ roles, the concept of ESP, ESP pedagogy and their views on the impact of influential factors in their teaching context were investigated

Besides, regarding teachers‟ practices, this study mainly dealt with the investigation of teachers‟ instruction of ESP in their classrooms including their teaching procedures, teaching foci and teaching approach Therefore, in this study, teachers‟ instructional behaviors, decisions and choices were used to refer to their practices

Although the results of the study are not intended for generalization, there is possibility of transferring the findings to other similar contexts.

Significance of the study

In theory, by adapting Alzaanin‟s (2014) Cognitive-Ecological Model (CEM) as the main analytical framework, the study calls for the consideration of teachers‟ perceptions and practices in light of various contextual factors from different scales

Besides, the qualitative multiple-case approach adopted for this study makes a methodological contribution to the lack of classroom-based qualitative studies which have not been well-established within the context of Vietnam In this study, details about data collection instruments and procedures of data analysis might be useful for Vietnamese researchers to conduct similar studies regarding to teachers‟ cognition and practices

Additionally, in practice, the study is significant in raising the awareness of ESP teachers of their own teaching Through the cases of the teachers in this study, other ESP teachers in relatable contexts may have opportunities to reflect on their own teaching This, therefore, might help to awaken their agency and ownership in teaching On the other hand, the study also confirms the importance of viewing contextual factors systematically in the process of making policy decisions

Finally, the findings of this study will shed more light on reality of ESP teaching in the country as well as contextual factors that influence teachers‟ perceptions and instructional behaviors This might help to stimulate discussion and promote further work among teacher educators and policy makers with respect to the improvement of ESP teaching quality in Vietnamese context.

Context of the study

This section provides an overview of ESP teaching within Vietnamese educational and socioeconomic contexts In particular, it briefly presents the influences of socio- economic conditions and educational policies on the development and status of ESP teaching From that, the present status quo of ESP teaching in Vietnamese context is delineated

Vietnam‟s socio-economic context has placed a lot of impacts on the national foreign language education Noticeably, the economic reform in 1986 attracted a huge flow of foreign investments to Vietnam, which motivated Vietnamese people to learn English in the hope of accessing scientific knowledge of the western world and to seek for better job opportunities in foreign companies Such condition led to “English language fever” (Canh, 2011, p 17) nationwide and made English “a de facto foreign language” (Khanh, 2015, p 227) in Vietnam During such period, “a greater desire for specialized study of English became apparent as more Vietnamese desired these language skills for specific work environments” (Shapiro, 1995, p.8) This trend also marked the growth of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) teaching and learning in Vietnam English for various disciplines has been introduced into English language curriculum in most universities with the aim to prepare labor sources who are not only specialists of their fields but also confident in communicating with foreign partners

However, the increasing demands of the market economy and the surge of English language learning in general and ESP in particular did not ensure the provision of competent English-speaking employees as expected In fact, “Vietnamese universities are not producing the educated workforce that Vietnam‟s economy and society demand […] as many as 50 percent of Vietnamese graduates are unable to find jobs in their area of specialization” (Vallely & Wikinson, 2008, p 1) One of the main reasons was identified as their low English proficiency This became one of the obstacles preventing Vietnam to integrate with the world economy (Tu, 2006)

Therefore, the incidence of Vietnam‟s integration into the World Trade Organization

(WTO) in 2007 required the Government and the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) to seek for measures to improve the situation

In recognition of the importance of English to the development of national economy and with the determination in reforming the whole foreign language education system of the country, the Government approved the National Foreign Language Project

2020 according to the Prime Ministerial Decision number 1400/QĐ-TTg dated 30 th September, 2008 with total investment of VND 9,378 billion from 2008 to 2020 The project‟s major goal is that “by 2020, most Vietnamese students graduating from secondary, vocational schools, colleges and universities will be able to use a foreign language confidently in their daily communication, their study and work in an integrated, multi-cultural and multi-lingual environment, making foreign languages a comparative advantage of development for Vietnamese people in the cause of industrialization and modernization of the country” (Article 1, Decision 1400/QĐ- TTg) Accordingly, students graduating from primary schools, secondary schools, high schools and non-English major universities have to achieve the corresponding levels of A1, A2 and B1- Common European Framework for Reference (CEFR)

However, such objectives seem to be too far beyond the fact After being implemented for several years, although the project has raised Vietnamese people‟s awareness on the importance of learning English, it seems not to achieve the desired results In fact, a majority of graduates are still unable to use English Even in big universities like Da Nang University, 80% of students from master courses could not achieve the required level as stated by the project (Hai, 2011)

With regards to ESP teaching at tertiary level, the quality of ESP courses seems to be doubtful (Dong, 2011) A wide range of challenges and difficulties are identified such as outdated course books, students‟ low English proficiency, teachers‟ lack of expertise, limited time frame and ineffective assessment (Dung & Anh, 2010; Hai, 2011; Khanh, 2015; Hoa & Mai, 2016), which lead to the ineffectiveness of ESP courses at universities Many questions have been raised about the quality of English education in general and ESP in particular at tertiary level such as “why are graduates who were taught ESP at universities unable to use English in their real jobs?”, “what should we do to train students according to the needs of society?”, “what do we miss in our training program?” or “why are many staff and officials retrained their English while they were officially trained at universities?” (Dung & Anh, 2010) Although a number of suggestions for the situation have been offered such as changing the course books, extending time frame for the course, providing training courses for teachers or reconsidering the assessment format, they seem to be a list of recommendations without any strategic planning from the higher authorities

Furthermore, the implementation of the 2020 Project seems to put more pressure on administrators at universities in ensuring the required level of English for graduates

Many students graduated from high schools cannot achieve B1 level as required; therefore, when they enter universities, they have to be retrained from the start (Hoa,

2011) While the time allocation for English education at tertiary level stays the same and is even cut down, a number of universities have to sacrifice the ESP section in their English curriculum in order to spare time for General English (Dong, 2011)

Meanwhile, in other universities where ESP courses are being run, the situation seems to be “stagnant” (Duyen, 2014)

Based on such status quo, the question of whether ESP courses should be maintained in Vietnamese context is still of concern (Van, 2010) In other words, there is general skepticism towards the existence of ESP that Dong (2011) called as a “dilemma”

Perhaps, removing ESP is considered as a temporary solution of some universities in order to focus on the requirement regarding graduates‟ English level In the long run, ESP teaching is still a necessary step towards learning through English (LTE) which aims at the integration and renovation of the country (Hoa, 2011) This calls for a careful review of the situation and strategic plans from higher authorities However, at the moment, ESP teachers seem to be struggling with the challenges in their teaching contexts

In short, by sketching out educational and socioeconomic contexts of Vietnam in relation to ESP teaching at tertiary level, the context of the study has been provided

Besides, the specific contexts of the three universities will be shown in details in Section 2.2.1 of this thesis Under such contexts, teachers‟ thoughts and practices are formed and mediated In order to investigate what teachers perceive about ESP teaching and how they teach ESP as well as influential factors, it is necessary to take such contexts into consideration.

Organization of the thesis

This thesis comprises three main parts The first part is the introduction to the study, which briefly presents the statement of the problem, research aims, scope and significance of the study This part also provides information about the context of the study detailing the overall context of ESP teaching in Vietnam where the study was conducted

Following the first part, the second part consists of four chapters Chapter One reviews relevant literature to this study including the development of ESP in both global and Vietnamese contexts, a number of major foci in ESP, teachers‟ perceptions and teachers‟ practices In this chapter, previous studies on ESP teachers‟ perceptions and practices are extensively reviewed in order to identify the research gaps that this study tries to fulfill After that, Chapter Two demonstrates in detail the research methodology of the study from the selection of research philosophy, research approach to the description of data collection and data analysis procedures as well as the criteria for ensuring that the study was conducted in reliable and ethical conditions Chapter Three is followed with the presentation of three main findings of the study in line with three established research questions regarding teachers‟ perceptions of ESP teaching, teachers‟ perceptions as reflected in their practices and the influential factors Then discussions about the findings are made in Chapter Four with reference to the literature, the research questions and the analytical framework of the study, from which the picture of ESP teaching in some Vietnamese contexts is highlighted

The final part in this thesis concludes with a summary of the entire research, which is then followed by implications of the study from both theoretical and practical perspectives Besides, some limitations that the researcher had to deal with during the research process are acknowledged Finally, a number of suggested avenues for future research in the area of ESP teaching and teacher cognition are proposed.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Development of English for Specific Purposes (ESP)

Since its emergence in the 60s of the previous century, undergoing a lot of controversies and development over the decades, ESP has grown to become one of the most prominent parts of EFL teaching (Anthony, 1997) Considered as “an exciting fast-developing multi-disciplinary subject of study” in the world (Chen,

2009, p 56), ESP is gaining more and more attention in the English teaching area and many other fields However, “a definition of ESP that is both simple and watertight is not easy to produce” (Strevens, 1980, p 109)

The literature has seen a great deal of efforts in defining ESP In the early days, ESP was considered as the teaching of technical vocabulary of a given field (Swales,

1971) Later on, Hutchinson and Waters (1987), instead of showing directly what ESP is, described what ESP isn’t, from which three main claims are made, including (1)

ESP is not a matter of teaching „specialized varieties‟ of English or any special forms of the language; (2) ESP is not just a matter of science words and grammar for Scientists, Hotel words and grammar for Hotel Staff but there is much more to communication than just the surface features that we read and hear; (3) ESP is not different in kind from any other form of language teaching in that it should be based in the first instance on principles of effective and efficient learning (p 18)

Considering such aspects, they concluded that “ESP is an approach to language teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based on the learner‟s reason for learning” (Hutchinson &Waters, 1987, p 19) This definition marked the widespread awareness of ESP community about the importance of learner needs

A decade later, another effort in defining ESP made by Dudley-Evans and St Johns

(1998) when they tried to identify „absolute‟ characteristics and „variable‟ characteristics which were followed by earlier work by Strevens (1988):

 ESP is defined to meet specific needs of the learners

 ESP makes use of underlying methodology and activities of the discipline it serves

 ESP is centered on the language appropriate to these activities in terms of grammar, lexis, register, study skills, discourse and genre

 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 a tertiary level institution or in a professional work situation It could, however, be for learners at secondary school level

 ESP is generally designed for intermediate or advanced students

 Most ESP courses assume some basic knowledge of the language systems

(Dudley-Evans & St Johns, 1998, pp 4-5)

Here, “probability in definition makes it open to flexibility, expanding and overlapping nature of ESP” (Far, 2008, p 3) The proposal for such characteristics of ESP adds more evidence to what is ESP and what is not ESP as previously defined by Hutchinson and Waters (1987)

Along with the growing demand of English for various purposes, the concept of ESP has been interpreted with more practical views, reflecting practicality of ESP courses

For instance, Smoak (2003), from her experience as an ESP practitioner, found that

“ESP is English instruction based on actual and immediate needs of learners who have to successfully perform real-life tasks unrelated to merely passing an English class or exam” (p 27) Similarly, Harding (2007) also emphasized that in ESP “the purpose for learning is paramount and related directly to what the learner needs to do in their vocation or job” (p 6) It could be seen that the focus is not only on meeting the learners‟ needs but also on typical discourses and real-life tasks that the learners have to deal with in the target situations

Drawing on different definitions of ESP in the literature, it is true to Ibrahim‟s (2010) statement that:

“Most of ESP definitions distinguish three themes: the nature of language to be taught and used, the learners and the setting in which the other two would occur These three aspects of ESP are very much connected together ESP is the teaching of specific English (specialized discourse) to learners (adults), who will use it, in a particular setting (business, engineer, medical field, science, etc.) in order to realize a practical purpose.” (p 202)

In Vietnam, the term “English for specific purposes” is generally translated in Vietnamese as “Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành” which means English for specific disciplines (Dong, 2011) Such interpretation might lead to insufficient understanding about the nature of ESP which focuses on specific purposes of the learners, reflecting the reality of teaching ESP without basing on learner needs at many non-English major universities nationwide (Thanh, 2011) Vague understanding of the concept might also cause the big gap between the training of ESP and the needs of learners as well as the society needs Therefore, it is necessary to build up a working definition of ESP which can be applied as the guideline for implementing effective ESP courses in Vietnam

Combining the review of the established definitions of ESP in the literature and reflecting on the contexts of ESP teaching in Vietnam, in this thesis, the concept of

ESP (ESP teaching) is understood as (the teaching of) English for specific disciplines with typical discourses and real-life tasks, which enable learners to use English effectively in their study and/or their future jobs related to such disciplines This definition focuses on the teaching of discourses and tasks which students need to deal with in their study and their future jobs based on their own needs and the needs of society It also emphasizes the importance of training students the ability to use English according to their academic and/or occupational purposes

1.1.2 ESP development as a global trend

As stated by Hutchinson and Waters (1987) in their view of its origins, “ESP was not a planned and coherent movement, but rather a phenomenon that grew out of a number of converging trends” (p 6) Accordingly, three main trends were identified by the two authors as the most affected to the emergence of ESP Firstly, it was the expansion of technology and commerce after the Second World War with the advantageous economic status of the United States, which led to the demand of learning English with clearly defined goals for surviving in the international market place Secondly, the revolution in linguistics at the same period of time that shifted from a traditional way of studying language focusing on the rules of English usage to the exploration of the ways English is used in various situations of communication

This trend paved a new way in that “the English needed by a particular group of learners could be identified by analyzing the linguistic characteristics of their specialist area of work or study” (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987, p 8) The rise of ESP was also accounted for achievements and new developments within the field of educational psychology with its emphasis on the learners and their learning attitudes

This had great influence on the orientation of English courses towards learners‟ needs so as to achieve teaching effectiveness

Since its early days of emergence, ESP has experienced different phases of development A comprehensive picture of ESP development in time-line fashion is depicted by Johns (2013) when she identifies four main periods that ESP has undergone namely the Early Years (1962-1981), the Recent Past (1981-1990), the

Modern Era (1990-2011) and the Future (2011 plus) The first period began in the years following the Second World War During that time, ESP research mainly focused on English for Science and Technology (EST) The first approach was seen as an attempt to determine some general sentence-level characteristics of EST Then it was soon overridden by the trend of contrastive discourse analyses together with rhetorical concerns The turning point for ESP in this period was seen with the devotion of Tarone et al (1981) who brought about two influential approaches in ESP methodology which were „consultations with subject-specialist informants‟ and

„rhetorical/grammatical analyses‟ of text types in EST disciplines At the end of this period, the trend was towards more narrowly defined ESP research topics and texts

The more recent past period from 1981 to 1990 was marked with the appearance of

„Genre Analysis approach‟ This was considered as the period of broadening the scope and introducing central concepts such as needs assessment, linguistic devices and their rhetorical purposes At this stage, “much of ESP research continue to operate within a narrow topical range, as the principal interest of researchers often focused on English for academic purposes, particularly science and technology”

(Johns, 2013, p 12) The next period of “Modern age in ESP” has seen the flourishing of ESP research in many countries like Taiwan, China, the US, Iran, Malaysia This means ESP has spread widely to the international scale The foci of this period were on genres and corpora The final stage is “the Future” with the anticipated directions such as international authorship, varied methodologies and triangulation, multimodalities and varied locales (Johns, 2013)

Major foci in ESP

With the development of ESP over the past decades, there have been a lot of issues to be emerged and discussed In this study, a number of major foci in ESP namely needs analysis, ESP practitioners, distinguishing ESP and EGP teaching methodology as well as some current ESP teaching approaches are presented in the following sections so as to bring about theoretical backgrounds to the study

One of the typical and absolute characteristics of ESP is its “goal-directedness”

(Robinson, 1991) that is to meet specific needs of learners This is, therefore, important to take this issue into consideration From the early days, needs analysis was mainly focused on linguistics and register analysis so as to identify the typical grammar structures or vocabulary used for each discipline With the publication of the book entitled “Communicative Syllabus Design”, Munby (1978) brought about the idea of function and situation as important aspects in needs analysis His proposal of “Communicative Needs Processor” (CNP) in the book was highly appreciated by ESP researchers and practitioners that “it seemed as if ESP had come of age”

(Hutchinson & Waters, 1987, p 54) Despite its great impact for later works on needs analysis and course design, Munby‟s list of microfunctions in his CNP was then criticized for being “inflexible, complex and time-consuming” (West, 1994, p 9) and only captured the viewpoint of the needs analyst and excluded the views of the important others such as the learners and the institutions Subsequently, Hutchinson and Waters (1987) attempted to supplement such framework with the distinction of target/product-oriented needs (requirement in the target situation) and learning/ process-oriented needs (learning conditions and learners‟ existing skills and knowledge) Under the target needs, they identified the three important components including necessities (the type of need determined by the demands of the target situation), lacks (the gap between the existing proficiency of the learner and the target proficiency) and wants (subjective needs of learners) In line with the increasing awareness on the importance of needs analysis, other terms regarding needs were introduced in pairs such as objective needs (inferred from factual information of learners) and subjective needs (inferred from affective and cognitive factors of learners) (Brindley, 1989); perceived needs (drawn from teachers or institutions‟ experience) and felt needs (learners‟ own needs) (Berwick, 1989); immediate needs

(the needs that students have at the time of the course) and delayed needs (the needs that will become more significant later) (Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998) Drawing on such different types of needs, Dudley-Evans and St John (1998) synthesizes all the aspects from different existing approaches into categories of information that the needs analyst should determine Such categories were summarized and demonstrated through the image of needs analysis jigsaw by Songhori (2008):

Figure 1.1: Needs Analysis jigsaw (Songhori, 2008, p 22)

The diagram above helps to depict a holistic approach to needs analysis that ESP teachers should be aware of

From the aforementioned development of needs analysis, two important points could be drawn Firstly, it is very important to include needs analysis as the first step to any ESP courses as stated by Dudley-Evans and St John (1998) that it is “the corner stone of ESP and leads to a very focused course” (p 122) Secondly, since needs analysis

“involves consideration of not just one perspective or one context but multiple perspectives and multiple contexts” (Huhta, Vogt, Johnson & Tulkki, 2013, p 10), it should be based on evidence rather than intuition of any stakeholders such as teachers or materials writers (Long, 2005; Huhta et al., 2013)

The concept of “ESP practitioners” was first introduced by Swales (1988) with the purpose to emphasize other responsibilities of ESP teachers besides their teaching role Regarding the roles of an ESP practitioner, Dudley-Evans and St John (1998) identified five key roles namely a teacher, a course designer and materials provider, a collaborator, a researcher and an evaluator According to the authors, as in the role of a teacher, an ESP practitioner is suggested to “draw on students‟ knowledge of the content in order to generate genuine communication in the classroom” (p 13) and to negotiate with students in suitable ways to reach lesson goals Besides, an ESP teacher in many cases should be a course designer and provide materials by selecting, adapting and even writing materials to suit the learners‟ needs By the role of a collaborator, an ESP practitioner should be interested in working with content departments, subject matter teachers and specialists of the field in order to engage with the disciplines he or she is undertaking The fourth role refers to the ability to carry out research on learners‟ needs analysis, target situation analysis and on genre analysis or the discourse of the text types that are related to the discipline Another important role of an evaluator is also mentioned referring to the assessment on students‟ learning, the evaluation of the courses and teaching materials

Another aspect regarding ESP teachers/practitioners is that what kinds of knowledge base are required for them According to Tom and Valli (1990), the term „knowledge base‟ refers to the repertoire of knowledge, skills and dispositions that teachers are required to effectively carry out classroom practices Based on the aforementioned roles of ESP practitioners, it can be inferred that besides the required knowledge of language teaching in general (in the role of a teacher), they also need to know theories of ESP teaching such as knowledge of needs analysis, course design, ESP teaching approaches (in the roles of a course designer, a materials provider, a researcher, an evaluator) and the knowledge of subject matter (in the role of a collaborator)

In terms of ESP teachers‟ knowledge of subject matter, a number of debates have arisen among ESP researchers about who should teach ESP- English language teachers or subject specialists (Ahmadi, 2008; Maleki, 2008; Rajabi, Kiany & Maftoon, 2011) with preference to the EFL teachers In this regard, Hutchinson and Waters (1987) state that ESP teachers “have to struggle to master language and subject matter beyond the bounds of their previous experience” (p 60) However, they contend that ESP teachers need three things only including i) a positive attitude towards the ESP content; ii) a knowledge of the fundamental principles of the subject are; iii) an awareness of how much they probably already know (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987, p 163) Reflecting on this point, Bell (2002) adds that the depth of knowledge of a subject matter that an ESP teacher is required depends on a number of variables including: i) how much do the learners know about their specialism?; ii) are the students pre-experience or post- experience learners?; iii) how specific and detailed are the language, skills and genres that the learners need to learn? Accordingly, ESP teachers perhaps do not need to be an expert in a specialist area, they do need to have some awareness and a feel for a particular vocational area, or in Hutchinson and Waters‟s words, “ESP teacher should not become a teacher of the subject matter, but rather an interested student of the subject matter” (p 163)

With the continuous and fast development of ESP teaching, “being an ESP instructor may now look like an even taller order than might first have been envisioned, calling for knowledge of genre theory, corpus tools, scaffolding techniques, as well as metacognitive and metadiscoursal awareness-building strategies” (Belcher, 2009, p

11) Those are theories of ESP practice that ESP teachers should also be equipped

However, facing with the required roles and knowledge base, ESP teachers seem to have limited training In fact, lack of official and professional training seems to be a challenge for ESP practitioners in many contexts worldwide such as Taiwan (e.g

Chen, 2000), Iran (e.g Estaji & Nazari, 2015), Greece (e.g Chostelidou, Griva &

Tsakiridou, 2009) and Pakistan (e.g Abdulaziz, Shah, Mahmood & Haq, 2012) In Vietnam, it is also mentioned as one of the problems facing ESP teachers (Tung &

Thu, 2005; Dung & Anh, 2010; Hoa & Mai, 2016) and even one of the reasons attributed to the failure of the ESP program (Oanh, Chau & Chi, 2005)

By and large, in order to carry out the job in ESP teaching profession, ESP teachers are required to handle different roles and to possess certain knowledge base or the expert theories, i.e theories about both GE and ESP teaching, so as to become more confident and fully qualified ESP practitioners This might call for more research on a range of issues related to ESP teacher training and the impact of ESP teachers‟ knowledge base on their practices

1.2.3 Distinguishing ESP and EGP teaching methodology

Referring to ESP pedagogy, the question about the differences between EGP and ESP has been raised by a lot of researchers and practitioners since the very early days of ESP emergence (e.g Widdowson, 1983; Hutchinson & Waters, 1987; Strevens, 1988;

Anthony, 1997) While Strevens (1988) claims ESP as in contrast with GE, Anthony

(1997) observes the vague line between GE and ESP courses; and Chen (2009) asserts that “EGP is the premier stage for ESP and ESP is the advanced stage for EGP teaching” (p 57)

In response to this issue, Hutchinson and Waters (1987) states that what distinguishes ESP from GE is an “awareness of the need” (p 53) According to them, although there is variation in the contents delivered for ESP and EGP, the methodologies used in ESP classrooms can be applied to any English classes That is the reason why they put forwards their opinion on the difference between GE and ESP simply that “in theory nothing, in practice a great deal” (p 53) Drawing on Hutchinson and Waters‟s view, Chen (2009) acquires two important points The first point is that the similarity between ESP and EGP is more distinguishable than their difference Secondly, the teaching principles and procedure implemented in both ESP and EGP classes are not different in essence

In another attempt, Far (2008) tries to figure out distinctive features between ESP and EGP by some important observations about ESP classes in comparison with EGP ones Firstly, ESP learners are often adults who possess a certain background of English and their purposes of learning are for performing particular tasks or functions related to their profession while in EGP classes, there is variation in learners‟ ages and English is simply a subject Secondly, EGP classes focus on four skills equally, whereas, the priority of instruction and syllabus design is placed on certain English skills based on the learners‟ needs Thirdly, in EGP classes, more concentration is put on language, but in a typical ESP class, context to specific disciplines and learners‟ real working situation is emphasized Fourthly, the integration of subject matter with English language in particular meaningful contexts in ESP classes helps to promote students‟ motivation Finally, according to the author, ESP enables them to use the English they know to learn even more English

Teachers‟ perceptions

Tracing back the literature history, teacher cognition research started to grow rapidly since the 1970s With the development of cognitive psychology during such period, perspectives about teaching changed from simply investigating teachers‟ behaviors discretely to examining “individual teachers‟ works and cognitions in a more holistic and qualitative manner” (Borg, 2015, p 7)

Along with the blossom of teacher cognition research, a range of different labels such as personal pedagogical systems, pedagogic principles, theoretical beliefs, images and maxims has been put forward in order to illustrate the psychological context of teaching (Borg, 2003) This, on the one hand, has marked solid evidence of an essential process of inquiry development on the field; on the other hand, has led to a

„definitional confusion‟ due to such proliferation of terms (Eisenhart, Shrum, Harding

& Cuthbert, 1988) As a result, it is not surprising that “identical terms have been defined in different ways and different terms have been used to describe similar concepts” (Borg, 2003, p 83) For instance, with regard to the definition of the term

“perception”, Hornby (2000) put it in the form of a countable noun and defined it as

“an idea, belief, or an image that you have as a result of how you see or understand something” (p 977) Therefore, in this study, the construct “teachers‟ perceptions” is understood as a type of teachers‟ beliefs or to a larger extent, it is considered as under the umbrella term of teacher cognition that is defined as “what teachers think, know and believe” (Borg, 2003, p 81)

As the matter of fact, human cognition is built on different social and personal factors In order to depict the factors affecting teacher cognition, Borg (1997, 2003) used a framework illustrating “schematic conceptualization of teaching within which teacher cognition plays a pivotal role in teachers‟ lives” (Borg, 2003, p 81) In the framework, he highlighted four main elements affecting teachers‟ cognition namely schooling, professional coursework, classroom practice and contextual factors Those are also the main influential factors identified in the literature

Firstly, the ‘schooling’ factor can refer to „prior language learning experiences‟ which were mentioned by scholars and researchers like Johnson (1994), Woods

(1996), Peacock (2001) and Gursoy (2013) For instance, Johnson (1994) observed that “when pre-service teachers enter teacher education programs, they bring with them an accumulation of prior experiences that manifest themselves in the form of beliefs that tend to be quite stable and rather resistant to change” (p 440) These early experiences were also called as “the apprenticeship of observation” (Lortie, 1975)

Although it is argued that this factor only shows its impact on teachers‟ instructional behaviors to the point that the teachers themselves accept them (Bailey et al., 1996), it forms the basis of teacher beliefs about their teaching

Regarding the impact of “ professional coursework” or teacher educational and training programs, a number of studies conducted in the contexts of pre-service and in-service training have produced different findings at different levels of impact

Some researchers (e.g Lamb, 1995; Almarza, 1996; Richardson, 2003) found that short training programs only made little positive changes in teacher beliefs and in teachers‟ practices within a short period of time while the others (e.g Soldat, 2009;

Debri, 2012) might see great impact of this factor on teacher beliefs In another attempt to find out which factor- education or experience is more effective in forming teacher beliefs, Gursoy (2013) did not come to conclusion of a single choice but agreed that both factors were influential Therefore, the effects of teacher education on the ways teachers think and believe might depend on different contexts and the types and length of the training programs

Besides these two factors mentioned above, “ classroom practice” or teaching experience has been indicated to leave great impact on teacher cognition (Nunan, 1992; Breen et al., 2001; Larcote & Canabal, 2005) It is even considered as the most influential factor on teacher cognition which controls their instruction performance (Phipps & Borg, 2009) In spite of its importance, “the number of studies on the impact of teaching experience on teachers‟ beliefs is quite small and most of these studies were conducted with ESL rather than EFL teachers” (Canh, 2011, p 46)

To mention contextual factors , Feiman-Nemser and Floden (1986) postulated the term „culture of teaching‟ with reference to social and institutional context As for them, there was a wide range of factors regarding teaching environment that should be taken into consideration, for instance, teachers‟ interactions with their students, other teachers, administrators, students‟ parents, and the rewards for teaching career, the intrinsic value of teaching profession and the working environment This point of view, in fact, drew attention from some scholars and researchers (Richards

&Lockhart, 1994; Burns, 1996; Bailey, 1996) However, Borg (2003) critically claimed about the glaring absence of research exploring the impact of contextual factors on teachers‟ decisions Such weak point of traditional research on teacher cognition was identified as follows:

[…] the shortcoming of existing research on teaching cognition lies in their tendency to isolate teachers from the wider context of teaching which not only involves the relationship between teachers and their students but also includes their relationship within the community of teaching practice and other relevant elements within the context (Li, 2008, p 1)

In response to such gap, in a study on a group of Vietnamese teachers‟ beliefs and practices of form-focused instruction, Canh (2011) drew out a number of important factors shaping teachers‟ beliefs, namely professional training, experience as language learners, institutional factors and learner variables, instructional materials, teachers‟ personal experience and the experience of others in the professional community In another study in Vietnam, Viet (2013) identified a list of factors hindering teachers‟ implementation of task-based teaching approach including teachers‟ core beliefs, subjective norms, lack of theoretical understanding, public examinations, perceptions of students‟ proficiency and motivation and other institutional factors such as discipline, physical setting and textbook content

Teachers‟ practices

Although teachers‟ practices are more and more researched, not many definitions are given about this construct According to Fives, Lacatena and Gerald (2015), teachers‟ practices might be involved in “all activities associated with the practice of teaching, including but not limited to lesson planning, assessment activities, instruction, and interactions with students, parents, and colleagues” (p 252) Specifically, Isac, Dinis da Costa, Araujo, Calvo and Albergaria-Almeida (2015) categorized teachers‟ practices into two main areas, namely teacher instructional practices and teacher collaborative practices, in which the former one refers to the instructional strategies that the teachers use in the classroom; and the later is involved in collaboration with peers outside the classroom As for them, those two types of activities are “different but yet interconnected” (pp 22-23) Depending on different purposes of each study, the concept of teachers‟ practices might be generally understood as what teachers do in the classroom (Borg, 2003) or with a wider range of activities

In this study, although the other aspects related to teachers‟ interactions with their students and colleagues were examined; stronger focus was placed on their instructions in the classroom, in which their teaching procedures, teaching foci and teaching approaches were mainly dealt with

Like teacher cognition, teachers‟ practices are under the effect of various factors within their teaching context In a substantial review of research on what language teachers think, know, believe and do, Borg (2003) drew out a number of common reasons for teachers‟ instructional decisions such as the concern for the cognitive processes facilitating learning, the concern for language management, the pacing and timing of lessons or the quantity of teachers‟ talk and the quality of their explanations and instructions to ensure students‟ understanding and motivation In such review, Borg (2003) also recalled what he reviewed previously that:

“teachers‟ practices are also shaped by the social, psychological and environmental realities of the school and classroom.[…] These factors include parents, principals‟ requirements, the school, society, curriculum mandates, classroom and school layout, school policies, colleagues, standardized tests and availabilities of resources.” (p 94)

That is why in Borg‟s (1997, 2003) framework regarding elements and processes in language teacher cognition, he defined classroom practice as the interaction of cognitions and contextual factors Therefore, while exploring teachers‟ practices, it is necessary to put it in relation to both teachers‟ cognitions and influential factors inherent in their teaching context.

Studies on language teachers‟ perceptions and practices

1.5.1 Relationship between teachers’ perceptions and practices

It is evident in the body of the literature that language teacher cognition is closely related to their instructional behaviors in classrooms (Borg, 2003, 2009) However, research of teacher cognition shows different results on such relationship While some studies report about the consistency between teachers‟ beliefs and their teaching practices (e.g Thompson, 1992; Woods, 1996; Aguirre & Speer, 2000; Kuzborska,

2011), others demonstrate divergence (e.g Dobson & Dobson, 1983; Pearson, 1985;

With regard to the congruence between teachers‟ stated beliefs and their actual instruction in classrooms, by conducting a longitudinal study with eight experienced ESL teachers from four universities in Canada, Woods (1996) found that teachers‟ behaviors, strategies and decisions were vastly influenced by teachers‟ coherent beliefs and assumptions In China, Wang (2006) investigated beliefs of two teachers about English language teaching and learning and their classroom practice The data collected from two semi-structured interviews and fourteen classroom observations showed that there was a high degree of agreement between those two teachers‟ beliefs and their practice, particularly in teaching activities and teaching methods

Likewise, in a study examining the links between teachers‟ beliefs and practices and research on reading, Kuzborska (2011) used lesson observations, video stimulated recalls along with the follow up semi-structured interviews with eight teachers of English in a Lithuanian university After analyzing the data, the author saw that the ways those teachers teach were in accordance with their theoretical beliefs

Although it is widely acknowledged that teachers‟ instruction and behaviors in classrooms are the reflection of their underlying thoughts and beliefs, many researchers have raised the question about the conflicts between teachers‟ beliefs and the reality of their classroom practices For example, Phipps and Borg (2009) conducted a qualitative study with three practicing teachers of English in Turkey in order to explore tensions between those teachers‟ grammar teaching beliefs and practices Taking advantages of semi-structure interviews, non-participant, non- structured observation, followed by post-observation interviews, the researchers identified that “while at one level teachers‟ practices in teaching grammar were at odds with specific beliefs about language learning, at another level, the same practices were consistent with a more generic set of beliefs about learning” (Phipps &

Borg, 2009, p 380) In the same vein, Melketo (2012) reported on the tensions between English teachers‟ beliefs and practices in teaching writing at Wolaita Sodo University, Ethiopia In his study, the researcher tried to explore the divergence between what teachers „say‟ and „do‟ in teaching writing by conducting successive scheduled pre-study interviews and non-participatory observation over a period of four months The data collected revealed that the beliefs of the three teachers participated in the study were not always aligned with their teaching practices The mismatch was found in most important steps of teaching writing such as pre-writing activities, writing activities, revision and error correction In another study, Zeng

(2012) posed the questions of convergence and divergence between Chinese novice EFL teachers‟ beliefs about postmethod and their teaching practices Using the same research instruments as in Melketo‟s (2012) study, the researcher reported a surprising fact that “teachers‟ most practices do not match their stated beliefs and theory is seriously separated from practice” (p 69) Similar cases of such discrepancy are also found in the literature (e.g Karavas-Doukas, 1996; Richards et al., 2001;

Besides the conflicts and tensions identified above, another issue related to the complicated relationship between teachers‟ beliefs and practices is that such relationship is not unidirectional (Canh, 2011) In other words, “the question is still open as to whether beliefs guide action, actions− and particularly the results of action− guide beliefs, or that they interact such that beliefs or action may be dominant and affect the other depending on many factors” (Richardson, 2003, p 5) Such interaction between teachers‟ cognition and their practices are depicted as “symbiotic relationships” (Foss and Kleinsasser, 1996, p 441) By reviewing a number of studies within the mainstream literature, Borg (2003) saw that although teacher cognition has powerful influence on their practices, teachers‟ classroom experience, in turn,

“incluences cognitions unconsciously and/ or through conscious reflection” (p 82)

By and large, from the reported works in the literature, it can be seen a great attention being paid to the relationship between teachers‟ cognition and their instructional practices Depending on particular contexts, such relationship might be consistent or inconsistent Therefore, the investigation of “what teachers think, know and believe and the relationships of these mental constructs to what teachers do in the language teaching classroom” (Borg, 2003, p 81) should be placed in the consideration of contextual factors

1.5.2 Some theoretical frameworks for exploring teachers’ perceptions and practices

To illustrate the relationship between teachers‟ cognition and practices, different frameworks have been established in the literature such as Burns‟ (1992) intercontextuality, Borg‟s (1997) teacher cognition elements and Alzaanin‟s (2014) cognitive-ecological model (CEM) This section briefly reviews such models, from which the focus of each framework is discussed

Burns (1992) conducted a study on relationship between teachers‟ belief systems and their influence on classroom practices Through such study, she found that teachers‟ beliefs were extremely complex and reflected in relation to the dynamics of classroom interactions In order to illustrate such „networks of intercontextuality‟

(p.158), she proposed the framework as follows:

In this framework, Burns operated the three levels of foci, in which each level interactively links across each other The first and also the highest level is the institutional culture consisting conventions that teachers have to follow while delivering their teaching practice and their beliefs about teaching programs The second level establishes teachers‟ beliefs about learning, learners and language which are necessary for them to decide the ways they teach The final contextual level focuses specifically on the instructional behaviors that teachers perceive in their own classrooms The bidirectional arrows in the model show clearly that teachers‟ beliefs at those three levels are closely related and interdependent Such intercontextuality allows us to better make sense of what teachers think and do within the institutional constraints Therefore, the use of Burns‟ (1992) model is particularly suitable for studies in which the researcher wishes to explore teachers‟ beliefs and practices of specific techniques or instructions in classrooms as well as the influence of social norms within and beyond the level of the classroom However, the limitation of this framework is the absence of wider contextual levels such as national and global context Besides, such model does not clearly show any sources of teachers‟ cognition

In Borg‟s (1997) framework, there are five main elements to be considered They consist of the concept of Teacher Cognition lying in the centre of the diagram, and the others namely Schooling, Professional Coursework, Contextual Factors, and Classroom practice locating around the central point of teacher cognition It can be inferred from the framework that teacher cognition is rooted from very early days at schools where teachers study and build up their own cognition about teaching theories and practices Later on, their existing cognitions may change and be largely affected by professional coursework, i.e the programs in which they are equipped with training courses, teaching apprentices and new trends in teaching Also, when they are put in actual practice of teaching, their teaching experience may have certain impact on the ways teachers believe and think At the same time, teacher cognition is transferred to classroom practice In addition, one of the critical components appearing in the framework is the contextual factors representing a wide range of sources related to the context in which the teaching takes place This framework seems to be suitable for the studies focusing on teacher cognition

Figure 1.4: Borg‟s (1997) teacher cognition elements

Drawing on the strengths of Burns‟ (1992) model and Borg‟s (1997) framework as well as seeing teacher cognition and practices under a cognitive-ecological perspective, Alzaanin (2014) established the Cognitive-ecological Model (CEM) which was synthesized from the findings of her study on investigating pedagogical practices of EFL writing teachers in Palestinian universities In fact, the notion of the

“ecology of contexts” has been used in many disciplines to denote the dynamic interplay of contexts and the demands that constrain and define an entity Such notion seems to be closely related to Bronfenbrenner‟s (1979) Ecological Systems Theory in which the author identified five environmental systems including microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem and chronosystem that surrounded and affected any individuals Such theory signifies the environmental factors as major roles to the development of each individual Building up the CEM framework, Alzaanin (2014) explained that the term „cognitive‟ was used to emphasize the impact of teachers‟ cognitions on their classroom behaviors and instructional practices, while

„ecological‟ referred to the multiple and nested contexts that shape teachers‟ cognitions and affect their teaching practices The detailed framework is modeled as follows:

Figure 1.5: Alzaanin‟s (2014) Cognitive-Ecological Model

(CEM) of teaching EFL writing

The author described the model as a „rainbow-like figure of seven bands‟ (p 164) which extended the impacts of the contextual factors from the global and national scales to smaller scales of the institution and the classroom on teacher cognition and their teaching practices Interestingly, instead of putting teacher cognition in the centre of the diagram as in Borg‟s (1997) framework, it was reasoned that “practices are the outcome of the interaction of the influential elements of cognition and ecological factors” (Alzaanin, 2014, p.192) From such view, the outer layers played the role as contextual filters for teachers‟ practices

Studies on ESP teachers‟ perceptions and practices

In contrast to the rapid growth of research on teacher cognition in EFL and ESL, which has made great impacts on teachers‟ professional lives (Borg, 2003), there seems to be limited attention paid to the same topic for ESP field Such glaring gap is demonstrated not only in the quantity of studies but also in limited area of topics and research methodology

Prior to 2003, there was an absence of studies related to ESP teachers‟ cognition and their practices This reality was evident in the reviews of many authors on teacher cognition studies such as Clark and Peterson (1986), Carter (1990), Calderhead

(1996), Verloop, Van Driel and Meijer (2001) and Borg (2003) Evidence can also be seen from Hewings‟s (2003) extensive review of 20 volumes of English for Specific Journal from 1980 to 2001 In his work, Hewings categorized those articles into seven main topics which captured attention of ESP researchers namely text/discourse analysis, program description, needs analysis/ syllabus design, materials/methods, argument, testing and teacher training This indicated an obvious lack of concern to teacher cognition among those ESP related studies

Since Borg‟s (2003) review, not any official review on teacher cognition research has been done However, it is traced in the body of the literature that approximately one decade ago did ESP researchers start to pay attention to teachers‟ cognition towards ESP related issues with most studies done in Asia region such as Taiwan, China, Iran and Vietnam Emerged as the new area of interest within ESP community, teacher cognition has been explored in limited aspects such as ESP courses, ESP pedagogical issues, learners‟ needs and teachers‟ difficulties in course designs and curriculum planning (See Table 1.1 for the summary of the related studies)

In terms of teachers‟ perceptions towards ESP courses and ESP-related issues, Tsao, Wei and Fang (2008), Shen (2009) and Su (2010) shared the same interest in comparing and contrasting the perceptions of teachers and students at the university and vocational school contexts In the three different studies, survey questionnaire for both teachers and students was used as the main instrument with the purpose of investigating the perceived views of those participants on the importance and benefits of ESP courses; the challenges they had to cope with during the courses; the factors affecting course success; and the distinction of ESP and EGP In Vietnamese contexts, in order to investigate teachers‟ perceptions about different aspects of ESP programs such as instructional issues and school working environments, Huong

(2013) carried out an online survey with ESP teachers in 12 universities in Vietnam

However, the same as the studies mentioned before, the use of questionnaire seems not to fully delineate the “unobservable dimension of teaching” (Borg, 2009, p 1)

Being interested in comparing the participants‟ perceptions, Rajabi, Kiany and Maftoon (2011), however, contrasted perceived views of English language teachers and subject matter teachers towards pedagogical issues and their instructional practices in ESP classes The findings presented partly the uniformity of some teaching methods the teachers used in their classes such as traditional translation method and the difference in the types of activities preferred by those teachers In their study, the authors also tried to figure out the factors which shaped the beliefs of these two types of ESP teachers by asking them to make choices based on the available factors presented in the questionnaire The limitation of the study lied in the fact that it did not objectively reflect the underlying thoughts and beliefs of teachers by the only instrument of questionnaire survey Similarly, Oanh, Chau and Chi

(2005) conducted a study with 250 students and 20 teachers at a university in Vietnam, which aimed at exploring teachers and students‟ beliefs about ESP teaching and learning; whether teaching methods and materials are appropriate to students‟ levels and interests; and assessing how good students‟ communicative competence is after completing the course In their study, although the authors added more data collection instruments such as follow-up interviews and informal oral tests, the findings of the study were mainly based on the questionnaire results Although the study reported about the teachers‟ practices with the dominant approach of the Grammar Translation Method, it was not evident whether the teachers in such context behaved as they said

With regards to the corner-stone concept of ESP that is needs analysis, studies of Donesch-Jezo (2011) and Ali and Salih (2013) displayed interesting results on teachers‟ perceptions towards such concepts and its impact on ESP courses and ESP material writings In particular, by using survey questionnaires on teachers‟ and students‟ perceptions of current teaching instruction and students‟ needs and expectations, Donesch-Jezo (2011) concluded that besides some common views, there were still some mismatches between the learning styles of the students and the teachers‟ style of instruction in classroom due to different perceived needs Being aware of the weakness of the study as only using the questionnaires to collect the data, the author contended that

“this source of information is sufficient for teachers to make them think over their current teaching styles and techniques of instruction, and adapt them (if necessary) to the preferred learning styles of their students” (p 302) Different from Donesch-Jezo

(2011), Ali and Salih (2013) focused on the views of language teachers regarding the use of needs analysis in ESP materials writing Through a survey questionnaire conducted at five higher language institutions with 55 teacher participants, the researchers found that most ESP practitioners were highly aware of the importance of needs analysis, confirming the urgent demand for designing more „needs- responsive ESP materials‟ (p

18) as in the authors‟ words However, by only relying on a survey questionnaire, the findings might not reflect adequately what those teachers really perceived about their students‟ needs In Vietnam, although there are a number of studies on needs analysis for ESP courses (e.g Khuong & Chi, 2008; Dung, 2011; Dung & Anh, 2013); generally, in most ESP courses, needs analysis regarding learner needs and society needs seems not to be done holistically (Dong, 2011; Thanh, 2011), leading to ineffectiveness of ESP courses Although Dong (2011) reckoned that most ESP teachers tended to base on their experience and intuition about learner needs to design ESP courses or materials, up to now, not any study investigates what ESP teachers in Vietnam really understand and perceive about needs analysis

In another attempt to explore ESP teachers‟ perceptions, Wu and Badger (2009), Wu and Hung (2011), Huong and Malvetti (2012) did not use quantitative method but they took advantage of qualitative approach to investigate teachers‟ perceptions of problems in their teaching and their respective strategies For instance, Wu and Hung (2011) employed ethnographic instruments such as observation, interviews and document analysis to seek for the pedagogical perspectives behind a teacher‟s beliefs on curriculum planning in an EAP course The good point from such in-depth study is that the researchers established the framework of the EAP teaching practice from the ways the teacher perceived about curriculum planning In this case, teacher beliefs were reflected clearly by the teachers‟ behaviors and instructional choices However, since the participant of their study was only one teacher, the results could not cover all variations of teachers‟ beliefs in that EAP course Another weakness of this study is the researchers‟ lack of exploring the sources of that teacher‟s beliefs, i.e the reasons why the teacher believed what she should do in different steps related to curriculum planning as well as course implementation In another case, Huong and Malvetti (2012) only made use of 15 in-depth interviews with 15 ESP teachers in some universities and colleges in

Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam so as to identify their typical problems arising from ESP courses and the responsive reaction and strategies to cope with those difficulties Despite the careful process of delivering the interviews, the interview data of this study were not triangulated with the data from real classroom observations

Regarding the topic of ESP teachers‟ problems and strategies, Wu and Badger‟s

(2009) study seems to be a noticeable work since it mentions the concern of most ESP teachers which the authors call “In-class Subject Knowledge Dilemma” (ISKD)

Compared to the studies of Wu and Hung (2011); Huong and Malvetti (2012) mentioned above, Wu and Badger (2009) combined smoothly the semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, stimulated-recall and post-observation interviews with careful consideration into the ways those instruments were conducted

Additionally, it also examined the factors underlying the teachers‟ responses to ISKD situations as well as the influence of context to the ways teachers behaved and made use of their own strategies However, the study only focuses on some of the teachers‟ problems and strategies Hence, teachers‟ teaching approach in ESP classes and the underlying factors were not fully documented

Summary

This chapter has presented some theoretical backgrounds related to the study From the descriptions about how the concept of ESP is defined and its development throughout different stages, it is revealed an increasing awareness on the issues of learners‟ needs and typical discourses of various disciplines Besides, an in-depth examination of a number of major foci in ESP clearly demonstrates the importance of needs analysis in ESP courses, the demands and requirements for ESP practitioners as well as the existence of different ESP teaching approaches Since this study aims at investigating teachers‟ perceptions and practices of ESP teaching, the review of such issues provided important backgrounds for collecting and analyzing the data

Apart from that, a synthesis and critical review of studies regarding the relationship of teachers‟ perceptions and practices with the focus on ESP field has pointed the limitations of the previous studies, therefore, to identify the research gaps that the current study aims to occupy Firstly, the review has indicated little attention to how ESP teachers really deliver their lessons in practices Another limitation lies in the fact that survey questionnaires are mainly used in such studies, therefore, insights into what teachers perceive might not be fully captured Additionally, from the review, it is also indicative that contextual factors underlying how ESP teachers think and act are still not sufficiently investigated, requiring more attention paid to such gap

Combining the understanding of ESP teaching at the global and Vietnamese contexts, and the research spaces identified above, this study aims to explore how ESP teachers in Vietnam perceive and teach as well as the contextual factors affecting their thinking and instructional behaviors In particular, this research seeks to answer the following research questions:

(1) What are teachers‟ perceptions of ESP teaching?

(2) To what extent are those ESP teachers‟ perceptions reflected in their teaching practices?

(3) What factors affect those ESP teachers‟ perceptions and their practices?

The next chapter will be the presentation of research methodology to the study, in which choices of research approach, research sites, participants, the analytical framework and instrumentation are made with detailed demonstration of the whole data collection and analysis procedures so as to answer the above research questions.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Selection of methodology to the study

As Saunders et al (2009) noted, the adopted research philosophy contains important assumptions about the way in which each researcher views the world These assumptions underpin the research strategy and the methods to be chosen as part of that strategy

There are different ways to approach social reality, depending on the ideas about the nature of reality existence (ontology) which concerns about whether the world we see is predictable or unpredictable; and the nature of knowledge (epistemology) that is based on experience or any reasonings In general, there exist two major research paradigms: positivist and interpretivist that determine the types of research approach and methods (Bryman, 2001) While positivism advocates the use of quantitative methods to establish general truths about the social reality; interpretivism makes use of qualitative methods to explore the construction of reality through the interaction of the individuals and the environment This study adhered to interpretivism because it tried to understand the mental processes of the teachers and their behaviors under the interaction with contexts

In line with philosophical points of interpretivism, the qualitative approach was adopted to the study This approach suited the research aims of understanding ESP teachers‟ perceptions and practices within their teaching contexts In other words, it aimed to “study things in their natural setting in an attempt to interpret phenomena in terms of the meaning people bring to them” (Schreiber & Asner-self, 2011, p 10)

Additionally, such qualitative approach allowed the researcher to investigate the phenomenon inductively

The following table provides detailed explanation for the researcher‟s choice of the qualitative or inductive research approach

Table 2.1: Researcher’s choice of qualitative/ inductive research approach

(As for Saunders et al., 2009, p 27)

(based on the researcher‟s purposes)

- gaining an understanding of the meanings humans attached to events

- gaining an understanding of ESP teachers‟ perceptions and their practices

- a close understanding of the research context

- a close understanding of ESP teaching in Vietnamese context, especially in specific contexts of some medical universities

- the collection of qualitative data - the collection of qualitative data from the pre-interviews, classroom observations and post-class interviews

- a more flexible structure to permit changes of research emphasis as the research progresses

- a flexible process of collecting and analyzing data from multiple sources

- a realization that the researcher is part of the research process

- positioning the researcher as a research instrument

- less concern with the need to generalize

- close understanding of particular contexts, therefore generalization is not intended in this study

Among different types of qualitative research, case study is believed to provide the

“detailed contextual analysis of a limited number of events or conditions and their relationships” (Dooley, 2002, p 335) Its advantage lies in the fact that “it can “close in” on real-life situations and test views directly in relation to phenomena as they unfold in practice” (Flyvbjerg, 2006, p 235) Therefore, the use of case study is credited to facilitate the researcher to investigate deeply ESP teachers‟ perceptions and practices within their contexts

In addition, the characteristics of case study also fit into the research aims of this study As for Merriam (1998), case study holds three main features which are particularistic, descriptive and heuristic The first feature (particularistic) refers to the focus of the study on a particular individual, group, event, program or phenomenon

This feature is seen in this study because the focus is on groups of ESP teachers at some medical universities Next, this study reflects „descriptive‟ feature in the way it illustrates the complexities of a situation by demonstrating a number of factors shaping the perceptions of ESP teachers Besides, the reflection of ESP teachers‟ perceptions on their practices was displayed by means of multiple sources of data

Finally, the study fits the final characteristic of case study because the readers are provided with an insightful exploration of ESP teachers‟ perceptions; why they perceived in certain ways and delivered their teaching practices as they actually did; and what contextual factors influenced such perceptions and practices

Furthermore, the review of literature regarding ESP teaching in both local and global contexts reveals that most studies limited themselves at exploring teachers‟ perspectives through self-report instruments, therefore, did not capture all nuances of teachers‟ inner thoughts (See Section 1.6 for such review) The employment of the qualitative case study, on one side, fulfilled the methodological gap of research on ESP teacher cognition and on the other side, helped to depict a more comprehensive picture of ESP teachers‟ perceptions and practices in particular contexts

For all justified reasons above, the qualitative case study strategy was believed to be the most appropriate because of its fitness to the purpose of the study In addition, because the researcher aimed at maximizing understandings of ESP teachers‟ perceptions and practices as well as contextual factors influencing their perspectives and instructional behaviors at different universities of medicine and pharmacy, the study was determined as the qualitative multiple-case study in essence

The following section will present setting of the study which details how the cases and the research sites were selected and how the researcher‟s role was posited.

Setting of the study

2.2.1 Selecting the cases and research sites

As stated from the beginning, the overall aim of this study was to investigate ESP teachers‟ perceptions and practices in Vietnamese context Within the scope of this study, the researcher did not intend to cover the perceptions and practices of all teachers from different ESP fields in Vietnam but only focused on the teachers of Medical English which was closely related to the researcher‟s expertise and working realm This focus facilitated the researcher to make connection to her own teaching context and to seek answers for her own teaching situation Therefore, the selection of the cases and the research sites was firstly based on such purpose

In addition, as suggested by Stake (2000) that in doing case study, researchers should approach “towards those cases that seem to offer opportunities to learn […] that may mean taking the one most accessible, the one we can spend the most time with” (p

446) In other words, seeking the cases which are easy to access and are willing to share their viewpoints and practices might ensure for thick description of the investigated phenomenon Therefore, this was also another important criterion of case selection

Bearing such criteria in mind, the researcher thought of selecting the research participants from ESP teachers at 10 medical universities in Vietnam As suggested by Flyvbjerg (2006):

“When the objective is to achieve the greatest possible amount of information on a given problem or phenomenon, a representative case or a random sample may not be the most appropriate strategy This is because the typical or average case is often not the richest in information […] it is more appropriate to select some few cases chosen for their validity.” (p 229)

Therefore, a survey at those 10 medical universities was conducted with the purpose to approach the valid cases which met the established criteria Such a survey, on one hand, helped the researcher to identify the cases for the study; on the other hand, might provide the researcher with valuable information about teachers‟ perceptions and their reported practices in different contexts, which allowed in-depth investigation at some particular contexts in the present study

In order to conduct the survey, the researcher had contacted the Heads of the English Departments at ten universities of medicine and pharmacy in Vietnam After understanding clearly about the research purpose, they agreed to help pass the information to all the teachers who were in charge of Medical English at their departments The total number of teachers agreed to do the survey was 72 including

The survey was designed with the purpose to obtain background information of the teachers, their general understanding of ESP teaching and their evaluation of their current practices of ESP at their institutions At the end of the questionnaire, the teachers were asked if they agreed to take part in the second phase of the study and their requests in case they agreed Although all the teachers returned their responses with enthusiasm and supportive spirit, the survey was acknowledged to have some unavoidable limitations in that the questionnaire itself could not cover all aspects of ESP teachers‟ perceptions, regardless of their practice Except for some general information about the teachers‟ personal and professional background, the results seemed to be limited at the demonstration of their general understanding of ESP teaching and a list of difficulties and challenges, which were not sufficient to interpret what those ESP teachers really believed and behaved in practice as well as the reasons underlying their thoughts and actions Such results once again confirmed the researcher‟s choice of the qualitative approach in exploring such a complex phenomenon of teacher cognition

Although the survey was not helpful in providing insights into ESP teachers‟ perceptions and practices at those medical universities, it helped the researcher to select the cases for the main study According to the collected responses, 28 teachers agreed to participate in the study However, the researcher also had to take those teachers‟ requests into account when making the final decision on case selection

Among those teachers who accepted the invitation for participation, nearly half of them only agreed to be interviewed either by emails or telephone calls without classroom observations Therefore, the researcher had to take the rest of those teachers into consideration Actually, they were scattered in different medical universities from the northern part to the south, among which three out of five universities of medicine in the north and one university in the south met the requirement that each context should have at least two participant teachers Then, the researcher continued to study about their background information and thought over the possibilities to approach those cases

Based on the research purpose and research conditions, 11 voluntary teachers were chosen from the three medical universities in the northern area Firstly, they were at the same range of age (about over 30 to 40) Approaching the participants at the same age as the researcher might be easier for her to build up close relationship to them In addition, they all had at least two years of ESP teaching experience so that they might have the potential to provide rich data to the study compared to newly ESP teachers

Moreover, the textbook selection at those three universities was different, which might bring about different perspectives on ESP teachers‟ perceptions and practices

Another important reason was that the researcher‟s personal relationship to the heads of the foreign language departments at those universities through her acquaintances allowed the researcher to easily get permission for entry and study field work

However, when the researcher contacted those 11 teachers for the main study, two of them withdrew because one had to study the master course and the other decided to follow the PhD course overseas so they would not have lessons in the following school year Therefore, the total number of the participants who officially attended to the present study included nine teachers from those three selected medical universities

Via telephone conversations with those selected teachers, the researcher briefly talked about the purpose of the study and the data collection procedures They were told that all of the data would be kept confidentially and only the researcher and her supervisors would have access to the data Apart from the telephone conversations, they were also provided with a written consent form (see Appendix A), so they would know in detail about the research aims, their benefits, their rights and what they would do during the research process

In order to guarantee confidentiality of the participant teachers and their universities as committed at the beginning, all of their names and school names are anonymously called as Teacher 1 (T1) to Teacher 9 (T9) at three universities namely A, B and C

Among the teachers, Teacher 6 was in charge of English for pharmacy; however, since she said the course objectives for medicine and pharmacy at her university were the same, the researcher still decided to keep this case in the study The following table briefly presents those teachers‟ profiles:

Table 2.2: Background information about the participants of the study

Length of ESP teaching experience

- No experience with official ESP training courses/ workshops

- No experience with official ESP training courses/ workshops

- Had no experience with ESP official training courses but only studied a subject called “ESP” in the

- Had no experience with ESP official training

07 courses but only studied a subject called “ESP” in the MA course

- Had no experience with ESP official training courses but only studied a subject called “ESP” in the

- No experience with ESP official training courses/ workshops

- Had no experience with ESP official training courses but only studied a subject called

“ESP” in the MA course

- Had no experience with ESP official training courses but only studied a subject called “ESP” in the

- Had no experience with ESP official training courses but only studied a subject called “ESP” in the

The analytical framework of the study

Among the frameworks reviewed in Section 1.5.2, Borg‟s (1997) and Alzaanin‟s

(2014) models seem to be closer to the research purpose since both frameworks demonstrate the relationship between teachers‟ cognition and their practices and emphasize the impact of contextual factors on the way teachers think and act While in Borg‟s (1997) framework, teacher cognition is placed in the center, Alzaanin

(2014) situates teacher practices in the central circle of her model This reflects different foci that those authors highlighted according to their research purpose After considering these models in relation to the research purpose, the researcher chose to adapt Alzaanin‟s (2014) CEM because of the following reasons:

Firstly, as compared to Borg‟s framework which separates the contextual factors as an outside element, Alzaanin‟s (2014) CEM model considers teachers‟ cognition and practices within ecological layers, therefore, facilitates the researcher‟s views on the relationship between teachers‟ perceptions and teachers‟ practices under the effect of contextual layers from the micro scale to the macro scale

Secondly, employing the design of layer-shaped diagram in Alzaanin‟s (2014) CEM was more convenient for the researcher to collect and analyze data systematically for different layers It also helps to connect such layers together to make up a more comprehensive picture of ESP teachers‟ cognition and practices under the mediation of contextual factors

Finally, as in Alzaanin‟s (2014) assertion, although both Borg‟s framework and her model share the same sources of teachers‟ cognition, CEM allows researchers to be flexible in identifying sub-elements in each band of the framework based on the unique features of their study Therefore, researchers have opportunities to widen their views on each layer and to be more open to new elements arising in the process of data analysis or to omit irrelevant factors to their studies

In the adapted framework for this study, the main outer layers were kept the same as in the original one except for some revision in layers‟ names in order to fit the context of the research Besides, different from the original model, both teachers‟ perceptions and teachers‟ practices were placed in the central circle This adaptation was to suit the research purpose of the study with the focus on both ESP teachers‟ perceptions and practices

Figure 2.1: The analytical framework of the study

Moreover, this adapted model was kept as an open framework rather than being restricted and framed with a certain number of sub-elements in each layer However, in order to facilitate the collection of data, a number of tentative sub-elements were used as the guideline based on the literature and the research purpose as well as the scope of the study

Table 2.3: Tentative sub-elements within each layer of the adapted analytical framework Layers Tentative sub-elements Selection sources

- based on the scope of the study which mainly focuses on teachers‟ instructions in their classrooms

- Teacher‟s satisfaction towards the current ESP course

- based on the literature review of ESP and some issues identified in the previous studies

- based on Alzaanin‟s model and literature review

National context - National status of ESP

- National Trends of ESP Development

- Social, economic and cultural factors

- based on Alzaanin‟s model and the literature review

- Global Trends of ESP teaching

- adapted from Alzaanin‟s model to fit the purpose of the study

In brief, the adaptation of Alzaanin‟s (2014) CEM was not only suitable for the research purpose of the present study but also facilitated the procedures of data collection, data analysis and interpretation because it provided a holistic view on the relationship among teachers‟ perceptions, teachers‟ practices and different contextual factors.

Data collection methods

As mentioned earlier, in this study, three main instruments for collecting data were employed, namely semi-structured pre-interviews, classroom observations and semi- structured post-class observation interviews This section provides the rationales for the adoption of such instrumentation

On the discussion about data collection strategies in researching teacher‟s cognition, Borg (2006) states that:

Given that teacher cognition research is interested in phenomena which are not directly observable, a key challenge for researchers has been to identify data collection strategies through which these phenomena can be elicited (p 167)

Through the literature, a number of researchers have been successful in developing techniques like semi-structured interviews, classroom observations and stimulated recalls while conducting such stream of research (e.g Farrell & Lim, 2005; Phipps &

Borg, 2009) In Vietnam, Canh (2011) indicated the effectiveness of those three mentioned strategies while researching teachers‟ beliefs and practices about form- focused instruction By using those instruments, he agreed upon Burns‟s (1992) opinion that teachers can verbalize how beliefs and decision-making underpinned observed classroom practices Since the present study aimed to investigate ESP teachers‟ perception and practices in Vietnamese context, those strategies was adopted However, in some cases, stimulated recalls were not really satisfactory, thus, they were only called as post-class observation interviews

In fact, the choice of those data collection strategies facilitated the researcher to obtain purely qualitative data, which met the chosen philosophical viewpoints and research approach stated in the selection of methodology to the study The following sections detail the rationales of the instrumentation choice as well as description of each type of instruments

In qualitative research, interviews are considered as a major data collection method which enables participants “to discuss their interpretations of the world in which they live and to express how they regard situations from their own points of view” (Cohen et al., 2007, p 349) In this study, one-to-one semi-structured interview was chosen for some reasons Firstly, it allowed the researcher to elicit the voices and perceptions of teachers individually without any intervention of others as in group interviews

Moreover, it helped the researcher to build the mutual trust with the teachers and to make them feel more secure when being observed later Finally, this method was used to “avoid the problem of group harmony, a characteristic of Vietnamese collectivist culture” (Canh, 2011, p 94)

In this study, both pre-interviews and post-class observation interviews are semi- structured and were designed in Vietnamese in order to facilitate the ease of communication and to make sure that the teachers would feel comfortable and say exactly what they meant to say, therefore, to ensure the quality of the data Most questions in the interviews were open-ended to allow the teachers to express their thoughts in an open manner This, thus, provided “depth, nuance, complexity and roundness in data” (Mason, 2002, p 65)

In the pre-interviews, the interviewer generally had a framework of themes to be explored This set of pre-planned core questions for guidance helped to ensure the consistency with all participants, i.e the same areas were covered with each interviewee In this study, the pre-interview was designed and guided according to the chosen analytical framework of the study The questions in the interview were made based on the tentative sub-elements established within different layers in the framework Accordingly, the pre-interviews focused on eliciting teachers‟ perceptions about ESP teaching, such as their roles, their job requirement, the concept of ESP, ESP pedagogy and their views about the impact of different contextual layers (see Appendix C for the pre-interview guidelines and Appendix D for a sample of interview transcripts)

Before officially conducting the pre-interviews with the participant teachers of the study, the researcher implemented pilot interviews with two ESP teachers at her department to check if the questions in the interview were clear and understandable

After the pilot interviews, questions in the guideline were modified and some were deleted to avoid ambiguity The official interviews were hold according to the consent working schedule set up with all of the teachers at the beginning They were invited to have interviews in the coffee shops or in their departments at their disposal provided that they felt comfortable Each pre-interview was intended to take about 45 minutes but in fact, all of the interviews took longer than scheduled depending on teachers‟ willingness to share Such pre-interviews actually enabled the researcher to build up the teachers‟ trust which would facilitate for the subsequent class observations and post-class interviews Most of the interviews were conducted at one time, except for one time due to Teacher 1‟s urgent work at the university; a supplementary interview was arranged with that teacher right after that day After transcribing all data of the pre-interviews, the researcher sent the teachers the coded report for checking and clarifying some points However, their feedbacks in written form were too short and not clear enough Therefore, about six months after the first interviews, the researcher decided to go back and asked those participant teachers for permission to conduct one more interview for each Such prompt decision not only allowed the researcher to get more information for the research but also created another opportunity for the researcher to confirm what the teachers had stated in the first interviews

Each interview was audio-recorded by an MP3 device and transcribed according to the exact minutes of the interviewer and interviewees‟ turns of speech Then, these data were used to compare and combine with the subsequent data obtained from the observations in order to seek insights into those ESP teachers‟ perceptions and their instructional behaviors Additionally, the influential factors underlying perceptions and practices were identified from this source of data, besides the post-class interviews

In order to confirm and elicit more information about participants‟ behaviors during the observation session, the researcher had planned to use stimulated recalls that is often used to explore teachers‟ cognitive processes unobservable during their lessons (Calderhead, 1981) Borg (2009) used this method as “the basis of concrete discussions of what the teachers were doing, their interpretations of the events represented in the stimuli and of their reasons for the instructional decisions they were taking” (p 219)

When using this instrument, researchers should be aware that the accuracy of stimulated recalls depends much on the time lapse between the event and the recall For this issue, Bloom (1954) suggests that researchers should use it within 48 hours after the event happens in order to achieve about 95 percent of accuracy

In this study, since all participating teachers knew that the researcher had to travel far distance to observe classes, they tried their best to spend some time with the researcher at the end of the classes to discuss post-lesson questions Therefore, most of the post-class interviews were taken after the observations However, in some cases, due to the teachers‟ urgent personal work, the interviews were delayed until 2 or 3 days later That means in such cases, those interviews were not conducted within 48 hours Moreover, after transcribing the class observations, if there were any additional questions, the researcher came back to discuss with them about such points in their lessons For such reasons, the instrument was named as post-class observation interviews rather than stimulated recalls

Transcription and analysis of the data

All of the interviews and audio/video recordings of the class observations were transcribed verbatim and were checked again with the original recordings to ensure the accuracy of the data As a result, the number of collected data was about 21 hours 41 minutes (roughly 561 pages in transcription) of the two rounds of interviews and post-class interviews and about 23 hours 50 minutes (roughly 172 pages in transcription) of class observations After that, transcription of the interviews and classroom observations of each teacher were kept neatly in separate folders for subsequent data analysis procedures In order to ensure that the original data would not be lost due to any technical problems which might occur during the analysis process, several copies of all transcriptions and recordings were made, in which one copy was uploaded to the researcher‟s Google Drive account; one was saved into a removable hard drive and kept in a locked cabinet; and one was kept in a separate folder in the researcher‟s laptop

As mentioned above, all of the interviews were conducted in Vietnamese The excerpts for reference in the presentation of findings were translated by the researcher Then, those translated excerpts were sent to an accredited translator for back-translation in order to ensure that the data was not distorted during the translation process While translating the teachers‟ interview extracts, the researcher attempted to keep the participants‟ words as closely to what they said rather than reproduced the teachers‟ words in correct format in English As a result, the researcher‟s translation and the back-translated versions were relatively the same

In order to facilitate the data tracking in analysis, every interview was transcribed according to the exact minutes of the speaking turns of the interviewees and the interviewer, whereas, the classroom observations were tracked in segments of the teachers‟ different activities in their classes The format of interview data tracking in this study was formed as type of data collection instrument- teacher number- minutes in the recordings For example, Int1.T1.42.12 means the first interview with Teacher

1 at the minute 42 th , the seconds 12 th in the transcript; Post1.T2.10.05 means the post- class interview after the first class observation with Teacher 2 at the minute 10 th , the seconds 05 th in the transcript; Post2ext.T5.06.28 means extension of the post-class observation interview after the second class observation with Teacher 5 at the minute

6 th , the seconds 28 th in the transcript Besides, in the extracted data, some words or phrases in teachers‟ words are bold for the researcher‟s purpose of analysis

To assist readers‟ understanding of the extracted classroom transcripts displayed in the analysis of teachers‟ practices, the following conventions were employed:

T1, T2 particular teacher (as coded at the beginning) S1, S2 particular students

Ss more than one student speaking

/// pauses, hesitation car-di-ac Teacher speaks and writes on the board

[…] omitted part of the extract { } narration of activity associated with the speech (xxx) unclear/ unintelligible speech

Italics translation of original speech

Bold the researcher‟s emphasis for analysis purpose

In this study, two main types of data were collected, namely interview data and observational data Thematic analysis method was employed to analyze the data

2.5.2.1 Analysis of the interview data

Among different approaches to qualitative analysis identified in the literature, Braun and Clarke (2006) claimed that thematic analysis could be considered as a foundational method They also suggested that such method could “offer a more accessible form of analysis, particularly for those early in a qualitative research career” (p 81) Particularly, they developed a clear step-by-step guide including six phases of analysis for those who wish to use thematic analysis Because of its flexibility and accessibility, such guideline was employed to analyze the data in the present study Below are the analyzing phases for the interview data implemented in this study according to suggestions of Braun and Clarke (2006)

Phase 1: Familiarizing with the data

In the first phase of the analysis, researchers are suggested to read and reread the data in an active manner that is to search for some initial meanings Therefore, after transcribing all the data as mentioned above, the researcher printed the transcripts and read them repeatedly as well as noted down some initial ideas

Although this phase was time-consuming, the researcher tried to repeat data reading for several times because it “provides the bedrock for the rest of the analysis” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p 87)

After getting familiar with the data, the researcher moved to the second phase which involved the generation of initial codes in the data According to Boyatzis (1998), codes are defined as “the most basic segment, or element, of the raw data or information that can be assessed in a meaningful way regarding the phenomenon”

(Boyatzis, 1998, p 63) Coding is a process of marking chunks of texts according to themes, ideas or categories and naming them with certain code labels so that textual data can be organized in a manageable way In the present study, manual coding was utilized in order to maximize the researcher‟s reflection on the data Besides, QQ+Concordance coding technique (Sussex, 2006) was employed, which facilitated the tracking of the coded data for subsequent phases of analysis

In this phase, the researcher re-read each transcript of interviews carefully line by line to identify and underline important phrases or ideas and coded them accordingly All the codes were written on the margins of the transcript papers and next to the underlined chunks of extracts which referred to those codes After that, the identified codes and the corresponding extracts on the transcripts were highlighted and added in a file in the computer This action, on one hand, helped the researcher double-check the whole coding process to ensure that the codes were labeled properly; on the other hand, enabled the researcher to track and sort the codes quickly and easily Finally, cut-and-paste technique was used to sort each type of code in separate Excel files

Below is an example of how one particular code was sorted and stored:

Table 2.4: An example of sorting and storing one identified code in the interview data

Teachers’ perceptions about the course book (qqbook)

School Teacher Extracts Track Notes

A T1 because in that course book, every section/ heading is clear As for me, when I start teaching any course book, I usually instruct students carefully about the book, for example, how many sections it has and what are the aims of each section

Int1.T1.10.36 Using textbook as a quasi-syllabus

Therefore, I find that most of ESP course books mainly base on knowledge transmission I think other activities related to skills are not enough

Int1.T1.11.28 Assessing the book content the Department assigned the course book, whatever it is, we have to follow

Int3.T1.17.23 Abiding by the department‟s requirement

I teach according to the course book

Int3.T1.17.37 Relying on the course book

From such a course book, the teachers ourselves have to discuss with each other and intuitively understand that with a course book like this and the final test format like this, we will have to implement such objectives

Int3.T1.70.51 Using textbook as a quasi-syllabus

With the storage of identified codes in such way, it was certain that “all actual data extracts are coded and collated together within each code” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p

89) At the end of this phase, 34 codes were generated (See Appendix G for the initial coding system of the study)

Moving to this phase, the researcher is required to refocus on the analysis at the higher level, i.e to sort different codes identified in the previous phase into potential themes Here, the analytical framework and the literature review were utilized to facilitate the discovery of themes in relation to the research questions of the study In this phase, “some initial codes may go on to form main themes, whereas others may form sub-themes, and others still may be discarded” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p 90)

Therefore, during this process, only significant codes, which contributed to the answers of the research questions, were preserved for further analysis Such significant codes were grouped together under potential labels of themes As a result,

15 potential themes and 27 significant supporting codes were established in accordance with the layers in the framework, as demonstrated in Table 2.5

Table 2.5: Potential themes and supporting codes

Main layers Potential themes Supporting codes

Teachers‟ views of students‟ needs qqstneed, qqstlel, qqstatt Teachers‟ perceptions of ESP teaching aims qqaim, qqconcept Teachers‟ orientation to knowledge transmission qqaim qqteachfoci, qqteachapp, qqpeda, qqteachrol Classroom interpersonal social context

Impact of class size qqclassiz

Impact of classroom facilities qqfacil Institutional context Impact of course book qqbook

Influence of time allocation qqtime Impact of course objectives/ course guides qqcourseobj, qqschoolpoli Impact of higher authorities/ requirement qqrequire

National context Influence of the learning culture qqsthab, qqtestcul, qqedupoli Influence of the socioeconomy qqsocioneed Global ESP community context

Lack of expert theories qqmeddis, qqgltrend, qqtraining, qqteachknow, qqselfref

From this point, the potential themes gained from the previous phase were examined deeply and the whole story of the investigated phenomenon was figured out This phase involved checking whether the themes worked well to make up a convincing story Therefore, the researcher revisited the research questions of the study and decided which potential themes addressed each research question As suggested by Braun and Clarke (2006) that “the „keyness‟ of a theme is not necessarily dependent on quantifiable measures- but rather on whether it captures something important in relation to the overall research question” (p 82) This phase seems to be similar to the Axial coding phase suggested by Strauss and Corbin (1998), in which the researcher chose one category, i.e a theme as the core one and related other themes to it so as to make up a visual presentation of themes, or a “thematic map” (Braun &

Clarke, 2006) The core category in this study was identified according to the following criteria:

1 It must be central; that is, all other major categories can relate to it

2 It must appear frequently in the data This means that within all or almost all cases, there are indicators pointing to that concept

3 The explanation that evolves by relating the categories is logical and consistent There is no forcing of data

4 The name or phrase used to describe the central category should be sufficiently abstract

5 As the concept is refined, the theory grows in depth and explanatory power

6 When conditions vary, the explanation still holds, although the way in which a phenomenon is expressed might look somewhat different

Based on such criteria, the main category (theme) in this study was identified as

Trustworthiness

Although the issue of trustworthiness of qualitative research is often doubted by positivists, there are still criteria for evaluating the rigor of such type of naturalistic work Lincoln and Guba (1985) postulated the trustworthiness of a study by simply putting a question that “How can an inquirer persuade his or her audience that the research findings of an inquiry are worth paying attention to?” (p 290)

Consequently, they established four main constructs related to the evaluation of the quality of qualitative inquiry, namely Credibility, Transferability, Dependability and Confirmability The following sections discuss how the present study meets such criteria

If quantitative researchers are keener on seeking for internal validity to ensure their study quality, the corresponding construct of truth value in qualitative paradigms is credibility referring to the extent that the findings of qualitative research can be trusted and credited In order to ensure the credibility of the present study, some techniques were employed during the research process Firstly, although the researcher could not pursue persistent observations with the participant teachers because of their overlapping teaching schedules, prolonged engagement was maintained in the research contexts Both of the time the researcher spent on-site when conducting the preliminary survey and at least three weeks at each university setting during the interviews and observations facilitated the collection of multiple sources of data Secondly, member checking was used to strengthen credibility of the study In fact, reported code tracking files and original transcripts of interviews were sent back to the teachers for checking and confirming the validity of the data Also, the adoption of back-translation procedures helped to ensure the accuracy and trustworthiness of the data Another technique being utilized to gain credibility of the study was peer debriefing, which is a process of exposing data analysis to a peer with

“the purpose of exploring aspects of the inquiry that might otherwise remain only implicit within the inquirer‟s mind” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p 308) During the data analysis sessions, all the collected data and the analytical segments were presented to the researcher‟s supervisors for consultancy Through supervision meetings, the researcher had chances to explain all the steps and decisions leading to the interpretation of data in the study The supervisors‟ critical feedback was helpful in widening the researcher‟s perspectives on the phenomenon Therefore, the researcher could reconsider the assumptions or bias which might be taken for granted Finally, triangulation was also a technique to maintain the study‟s credible value In the present study, as mentioned in the previous section, different instruments were employed to collect data namely pre-interviews, classroom observations, post-class interviews The combination of the above strategies contributed to the credibility of the study

Transferability is the criterion showing that the findings of the study have applicability in other settings outside the boundaries of the study (Lincoln & Guba,

1985) This criterion is similar to the requirement of external validity in quantitative studies One technique for enhancing the transferability of qualitative inquiries is thick description (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) In other words, researchers should provide sufficient details about the phenomenon as well as research process so that other interested ones can consider the possibility of transferring the results to their own contexts In this study, every step and stage in the process of data collection and analysis was explicitly explained This provided readers of the study a clearer view on the investigation of the study Such thick and detailed description facilitated the transferability of the study to other similar contexts

The idea of dependability emphasizes that the results of the study are consistent and could be repeated This criterion is compared to reliability in quantitative inquiries In order to maintain the consistency of the study, all the cases underwent the same procedure of data collection and analysis In particular, same interview guidelines and classroom observation techniques were used to probe the teachers‟ perceptions and their instructional behaviors By moving back and forth to scrutinize any inconsistencies within each case, the researcher intended to seek for the dependability standard of the study In addition to that, details about methodology applied to the research allowed the study to be repeated

To a certain extent, confirmability of qualitative research is similar to the objectivity criterion in quantitative studies In addressing such standard, it requires qualitative researchers to guarantee that the findings of the study are drawn from research‟s informants and the inquiry itself, not from the researchers‟ biases or preferences

Confirmability of this study was achieved by triangulation of multiple sources of data as clearly mentioned in credibility criterion In addition, all the steps of the research process including data collection, data analysis and data interpretation were described in explicit manner along with the rationales for the researcher‟s decisions to establish an audit trail of research procedure available for any outside auditors to examine For instance, in this study, the use of code tracking files enabled the tracking of any original data quickly and concisely Furthermore, appendices of sample raw data of interviews and observations as well as illustration of instruments employed in the research are provided at the end of this paper for reference.

Ethical considerations

While implementing qualitative inquiries, besides ensuring the rigor and trustworthiness of the study, researchers should also adhere to a certain ethical principles which are pertinent to the issues of informed consent procedures, confidentiality of information shared, anonymity of research participants, balanced risk-benefit to participating people and the researcher-participant relationship In this study, such ethical issues were taken into account from the very first step of the study as well as during the research process Before conducting the main study, the researcher contacted the selected teachers via both emails and telephone calls, through which they were provided both verbally and in written consent form with prior information about the research purpose, the period of conducting research, data collection procedures, their benefits and their rights Therefore, it was guaranteed that their participation to the study was voluntary and not coerced The nine participating teachers were also given the right to withdraw at any time without giving any reasons Their anonymity was guaranteed by assigning code names to themselves and their institutions in order to avoid their real identification being tracked in any ways

All of the information shared through the interviews and the class observations as well as the other sources was promised to be kept confidential Another important domain to be considered was the relationship between the researcher and the participants Before, during and after the implementation of the study, the researcher kept trying to make the participants feel comfortable and free from the fear of being evaluated or scrutinized because the researcher were truly aware of its impact on the production of authentic data for the study The above efforts were made to maintain respect to the participants of this study as well as to ensure that the study was done ethically.

Summary

In this chapter, selection of methodology to the study has been discussed along with the presentation of setting of the study Given the purpose of the study, it is justified in this chapter that the choice of multiple-case study is appropriate since it helps to provide more insights into ESP teachers‟ perceptions and practices in some Vietnamese contexts Then, all the detailed steps in the procedures of data collection have been disclosed Accordingly, data were collected from different sources such as pre-interviews, class-observations and post-class observation interviews Different stages regarding to data analysis of interview data and observational data have been presented explicitly Finally, criteria contributed the trustworthiness of the study and some ethical considerations were made to maintain that the present study was conducted in reliable conditions.

FINDINGS ABOUT ESP TEACHERS‟ PERCEPTIONS AND

Teachers‟ perceptions of ESP teaching

In order to find out teachers‟ perceptions of ESP teaching, the researcher mainly focuses on the ways those teachers perceived their students‟ needs, the ways they identified the aims of ESP teaching as well as their reported teaching approaches The analysis regarding those aspects is presented with the data primarily gained from the semi-structured pre-interviews with the participating teachers in triangulation with some other data from classroom observations

3.1.1 Teachers’ views of students’ needs

All the teachers in this study shared their common view on the necessity of conducting a survey to understand what their students really needed to learn because it helped them to “get information of students‟ needs right at the start” (Teacher 6); therefore, they could “design suitable contents” (Teacher 2) and “encourage students to learn” (Teacher 4) Teacher 2 even compared the ESP course as a service in which students were customers and ESP practitioners functioned as the service providers

I think [surveying students‟ needs] is essential because in whatever we do, we need to know the students‟ needs It‟s like a service, we are servers, and then, we have to know our customers‟ needs Our students are our customers, we are the service providers, the servers, and thus, we have to know our students‟ needs (Int1.T2.15.32)

Despite such awareness of the importance of learner needs assessment, it was reported that no official learner needs assessment was conducted at those three universities In fact, some teachers expressed their concern about the difficulties and reliability of conducting such survey in practice For example, Teacher 3 thought that the students at the current course might not know about their own needs According to her, the survey should be done with the students of the final year or with the graduates In the same vein, Teacher 6 doubted about the results of the survey because the students at the second year did not know much about their discipline Hence, she thought it might be difficult to come to a conclusion about the students‟ needs

As revealed from the interviews, those teachers saw that a majority of their learners only considered the course as a compulsory subject Therefore, the first and foremost need of their students was to pass the final examination of the course To emphasize such immediate needs, Teacher 8 even described that “a majority of them try to finish the course and to pass the exam at all costs” (Int2.T8.21.34) Apart from such immediate needs, students‟ delayed needs were perceived as being involved in both academic purposes and professional purposes including reading disciplinary-based texts, pursuing higher studies and communicating with patients and colleagues in future working environments For example, in Teacher 1‟s observation, his students‟ objectives in the courses were various ranging from reading medical materials in English to writing the final theses regarding some medical research topics or serving their future jobs as doctors working in international hospitals or applying for higher courses overseas after graduation

Nevertheless, in this study, the information related to students‟ needs was mainly perceived by the teachers themselves In other words, those teachers, instead of using evidence of needs analysis, had perceptions of learner needs based on their own intuition They seemed to rely on their own personal standpoint (“perceived needs”) rather than on what students really wanted (“felt needs”) (Berwick, 1989) It is noteworthy that despite not conducting any needs analysis, Teacher 1 confirmed that 100% teachers at his department could foresee and identify their students‟ needs before the course Here, this teacher not only assumed that the teachers could understand about their students‟ needs but also took it for granted that all of the other teachers knew about such needs Whereas, some other teachers only stated that they partially perceived the needs based on teaching experience (Teachers 4 & 5) or through listening to the students‟ confidences (Teachers 2 & 5) or through the students‟ attitudes (Teachers 2, 7, 8 & 9) In their experience, the students who studied hard and performed well in class seemed to be more motivated and goal- directed than the poorly performed ones, as in Teacher 7‟s statement:

In my perceptions, there are two groups of students as follows: if students belonging to the higher level group have a wish to take the entrance exam to specialist courses after they finish the current ESP courses, they will definitely study hard, they will not only learn one ESP course at school but also take part in other courses besides school time; whereas, the students of the lower level group do not attach much importance to ESP and they only need to have adequate score to pass the subject (Int1.T7.39.57)

Similarly, Teacher 1, Teacher 2 and Teacher 9 also linked students‟ reasons for learning to their performance or level of English

In addition to that, teachers‟ inconsistency in their statements regarding to the learners‟ needs also showed their uncertainty in determining their students‟ needs

Among those teachers, only Teacher 5 seemed to believe in his students‟ curiosity and interest in exploring the knowledge of their discipline However, this teacher, at one moment in the second interview, seemed to contradict himself with what he perceived about his students‟ needs in the first interview The following extracts taken from the two interviews with Teacher 5 show such contradiction:

In general, a lot of students have an interest in this subject which is more or less related to their discipline Secondly, lots of students still want to learn English, not just because … Yes, a lot of them want to learn not just to pass this section (Int1.T5.33.37)

As for me, [the number of students having needs for ESP] is small, except for a few students who feel really interested in that subject Or in case they have such needs, I think the needs might be to deal with the subject and pass the exam (Int2.T5.49.48)

In the first interview, this teacher eagerly confirmed that “a lot of” his students were interested in the subject while in the second talk, he modestly said that only “a few” desired to learn Evidently, the inconsistency in this teacher‟s statements reveals his uncertainty of the students‟ needs Such type of uncertainty was also evident in the ways other participating teachers of this study expressed their own perceptions of learner needs For instance, at some points of the interviews, those teachers seemed to confirm their own assessment by using phrases like “definitely”, “surely”,

“certainly” Whereas, at some other points, they seemed to hesitate in giving their ideas, which were expressed by phrases like “maybe”, “partially”, “might be”,

“something like”, “relatively” Additionally, the occurrence of the phrases like “I think”, “I myself think that”, “as for me”, “personally” in those teachers‟ stated ideas regarding students‟ needs once again refers to their reliance on their own personal standpoint Interestingly, there was a tendency among all the teachers in generalizing a certain type of needs to the whole group of students, which was marked by expressions like “generally”, “students themselves”, “majority of them”,

“most of them” Moreover, when talking about students‟ needs, they also added

“actually”, “in fact”, “as a matter of fact” as if such needs were apparent Such evidence obviously reveals teachers‟ uncertainty and subjectivity in determining the students‟ needs

In brief, although the teachers in this study were aware of the importance of assessing learners‟ needs before the course implementation, they did not carry out any needs assessment in practice It can be seen that what the teachers of this study perceived about their learners‟ needs was mainly based on their subjective and inconsistent intuition rather than evidence of needs analysis

3.1.2 Teachers’ perceptions of ESP teaching aims

As presented in the previous part, the ways the teachers perceived their students‟ needs were mainly based on their intuition, thus, their decisions to other aspects in ESP teaching such as the teaching aims and the teaching approaches might be affected by such “perceived needs” (Berwick, 1989, p 55) This section presents teachers‟ perceptions of ESP teaching aims in view of such needs

Meeting students’ immediate needs of passing the test

In response to students‟ immediate needs mentioned above, the teachers in this study explicitly or implicitly identified the first teaching aim in the course was to help student to pass the exams Five out of nine teachers of this study (Teachers 1, 2, 6, 7

& 8) considered meeting such needs as what they had to achieve first For example,

Teachers‟ perceptions as reflected in their teaching practices

This section presents classroom observation data which are triangulated with collected data from the post-class observation interviews and semi-structure interviews so as to explore how those teachers‟ perceptions were reflected in their teaching practices Data from classroom observations revealed some common patterns of teaching practices among the teachers of this study including isolated vocabulary teaching, explicit instruction of grammar points, focus on translation, reading, accuracy and memorization Such instructional behaviors demonstrated typical characteristics of Grammar Translation Method and were also consistent with those teachers‟ perceptions of ESP teaching with the focus on knowledge transmission as mentioned in the previous part

As evident in the previous section about teachers‟ perceptions, the teachers seemed to strongly incline to the provision of some basic knowledge Therefore, according to them, the equipment of vocabulary and special terminologies of the discipline was very important so as to help their students in the exams and for their future application

Observational data showed that the teachers from University A and C shared the same activity of teaching a list of predetermined vocabulary related to each lesson

Those teachers often started their lessons by asking students to look at such list of vocabulary in the books, from which they guided them to pronounce the words as the whole class and explained meanings of some words in the list Below is an example of such practice:

01 T2 Now, first of all, we‟ll study the part “Vocabulary” Now look at them

{Sts look at the vocab list}

02 T2 Are you ready? ///So now read after me, please

03 T2 Adult

05 T2 Adult

07 T2 Adult < second way of pronouncing the word- /əˈdʌlt/ >

09 T2 So here in this way we have 2 ways to pronounce the word

{T2 continues to read each word in the list one or two times All students read the words aloud after the teacher Sometimes T2 stops at some words to explain meaning and links them to other words }

10 T2 “chronic”- What does it mean? What is it in Vietnamese?

12 T2 OK What is opposite of “chronic”?

14 T2 Ah, “acute” Right Here, {T2 writes on the board: chronic>< acute}

15 T2 Now, continue {T2 continues to read the rest of the word list and students read after the teacher the words}

16 T2 Now, I would like to check your pronunciation Ok?

17 T2 Now, Phuong , you read the words from “adult” to

{That student stands up and reads the words in front of the class, T2 stops at some words to correct his pronunciation Then she continued to call other students to read the next words and check their pronunciation.}

In this activity, Teacher 2 aimed at guiding students to pronounce the words in the list correctly by asking them to read aloud after her and checking some individual students‟ pronunciation mistakes Besides, she introduced the words that her students would come across in the lesson In this case, such alphabetically arranged vocabulary list for the lesson was not only used for reference, but also became a part of instruction in the class Students in the above excerpt were observed to repeat every single word in the list after their teachers Occasionally, in order to widen their vocabulary, the teacher stopped and linked some words to the ones the students might know (Turn 10 to 14), requiring the students to recall their existing vocabulary knowledge However, such task was not extended further to allow more connections or meaning negotiation, but was only limited by introducing more single words as such

Likewise, Teacher 8 and Teacher 9 from University C also presented new words of the lesson in a similar way since each lesson in their book was also supplemented with a predetermined list of words and phrases

01 T8 Now we start with vocabulary first Vocabulary Page 7 Read after me

{Sts read the words and phrases in the vocabulary after the teacher}

02 T8 Ok, read the vocabulary yourself Do it now

{Sts read the vocabulary list in about 3 minutes.}

03 T8 Ok? /// trong phần từ vựng chúng ta có gì đây? “Tuberculosis”- bệnh lao và

“chronic disease”- bệnh mạn tính, có động từ “affect”, “affect the lungs”, có

“severe”, chúng ta đừng nhầm từ “severe” này với từ “several” nhé Chúng ta có từ “several” có nghĩa là một vài, còn đây là “severe”- tính từ là nghiêm trọng, nghiêm trọng, đúng không? “Germs”- mầm bệnh, “germs of tuberculosis” Lúc nãy tôi nghe thấy có vài bạn nói “patient” ở đây là cái gì,

“patient” chúng ta học ở những học kì trước là “kiên nhẫn”, tính từ Còn đây là danh từ, có nghĩa là bệnh nhân, đúng chưa? “Be patient”, “hãy kiên nhẫn”

Người ta có từ “cough up blood” là ho ra?

In the vocabulary, what do we have? “Tuberculosis”- “bệnh lao” and “chronic disease”- “bệnh mạn tính” We have the verb “affect”,

“affect the lungs”, we have “severe”, please don’t misunderstand the word

“severe” as “several” We have the word “several” that means “một vài”, but here is “severe”-which is an adjective, means “nghiêm trọng”, “nghiêm trọng”, right? “Germs”-“mầm bệnh”, “germs of tuberculosis” I have heard that some of you say that “patient” here means what?, “patient” we learned from the previous semester, means “kiên nhẫn”, but here it is a noun, means “bệnh nhân”, right?“Be patient”, “hãy kiên nhẫn” We have the word “cough up blood” means “ho ra” what? ///

04 Ss “máu”

05 T8 T8: Ngoài ra người ta còn có từ “cough up sputum”- sputum vừa học ở bài 1 ấy là ho ra đờm, đúng không?

In addition, we also have the word “cough up sputum”- “sputum”, which we have learned in Unit 1, means “ho ra đờm”, right?

The same as Teacher 2, Teacher 8 in the above extract also guided the students to read after her in order to help them know how to pronounce those words She also connected some words in the list with what the students had learned and directly provided them with related information (Turn 03-05) Here, in both extracted cases, the students were observed to sit silently to read words after the teachers and to note down further information about vocabulary that the teachers provided In other words, they were constructed as the recipients of knowledge provided by their teachers

In the interviews, the teachers from university A said that during their probation time, they had opportunities to observe lessons taught by the experienced teachers in their department Teaching predetermined list of words before any lesson might be what they had learned from those teachers Meanwhile, such teaching procedure was stated clearly at the beginning of the course book at University C as a suggested step for the teachers in ESP classes Such shared pattern of behavior seemed to reflect the collective teaching norms at those contexts

Besides the teaching of vocabulary in the predetermined list as mentioned above, the provision of new words was also seen throughout the lessons During the observed lessons, whenever seeing new words or phrases that those teachers thought their students did not know, they tended to explain them with the provision of Vietnamese translation equivalence

In the following extract, while dealing with the reading passage, Teacher 4 asked one student to read the passage out loud with the aim to correct her pronunciation of individual words in front of the class (Turn 01, 02) After the student finished reading the first paragraph of the passage, the teacher asked the whole class if there were any new words that they did not know and provided them with equivalent Vietnamese meanings of those words

01 T4 Now stand up and read- Đứng dậy và đọc bài nhé S1 nào! Cả lớp trật tự nghe bạn đọc nào, nghe cách phát âm nhé

Stand up and read the passage S1! The whole class, keep silent and listen to your friend, pay attention to her pronunciation

02 S1 {the student reads the passage out loud the first paragraph of the passage}

{While the student is reading, T4 corrects her pronunciation of some words such as occur, damaged, epidermis, such a burn, substances, skin, further, instead}

03 T4 Thank you Are there any new words that you can’t find in the dictionary?

Có từ nào mới không? Are there any new words? Are there any new words that you can’t find, tell me!

04 T4 “Electricity”- what does it mean in Vietnamese?

06 T4 à, “điện” ah,“điện”

09 Ss “hóa chất”

13 T4 à “phân loại” ah, “phân loại”

14 T4 “Extent”? Do you know “extent”? - “bề rộng” hoặc “độ rộng” “bề rộng” or “độ rộng”

{T4 continues to explain some more new words appearing in the passage.}

The purpose of the teacher in the excerpt was on the one hand, to check the students‟ pronunciation, on the other hand, to provide the students with more new words besides the predetermined vocabulary list in the book In Turn 03, this teacher repeatedly asked the students in both English and Vietnamese if there were any new words they could not find in the dictionary To explain for her action, Teacher 4 shared in the interview after the class that:

Factors affecting teachers‟ perceptions and practices

As revealed from the previous sections regarding those teachers‟ perceptions and their teaching practices, there were a number of factors that directly or indirectly affected the ways those teachers thought and behaved In this section, three main influential sources are identified including the teachers‟ lack of expert theories and professional development activities; available sources as institutional guiding norms; and some guiding authorities From the detailed analysis of such factors, the reasons why the teachers oriented to knowledge transmission in both thinking and actions are brought to light

3.3.1 Teachers’ lack of expert theories and professional development activities

As reported by all the teachers of this study in the interviews, they were officially trained to be teachers of General English (GE) rather than ESP practitioners Among the participating teachers of this study, who got master degrees in linguistics and language teaching, six out of nine had opportunities to learn a subject regarding ESP during their MA courses However, as those teachers said, they either forgot what they had learned or they were not sure what aspects from the course they could apply in their current teaching For example, Teacher 3 expressed that:

Actually, it was a long time ago Moreover, most of such things [I learned from the ESP teaching subject in my MA course] were simply general theories, but here it is the particular discipline of medicine Therefore, I think they are not very helpful (Int2.T3.01.03)

It was very likely that this teacher did not have much impression on such “general theories” that she had acquired Similar thoughts were also shared by other teachers who had learned theories of ESP in their MA course, except for Teacher 5 and Teacher 7, who had a slightly different idea on the effect of such knowledge They believed that at least they had some foundation knowledge about some concepts related to ESP teaching However, they did not confidently confirm about their application into reality of teaching, as in Teacher 7‟s words:

Since it [ESP subject] was studied a long time ago, I do not notice much about its effect But I think it has probably brought certain basic knowledge for me

It‟s a kind of foundation knowledge that I might not be conscious of You know, when it turns to be founded in my knowledge, whenever I teach the lessons, I know how to teach It has become my instinct Therefore, I am not conscious of what kind of theories that I am applying (Int2.T7.03.12)

Although this teacher felt that what she learned about ESP teaching had brought her some basic knowledge, she seemed not to be sure about what specific aspects from such knowledge that she could use in her teaching Noticeably, she described her teaching as something related to her “instinct” and that she was not conscious of the theories she was using It could be seen from this point that although those teachers had opportunities to learn certain theories of ESP teaching in their MA courses, such limited training did not put clear impact on teachers‟ teaching

Besides, most of the teachers also claimed about their lack of professional development activities, i.e the opportunities for them to develop knowledge and skills related to ESP teaching As revealed from the interview data, the teachers complained about their lack of opportunities to learn from each other If there was any, it was only information exchange on the meaning of some difficult terminologies rather than teaching experience For example, in the first interview with Teacher 6, when asked about the ways the teachers in her department shared knowledge and teaching experience in ESP courses, she said:

Normally, everyone does not have time, firstly, to observe each other‟s lessons Secondly, each person has their own way of teaching […] They also share with each other but only in case somebody asks Actually, it is only helping each other about the contents Regarding teaching methods, each person has their own way (Int1.T6.06.00)

Such limited peer learning was also seen in the contexts of University A and University C Although the teachers at University A had opportunities to observe classes from the experienced teachers in their department during their one-year probation time, such collegial learning was only seen in such observation period

After that, those young teachers had to study on their own Compared to the opportunities of their partners at University A, the teachers from University C only learned from one or two times observing classes of one experienced teacher who had been nominated by the Dean Consequently, they had to struggle themselves in finding ways to teach other lessons without any critical feedback from other teachers in the department That was why Teacher 8 of this university sadly expressed about her situation:

I don‟t know what it‟s like in your university, but in my university, there have never been any workshops for the teachers to sit together and discuss what we should do, what we should teach, or whether our current teaching is ok […]

We have to handle it all by ourselves, do you understand? I think when teaching ESP like that, the teachers should sit together Then, if anybody has any teaching methods, they can share with others, it will be better And everyone can learn from one another However, we haven‟t done it yet

It was apparent that Teacher 8 saw the need of professional development activities in which she could have opportunities to learn from others, and more importantly, to reflect on her own teaching However, there were not any available activities like those in her context Such types of activities for teachers‟ learning and experience sharing were also limited in the other contexts of University A and B It made them

“handle it all” by themselves

Another evidence to indicate teachers‟ lack of exposure to professional development activities was their limited access to expert theories Teachers in the study had stated that they did not have opportunities or channels to access to updated ESP teaching trends in the world For instance, they said:

Since I have no time, I only read some information I have some materials to read about it [regarding ESP teaching] However, I do not study it deeply I do not have opportunities to approach [such theories], I only know some

Summary

This chapter has presented the findings related to how and why the ESP teachers at the three selected universities of medicine and pharmacy in the northern part of Vietnam perceived and taught First, the findings showed that most ESP teachers of this study used their subjective intuition to identify their students‟ needs According to them, the immediate needs of the students were to pass the final exam while the students‟ delayed needs were thought to be involved in both academic and professional purposes Based on such perceived needs of the students, the ESP teaching aims were identified as helping the students to pass the tests and to prepare for their future needs Such perceptions were in line with the way the teachers identified typical terminologies of the field and content knowledge as the main difference between ESP and EGP Therefore, the provision of basic knowledge and skills to the students was important to those teachers in order to meet such teaching aims That was why those ESP teachers showed strong orientation towards the transmission of knowledge Such perceptions were reflected clearly in the ways they taught Four major patterns of those ESP teachers‟ practices namely their isolated vocabulary teaching, explicit grammar instruction, their focus on reading and translation as well as memorization and accuracy provided strong evidence for the consistent relationship between those teachers‟ perceptions and practices The factors affected the way the teachers thought and acted were revealed from the data including their limited expert theories and professional activities; their dependence on the institutional guiding norms such as course guides, course books, tests, experienced colleagues and limited time allocation for the course; and the teachers‟ reliance on some guiding authorities Those factors also explained the reasons why the teachers in this study oriented to the transmission of knowledge and were generally complacent with their situation

The summary of the findings is demonstrated in the following diagram:

Teachers’ perceptions as mediated by contextual Teachers’ practices factors

Meeting Sts’ immediate needs Preparing for Sts’ delayed needs

Teachers’ views of students’ needs

Teachers’ perceptions of ESP teaching aims

- International contexts where students are required to communicate in English

- Teachers’ lack of expert theories and professional development activities

- Guiding norms (course guides, course books, tests, experienced colleagues and time allocation)

- Guiding authorities (the learning culture in Vietnam, the needs of society, institutional higher authorities, the students‟ learning habit and teachers‟ perceived roles)

- Focus on translation and reading

- Importance of accuracy and memorization

- For reading disciplinary-based texts

Helping students to pass the exams

Teachers’ orientation to knowledge transmission

DISCUSION OF THE FINDINGS

Revisiting the research questions

In this section, the three research questions are revisited with in-depth discussions about the findings of the study in relation to the literature Through such discussions, more insights into those ESP teachers‟ perceptions and practices in some Vietnamese contexts are obtained

RQ1: What are teachers’ perceptions of ESP teaching?

In response to the first research question, three main aspects regarding teachers‟ perceptions of ESP teaching emerged from the data and were analyzed in detail in the previous chapter, including the ESP teachers‟ views of students‟ needs, their identification of ESP teaching aims and their reported teaching approaches

As one of the most remarkable features of ESP is to meet specific needs of learners, which also made it distinguishable to other general English courses, “it is probably no exaggeration to say that needs assessment is seen in ESP as the foundation on which all other decisions are, or should be, made” (Belcher, 2006, p 135) Since this is the

“corner stone of ESP” (Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998, p 122), it has attracted attention of ESP researchers with the focus on how to conduct a needs analysis in general or in some specific contexts (e.g Munby, 1978; Holliday & Cooke, 1982;

Brindley, 1989; Berwick, 1989; Brown, 2006; Mohammadi & Mousavi, 2013;

Chovancova, 2014; Lee, 2016) However, not much research has been done on how ESP teachers really understand their learners‟ needs, especially in the contexts that teachers are not officially trained about how to conduct learner needs in a holistic way Therefore, the findings of this study add more evidence on teachers‟ views of learner needs in such contexts In this study, although the teachers saw the importance of conducting learner needs analysis, they actually used their subjective intuition to identify their students‟ needs The data apparently indicated uncertainty and inconsistency in the participating teachers‟ statements about their students‟ needs One possible reason attributed to those ESP teachers‟ reliance on their subjective intuition rather than on evidence from learners‟ real needs might be their lack of knowledge regarding needs analysis

If ESP is considered as “an approach to language teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based on the learner's reason for learning” (Hutchinson &

Waters, 1987, p 19), the teachers‟ decisions to ESP teaching, in this study, was obviously affected by their intuition of students‟ needs rather than by needs assessment evidence itself Based on their intuition, the teachers of this study reckoned that their students wanted to learn ESP for two main purposes, namely passing the final exam (the immediate needs) and serving for their higher studies and future jobs (the delayed needs) Given such perceived needs, the teaching aims in the ESP courses were identified accordingly, that was to help students achieve their immediate needs and prepare for their delayed needs Such identified teaching aims were aligned with those teachers‟ orientation to knowledge transmission and their understanding of ESP because according to them, providing the students with certain basic knowledge such as terminologies and typical grammar structures would help the students pass the final exam and apply what they had learned in the future While the global ESP teaching trends are moving towards the teaching approaches such as Content-based instruction (Freiermuth, 2001; Yu & Xiao, 2013; Amiri & Fatemi,

2014), Task-based approach (Rahman, 2010; Sarani & Sahebi, 2012; Shabani &

Ghasemi, 2014), Project-based teaching (Choi, 2010; Tyagi & Kannan, 2013;

Alsamani & Daif-Allah, 2016); the teachers in this study seemed to adhere to the traditional teaching approach with the focus on the transmission of knowledge As for them, the teaching of ESP and EGP was not much different, but it was the matter of terminology that distinguishes these two fields This fact is closely related to the teachers‟ lack of exposure to expert theories, which will be further discussed for the research question number three of this study

Although there was a consistency between the ways the teachers perceived about their students‟ needs and the ways they identified the teaching aims and their teaching approach, it might not ensure for the effectiveness of the ESP courses as well as their fitness to the students‟ needs because the teachers‟ perceived needs were mainly based on their subjective intuition In this regard, Huhta et al (2013) suggested that

“the content of the ESP course should be based on evidence, not teacher intuition” (p

51) The situations found in this study, therefore, seem not to be in line with the major tenet of ESP teaching that everything should be based on the learner needs

RQ2: To what extent are those ESP teachers’ perceptions reflected in their teaching practices?

The participating teachers‟ perceptions about ESP teaching with the orientation towards knowledge transmission were consistent with their instructional practices which are characterized by their isolated vocabulary teaching, their explicit instruction of grammar points and their focus on translation, reading, accuracy and memorization

First, in terms of vocabulary teaching, the findings of this study resemble the results in Oanh, Chau and Chi‟s (2005) study in that most of the teachers in their study believed that “their main job was to provide their students with lots of technical terms so that they would be able to understand the reading texts through translation” (p

264) However, the findings of their study were mainly drawn from teachers‟ self- reported statements in the questionnaires and the interviews Therefore, by examining how the teachers actually delivered their lessons in practice, this study supplements empirical evidence to shed more light on teachers‟ practices of ESP in the context of Vietnam

With regard to the teaching of vocabulary in ESP courses, Dudley-Evans and St John

(1998) suggested that “different learners favor different techniques, and it is important that teachers encourage learners to find out what works best for them” (p

84) They also recommended ESP teachers to use strategies involving “cognitive processing rather than mechanical learning of lists” (p 84) However, in this study, the teachers were observed to mainly provide the students with lists of unknown words appeared in the course books Perhaps, equipping the students with a number of terminologies of their field is necessary; however, it is more important to make them use the words in appropriate situations In some observed lessons, the students also learned about the typical prefixes and suffixes of medial terminologies Although the students were provided with some certain rules, the teachers seemed not to spare much time for them to practice Then, even in the best condition that the students could learn all about the rules, it might not ensure for their ability to use those words in future situations as those teachers wished because as confirmed by Lightbown

(2000) that “knowing a language rule does not mean one will be able to use it in communicative interaction” (p 432)

Additionally, the findings also show that rarely did their students participate in word meaning negotiation Rather, they silently copied such word lists on their notebooks for memorization Such practice might limit students‟ ability to “make meaning and engage with disciplinary knowledge” (Woodward-Kron, 2008, p 246)

Likewise, it might not be problematic when the teachers in this study generally preferred teaching grammar explicitly However, the problem seemed to be the way those teachers only stopped there; and there seemed nothing else that followed In this regard, Dudley-Evans and St John (1998) suggested that for the instruction of grammar in ESP courses, the focus should not only be placed on “the form” but also on “its use in contexts relevant to learners‟ needs” (p 75)

Moreover, learning grammar points through decontextualised sentences might not ensure the students‟ ability to apply the structures in suitable situations in the future as those teachers thought because as warned by Widdowson (1978):

Reflecting the findings on the analytical framework

As determined from the beginning, Alzaanin‟s (2014) Cognitive-Ecological Model was adapted to form the analytical framework of the study because of its fitness to the purpose of the research (See Section 2.3) Although a tentative list of sub-elements within each layer of the framework has been established as the guideline for collecting the data, it has been flexibly utilized in the data analysis procedure, in which some emerged codes from the data were supplemented to the existing layers and some other insignificant codes were discarded in case they did not support the answers of the research questions

Although this study was not intended to measure the levels of impact of different contextual layers on teachers‟ perceptions and their practices, “there must be salient aspects of contexts which teachers selected and cognitively manipulated in order to form their core beliefs” (Viet, 2013, p 302) In this study, the influential contextual factors from different layers of the framework were grouped into three main sources including teachers‟ lack of expert theories and professional development activities; available sources as institutional guiding norms; and some guiding authorities from the national and institutional contexts

Regarding the impact of the global ESP community context, although in this study, the ESP teachers‟ perceptions and practices were not influenced by ESP updated teaching trends or theories, their limited access to such knowledge was probably the root cause explaining the ways they thought and behaved Particularly, despite the teachers‟ awareness on the importance of learner needs analysis, they did not do that but used their intuition to assess what their students wanted to learn from the course

That could be attributed to teachers‟ lack of necessary knowledge related to how to conduct a holistic needs analysis In addition to that, due to the teachers‟ lack of expert knowledge, it was indicative that the teachers seemed to be unclear about their teaching methods and some related ESP concepts As the result, they had to resort to the available sources in their teaching contexts to seek for suitable teaching practices

Furthermore, the teachers‟ complacency with their teaching and their acceptance of the reality might also result from their limited exposure to global ESP teaching trends, which prevented them from reflecting on their own teaching Therefore, their lessons were mainly delivered in the traditional teaching approach and their practices were still depicted as the transmission of knowledge with little learning opportunities created for the students

Besides the teachers‟ lack of expert theories and professional development activities, the influential factors lay in the teachers‟ dependence on institutional guiding norms and a number of guiding authorities As clearly shown in Section 3.3, the learning and testing culture which was established along the educational system of Vietnam and the needs of society can be considered as the ones among the guiding authorities that affected the teachers‟ decisions in their classes Particularly, those guiding authorities prevented them from doing communicative activities This reflects the impact of the “National context” layer on teachers‟ perceptions and practices in this study

With regard to the remaining contextual layers in the framework, which are related to the institutional and classroom contexts, the factors from such layers formed the guiding norms and some other guiding authorities affecting the ways the ESP teachers thought and acted In particular, some factors such as the department‟s requirement and students‟ learning habit as well as the teachers‟ perceived role as knowledge transmitters comprised other guiding authorities besides the impact of the national educational system and socioeconomic condition mentioned before In terms of the guiding norms, it was evident that the participating teachers in this study depended on the course guides, course books, tests, experienced colleagues and limited time frame of the courses The findings in this study demonstrated that those factors played very important roles in guiding the teachers‟ thinking and instructional decisions For example, the teachers used the assigned course books as their quasi- syllabus that guided them about what to teach; and the tests guided the teachers which areas or skills to focus on during their lessons; or the limited time frame affected teachers‟ choice in organizing and choosing teaching activities

With reference to the inner layer of the framework- ESP teachers‟ perceptions and ESP teachers‟ practices, the analysis and triangulation of different sources of data revealed that those ESP teachers‟ practices were consistently reflected the ways they perceived about ESP teaching with orientation towards knowledge transmission

In sum, what have been found in this study confirms the demonstration of the relationship between the teachers‟ perceptions and practices as well as influential contextual factors as they were illustrated in the framework In other words, the teachers‟ practices strongly reflected what they believed; and such practices and perceptions of those ESP teachers were filtered and framed by the different layers of contextual factors To a certain extent, it could be seen from the findings that those identified factors has formed a complex contextual network mediating both teachers‟ perceptions and practices.

Summary

This chapter has discussed the main findings of the study in relation to the research questions and with reference to the literature as well as in reflection with the analytical framework

Section 4.1 has revisited the research questions to raise some important arguments related to the findings Firstly, the way the teachers perceived about their students‟ needs was mainly based on their subjective intuition rather than the evidence from needs analysis procedure Therefore, it is argued that teachers‟ perceptions about students‟ needs in this study seemed not to be in accordance with the major tenet of

ESP teaching that is to meet the real needs of the learners Believing that the students‟ immediate needs as passing the exams and their delayed needs as for future studies and careers, and considering terminology is the typical difference between ESP and EGP, those ESP teachers oriented themselves towards equipment of knowledge for the students in order to meet such needs

With regard to the findings for the second question, the teachers‟ teaching patterns characterized by their isolated vocabulary teaching, explicit grammar instruction and focus on translation, reading, memorization and accuracy were discussed in light with some propositions in the literature The main argument on the teachers‟ practices was that despite the consistency with their perceptions, such practices did not show much effectiveness in creating learning opportunities for the students Through the manifestation of those ESP teachers‟ practices, they were depicted as the knowledge transmitters while the students were seen as the passive recipients of knowledge

Therefore, the students‟ ability to deal with various contexts in their future jobs and studies was questionable

Finally, along with the emphasis on the important impacts of contextual factors on teachers‟ perceptions and practices, the findings from the influential factors identified in the third research question also addressed the issue of the teachers‟ poor agency and the loss of the teachers‟ ownership of their teaching The teachers‟ limited exposure to expert theories and professional development activities might result in their vague understanding of teaching methodologies and limit their perspectives in reflecting on their own practices Therefore, they had to depend on and were driven by available sources in their contexts as well as a number of guiding authorities Such passive dependence and conformity to such guiding norms and authorities of those teachers revealed their low capacity to take actions and their lost ownership of their teaching

The findings of this study were related to some other studies in both Vietnam and outside contexts However, by interpreting the results in light of teachers‟ agency and teaching ownership, it is hoped to shed more light to the complex phenomenon of teachers‟ cognition and their practices

Besides the discussions of the findings according to the research questions and the related literature, in Section 4.2, the results were also reviewed in relation to the chosen analytical framework of the study In this section, the findings were reflected on each layer of the framework Accordingly, the inner layer of teachers‟ practices and perceptions was shown as mediated and framed by the outer contextual layers

Such reflection of the findings on the analytical framework aim at bringing the readers a clearer view on the ways the ESP teachers perceived and behaved under the impacts of contextual factors from the micro scale (i.e their classroom and institutional contexts) to the larger scale (i.e the national and global contexts)

The summary of the whole research and some implications regarding theoretical and practical aspects as well as some acknowledged limitations of the present study with recommended avenues for future research are presented in the final part- the Conclusion

This part concludes the thesis with a brief summary of the entire research Then, some implications regarding theory, research and policy are addressed, followed by the acknowledgment of some limitations of the study Finally, some future research avenues are suggested.

Summary of the research

This study aims at investigating ESP teachers‟ perceptions and their practices as well as some influential factors within some Vietnamese contexts The research topic stemmed from the researcher‟s personal motivation and curiosity of finding out the solutions for the stagnant ESP teaching situation in her context and the picture of such practices in Vietnamese context through the lenses of the ESP teachers It also arouse in response to the research gaps found in the literature regarding ESP teacher cognition in both local and global contexts A critical review of the related literature has revealed that although over the past decade a number of studies were conducted in relation to ESP teachers‟ perceptions of different ESP related aspects, there is still a lack of research exploring the ways ESP teachers really perceive and deliver ESP classes in Vietnam as well as in other contexts This present study is an attempt to occupy such research space

With the purpose to gain deep insights into the ways ESP teachers think and behave, the researcher adopted the qualitative research paradigm, in which multiple-case study was chosen because of its fitness to the purpose of the study In order to approach the cases, the researcher conducted a survey at 10 medical universities nationwide, from which those ESP teachers were invited to take part in the main study After considering the requests of the teachers who agreed to participate with reference to all the research conditions and the research purpose, the researcher chose to conduct the study with nine selected voluntary ESP teachers at three universities of medicine and pharmacy in the northern part of Vietnam Therefore, the present study comprised nine cases from different teaching contexts

With the aims set out at the beginning, the study sought to answer the following research questions:

(1) What are teachers‟ perceptions of ESP teaching?

(2) To what extent are those ESP teachers‟ perceptions reflected in their teaching practices?

(3) What factors affect those ESP teachers‟ perceptions and their practices?

In order to answer such research questions, multiple sources of data were utilized, including pre-interviews, classroom observations and post-class observation interviews with those participating teachers Besides those main tools, some documents such as course books, course guides at those three universities were also analyzed in order to illustrate some typical characteristics of such teaching contexts

Data from the interviews and class observations were analyzed according to Braun and Clarke‟s (2006) guidelines of thematic analysis In this study, Alzaanin‟s (2014) Cognitive-Ecological Model was adapted as the analytical framework, which allowed the researcher to investigate those ESP teachers‟ perceptions and practices in relation to the different layers of contexts spreading from the micro to the macro scales

The qualitative analysis process yielded three main findings in relation to the three main research questions Firstly, in terms of the teachers‟ perceptions, the findings provided evidence to indicate that those ESP teachers‟ views of students‟ needs in this study were mainly based on their subjective intuition This influenced their identification of ESP teaching aims which were to meet students‟ immediate needs of passing the final exams and to prepare for students‟ delayed needs in their future work and study Also, ample evidence was provided to show the teachers‟ strong orientation towards knowledge transmission Such perceptions were relevant to the teachers‟ understanding of ESP in which terminology was considered as the typical feature Secondly, the findings on those ESP teachers‟ perceptions as reflected on their practices helped to answer the second question of this study From the observational data, four main patterns of those teachers‟ instruction in ESP courses emerged They included their isolated vocabulary teaching, explicit grammar instruction, their focus on reading and translation, memorization and accuracy

Noticeably, their practices were not effective in providing the students with learning opportunities or getting them engaged in their discipline Those patterns were indicated to be typical features of Grammar Translation Method, which were in line with the teachers‟ inclination to the transmission of knowledge Besides, it also reflected the teachers‟ perceptions that ESP teaching was not much different from EGP teaching Therefore, in general, the ways the teachers in this study perceived were in accordance with their instructional behaviors Finally, in order to address the question about the factors affecting those ESP teachers‟ perceptions and practices, three main factors were identified as their lack of expert theories and professional development activities; their dependence on the institutional guiding norms such as course guides, course books, tests, experienced colleagues and limited timeframe; and those teachers‟ reliance on some guiding authorities from the national and institutional contexts Those factors not only provided explanation for those ESP teachers‟ perceptions and their practices, but also helped to depict a picture of the status quo of ESP teaching in some Vietnamese contexts It was indicative that since the teachers lacked expert theories, they had to rely on the available sources in their contexts Such limited exposure to updated theories of the field also restricted the teachers from reflecting upon their own teaching, which resulted in their routinization in teaching and their complacency with their own situations

To conclude, this study helps to delineate the picture of ESP teaching in some Vietnamese contexts through the teachers‟ perceptions and practices It was revealed from the findings of this study that those teachers seemed to be framed in the traditional teaching method of knowledge transmission which was not effective in enhancing students‟ learning ability The major contribution of this study is that it has brought to light the issue of teachers‟ agency and their ownership of teaching In this study, the teachers were portrayed as lacking agency and losing the ownership of their own teaching This added one important reason to the stagnant situation of ESP teaching as observed in a number of studies in Vietnam (e.g Oanh, Chau & Chi, 2005; Tuan, 2007; Dong, 2011 & Duyen, 2014) Importantly, the findings also pointed out the root reason for such situation which was teachers‟ lack of expert theories and professional development activities to reflect on their own teaching

Apart from that, the findings of this study also argue for the need to consider the whole contextual factors systematically in that changing one single factor in the system is inadequate to change teachers‟ cognition and their instructional behaviors

By pointing out the situation of ESP teaching in some Vietnamese contexts and the root reasons, this study can be considered as a catalyst for further discussions with the aim to improve ESP teaching quality in Vietnam

The following section presents in detail the implications drawn out from this study regarding theory, research and policy.

Implications of the study

From the findings of this study, the theoretical implications are firstly addressed concerning the applicability of Alzaanin‟s (2014) Cognitive-Ecological Model in investigating teachers‟ perceptions and practices as well as the influential factors

Since teacher cognition is situated and contextually bounded, the adaptation of this framework has facilitated the researcher to investigate such a complex construct in relation to their practices and in the interaction with the contextual factors The findings of this study, therefore, to some extent, add more empirical evidence to validate the value of this framework when adapted to specific research purposes

In this study, although the teachers‟ perceptions were in accordance with their beliefs, it was indicated that their teaching was not effective in enhancing the students‟ active learning in their classes Therefore, it is argued that the consistency between the ways those teachers thought and the ways they acted might not always be advantageous as in Barkhuizen‟s (2008) assertion that “teachers teach best and students learn best in situations that are compatible with their backgrounds, beliefs and expectations” (p

233) This echoes the need to place such perceptions and practices of teachers in light of students‟ learning, as recommended by Borg (2003) that “now that teacher cognition research is well-established, it is time to consider how what language teachers think, know, and do relates to learning” (p 98)

Furthermore, although it is true that “the social and cultural contexts such as the schools and classroom function as frameworks of value and interpretation in which language teachers must learn to work effectively” (Freeman & Johnson, 1998, p

409), the findings of this study added the question on the teachers‟ lack of reflection with the expert theories which might also affect their teaching effectiveness In this study, although the teachers took their teaching contexts into consideration while delivering their practices, without reflecting their own perceptions and practices with the expert theories, they seemed to let themselves driven and guided by the contexts

Although Alzaanin‟s (2014) Cognitive-Ecological Model is promising to be applied for the research of teacher cognition and practices due to its friendly-designed framework, it is suggested that researchers, especially the novel ones should apply it flexibly On the one hand, researchers should keep in mind the purpose of their study and combine with relevant literature in order to establish an appropriately adapted model for their own study On the other hand, during the data analysis, researchers should not rigidly adhere to the framework but they had better use it in a more flexible way In other words, they should keep their mind open to allow new elements emerging from the data to be added in the framework Likewise, some inappropriate elements might be discarded if necessary

In addition to that, although the use of multiple sources of data is recommended in investigating complex constructs regarding teachers‟ thinking as confirmed by some other researchers (e.g Borg, 2009; Canh, 2011; Viet, 2013), the number of teacher cognition researchers making use of such methodology is still limited Rather, many studies are likely to incline to the use of questionnaires which cannot deeply seek insights into the inner thoughts of teachers Therefore, this study adds more empirical evidence to the effectiveness of such qualitative research approach Moreover, with the reflection of the teachers‟ perceptions on their practices and the close examination of the reasons underlying teachers‟ instructions, important aspects of teachers‟ thinking and behaviors may well be dug in

As revealed from the findings that since the teachers lacked expert theories and professional development activities, they had to resort to the available sources at their contexts and also depended on some guiding authorities, which then led to those teachers‟ complacency and routinization in teaching Such findings shed light on the picture of ESP teaching in Vietnam, which seems to be stagnant and not really effective In such picture, the ESP teachers‟ perceptions and practices were strongly guided by the contextual factors from different scales Therefore, in order to improve such status quo, it is important to take both the teachers and the contextual factors into consideration

The first priority should be placed on ESP teachers‟ professional training including both pre-service and in-service courses However, teachers‟ exposure to expert theories might not ensure that those teachers would make major cognitive changes In this study, although six out of nine teachers received some knowledge related to ESP teaching in their MA courses, such training seemed to have little influence on those teachers‟ teaching Therefore, it is implied from the findings of this study that teacher training courses or workshops should not simply provide the teachers with expert theories but more importantly, it should focus on training the teachers the ability to use the acquired expert knowledge to reflect on their own teaching As such, they will turn such theories into their own knowledge Then, they will learn to take ownership of their teaching and gradually build up the capacity to act

In terms of the provision of expert theories in such training courses, ESP practitioners should be firstly equipped with “the expertise to function as needs-knowledgeable instructors” (Belcher, 2009, p 3) In other words, it is very important that ESP teachers should be first trained about how to conduct a holistic needs analysis As the teachers assess the learners‟ needs by evidence rather than by their intuition, they will be able to make appropriate decisions to the teaching content and methodology and to motivate students to learn according to their real needs

Additionally, as reflected from the data of this study, most of the teachers who were using the self-designed course books thought that the books were somewhat out of date, whereas Teacher 5 and Teacher 7 reckoned that the book designed by foreign authors was sometimes beyond students‟ ability and their content knowledge Hence, ESP teachers should also be trained how to compile their teaching materials effectively and how to selectively adapt the available course books and materials into their own teaching contexts

In this study, the ESP teachers‟ perceptions and their practices were filtered and framed by the contextual factors Therefore, apart from equipping ESP teachers with expert theories and the ability to reflect on their own practices, the policy makers and the institutions should facilitate the teachers to work in more favorable teaching conditions, for example, giving them more power to raise their own voice, allocating more time and facilities for ESP courses and reconsidering the format of testing and assessment However, it is also noted that changing a single factor might not lead to the changes in teachers‟ cognition and their teaching approaches For example, as evidenced in this study, in the cases of Teacher 5 and Teacher 7, the change of the course book did not equal to those teachers‟ alteration in their teaching Likewise, even if the teachers were provided with more time, they seemed to provide more knowledge to the students Thus, it is crucial that the policy makers should view those contextual factors systematically so as to make more effective decisions

It is obvious that in order to improve the whole ESP teaching system, it requires not only a huge attempt from the teachers themselves but also concerted efforts from different levels of authorities.

Limitations of the study

Although this study has brought about some significant insights into the investigation of ESP teachers‟ perceptions and practices within some Vietnamese contexts, during the implementation of the research, it might not avoid a number of limitations

Firstly, regarding the data collection tools, as stated clearly in Section 2.4.2, the researcher planned to observe each teacher three times during their courses, but due to their overlapped teaching schedule, each person was only observed for two times

Such a limited number of the class observations might not fully reflect those teachers‟ practices during the whole course In addition to that, in order to avoid any intrusive effects that might affect those teachers‟ natural behaviors in their classes, an MP3 device was used to record the lesson procedures Although the researcher tried to note down additional descriptions while observing the teachers, such type of recording might miss some important details regarding teachers and students‟ interaction

Moreover, due to limited time that the teachers could be able to spare for the interviews after their classes, only the field notes and the transcriptions were used to recall the teachers‟ thoughts instead of the real images of their teaching episodes

Additionally, some post-class interviews could not be hold right after the observations due to the mentioned practical reasons This might also limit those teachers‟ reflection to some certain extent

Secondly, since all of the interviews were done in Vietnamese with the purpose to facilitate the teachers‟ communication and expression of their ideas, the extracted statements of the teachers were translated into English by the researcher Although those referenced excerpts were back-translated by a professional translator, it might not ensure complete accuracy in translation

Thirdly, like many other qualitative studies, the findings of this study might not be used for generalization because it aims at exploring the phenomenon at some specific contexts with specific characteristics However, with the transparent procedures of data collection and analysis as presented in Chapter 2 of this thesis, the applicability and transferability of the research process and the findings in some related contexts are possible

Fourthly, despite a number of efforts in avoiding subjective bias in the position of a qualitative researcher, the researcher‟s experience as an ESP teacher might impose some certain personal ideas on the interpretation of the data Nevertheless, as stated in Section 1.6.4 about the confirmability of the research, with the support of triangulation of multiple sources of data and the critiques from the researcher‟s supervisors, such bias is believed to be minimized as much as possible

Finally, since teachers‟ cognition is an inherently complex and dynamic construct, the findings of this study might not fully cover all nuances and aspects related to the interaction of teachers‟ cognition and different factors within the nested ecosystems.

Future research avenues

Taking the aforementioned limitations of this study into consideration, some future research avenues are suggested

Firstly, extending the scope of the study to other disciplines such as Business, Engineering, Law and Construction might help to deepen understanding about perceptions and practices of ESP teachers working in different Vietnamese contexts

Moreover, the selection of participants from different geographical regions might bring about interesting findings regarding the impacts of different contextual factors

The combination of such studies might help to delineate more precisely the picture of ESP teaching in Vietnam through the lenses of ESP teachers

Secondly, longitudinal studies should be conducted with more observations of teachers‟ practices over a long period of time This might help researchers observe teachers‟ instructional behaviors consistently Moreover, spending more time with the participants will be great opportunities for researchers to deeply engage in the investigation of the ways teachers think and do

Thirdly, comparing the perceptions and practices of ESP teachers before and after some professional training courses under some action research might be another possibility Such studies will help to check the possible impacts of teacher training on the ways teachers believe and behave

Fourthly, this study only focuses on depicting the picture of ESP teaching through the lenses of ESP teachers In the future, it is also worthwhile to explore perspectives of different stakeholders such as students, administrators, policy makers and employers so as to gain understanding of a more comprehensive picture of ESP teaching in Vietnamese contexts

Finally, since teachers‟ cognition is a complex construct which is comprised of different systems of beliefs interacting with one another and with different contextual factors, it is also necessary to seek deeper insights into such interrelated relationship and to figure out the levels of impact of different contextual layers on the way teachers think and behave

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