INTRODUCTION
The rationale of the study
Northwest Program or Tay Bac Program is a state-level key science and technology program in the 2013 – 2018 period titled "Science and Technology for the Sustainable Development of the Northwest Region" (called in short as the Northwest Program)
This program, targeted at Northern midland and mountainous provinces in Bắc Kạn province, involved multiple stakeholders including the Bắc Kạn provincial People’s Committee, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Education and Training in coordination with VNU
The Northern midland and mountainous region has great potential and tremendous advantages for development, but also has to confront with difficulties and challenges in development realities Along with many target programs, the investment projects of economic, social, cultural and educational development for the Northwest, on 28th June 2013, implementing the directive of the Prime Minister, the Minister of Science and Technology signed Decision No 1746/QD-BKHCN on approval of the goals, content and expected product of the Northwest Program VNU was assigned to be in charge of the program and former VNU President Phùng Xuân Nhạ is the Chairman of the program
The Northwest Program is the concretization of the strategic policy of the Vietnamese Party and State: considering Science & Technology as the primary national policy to promote to the highest degree the intellectual resources and create an impetus for the development of knowledge-based economy in the Northwest region of Vietnam By solving issues in the development realities of the region and of each locality, the program hopes to raise production capacity and competitiveness, promote the advantages, resources and potential, to create an impetus for the raising of overall growth level of the region and bring about the practical benefits to the community of ethnic minority groups living in the Northwest provinces, contributing to ensuring the national defense and security
1.1.2 The role of English in Customs at the border gate
English has been acknowledged by most countries in the world as an international language Consequently, English has to be used in international communication both orally and in written communication, for general as well as specific needs English’s role in the early development of modern technology has cemented its global importance In the context of rapid economic globalisation, Vietnam is now conducting international business with countries across the world As a result, English is increasingly used as a lingua franca by Vietnamese people for foreign interactions and communication
The challenge of communicating at border gates is to create cohesion between culturally distinct workforces English, often considered a relatively neutral language, acts as a bridge that connects people across countries and cultures, providing a pathway for innovation As a result, English has been chosen as an agent language among countries English has all the capabilities to facilitate the innovation economy because it allows individuals and companies and organizations around the world to communicate, and therefore collaborate toward a common vision or goal
1.1.3 The necessity to conduct a study of composing an English handbook for Customs Officers
In the context of international and regional integration and exchange, English communication for work has become an essential requirement for cadres and civil servants in various professions It is in places where there is a lot of trade and interaction with foreigners Among them, the Northwest border customs is considered one of the places where cadres and civil servants have many opportunities to interact with foreigners coming from different countries Recognizing the importance of the English language as a tool of trade and exchange in the international environment, and on the basis of practical needs of customs officers at the North West border gate, the team learn and develop a handbook of typical English words and situations in customs with the expectation of supporting the staff here in carrying out daily tasks, thereby improving the efficiency of work and bringing about Economic benefits for the North West area
Working at the border gate means the major working environment of Customs Officers is international English becomes an important communication instrument thanks to its globalization Vietnam has a long border shared with Chinese, the use of English as agent language can limit the superiority of Chinese and Chinese language users in communication
In addition, the number of travellers heading up into this part of the country is increasing annually, due to the long-awaited opening of the border crossing into Laos near Dien Bien Phu As a result, foreign language is one of the basic requirements imposed by employers in most of the industries, including the customs service In this regard, the Customs Officer administration required an English handbook aimed to improve the knowledge of this language for their employees
With the support of Vietnam Ministry of Education and Training and specialists from University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, as a part of Northwest program , the project “An English handbook for Customs Officers” has been conducted The target group consists of officers working Customs major in general and Tay Bac Customs Officer Department in particular for communication with tourists, enterprises and partners.
Aims and objectives of the study
The aim of the project is to develop an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) material necessary for the efficient fulfilment of duties in customs, as well as facilitate cross- border communication
To achieve this aim, the following objectives are established:
- To get an overview of the strategies and principles related to ESP materials development to select vocabulary for Customs Officers in composing specialized situations
- To conduct a needs analysis to identify the Customs officers’ working situation, the officers’ need
- To propose an appropriate English handbook with appropriate vocabulary for the target students based on the relevant theories and the need analysis
- To investigate the opinions of experts and customs officers towards selected vocabulary
The objectives can be summarized by three research questions below:
1 What are the process and the principles of choosing best-suited situation-based vocabulary in composing an English handbook for Customs Officers in Northwest region of Vietnam?
2 What is the need of Customs officers in Nortwest regions of Vietnam?
3 What are the opinions of the Linguistics experts and the Customs experts towards the vocabulary used in the handbook?
Research methodology
To achieve the above aims, both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used in this study, including secondary data collection, semi-structured interview, and questionnaires First, relevant literature, studies and available materials were reviewed in order to get in-depth information Second, the most common Vietnamese situations in Customs field were collected from a Customs Department A semi-structured interview was conducted to find out the needs of targeted Customs officers The first draft of the handbook was produced based on the analysis of their needs Both open- ended and close-ended questions were administered to Customs experts and officers to find out their opinions towards the vocabulary and situation used in the handbook The results of the questionnaires led to the next modifications of the handbook.
Scope of the study
The focus of the study is on the situation-based vocabulary selected for the English handbook for Customs officers; Customs experts and officers’ opinions towards the vocabulary and the possible modifications for the handbook There have been a certain number of issues that worth digged into, such as the effectiveness of the handbook or a suggested process for designing an ESP material for other majors
However, they are not in the scope of this thesis because of the time limitation and hoped to be investigated in another research.
Significance of the thesis
The researcher hopes that the findings of the study would help to generate a list of useful vocabulary for Customs officers and figure out the difficulties ESP designers may encounter while developing ESP materials Practically speaking, the utilization of the selected vocabulary is hoped to improve working effectiveness of Customs officers in situations using English The writer also expects strategies for composing more practical English handbooks with integrated situation-based vocabulary which can maximize the use of the material The finding also benefits a large number of customs officers who desires to use the handbook for self-study.
Organization of the thesis
The thesis is composed of five chapters in total Following this introductory chapter with some significant background issues concerning the current study is Chapter II in which the theoretical framework for analyzing and interpreting the data collected for the study, in coordination with related studies, is covered In Chapter III, the research site, research subjects, research instruments, the process of the field work as well as the methods of data analysis are explained Then in Chapter IV, with the guide of the theoretical framework and research questions, the results of the study are displayed
Finally, in Chapter V, the concluding chapter, the findings of the study drawn from the research are summarized for related future work will also be presented.
LITERATURE REVIEW
ESP materials development
This section discusses the issues related to the ESP materials development All the ESP developers should take the following terms under consideration:
- What are the issues to consider in developing the ESP materials?
- What are the techniques used for material evaluation?
The reviewed term will set light on the way we conduct the research in composing a handbook for Customs Officers in Northwest regions of Vietnam ESP can be defined as teaching and learning English as a second or foreign language for the purpose of using it in a particular domain
ESP has become a separated part of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) since 1960s owing the fact that English has become the contemporary lingua franca
The growing demand for English as a medium of communication and the introduction of governmental mass educational programs contributed to the rapid expansion of ESP
There have been a number of ESP definitions, “situations where the student has some specific reasons to learn a language” in the opinion of Harmer (1983, p.45) or “an approach to language teaching in which all decisions as to content and methods are based on the learner’s reason for learning” by Hutchinson et al (1987, p.89) The same idea is stated by Strevens in The Learner and the Teacher of ESP that “ESP is particular case of general category of special-purpose language training.” (1988, p.132)
Ten years later, Dudley-Evans and St John (1998, p.1) state that “the main concerns of ESP have always been, and remain, with needs analysis, text analysis, and preparing learners to communicate effectively in the tasks prescribed by their study or work situation” They classify ESP into English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) and claim these distinctions are very important as they will affect the degree of specificity that is appropriate to the course
As specified by Kim (2008, p.76), in more recent times, the following characteristics of EOP have emerged: i) There is a clear purpose (e.g., business skills for presentations in English, business letter writing, etc.); ii) It addresses needs in proficiency, as revealed by a needs analysis, of workplace needs; iii) It tantamounts to responding to, and satisfying, educational needs; iv) The relevant vocabulary and expressions related to their workplace; and, v) It is more suited to immediate needs, and serves more practical purposes than GE in the workplace Those are the features that are adopted in this research as it draws an overview about EOP/ESP materials that are being developed
2.1.2 Principles and procedures of developing ESP materials
Given the characteristics of developed materials, design processes are always divided into steps and phases in order to make sure that checks and tests are carried out at the appropriate time to avoid any lengthy and costly time consuming modifications at the end ESP development involves the following three stages: pre-development, while- development and post-development Analyzing learners’ specific needs and evaluating the relevant existing materials is the first and foremost steps Then several important factors need to be considered in the development process After finishing, developers also need to get a full understanding of the feedback from the materials users and experts
According to Cunningsworth (2002), what makes ESP different from GE is that ESP is goal-oriented and based on the awareness of learners‘ needs Thus, identifying what learners need has a significant influence on the development of appropriate ESP materials
Since the begining stages of ESP (the 1960s and early 1970), needs analysis have consisted in assessing the communicative needs of the learners and the techniques of achieving specific teaching objectives Nowadays, the tasks of needs analysis is much more complex According to Angouri (2010), ESP seeks a congruent approach to provide learners with both content of the specialist and the linguistic knowledge to develope communicative skills necessary for work-related communication ESP has been defined as “viewing learners in terms of their work or study roles, not personal needs or general interest” (Basturkmen, 2010, p 3) The value of ESP and other content-related language teaching is that they are context specific and marry specific workplace needs with language learning This is important because “the linguistic proficiency in everyday settings is incommensurably different from the linguistic proficiency in classroom settings, even in classrooms that purport to be communicatively oriented” (van Lier, 2002, p 145) ESP prepares learners to be able to use English in academic, professional or workplace settings (Mohammadi &
For Robinson (1991), needs analysis may be a combination of both the target situation analysis (TSA) and present situation analysis (PSA) TSA aims at students‘ needs at the end of the course while PSA focuses on students‘ strengths and weaknesses at the start of the course Two divisions of need, target needs and learning needs, are also identified by Hutchinson & Waters (1987) Target needs are analyzed in terms of (i) what the learner has to know in order to function effectively in the target situation, (ii) the gap between learners‘ existing proficiency and target proficiency, and (iii) learners‘ view as to what their needs are
However, consideration of target situation needs alone is not enough since the target situation is not reliable in terms of what is needed or useful in the ESP learning context
Only after analyzing the students’ needs and determining the objectives of the language course, we can select a material that meets the needs of the students
Therfore, needs analysis is the foundation on which we can develop materials that can lead to increasing the language users’ motivation and success Because ESP materials are based on needs analysis, the objectives are more obvious than would be in the case of general ESL ones and it can be assumed that students will be more highly motivated in learning about topics and texts which are related to their study or work areas So, needs analysis and material evaluation are tighted together so that needs analysis determine the needs for a defined group of people and evaluation helps the ESP designers determine to what extent those materials meet the learners’ needs|
In 1987, Hutchinson and Waters created a framework concerning the relevant information that a course designer needs to gather from an analysis of target needs and learning needs Hutchinson and Waters (1987) believed that asking question is a pathway to receive the assessment of target situation needs and learning needs What the learners have to do in the target situation (language use) are target situation needs, while language learning is how people study the language Below is the list of the target situation analysis framework:
- Why is the language needed?
- How will the language be used?
- What will the content areas be?
- Who will the learner use the language with?
- Where will the language be used?
- When will the language be used?
2.1.2.2 While-development: Developed content and Real content
Dudley-Evan & St John (2009) highlight that matching between developed content and real content should be taken into consideration in the process of preparing new materials Developed content can be defined as the subject matter used to teach the specific language whereas real content refers to the language or skill content of a language practice The former is usually found in ESP textbook or documents whereas the latter is the language tool used in real-life situations It would be considered to be a qualified material if those two are as similar as possible so that the language learners can apply what they have learned into their daily use and make the language knowledge their own Due to that relationship, Dudley-Evans & St
John then propose two possibilities in preparing new materials with the two types of content as shown in the graph below:
Process for Preparing New Materials Starting point A have some developed content determine its real content match real and developed content to course framework
Starting point B need material for specific objective search for suitable developed content
Figure 1: Process for preparing new materials (Dudley-Evans & St John, 2009, p 177)
The first possible starting point is to have good developed content The next stage involves analyzing it to decide on the real content and think about how the real content can fit in The second possibility starts from where there is a need for some materials to reach the specific course objectives but there is no suitable one at first, so searching for the suitable developed content is necessary
Moreover, the ESP developers should pay careful attention to the clarity, conciseness and explicitness of the materials structure ESP materials should go with clear instruction and guideline so that users can use them for their self-study as well As recent research has shown (Frydrychova Klimova & Poulova, 2013), the ESP materials should be as follows:
ESP materials should have a clear, concise, logical and simple structure (information in bullets is preferred)
The materials should be comprehensible and up-to-date
They should be easily navigated
They should be interactive with appropriate multimedia components
Another factor in developing materials is the level of authenticity of the material itself designers should consider using real life, authentic materials that reflect the target audience specialization (Abudhahir, Mahdun and Md Nor, 2014) This will help language users who are weak in the English Language to at least comprehend reading text for example due to the background knowledge that they have Hence ESP materials should attach context in it, which is integrated with their field of study so that the background knowledge that they have will help them in understanding terms and jargons easily By using real life materials, users will be happy and will feel at ease when they are learning because they are familiar and comfortable with the materials
2.1.2.3 Post-development: On-going Evaluation
Situation-based vocabulary
The English handbook for Customs officers in Northwest of Vietnam consists of two main parts, which are situations and vocabulary This section discusses the selection process of choosing words in each situation that can facilitate the Customs officers in their real-life situations To set a basement for the process, the following questions need to be answered:
- What is the importance of vocabulary in using English?
- What are the characteristics of situation-based vocabulary?
- What are the process of choosing vocabulary for each situation?
2.2.1 The importance of vocabulary in ESP teaching and learning
Vocabulary is an element that draws a huge attention from many linguistics and language teachers As claimed by Jenkins and Dixon (1983), vocabulary is a core component of language and provides much of the basis for how learners speak, listen, read and write As claimed by Gardener (2009, as cited in Adger, 2002), vocabulary is not only confined to the meaning of words but also includes how vocabulary in a language is structured: how people use and store words and how they learn words and the relationship between words, phrases, categories of words and phrases
Undoubtedly, words do possess power that links fours skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing all together In order to communicate well in a foreign language, students should acquire an adequate number of words and should know how to use them accurately The power of words comes from the message they convey and when one wants to learn a language, learning vocabulary of that particular language is essential With its importance, both academic vocabulary and semi-technical vocabulary should be given priority in teaching by ESP teachers because, according to Dudley-Evans and St John (1998, p.83), this type of vocabulary is used in general life contexts but also has a higher frequency of occurrence in scientific and technical descriptions and discussions
As a consequence, in order to better the language proficiency of the Customs officers, enhancing their English vocabulary, both academic and semi-technical vocabulary, is a must, especially words relating to their specific purposes in using the language Each type of the vocabulary plays different roles in different situations it is used in
It has been acknowledged that the vocabulary of a foreign language is more easily learned if it is organized in coherent semantic groups around "situations" or "centers of interest." What is needed is a logical and non-arbitrary taxonomy of situations, which have been categorized into two main types: open and closed situations (Ellis N and A Beaton, 1993) Closed situations regard to an analysis of reality that bears definite features recognizable by all the users of a language In contrast, open situation is virtually unlimited, lacks pre-established organization, and varies from individual to individual Within closed situations one detects a further dichotomy between positioned and unpositioned frames In preparing vocabulary for situation-based teaching, it is proper not only to organize subjective "open" situations according to age and interest, but also to take advantage of the fact of closed situations in language learning
Situation-based vocabulary is to simulate the real communication environment, So that the ESP users learn to use the new vocabulary, reproduction of the text in the plot, the maximum reduction of the text of the scene Traditional classroom teaching methods to a certain extent, it is difficult to stimulate students interest in learning English, but let students feel that learning is a boring process (Nation,
1990) Therefore, to help students in a short time to remember a large number of words Situation-based teaching method will be a series of words in a scenario, which is for language users to learn a memory clue These memory clues are not boring, abstract, but interesting, vivid Through these memory trails, students are provided with a memory strategy to convey the contents of short-term memory to long-term memory In this research, situation is not only a set of scenario for Customs officers to
“read out loud” when it comes to reality, but it also is a way to help the officers to learn new English vocabulary
2.2.3 Strategies and principles of selecting situation-based vocabulary in developing ESP materials
After choosing situations to introduce the vocabulary, approaches to the content are taken under consideration According to Romiszowksi (1986), there are three basic approaches to planning content, which are: (1) topic-orientated, (2) concept-orientated and (3) task- or objective-orientated In the topic-orientated approach to content, the topic is the first priority First, it is broken down into components or associated sub- topics Most teachers find this method fairly easy to apply since it is so widely used in education On the other hand, concept-orientated approach is similar to the topic- orientated one, but focuses on concepts rather than topics It is an approach that can work well in concept-rich subjects (such as the sciences), but is difficult to apply to subjects where the content is more open (e.g., tourism) Task- or objective-orientated approach starts from the overall achievement that you wish your students to have and then break it down into learning objectives It then breaks down into its skills and knowledge components and the pre-requisite knowledge that the designer will assume when writing the materials Based on the need analysis and the characteristics of the material users, in this study, we choose topic oriented and objective oriented to choose the vocabulary in composing the handbook
2.2.3.1 Choosing words: how many and which ones
The needs of learners are in the center of all kinds of teaching, including vocabulary teaching Beginning to plan one’s vocabulary introduction, a language material developer evaluates how many words learners need in order to be able to use the target language in situations that they are likely to confront The situations most L2 learners are likely to encounter are usually not as diverse as those of a native speaker (Schmitt 2002), so it is not a necessity to learn as many words as a native speaker (Laufer & Nation, 2012) Most learners do not necessarily need as large a vocabulary
But the more complex the subjects of conversations, texts and situations are, the more vocabulary the learner needs Many second language learners aim at being able to communicate in the target language and to read some authentic texts In second language learning, it has been estimated that the so called core vocabulary or threshold level for being able to operate in daily conversations is about 2,000-3,000 words (Thornbury 2007, Milton 2009, Schmitt 2002) Many studies suggest that learning the 2,000 or so most frequent words should be the centre of vocabulary teaching because they accumulate the learning of other words (Nation 2011, p.5)
In teaching and learning ESP vocabulary, it is essential to distinguish between different types of vocabulary because different types of vocabulary need different focus and treatment or some types of vocabulary will be given priorities and emphases in teaching and learning according to learners’ different aims of learning There are several categories to classify vocabulary:
1) High-frequency words include many content words
2) Academic words include many words that are common in various kinds of academic texts
3) Technical words are closely related to the topic and subject area in the text
4) Low-Frequency words include words like quarantine, phytosanitary, automatated, tariff
2.2.3.2 Learning tools for new vocabulary
As stated by Nakata (2008), the two most common ways to present vocabulary are flashcards and wordlists beside puzzle, worksheet, and so on However, because of the level of feasibility and convenience, this project choose wordlist as the main way to elicit the vocabulary from the situations
The effectiveness of vocabulary lists has been proved by so many (Millington and Siegel, 2010; Sokmen, 1997; Schmitt and Schmitt, 2012) and several benefits have been ascribed to the use of vocabulary lists Millington and Siegel (2010) states, “the creation of vocabulary lists should be taken as an important duty that can have profound implications, assuming that students will invest time and effort attempting to acquire these lexical items, in addition to being evaluated on vocabulary tests” and they will probably acquire more knowledge about the target words since they spend considerable time engaged with new vocabulary
One of the problems with making use of a word list is that some learners focus solely on working with the list alphabetically and they might not find the words in context in materials they are reading (Coxhead, 2011) Another problem that might arise is that students may never practice the words in any meaningful way if they focus only on the spelling and meaning of words, but not on using the words themselves in speaking and writing (Coxhead, 2011) Therefore, in order to get the real benefit from the wordlists, the material developers need to make sure that they provide users “frequent encounters with the words being taught” since it is crucial to vocabulary acquisition (Watts, 1995) As Stahl and Fairbanks (1986) suggest, when students are exposed to the same words many times, the result will be a higher degree of learning, an increased ability to remember and use the word
Having considered all these, the study described in this paper use the situation-based wordlist to enhance the participants’ vocabulary knowledge as well as their attitudes toward the selected vocabulary
2.2.3.3 Selection of vocabulary for developing ESP materials
Related Studies on ESP material development for Customs Officers
To investigate areas in which ESP materials for Customs officers has been developed, the researcher has reviewed a number of relevant studies conducted in different parts of the world and at different times
The need of ESP materials for Customs officers are worldwide recognized, which are shown in the following studies and documents Park (2015) conducted a research on needs analysis of English for Korean naval officers for English courses offered at the educational institutions of the Korean navy A comprehensive survey and interviews were conducted to identify the target situations and tasks for which Korean naval officers must use English Also investigated were their wants for the English courses and their perceptions of their own use of English Fourteen Korean naval officers were then interviewed, and a survey of 64 Korean naval officers was administered A survey of three U.S naval officers was also administered to achieve triangulation of the data The research outcome states that none of them can avoid the use of English in every situation, and that a naval officer’s sufficient command of English is an advantage not only to the individual officer but also to the Korean navy in many situations
This demand is also acknowledged in Thailand’s context, which is stated in “Needs and problems analysis in using English for international trade: a survey of Thai customs officers” The purpose of this study was to investigate the needs, problems and remedies of English for international trade of Thai customs officers regarding their English The study was conducted by means of questionnaires The research was limited to a sample of 100 Customs Technical Officers in Practitioner Level and Professional Level who worked at Suvarnabhumi Airport Cargo Clearance Customs Bureau This study indicates that reading international trade documents is the most necessary English usages of the officers The main barrier to the officers fỏ every skill is the problem of lexis, that is vocabularies, slangs, idioms, choices of word and technical terms
Nguyen (2017), in her Ph D dissertation – “Aligning English for specific purposes (esp) curriculum with industry needs: language practices for Vietnam’s globalized workplaces” also investigated the language resources needed for communication in a large multinational import/export company and a customs office in an international airport in Vietnam The study was focused on the English language demands of the workplaces and the levels of the alignment with associated ESP courses To explore the communicative practices used in the two workplaces, the researcher employed methods of observations, semi -structured interviews, and document collection to collect data The findings showed how the workers’ mobile language repertoire was not tied to the criterion of linguistic accuracy, but rather favored the achievement of meanings and functions
To meet the demand of the ESP materials in Customs services, there have been numerous English handbooks for border guards all over the world that have been developed One of them is “ESP - English for customs officers” composed by Arčnik
(2000) focuses on the use of English for specific purposes - English for custom officers The author intended to present material designed for English courses for customs officers and to stress the special needs required for designing these specialized courses and material The material was designed with authentic texts, a selection of specialist language (terminology and content), and exercise structures
In 2007, The Peacekeeping English Project of British government released a book named “Professional English for Border Officials” by Vaik and Buckmaster The book aims at improving the English language communication skills of the police and armed forces, and so improve international co-operation in 24 countries in central and eastern Europe and Central Asia The main approach of the book is guiding users to self-learn with authentic texts, exercises, mini-dictionary and assessment sheets Nevertheless, the book is written entirely in English, which can be an obstacle for those with low English proficiency
In 2011, Stepanovienė has design an English handbook which is a supplementary material English for Border Guards in Lithuanian The 66-page book was specially designed for the students of Law and State Border Guard and law enforcement officers as well as for other specialists and practitioners interested in this subject The author states that it can be used for classroom activities as well as for individual/distance learning It covers five units on different topics prepared on the basis of original texts and accompanied by specially designed tasks aimed at developing students’ reading, writing and speaking skills, outlines for spoken practice, extra materials and tasks for individual work and a list of bibliography The supplementary material is aimed at developing students’ understanding of the key features of law enforcement language, developing their awareness of different types of border law and law enforcement language discourse, as well as developing reading, writing and communicative skills based on target language
There is also an English book for Customs composed by Lobachevsky (2016), which consists of collection of texts for reading and tasks in the English language for students of the Institute of Economics and Entrepreneurship, students of the specialty Customs The book is a set of topic-oriented lessons of five most common topic used in Customs in Russia The main purpose of the proposed manual is the provision of practical assistance to persons studying vocational-oriented English, which includes systematically repeating vocabulary on topics and actively using various communicative techniques However, the book mainly focuses on helping the users to learn English through the main texts on a specific subject of customs, and textual lexical and grammatical exercises accompanied by a translation into Russian
After recognizing the need of ESP materials for Customs officers, the process of ESP materials developments is taken under the consideration Mo (2013) stated that ESP material writers in China are ESP teachers who may have rich experience in teaching ESP but not have been trained for developing ESP materials They are either specialty majors with little knowledge of ESP theories and methodology or English majors with little background of particular subject areas, with the result that the production of ESP materials is unlikely to suit the target learners’ needs It is noteworthy that many ESP materials are produced on the basis of the writers’ assumption rather than the analysis of learners’ real needs and expectations In compiling the ESP materials, many writers focus much on language usage instead of language in use (Chen, 2004; Liang, Chen & Lu, 2006; Wang, 2004)
In 2006, Cai, in his research: Problems and solutions (2006), gave out the conclusion that ESP material development problems in Chinese universities lie in the lack of theoretical guidance among ESP material writers after the evaluation of 268 nationally published Business English course books She further argues that the majority of business English course books investigated fail to demonstrate the theoretical principle their books are based upon
To meet the demand of Customs officers, the General Department of Vietnam Customs, composed a training material of English for Customs as an English course book for students in Vietnam Customs School (Tran et al., 2017) The book consists of 18 Units divided into 3 main parts: i) Trade Related Documents; ii) Customs Procedures and Facilitation, iii) Enforcement and Compliance Each unit includes extensive reading about different topic in Customs There is a glossary with Vietnamese equivalents after each reading and problem-solving tasks at the end of each unit The book is designed for English specialized students in internal circulation of the department so the instructions and tasks were entirely written in English
Hence, the book users need instructor’ guidance to properly use the book
After investigating multiple ESP materials in Customs, the researcher realized that there are none English books designed for Customs officers to self-study Most of the studies either have focused on class-based tasks, or they aim at different country which means they haven’t had Vietnamese equivalents Hence, they demand a high English proficiency to use More notably, the available literature does not help to fully understand the various aspects of Customs officers’ needs in their workplaces in Vietnam For that reason, none of these studies offer sufficient reliability of the research findings Therefore, it is necessary to conduct a specific needs analysis in order to gain more practical and reliable information about Customs officers’ needs for English, especially in the context of Vietnam mountainous border area The findings of this needs analysis would also give useful implications for selecting situation and situation-based vocabulary in composing an English handbook for Customs officers to self-study in Northwest region of Vietnam.
METHODOLOGY
Research questions
1 What are the process and the principles of choosing best-suited situation-based vocabulary in composing an English handbook for Customs Officers in Northwest region of Vietnam?
2 What is the need of Customs officers in Nortwest regions of Vietnam?
3 What are the opinions of the Linguistics experts and the Customs experts towards the vocabulary used in the handbook?
Research Design
To formulate the research design for this study, careful consideration was given to the five major research purposes adapted from Johnson and Christense (2004), namely: exploration, description, explanation, prediction, influence Considering the three objects of the study, it was determined that the exploration and description were the primary nature of the study This exploratory and descriptive nature demand the use of combined data collection methods, which can investigate not only the breadth but also the depth of the strategies and procedures related to situation-based vocabulary selection in composing an English handbook for Customs officers in the Northwest region of Vietnam
Exploration: using primarily inductive methods to explore a concept, construct, phenomenon or situation in order to develop tentative hypotheses or generalization;
Description: identifying and describing the antecedents, nature and aetiology of a phenomenon;
It was apparent that a single method could hardly answer the three research questions above to achieve the study pre-designed objectives Therefore, a mixed methods approach was employed, which included both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods
In the process of collecting and analyzing data, quantitative research could be constructed as a research strategy with an emphasis on quantification This strategy entails a deductive approach to the theory-research relationship with a focus on theory testing By contrast, qualitative research emphasis on words instead of numbers The former can facilitate comparison and statistical aggregation of the data while the later can produce rich data and detailed information about a small number of people and cases, and therefore increase the depth of the cases and situations studied (Patton,
The purpose of this study was to investigate the process of composing an English handbook for Customs officers, from analyzing their needs, creating stimulated situations to selecting best-suited vocabulary; therefore, it is a descriptive, exploratory study and the methods used were both qualitative and quantitative Four data collection instruments were used to achieve the triangulation (Creswell, 2002) This research strategy would help to “give a fuller picture and address many different aspects of phenomena” (Silverman, 2000, p.50)
Following is the description of the research context, sample or subjects or participants, instrumentation, data collection process or procedure, and data analysis of the study.
Research Context
Northwest region located in the mountainous northwestern part of the country It consists of six provinces: Điện Biên, Lai Châu, Sơn La, Hòa Bình, Lào Cai and Yên Bái and shares the border with Laos and China In the general border of Vietnam, it can be said that the North West is the most difficult area This region converges all three elements: mountainous, highland and border Border trade in the North West is considerably important to Vietnam’s economy because the mountainous provinces in this region occupy a large area with potential and advantages of agriculture, forestry, hydropower, minerals, tourism and border gate economy
The study was conducted in Customs Branch of a border gate in North West area which is the target of the Tay Bac Program Located in Lai Chau province - a mountainous provice sharing the border line with Yunnan (China), Ma Thu Lang Border Gate is one of the main border gates between Vietnam and China According to the People’s Committee of Lai Chau Province, Lai Chau Province is bordering with and is 9,068 square kilometres with 265.095 km border
After 10 years of establishment, the province has the attention and support from the government, thus the infrastructure of the economic zone of Ma Lu Thang has been upgraded to meet the demand for export and import and trading of businesses and local people Besides, the manpower factor is now taken under consideration and Tay Bac Program was born to help improve the officers working along the border The subject of the study is Customs Branch in Ma Lu Thang border gate where five Customs officers are working in four fields: border guard station, customs office, quarantine board and border gate economic department that are divided into the following fields:
2 Customs sub-department: goods management and people on exit and entry
3 Quarantine board: quarantine goods, animals, food
4 The border-gate economic section: to collect means of transport
In four rooms: Registration, Tax, Inspection and Supervision
1 Registration: Receipt of applications to open the declaration
2 Taxes: tax on import and export goods
4 Supervision: supervision of the inspection and the lead
Description of the informants
The target handbook users were pre-experience learners who were senior college students of Customs Schools or Departments in Vietnam They had definite subject knowledge as they had learned Customs subjects in Vietnamese for three to four years From the first year to the last year they had a compulsory general English course To become a Vietnam government officer, the majority had achieved A2 level in CEFR, which means that their English was at the pre-intermediate level They can understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas of most immediate relevance (e.g very basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography, employment) They also can communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine matter or describe in simple terms aspects of his/her background, immediate environment and matters in areas of immediate need.
Data collection instruments
The first instrument was document review, often used in combination with other qualitative research methods as a means of triangulation - “the combination of methodologies in the study of the same phenomenon” (Denzin, 1970, p 291) As a research method, document analysis is particularly applicable to qualitative case studies - intensive studies producing rich descriptions of a single phenomenon, event, organization, or program (Stake, 1995; Yin, 1994) Documents can serve a variety of purposes as part of a research undertaking Firstly, documents can provide data on the context within which research participants operate so the researcher can use data drawn from documents, for example, to contextualize data collected during interviews Secondly, information contained in documents can suggest some questions that need to be asked and situations that need to be observed as part of the research
Document analysis helped generate new interview questions, and participant observation at community events provided opportunities to collect documents (Goldstein & Reiboldt, 2004, p 246) Third, documents provide supplementary research data Fourth, documents provide a means of tracking change and development Where various drafts of a particular document are accessible, the researcher can compare them to identify the changes, as stated by Atkinson and Coffey (1997, 2004) In sum, documents provide background and context, additional questions to be asked, supplementary data, a means of tracking change and development, and verification of findings
In this study, documents review was used to investigate the topics and situations Customs officers in Northwest region may encounter in their daily workplace Then it established the foundation for the interview questions and choosing the best-suited vocabulary to present and how to present in each field Finally, it is the reflection for the author to make any further modifications for the list of vocabulary
Observation is considered an instrument to collect factual information since it gives researchers opportunity to “observe actions/interactions, behaviors and listen to the conversations while simultaneously observing the context” (Bloor, & Wood, 2006, p.71) In this study, I will play the role of a privileged observer who “has access to the cultural scene and events under study but does not act as a participant” (Jackson,
2000, p.245) In order to get “a spontaneous picture” of the participants’ “naturalness and completeness of behavior”, “non-controlled observation” in which “no attempt is made to use precision instruments” (Kothari, 2004, p.97) was used The observations conducted were non-obtrusive because it gave officers opportunity to act as naturally as they could and the presence of the researcher did not affect the officers’ activities
The focus of the observations is only on five chosen officers This instrument is certain to increase the validity of the findings because this instrument generates more objective data about how collected data is actually used The Customs department was informed in advanced regarding my presence and before the workday started I had asked for officers permission to take note during the observation
Mackey and Gass (2005) suggest that in order to “investigate phenomena that are not directly observable” (p.173), interviews were conducted in qualitative research to have an insight answers into the research questions from the perspective of the participants The use of interviews to questions the participants provided “flexibility of response” “to obtain adequate information” (Walliman, 2011, p.99) Customs officers’ needs in an English handbook were elicited through the semi-structured interviews According to Mackey and Gass (2005), semi-structured interviews are applied as "researcher uses a written list of questions as a guide, while still having the freedom to digress and probe for more information" (p.173) On the other hand, there might be one problem emerged in the interviews The interviewees might be not familiar with such kind of interviews and they would feel unwilling to give long and detail responses or find it difficult to express their thought Therefore, I had tried to make the interviewees as comfortable as possible by conducting the interviews in the most convenient place for the officers, beginning with small talk to relax the interviewees, keeping encouraging open-ended discussion and using mother tongue during the interviews The interviews containing open-ended questions were conducted in the form of informal noted talks Before the interviews, I would start with a short talk introducing the topic and explaining key term All interviews were carried out in Vietnamese, depending on the convenience and interest of interviewees
The participation of the Customs officers plays an important role in helping the researcher to investigate their needs, decide the topic and the amount of vocabulary to compose the handbook Moreover, in the later stage of the research, their comments also contribute to the modifications of the product
As questionnaires save time and effort for both researchers and participants, in this research, questionnaires for language experts and Vietnam Customs officers are employed as one of instruments for data collection Moreover, the anonymity of the respondents can encourage partcipants to share their honest opinions and experiences without any pressure The questionnaires will be delivered both through email and directly to the participants because face-to-face questionnaire emerges as the best choice for us to explain any wondering and confusion for participants immediately
In this research, the questionnaire for Customs officers and language experts is designed to find out the information about their own perspective toward the handbook product and the role of selected vocabulary used in Customs situation Besides, they are also asked to give some suggested solutions to deal with these problems This was designed for two research, that is this research and another contemporaneous study
The questionnaires began with a brief greeting, introduction of the research topic and a request for personal information with a promise of confidentiality They were written in Vietnamese The questionnaire consisted of four open-ended questions regarding the participants’ perspective towards the handbook (section 1, 3, 4, 5) and
20 Likert-type scale questions (section 2) from 1 to 5 equivalent to “Strongly disagree”, “Disagree”, “Neither/nor agree”, “Agree” to “Strongly disagree”
The first five questions asked for the participants’ preference about the format of the handbook according to five categories namely logicality, consistency, clarity and user-friendly interface The answer contributed to the modifications of the handbook’s format, a part of research question 3
The next seven questions regarded the level of relevance and practicality whether the language experts and Customs officers think the handbook has met the demand of Customs officers in terms of vocabulary and related topics
These questions are emphasized to seek the answers for all three research questions
The following three questions concerning the attitude of the language reviewers on the convenience of the product in use, which helps answer the second research questions
The ensuing five questions belongs to the other research that was mentioned above.
Data collection procedures
Phase 1: Preparation for the observations and interviews
In this phase, the researchers called for authentic source of document related to Customs field Everyone in the group searched for documents, collect communication situations related to border customs At the beginning of this stage, the authors started with some common processes at Customs workplace collected from Customs books written in Vietnamese and on Customs counselling websites More than 20 common border-gate customs situations were collected along with some procedures for customs clearance at border gates Then one of the officers in Northwest region sent a list of
300 questions commonly used in Customs, as a foundation for next steps: interviews and observation The authors conducted two meetings to finalized the topics and list of questions to ask in the interview One of the authors contacted the border gate customs regarding the required paperwork
After getting the chance to talk with the officers, the researchers come to Lai Chau Customs department to observe real-life situations Customs office The researcher observed the language of officers according to six criteria, namely
- Why is the language needed?
- How will the language be used?
- What will the content areas be?
- Who will the learner use the language with?
- Where will the language be used?
- When will the language be used?
To avoid influencing officers’ reactions during their working time, the observer sat at the back simply to take notes of the activities conducted during the work day
Interviews were conducted after the observations Officers accepting the interview invitations were asked for a convenient time to participate in the interviews Each officer was interviewed individually Therefore, there were 5 face-to-face interviews conducted in total Each interview began with a short informal dialogue about the field During the interview, extra questions arose in order to encourage the officers to respond more fully During the interviews, the list of 300 questions were shown to the interviewees to enable them to classify which questions are frequently used and which are not Each interview took place within 45 to 60 minutes on average The longest interview lasted for 90 minutes, and the shortest one occurred for more than 30 minutes No restrictions on the content or manner of response placed on the interviewees
Below are some guided interview questions The use of guided open-ended questions is flexible because it allows the interviewer to “probe so that she/he may go into more depth if she/he chooses, or to clear up any misunderstanding” and to “encourage co- operation and help establish rapport” (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2005, p 275) The order and numbers of the questions can vary depending on the responses of each interviewee:
1 Is English used in your daily working time?
2 What are the most common topics between Customs officers and people passing by at the border gate?
3 Which of those questions are frequently used and which are not?
4 Can you recall any conversation in which the questions are used?
5 Can you add more common questions that you use every day or every week at work?
The result of the interviews is summarized and shown in Appendix 1
In this phase, the questionnaires are handed out to other Customs officers and experts through emails and at a conference held after the handbook was finised as the first trial The researchers briefly explain the purpose and the terms to the officers and reviewers They will be encouraged to answer without any hesitation or pressure in order to give the researchers the reliable data Any questions to clarify anything unclear in the questionnaire are welcome.the researcher contacts via email or phone the authors and officers or in person
The data from this phase serves as the evaluation for further modifications of the handbook to enhance the quality of the products
Each component of a lesson has a format that is consistent with the content, consistent across the material
The selected vocabulary in the document are clear, standardized and easy to follow.
Data analysis procedure
First, data are collected through document review The received data was classified according to different topics then it was used to generate interview questions The collected data from the observations and interviews are transcribed to support for the findings Secondly, the data are synthesized based on the document review The next step is composing situations and sort out lists of vocabulary into different fields in Customs After the completion of the handbook, it was sent for feedback and comments from Customs officers as well as language experts through questionnaires
If any received questionnaire has errors spotted or is unclear, it will be left out These statistics and findings will lead the researchers to the answers for the raised questions above
The detail procedure of composing the handbook was illustrated in the following table:
1 Examine the collected real- life content
Most common topics and situations at the border gate
2 Build up the practical situations that include as many useful expressions and vocabulary as possible
50 situations categorized into 12 topics and presented bilingually in Vietnamese and in English Each situation consists of from 10 to 15 turn-taking
3 Build up glossary for each situation and a mini
Vietnamese-English dictionary for the handbook
750 common words or phrases used at Nortwest region border gates
4 Get feedback from reviews for the first time
5 Adjust the handbook according to the feedback
Revise the handbook for the first time
6 Get feedback from reviews for the second time
Revise the handbook for the first time
7 Finalize the handbook The final version of the handbook
8 Complete and accept the handbook
The handbook gets the acceptance after the feedback of the council
9 Release the handbook An English handbook for the Customs officers in
Table 1: Procedure of composing the English handbook for Customs Officers
Statement on how results were presented
The research is the composition of 4 chapters Introduction is the first chapter which presents the rationale, scopes, objectives and overview of the study In the second chapter, definition of key terms and the literature review of related studies are included The elaborations on participants, data collection, analysis instrument and procedure are placed in chapter 3, followed by analyzing and discussing findings from data collection Eventually, chapter 4 summarizes the key issues and recommends a number of solution and suggestions for further studies as well.
RESULTS
Pre-development: The needs of Customs Officers in the Northwest region
Having adapted the framework of Hutchinson and Waters (1987), the author group attempted to answer the list of target situation analysis framework questions
1 Why is the language needed?
Being as a part of Tay Bac program, the handbook project has been carried out to meet the demand of Customs officer in using English in their daily life Before the decision to compose the handbook was made, the Tay Bac group had conducted surveys in some Northwestern provinces such as Dien Bien, Ha Giang, Lang Son and Lao Cai The demand for foreign language skills for cadres, civil servants, officers in Customs, Foreign Affairs, Tourism and Border Protection, is recognized and all the participant officers proved the statement once again that they have to use English in their daily conversation at work
2 How will the language be used?
Northwest border gates welcome thousands of foreigners crossing China-Vietnam border every day English acts as an agent language to better understanding between the Customs officers and people from other countries Moreover, English is also the official language in documentation and administration
3 What will the content areas be?
The data from Document collection is analyzed and categorized into 14 fields a Import and export b Temporary import for re-export; temporary export for re-import c Imported and exported investment with tax or with tax exemption d Freight forwarding e Certificate of origin application f Storage g Loading and unloading of goods h Plant quarantine certificate application i Food safety certificate application j Goods insurance k Packing and shipping l Customs clearance m Different types of transit n Communication with tourists
4 Who will the learner use the language with?
After observation and interviews at Ma Lu Thang border gate, Customs officers frequently communicate with enterpreneurs, transporters, tourists and Customs officers from other countries
5 Where will the language be used?
With the aims to manage human, goods, quarantine, and means of transport, the Customs Department is divided into four main rooms:
Registration: Receipt of applications to open the declaration
Taxes: tax on import and export goods
Supervision: supervision of the inspection and the lead
6 When will the language be used?
Although Northwest region shares border with China, most of documents and technical terms are translated into English to serve as a bridge to connect the Customs officers and people crossing the border gates.
While-development: The process of selecting situation-based vocabulary in
4.2.1 Choosing words: how many and which ones
To decide the number of words to select, the authors had to consider the amount of information comprised into the handbook, which depends on the size of the book
There are a large number of book’s size and thickness in printing After analyzing other handbooks’ format, the authors intended to make the handbook convenient to put into pocket and hold with one hand, so it should be 13 centimeters wide and 21 centimeters tall, and the thickness is about 2 centimeters equivalent to approximately
300 pages according to the quality of the paper The next step is to build up meaningful situations, each of which needs from 10 to 15 turn-taking Because the handbook is written bilingually, it can comprise upto 50 situations (4 pages per situation) and 100 pages of glossary (after each situation for vocabulary checking and in a concordance at the back of the book for easy look up) In order to make each situation easy to follow for Customs Officers at A2 level in CEFR, there should be an appropriate number of new words and we came up with one new word in each turn- taking As a consequence, we targeted to select 750 words to present in the handbook
As to meet the aims of the handbook in terms of content, it was desgined to prepare for the use of the English language in Customs target situations, that is, the situations the officers will meet during their working time In relation to this, the designing of each ESP material should be preceded by the analysis of the users’ language needs, the needs concerning their occupation and the analysis of the language used in their target situations
For this reason the handbook for Customs officers should comprise the use of English in the following areas: 1) verbal communication with border-crossing people and other Customs staff, 2) written Customs communication (application form, referral letters, filling in inspection documents, etc.), 3) reading law papers, 4) delivery of papers and presentations at international conferences Customs officers must be given specialist vocabulary since it is necessary in the development of all the skills which are required in their professional setting While working in international context they must communicate with both international citizens and other Customs staff The gap between the officers’ current language knowledge and target proficiency should be covered by the English handbook Customs officers need to learn what specialist words mean, how they are used and how they are pronounced Specialist words in Customs fields are classified into the following types: 1) High-Frequency words including many content words, e.g., government, goods, production, transport, represent, document; 2) Academic words include many words that are common in various kinds of academic texts, e.g., policy, article, inspection; 3) Technical words are closely related to the topic and subject area (words from the field of Customs) in the text, e.g., customs clearance, intellectual property, trafficking, tariff, authorization, tax exemption; 4) Low-Frequency words include words like quarantine, phytosanitary, automatated, tariff
4.2.2 Learning tools for new vocabulary
As mentioned in chapter II, the two most common ways to present vocabulary are flashcards and wordlists beside puzzle, worksheet, and so on However, because of the level of feasibility and convenience, this project choose wordlist as the main way to elicit the vocabulary from the situations It is easy for the Customs officers to look up for the words meaning and their pronunciation The most apparent problems with making use of a word list are that some learners focus solely on working with the list alphabetically and they might not find the words in context in materials they are reading or students may never practice the words in any meaningful way if they focus only on the spelling and meaning of words, but not on using the words themselves in speaking and writing In this project, those problems are solved because we use the situations to present the words in various context By providing users frequent encounters with the selected words, the handbook gets the real benefit from the wordlists The handbook users are given chances to expose to the same words many times, the result is hoped to be a higher degree of learning, an increased ability to remember and use the word There is also a concordance at the back of the handbook to serve as a mini dictionary for Customs officers
4.2.3 Selection of vocabulary for developing ESP materials
Adapting the process for preparing new materials by Dudley-Evans & St John (2009, p 177), the authors developed the selection of vocabulary in two ways
Process for selecting vocabulary for the handbook
Customs vocabulary list collected from World Customs Organization website and English course book for students in
Collect the Vietnamese documents that are currently applied in Customs fields
Find the vocabulary to translate the document into English Find the topics and real-life situations based on the collected vocabulary
Build up situations that match the real-life data with the vocabulary Build up situations that match the real-life data with the vocabulary
Figure 2: Process for selecting vocabulary for the handbook
Preparing the vocabulary for the handbook, the material designers had to make sure that the word lists must contain words that are representative of the varieties of words they are intended to reflect For example, if we are to present vocabulary of Customs, we must first make sure that the word list we select should be based on the Customs field mentioned above, namely: 1) Registration: Receipt of applications to open the declaration; 2) Taxes: tax on import and export goods; 3) Inspection: inspection of goods; 4) Supervision: supervision of the inspection and the lead; with real situation data (Appendix 1) which show the representativeness of the words to be listed or learned Secondly, the words selected should occur across a range of different situations The occurrence of a word in a wide range of circumstances will be beneficial to learners who major in different areas for specialized purposes Thirdly, special concern should be shown to some vocabulary items with multiơunits whose meaning are not deducible from the meaning of the individual words A modular design, with each unit being as self contained as possible, allows Customs officers to continue to study effectively even when there are not any teacher’s instructions
Materials which can be used for individual study whenever time is available will also be advantageous, allowing users to cover the part each officer has missed to work independently on material which is particularly relevant to their needs.
Post-development: The modifications of the handbook after reviewed
There have been numerous comments both positive and negative, however, we emphasized on the latter onew to meet the aims of the research that is the completion of the handbook By receiving the feedback and suggestion, the authors were able to make proper and timely modifications
All of language reviewers (100%) agree that the handbook provides technical terms used in Customs field Besides, most of the them think that the notebook is designed to be small in size and easy to use Thus, the number of selected vocabulary is suitable accordingly the size of the book In addition, the book is divided into two main sections: the first part is the Customs situation, which consists of 50 common bilingual Vietnamese-English situations arranged in specific business fields; the second part is the vocabulary The vocabulary after each situation is listed according to the consquencial order the words appear in the situation, so it will be convenient for the officers to check the meaning of the words The concordance at the end of the book, which is arranged in alphabetical order, makes it easy for the staff to look up words and make their own dialogues Last but not least, Vietnamese words always come along with equivalent English words and corresponding pronunciation, which will help the Customs officers pronounce words correctly
4.3.1.2 Weaknesses and modification of the handbook
Although the usefulness of the handbook and the efforts of the authors are totally recognized, there are also comments on the accuracy of terms, structure, content layout The modifications after review or reasons not to adjust are also presented in the table below
No Reviewer’s comments The modification after reviewing the comments
1 About the Vietnamese language: should be more standardized (e.g “Đồng chí” and “Ông bà”)
The development team has reviewed the product and edited the language according to the expert review
2 Check the correspondence between the two languages (eg “Tôi có thể kiểm tra lại giấy tờ và số hàng hóa trên xe được không? vs Can I recheck the documents and the quantity of the oranges ?)
The development team has rechecked the mistake and edited the language according to the expert suggestion
Vietnamese and English arrangement should be paralleled by (cell) gips for tracking or teaching
The whole book has been re-formatted inaccordance with the suggestion of the comment
4 Some conversations have no correspondence in terms of
The development team has reviewed the product and language The Vietnamese language is longer, and the English language is missing edited the language according to the review
5 Check the consistency in the word table: English words differ from the phonetics given
The typing team has corrected typos in response to the comment
6 Some English language settings may not be appropriate in terms of style in communication
The authors reviewed all conversational situations and adjusted more appropriately to the feedback
7 Recheck the language more carefully: The same words are not synthesized plural and singular forms in the same context,
(e.g.“intellectual property right” and “intellectual property rights”
The development team has reviewed the words and edited the according to the review
8 The documentation should be supplemented with a manual that outlines the purpose, the object, how to use it, how to use it (why each section is needed, what is the purpose of each section, etc.)
The editorial team added the Foreword to the handbook
9 Currently the fields are seamlessly aligned but the field naming errors (lack of
This is an error in the text alignment process The editorial team has amended field D) and supplemented the problem
10 Situations only offer one way English translation for a turn of Vietnamese words
Authors may consider not only one way of speaking English but also several equivalent expressions for the user to choose
In fact, in different situations we have also used a number of different structures in similar situations
There are, however, a number of repeating structures aimed at helping customs officers to remember structures more easily in specific situations
11 Additional illustrations should be provided so that documentation is not monotonous
Due to the many conversations and the small area of the handbook to facilitate the use of cadres in the work process, the team limited to use illustration or pictures
12 Compilers should also note the choice of fonts to be transcribed, because when printing this font may be faulty, affecting the quality of the document
The compilation team has reviewed and used international standard translations to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the ESP material
Table 2: Feedback from language experts for modification
After a period of time having been edited corresponding to language reviewers, the Engligh handbook was announced and welcomed more constructive feedback from Customs experts from all over of Vietnam All of the readers at the conference at Vietnam Customs school agreed that the handbook had a practical approach to the existing needs of Customs officers in general The topics are streamlined, scientific and can cover a wide range of real-life situations The chosen vocabulary is suitable, sufficient in accordance with the topics The attached appendix is complete and is capable of providing good information The content is rich, with 50 scenarios in 12 diverse fields Each situation is compiled with the Vietnamese part and the English translation and vocabulary section is followed right under the situation, which is advantageous The accompanying appendix containing alphabetical ordered wordlist is easy to access
4.3.2.2 Weaknesses and modification of the handbook
However, the Customs experts suggested that the authors should take their comments as follows under consideration to make the handbook better in terms of content, layout and vocabulary After reviewing the comments, the authors realized there are some contradicts between opinions of the Customs officers in pre-development process nd in post-development process They led to the explanation for our reasons not to adjust the handbook in the table below
Reviewer Reviewer’s comments The modification after reviewing the comments
- It is necessary to specify the situation that needs to use
- The handbook is not only an instantly used materials but also a reference
English so that the content is arranged appropriately material for all Customs officers to use in any appropriate situations
- You should expand the scope of the survey, not only in the Northwest region, but also in other areas
- Due to the limit of time and human resources, we narrowed down the scope to meet the demands of Customs officers in Northwest region as a sub- goal of Tay Bac program
- You should condense situations and choose more specific situations to increase the number of Customs terms
- The selected words need to be put into context, which is suitable for officers at A2 level - CEFR so we wanted to set simple scenes for them to easily follow
- There are some situations as specialized as HS, value that should be edited to add more specialization in Customs
- The mentioned situations have been edited to add more specialized Customs terms
- If the focus is on North West Customs, there is a lack of use cases specific to this section such as border policy, etc
As mentioned above, this product is an ESP material for all Customs officers in Vietnam to use in appropriate situations, we tried to make the situations as flexible as possible
- There is some - With given glossary knowledge that is too specialized such as HS code, Customs value
HQ Those will be consulted with written document instead of spoken situations under each situations, the authors hoped that the selected vocabulary would also help Customs officers in written documents
- The vocabulary does not have part of speech for each word
Part of speech has been added for each word
- It is important to add more specialized English terms than regular expressions
- The style needs to be adjusted (eg, calling
“the comrade is not appropriate because foreigners only call each other sir/ madam))
“comrade” (đồng chí) is used in Vietnamese part which is natural in Vietnamese
- Situation number 17 and 18 don’t follow the general process (The customers don’t need to come back after clearance) need more official consultation
This is contradicted to the opinions of pre- development interviewed Customs officers and consultation on online Customs websites
Table 3: Feedback from Customs experts for modification
The English handbook for Customs officers in Northwest region
The handbook covers 50 scenarios with exchanges between customs officers, border guards and tourists or businessmen who carry out daily tasks and are organized into 12 common customs areas include:
- Field B: Inspection and transportation charges
- Field C: Intellectual property and origin of goods
- Field E: Business related to value
Arranging situations in frequent fields and categorized lists will enable customs officers in different situations to easily look up the vocabulary in relation to their needs In addition, the vocabulary glossary placed under each situation, these vocabularies are also arranged in alphabetical order at the end of the book for the convenience of customs officers in the process of searching and learning vocabulary
The entire English handbook has been attached as Appendix 4.
Discussion
The vocabulary has a prominent place in every kind of ESP materials The importance of vocabulary learning was expressed by Wilkins (1976) in his statement: “Without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed”
In ESP, specifically in ESP in Customs field, the learning of specialist vocabulary by the Customs officers has a crucial role in their L2 language utilization The participants of this field are the language users who not only have already achieved some level of proficiency in the English language use, but also they possess some, sometimes quite advanced, knowledge of their content subject They are highly motivated to increase specialist vocabulary knowledge as they are aware of its beneficial role for their professional career Therefore, presenting vocabulary effectively and adequately is one of the main roles of the ESP materials
Presenting new words is only the first step in learning them To consolidate them, that is, to ensure their transfer to long-term memory, the ESP material users should have ample opportunities to use new words in a variety of situations We strongly advise introducing a variety of lexical items for various situations, which will increase the handbook users’ interest and motivation The situations should be performed in pairs and should not be too long, otherwise students may lose interest in them The selection of specialist vocabulary in ESP in the way shown in the previous section of this paper seem to contradict what Hutchinson and Waters (1987) say In compliance with them, the material should not be focus on technical vocabulary, however, in this research, the Customs officers show a high demand to deal with technical vocabulary
When selecting or preparing vocabulary for Customs officers, the developer must keep in mind that they should contain useful language forms which will help the handbook readers with both their immediate and delayed needs, that is, the needs that the officers have at the time of a specific real-life situations and those in their future professional setting
Developing English for Specific Purposes Material is different from English for General Purposes’ because the majority of ESP learners have profound knowledge of their subject field whereas the ESP material designers’ knowledge of this type is usually general This situation may be effectively utilized by the designers by asking the officers to provide explanations or definitions of some difficult technical terms
No wonder that developing English handbook for Customs officers is a challenge for developers who are not experts in the field As a consequence, the developers may encounter the difficulties while processing the distinguished feedback from different Customs officers in different Customs Department There has been contracdiction in translating technical terms in the Customs world
To conclude, the selectiong of specialist vocabulary is an essential part of ESP materials The basic methodological principles with regard to presenting new words are: 1) The words should be presented in context which shows how they are used 2) The words should be practiced and consolidated through a variety of situations 3) The strategy of deducing the meaning of words from context is one of the indispensable strategies used in vocabulary presenting 4) The situation-based vocabulary should offer new information being grounded in the handbook users’ knowledge of the mainstream subjects (5) These situations should be interesting, useful and close to real-life situations.
CONCLUSION
Summary of the findings
In this study, an attempt has been done to select situation-based vocabulary to compose an ESP material that suits the needs of Customs officers in Northwest region of Vietnam
So as to achieve the aim of the thesis, in the first stage, the author has reviewed the relevant literature including theory of ESP development principles and procedures
The literature review has laid theoretical background for the study Basing on the information achieved from the literature review, the authors has chosen the combination of high-frequency, academic, technical and low-frequency vocabulary presented in wordlists and concordances as the best tools in composing an English handbook for Customs officers
In the next stage, in order to make the vocabulary more practical and appropriate to the target situation, a document collection, observation and interview have been carried out to find out target needs of the Customs officers After collecting the data, the results have been thoroughly analyzed in order to recognize the number of vocabulary, kinds of words to choose and in which types of tool to present the vocabulary Then, the author combined the collected document and the target vocabulary to generate situations and extracted from the situations a number of words and put into wordlist under each situation to help the handbook users better remember the vocabulary
Finally, the author conducted a survey and interview to get evaluation from the linguistic items and Customs specialized terms The entire English handbook for Customs officers in Northwest region is presented with its aims and organization.
Contribution of the research and ESP development implications
The findings of the study should be of considerable benefit for the ESP materials developer and other researchers who are interested in the topic Firstly, the findings from the study can provide ESP designer a descriptive procedures and principles in developing the material The first and foremost step in designing an ESP material is analyzing the language users’ needs and on-going evaluation comes afterwards This information can help ESP developer of other fields know how to start and what to do during materials development procedures Secondly, it is hoped that researchers could, to some extent, give an overview of the current situation in developing ESP materials in Customs Lastly, this study can serve as a reliable source of reference for other researchers who share an interest in the same of related issues.
Limitations of the study and suggestions
Despite the researchers’ notable efforts, there are a few limitations of this study
Firstly, due to the shortage of time and resources of reference, there are number of in- depth areas which the researcher can not cover in this study Second, subjects of the study are only a Customs Department at Ma Lu Thang border gate and the documents collected are only from Lao Cai’s Customs Department, not all the Customs offices in Northwest region of Vietnam As a consequence, to some extent, the result of the needs analysis may not be generalized for all Customs officers in Northwest region
Finally, there isn’t any time for implementing the composed materials into real communicating situations at Northwest border gates This makes it difficult to evaluate the suitability and the effectiveness of the selected vocabulary All of existing limitations of this study call for further research
With above limitations, further study on the topic should deal with other aspects of developing the ESP book such as situation build-up or a need analysis in a larger scale Besides this, further study should be conduted with all the Customs officers in Northwest regions in a longer time, Moreover, it is hoped that there will be some more studies carried out on develop a more complete English handbook which includes native speakers’ language evaluation and conversations recording to make them more natural In addition, the author hopes that the developed handbook in this study will be implemented in the coming year for the target language users This English handbook will be revised and refined through actual use evaluation so that it can be beneficial to the Customs officers in Northwest region of Vietnam in particular and all regions of Vietnam in general
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CỤC HẢI QUAN TỈNH LẠNG SƠN
CỘNG HOÀ XÃ HỘI CHỦ NGHĨA VIỆT NAM Độc lập - Tự do - Hạnh phúc
Lạng Sơn, ngày 06 tháng 3 năm 2018
DANH MỤC MẪU CÂU HỎI THƯỜNG DÙNG TRONG GIAO TIẾP VÀ CHUYÊN
MÔN HẢI QUAN TẠI CỬA KHẨU
A/ 10 câu hỏi dùng trong giao tiếp và chuyên môn lĩnh vực Xử lý vi phạm:
1 Ông (bà) cho biết họ tên, chức vụ, đơn vị công tác?
- Với hành khách (A): yêu cầu xuất trình giấy thông hành, hộ chiếu
- Với DN(B): Yêu cầu có giấy giới thiệu của DN cử đi làm việc
Hành khách: tôi mang hàng hóa vào VN như máy tính thì cần làm thủ tục gì?
DN: Thủ tục xuất nhập khẩu mặt hàng ( mà DN định hỏi)
2 Đề nghị Ông (bà) cho biết quá trình làm thủ tục hải quan đối với lô hàng nhập khẩu theo tờ khai nêu trên ?
3.Ông (bà) cho cơ quan Hải quan biết trong quá trình làm thủ tục Hải quan Ông (bà) có biết hàng hóa chở trên xe ô tô là hàng hóa gì, số lượng, khối lượng bao nhiêu hay không?
- Có hỏi Trả lời: Tùy theo tình huống
4 Ông (bà) có cam kết những nội dung trình bày ở trên là đúng sự thật và chịu hoàn toàn mọi trách nhiệm liên quan đến những nội dung đã trình bày ở trên hay không?
- Có hỏi và trả lời tùy theo tình huống
5 Tại buổi làm việc hôm nay, cơ quan Hải quan đề nghị Ông (bà) giải trình về số hàng hóa không khai báo trên tờ khai mà cơ quan Hải quan đã phát hiện khi kiểm tra thực tế toàn bộ hàng hóa?
- Có thể ghép với câu 8 (bên dưới)
6 Cơ quan Hải quan đề nghị Ông (bà) giải trình về số lượng, chủng loại, nguồn gốc số hàng hóa thu gom có trong bảng kê chi tiết đã cung cấp cho cơ quan Hải quan để mở tờ khai hải quan xuất khẩu là của những ai? Ở đâu?
- Có thể ghép với câu 7 (bên dưới)
- Cung cấp chứng từ chứng minh số hàng hóa được thu gom hợp pháp
7 Đề nghị Ông (bà) cung cấp các chứng từ, tài liệu liên quan đến việc thu gom hàng hóa?
8 Ông (bà) có biết gì về số hàng không khai báo nêu trên hay không?
9 Cơ quan hải quan ghi nhận toàn bộ ý kiến giải trình của Ông (bà) để làm căn cứ xem xét, xử lý theo quy định, Ông (bà) có hoàn toàn chịu mọi trách nhiệm liên quan đến các nội dung đã trình bày và các tài liệu đã xuất trình cho cơ quan hải quan không?
- Có hỏi và trả lời tùy theo tình huống
10 Ông (bà) có thừa nhận hành vi vi phạm mà cơ quan Hải quan xác định đối với lô hàng của công ty không?
- Có hỏi và trả lời tùy theo tình huống
B/10 câu hỏi dùng trong giao tiếp và chuyên môn lĩnh vực Kiểm hoá:
1 Lô hàng thuộc tờ khai nhập khẩu số …… do Doanh nghiệp đăng ký tại Chi cục Hải quan cửa khẩu … phải thực hiện việc kiểm tra thực tế
- Có hỏi và trả lời tùy theo tình huống
2 Đề nghị Doanh nghiệp đưa hàng hóa đến địa điểm kiểm tra của Chi cục
- Có hỏi và trả lời tùy theo tình huống
- Doanh nghiệp đưa hàng hóa (với mặt hàng siêu trường, siêu trọng ví dụ như vật liệu, sắt thép, cột điện ) đến chi cục kiểm nghiệm , sau đó xin mã địa điểm kiểm tra để HQ cử người đi kiểm tra (có thể bằng hình thức thủ công hoặc máy soi chiếu)
3 Kiểm tra thực tế bằng phương pháp thủ công
4 Kiểm tra thực tế tỷ lệ 10% lô hàng
- Số % là do cơ quan HQ quyết định
5 Kiểm tra thực tế toàn bộ lô hàng
- Có hỏi và trả lời tùy theo tình huống
6 Hàng hóa đúng như khai báo của Doanh nghiệp
- Có hỏi và trả lời tùy theo tình huống
7 Hàng hóa không đúng như khai báo của Doanh nghiệp
- Có hỏi và trả lời tùy theo tình huống
8 Đề nghị Doanh nghiệp khai sửa đổi, bổ sung theo kết quả kiểm tra thực tế
- Có hỏi và trả lời tùy theo tình huống
- Doanh nghiệp khai sửa đổi, bổ sung theo kết quả kiểm tra thực tế trong trường hợp DN khai báo sai số lượng, giá trị thì HQ ra văn bản xử lý vi phạm
9 Mặt hàng xuất khẩu hoặc nhập khẩu sai so với khai của người khai hải quan về tên hàng, chủng loại, số lượng, trọng lượng, chất lượng, mã số, xuất xứ…
- Có hỏi và trả lời tùy theo tình huống ví dụ cùng 1 ô tô dạng tải van có mã số HS khác nhau giữa xe 2 chỗ và xe 4 chỗ nên để hưởng thuế thấp chủ xe có thể tháo ghế sau và khai sai mã số HS
10 Hàng hóa của người khai hải quan cần phải giám định cơ quan chuyên ngành…
- Có hỏi và trả lời tùy theo tình huống
C/10 câu hỏi dùng trong giao tiếp và chuyên môn lĩnh vực Sở hữu trí tuệ:
1 Quyền sở hữu trí tuệ được quy định tại những văn bản nào?
- Nghiên cứu Luật SH trí tuệ số 50/2005 QH 2011 (luật này sửa đổi bổ xung hàng năm , luật gần đây nhât là năm 2017)
2 Trình tự thực hiện thủ tục đề nghị kiểm tra, giám sát hàng hóa xuất khẩu, nhập khẩu có yêu cầu bảo hộ quyền sở hữu trí tuệ như thế nào?
- DN có công văn về sở hữu trí tuệ , đơn và hồ sơ kiểm tra giám sát hàng hóa XNK có yêu cầu bảo hộ sở hữu trí tuệ
3 Thành phần, số lượng hồ sơ thủ tục đề nghị kiểm tra, giám sát hàng hóa xuất khẩu, nhập khẩu có yêu cầu bảo hộ quyền sở hữu trí tuệ như thế nào?
- Liên hệ sở hữu trí tuệ của cục giám sát quản lý – tổng cục HQ
4 Cơ quan nào thực hiện giám định đối với các sản phẩm đã đăng ký bảo hộ quyền sở hữu trí tuệ?
- Viện khoa học hình sự
5 Thẩm quyền ra quyết định tạm dừng làm thủ tục hải quan đối với hàng hoá xuất khẩu, nhập khẩu nếu có yêu cầu bải vệ quyền sở hữu trí tuệ?
- Chi cục trưởng chi cục HQ cửa khẩu
6 Những biện pháp xử lý vi phạm hành chính đối với trường hợp hàng hoá xuất khẩu, nhập khẩu là hàng vi phạm quyền sở hữu trí tuệ?
Phạt vi phạm Hành chính
7 Công ty tôi đang có ý định nhập hàng có nhãn hiệu có đăng ký sở hữu trí tuệ, nếu Công ty tôi muốn nộp đơn thì phải có ủy quyền của bên chủ sở hữu trí tuệ đúng không?
- Nghiên cứu Luật SH trí tuệ số 50/2005 QH 2011 (luật này sửa đổi bổ xung hàng năm , luật gần đây nhât là năm 2017)
8 Công ty tôi đang có ý định nhập hàng có nhãn hiệu có đăng ký sở hữu trí tuệ, nếu Công ty tôi được ủy quyền thì chúng tôi có thể nộp đơn trước khi hàng về được không Việc nộp đơn yêu cầu kiểm tra phải áp dụng với các lô hàng hay chỉ một lô hàng đầu tiên?
- Nghiên cứu Luật SH trí tuệ số 50/2005 QH 2011 (luật này sửa đổi bổ xung hàng năm , luật gần đây nhât là năm 2017)
9 Hiện công ty tôi đang là nhà phân phối độc quyền sản phẩm của một nhãn hiệu hàng hoá của Trung Quốc tại Việt Nam Công ty tôi muốn bảo hộ cho nhãn hiệu đó thì cần làm những thủ tục gì? Được quy định tại văn bản nào?
- Nghiên cứu Luật SH trí tuệ số 50/2005 QH 2011 (luật này sửa đổi bổ xung hàng năm , luật gần đây nhât là năm 2017)
10 Công ty tôi đang có ý định nhập hàng cáp quang có nhãn hiệu có đăng ký sở hữu trí tuệ
Vậy nếu muốn nhập khẩu thì Công ty tôi sẽ phải làm những thủ tục cụ thể như thế nào?
- Nghiên cứu Luật SH trí tuệ số 50/2005 QH 2011 (luật này sửa đổi bổ xung hàng năm , luật gần đây nhât là năm 2017)
D/ 20 câu hỏi dùng trong giao tiếp và chuyên môn lĩnh vực Phân loại hàng hoá:
- Nghiên cứu thông tư số 38/2015/TT-BTC 25/3/2015( QĐ về thủ tục HQ kiểm tra, giám sát )
- Phân loại hàng hoá: biểu thuế , mã số, mặt hàng
1 Đề nghị anh cho doanh nghiệp biết quy trình phân tích, phân loại hàng hóa trước khi nhập khẩu?
- Căn cứ vào nghị định, thông tư thì qui trình như sau:
2 Đề nghị anh cho doanh nghiệp biết cơ quan có thẩm quyền xác định trước mã số hàng hóa?
- Trung tâm phân loại hàng hóa của tổng cục HQ :
3 Đề nghị anh cho doanh nghiệp biết quy trình xác định trước mã số hàng hóa quy định ở văn bản nào không?
- Tham khảo các văn bản, thông tư, nghị định
4 Sau khi có kết quả phân tích, phân loại hàng hóa thì doanh nghiệp phải thực hiện như thế nào?
- Nếu chấp nhận thì DN phải khai báo theo kết quả
5 Tôi nhập khẩu hàng có C/O mẫu E thì phân loại mã HS theo biểu thuế nào?
- C/O gồm nhiều mẫu như mẫu E, CAZ Khi trình báo trước cq HQ, tùy theo từng mẫu có mức ưu đãi hoặc giảm thuế suất khác nhau
- C/O hợp lệ : được hưởng thuế suất
- C/O không hợp lệ : không được hưởng thuế suất
6 Sau khi đã có kết quả phân tích, phân loại hàng hóa thì kết quả đó doanh nghiệp được áp dụng trong thời gian bao lâu?
- Thời gian áp dụng trong 1 năm
7 Tôi lấy kết quả phân loại hàng hóa của doanh nghiệp khác để áp dụng cho doanh nghiệp này được không?
- Không Vì mỗi mẫu phân tích, phân loại chỉ áp dụng 1 trường hợp, các mẫu khác chỉ có giá trị tham khảo
8 Sau khi có kết quả phân tích, phân loại hàng hóa khác so với mã số doanh nghiệp khai báo thì doanh nghiệp có bị sao không?
9 Tôi muốn khai sửa đổi bổ sung sau khi có kết quả phân tích, phân loại thì làm thế nào?
- Được khai sửa đổi bổ xung theo qui định
10 Anh đã chỉ thị nội dung doanh nghiệp cần khai báo trên VNACCS.VCIS sau khi có kết quả phân tích, phân loại chưa?
Observation field note
Questionnaires for reviewers
ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ
CỘNG HÒA XÃ HỘI CHỦ NGHĨA VIỆT NAM Độc lập - Tự do - Hạnh phúc
Hà Nội, ngày tháng năm 20
PHIẾU NHẬN XÉT TÀI LIỆU BỒI DƯỠNG NGOẠI NGỮ CHO CÁN BỘ CÔNG CHỨC, VIÊN CHỨC TÂY BẮC
Tên tài liệu: Xây dựng sổ tay từ ngữ và tình huống thông dụng tiếng Anh ngành Hải quan
Học hàm, học vị, chức danh: ……… Đơn vị: ………
2 Nhận xét cụ thể theo tiêu chí:
Mỗi tiêu chí trong bảng sau đây thể hiện một yêu cầu quan trọng dành cho tài liệu bồi dưỡng ngoại ngữ các ngành Hải quan, Ngoại vụ, Du lịch, Biên phòng ở vùng Tây Bắc Thầy / Cô hãy lựa chọn bằng cách đánh dấu vào cột “Mức độ” để thể hiện nhận xét của mình về tài liệu bồi dưỡng đã đáp ứng yêu cầu như thế nào
1 – Hoàn toàn không đồng ý
3 – Có dấu hiệu nhưng không rõ ràng
TT Tiêu chí đánh giá Mức độ
1 Các hợp phần được trình bày khoa học, đa dạng
2 Mỗi hợp phần của một bài học có định dạng phù hợp với nội dung, thống nhất xuyên suốt tài liệu
3 Các văn bản trong tài liệu được trình bày rõ ràng, rộng thoáng, dễ theo dõi
4 Các tiêu đề, đầu mục, hướng dẫn, chú thích được trình bày ngắn gọn, súc tích, nổi bật
5 Sơ đồ, bảng biểu, hình ảnh minh hoạ rõ ràng, dễ theo dõi
B Tính phù hợp và thiết thực
6 Tài liệu bồi dưỡng tập trung cung cấp ngữ liệu của các tình huống trao đổi công việc thường ngày của cán bộ ngành
7 Tài liệu bồi dưỡng có chứa ngữ liệu nguyên bản (authentic), rõ ràng, dễ hiểu (concrete)
8 Tài liệu bồi dưỡng cung cấp ngữ liệu gần gũi / phù hợp với người học về trình độ ngoại ngữ, hoàn cảnh và nhu cầu làm việc (hơn là ngôn ngữ học thuật, mĩ từ)
9 Các chủ điểm học bao quát được các mảng công việc và tình huống giao tiếp đặc thù của ngành
10 Trình tự bài học / chủ điểm và ngữ liệu được cung cấp đảm bảo người học đã sẵn sàng tiếp thu kiến thức mới
11 Nội dung bài học đảm bảo cung cấp cả kiến thức mới và củng cố kiến thức cũ (bao gồm ngữ liệu và các khái niệm trong/liên quan nghiệp vụ)
12 Các bài học bao gồm các hoạt động củng cố ngôn ngữ có tính kích thích (stimulating), tính có vấn đề (problematic), có thể thực hiện được (achievable), liên quan đến nghiệp vụ ngành
13 Tài liệu bồi dưỡng có nhiều lựa chọn về hoạt động học và trọng tâm học cho nhiều đối tượng học
14 Tài liệu bồi dưỡng giúp cán bộ tham khảo cách sử dụng ngôn ngữ dễ dàng mọi lúc, mọi nơi
15 Tài liệu bồi dưỡng cung cấp ngữ liệu đa dạng về văn phong (thân mật / trang trọng), hình thức truyền đạt (trực tiếp / trực tuyến), kênh truyền đạt (nghe / nhìn / đọc), mục đích (giao tiếp bằng lời nói, dịch nói/viết…)
D Khả năng hỗ trợ, kích thích hoạt động tự học
16 Các hoạt động có tính kích thích người học phát triển kĩ năng ngoài ngôn ngữ như kĩ năng phân tích, kĩ năng giải quyết vấn đề liên quan nghiệp vụ bằng ngoại ngữ.
