VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM THỊ THU TRANG USING COMPETENCE BASED APPROACH IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF A WRITING[.]
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM THỊ THU TRANG USING COMPETENCE-BASED APPROACH IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF A WRITING COURSE FOR ENGINEERS AT VIETNAM ATOMIC ENERGY INSTITUTE (Sử dụng cách tiếp cận dựa lực để phát triển khóa học viết dành cho kỹ sư Viện Năng lượngnguyên tử Việt Nam) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI – 2016 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM THỊ THU TRANG USING COMPETENCE-BASED APPROACH IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF A WRITING COURSE FOR ENGINEERS AT VIETNAM ATOMIC ENERGY INSTITUTE (Sử dụng cách tiếp cận dựa lực để phát triển khóa học viết dành cho kỹ sư Viện Năng lượngnguyên tử Việt Nam) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dr Dương Thu Mai HANOI – 2016 DECLARATION I hereby certify that this thesis is entirely my own work I have provided fully documented references to the others‟ work The material in this thesis has not been submitted for assessment in any other formal course I also accept all the requirements of ULIS relating to the retention and use of M.A Graduation Thesis deposited in the library Hanoi, 2016 Phạm Th Thu Trang i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This thesis would not be fulfilled without the help of some people, and in some ways, I would like to thank everyone who has taught me, inspired me, challenged me, and supported me throughout the realization of this thesis I would like to express my deepest thanks to my beloved supervisor, Duong Thu Mai, Ph.D, for her whole-hearted assistance, encouragement as well as her profound guidance she gave me while I was doing my research I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all lecturers in Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their interesting lectures which have inspired me to conduct this thesis Besides, I would like to send my gratitute to the teaching experts at Vietnam National University, Hanoi who took part in my interview and gave me orientation to edit the course guide I would also like to express my thanks to the leaders and working learners at Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute for their willingness to participate in the research Without their help, this project could not be fulfilled Last but not least, I am most thankful to my family members who have always inspired and encouraged me to complete this study Hanoi, 2016 Phạm Th Thu Trang ii ABSTRACT Strong needs of working learners, urgent demands of occupation and great expectation of leaders have revealed there is a call for designing a writing course at Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute This course with workplace orientation was developed using competence-based approach so that the learning outcomes can meet future staffing requirements of the nuclear organization In this case, based on understanding of VAEI context, learners‟ needs and employers‟ requirements analysis, the paper is to explore the target genres, determine the specificity of writing competences covered within the course, and then develop course schedules Notably, there have been no attempts in investigating this issue before Hopefully, the paper would investigate needed English written competences for engineers at Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute and provide suggestions for the course components including contents, objectives, teaching methods and assessment to implement the future writing course under the light of Competence-Based Approach iii TABLE OF CONTENTS PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Aims of study 3 Research questions Scope of study Methods of study Design of study PART B: LITERATURE REVIEW Chapter 1- An Overview of the Competence-Based Approach 1.1 Definition of Competence and Competency 1.1.1 Definition of Competence 1.1.2 Definition of Competency 1.2 Approaches in course designing 1.2.1 Skill-based approach 1.2.2 Content-based approach 1.2.3 Theme-based approach 1.2.4 Functional-Notional approach 1.2.5 Competence-based Approach 1.2.3.1 The application and features of CBA in course designing 1.2.3.2 The application of CBA in English Language Teaching (ELT) 10 1.2.3.3 Course development process according to CBA 12 Chapter 2- Theoretical Issues on Writing Course 15 2.1 Nature of writing 15 2.2 English writing competence in theory and in reality 15 2.2.1 English writing competences in theory 15 2.2.2 Realization of English writing competence 17 2.2.3 Writing teaching approaches 22 2.2.3.1 The Product Approach 22 2.2.3.2 The Process Approach 23 PART C: METHODOLOGY 26 3.1 Context of the study 26 3.2 The study 27 iv 3.2.1.Research questions 27 3.2.2 Participants 28 3.2.3 Data collection instruments 28 3.2.3.1 Survey questionaire 28 3.2.3.2 Semi-structured interviews 30 3.2.4 Data collection procedure 32 3.2.5 Data analysis 34 3.2.5.1 Needs analysis by graphical method and simple percentage analysis 34 3.2.5.2 Content analysis 35 PART D: FINDINGS & DISCUSSIONS 36 4.1 Students’ needs and employers’ requirements analysis 36 4.1.1 Needs from students‟ perspectives 36 4.1.2 Needs from employers‟ perspectives 44 4.2 Interview results of the 1st course draft – Editting the 1st course content 46 4.2.1 Interview results 46 4.2.1.1 The appropriateness of the course objectives to students‟ language proficiency 46 4.2.1.2 The completeness of the course content and materials 47 4.2.1.3 The coherence of course schedule and assessment scheme to the course objectives 48 4.2.1.4 The integration of teaching methods, teachers and students‟ roles 50 4.2.1.5 The success probability of course implementation 50 4.2.2 Decisions on editting the 1st course guide 51 4.2.2.1 Course objectives 51 4.2.2.2 Course content and materials 51 4.2.2.3 Course schedule and assessment scheme 52 PART E: CONCLUSION 53 5.1 Reflection on research process 53 5.2 Recommendations 54 5.3 Limitations and suggestions for further study 55 REFERENCES 57 APPENDICES I v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS ADDIE Analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation CBA Competence – based approach CBESL Competency – based education in ESL CBLT Competence- based language teaching CBI Content-based instruction CEFR Common European Framework of Reference for Languages CSW Common Scale for Writing ELT English Language Teaching EOP English for Occupational Purposes ESOL English for Speakers of Other Languages ESL English as Second Language ESP English for Specific Purposes ETS Educational Testing Service FNA Functional-Notional approach IELTS International English Language Testing System L2 Second language No Number SBA Skill-based approach TBA Theme-based approach TOEFL Test of English as Foreign Language ULIS University of Languages and International Studies VAEA Vietnam Atomic Energy Agency VAEI Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute VNU Vietnam National University vi LIST OF TABLES, CHARTS, FIGURES Table VAEI leaders‟ features in the semi-structured interview 33 Table Experts‟ features in the semi-structured interview 34 Chart 1: Course development process according to CBA 13 Chart Stages of teaching writing under the product approach 22 Chart 3.1 Stages of writing process according to process approach 23 Chart 3.2 Stages of writing process according to process approach 24 Figure Tasks expected in thewriting course 36 Figure Major skills needed to support 37 Figure Aim at CEFR level of language proficiency 37 Figure Genres of written documents needed to learn 38 Figure Genres of written documents with difficulty 38 Figure Type of feedback expected in the course 39 Figure The importance of assessment types 40 Figure The effectiveness of assessment types 40 Figure The appropriate teaching methods 41 Figure 10 The students‟ willingness for self-study 41 Figure 11 The appropriate proportion of class time/self-study time 41 Figure 12 The effectiveness of the given lesson sequences 41 Figure 13 The students‟ roles in the course 42 Figure 14 The teachers‟ roles 42 Figure 15 The types of materials included in a writing course 43 vii PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale In the industrialized world, a great number of graduates, engineers and businessmen, who are expecting to gain more advanced knowledge and open access to the world, notably need English competences Among English competences that working learners seek training, achievement of English writing proficiency assumes an enormous importance in fitting the heavy literacy demands of their employers Not only is it hard to imagine modern workplaces without English essays, commercial emails, reports, case studies and journal articles but writing is also a key feature for writers to demonstrate their understanding of subjects and their experiences Nevertheless, these kinds of experiences are extremely challenging to students and may be especially frightening to those writing in a second language This is not only because different languages seem to have different ways of organizing ideas and structuring arguments but because students‟ prior writing experiences in the school, college or university not prepare them for the literacy expectations of their professional workplace That is one of reasons why for the last decades, the matter of educational contents corresponding to future job demands has become an essential issue in educational reforms all over the world Due to widespread concern about the quality of students‟ learning process, in particular, fluency in the conventions of writing in English at work, Competence – Based Approach originated in response to increase calls for learning outcomes upon course completion The approach focuses on assisting students towards writing competence in particular target genres so as to be more responsive to professions‟ needs; in other words, familarizing them with writing English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) (Auerbach, 1986) As a result, writing course designers are supposed not simply to develop the content of teaching writing generally but to recognise particular kinds of writing which are valued and expected in one certain professional context In details, EOP practitioners need to make considerable use of the findings such as the literacy demands to determine what is to be learned and to organise instruction around the genres that learners need and the social contexts in which they will operate In the social context of Vietnam, one recent upsurge attempts in acquiring English competence involves in human resource of nuclear field, when the network methods “Teachers‟ lecture-based” and “Student-centred activities/tasks” with 70% "very appropriate" and nearly 30% "quite appropriate" Figure The appropriate teaching Figure 10 The students‟ willingness for self- methods study For Question 10 “To what extent are you ready to self-study at home?”, the responses ratio was shown in Figure 10 above Every student is ready to self-study at home 16% students thought they “may be ready” for self-study Meanwhile, the large percentage of them are “ready”, which constitutes more than 80% of those surveyed, more than 16% of whom chose “very ready” The data of Question 11 “What is the most appropriate proportion of class time/self-study time?” was in Figure 11 As it can be interpreted, when choosing the appropriate proportion of class time/self-study time, nearly 40% students agreed with the proportion 1:2 The proportions 1:1 and 1:3 are 30% and 27% respectively Accordingly, that the total time for self-study doubles class time is the most appropriate to the majority of students Figure 11 The appropriate proportion of Figure 12 The effectiveness of the given class time/self-study time lesson sequences 41 Figure 12 indicates the effectiveness of the given lesson sequences in Quesion 12 Comparing the effectiveness of two lesson sequences, nearly 55% participants agreed the sequence “Pre-task – Task – Practice” is “very effective”, whereas, this proportion of “Present – Practice – Production” is halved Thus, it is indicated that the fomer sequence is much more highly appreciated than the latter Additionally, the number of answers “may be effective” and “not effective” to the “Pre-task – Task – Practice” sequence is significantly lower (5%) than the other (42%) For Question 13 “What are the students‟ roles in the course?”, Figure 13 below illustrates that the role “collaborators with peers and teachers” was chosen the most important by 53% responses “very important” and over 30% answers “important” The proportions of options in three other roles “knowledge receivers”, “activity participants”, “knowledge contributors” were fairly equal In particular, “very important” and “important” constituted around 40% and 35% respectively and only – students thought these roles “not important” On the contrary, the role “activity organizers” is considered the least important by nearly 20% responses of “not important”, 40% responses of “may be important” and only one-fifth of “very important” Figure 13 The students‟ roles in the course Figure 14 The teachers‟ roles The data for Question 14 “What are the teachers‟ roles in the course?” can be seen from Figure 14 The number of students who supposed all given teachers‟ roles “very important” and “important” bears the resemblance (around 50% and 40% respectively) Accordingly, it demonstrates the students‟ big expectation on teachers, expecially as “activity organizers” and „activity facilitator/supporters” without any comments of “not important” 42 4.1.1.5 Students’ needs about materials For Question 15, “What types of materials should be included in a writing course”, the data is in Figure 15 Figure 15 The types of materials included in a writing course “Course books” was supported by the largest percentage of participants (closely to 60% answers of “very important” and 30% of “important” Among others, the least effective was thought to be “materials from class members” with only one-tenth responses of “very important” and up to more than 40% of two lowest levels Summary From the received answers to the questionaire, there are some striking points that needs considering while designing the course Initially, three objectives that students expected to obtain the most were “controlling the grammatical mistakes”, “writing formal emails” and “writing journal articles” Secondly, the level of language proficiency that the majority of students aimed to achieve at the end of the course was B2 Among different genres of written documents, the most difficult those students predict to cope with was research paper Two types of assessment were ranked at the top on the scale of importance as well as effectiveness on learning progress was “final assessment” and “teachers‟ assessment” In terms of teaching methods, the combination of “teachers‟ lecture-based” and “student-centred activities/tasks” were the most highly appreciated The large percentage of students was ready to self-study at home twice as long duration as in class About the lesson sequence, Pretask – Task – Practice were supposed substantially effective For students, the role “collaborators 43 with teachers and peers” was strongly emphasized; whereas, for teachers, they were the roles “acitivity organizer” and “activity facilitator” 4.1.2 Needs from employers’ perspectives The interview for 03 leaders involves the employers‟ requirements of English writing competence to their staff It was composed of three primary questions and was analysed as follows The first one is the priority genres of documents that the managers at VAEI suppose their staff to enhance their writing in timely manner at workplace To this question, three leaders agreed that one of the most essential documents that VAEI engineers have to pay much attention and develop is journal article The first interviewee claimed when one engineer has reached the writing competences of a journal article, writing another types such as proposal, report, etc will not be a big hindrance to them at all despite their varied writing purposes Likewise, the second emphasized the crucial roles of scientific articles among scholars of science because in his view, research achievements are made widely renowned only if they are published into journals and other publications Meanwhile, the third interviewee gave much concern about the current English language proficiency level of a majority of VAEI engineers in obtaining the leaders‟ expectation of writing a journal article She thought that in VAEI context, it is necessary for engineers to enhance their writing short documents first, such as paragraphing, then combining several paragraphs into one description, giving opionions or ideas in reports or presentation slides, and the ultimately developing and completing more complicated genres, for instance, a research paper or a journal article On the other hand, emails and writing in presentation slides for seminars, conferences, and research projects are also frequent and ongoing activites among specialists groups at VAEI (interview & 3) Consequently, they need improving as well To the next question about how the leaders frequently to assess their engineers‟s English writing competences, each of the interviewees has his/her own view on the way of assessment The second honestly shared that for him, to assess others‟ writing competences is a really demanding task Moreover, the assessment procedures has not been carried out systematically and continually inspite of his rather 44 high frequency to review colleagues‟ written works The most important criterion to him is the “understandability” and coherence of the scientific document Accordingly, word choice needs to be appropriate and accurate, whereas, there is no need for sentence structure to be overcomplicated, leading to the ambiguity to readers He put the emphasis on writers‟ competence of conveying scientific ideas or concepts in the simplest and most reader-friendly way Moreover, the guides and regulations of writing an article in a specific journal are notified to thoroughly reading, however, in general, the unity and coherence are highly required Unlike the second, the leader in the interview highly required and appreciated the messages or findings that one written document can bring about An article without any clear and valuable result is considered unqualified to him In addition, he strongly recommended the truth value of each sentence in other words, there is no approval of “uncertainty” in pieces of scientific writing Differently from two former interviewees, the third mentioned to the visible components of a written document such as correct format and grammatical accuracy as the first and foremost factors which leaves her positive impression on that piece They are also her minimum requirements of VAEI engineers‟s writing competences She explained if an English document without two above factors, nothing further of author‟s writing competences can be expected When visible components are satisfactory, the next she raised a great concern is whether the content of each part of the whole document matches its function or not Then similarly to the interview 1, the ideas are also supposed to be closely and logically linked and organized to maintain coherence and make unity of the whole The last main question is relevant to the leaders‟ instruction, guidelines and further advice regarding their desire to the staff‟s written English The common recommendation from three leaders is that reading strongly supports writing A case in point is writing a journal article The initial step for learners is to read a model article published in the target journal (Interview 2) Apart from the visible format, learners need to examine and learn the way the author develops ideas, make questions why the author writes that way and how it positively affects the readers (Interview 1) Then, it is necessary to take notes the applicable sentence structures, academic and scientific language use (Interview 3) Even the third interviewee affirmed that in order to write a 45 genre of document such as journal article in any subject matter, the potential writer needs to have ability of comprehensively reading it beforehand She added that no matter how large the number of readers is, an officially published document is normally built up from its sample, not in free style That is the significant reason why reading plays a significant role in reaching writing competence provided that grammar is regularly reinforced also Last but not least, studying and drawing lessons from the editor‟s comments and reviews is regarded as one remarkable way for learners to recognize the errors as well as intensify their idea expressions and word choice (Interview & 3) To summarize, VAEI leaders shared their highest expectation that the engineers should attain the ultimate competences of journal article writing Their emphasis were put on grammatical, scientific accuracy and the findings that one writing piece encompasses Learning how to write through reading is the way highly recommended afterwards 4.2 Interview results of the 1st course draft – Editting the 1st course content 4.2.1 Interview results 4.2.1.1 The appropriateness of the course objectives to students’ language proficiency According to the first draft of course guide, the objectives of the course “Writing course using competence-based approach for engineers” are based on CEFR B2+ Description and put emphasis on upgrading students‟ writing competences such as linguistic, pragmatic, strategic, orthographic control, sociolinguistic competences from B1 towards B2+ The ultimate outcome of students upon completing the course is emails, reports, and the project of journal article written by them To this question, most interviewees expressed their worries about the students‟ current language proficiency level which is not sufficient for them to obtain the final goal of the course (Interview 1) Accordingly, the fourth interviewee doubted that B2 description cover merely essay writing, and does not encompass the lattermost course outcome – writing journal articles In other words, the course “aim” is too “high” at present (Interview 3) Likewise, the second expert claimed that the course loads comprising three different genres are too heavy and bulky She added each genre 46 requires varied writing competences and sub-skills For instance, only one genre writing such as journal article certainly take a long duration of teaching and learning abstract, introduction, results, etc Meanwhile, students definitely need to have developed their paragraphs and essay writing, even skillfully completed IELTS task and task already In short, the course aim should be mainly determined by the current situation of VAEI learners‟s “needs and lack”, instead of the leaders‟ expectation as a focal point It is thought that in many cases, the requirements of managers are unreachable, “unfeasible” (Interview 2) Due to the above reasons, some adjustments were vigorously recommended by all experts Firstly, the fourth one suggested adjusting the objectives into less complicated ones such as essay writing and merely “touching journal article writing”, not focusing on completing the whole journal article In another case, if the course aim remains unchanged, the prequisite of students‟ entry level should be B2 according to CEFR because only with B2 or higher level, students can deal with comprehensively reading documents of their subject matter; as a result, they will be able to use the “input” to apply in their writing (Interview 1) Simultaneously, in terms of target competence description, it is necessary to be more simplified, more apparent by “picking words” which can clarify and specify how to measure and where to realize the competences, instead of making use of the “ambiguous” words such as “good” (Interview 2) On the other hand, some stated objectives appear relevant to “oral production” and “oral interaction” A case in point is “express themselves clearly what they want to say in professional life” hence, their wording should be reconsidered and paraphrased to be more corresponding to written competences (Interview 3) 4.2.1.2 The completeness of the course content and materials All the interviewed experts supposed that the designed course content covers relatively adequate targets towards B2 writing, even far more and heavier than B2, whereas the duration of 160 hours of face-to-face learning is only 20 weeks There is much concern that the density of inclass learning may lead to working learners‟ pressure and ineffectiveness and time shortage for self-study (Interview 3) By the same token, the fourth expert added that time for self-study should be at least equal to 47 class time, even double and clearly stated in course description Thus, together with lowering the course aim as mentioned in 4.2.1.1., it would be better to lessen the whole class duration as well as reduce weekly inclass time, for example, hours per week for face-to-face learning and hours per week for self-study In addition, it was thought that the content should be condensed There is no need to spend much time teaching different kinds of paragraphs but “teaching the subskills” to write a paragraph skillfully such as writing topic sentence, supporting sentence, paraphrasing (Interview and 2) Subsequently, the next focused content should be essay types which are in need and frequently written in students‟ real work such as "cause and effect, problem-solution, advantage-disadvantages, argumentative.” Those types are all believed to “match academic writing” and should be adapted to the course aim with “nuclear vocabulary input” (Interview 1) Ultimately, the course give students the “orientation” and “approaching” to writing each part of a journal article as an essay (Interview 4) To support the course content, a list of core and supplementary materials were thoroughly examined and picked; hence, they are all highly appreciated by experts However, more clarification is needed about “which page and chapter of materials” are used for each week, “what to with the extra reading” and how it is “relevant” to the course (Interview 3) The reading may be taken advantage as the “input” provided to students for writing and widening their lexical repertoire of subject matter nuclear (Interview 1) 4.2.1.3 The coherence of course schedule and assessment scheme to the course objectives The most remarkable point in most interviews is the design of course schedule in form of table, which makes it much clearer to the readers and examiners than just listing (Interview 1, 3, 4) Nevertheless, there are a number of comments about the input of contructed syllabus Firstly, due to the spreading and continual 20 week frame with heavy workloads, the second and fourth interviewees strongly recommended that the course should be divided into two separate but integrated “modules”, in which first module is about “from paragraph to essay” and the second module is “from essay to journal 48 articles” The time allotment for module should be to thoroughly envisage and tend to be more than module so that working learners can develop well-grounded knowledge, skills and competences in the first module before approaching higher objectives in the second one Besides, they thought that in each module, two more columns, “content”, “activities” should be added and “extra reading” will be replaced with “homework” In contrast, there should not include “writing a formal email” due to the communicative feature of emails which had better to be considered in another course (Interview 2) Obviously, the division, addition, omission and replacement were expected to make a great contribution to the schedule‟ coherence Secondly, “the input” of the schedule needs to be reconsidered and rearranged For instance, the lesson “reviewing essentials of essay structure” takes place in week 1- several weeks before “sentence, clause, basic paragraph structure”, which is unreasonable teaching sequence Another case in point is the bullets in the column “objectives”, some of which were supposed to inadequately demonstrate the column aim such as “vocabulary intensifying through extra reading materials” (Interview 3) The input of weekly “inclass activities” under the light of competence-based approach also needs to be specified (Interview & 4) Thirdly, about final assessement, the tasks were said to lack clarity and appropriateness to students‟ language proficiency level (Interview 3) In particular, the “length and requirements” of essay tasks are reaching C1 description according to CEFR, whereas the ultimate goal of the course is B2+ The exercises and portfolio are confusing with no details of which exercises mentioned and which paragraphs or essays expected in the portfolio package Also, there is little information about the mid-term and final test such as format, assessment guide As a result, plans of final assessment were suggested, for example, a “timed essay writing test” in class at the end of module and a “final project – an article” submission for module (Interview 4) Additionally, the second expert notified that marking scheme for essay based on competence approach is highly evaluated owing to its comlexity, but its details should be delivered to students and interpreted by them at the beginning of the course for their preparation and attempts in reaching the highest 49 On the other hand, during the study process, how to feedback was mostly concerned One of the common types in writing is “peer check”; however it may be ignored if working learners are not interested in it and limited in language proficiency and peer check skills On the contrary, teacher‟s feedback plays a vital role in supporting students, thus, „a guide or form of feedback” should be included in course guide to illustrate teacher‟s help (Interview 1) 4.2.1.4 The integration of teaching methods, teachers and students’ roles All experts proposed the teaching methods according to competence-based or “performance-based approach” that is concerned about not only what students know but what they are able to as result of classroom instruction It assumes that students learn information and perform essential skills when they are given sufficient time and support Teachers at all levels, have the responsibility for devising instructional procedures through which their students achieve desired learning outcomes In short, the methods is claimed to focus on students “demonstrating what they have learned”, thus teaching requires “realistic and authentic class activities” Yet, the interviewees also noted about “training teachers” of the course not only in terms of subject matter, but also how to give instruction and feedback, how to implement authentic class activities so as to encourage all students to attain these goals 4.2.1.5 The success probability of course implementation The number of positive views on successful course implementation is relatively large The first reason is the facilitation of VAEI managers and the “high and urgent demand of learners at VAEI” for writing competence in occupational context, regardless of the course‟ difficulty and pressure Furthermore, the “prequisite proficiency level of students” for joining the course is at least B1 before Module and beginning B2 before Module (Interview 2,3) It can be seen that the entry level of learners is rather high, thus they are expected to be “active” and “hardworking” in English language The time allotment after thorough consideration of “reducing class time density” is promising in providing students with “sufficient time” to absorb the instructions and acquire the competence to be active and independent users of language writing (Interview 1,4) 50 4.2.2 Decisions on editting the 1st course guide After analyzing the interview data, some decisions have been made towards revising the targeted writing course 4.2.2.1 Course objectives The initial course aim of writing a complete journal article and beyond upon the end of the course was found to be out of reach to the working learners whose language proficiency entry level is minimum B1 according to CEFR Therefore, it is necessary to lower and simplify the objectives to occupational essay writing and touching the components of writing journal article The wide range of relevant subject – matter, nuclear vocabulary which was targeted earlier also need to be reconsidered by picking a number of significant and must-known topics of nuclear and exploiting their lexical items during the course such as climate change, greenhouse effects, nuclear power, nuclear energy, fuel manufacturing Accordingly, the originally – stated competences are specified and reworded to be more corresponding to the ultimately – editted goal 4.2.2.2 Course content and materials Some comments emphasized on the densely arranged and nonstop inclass learning thoughout 20 weeks of the course Hence, it sounds more reasonable to include only hours of face-to-face learning per week and suggest hours of selfstudy With the editted weekly class time, the whole duration will be lengthened to 30 weeks or more, instead of 20 weeks This brings hope that working learners can manage time to absorb knowledge, skills, tranfer them into the written products and finally attain the targeted competences One more important thing is the new course‟s content are supposed to focus on the competences of paragraphing and essay writing which is applicable and adaptd to match VAEI occupational context Then based on that, writing each part of a journal articles will be made more feasible by the approach and selectively instructions to suit learners‟ language capacity As a consequence, the materials which are employed will be given in details in terms of specific pages, chapters and books In addition, the large amount of supplementary reading will be diminished and clearly stated about what students need to with it 51 4.2.2.3 Course schedule and assessment scheme To ensure the coherence of the course schedule, it will be seperated into two modules, each of which requires different students‟ writing proficiency entry levels, at least B1 for Module and beginning of B2 for Module The course policy which is relevant to testing students‟ writing entry competences will be tightly and strictly considered On the other hand, the content, objectives, materials, homework and activities will be added to each module so that teaching methods, teacher‟s and students‟ roles can be clarified under the competence-based approach Furthermore, the tasks for assessment during the course will be reconsidered and suggested, one inclass essay task for final test of Module under time pressure, and a final project of a journal article submitted at the end of Module Simultaneously, the proposed marking scheme is decided to be mostly changed and shed the light on the word “good” It is supposed to be eligible and applicable for assessment but provide the necessary flexibility to the evaluators Moreover, the form of teacher‟s feedback will be included in the editted course guide to give clearer orientation to teacher‟s feedback The peer check will be omitted due to the learners‟ unwillingness and lack of peer check skills To summarize, the course objectives, content and schedule are of great significance for consideration and adjustments The editted course will be demonstrated in Appendix 52 PART E: CONCLUSION 5.1 Reflection on research process The present study aims at investigating two fundamental issues, including the needs of human resource managers and engineers at VAEI for a writing course using competence-based approach and the teaching experts‟ opinions of the developed needbased writing course Based on these, a writing course guide was drafted, evaluated and revised into the most feasible one for application at VAEI To back at, the paper includes a theoretical part which devoted into two chapters The first chapter is about an overview of the Competency-Based Approach and the second one is about theoretical issues in teaching writing under the light of this approach In addition, the practical part represents VAEI working learners‟ questionnaire This questionnaire plays a vital role in this research study since it shed light exactly on what they currently lack, what their language difficulties are and what they desire to learn in a writing course Furthermore, the semi-structured interview for employers at VAEI about their needs and requirements of their engineers‟s writing competences was conducted Its result was analyzed and stated in the Findings, which is the answer to the first research question Tải FULL (125 trang): https://bit.ly/3XpnY8P Dự phòng: fb.com/TaiHo123doc.net Correspondingly, the result analysis demonstrates clear interpretation of the input information about the needs of students and those of people connected to the course, particularly of the managers The responses mostly involves in three noticeable and common points that needs considering while designing the course Initially, the targeted writing competences that students aimed and were required to obtain the most were controlling the grammatical mistakes, widening wide range of nuclear vocabulary and writing a journal article of their subject matter Secondly, the level of language proficiency that the majority of students needed to achieve at the end of the course was minimum B2 level according to CEFR Among different genres of written documents, the most difficult that were predicted for working leaners was research paper in form of a journal article for publishing With attention to details and the attainment of the course‟s goals, the first draft of course guide was specifically constructed and encompassed the fundamental features of a course such as writing objectives, targeted competences, weekly 53 schedule, materials and assessment scheme This stage of Design and Development took a great deal of time to search, select, analyze, classify and build up the components of the course under CBA The toughest job was supposed to be its outcomes which were needed to be performed by the aimed language writing competences such as linguistic, pragmatic, soio-linguistic, strategic and orthographic control Each competence was clarified by the details of how to realize it in learners‟ writing performance, in other words, in form of “Can Do Statement” adapted from B2 writing description of CEFR In addition, the wording of “Can Do Statement” was taken much consideration to avoid ambiguity it might bring about to the users After the first draft was shaped, another practical part conducted was a semistructured interview for ULIS teaching experts‟ evaluation and recommendations about the drafted course The results of the interview was also identified and illustrated in the Findings, which is regarded as the answer to the second research question In this line, a number of comments were collected but there are three mostly mentioned points It was skeptical that the initial course aim of writing a complete journal article for publishing was too high and sounded unreachable for students who are supposed to hold B1 proficiency level Therefore, it needs to be moderated to feasible objectives such as writing from paragraph to essay and then from essay to touching each part of a journal article Secondly, it was necessary for the input of weekly schedule to be selected, added and rearranged to ensure the coherence of modules and content such as seperating weekly writing objectives, activities, materials and homework As a consequence, the time allotment was asked to be reconsidered Last but not least, the assessment scheme was highly appreciated but still required to get more details and appropriateness of assessment tasks for each module Based on those evaluation date, the revision involving making needed changes has been decided and formed the editted course guide 5.2 Recommendations Tải FULL (125 trang): https://bit.ly/3XpnY8P Dự phòng: fb.com/TaiHo123doc.net On the basis of the comments and ideas of people related to the course such as students, employers and teaching experts, several recommendations for designing a competence-based writing course are figured out 54 Firstly, to conclude the students‟ lack of language profiency in terms of writing competence and determine their current level, it would be better to implement a writing test at VAEI for those who desire to pursue the future course This test result will be used to consider whether learners have prequisite conditions to take part in the course or not Secondly, with the working learners who pass the entry test and attend the course, it is essential for VAEI to produce course policy which is integrated with learners‟ benefits at workplace For instance, in case learners achieve the ultimate course goal, they deserve being sent abroad for conferences, seminar, or further training This type of policy may create the motivation, inspiration and even commitment to the students while participating the course Thirdly, VAEI and ULIS may establish and intensify the cooperation in terms of training a limited number of teachers who can be experts in writing teaching as well as master in nuclear field Those who are selected should be thoroughly examined about their speciality to become English for Nuclear Purposes teachers Fourthly, once the course is implemented in reality, it is of great significance to obtain frequent feedback from learners and teachers, determine the training needs for appropriate and updated training policy, and meet the needs of relevant parties 5.3 Limitations and suggestions for further study In the process of the thesis writing, there are a number of limitations that should be pointed out as below In the first place, the students‟ needs investigation, to some extent, couldnot figure out the comprehensive picture The first reason is that VAEI is a technical support organization, comprising 09 facilities across the country, meanwhile, the questionaires was delivered merely to its subsidiaries in Hanoi The second, the surveyed engineers who were interested in and desired to pursue a writing course mostly belong to the young and newly recruited group Another mature and old group rarely join any English course held at VAEI because of psychological factors such as shyness, unwillingness Consequently, the sample of 37 working learners who completely responded to the questionaires was in small size In short, the investigation could not cover all needs of all potential students at VAEI 55 6813185 ... elements, including Analysis-Design -Development- Evaluation, were applied into the process of writing course development using CBA Needs analysis was an initial step to gather data and information about... final noteworthy approach has of late entered the language teaching panorama Wong (2008) stated that CBA emerged in the 1970s in the US At that time, teaching English as a second or foreign language... presented and analysed at an early stage They also copy and finally transform the models into a new essay to be as perfect as the one that they have imitated by focusing on the language as instructed