THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT GRADUATION PAPER DIFFICULTIES IN STUDYING BUSINESS CORRESPONDENCE OF ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY AND SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS Supervisor Nguyen[.]
THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT - - GRADUATION PAPER DIFFICULTIES IN STUDYING BUSINESS CORRESPONDENCE OF ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY AND SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS Supervisor : Nguyen Bich Hong, M.A Student : Nguyen Thi Huyen Trang Class : K55N5 Student number : 19D170328 HANOI - 2022 ABSTRACT Business Correspondence plays an important role, it is also a compulsory subject at university In this study, the author would attempt to investigate the difficulties in learning to write enquiries and complaint letters in Business Correspondence of the English-majored students at Thuongmai University, which consist of problems from learners (attitude toward learning this subject), teachers (teaching methods) and curriculum (the completeness and perfection) Besides, the errors in business letters written by students are also detected Based on data collected by questionnaires and accumulating some business letters of students, the author would like to analyse so as to give objective results performed in charts and tables particularly and the factors affecting learning Business Correspondence Then, the research would like to give some recommendations and suggestions to deal with the difficulties in learning to write enquiries and complaint letters Hopefully, this study is a useful reference source for the English-majored students, who want to improve their learning how to write enquiries and complaint letters in Business Correspondence as well as enhance their academic results I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the completion of this graduation paper, I have received valuable support and idea contributions from my teachers, my family and friends First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Nguyen Bich Hong, M.A for her gracious assistance, friendly support, thoughtful advice, valuable comments, patience and warm encouragement throughout my study Without her whole-hearted help, my graduation paper would not have been completed Also, I am very grateful to all the teachers at the English Faculty of Thuongmai University for their interesting and useful lectures during four years which have built in me valid knowledge and necessary skills for my fulfillment of this paper The completion of this study would not have been possible without the cooperation from the English-majored students at Thuongmai University who participated in the study I am very grateful to all of them for providing useful information for the analysis of this study Last but not least, I would like to give my sincere thanks to my family and my friends who always give me the encouragement and inspiration which helps me overcome difficulties to fulfill my graduation paper Eventually, this research has been fulfilled to the best of my knowledge However, mistakes and shortcomings are unavoidable Therefore, I would be grateful if I receive appreciated comments and suggestions from readers for the perfection of this graduation paper Hanoi, November 25th, 2022 Student Nguyen Thi Huyen Trang II TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v LIST OF TABLES vi LIST OF FIGURES vii CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Previous studies 1.3 Aims of the study .3 1.4 Research subjects .3 1.5 Scope of study 1.6 Research methodology .4 1.7 Organization of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Background knowledge of Business Correspondence .6 2.1.1 Meaning of Business Correspondence 2.1.2 The importance of Business Correspondence 2.1.3 Types of Business Correspondence 2.1.4 Parts and form of enquiry and complaint letters 10 2.2 Points to remember when writing enquiry and complaint letters 15 2.3 Essential qualities of enquiry and complaint letters 15 2.3.1 Inner qualities 15 2.3.2 Outer qualities .16 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS .18 3.1 Findings from the questionnaires .18 3.1.1 The English-majored students’ attitude toward learning Business Correspondence .18 III 3.1.2 Opinions of English-majored students majoring in English about the completeness of the curriculum and Business Correspondence documents compiled by the Faculty of English 19 3.1.3 Difficult problems when learning Business Correspondence of Englishmajored students .22 3.1.4 Solutions for students and teachers to help students learn Business Correspondence more effectively 25 3.2 Findings from accumulated English-majored students’ business letters 26 3.2.1 The mistakes made by the students in writing enquiries and complaint letters 27 3.2.2 Factors of mistakes .29 3.3 Discussion about the difficulties of the English-majored students in learning how to write enquiries and complaint letters in Business Correspondence 29 CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 32 4.1 Recommendations 32 4.1.1 To students 32 4.1.2 To teachers 34 4.2 The limitations of the study .36 4.3 Suggestions for further studies 36 CONCLUSION .37 REFERENCES 38 APPENDIX 40 APPENDIX 43 APPENDIX 44 APPENDIX 45 IV LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Word Meaning in English Meaning in Vietnamese M.A Master of Arts Thạc sĩ TMU Thuongmai University Đại học Thương Mại V LIST OF TABLES NO NAME Table 2.1 Parts of Business Correspondence PAGE Table 3.1 Evaluate the completeness of the content and materials of the Business Correspondence course curriculum compiled by 19 the Faculty of English Table 3.2 English majors' opinions on the missing sections of the Business Correspondence textbooks and documents Table 3.3 Assessment of English major students about difficulties in writing enquiries and complaint letters Table 3.4 Mistakes that English majors frequently commit when writing inquiries and complaint letters VI 20 23 27 LIST OF FIGURES NO NAME Figure 2.1 Basic business letter format PAG E 14 Figure 3.1 Amount of time English-majored students spend doing Business Correspondence homework and preparing for the new 18 lessons Figure 3.2 The frequency of searching for the other sources of Business Correspondence documents Figure 3.3 The most difficult issue that English-majored students face when learning Business Correspondence Figure 3.4 Subjective reasons for English-majored students' difficulty studying Business Correspondence Figure 3.5 Objective reasons for English-majored students' difficulty studying Business Correspondence Figure 3.6 Suggested solutions for English-majored students to study better Business Correspondence at TMU Figure 3.7 Suggested solutions for teachers to help Englishmajored students study better Business Correspondence at TMU 21 22 23 24 25 25 Figure Basic business letter format 43 10 Figure Sample of enquiry letter 44 11 Figure Sample of complaint letter 45 VII CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale In the current period of economic integration, English is an important tool in communication and information exchange, especially business English The role of business English is becoming increasingly important for us This is one of the indispensable factors in the current process of globalization, which helps trade with foreign countries increase In particular, the use of business correspondence skills in English is a matter of concern In fact, Business Correspondence is a compulsory subject for the third-year students of English Faculty at Thuongmai University Learning how to write a commercial English letter requires more skills than learning how to write a regular English letter Students need to master not only the forms and organization of a commercial letter, but also the appropriate style and intonation for the writing The way of writing a commercial correspondence is usually more formal and regular correspondence, so writers have to keep in mind the general structure and apply it appropriately to each type of letter It is also a difficult problem that students deal with when learning Business Correspondence Besides, the fact also shows that most of the students have not known how to learn this subject well Therefore, in order to study this problem in depth, I have conducted the research entitled: “Difficulties in studying Business Correspondence of Englishmajored students at Thuongmai University and suggested solutions" Hopefully, this study will help English-majored students understand deeply the issues that they have not noticed before and suggest some solutions to solve the problems and help them improve their learning to writing inquiry and complaint letters in Business Correspondence I also hope this research will help them to enhance their academic results and augment their using Business Correspondence skill for their future jobs 1.2 Previous studies In the world, there are many documents on business correspondence as well as many studies related to business correspondence They are most commonly found in universities Yu (2014) and Fu (2014) had a research paper on the subject, with the title “A Study on the Characteristics and Writing Principles of Business Correspondence” This paper takes “3C” principles, a standard of a good business correspondence generally accepted in academic field and British linguist G.N Leech’s famous politeness principles as a theoretical background, analyzing the characteristics of the language used in BC, respectively in terms of its lexical characteristics and its structural characteristics in sentences Then, in order to better grasp the key to write a successful business correspondence, some main writing principles like polite principles will be specifically analyzed The study came to a conclusion “The principles for BC writing are to stylize the letter with the above characteristics “Your attitude” in mind goes first, followed by attention on tactful sentences Besides, interrogative sentences could be used to save you from embarrassment when inevitably being negative The last but not the least, the update terms could not be ignored with rapid development of business environment and society” Shafa (2014) implemented the study “Problems in writing English business letter: Errors and Factors” In this study, “the data were collected from the English business letter written by third semester of Bina Bangsa Economics students majoring in Management and Accounting The students were asked to respond a complaint letter from a customer of the given situation The error category is based on Ferris and Hedgcock model (2005) The researcher identified the problems of error found in the letters and explained the factors that caused the problems to draw the conclusion” In addition to the research of famous scholars over the world, in Vietnam, there were also many studies related to this issue “An analysis of some techniques to improve writing English business letters” by Vu Thi Huong Giang (2010) The study aimed to give theoretical background of definition, importance, purpose, business letter format and some types of business letter Besides, it found out some common mistakes in writing an English business letter Then the author conducted an analysis of the results and suggested some techniques in order to have good will in writing English business letter ... for English- majored students'' difficulty studying Business Correspondence Figure 3.6 Suggested solutions for English- majored students to study better Business Correspondence at TMU Figure 3.7 Suggested. .. Thuongmai University) , in this paper, the author just focuses on difficulties in learning to write enquiries and complaint letters in Business Correspondence of English- majored students at Thuongmai University. .. countries increase In particular, the use of business correspondence skills in English is a matter of concern In fact, Business Correspondence is a compulsory subject for the third-year students of English