Khóa luận tốt nghiệp a study on accounting and business management students difficulties in learning esp vocabulary at vietnam national university of agriculture

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES BA THESIS A STUDY ON ACCOUNTING AND BUSINESS MANAGEMENT STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING ESP VOCABULARY AT VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE NGHIÊN CỨU NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN CỦA SINH VIÊN NGÀNH KẾ TOÁN VÀ QUẢN TRỊ KINH DOANH TRONG VIỆC HỌC TỪ VỰNG TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH TẠI HỌC VIỆN NÔNG NGHIỆP VIỆT NAM Student : VU THI MAI Major : ENGLISH Supervisor : NGUYEN THI NGOC THU, M.A Hanoi – 2021 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled A study on Accounting Business Management students’ difficulties in learning ESP vocabulary at VNUA submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirementsfor the degree of Bachelor in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2021 Vu Thi Mai Approved by SUPERVISOR (Signature and full name) Date:…………………… i TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i TABLE OF CONTENTS ii LIST OF ABBREVIATION………………………………………………… iv ABSTRACT iv LIST OF TABLES vii Part 1: INTRODUCTION .1 RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY .1 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS SCOPE OF THE STUDY SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY DESIGN OF THE STUDY Part 2: DEVELOPMENT .6 Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW .6 1.1 REVIEW OF PREVIOUS STUDIES (AT HOME/ABROAD) .6 1.2 REVIEW OF THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.2.1 Statement of theoretical framework chosen 1.2.2 Review of theoretical preliminaries employable as tools for conducting the thesis 12 Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY .14 2.1 RESEARCH GOVERNING PRINCIPLE 14 2.1.1 Research questions .14 2.1.2 Research hypothesis 14 2.1.3 Research types: 14 2.1.4 Principles/ criteria for data collection and data analysis 15 2.1.5 Data analysis 16 ii 2.2 RESEARCH METHODS 17 Chapter 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS .18 3.1 QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS……………………………… .18 3.2 QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS…………………………… … .20 3.3 DIFICULTIES…………………………………………………… 32 3.3.1 Subjective reasons from the students' side…………………………… 33 3.3.2 Objective reasons from the environment and other issues……… .35 3.4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS…………………………………… 36 3.4.1 Findings and discussions to the teachers………………………… 36 3.4.2 Findings and discussions to the students………………………… 38 3.4.3 Findings and discussions to the Vietnam Universities, Vietnam Ministry of Education and Training, Vietnam State and Authorities Universities…38 3.5 SUMMARY…………………………………………………………… 39 PART 3: CONCLUSION 40 RECAPITULATION 40 CONCLUDING REMARKS 40 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 41 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 41 REFERENCES 43 APPENDIX 45 iii LIST OF ABBREVIATION ESP: English for Specific Purposes EFL: English as a Foreign Language ESL: English as a Second Language EST: English for Science and Technology EBE: English for Economics and Business ESS: English for Social Sciences EAP: English for Academic Purposes EOP: English for Occupational Purposes VNUA: Vietnam National University of Agriculture iv ABSTRACT Nowadays, with the development of globalization and economic integration, economics and related issues have become one of the most talked about topics all over the world Therefore, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is a promising branch of English Language Teaching The purposes of the ESP course are to provide learners with the English language used in the specialty, often presented in jargon While much effort has been focused on teaching vocabulary, the difficulty for students of Accounting and Business Management in learning ESP vocabulary has not been sufficiently drawn to attention By highlighting the lack of related studies in ESP establishment in Vietnam, this paper is one of the first studies on ESP vocabulary of Accounting and Business Management students in Vietnam National University of Agriculture through difficulties, causes and solutions Thanks to a flexible combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, valid results can be obtained from the research The questionnaire was used as a data collection tool to identify the most common challenges during the three weeks of understanding, memorization, and application 119 students majoring in Accounting and Business Management were selected as study participants The reason for their difficulty is classified into subjective causes and objective causes Solutions proposed by students and teachers are also provided in the study v LIST OF TABLES Table 1: The difficulty of ESP vocabulary under the teacher's assessment .18 Table 2: Teacher's assessment of students' current situation of learning ESP vocabulary in Accounting and Business Management 19 Table 3: Assessing English vocabulary is difficult for student 20 Table 4: Where students come from? 21 Table 5: The time when students seriously study English 21 Table Students' scores at the end of the first semester of the academic year 2020-2021 for the general English (or English 2) course 22 Table 7: Favorite level of learning English vocabulary for Accounting and Business Management 23 Table 8: Do Accounting and Business Management’s students find it difficult when learning ESP vocabulary .25 Table 9: Students' ability to remember vocabulary 25 Table 10: How often students learn English vocabulary in high school? 26 Table 11: Students' stress levels before and during the ESP vocabulary lesson 28 Table 12: Difficulties of students when learning ESP vocabulary 29 Table 12.1 Lack of vocabulary 29 Table 12.2 Don't know the meaning of the word 29 Table 12.3 Improper pronunciation 30 Table 12.4 Afraid to speak for fear of being wrong 31 Table 12.5 Don't know how to write words 32 vi Part 1: INTRODUCTION RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY In the general development of the world, the trend of globalization and development cooperation is inevitable Accordingly, English is considered an international language and a means of international communication commonly used in the world Like a useful means, a bridge connecting each individual to the world, English makes anyone feel more confident in a challenging life in the market economy development as present Vietnam is a developing country and English is an effective support tool for the integration and cooperation to access the world's advanced working environment and technology Since 2015, the ASEAN community has been deployed, this is an opportunity as well as a challenge for Vietnam After 2015, national barriers were removed, replaced by the multicultural international integration environment of the countries in the community, leading to problems of freedom of movement and the need to find jobs in the community many areas At the Accounting and Business Management at Vietnam National University of Agriculture, ESP is an important subject in order to provide Accounting and Business Management students with specialized English terms and help students consolidate and strengthen professional knowledge through lessons with major-related content in English Based on the characteristics of the future career, the faculty has developed appropriate goals for the subject of English majoring in accounting and selected the textbook "English for Accounting and Business Management" to use for teaching the subject The curriculum mainly focuses on reading comprehension (theory) and writing skills (practical exercises) The curriculum is used to teach 119 Accounting and Business Management students, after completing two basic English modules and according to the school's common program Although specialized ESP has been taught at the Accounting and Business Management for a long time and the teachers are stable, in the teaching process for different courses, the lecturers face certain difficulties Those difficulties may come from the teachers or may come from the students that the teachers did not anticipate On the part of the teachers, the feed instructors are all teachers who are trained in the English major, but not formally trained in the Accounting and Business Management major, so the teachers' knowledge of accounting is mainly through the form of self-study and learn from teachers specializing in Accounting and Business Management in the department On the student side, each student course has different qualifications and learning sense, so the acquisition of subject knowledge is also completely different From the actual teaching and learning results, it is shown that learning ESP vocabulary of students in general and students of Accounting and Business Management in particular is still difficult to understand, improve and deal with problems in English processing Really, it is necessary to have possible solutions to improve the quality of learning the ESP vocabulary for Accounting and Business Management students in this critical period and context For students, to get a job as desired in all fields, one of the "prerequisites" is to have foreign language capital - English This has also been contributing to promoting the teaching and learning of ESP vocabulary in VNUA which has always become "hot" over the past time In particular, the graduate job of Accounting Business Management students is to communicate with foreigners, listen to customers speak, read English documents and write reports in English Therefore, it is essential to improve students' foreign language proficiency so that after graduation students with knowledge of accounting and auditing will easily find jobs and meet strict requirements of employers 2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY The aim of the study is to investigate Accounting and Business Management students’ difficulties in learning ESP vocabulary at VNUA From there, we find out the possible reasons that affect learning ESP vocabulary of Accounting and Business Management students and propose some possible solutions for students to learn ESP vocabulary more easily From the aim above, i find out how ESP is approached at VNUA as well as Accounting and Business Management students’difficulties in learning ESP vocabulary, discover the factors that influence them on learning ESP vocabulary, therefore, to offer some suggestions for studying ESP at VNUA in order to heighten the effectiveness RESEARCH QUESTIONS The research is carried out with an attempt to find out answers to the following research questions: What are Accounting and Business Management students’ difficulties in learning ESP vocabulary at VNUA? What are the possible solutions for Accounting and Business Management students in learning of ESP vocabulary at VNUA? SCOPE OF THE STUDY The study investigated difficulties of 119 Accounting and Business Management students learning ESP vocabulary in second term at school year 2020 – 2021 at VNUA And then some suggested solutions are given to learn ESP vocabulary more effectively SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY Theoretically, this study helps to uncover Accounting Business Management students’ obstacles in learning the ESP vocabulary A clearer look into the reasons for these difficulties are also be gained, and some suggested solutions are drawn out in general Or you can study the mistakes that students are likely to make when learning ESP vocabulary These are all interesting topics, contributing effectively to providing solutions so that students can learn ESP vocabulary in the best way, achieving the desired learning results 43 REFERENCES Brown, H Douglas 2001 Teaching by Principle New York: Longman Dudley- Evans, T & ST John M J (1998) Developments in English for Specific Purpose, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Hatch, Evelyn and Brown, Cheryl 1995 Vocabulary, Semantics, and Language Education Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Heibert, Elfrieda H and Kamil, Michael L.1995 Teaching and Learning Vocabulary Hutchinson, T & Waters, A (1987) English for Specific Purpose: A learning centered approach, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Kennedy, C & Bolitho, R (1984) English for Specific Purposes Macmillan Lessard-Clouston, M (2013) Teaching vocabulary Alexandria, VA: TESOL International Association Munby, J (1978) Communicative syllabus design Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Nation, I S P (2008) Teaching vocabulary: Strategies and techniques.Boston, MA: Heinle 10 Nation, ISP 2000 Learning Vocabulary in Another Language Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 11 Renandya, W.A & Richards, J.C (2002) Methodology in Language Teaching New York: Cambridge University Press 12 Robinson, P.C (1991) ESP Today: A Practitioner’s Guide London: Prentice Hall International 13 Ur, Penny 1996 A Course in Language Teaching, Practice and Theory Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 44 14 Schmitt, Norbert and Mc Carthy 1997 Vocabulary, Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 15 Strevens, P (1977) New Orientations in the Teaching of English London: Oxford University Press 16 Snow, John; Burns, Michael; & Griffin, Alex 1998 Teaching and Learning Vocabulary: Bringing Research to Practice London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publisher 45 APPENDIX Questionnaire for teachers Survey on difficulties of students majoring in Accounting and Business Management in learning ESP vocabulary at Vietnam National University of Agriculture Below is a complete questionnaire with objective data collection I hope you will answer the following questions from your own point of view Please mark an X in the blank boxes below How you rate the English vocabulary for Accounting and Business Management? Very difficult Difficult Normal Not difficult Easy How you evaluate the student's current situation of learning English vocabulary majoring in Accounting and Business Management? Very good Good Normal A little weak Weak According to you, is English vocabulary for Accounting and Business Mangement difficult for students? Very difficult Difficult Normal Not difficult 46 Easy According to you, what are the difficulties that students may face when learning English vocabulary for Accounting and Business Management? ………………………………………………………………………………… Do you have any suggestions to help students improve their English vocabulary for Accounting and Business Management? ………………………………………………………………………………… I would like to thank the teachers who participated in answering this questionnaire! 47 Bảng hỏi dành cho giáo viên (bản Tiếng Việt) Khảo sát khó khăn sinh viên chun ngành Kế tốn Quản lý kinh doanh việc học từ vựng ESP Học viện Nông nghiệp Việt Nam Dưới bảng câu hỏi đầy đủ với việc thu thập liệu khách quan Em mong thầy/ cô trả lời câu hỏi sau theo quan điểm riêng cá nhân Các vui lịng đánh dấu X vào ô trống bên Thầy/ cô đánh giá vốn từ vựng tiếng Anh chuyên ngành Kế toán Quản trị kinh doanh? Rất khó Kết Thầy/ đánh giá thực trạng học từ vựng tiếng Anh chuyên ngành Kế toán Quản trị kinh doanh sinh viên? ất tốt Theo thầy/ cô, từ vựng tiếng Anh chuyên ngành Kế toán Quản trị kinh doanh có khó sinh viên khơng ạ? 48 Dễ Theo thầy/cơ, khó khăn mà sinh viên gặp phải học từ vựng Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành Kế Toán Quản Trị Kinh Doanh ạ? …………………………………………………………………………… Thầy/cơ có đề xuất để giúp sinh viên cải thiện việc học từ vựng Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành Kế Toán Quản Trị Kinh Doanh không ạ? …………………………………………………………………………… Em xin trân thành cảm ơn quý thầy/ cô tham gia trả lời bảng hỏi ạ! 49 Questionnaire for students (English version) I've invited you to fill out a form: Survey on difficulties of students majoring in Accounting and Business Management in learning ESP vocabulary at Vietnam National University of Agriculture Class:……… Lock up:………… Specialized: Please mark an X in the blank boxes below Where are you from? City Countryside How long have you been seriously studying English? Never Less than year Over year More than years Your score at the end of the 1st semester of the academic year 2020-2021 for your general English (or English 2)? A Score B+ Score B Score C+ Score C Score D+ Score D Score 50 F Score How is your interest in learning English vocabulary for Accounting and Business Management? Like so much Like Normal Dislike Very disliked Is English vocabulary for Accounting and Business Management difficult for you? Very difficult Difficult Normal Not difficult Easy How you think your ability to remember vocabulary is currently located? Very good Good Normal A little weak Weak How often did you learn vocabulary when you were in high school? Regularly Occasionally Sometimes Few Never 51 Do you have stress before and during every hour of English majoring in Accounting and Business Management in class? Regularly Sometimes Never Which of the following difficulties you face when learning English vocabulary majoring in Accounting and Business Management? (can choose more than answer) Lack of vocabulary Don't know the meaning of the word Improper pronunciation Afraid to speak for fear of being wrong Don't know how to write words Others: 10 What will you to improve your English vocabulary for Accounting and Business Management? * ……………………………………………………………………………… Thank you very much for answering this questionnaire! 52 Bảng hỏi dành cho sinh viên (bản Tiếng Việt) Khảo sát khó khăn sinh viên ngành Kế Toán Quản Trị Kinh Doanh việc học từ vựng tiếng anh chuyên ngành Học viện Nơng Nghiệp Việt Nam Lớp:………… Khóa:………… Chun ngành: Bạn vui lòng đánh dấu X vào ô trống Bạn đến từ đâu? Thành phố Nông thôn Bạn thực nghiêm túc học Tiếng Anh bao lâu? Chưa Dưới năm Trên năm Trên năm Số điểm kết thúc học kỳ năm học 2020-2021 học phần đại cương Tiếng Anh (hoặc Tiếng Anh 2) bạn? Điểm A Điểm B+ Điểm B Điểm C+ Điểm C Điểm D+ 53 Điểm D Điểm F Mức độ yêu thích bạn việc học từ vựng tiếng anh chuyên ngành Kế Toán Quản Trị Kinh Doanh nào? Rất thích Thích Bình thường Khơng thích Rất khơng thích Với bạn, từ vựng tiếng anh chuyên ngành Kế Toán Quản Trị Kinh Doanh có khó khơng? Rất khó Khó Bình thường Khơng khó Dễ Bạn tự xét thấy khả nhớ từ vựng n m mức độ nào? Rất tốt Tốt Bình thường Hơi yếu Kém Bạn có thường học từ vựng cịn học Trung học khơng? Thường xun Thỉnh thoảng Đơi Rất 54 Khơng Bạn có tâm lý căng thẳng trước học tiếng anh chuyên ngành Kế Toán Quản Trị Kinh Doanh lớp không? Thường xuyên Thỉnh thoảng Không Bạn gặp khó khăn học từ vựng Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành Kế Toán Quản Trị Kinh Doanh? (có thể chọn nhiều đáp án) Thiếu vốn từ vựng Không biết nghĩa từ Phát âm chưa chuẩn Ngại nói sợ sai Khơng biết cách viết từ Khác… 10 Bạn làm để cải thiện việc học từ vựng Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành Kế Tốn Quản Trị Kinh Doanh mình? …………………………………………………………………………………… Xin trân thành cảm ơn bạn tham gia trả lời bảng hỏi ạ! 55 APPROVED BY SUPERVISOR(S) , date …month…year… , date… month…year…… Supervisor Student (Signature and full name) (Signature and full name) 56 Certified by Department of Professional English 57