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Teachers and students collaboration for better learning outcomes An action research project in an esp class at Ho Chi Minh City Van Lang University

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See OS ED a cette 2 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY

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THESIS SUBMITTED IM PARTIAI FUIFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DĐEGREE OF are OF ARTS C TESOL)

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY

TEACHER’S AND STUDENTS’ COLLABORATION FOR BETTER LEARNING OUTCOMES: AN ACTION RESEARCH

PROJECT IN AN ESP CLASS AT HO CHI MINH CITY VAN LANG UNIVERSITY

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL)

Submitted by: NGUYEN THI NAM THI

Supervisor

PHAM HOA HIEP, EdD

Ho Chi Minh City, September 2009

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ABSTRACT

This thesis aims to explore what a teacher and students can do in an ESP class in an

effort to improve our teaching and learning

Action research was employed The project was done over one semester with a

group of ESP students majoring in IT at Van Lang university In-depth interviews

with students, diaries, and questionnaires were used as main methods for data

collection which served as a basis for the teacher/researcher’s planning for actions and changes

At the beginning of the semester many issues hindering the students’ learning was identified The teacher/researcher worked closely with the Students in joint efforts to improve the situation At the end of the semester, most students found their ESP :

lessons much more interesting and effective than before This was thanks to the

-changes the teacher/researcher made in close consultation with the students in terms of materials, and teaching methods and techniques Nonetheless, there still existed

some unsolved problems at end of the semester

The study implies that a teacher’s close cooperation with his/her students to get continuous feedback from them on their learning will be key to initiate actions for

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Statement of authorship Acknowledgements .cssssssecssseossssetsecssssareatsenesssonesoenenecnauesenenuacsresestssenssrenenees ii ADStract 0 cescscsstecersvessescoessnessesensessssensecenecnsscenteateadscoreatensensasensnarnacsenenseassneacsaseg ease Hi Table of contents

Liist 0Ÿ tabÏes Ăn HH nHỲ HH HH 00 0040105340840050 001071404 vii AbbreYiatÏOnS Ăn HH HH nh HH n0000489104000844089811 050706 viii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUC TIƠN -o.5- 5c H9 0k 11K 141 0108540550240 2106 1 1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY wl 1,2 RATIONALE , AIM AND SCOPE OF THE STUDY wd

1.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY wd

1.4 STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2 0 INTRODUCTION

2.1, ENGLISH TEACHING AND LEARNING IN VIETNAM 6 2.1.1 MODES OF ENGLISH TEACHING

2 1.2 PROBLEMS AFFECTING TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH IN VIETNAM 2 2 ISSUES OF ESP AND TEACHING ESP l5 2.2 1 DEFINITION OF ESP l5 2 2, 2 ESP TEACHERS’ PROBLEMS

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3.3 2 2 Student interviews 42 3.3 2 3 Teacher’s and students’ diaries 43 3.4 DATA ANALYSIS ccce.<keeeesxe 44 3 5 RESEARCH RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY 45 KN 9, lái 600/0) 46 CHAPTER 4: EINDINGS Ăn HH KH HH TH cm 40000004 0900184850 49 4.0 INTRODUCTION 4 1 STAGE 1: WEEKS 1-6 1 0/4900 .000 2000) 09 v90

4.1.1 1 The class atmosphere was very boring and inffective

4.1.1.2 The students did not know how to learn vocabulary effectively 4.1.1.3 All students had the need of learning English, but class hours was

insufficient 55 4.1.1.4, Students’ ability mixed 55 4.1.2 ACTIONS TAKEN (WEEKS 3-6) 56 4.1.2 1 Problem I „ ĐỒ 4.1.2.2 Problem 2 64 4.1.2 3 Problems 3 and 4 69 4.1.3 QUTCOMES AND REFLECTIONS 70 4.1.3 1 Outcomes 70

4.1.3.2 Unsolved problems 0 see resceneseseeneeeseessensorseneeesecseseeeneneeasseesene 79

4.2 THE SECOND STAGE: WEEKS 7-l2 - ĂQ SH 21122 dc 84 CV 1N ))00.0092090269 v09 0 84

4.2 1 1 Timid students often sitting at the back desks went on not speaking anything while studying; they mainly sat silent and listened to the others 85 4.2 1.2 The groups who had already given a presentation tended to go to the class late, not concentrating much on the lesson than they did before 86 4,2 1 3 Students needed synthesizing already-learnt necessary grammar points and teaching some advanc€d On€§ s0 ng 87 4.2.2 ACTIONS TAKEN 88 _ 2H nh 88 Ä tốc .jẻ he S 92 4.2.2 3 Probl€m 2 nh ch TY HT HT HH TH TT TH cv 93 4.2.2 4 Problem 4 cv LH Hàng TH HH KH HH0 HH1 tá Tre ty 94 4.2.2.5 Problem 5 95 4.2.3 OUTCOMES AND REFLECTIƠN SH 11t, 96

4.2.3 1 Things achieVed «cv ng ren 4.2.3 2 Unsolved probl€TT4 xnxx ng gen 4.3 THE THIRD STAGE: WEEKS 13-15

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4,3 1 1 In each class, the students would rather exist an act to play and fearn at the same time in the middle or at the end of the class than keep studying in four

Di 105

4.3.1.2 They felt rather worried about the fina]l examination 106

4.3.2 ACTIONS TAKEN cẶ St nhe 0 11201011 106

4.3.2 1 Problem 1 tase

LO V2 NA vn 107 4.3.3 OUTCOMES AND REFLECTION -7+5-SS che 108

4.3 3 1 Things achieved -«c sec 111111 108

4 3 3.2 Unsolved problerns coi 109 4.4 CHAPTER CONCLUSION - cành rterran 112 4.4.1 CHANGES IN CLASSROOM PRACTICES ằ Hee 112 4.4.2 THE STUDENTS’ COMMON COMMENTS ON THE WHOLE COURSE

LH 04 1k4 HA 9 9T Hy KT 4 1144810007720 71.0/.140101 811KB 10 1811.4071704401111701911 113

4.4.3 THE UNSOLVED PROBLEMS chi 116 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 5 0 INTRODUCTION 5 1 MAIN FINDINGS 5.2 RECOMMENDA TIONS - -Ă hành HH2 1111 1tr ri 1b H9 64/0902 11516 5.2.2 FOR TEACHERS - 2c Tà càng HH n2 re 5.2.3 FOR POLICY MAKEERS cọc» khi 5.2.4 LIMITATIONS cà cà cư HH 1k re tr re 5.2.5 FOR FUTURE RESEARCHERS - Sàn nnnhhrrirrrideere 1k 0/0901 BIBLIOGRAPHY S1 222593 6 317003008 06000184081187040020020001001048430 133

APPENDIX 1A: Questionnaire No.Ì nề sành ehhenrrnieeerreh 145 APPENDIX 1B: Interview guide No.l - cà nà nhà nhe tt 148 APPENDIX 2A: Questionnaire No.2 ào như 149 APPENDIX 2B: Interview guide No.2 cành nh nhe nhe 153 APPENDIX 3A: Questionnaire No.3.Í nh Hhnhhhheerherre 154

.APPENDIX 3B: Interview guide No.3 c cà ằ hen henhenhhnheereinree 155

APPENDIX 5C: Questionnaire NO.3.2 ——— nee enees 156 APPENDIX 4: English for the cÏlass Ặằ hen nhenhenereeeerrrr 157

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LIST OF TABLES

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BA BSc ESP HCMC IT MET TESOL ABBRIVIATIONS : Bachelor of Arts : Bachelor of Science

: English for Specific Purpose : Ho Chi Minh City

: Information Technology

: Master of Arts

: Ministry of Education and Training

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

At a national scientific conference titled “Training IT human resources according to the society needs”, organized on 10, January 2008 in Da Nang city, the Minister of Education and Training stated that although the field of IT in Vietnam was still immature it quickly penetrated into most of areas in the society and became an integral too] of all economic branches, especially the top-ranking ones At present, five large corporations in the world such as Intel, Renesas, Campal, Samsung, and Foxcon decided to invest approximately ten billions of dollars in Vietnam to design and manufacture IT products like microchips and computers and to supply high- quality services of IT They had needed to recruit “thousands of qualified Vietnamese engineers in the area of IT, electronics and automatics to give them , training abroad so that they would be able to become key officers of their companies As a result, human resource was the leading interest of these foreign

investors

The Minister of Education and Training said that if Vietnamese human resource was not qualified, this would miss the opportunities of attracting foreign investment for the national development speed-up in the twenty coming years

However, a reality which made Vietnamese leaders very worried was that the

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international standard: one hundred percent of IT students, after graduating, would

be good at both their specialties and English skills in order to be able to participate in global labor market (Thanh Nien newspaper, 2008, January 11, Vol 11, p.4) It can be said that teaching IT in English to students is very challenging because of the present lack of teachers qualifying both English and main majors Therefore, emerging from the common trend of the society in this integration time is the need

of learning ESP, often undertaken by teachers of English, in different fields in

general and English for computing in particular to serve the career of national industrialization and modernization The reason for this selection is because of the guiding principle of ESP which Hutchinson and Waters (1987, p 8) describe “Tell me what you need English for and I will tell you the English that you need” And according to Carter (1983, p 134), there are three common, features to ESP courses: * (a) authentic material, (b) purpose-related orientation, and (c) self-direction

However, in Vietnam it seems that inadequate attention has been paid to teaching and learning ESP (HCMC University of Teaching and Training, 2005, p 1) The most common comment of ESP teachers is that generally speaking, although almost university and college students find ESP profitable for their future work, the teaching ESP only stops at the level of helping students pass final exams In other words, students are not learning the kind of English in a way they want to, but rather they need to pass the finals whereas using English for life reality and their

future work environment does not receive much attention

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make students become more motivated in learning English I believe that improvements cannot be made until teachers and students help each other by working collaboratively for better outcomes Probably an action research to investigate a process in which teachers and students examine and assess their own work carefully and systematically, and then consider ways of working differently to get improvements is thus imperative Bearing this in mind, I decided to conduct this action research project which, I hope, will make some contribution to the improvement of teaching and learning ESP in general and Specialist English of Computing in particular at my university and in similar contexts

1.2 RATIONALE , AIM AND SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Not much research on the teaching and learning process irrESP classes with an aim, to improve and raise its quality has been conducted in Vietnam Very often student need analysis is not taken into account Furthermore, very few research projects in Vietnam are action oriented, which helps bring about practical measures to be taken for better learning and teaching This research is thus imperative in that it aims to investigate teachers and learners’ reflections and actions in their own classroom which can lead to progress

In other words, the purpose of this research is to explore what teachers and students ‘can do in an ESP class to produce better teaching and learning results

The research was particularly sought to answer the following questions:

1 How do the second year students majoring in computing view their previous English lessons?

2 What changes do these students expect to occur in their English lessons? 3 What actually happens in the change process when change is initiated? What

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4, What lessons can be drawn out from this action research project?

This action research was necessarily limited its scope as it was conducted with one class of second year students studying computing at HCMC Van Lang University The project lasted over a 15-week semester The findings thus might not be generalized to other contexts

1 3 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The significance of this study can be discussed from two major perspectives: (1) on one hand, its findings could provide further explanation of the teaching and learning theory of ESP; (2) on the other hand, it can serve an applied purpose that it can generate data-driven information informing future plannifig and actions for other, ESP classes in similar contexts with a view to improve ESP teaching and learning

1 4 STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY

This study is reported in five chapters:

CHAPTER ONE - Introduction - has presented some background that motivates this project, the aim, scope, significance, and the structure of the study

CHAPTER TWO - Review of the related literature - will examine the important

role of ESP in learning English, and discuss some problems of teaching ESP in Vietnam

CHAPTER THREE - Methodology - will describe the research approach, subjects,

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CHAPTER FOUR - Findings - will report the findings of the study Data will be presented in the chronological order from week 1 to week 15: the real happenings in the change process, and the teacher/researcher's reflections on it will be detailed in

each week of the study

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2 0 INTRODUCTION

This chapter will first present an overview of the situation of English teaching and learning in Vietnam Second, it will particularly discuss the issues related to ESP

and teaching ESP The chapter will then move on to clarify and present some

aspects of action research Finally, the chapter will conclude by highlighting the

need of the current research project

2.1 ENGLISH TEACHING AND LEARNING IN VIETNAM ©

2 1 1 MODES OF ENGLISH TEACHING

Many modes of English training have existed in Vietnam both in regular and

irregular forms The regular mode appears at primary, secondary, and high schools,

public and private colleges and universities whereas the irregular form happens at

foreign language centers, in-service, “open”, and distance learning courses

No one can deny the fact that English has become an international language In many countries including Vietnam, English has also become a compulsory subject

in education Traditionally, in Vietnamese urban areas, pupils get to learn English from junior high schools (from grade six to grade nine) and go on taking English as

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have only three years of studying English before entering universities Many pupils living in the mountainous regions have no chance to learn English

To the two levels of secondary school and high school, pupils are taught mainly grammar, reading and writing while speaking and listening skills receive little attention (Le 2007) This unreasonable reality is also understandable because the two most important English examinations in Vietnam, the school final exam and the university entrance one taking place at the end of grade twelve, have no

listening and speaking components (Le 2001)

However, since Vietnam pursued the economic open-door policy in 1986, the English learning movement has boomed tremendously because of the need of communicating with the outside world and accessing modern technologies, which

are resulted from the market economy (Pham 1999; Le 1999; Nguyen and Do”

2005) This proliferation of learning English can be seen obviously in terms of the large number of English classes and abundant forms of training English as showed

below

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curriculum, number of hours spent in English.class, and teaching techniques and learning activities (Rixon 2000)

In addition to the spread of learning English to junior schools, English foreign

language centers have flourished to meet the need of many kinds of participants

who want to improve their knowledge of English, get a national or international

certificate in English to work in a particular profession or to study abroad

To English language education at Vietnamese universities and colleges, students learn English according to two basic systems: (1) English major system, belonging to the department of English of each university and college, trains students who want to study for a BA degree in English to become translators, interpreters, or teachers of English; (2) English non-major system trains students of all the remaining departments of tertiary education as a minor subject (Le 1999) And this * English non-major genre is divided into two separate stages: the former is called General English stage which provides learners with knowledge of English via four

basic skills — listening, speaking, reading and writing; the latter is termed ESP stage

to serve the purpose of training students in skills of communication and reading

English specialist texts, and supplying them with a specialist vocabulary for their

reading specialty in English

Nevertheless, since the above mentioned economic open-door policy, and more specially since the education socializing policy of the Vietnamese MET in late 1993

(Item 4 in the Government Act, No 90/CP signed on November, 24, 1993), many

profound changes in the country’s tertiary educational life have been happened (Pham 1999) Institutions are allowed to offer BA and BSc courses in various modes of training like regular four-year training courses, two-year or four-year “open” courses, two-year “upgrading” training courses, “in-service” courses and

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English It can be said that the English non-major genre including ESP plays a very important part in the tertiary level, and has a highly responsible position to the society in training a large number of students so that they can consider English as a

useful tool to access the outside world

Though the importance of English has been recognized, how it is taught is not often taken into consideration Because of the limited scale of this study, only the second session of the English non-major genre, i.e ESP, will be discussed in depth

In the next session, the most common problems affecting teaching and learning English will be presented Then, factors also influencing teaching and learning English but relating directly to ESP will be considered in the part of ESP issues, which is the essence of this chapter

2.1.2 PROBLEMS AFFECTING TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH IN VIETNAM

Discussing the poor quality of teaching and learning English in many developing

countries, Gorlach (1995) notes the followings:

1 budgetary constraints

2 classes with too many pupils, inadequate teaching materials and badly trained and badly paid teachers

use of English diverging further and further from the proclaimed norm

uo

4 the demand for a knowledge of English is unabated because of its high prestige, job requirements within the country, and its usefulness abroad after emigration (p 35) Gorlach’s remark probably remains valid now in Vietnam In fact, it takes a lot of

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(1999), for example, notes, “it has been widely observed that the quality of tertiary

education in Vietnam is far from satisfactory” (p 1) Eight years later, Nguyen

(2007) still insists that teaching and learning English in Vietnam exist a lot of shortcomings, inadequateness, and long under-efficiency Through some articles ‘dealing with teaching and learning English of typical authors like Nguyen, T.K.T (2007), Vu (2004, 2007), Vu, T.H.V (2005), Pham (1999), Le (1999), the researcher can sum up some following typical problems of all for the weakness of the English language education at colleges and universities in Vietnam

First, over-size and multilevel in an English class really present challenges to teachers This situation itself produces a lot of difficulties for teaching, preventing the success of teaching and learning English

«

“A study done by the team of the Lancaster-Leeds Language Learning in Largeˆ Classes Research Project (cited in Ur, 1996:302) indicates that an average

perception of the large class may be around 50 students” A large class makes difficult for teachers to manage learning activities in class, and causes lessons to

become stiff In addition, these over-sized classes are often teacher-centered, i.e the

teacher is the host who speaks all the time in class while students listen and take notes Unfortunately, many studies show that teacher-dominated classes can hardly

bring about effectiveness to learners (Edwards 1987; Pace 1992)

Today, an English class of 40-70 students is a general phenomenon in Vietnam The more this problem endures, the more serious the status of multilevel in a class becomes

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notes that more than 80 percent of Vietnamese population live in the countryside and English language teaching effectiveness in schools in rural Vietnam is a problem of worthwhile attention She adds, there is a big gap in English knowledge of students in the city in comparison with ones’ in the rural areas Such is the truth Yet, when entering a college/university, all learners, from the rural areas to the urban places, with a wide range of levels from beginning to advanced, are placed together in a single class to study the same course in the same number of periods Clearly, a big disparity in levels has occurred in English classes

Two following concrete examples can illustrate this level disparity: (1) In the school year 2005-2006, 91 first year students were surveyed at Hong Duc University at Thanh Hoa province The result showed that 11 students studied English continuously in 7 years at secondary and high school stage, 11 students only learned English at secondary schools, 51 took English in 3 years at high schools, and 18° students studied no foreign language who had to take for another subject test instead

of English in the school final examination (Pham, V.C 2005); (2) According to a

statistic from the functional departments of HCMC University of Social Sciences and Humanities, 80% of all students at this university are from provinces and rural areas; thereby, about 80% students have to learn English again from scratch (Nguyen, T.K.T 2007)

Ur (1996) defines that a multilevel class, also called a heterogeneous class or a mixed-ability one, is a class of learners among whom there are marked differences in terms of language knowledge, learning style, attitude to the language, learning

experience, confidence, motivation, interest, etc Generally speaking, it is the

difference in the level of performance in the foreign language He also adds, “the

situation of multilevel class is the most problematical”, that is, it produces various

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It can be said that multilevel in an English class today makes those who are rather good at English feel impatient when learning with the beginners To them, going to the English class is to cope with being penalized their “diligent marks” In contrast, the rest of them cannot avoid feelings of puzzle, frustration, and inferiority when sitting beside those who can answer fluently their teachers’ questions This really causes many under-average students to think that they are not able to learn English, and then drives them to despair Hence, the discouraged psychology arises in these two groups of students

Certainly, organizing placement tests for the first year students has been proposed,

and it has become common for recent years at colleges and universities in Vietnam However, the current training effect (with placement tests) is almost not improved in comparison with the previous one (without placement tests) (Vu 2007) To explain this phenomenon, Vu claims that teachers often choose available questions: from international coaching materials like TOEFL and TOEIC, but they cannot interpret the meanings of marks Hence, after getting results of placement tests, teachers often group those who are in a certain range of marks together into a class, and they manage two or three levels of ability suitable with preset syllabuses They are really not sure about whether the students follow their ability-right class

According to the researcher’s teaching experience, it can be seen that dividing classes which is based on levels of ability is not easy to be carried out to many

universities due to the two following reasons: (1) a class can be the collection of

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The following example can illustrate a fact that categorizing classes by using level of ability as a standard is performed at some universities, but the way to execute it is not consistent with the preset purpose, leading to no logicalness and no effectiveness As an invited teacher at HCMC University of Technology, the researcher see that for a few recent-year-classes, considered including the same level of students, have been held at the General English stage, but have not at the

ESP stage Then, the situation of multilevel class has recurred

In short, Vu’s (2007) opinion can be used as the conclusion of this session It is that

teaching and learning English in Vietnam gets the breakdown at the first step of dividing up classes; therefore, the English training effectiveness has still Hed at the

low level

Second, the training program is not reasonable This can be clarified via the* followings: the number of learning periods is too few, learning environment does not meet the needs, and public English communicative environment does not exist

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In fact, there has been university leaders’ flexibility in the distribution of the

number of learning periods since the above regulation Nevertheless, the order of

the MET is very valid, especially at public colleges and universities

e Besides, learning environment does not fulfill the requirements Walklin (2002) asserts that healthy and safe learning environments include premises with adequate amenities However, a research of Thanh Nien newspaper on 26-10-2004 shows that only foreign language centers associating with foreign schools have better financial conditions; thereby, they invest much money in material facilities

whereas classrooms at colleges and universities and Vietnamese private centers

almost lack of necessary learning aids like multimedia room, and voice training

room

* *

Today, the role of the teacher is, to some extent, changing to that of a facilitator and

manager of learning And the increase of using computers or a multimedia room in learning will accelerate that change in role To explain this point, Walklin (2002) affirms:

Computer-assisted instruction and related learning methods makes possible the provision of flexible learning opportunities, with the computer replacing the teacher for some of the time Without the computer, many flexistudy and open learning programs would be

unsustainable (p 89)

In addition, Phan (2007) includes in her thesis that multimedia not only helps the teacher change his/her own role but also “induce more positive attitudes and motivation in learners toward learning language” (p 105)

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® For English communicative environment outside the class, almost universities do not exist English speaking clubs, or do but operate not often Hence, students have no atmosphere or surroundings to apply their foreign language Without practicing and communicating frequently, learning English mainly with

reading and writing skills makes students’ lexicon turn “dead” (Ha 2007:13)

2 2 ISSUES OF ESP AND TEACHING ESP 2.2 1 DEFINITION OF ESP

Before issues of ESP are discussed in detail, its definition will be clarified first

Hutchinson and Waters (1987) defines, “ESP is an approack to language teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based on the learners’ reason for learning” (p 19) Carter and Nunan (2001) affirms, “The key defining feature of ESP is that its teaching and materials are founded on the results of needs analysis” (p 129) It can be seen that these authors share the same view: ESP is a kind of English to satisfy the specific needs of learners But what are students’ real demands today?

Recent world events have arisen the need of understanding and communicating among ail citizens An international exchange of ideas is essential in fields ranging

from the environment, medicine, economy, etc to politics Clearly, the need of

global communication for professions is the main reason for students to learn

English

Dudley-Evens and St John (1998, cited in Gatehouse 2001) accept that ESP is

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degree Or ESP courses are of limited duration as in case of short professional English programs

As a result, it can be concluded that at tertiary level, ESP is a kind of special

English of each department whose students have to study to serve their technical jobs

For example, an English course for engineers will use engineering situations to present relevant language and discourse; problem-solving activities (calculations, making recommendations) will probably also be used, since they draw on skills and abilities possessed by the students Similarly, a business English course will use case studies as these are widely used in business training (Carter and Nunan 2001:132)

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2 2.2 ESP TEACHERS’ PROBLEMS

In general, ESP teachers often face four following main problems: (1) being confused about the view on teaching ESP — teaching English language or teaching a specialist subject in English; (2) feeling strange in a new field of study; (3) needing but lacking the cooperation of subject experts; (4) facing questions which society

sometimes put to them

Is teaching ESP teaching English language or teaching the content of a specialist

subject in English? Solving this problem clearly and reasonably will help teachers

very much in their professional work (Nguyen, T.T.T 2005:19) This is often the

first problem of ESP teachers

In fact, many ESP teachers share such a question, and they néed a clear answer to

prepare an appropriate teaching plan As Dudley-Evans (2001) affirms,

It must not be forgotten that ESP is concerned with teaching language, discourse and relevant communication skills: it exploits topics and the underlying methodology of the target discipline or profession to present language, discourse and skills (p 132)

This view is also supported by Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 163) who claim: “The

ESP teacher should not pecome a teacher of the subject matter, but rather an

interested student of the subject matter”, Therefore, it is necessary to see that

teaching ESP does not mean repeating the specialist knowledge transmission in

English If this happens in the teaching process, teachers will trend towards the

specialist aspect, not the linguistic one In short, the first problem of ESP teachers

can be explained that their concern is with language teaching rather than specialist

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experience of General English teachers first Certainly, this also does not refer that ESP teachers are the same as Genera] English teachers in term of tuition

Being a stranger in a strange field of study is the second problem which most ESP teachers are often aware of This statement can express difficulties and worries of ESP teachers when they begin to accept a certain ESP class As noted by Hutchinson and Waters (1987):

There is a tradition in education of separating the Humanities and the Sciences, Languages have usually been allocated to the Humanities camp (p 162)

These authors explain that ESP teaching differs from General English teaching in that the great majority of ESP teachers have not been trained in the Sciences; thereby, they need to orientate themselves to a new environment for which they have generally been ill-prepared (Hunchinson and Waters 1987:157) In other words, ESP teachers must be willing to familiarize themselves with the language of students’ special subject and to take an interest in it to acquire a knowledge of the

students’ world They should understand that the students’ knowledge of their

specialist world is likely to be considerably greater than their own As Hutchinson and Waters (1987) comment,

ESP teachers cannot turn to linguistics and psychology in the hope of finding straightforward answers to the problems that they will meet Rather, they need to distil and synthesize, from the range of options available, those which best suit the particular circumstances (p 160)

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it is not the usage of technical terms per se which distinguishes language for special purposes from general language, but the factual knowledge necessary for understanding

these words

It is obvious that ESP teachers’ difficulty is the knowledge needed to understand a specialist text belongs to the subject knowledge, not the language knowledge In brief, teaching ESP requires an open mind, curiosity, and careful study to get a sound knowledge in the part of ESP teachers before they go to class Moreover, to be a good ESP instructor, a language teacher should have a nature desire to keep abreast of the latest findings in science and technology by reading, watching and listening to science news

The third problem of ESP teachers is that they need subject experts’ cooperation but

this has not been enforced

According to Nguyen, H.T (2007) an objective reality is that ESP teachers cannot go deep into the specialist knowledge As a result, they only can provide students with basic vocabulary of students’ specialist subject, and “deep” terms are beyond

their means This is understandable because, as mentioned above, teachers of

English often receive little or no education in the Sciences They cannot be equally professional in both linguistics and technical area And this is the reason why ESP teachers should receive the support from subject experts to have an adjunct model to help ESP teachers comprehend details of the subject smoothly At the same time, students could benefit from ESP teachers’ impartation about language-content dichotomy and technical issues of a course Certainly, this alliance will not be successful and productive if an ESP instructor has no genuine interest in science and technology

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Considering the scale of the ESP revolution it must be admitted that little effort has been made to retrain teachers or to at least allay their fears (1987: 162)

Undoubtedly, this is seen more plainly through speeches in the national science conference in 2005 about the real status of teaching ESP at the speakers’ colleges and universities The speakers affirm, there has not been the co-operation between subject experts and teachers of English as well as any strategies for this problem (Nguyen 2005:19; Nguyen and Do 2005:64; To 2005:139)

Now we can apprehend that teachers’ competence in the subject knowledge is very important because students need offering not only linguistic instruction but also content guidance Therefore, an official cooperation program between ESP teachers and subject experts is very necessary so that ESP instructdrs can get the support of: subject knowledge

Two very straightforward questions are often given out: “Should ESP teachers study for a bachelor’s degree in the specialist subject they are teaching?”, and “Are teachers of English really capable of teaching ESP?”

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And Hutchinson and Waters’ opinion can answer the latter - “Are teachers of English really capable of teaching ESP?” As previously mentioned, they assume that an ESP teacher should be a student always interested in the subject matter, but does not need to become a teacher of the major Relating to this problem, teaching ESP only requires three things from the part of ESP teachers:

« A positive attitude towards the ESP content;

e A knowledge of the fundamental principles of the subject area;

e An awareness of how much they probably already know (Hutchinson and Waters 1987:163)

2 2 3 ESP TEACHING MATERIALS

It can be said that ESP textbooks really do not meet multileveled students’ needs, „ and ESP teachers are very important in localizing or adapting ESP materials

Nowadays, in general, textbooks continue to play a central role in Vietnamese

classrooms, and examination content is followed closely the textbook which

students are using It can be said that textbooks always convey “an air of authority” in teaching and learning in Vietnam Hence, teachers’ handouts are often seen “carrying less weight”, with which, teachers’ and students’ creation cannot be opened to the pinnacle in teaching and learning

Harwood (2003) asserts, textbooks are considered “to be based around systematic, balanced syllabuses”; therefore, they “reduce the chances of gaps in the learning”

and provide students with a “clear structure throughout” In addition, textbooks also

reduce teachers’ workloads and make teachers’ life easier

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Most materials, whether they are written for a global market, for an institution or even for a

class, aim to satisfy the needs and wants of an idealized group of target learners who share similar needs and levels of proficiency However, in reality, the materials are never used with this idealized group No matter how good the materials are, they will not by themselves manage to cater to the different needs, wants, learning styles, aptitudes, cultural norms and experiences of each individual learners (p.L)

Nunan (1998:209) completely agrees with Mukundan (2006) in that “Any given course-book will be incapable of catering for the diversity of needs which exists in most language classrooms.”

Therefore, it can be considered that in-house ESP textbooks compiled meticulously

by English departments of Vietnamese universities for multilevel classes or even foreign course-books are still far from the satisfactory

Again the role of ESP teachers are very important in localizing or adapting ESP

materials so that learners will be able to reduce the distance between themselves and the language they are learning As Mukundan (2006) states:

if teachers more readily and confidently adapted materials for their specific learners and if learners were encouraged and helped to make more decisions for themselves, there would be a far better chance of language learners achieving their goals (p.1)

The following example can be regarded as a way of adapting materials In general, ESP texts are highly specialized to achieve face validity to motivate learners because with these texts they can feel the language seems more relevant “But learners can be very fickle And if the use of such texts makes work in the

classroom difficult, léarners will soon lose their liking for such texts” (Hutchinson

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compare the teachers’ competence and highly specialized texts as good components for a successful meal, but they on their own do not produce the success; it is the cook “If the cook does not know how to exploit the ingredients well, or if the necessary equipment is lacking, or if the diners do not like that kind of cuisine, then the value of the ingredients will be little appreciated” (Hutchinson and Waters 1987:162)

When teachers adapt materials, i.e select material, reorganize and sequence, two

following considerations should be stressed: (1) tailored materials with the amount of lexicon and structures must suit to students’ level and have the transition from

simplicity to difficulty; (2) they must be matched coherently to avoid discretion and

isolation to make the adapted textbooks complete (Chen, 2005)

However, with such a heterogeneous class with great diversities among students in : terms of their attitudes and levels, choosing appropriate materials to adapt the textbook can be tedious and frustrating to many teachers Fortunately, they should know that today the Internet and digital resources have provided them with endless teaching material ones Cameron (1998) remarks:

«+, Over the globe, a myriad of teachers and scholars are making millions of pages of information available for access In fact, there exists already on the web a considerable

’ library of material which constitutes an excellent teaching resource (p 3)

Li (1998:102) also recognizes unlimited usefulness of the Internet which he calls

“¢nformation superhighway” and the most relevant websites to learners’ needs In sum, existing textbooks are still far from the satisfactory Hence, they should be adjusted to the studeiits’ needs Some difficult texts also can be accommodated the

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syllabuses and materials over their General English colleagues (Hutchinson and

Waters 1987)

At Van Lang University, ESP course-books being used are the ones designed by native English authors, and live with teachers and students for a long time For instance, the course “Oxford English for Information Technology” employed for students of the Department of Computer Science has been operated for five years as a script without any upgrade from the part of the functional leaders It is clear that,

to some extent, the material does not meet the real needs of learners

2 2 4, ESP TEACHING METHODOLOGY

So far, people have practiced eight main methods of foreign language teaching and”

discussed them in details They are the Grammar-Translation, Direct, Audio-

Lingual, Silent Way, Suggestopedia, Community Language Learning, Total Physical Response, and Communicative Approach methods (Larsen-Freeman

1986) Which method is the best one?

Maybe Kent’s confidence is a very reasonable response to this question He puts it that:

- L used to think that there must be one right way to teach and all | had to do was to figure

out the right way and then do it | now see that there are lots of right ways What makes it

right depends on what students want and need, and that is always different” (Kent, cited in Johnson 1995:33)

So, according to Kent, the right teaching method is the one which can satisfy

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To Vietnamese students, especially at the ESP learning stage, a reality is that they are taught mainly vocabulary, reading comprehension, translation and grammar It means that ESP teachers show a tendency towards using the Grammar-Translation

method (Nguyen, T.K.T 2007:46; Nguyen, H.T 2007:28; Nguyen and Do 2005:66;

Nguyen 2005:19) This is certainly the consequence of the current kind of examination focusing essentially on only reading and writing skills In other words, ESP teachers almost use the Grammar-Translation method to meet students’ need,

which is for examination Next, more details about this Grammar-Translation method will be discussed to show that only applying it to ESP students is insufficient

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Recent world events have underscored the need to increase understanding and to improve communication among all citizens An international exchange of ideas is essential in areas ranging from the environment to the political challenges of a global economy

To meet these communication needs, more and more individuals have highly specific academic and professional reasons for seeking to improve their language skills: for these students, usually adults, courses that fall under the heading ESP hold particular appeal (Hortas, 2000, English for Specific Purposes, para 2, 3)

What do some linguists think about these phenomena? According to Chomsky, if language is analyzed and described in isolation from the human mind, ice if language is taught focusing on vocabulary, structures, grammar, it is viewed as a language phenomenon At that time, we cannot understand how language works Language must be viewed as a reflection of human thought patterns, i.e learners

must know how to utter their thoughts in English He assumes that for ESP, the

distinction between performance (dealing with surface structures, grammar and: syntax) and competence (dealing with the organization of thoughts or processes of the mind, or communication skill) is very important (Chomsky, cited in Hutchinson

and Waters 1987)

Wilkins (1976) and Widdowson (1979) also describe that structures can help learners to produce an infinitive number of novel utterances, but “its strength is also its greatest weakness” because the language description cannot explain large areas of language use and fails to provide students with an understanding of the communicative use of the structures Hutchinson and Waters (1987) completely support Wilkins and Widdowson They claim:

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Then, Chomsky, Hutchinson, Waters, Wilkins, and Widdowson, all support that the

success in teaching and learning language does not lie in the language analysis, but

in how learners understand the nature of language to be able to speak out their

ideas, or communicate with each other

Dealing with this problem, Stevick (1982) approves of the above linguists in that “Leaming is much more complex than just imitative habit formation”, but he adds, “this does not necessarily mean that there is no place for pattern practice (vocabulary, structure, and grammar) in a modern methodology The mistake is to see it as the only kind of activity required” (cited in Hutchinson and Waters

1987:42)

With the above convincing arguments of the linguists, and based on the practical need of Vietnamese society in the economic open-door age, we can see obviously , that using the Grammar-Translation method in teaching ESP is completely a shortcoming

As a result, it is not worth being surprised when Dr Nguyen Duc Nghia, the Vice Director at HCMC National University said in an interview of Thanh Nien newspaper that the result of students’ final exam marks was not bad, but very few students could communicate with foreigners The Vice Principal at HCMC University of Technology, Dr Truong Chi Hien added, then no one could accept a thing that a university graduate could not use a foreign language to communicate, but that was a reality (Thanh Nien newspaper, 2004, October 26)

In short, to meet the current communicative need of society, teachers’ role is very important in trying to shift attention away from defining the formal features of language, i.e the grammar, to discovering the ways in which language is actually

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pattern practice and grammar exercises still play a useful part in language teaching, but only as one part of the whole learning process Two methodologies, the Grammar-Translation and the Communicative Approach, must be combined flexibly to satisfy the need (for examinations) and want (for practical communication) of students If either of them is not performed in the classroom, this is a mistake as Hutchinson and Waters’ opinion extracted above

2 2.5 STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION

When disputing issues of ESP, we cannot ignore motivation because, as Hutchinson and Waters (1987) remark, “One of the most important elements in the development of ESP is motivation” (p 48)

Many researchers (Gardner 1985, Dornyei 1994a, Ur 1996) assert that, “Motivation

is very strongly related to achievement in language learning” In other words, “Learner motivation makes teaching and learning immeasurably easier and more pleasant, as well as more productive .” (Ur 1996:274)

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Motivation to learn is a complex phenomenon involving a number of diverse sources and conditions Some of the motivational sources are situation-specific, that is, they are rooted in the student’s immediate learning environment, whereas others appear to be more stable and generalized, stemming from a succession of the student’s past experiences in the social

world (Dornyei 2001:12)

So, suffice it to say that, to increase learner motivation, the “relevance” to the

learners’ needs and interests is paramount and it would make learning better and faster In order to achieve this “relevance”, Hutchinson and Waters (1978) argue that the standard way for ESP is taking texts from the learners’ specialist area

Davies’ (2000) point of view is the same as Hutchinson’s (1987) He notes that

topics of personal interest can be a rich source of motivation in the English language classroom, and teachers can use authentic materials from magazine,

articles on the Internet, etc as a way to motivate their learners (Davies 2000:14)

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said that another practical way to motivate learners is trying to exploit the learners’ existing state of knowledge, that is, what the students already know

In brief, the greatest challenge that many teachers face is to make their students want to learn If teachers know how to motivate students by forming an interesting leaming environment, taking texts from learners’ specialist area, getting competence, enthusiasm, creativity, and good relationships with the students, the teachers can hugely increase their learning rate Moreover, Phan’s comment can also be used to add to the conclusion of this part,

As a teacher, | admit that | cannot focus on every single motivation What I actually do is

to generate motivation from my students by combining mutual interests (eg What they aim for, what they expect) with dominant groups of interests (eg Future career, language use target) in my syllabus And never forget the fact that learnets are human beings who can ,

think, feel, sense, see, create, and be tired (Phan, 2005, Criticisms of Munby’s work, para

16)

Therefore, good teaching is more of an art than a science

I have, up till now, presented some of the key issues affecting English language education Now one step forward to solving these problems is the improvement of English teaching and learning practices in each classroom For this reason, action research projects, which are set out to identify problems first then work on them through collaboration between teachers and students for small changes, are

presumably necessary

The next session will be about a research method — action research In this part, a

definition of action research, the reason why it is important for education and for

change in the Vietnamese context, and some action research projects conducted in

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2.3 ACTION RESEARCH

Carr and Kemmis (1986) define action research as “a form of self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in social situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of their practices .” (cited in Brown and S Rodgers 2002:99)

According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, action research is understood as “a reflective process of progressive problem solving led by individuals working with others in teams or as part of a “community of practice” to improve the way they address issues and solve problems.”

Lewin (1946), a professor at MIT university, described action research in his paper as “a comparative research on the conditions and effects of various forms of social action and research leading to social action” that uses Mg spiral of steps, each of * which is composed of a circle of planning, action, and fact-finding about the result of the action” (Lewin, 1946, Action research, para 1)

According to Reason & Bradbury (2001), “Action research is an iterative inquiry process that balances problem solving actions implemented in a collaborative context with data-driven collaborative analysis or research to understand underlying causes enabling future predictions about personal and organizational change” The above mentioned authors give out plain definitions of action research applied commonly to social situations Basing on the foundation of these definitions, Elliott (2001) represents another one utilized for a concrete social action; it is education He puts it that,

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consistent with the educational values they espouse; record their work in a form which is readily available to and understandable by other teachers; and thus develop a shared theory of teaching by researching practice (Elliott, 2001, Classroom Action Research, para 1)

As regards making change, Wallace (1998) concludes that a strategy for making change and enhancing development is “reflecting on your teaching It is done by systematically collecting data on your everyday practice and analyzing it in order to come to some decisions about what your future practice should be This process is essentially what I mean by the term action research” (p 4)

The meaning of action research employed in education can be explained more as the

following In an action research, participants, both the teacher and his/her students,

help each other by working collaboratively to examine their own educational practice systematically and carefully They are responsible agents participating actively in questing evidence on which to base rigorous reflection They together consider ways of working differently, and learn how to improve the problems from the effects of the changes made This kind of research deals with progressively changing situations in which the participants work to obtain satisfactory learning outcomes It is about using data to come to conclusions These characteristics of action research themselves differentiate it from other kinds of research As Brown and S Rodgers (2002) remarks, action research “makes educational research more accessible and practical” (p 79)

Because of its humanism, action research is being used more and more Carr &

Kemmis (1986), Clandinin & Connelly (1994), Reason (1994), and Richardson

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