dificulties in memorizing esp vocabulary in the couse book english for finance faced by the second-year non-english major students at the academy of finance and some suggested solutions

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** PHẠM THỊ TÂM DIFICULTIES IN MEMORIZING ESP VOCABU

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

PHẠM THỊ TÂM

DIFICULTIES IN MEMORIZING ESP VOCABULARY IN THE COURSE BOOK “ENGLISH FOR FINANCE” FACED BY THE SECOND-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT THE ACADEMY OF FINANCE AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS

( Những khó khăn mà sinh viên năm thứ hai không chuyên tiếng Anh học viện tài chính gặp phải khi ghi nhớ từ vựng tiếng Anh chuyên ngành và một số giải

pháp)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 602215

Ha Noi – 2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

PHẠM THỊ TÂM

DIFICULTIES IN MEMORIZING ESP VOCABULARY IN THE COURSE BOOK “ENGLISH FOR FINANCE” FACED BY THE SECOND-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT THE ACADEMY OF FINANCE AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS

( Những khó khăn mà sinh viên năm thứ hai không chuyên tiếng Anh học viện tài chính gặp phải khi ghi nhớ từ vựng tiếng Anh chuyên ngành và một số giải

pháp)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 602215

Supervisor: Le The Nghiep, M.A

Ha Noi - 2012

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS Tables:

2 Students‟ opinion on their teachers‟ vocabulary teaching methods 21

1 The comparison between used strategies and effective ones 25

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AOF: Academy Of Finance

EFL: English as a Second Language

EOP: English for Occupational Purposes

EAP: English for Academic Purposes

ESP: English for Specific Purposes

L2: second language

C.O.D: cash on delivery

S.W.I.F.T: Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications GHQ: General Headquarters

LBO: leveraged buyout

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Candidate‟s statement ……… i

Acknowledgements ……… ii

Abstract……… iii

List of tables and charts ……… iv

List of abbreviations……… v

Table of contents……… vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

The rationale of the study 1

The aims of the study 2

Research questions 2

The scope of the Study 2

The method of the Study 2

The design of the Study 2

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 3

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 3

1.1 Vocabulary in second language learning and teaching 3

1.1.1 Definitions of vocabulary 3

1.1.2 The status of vocabulary in language teaching and learning 3

1.1.3 Main characteristics of vocabulary in business context 4

1.2 Vocabulary memorization 9

1.2.1 Memorization 9

1.2.2 Vocabulary memorizing 9

1.2.3 Factors afecting ESP vocabulary memorizing 11

1.2.3.1 Word related factors 11

1.2.3.2 Learner-s related factors 12

1.2.3.3 Teacher- related factors 13

1.2.3.4 Learning context 13

CHAPTER 2: THE INVESTIGATION 15

2.1 The context of teaching and learrning ESP vocabulary in “Englisf for Finance” at the AOF 15

2.1.1 A description of the course book and the syllabus 15

2.1.2 The second-year non-English major students 16

2.1.3 The teachers and their methods of teaching 17

2.2 Research methodology 17

2.2.1 Research questions 17

2.2.2 The participants 18

2.2.3 Data collection instruments 18

2.2.4 Data collection procedure 18

2.2.5 Data collection procedure 18

2.3 Data analysis and discussion 19

2.3.1 Discussion of the results 19

2.3.1.1 The results collected by questionnaire on the target language input 19

2.3.1.2 The results collected by questionnaire on the teachers’ vocabulary teaching methods 21

2.3.1.3 The results collected by questionnaire on students’ vocabulary learning 23

2.3.2 Major findings 29

2.4 Some suggested solutions 30

2.4.1 Material writers and curriculum developers 30

2.4.2 Teachers 30

2.4.3 Students 31

PART C: CONCLUSION 32

1 Conclusion 34

2 Limitations of the study 35

3 Suggestions for further study 35

REFERENCES………I APPENDIX………IV

APPENDIX 1……… V APPENDIX 2……….VII APPENDI 3……… VIII APPENDIX 4……… XII APPENDIX 5……… XIII APPENDIX 6……… XVI

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 The rationale of the study

More and more Vietnamese people are becoming aware of the importance of English, which is due to the increasingly global communications in the English language However, it is known that words play an indispensable role in human communication Without words, the language would be inane, just as a building cannot

be constructed without bricks The methods for learning and teaching English vocabulary well are always heatedly discussed in Vietnam on purpose of helping teachers and students teach, learn and then acquire English vocabulary at an ease, for example, Quach Thi Mai (2007), Nguyen Thu Huong (2008) and many other authors It

is still quite a problem Learners face difficulties in vocabulary learning in general and memorizing in particular Memorizing vocabulary has been discussed a lot in the foreign context, however, in Vietnam it is still a potential to exploit

Many Vietnamese students experience considerable difficulties in learning vocabulary because of word nature, lack of time, learning strategies, motivation and so

on Having worked with the course book “English for Finance” by Cao Xuan Thieu, the Financial Publishing House (2008) and examined many oral final tests of the second-year non-English major students at the AOF for several years, the researcher has noticed

a number of problems faced by students here These problems still exist in the process of learning ESP vocabulary when many of the students could not even give a simple answer or speak a simple sentence They find it hard to remember, to correctly pronounce and use vocabulary Many students confide to the researcher that they spend lots of time learning vocabulary but they can remember only few words they have learnt

As a result, English vocabulary becomes very challenging and threatening for them in learning English for specific purposes at university

These reasons urge the researcher to find out the difficulties in memorizing ESP vocabulary faced by the second-year non-English major students at the AOF and the possible solutions to help students improve their vocabulary memorization

2 The aims of the study

The study aims at finding out the difficulties in memorizing ESP vocabulary faced by the 2nd year non-English major students and then suggesting some solutions

to help the learners memorize ESP vocabulary better

3 Research questions

The study is done to find out the answers for the two research questions:

(1) What are the 2 nd year non-English major students’ difficulties in memorizing ESP vocabulary in the textbook “English for Finance”?

(2) What are the possible solutions to help the learners memorize ESP vocabulary better?

4 The scope of the Study

The study limits itself to the investigation of difficulties in memorizing ESP vocabulary faced by the second-year non-English major students at the AOF when working with the course book “English for Finance” by Cao Xuan Thieu and his colleagues at the English faculty of the AOF (2008) It also tries to seek for possible solutions to the current problems

5 The method of the Study

The study adopts the combination of both qualitative and quantitative research methods This means that all comments, findings and suggestions given in the thesis are based on firstly analyzing the results of questionnaire obtained from 100 second-year non-English major students at the AOF, secondly on analyzing the information gathering from formal interviews with 16 teachers from the English faculty of the AOF

6 The design of the Study

The study is composed of three parts The first part, Introduction, provides the rationale, aims, scopes, and method of the study, which offers readers an overview of how the research idea is generated, what its goals are, and what research methodology is adopted The second part, Development, is divided into two chapters The first chapter, Literature Review, provides the theoretical background for the study It focuses on the second language vocabulary learning, and some factors affecting vocabulary memorizing The second chapter, Investigation, is the main part of the study It reports the collection and analysis of the data and major findings of the study The last part, Conclusion, summarizes the findings, draws teaching implications, states the limitation

of the research, and offers suggestions for further research

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Vocabulary in second language learning and teaching

1.1.1 Definitions of vocabulary

There have been different definitions of vocabulary Ur (1996) defined vocabulary as “the words we teach in the foreign language However, a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single word: a compound of two or three words or multi-word idioms” A similar definition from Richards and Platt (1992) is that vocabulary is

“a set of lexemes, including words, compound words and idioms” Read (2000) believes that vocabulary is considered as an inventory of individual words, with their associated meanings From different definitions of vocabulary, it indicates that vocabulary is “the total number of words in a language” (Hornby, 1995)

1.1.2 The status of vocabulary in language teaching and learning

Vocabulary teaching and learning has changed dramatically in the last two decades Mc Carthy (1990) pointed out that the biggest component of any language course is vocabulary The fact is that no matter how well the student learns grammar, no matter how successfully the sounds of second language (L2) are mastered, without words to express a wide range of meanings, communication in an L2 just cannot happen

in any meaningful way

Since the mid-1980s there has been a renewed interest in the role of vocabulary

in second language learning There have been studies on the nature of the bilingual lexicon, vocabulary acquisition, lexical storage, lexical retrieval, and the use of vocabulary by second language learners Vocabulary is an essential component of language “Vocabulary is central to language” and “words are of critical importance to the typical language learner.” (Coady and Huckin, 1997)

Nowadays, vocabulary is considered an important aspect of teaching and learning a foreign language L2 vocabulary acquisition has become an increasingly interesting topic of discussion for researchers, teachers, curriculum designers, theorists, and others involved in second language learning and teaching

1.1.3 Main characteristics of vocabulary in business context

What vocabulary is and how important it is in second language learning and teaching have just been discussed in the above sections In this section, what ESP vocabulary is and what major characteristics of vocabulary in business context are will

be mentioned

ESP vocabulary

English for Specific Purposes (ESP) represents a specific reason for learning a foreign language There are two distinguished types of ESP: English for Occupational Purposes (EOP- learning English for a job) and English for Academic Purposes (EAP - learning English for a study specialization) At present, these streams include many other fields, e.g English for Technicians, English for business, etc

Technical words are specialized words closely related to a specific area or field

of study like engineering, medicine, linguistics, etc They are commonly used in specialized course books The meaning of a word strict to the field in which it occurs identifies this group of words and its high frequency of occurrence or use in that field and covers about

5% of running words in the text (Nation, 2001) Specialized words are made up of words that occurred frequently in a specialized text or subject area but did not occur or were of frequency in other fields (Nation and Chung 2004)

Main characteristics of vocabulary in business context

It is necessary to specify that the characteristics of specialized English, including medical English, technical English, business English, etc lies in its lexicon Nguyen Phuoc Vinh (2011) researches the main characteristics of Business English Business English covers many subjects and professions, therefore; the meaning of a word is usually related to one/more than one subject such as accounting, finance, banking,

marketing, etc These following parts will focus on the morphological and semantic

characteristics of financial, accounting, and banking English vocabulary (Vinh, 2011)

Morphologically he mentions:

Simple words: financial, accounting, and banking English has simple words such

as „asset‟, „bear‟, „capital‟, „debit‟, „earnings‟, „fraud‟,etc., and most words are composite in that they have a recognizable internal structure

Compound words: according to Longman Business English Dictionary (2007),

compound nouns make up a large part of the vocabulary of business English Nguyen and Ton (2010) point out that collocations (nouns plus nouns and adjectives plus nouns) are one of the most typical features of financial, accounting, and banking English The corpus of the collocations of compound nouns in „Longman Business Dictionary‟ given

by these two authors shows that the word „account‟ has 65 collocations; „asset‟ has 13 collocations; „balance‟ has 14 collocations and so on

Some compounds consisting of verb + preposition also add to the terminology

of finance, accounting, and banking such as buy-back, buy-in, take-out, take-over, over, write-back, write-down, write-off

turn-The few compounds on the pattern count noun + adjective that take the plural inflexion on the noun as in attorneys general, notaries public, courts-martial are also

present in financial English such as accounts payable, bills receivable, shares outstanding

Some examples of following compounds will show that they themselves are the

problems for anyone learning, reading, and translating a financial text: (dormant) account, (liquid) asset, (idle) balance, (baby) bond, (cooperative) bank, (red-chip) company

Phrasal words: some phrases (conversion from phrases to adjectives), though not common, also present in financial English as in above-par, below-par, above-the- line below-the-line There are also phrasal verbs and long premodified and postmodified

noun phrases in this kind of vocabulary According to Close (1975), constructions on the

pattern of verb + preposition are very common in English However, only a few verbs

are seen in financial English as in to buy out, to bring/ carry forward, to carry down, to take out, to take over, to write back Another fairly common characteristic in financial

terminology is long premodified and postmodified noun phrases The long premodified

noun phrases are as in public sector borrowing requirement, pay-in-kind debenture, accelerated cost recovery system, accounts receivable turnover, etc., Besides them, long postmodified noun phrases are also seen as in lender of last resort, law of diminishing returns, return on capital employed, balance brought down, amount falling due after one year, work(s) in process/ progress

Abbreviations: the most common of all abbreviations in the area of finance is the acronyms derived from the initials of several words as in C.O.D (cash on delivery), S.W.I.F.T (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) or the letters represent elements in a compound or just parts of a word as in GHQ (General Headquarters), LBO (leveraged buyout), deb (debenture) These ones are familiar to

specialised English students but they are new to general English students

Culture in the terminology of finance, accounting, and banking: what is meant

by culture here is culture-bound terms Harvey (2003) defines culture-bound terms as

the terms which refer to concepts, institutions and personnel which are specific to the source language culture Any readers, learners, and translators for a financial text must

have had some problems with a range of culture-bound terms as in bulldog market, bear, bull, bull market, shark, cats and dog, white knight, black knight, red herring, wildcat

The difference between British English and American English in the area of finance, accounting, and banking: this is the most significant characteristic because the difference between them sometimes faces learners, for example , the British use debtors

(the amounts of the money that are owed to a company which are recorded as assets on

its BALANCE SHEET) when Americans use accounts receivable Below are some

more examples

British English: Annual General Meeting, Articles of Association, authorized share

capital, barometer stock, base rate, bonus issue, bridging loan, building society, etc

American English: Stockholders Meeting, bylaws, authorized capital stock, bellwether

stock, prime rate, stock dividend, bridge loan, savings and loan association, etc

The oppositions or contrasts in financial English: one of the characterisics

(typical of financial English) is the strong oppositions or contrasts in financial English

as in assets / liabilities, credit / debit, income / expenditure, output / input, supply / demand Learners should pay much attention to these oppositions because they are

typical of financial English

The lexical productivity in financial English: by lexical productivity, firstly, we

mean „derivatives: words that have been developed or produced from other words such

as speculate (v), speculation (n), speculator (n), speculative (adj) This is one of the

ways to enlarge vocabulary Secondly, lexical productivity is also one of the main features in the types of specialised English owing to the new developments in the fields

of science, technology, economics, computing, etc In the field of business, lexical

productivity is clearly shown in subjects/ topics as in accounting, finance, banking, marketing, law, insurance, and is arranged in clear divisions and subdivisions Look at

the arrangement of the subjects/ topics and divisions and subdivisions in the book on the vocabulary and knowledge of finance written by MacKenzie (2007):

Subject/ topic : Banking

Division : Personal Banking

Subdivision : A Current Accounts

B Banking Products and Services

C E-Banking

For example, Subdivision B will give us a range of financial terms as in loan, overdraft, mortgage, standing order, bank transfer, banker’s order, foreign currency, traveller’s cheque

Semantically, he points out financial, accounting, and banking English contains:

General English words with specialised English senses: specialised terms such

as asset, balance, capital, gain, honour, and many other terms, when combining with

other terms, usually make a collocational pattern that may sound odd in everyday English but common in financial English The following four familiar verbs when

collocating with the noun debt easily make ambiguity in meaning, for example, to service a debt, to forgive a debt, to retire a debt, and to restructure/ to reschedule a debt and its collocations as compound nouns such as debt service, debt forgiveness, debt retirement and debt restructuring

Polysemous words with a specialised English sense: the word return in Oxford

Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary has 10 senses, one of which refers to „financial subject‟/„topic‟, (the amount of profit or income that you get from a particular investment), and the word „interest‟ has 8 senses, two of which refer to „financial area‟ (1 the extra money you pay back when you borrow money or that you receive when you invest money, 2 a share in business or company and its profits) The following examples will illustrate this point:

Ex 1 Shareholders are expecting to see some RETURN from their investment

Ex 2 Bond INTEREST is fixed, but earnings per share are growing

Ex 3 He has a 15% controlling INTEREST in the new company

Polysemous words with many specialised senses: the phenomenon of

polysemous words is also one fairly common feature in the terminology of finance,

accouting, and banking In Oxford Business English Dictionary, the word credit has 8 senses, four of which refer to specialised senses (1) Commerce: an arrangement that you

make with a bank, shop/store, etc, to be able to buy things now and pay for them later

(2) Finance: money that financial institutions lend to business, governments and people (3) Accounting: an amount that is written in a company‟s financial account to show an

increase in money that the company owes or a decrease in the value of the assets (4)

Accounting: an amount of money that is paid back or owed to you, because you paid too

much The following examples will be given in the order of subjects/topics:

Ex 1 I bought it on CREDIT

Ex 2 It is unlikely that the bank will extend additional CREDIT to the firm

Ex 3 Produce a trial balance to ensure that CREDITS equal the debits

Ex 4 We will issue you with a CREDIT for any damaged goods that you return

1.2 Vocabulary memorization

1.2.1 Memorization

Language learning involves memorization, i.e., the storage of the new information in memory (Schmitt, 1997) Many definitions of memorization can also be found in various studies and dictionaries For example, according to Richards and Platt (1992), "Memorizing is the process of establishing information in memory The term 'memorizing' usually refers to the conscious processes." This means the learners use memorization consciously and they think about the process of memorization when they

are applying it Another explanation can be found in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (2005) that "Memorizing is to learn something carefully so that you can

remember it exactly." This technique is similar to a description of a cognitive learning

strategy called rehearsal (O'Malley & Chamot, 1990) In short, memorization is the

process of committing something to memory The act of memorization is often a

deliberate mental process undertaken in order to store in memory for later recall items such as experiences, names, appointments, addresses, telephone numbers, lists, stories, poems, pictures, maps, diagrams, facts, music or other visual, auditory, or tactical

information

1.2.2 Vocabulary memorizing

Unlike the learning of grammar, which is essentially a rule-based system, vocabulary knowledge is largely a question of accumulating individual items During the process of teaching and learning vocabulary an important problem occurs: How does memory work? Researchers into the workings of memory distinguish between the following systems (Thornbury, 2002):

- short- term store

- working memory

- long- term memory

Short - term store

Short-term store is the brain capacity to hold a limited number of items of information for periods up to a few seconds It is the kind of memory that is involved

in repeating a word you have just heard the teacher modeling However, successful vocabulary learning involves more than holding words for a few seconds To integrate

words into long - term memory they need to be subjected to different kinds of operations

Working memory

Alan Baddeley and Graham J Hitch (2010) define working memory as a limited capacity part of the human memory system that combines the temporary storage and manipulation of information in the service of cognition Klimesch (1994) points that there exist four characteristics that are important in describing short-term memory: it‟s limited capacity, its primarily serial way of processing, its importance as temporary-working store and its control processes Material remains in working memory for about twenty seconds The existence of articulator loop enables this new material processing It works a bit like audiotape going around again It assures the short- term store to be kept refreshed The ability to hold a word in working memory is

a good predictor of language learning aptitude The better ability to hold words in working memory the smoother the process of learning foreign languages is

Long-term memory

Long-term memory can be seen as kind of filling system Unlike working

memory, which has a limited capacity and no permanent content, this kind of memory has an enormous capacity and its contents are durable over time However, to ensure moving new materials into permanent long-term memory requires a number of principles to be followed, described by Thornbury (2002):

Repetition - repetition of encounters with a word is very important, useful and

effective If the word is met several times over space interval during reading activities, students have a very good chance to remember it for a long time

Retrieval - another kind of repetition Activities, which require retrieval, such as

using the new items in written tasks, help students to be able to recall it again in the future

Spacing - it is useful to split memory work over a period rather than to mass it

together in a single block

Pacing - to respect different learning styles and pace, students should be

ideally given the opportunity to do memory work individually

Use - putting words to use, preferably in an interesting way, is the best way of

ensuring they are added to long - term memory This is so called “Use it or lose it” principle

Cognitive depth - the more decisions students make about the word and the more

cognitively demanding these decisions are, the better the word is remembered

Personal organizing - personalization significantly increased the probability that

students will remember new items It is achieved mainly through conversation and role-playing activities

Imaging - easily visualized words are better memorable than those that do not

evoke with any pictures Even abstract words can be associated with some mental image

Mnemonics - tricks to help retrieve items or rules that are stored in

memory The best kinds of mnemonics are visuals and keyword techniques

Motivation - strong motivation itself does not ensure that words will be

remembered Even unmotivated students remember words if they have to face appropriate tasks

Attention - it is not possible to improve vocabulary without a certain degree of

conscious attention

1.2.3 Factors affecting ESP vocabulary memorizing

According to Ur (1996), there are various reasons why we remember some words better than the others: the nature of the words themselves, under what circumstances they are learnt, the method of teaching and so on The following paragraphs will discuss the factors in detail

1.2.3.1 Word- related factors

Nation (2001) points out that specific lexis is one of the key problems in teaching and learning ESP As he states, then, specific lexis can be a problem for ESP language learners not only because they do not know the correct words, but because they lack experience of a “whole new way of conceptualizing” that is characteristic of discourse community using that word Similarly, ESP lexis constitutes a puzzle for ESP learners because it involves values and conventions shared by a discourse community, which are not familiar to outsiders

Moreover, Bowker and Pearson (2002) mention that technical words and general words can have some degree of overlap When two words overlap in meaning, learners are likely to confuse them Words with multiple meanings can also be troublesome for learners Having learned one meaning of the word, they may be reluctant to accept a second, very different meaning Unfamiliar concepts may make a word difficult to learn

1.2.3.2 Leaner- related factors

Vocabulary memorizing strategies

Research on the use of vocabulary strategies has revealed differences among learners

in terms of their strategy use Macaro (2005) states that a learner needs to be able to consciously apply a strategy to a cognitive process to strengthen the link between the strategy and the achievement of vocabulary learning In this regard, Cohen (1996) indicates that many learners do not develop sufficient mastery of a strategy repertoire that will allow them to make progress in language learning on their own

Daller, Milton, and Treffers-Daller (2007) propose that learning strategies and individual variation interfere with vocabulary memorizing to some extent In general, memorization strategies refer to making connections between the to-be-learned word and some previously learned knowledge, using some forms of imagery or grouping Thus, memorization strategies play an important role in helping learners to commit new words into memory and in the whole process of vocabulary learning Schmitt (2000)

includes twenty-seven memorization strategies in his 58-item vocabulary learning strategy taxonomy, for examples “study word with a pictorial representation of its meaning” There are many memorizing strategies; however, the problems here are in how to use and apply them so that they are the most effective to individual learners

Individual differences

Sun (2010) further explains the way in which individual learner differences affect word storage in the memory Based on the arguments postulated by Sun, there are three main aspects of individual learner differences play a role in remembering words

To begin with, learners‟ presence or lack of self-confidence in learning new words is of great importance If learners are confident when memorizing new words instead of anxious or worried, they will be more successful in remembering vocabulary Secondly, interest and motivation are two additional and influential factors Ellis (1997) claims that motivation involves “the attitudes and affective states that influence the degree of effort that learners make to learn an L2” If learners are interested in and have a positive attitude towards memorizing new words, they will be able to provide correct translations

of more words The final factor is learner‟s language aptitude Language aptitude is believed to be “in part related to general intelligence but also to be in part distinct” (Ellis, 1997) If a learner has a higher language aptitude, then he is considered to be able

to memorize words more successfully

1.2.3.3 Teacher- related factors

Vocabulary teaching methods

Teacher‟s methodology is a pivotal factor that much influences on learners‟ motivation and involvement in class activities, which much contribute to learners‟ vocabulary memorizing success Clearly, some language teachers are better than others

at providing appropriate and effective learning experiences for their students in their classrooms These students will make faster progress in language learning in general and vocabulary memorizing in particular

Vocabulary is acquired incidentally but it should be taught systematically and intentionally, especially in foreign language environment where learners have limited exposure to the language outside of the classroom as in Vietnam If teachers have suitable methods in introducing vocabulary, it is more interesting to study vocabulary It

is therefore a motivation for students to pay attention to and then store it in their term memory However, this may be very difficult, when ESP teachers are rarely trained

long-in specific knowledge and they often lack of time for vocabulary presentlong-ing because

they have to focus so much on the content and structure of the lessons

Strategy training

Ellis (1985) notes we should remember that vocabulary learning also involve the use of individual learning techniques He has also found that vocabulary learning techniques and strategies enhance understanding of the acquisition processes in the learners‟ mind Therefore, a description of vocabulary learning strategies can be used as

a guideline to help learners in their lexical acquisition (Ellis, 1995) Thus, they need to

be given explicit instruction to become more aware of and proficient with the broad range

of strategies that can be used through the learning process (Cohen, Weaver & Li, 1998)

1.2.3.4 Learning context

The learning context refers to the socio-cultural-political environment where learning takes place The learning context can include the teachers, the peers, the classroom climate or the classroom interaction in general With regard to classroom interaction and second language acquisition, Ellis (1994) concluded that opportunities to negotiate meaning may help the acquisition of vocabulary The learning context can include the curriculum and the availability of input and output opportunities All of such factors may affect the ways learners interact learning tasks and acquire vocabulary knowledge Krashen (1985) clarified second language is most successfully acquired when the conditions are similar to those present in first language acquisition: that is, when focus is on meaning rather than form; when language input is at or just above the proficiency level of the learners; and when there is sufficient opportunities to engage in meaningful use of that language Vocabulary is acquired and retained through seeing, hearing and saying the words numerous times in many contexts then producing messages in communication Steele (2005) justifies words are learned by individual, but through memorable presentation, personalization tasks, so how lexicon is presented and activities are conducted in the class for practice is very important in anchoring new words into students‟ memory (Hulstijin ,1997), especially when they do not have advantageous language environment outside the classroom

In short, there are factors affecting vocabulary memorizing However, in the scope of this study, the researcher investigates how target language input, vocabulary teaching methods and students‟ own vocabulary learning affect students‟ vocabulary memorizing

CHAPTER 2 THE INVESTIGATION

2.1 The context of the teaching and learning ESP vocabulary in

“English for Finance” at the AOF

2.1.1 A description of the course book and the syllabus

“English for Finance” adopted by the AOF for the second-year non-English major students published by the Finance Publishing House is written by teachers of the English Faculty of the AOF This course book consists of 42 units taught in 240 periods for many different fields at the AOF There are different topics discussed in this course book: economics, money and banking, finance, accounting and auditing, financial analysis, marketing and international business

As for the syllabus, the teacher and the students meet three times a week, each time for three 45 - minute periods to finish one unit Each unit includes 5 parts: part I: Reading text, part II: Comprehension questions, part III: Language focus, part IV: Word study and part V: Vocabulary

In detail, in part I, the reading texts have from 300 to 500 words for discussing particular financial topics such as economics, money and banking, finance, accounting and auditing, and others These texts often mention the conceptions of the topics For example, the first unit is about economics including: what economics is, what the fields and subfields of economics are Part II, reading comprehension, designed to help students understand the content of reading text, has from 5 to 10 questions related to the reading text Part III, Language focus, presents grammar issue in both theory and practice Part IV and V are about vocabulary Part IV focuses on vocabulary practice exercises The exercises in this part are often blank-filling, one word for each blank in separate sentences or paragraph so that students can revise the contents and vocabulary

as well, finding the opposites, word- formation, grouping words Part V is a list of new vocabulary items and their explanation in English and then meanings in Vietnamese at the end of each unit

The teaching syllabus is designed in the form of a form-focused instruction Less attention is paid to vocabulary in the specific area because of time limit At the end of the term, there is an oral test for students This oral test includes 4 main parts: reading a

paragraph in one unit, summarizing the main contents of a unit, presenting a topic related to the unit and answering teachers‟ questions These parts are included in one unit, which students choose at random

2.1.2 The second-year non-English major students

The second-year non-English major students are approximately from 19 to 24 in age They come from different provinces of the country and have different English background Most of them started English at high school; except some of them learnt French Before learning “English for Finance”, they have experienced one year learning the material “Business Basics” - Oxford University Press, by David Grant and Robert McLarty (2002), which brings them a chance to learn and review grammar, vocabulary and get familiar with language skills Moreover, this book also provides students with many business vocabulary items- the basics for studying their ESP later In the third and fourth semester, they work with the course book “English for Finance” for the purpose

of mastering English skills, especially translating and reading skills in economics, finance and baking, etc However, the students are expected to speak well because they have an oral test at the end of the term

2.1.3 The teachers and their methods of teaching

English teachers teaching ESP have been working at the English faculty at the AOF, aged from 30 to 50 All of them have graduated from a formal ELT training course from different tertiary institutions in Vietnam The oldest teacher has more than

25 years of teaching experience and the youngest one has 4 years Sixteen of them have the responsibility to teach both general English (GE) and ESP None of them, however, has been trained in teaching ESP Therefore, they are facing many difficulties in their teaching process, of which the lack of the specific knowledge and the choice of appropriate teaching materials and methodologies seem to be the major concerns

The common method of ESP teaching is the traditional teacher-centered one In classes, explanation, translation, asking and answering questions are the main class activities The teachers are often asked to explain every new word, new structure and even to translate the text The students are usually passive in the learning process

The major interaction patterns in the classroom are: teacher-whole class (most of the time), teacher-student interaction (sometimes), and students‟ initiating interaction: pair work, group work, questions and comments (occasionally)

Through class observation and small talks to ESP teachers and learners, it is obvious that most of the teachers teaching ESP at the AOF are deeply influenced by the grammar-translation method There are few language activities for vocabulary learning This is actually one of the reasons why the learners find it hard to acquire vocabulary in the specific field

2.2 Research methodology

2.2.1 Research questions

The study aims at finding out the difficulties in memorizing ESP vocabulary faced by the second-year non-English major students and possible solutions to the problems by answering two research questions:

(1) What are the 2 nd year non-English major students’ difficulties in memorizing ESP vocabulary in the textbook “English for Finance”?

(2) What are the possible solutions to help the learners memorize ESP vocabulary better?

2.2.2 The participants

There are two groups of participants: students and teachers Group 1 involves

100 students of 4 departments (31 from the Accounting Department, 23 from the banking and insurance department, 29 from the international finance department and the rest from the taxation and customs department) They are in the second term of their second year at the AOF, and had finished both GE and ESP courses Most of these students (78%) come from the countryside, 22% are from towns and cities Most of them are female (79%) 87% have learnt English before entering the AOF Among 13% of the students who have not learnt English before, 2% have not learnt any foreign languages, the rest have learned French Group 2 includes 16 teachers who are teaching ESP at the AOF They have got from 4 to 25 years of teaching experience

2.2.3 Data collection instruments

To collect data, two instruments, questionnaire for students and interview for teachers are used

The questionnaire was based on the literature on ESP vocabulary learning, the researcher‟s observation and experience during her 4 years of teaching at the AOF and the discussion with the other English teachers at the college The questionnaire consists

of four main parts Part I collects information about the students‟ background – place of domicile, their major and their status of learning English The other three parts collect

information about students‟ difficulties in memorizing ESP vocabulary Part II is for getting students‟ opinions on ESP course book and ESP vocabulary Part III is for getting students‟ opinions on their teachers‟ vocabulary teaching Part IV is for getting students‟ opinion on their own vocabulary learning The questionnaire is presented in appendix 1

The semi-structured interview is designed to get teachers‟ opinions on ESP vocabulary in the course book, their students‟ vocabulary memorizing, their vocabulary teaching methods, and recommendations to improve their students‟ vocabulary memorizing The interview questions are added in appendix 2

2.2.4 Data collection procedure

To obtain the data for the investigation, the questionnaires were delivered to 100 students during their class time The students were given clear instruction for each question so that they could respond appropriately to each one After the questionnaire was administered, the respondents were encouraged to read it thoroughly and answer frankly and truly Then they will be instructed to take as much time as they need to complete the questionnaire

For teachers‟ deep understanding, thorough answers and great contribution, the interview questions were delivered before having interviews with them

2.2.5 Data analysis

The answers for the questions in the questionnaire were used for analysis Descriptive statistics were mainly employed to examine the collected data In addition, raw data were transformed and illustrated in tables and charts for easy understanding and comparison For the open-ended questions in the interviews, the common themes were identified and then analyzed

2.3 Data analysis and discussion

This part deals with the results from the questionnaire to the students and from the interviews with teachers The findings from those results will lead to the suggested solutions to make improvement for memorizing ESP vocabulary

2.3.1 Discussion of the results

2.3.1.1 The results collected by questionnaire on the target language input

Sts’ answers (%)

Topics of reading texts are…to your own knowledge

Table 1: Students‟ opinion on the syllabus and ESP vocabulary in the course book

Regarding students‟ opinion on the syllabus and ESP vocabulary, table 1 shows that:

In terms of topics of the reading texts, 61% consider they are strange while only 27% feel familiar to their background knowledge when they have finished their course

on these topics in Vietnamese Evidently, it is a challenge for students to memorize what they do not know in their target language

The option that reading texts contain many new vocabulary items accounts for the largest portion, 63% There are only 2 % choose option C (few) The rest choose option B (average) Thus, there are too many new vocabulary items, which students are not able to remember all of them after each unit Besides, 67% say there are many phrases, compounds in each unit This also contributes to the students‟ worry and difficulty in memorizing new vocabulary items

The next question shows that no one thinks new vocabulary items are usually repeated in the next units, while 62% students say “rarely”, the rest choose “sometimes” This reveals that students have few chances to come across new vocabulary items so that they can review and put them in their long- term memory

In terms of meanings, only 5% students think meanings of vocabulary items in the book are very familiar, while 15 more times than that number (78%) are in favor of the option C (unfamiliar) It is difficult for student to memorize general English; however, it is even much more difficult for them to memorize ESP vocabulary items that have numerous special meanings and many others overlap with general English, which results in students‟ meaning confusion

More than a half (51%) of the students think there are few vocabulary practice exercises in each unit However, more than a half (58%) think those exercises are boring This indicates that although a large number of students want to do more vocabulary practice exercises while they are not interesting enough This prevents the students from consolidating and then memorizing vocabulary items

1.3.1.2 The results collected by questionnaire on the teachers’ vocabulary

teaching methods

Teachers play important roles in helping students acquire language knowledge in general, and vocabulary in particular However, the figures in table 2 indicate that teachers at the AOF still cannot help students much in their vocabulary memorizing

Sts’ answers (%)

Your teacher spends….time presenting

new vocabulary items

Your teacher…teaches you to

pronounce new vocabulary items

Your teacher trains you in memorizing

new vocabulary items

What techniques for presenting new

words does your teacher often use?

(you can choose more than one)

B saying the words clearly and writing them on the board

Table 2: Students‟ opinion on their teachers‟ vocabulary teaching methods

Forty eight percent of the students confirmed that their teachers spend much time presenting, explaining new vocabulary items What teachers give students are meanings, part of speech and sometimes the connotation of the vocabulary items in Vietnamese Pronunciation is not paid much attention to when 49% of the students revealed that their teachers rarely teach them how to pronounce vocabulary and the rest (35%) chose sometimes” Students‟ bad pronunciation is one of reasons for their poor vocabulary memorizing

Asking students to do and then correcting for them vocabulary exercises also

help students in consolidating and reviewing what they have learnt; however, just 11%

of the students admitted their teachers often ask them to do and correct vocabulary

exercises, 34% chose “sometimes” and the rest with largest portion (55%) chose

“rarely” This makes students inactive in their vocabulary practicing and reviewing

Students themselves do not know how to apply memory strategies effectively if

their teachers do not instruct them However, 95% confessed that their teachers do not

instruct them memory strategies, only very small portion (5%) said their teachers do it

This is also a great difficulty for students to memorize vocabulary

With techniques for presenting new words, more than a half (66%) do not like

their teachers‟ vocabulary presentation when they chose the option c (boring) while

techniques like writing on the board or translating all the words into Vietnamese take the

largest proportions (34% & 72%) These data show that the teachers‟ ways of presenting

new vocabulary are no longer interesting to students

2.3.1.3 The results collected by questionnaire on students’ vocabulary learning

Sts’ answers (%)

You feel it….to study ESP vocabulary

You use new vocabulary items to discuss and

communicate during class and after- class time

B after each class lesson 31

C sometimes (ex: before tests) 53

Table 3: Students‟ opinion on their own vocabulary learning