An investigation into the difficulties of learning reading English for ESP of students of Finance and Banking on Hui Nghe An Campus = Tìm hiểu những khó khăn tr20150227.PDF

As for the second year students at HUI Nghe An campus, ESP in general , and English for Finance and Banking in particular is extremely important because the students are expected to beco

Table of contents

pages

Certificate of originality i i Acknowledgements ii ii Abstract iii iii Table of contents iv iv List of abbreviations v v List of tables vi vi PART A : INTRODUCTION 1 1

1 Rationale for the study 1 1

2 Aims of the study 2 1

3 Research questions 2 2

4 Scope of the study 2 2

5 Methods of the study……… 2

PART B : DEVELOPMENT 4 4 CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 4 4

1.1.The nature of reading comprehension………

4 1.1.1What is reading and reading comprehension?

4 1.1.1.1 What is reading?

4 1.1.1.2 What is reading comprehension?

5 1.1.2 Reading comprehension process………

5 1.1.2.1 The Schema Theory………

5 1.1.2.2 Bottom – up and Top-down Processing………

6 1.1.2.3 Interactive Processing………

7 1.2 An Overview of English for Specific Purposes ………

7 1.2.1 What is ESP?

7

1.2.2 English in Finance and Banking………

8 1.3 Approaches to Teach E for Finance and Banking Reading………

9 1.3.1 Grammar – Translation Approach………

9 1.3.2 Communicative Language Teaching Approach………

10 1.3.2.1 Content-Based Approach………

10 1.3.2.2 Task-Based Approach………

11 1.4.Techniques to Teach Finance and Banking Reading ………

12 1.4.1 In Pre-Reading………

12 1.4.2 In While-Reading………

12 1.4.3 In Post-Reading………

13 1.5 Challenges in ESP Reading Comprehension ……… 13

1.5.1 Language problems……… 13

1.5.2 Reading skill problems 14 1.6 Summary 15 CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 16 2.1 The setting of study 16 2.1.1 The teachers ……… 17

2.1.2 The students ……… 17

2.1.3 The teaching materials ……… 17

2.1.3.1 The course books……… 17

2.1.4 Teaching facilities……… 20

2.2.3 Research instruments 18 21

2.2.3.1 Questionnaire 19 21

2.2.3.2 Informal interviews with ESP teacher……… 21

2.2.6 Summary 19 23

CHAPTER III : RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 19 24

3.1 The students' questionnaires 20 24 3.2 The teachers' interview 25 30 3.3 Findings 28 32 3.4 Possible solutions 29 33 3.4.1 Raising the students’ awareness of the importance of reading in their

3.4.2 Improving teachers‘ specialized knowledge of Banking and Finance at

3.4.4 The teachers should be aware of the students’ needs 35

List of abbreviations

HUI : Ho Chi Minh city University of Industry

ESP: English for Specific Purposes

EST: English for Science and Technology

EBE: English for Business and Economics

ESS: English for Social Sciences

EAP: English for Academic Purposes

EOP: English for Occupational Purpose

GE: General English

LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES

Figure 1: Types of ESP by Hutchinson (1987: 16)

Table 1: Description of survey questionnaire

Table 2: Description of interview questions

Table 3: Students’ favorite in ESP reading

Table 4: Students’ perception about the purpose of learning reading English for Banking Table 5: Students’ expectation about four language skills in their future work

Table 6: Levels of difficulties in terms of vocabulary

Table 7: The difficulties in the area of types of texts

Table 8: The difficulties in the area of reading skills

Table 9: The difficulties in the area of course books

Table 10: The learners’ expectation in terms of methodology

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the Study

English is a compulsory subject at Ho Chi Minh city University of Industry ( HUI ) Nghe An campus As a consequence ESP is also an importantly compulsory subject for students who passed the GE courses Having a good knowledge of GE and especially ESP

is considered to be necessary means for any graduates who wish to find a good job, better

in foreign companies or banks Therefore, there is a growing and wide demand to learn English at universities As for the second year students at HUI Nghe An campus, ESP in general , and English for Finance and Banking in particular is extremely important because the students are expected to become people who work in the local banks and the international banks Thus, in the curriculum for Banking English there are parts for four language skills However, in this training base the teacher does realize that reading is given the greatest account of the four skills in the course books Moreover, in comparison with writing, speaking and listening, it is reading that will be used most often in the students‟ future jobs

To meet the demand of the learners, many ESP programmes have been designed Together with the worldwide trend to learn ESP, the teaching staff of Finance and Banking Department at HUI collected documents and designed some ESP programmes for Finance and Banking students at HUI Therefore, to improve reading English skill in Finance and Banking by working out some problems which may negatively have influence

on students‟ learning reading English for Finance and Banking and then suggest some possible solutions to overcome those problems

2 Aims of the Study

With the above rationale, my study was conducted with the following aims:

-To investigate the difficulties that HUI students meet when they learn reading English for Finance and Banking

-To recommend some suggestions for teachers and learners to overcome these difficulties

3 The research questions

The research is carried out with an attempt to find out the answers to the following research questions:

1 What are the difficulties of students of Finance and Banking at HUI Nghe an campus in learning to read ESP ?

2 What solutions can be offered to help students overcome the difficulties in learning

to read English of Finance and Banking ?

4 The scope of the study

This study is limited to the area of investigating in learning reading English for Finance and Banking learning faced by the second-year students of Banking and Finance at HUI Nghe An campus More importantly, it tries to serve the purpose of finding out the most common problems in the students‟ learning reading English for Finance and Banking and seeking for possible solutions to deal with the found problems

5 The method of the study

With the aims of finding out the area of difficulties in learning reading English for Finance and Banking at HUI Nghe An campus, this study adopts a survey approach To achieve the aims of the study, the survey questionnaire is used as the main method to collect the needed data from the learners as well as the researcher‟s observation and interviews and informal discussion with the students and the colleagues

6 Design of the study

The thesis was designed with three parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion In the development part, it has three chapters

The first part, the Introduction is an brief overview of the study with more details

of the rationale, the aims, the methods as well as the design of the study

The second part, the Development includes three chapters:

Chapter one is a literature review This chapter presents the theoretical background of the thesis

Chapter two is methodology It deals with the current situation of teaching and

learning English for ESP of Finance and Banking at HUI Nghe An campus This chapter

also focus on background information of the subject of the study, the instruments used to

collect data and the procedure of data collection as well

Chapter three will presents a description of data analysis and dicussions With the description of data analysis through two instruments: questionnaire and the semi- interview, I explored some interpretations of the findings

The last part, the Conclusion, is devoted to the summary of the findings and some pedagogical suggested recommendations to help teachers and students HUI to overcome difficulties in learning and teaching reading English for Finance and Banking This part also provides the limitations of the study as well as some recommendations for further study

Following these parts are the Appendixes and References of the study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter will briefly present a theoretical background of the study with the examination of the concepts most relevant to the thesis‟s topic Firstly, a general introduction of nature of reading comprehension will be given Secondly, the overall of ESP will be discussed Thirdly, approaches to teach reading and techniques to teach English for Finance and Banking reading will be mentioned Finally, challenges in ESP

reading comprehension will be referred to in reading classes

1.1 The nature of reading comprehension

1.1.1 What is reading and reading comprehension?

1.1.1.1 What is reading?

Reading is an interactive process that goes on between the reader and the text, resulting in comprehension The text presents letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs that encode meaning The reader uses knowledge, skills, and strategies to determine what that meaning is So far reading has been defined differently by lots of scholars, however no single definition is acceptable to everyone

Goodman (1971, p.135) stated that reading is “a psycholinguistics process by which the reader, language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display” In his opinion, readers not only learn how to read the text, to master grammatical structures…but also understand the content expressed

One more definition offered by Harmer (1989, p.153) showed us his opinion and two above authors have a lot of things in common “reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain The eyes receive messages and the brain then has to work out the significance of these messages”

Thus, obviously, definitions of reading have been various in using words and expressions but they all focus on two activities: looking with eyes and understanding with brains in which the latter is more important The most noticeable thing in the latter is that the interaction between readers and authors – readers not only read authors‟ words but also read authors‟ thought

1.1.1.2 What is reading comprehension?

Reading comprehension results in the fact that when readers know which skills and strategies are appropriate for types of texts and understand how to apply them to accomplish reading purpose Swan (1975, p.1) stated that “A student is good at comprehension we mean that he can read accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum information of a text with the minimum of understanding” It is obvious that the student can show his understanding only by doing some tasks such as summarizing the text, answering questions, making true or false etc

To sum up, reading becomes meaningless without comprehension since only reading comprehension can appreciate how much readers understand the text Therefore, how to help students have effective reading comprehension methods is considered to be the most important part in reading teaching in general and ESP reading teaching in particular

1.1.2 Reading comprehension process

The nature of reading comprehension process – how people learn to process textual information – has been researched by cognitive and behavioral scientists for many decades

So far reading has sometimes been characterized as “passive” or “receptive” According to Christine Nuttall (1982, p.192), “reading is like an infectious disease It is caught not taught (And you can‟t catch it from someone who hasn‟t got it…)”

More recently, scholars (notably Goodman, 1967 and Smith, 1971) developed a psycholinguistic perspective of reading, focusing on its active, cognitive processes

1.1.2.1 The Schema Theory

According to Nunan (1999, p.201), “schema theory is based on the notion that experiences lead to the creation of mental frameworks that help us make sense of new experiences.”

The schemata are recognized as a useful concept in understanding how we are able

to interpret texts (Nuttall) When a reader reads a text, he must use his own background knowledge, the situational context and the cues provided by the author to interpret the text How much he can understand a text depends on whether his schemata are sufficiently similar to the writer‟s That is why many arguments suggest that the concepts which a reader brings to the text are actually more important than the text itself for comprehension Therefore, the more experiences of the world we have, the better we can interpret texts A reader who is rich in background knowledge will comprehend the text more than another

whose schemata are poorer In addition, the schemata enable the reader to predict about what he might get from a certain context

To sum up, it is essential for teachers to recognize that the schemata are the basis for comprehending Therefore, in order to comprehend texts in standard English foreign language students need to develop new schemata of language, text and interpretation, as well as schemata of alternative cultural practices and values

1.1.2.2 Bottom – up and Top-down processing

According to Silberstein (1994), “text comprehension requires the simultaneous interaction of two models of information processing”

The bottom – up processing occurs when readers get the meaning of a text through recognizing letters and words, working out sentence structures and then interpreting paragraphs and the whole text According to this view, reading is a linear process by which readers decode the text word by word, linking the words into phrases and then sentences When first reading makes readers confused or they are not really sure of what writers intended, understanding of the meaning a sentence can have on its own will help readers fully grasp what writers conveyed

In the top – down processing, reading is not just extracting meaning from a text but a process of connecting information in the text with the knowledge readers bring to the act of reading Reading, in this sense, is a dialogue between the reader and the text It is seen as

an active cognitive process in which readers‟ background knowledge plays a key role in the creation of meaning (Tierney and Pearson, 1994) This is called knowledge-based or conceptually driven information processing

In short, there are two ways that readers can use to deal with a text: using the bottom – up processing to get detail understanding of the text and using the top-down to understand main ideas about the text Readers may use one of the two ways to comprehend texts, however, readers usually need both of them to deal with difficult texts As a result, this leads to interactive processing

1.1.2.3 Interactive processing

It is known that no single method is the best A successful reader should combine top-down and bottom-up processing, which is called interactive reading:

“In practice, a reader continually shifts from one focus to another, now

adopting a top-down approach to predict probable meaning, then moving

to the bottom-up approach to check whether that is really what the writer

says” Nuttall (1996, p.17)

According to Hayes (1991, p.7),

“in interactive models, different processes are thought to be responsible

for providing information that is shared with other processes The

information obtained from each type of processing is combined to

determine the most appropriate interpretation of the printed pages”

In short, the popularity of interactive processing shows that interactive processing can maximize the strengths and minimizes the weaknesses of the bottom-up and top-down processing

1.2 An Overview of ESP

1.2.1 What is ESP ?

ESP originates from a famous saying “Tell me what you need English for and I will tell you the English that you need” So far, ESP has been defined differently by different authors According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987, p.19), ESP is “an approach

to language teaching in which all decisions as to content and approach are based on the learner‟s reason for learning”

Sharing with Hutchinson and Waters, Strevens (1988, p.1) said “ESP is a particular case of the general category of special – purpose language teaching”

However, all the above authors have the same opinions about the ESP‟s features:

1) It is purposeful and aimed at the successful performance of occupational or educational roles by an individual or a group

2) It is based on an analysis of the students‟ needs and is tailor-made to meet these needs 3) It may differ from another general language course in its selection of skills, themes, topics, situations, functions, language and approachology

Most of all, according to Munby (1978), one important feature which characterizes ESP as being different from other general language courses, is that “the domains not only relate to distinctive content, but also to discipline-specific lexis, genres and registers.”

1.2.2 English in Finance and Banking

According to the tree of ELT given, ESP can be classified into two major groups: English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) English for Economics belongs to EAP and English in Finance and Banking is one of branches of English for Business and Economics

Figure 1: Types of ESP (Hutchinson, 1987: 16)

Therefore, English for Finance and Banking has the following characteristics:

1) designed to meet specified needs of the learner in the field of Finance and Banking;

2) related in content (that is in its themes and topics) to Finance and Banking disciplines, occupations and activities;

3) centered on language appropriate to Finance and Banking activities in syntax, lexis discourse, semantics and so on, and analysis of the discourse;

1.2.3 Purposes of teaching and learning reading English for Finance and Banking at HUI Nghe An campus:

It is a certain that every training institution must have its own purpose in training and that guides different purposes in English teaching To Robinson, P.C.( 1997:7), needs firstly can refer to students „s study or job requirements that is what they have to be able to

do at the end of their language course Needs in this sense are perhaps more appropriately

described as “ objectives” Needs can also mean “ that the user- institution or society at

large regards as necessary or to be learnt from a program of language instruction”

At HUI Nghe An campus, students learn English not with the intention of taking it

professionally in the future career, but using it as a means to complete their certain banking

activities like: opening accounts, filling in slips, doing banking transaction between banks

and or with customers or even for their future training And it is HUI „target to equip

students with necessary English which is frequently used in their business That is, English

is taught generally to meet the students‟ future job requirement

1.3 Approaches to teach reading

In fact, there are quite a lot of approaches of teaching GE reading in general and

ESP reading in particular However, in this study, I would like to mention about two

approaches which are most commonly used in teaching ESP reading: Grammar –

Translation approach and Communicative Language Teaching approach

1.3.1 Grammar – Translation Approach

The Grammar Translation Approach is the oldest approach of teaching in the

world A number of approaches and techniques have been evolved for the teaching of

English and also other foreign languages in the recent past years, yet this approach is still

in use in teaching The main principles on which the Grammar Translation Approach are

based are the following:

1 Translation interprets the words and phrases of the foreign languages in the best

possible manner

2 The phraseology and the idiom of the target language can best be assimilated in the

process of interpretation

3 The structures of the foreign languages are best learned when compared and

contrast with those of mother tongue

Advantages:

1 The phraseology of the target language is quickly explained Translation is the

easiest way of explaining meanings or words and phrases from one language into

another

2 Teachers‟ labor is saved when they use their mother tongue in teaching and learners

will not have much difficulty in responding to questions on the mother tongue

Disadvantages:

1 Exact translation is not possible Translation a language with various customs, traditions and modes of behavior is, indeed, a difficult task and exact translation from one language to another is not always possible

2 Translation does not give pattern practice It rather attempts to teach language through rules and not by use Researchers in linguistics have proved that to speak any language, whether native or foreign, entirely by rule is quite impossible

1.3.2 Communicative Language Teaching Approach

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) dated from the late 1960s is perhaps the latest in a long succession of revolutions in language teaching since it presents a fundamental paradigm shift– a radically new approach to teaching-learning process In terms of ESP reading teaching, CLT is most used with two approaches: Content-Based approach and Task-Based approach

1.3.2.1 Content-Based approach

Brown, H.D (2001, p.234) stated that “content-based language teaching integrates the learning of some specific subject-matter content with the learning of a second language”

He also claimed that the overall structure of a content-based curriculum “is dictated by nature of the subject matter than by language forms and sequences Hereafter are some advantages and disadvantage of this approach:

Advantages:

1 The strength of the content-based approach is that language learning is contextualized and purposeful

2 The content-based approach motivates learners‟ activeness Learners are forced

to think and activate their knowledge to guess the terms as well as the whole content of one text

Disadvantage:

The content-based approach is difficult to apply especially for learners who are low

in English competence Furthermore, learners who use this approach to read ESP materials have certain knowledge about that specific field

1.3.2.2 Task-Based approach

According to Brown, H.D (2001, p.50), Task-Based approach “puts task at the center of one‟s methodological focus It views the learning process as a set of communicative tasks that are directly linked to the curricular goals they serve…”

In reading comprehension, tasks are especially important since they will guide reader

in a correct reading procedure and help them have thorough understanding about reading texts

1.4 Techniques to teach English for Finance and Banking reading

1.4.1 In Pre-reading

At this important stage, teachers should make sure that students have the relevant schema for understanding the text This is achieved by having students think, write, and discuss everything they know about the topic employing the most common techniques such

as prediction, semantic mapping and reconciled reading

Prediction is defined as “the prior elimination of unlikely alternatives” Smith (1994, p

19) According to him, predictions are questions readers ask the world and comprehension

is receiving the answers

Previewing occurs when students look at titles, headings, and pictures, and read the first

few paragraphs and the last paragraph; these activities can then help students understand what texts is about by activating their formal and content schemata and making them familiar with the topic before they begin reading

Semantic mapping is another pre-reading that Carell, Pharis, and Liberto (1989, p.651)

describe as a useful way to pre-teach vocabulary and to “provide the teacher with an assessment of the students‟ prior knowledge or schema availability on the topic” This activity asks students to brainstorm about the reading topic as the information is displayed

on a graphic “map”

Reconciled reading lesson reserves the sequence presented by many textbooks where the

text is followed by questions Instead, the teacher develops pre-reading questions from the questions that appear at the end of the reading

1.4.2 In While-reading

This stage requires teachers to guide and monitor the interaction between readers and texts One important skill teachers can impart at this stage is note-taking, which allows students to compile new vocabulary and important information and details, and to summarize information and record their reactions and opinion

Furthermore, during reading, readers‟ minds repeatedly engage in a variety of processes, seemingly all at one Using top-down and bottom-up approaches, readers use pre-reading information to make some predictions about the text Using bottom-up approach, readers start by processing information at the sentence level

1.4.3 In Post-reading

This stage offers the chance to evaluate students‟ adequacy of interpretation, while bearing in mind that accuracy is relative and that “readership” must be respected as long as the writer‟s intentions are addressed (Tierney and Pearson, 1994)

Post-reading aims at extending the understanding obtained from texts the pre-reading and while-reading stages into writing tasks, such as summarizing, evaluating, synthesizing, commenting and reflecting

By engaging students in pre-, while-, post-reading activities, teachers not only support students‟ understanding of content, but also provide them with opportunities to hone their comprehension, vocabulary, and study skills without interrupting content learning

1.5 Challenges in ESP reading comprehension

1.5.1 Language problems

Language plays a vital role in reading in general and ESP in particular One cannot read a book in a language unless one knows that particular language If learner‟s knowledge of English is poor, then his reading will be also poor, and naturally also his reading comprehension The guessing or the predicting ability necessary to pick up the correct cues is hindered by the imperfect knowledge of the language; the wrong choice of cues or the uncertainty of choice makes association more difficult; the memory span in a foreign language in the early stages of its acquisition is usually shorter than in our native language; recollection of previous cues then is more difficult in a foreign language than in

a mother tongue; and at all levels, asnd at all time, there is interference of the native language.”

From the above viewpoints, problems of foreign language learners in reading process are mainly caused by the imperfect knowledge of the target language and the interference

of the native language

It is agreed that a lack of appropriate linguistics constrains the transfer of reading skills and strategies from L1 to L2

When dealing with a reading text, readers not only face with unfamiliar topic but also difficulties in vocabulary and grammatical structures They deal with idioms, proverbs, synonyms, antonyms, etc., which can be considered to have an impact on the readers‟ motivation Knowing vocabulary and structures is necessary for getting meaning from a text, especially for second or foreign language readers who frequently say that they need more vocabulary and structures so that they can understand the meaning of the sentences Therefore, when the amount of vocabulary and structures is limited, the readers will encounter difficulties As a result, they will be unwilling to explore the text

1.5.2 Reading skill problems

Students‟ limited reading skills create many problems such as reading slowly, failing to understand and summarize main ideas of the reading text, unable to guess or predict meaning of the words or phrases used in that context, etc Very frequently, student reading

in a foreign language seems to read considerably slower than they reportedly read in their first language Some students who read too slowly will easily get discouraged They do not know how to use the appropriate ways to move their eyes from word groups to word groups They just look at every single word, and consequently fail to grasp the general meaning of the passage Sometimes readers may encounter a text, which is too long Reader may know a lot of vocabularies, and the topic of the text is fairly familiar to them, yet they cannot concentrate well on the text and when they get to the last paragraph, they cannot recall what they have read before

Reading is an active skill, involving guessing, predicting It is common that there are new words, new structures, and ideas in a reading text to every language learners If he does not have a good guessing ability and cannot make full use of grammatical, logical, and cultural clues, he will read the text with less understanding than he might expect, and/or will feel frustrated at the text, and it may cause disinterest in reading

in ESP reading comprehension

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

This chapter introduces the context of Ho Chi Minh city University of Industry Nghe

An campus where the study is conducted Then the research methodology chosen for achievement of the aims and objectives will be discussed in details

At HUI Nghe An campus, English is not regarded as the main subject However, it is considered as a means to communicate and complete the students‟ certain activities at work in their future career ESP at HUI Nghe An campus consists of three different fields such as: English in Economics, English in Electrical Engineering, English in Petrochemical engineering and English in Automotive engineering technology Before taking part in ESP

course, students had experienced General English in the first year and they had been equipped with certain knowledge of their major In the second year, they shifted to English

in Finance and Banking, which is set with the following aims:

- To provide the students with some terminologies relating to their Finance and Banking

- To improve the students‟ reading skills so as to help them approach ESP materials effectively

For the Finance and Banking students, they also set for themselves two goals in learning English in Finance and Banking:

- To get good marks in three tests during the term and in the end-term exams

- To meet the society‟s demand is to communicate with foreigners or to read materials written in English

2.1.1 The teachers

At HUI Nghe An campus, there are 5 teachers of English currently working at the age from 27 to 30 Their experience in teaching English varies from 4 years to 8 years Three of them graduated from Ha Noi Foreign Languages University, one was from Hue Foreign Languages University and one was from Vinh University Two of them are M.A, and the rest are taking M.A courses It is proved that all of them are qualified and experienced English teachers All the teachers here are willing to devote their time and enthusiasm to language teaching: researching and debating to find out an appropriate and progressive way to teach English effectively Beside the textbooks, teachers always use supplementary materials or adapt materials to make the lessons more interesting and authentic They all understand the importance of communicative activities in the class and always try to apply them in their lessons

2.1.2 The students

There is one class of vocational training college of Finance and Banking at HUI

in Nghe An campus They come from different parts of the province Some of them are from the rural or remote areas, where there are no good opportunities for studying English, these students commonly did not spend much time learning English at high school before The others come from cities, who, theoretically, have all finished three

years or seven years of learning English at secondary schools before entering the HUI Nghe An campus To some extent, there are some students whose English is very good, but generally the target students' English proficiency is still low level Most of them learn English to read specialized documents rather than speak English to foreigners Some have strong pressure to pass exams with high mark; the others would prefer ESP enhance their specialized knowledge, which is required in their future jobs However, specialized knowledge in Vietnamese makes it easy for them to learn English for Finance and Banking, and, on the other hand, brings them high motivation in learning ESP In addition, it helps students feel more confident to interact with teacher in ESP class

2.1.3 The teaching materials

2.1.3.1 The course books

In ESP teaching and learning, there are always two resources of materials They are commercial ( published ) materials and in-house materials The formers are those produced by publishers They are said to be good because all teaching and learning English are based on the ground of communication and ESP published books provide globally avalaible materials for specific situations

The in-house materials which are written by the teachers in the training institution with the view to teaching in their training institution only

To all above consideration, books used in teaching and learning English for Finance and Banking at HUI Nghe An campus are almost published ones because university study is

a long course and materials must be in a systematic gradation The books officially chosen in teaching and learning Banking English at HUI Nghe An campus are:

- Banking transaction by Radice,F., Macmillan Professional English, 1989

- English for Banking and Finance, compiled by Associate Professor Phan Thi Cuc, Ph.D and Ho Nguyet Thanh, M.A., edited by Scott Brantley, M.S.O.M

At HUI Nghe An campus, Banking Transaction is used for Banking English part I English for Banking and Finance is used for part II College students learn Banking English part I, and university students learn both two parts Banking English part I is taught students in 75 periods, and Banking English part II is taught in 30 periods

Banking transaction was written by Radice,F and published by Macmillan Professional English in 1989 and consist of 10 units about Banking specialism: cheques, plastic money, interbank electronics, factoring services etc…It provided the profundity of banking

operation and professional knowledge that a banker must be aware of when he is working

in a bank or in the bank field In other words, it is what he must know to complete/ fulfill his job as a banker

In the book there are parts for reading, listening, and speaking practice Speaking parts are titled discussion Discussion are composed of questions before each reading and listening parts They can be in the forms of either “ questions-answers” or “ T-F statements” to draw the students‟ attention to topics and main ideas of the reading texts With these students learn to express and exchange their opinions about banking services and business operated among banks Furthermore, this part may act as the lead-in to the reading or listening parts, introducing the topics or main points which students have to find out from the reading or listening parts Each unit in the book contains three or five reading passages of about 400 to 500 words Grammar in this book is complicated This, therefore, requires better command of not only reading skills but also English language Reading passages themselves are divided into short paragraphs, dealing with different banking business operations in detail The key word and terminologies are boldly printed

in the text They are also key words of the text Almost texts require scanning and intensive reading skills because they show the procedures of businesses to be carried out among banks After reading passage are exercises This part is for vocabularies and terminologies practice They are gap-filling, matching the definitions to the words, finding synonyms and antonyms, finding phrases equivalents, word forms They are filling in diagrams, putting available words into correct gaps, multiple-choice In one word, Banking Transaction is a book specifically designed for students who will work in the Bank field after their graduation The reading passages involve in specialized banking business that a bank clerk must acquire to fulfill his job in a bank However, it is not meant to teach students basic banking knowledge through English but provide them with indispensable vocabularies and terminologies used in Banking operation and get them familiar with types of texts to help them a lot for further study

The second book is English for Banking and Finance The book‟s complilation is meticulous, practical and updated so that the readers are able to obtain fundamentals of English for Banking and Finance As a result, they are able to improve their competence in professional careers in the process of world economy integration The aims of this book are:

- to assist students in reading and understanding English texts related to their specific majors

- to provide them with a chance to develop their skills including reading, speaking, writing, and listening skills

- to familiarize them with different texts and appropriate strategies to master texts and to complete the exercises

This book covers eight essentail units Each unit includes a large number of various exercises which are designed for activities: pre-reading/listening activities, while-reading/listening activities, and post- reading/listening activities Each unit is constructed around a reading selection All tasks are closely connected to the reading and aimed at enhancing the students‟ comprehension of the readings

The main goal of this book is teaching the English language In addition, selected topics ( e.g Inflation, Commercial Bank etc) are employed as a vehicle for language development with the main focus on Banking and Finance In order to arouse the readers‟ interests, in each unit a critical case study is included In addition, exercises provide students with skills; especially to enlarge vocabulary in Banking and Finance An extensive glossary used in Banking and Finance is located in the back of this book to help students for informative and easy access The authors of this book did read and study both traditional and modern materials for Banking and Finance written by domestic and international authors to compile this book To serve the readers‟ benefit better, Scott Brantley, M.S.O.M, Representative of Madison School Professional Development ( U.S.A) in Vietnam was invited to edit this book

teaching and learning

2.2 The study