Designing an ESP nursing syllabus for the first year students at Haiphong Medical Collge = Thiết kế chương trình tiếng Anh chuyên ngành điều dưỡng cho sinh viên

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ĐỖ THỊ HẢI ANH DESIGNING AN ESP NURSING SYLLABUS FOR THE FIRST-YE

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

ĐỖ THỊ HẢI ANH

DESIGNING AN ESP NURSING SYLLABUS FOR

THE FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS

AT HAIPHONG MEDICAL COLLEGE

Thiết kế chương trình tiếng Anh chuyên ngành điều dưỡng cho sinh viên

năm thứ nhất trường Cao đẳng Y tế Hải Phòng

M.A MINOR THESIS

HANOI – 2012 Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

ĐỖ THỊ HẢI ANH

DESIGNING AN ESP NURSING SYLLABUS FOR

THE FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS

AT HAIPHONG MEDICAL COLLEGE

Thiết kế chương trình tiếng Anh chuyên ngành điều dưỡng cho sinh viên

năm thứ nhất trường Cao đẳng Y tế Hải Phòng

M.A MINOR THESIS

HANOI – 201

Major: English Language Teaching Methodology

Code: 60.14.10 Supervisor: Dr DƯƠNG THỊ NỤ

PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1.1 Definitions of syllabus and syllabus design 4

1.1.4.1.1 Target needs 12

1.1.4.2 Goals and objectives identifying 14 1.1.4.3 Content selecting and grading 15 1.1.4.4 Teaching methods suggesting 15

2.1.1 The teaching and learning conditions 19

2.2.3.2.2 Students‟ selection of topics needed in the ESP syllabus 27 2.2.3.2.3 Students‟ selection of grammar and structures needed in the

3.2 Aims and objectives of the syllabus 32

3.3.1.2 Skills and exercises in the syllabus 33 3.3.1.3 Grammatical structures in the syllabus 34

3.3.4 The organization of the syllabus 35

PART III: CONCLUSION

4 Suggestions for further research 40

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS, TABLES AND CHARTS

EAP English for Academic Purposes

ELP English for Legal Purposes

EMFE English for Management, Finance, and Economics

EMP English for Medical Purposes

EOP English for occupational Purposes

ESP English for Special Purposes

EST English for Science and Technology

GE General English

MBA Master of Business Administration

Table 1 Teachers‟ ranking of the objectives in the ESP course

Table 2.Teachers‟ selection of grammar and structures needed in the syllabusTable 3 Teachers‟ selection of skills and language exercises

Table 4.Students‟ opinions on objectives needed meeting at the end of ESP courseTable 5 Students‟ selection of grammar and structures needed in the syllabus

Chart 1 Teachers‟ selection of topics needed in the ESP syllabus

Chart 2 Students‟ needs on learning ESP course

Chart 3 Students‟ selection of topics needed in the ESP syllabus

Chart 4 Specialized subject teachers‟ selection of topics needed in the ESP syllabus

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Haiphong Medical College was founded over 50 years ago In 2007 it was formally upgraded Junior College Since 2011, the training curriculum has changed, and English for Specific Purposes was added for first year students of Nursing Department After completing 60 periods of General English course, the students have to learn 30 ESP periods Even though ESP courses have become popular recently in Vietnam and many institutions and universities, the current ESP syllabus does not meet the needs of the first year college students, so our

students need one suitable ESP nursing syllabus

As teachers, we all know that it is difficult to design an ESP syllabus that can best prepare learners for future professional communication Firstly, there is

no ESP textbook for college students of Nursing Department, so we have to refer many different ESP documents for tertiary level Secondly, we were not trained in the field of nursing, which makes our syllabus designing more challenging Moreover, when completing GE, with basic English, students cannot read ESP documents nor communicate well

For all the above-mentioned reasons, I wish to conduct a study entitled:

“ Designing an ESP nursing syllabus for the 1 st year students at Hai Phong Medical College ”

2 The aims of the study

In this study, I would like to design an ESP nursing syllabus for the 1st year students at Hai Phong Medical College To achieve the aim, we have to achieve the following objectives:

- To develop the main theoretical basis related to syllabus design as well as to ESP

- To investigate the needs of the students, the ideas and suggestions of English teachers, specialized subject teachers

- To propose an appropriate ESP syllabus for students base on their needs and special requirements

3 The research questions

To obtain the above aims and objectives, we have to answer the two following questions:

1 Why is it necessary to design an ESP syllabus?

2 What components should the proposed syllabus have ?

4 The scope of the study

In this study, I direct my attention to design an ESP syllabus- English for Nursing- with 30 periods for the first-year students at the Nursing Department, who have completed 60 periods of General English

5 The method of the study

I use Quantitative method in this study The quantitative is used to collect the data by questionnaires The results of questionnaire 1 are suggestions of English teachers about the objectives, topics, skills and activities in the ESP course

The results of questionnaire 2 are the findings about the needs of the students The results of questionnaire 3 are the suggestions and ideas of the specialized subject teachers to find out the topics of the lessons in the syllabus

6 The design of the study

My study consists of three main parts:

The first part of my study is Introduction In this part, the reasons why I chose this

subject are explained as the rationale After that, aims and objectives, research questions, scope, method and design of the study are also mentioned

The second part is the body or the Development of the study which is divided into

three chapters

Chapter I: Literature review presents the overview of syllabus design in ESP Chapter II: The Study provides the findings of students‟ needs, teachers‟ suggestions for the ESP syllabus

Chapter III: The proposal ESP syllabus based on the students‟ needs, teachers‟ suggestions and the course objectives

Conclusion is the last part of the study Here, I would give the summary of all the

main points in the study, conclusions and some limitations as well as the suggestions for further studies

The last one is the Appendices that comprises of the questionnaires.and a

sample unit

PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 An overview on syllabus design

1.1.1 Definitions of syllabus and syllabus design

There are several views on the syllabus design basing on the narrow and the broad approach to syllabus design , therefore, it also leads to some disagreement about the nature of “the syllabus”

Widdowson (1984:26) defined that “The syllabus is simply a framework

within which activities can be carried out: a teaching device to facilitate learning

It only becomes a threat to pedagogy when it is regarded as absolute rules for determining what is to be learned rather than points of reference from which bearings can be taken.”

According to Yalden (1984: 14), “The syllabus replaces the concept of

„method‟, and the syllabus is now seen as an instrument by which the teacher, with the help of the syllabus designer, can achieve a degree of „fit‟ between the needs and aims of the learner (as social being and as individual) and the activities which will take place in the classroom.” For her the syllabus is primarily a teacher‟s

statement about objectives and content, arrived at after consideration of students‟ needs

Meanwhile, Allen (1984: 61) drew a clear distinction between curriculum

and syllabus “Curriculum is a very general concept which involves consideration

of the whole complex of philosophical, social and administrative factors which contribute to the planning of an educational program Syllabus, on the other hand, refers to that subpart of curriculum which is concerned with a specification of what units will be taught (as distinct from how they will be taught, which is a matter for methodology).”

Like Allen, Hutchinson and Waters (1993: 90) defined that “a syllabus is a

document which says what will (or at least what should) be learnt, it should state out the goals, content, and activities to be carried out in a particular, and well- defined context.”

Nunan (1988:5) stated that “syllabus is a statement of content which is used

as the basis for planning courses of various kinds, and that the task of the syllabus designer is to select and grade this content.” And he also supposed that “Syllabus design is seen as being concerned essentially with the selection and grading of content.”

In document „Threshold Level English‟ (van Ek 1975), van Ek gave a list

of necessary components of a language syllabus:

- the situations in which the foreign language will be used, including the topics which will be dealt with,

- the language activities in which the learner will engage,

- the language functions which the learner will fulfill,

- what the learner will be able to do with respect to each topic,

- the general notions which the learner will be able to handle,

- the specific (topic-related) notions which the learner will be able to handle,

- the language forms which the learner will be able to use,

- the degree of skill with which the learner will be able to perform,

In brief, every view on syllabus design has its own strong and weak points Therefore, I, as well as syllabus designers, should consider and select the best points to design an appropriate syllabus for our students

result of instruction, while process syllabuses are those which focus on the

learning experiences themselves.”

The grammatical, functional-notional and situational syllabuses are the

examples of the product-oriented syllabus

The task-based, skill-based and content-based types of syllabus are included in the process-oriented syllabus

1 1 2 1 Grammatical syllabus

Grammatical syllabus, or structural syllabus, is one of the most common types in designing a syllabus in which syllabus input is selected and graded according to grammatical notions of simplicity and complexity

This syllabus focuses on teaching the students the forms, structures and grammatical of language as Wilkin (1983: 83) said that the aim of Grammatical

syllabus is “teaching the students how to form correctly, how, that is, to

manipulate the structures of the language easily and without error.”

McDonough (1981: 21) found the strong point of this syllabus “The

transition from lesson to lesson is intended to enable material in one lesson to prepare the ground for the next, and conversely for material in the next to appear

to grow out of the previous one.” The principal purpose of Grammatical syllabus

is to help learners get the unfamiliar from the familiar

However, it reveals some weak points Firstly, learners can learn and get formal language with this syllabus, but they may not be able to communicate in everyday conversations Lastly, this syllabus is not applied widely in teaching language classrooms because the learners passively achieve the language designed

in the syllabus

1 1 2 2 Functional-notional syllabus

Contrary to Grammatical syllabus, Functional-notional syllabus motivates

real communicative functions According to Nunan (1988), “functions may be

described as the communicative purposes for which we use language, while

notions are the conceptual meanings (objects, entities, states of affairs ) expressed through language.”

So, there are many benefits when adopting this kind of syllabus because a collection of useful functions and notions used in daily life helps learners communicate easily

An important point regarding notional-functional syllabus is that the needs

of the students have to be analyzed and explored by different types of interaction and communication; a learner may be involved in, hence, needs analysis is central

to design such syllabuses But, when the learners encounter unfamiliar situations, they find it difficult to use their language Besides, they also get difficulty in following from simpler structures to much more complex ones to present a communicative function

1 1 2 3 Situational syllabus

The content of language teaching is a collection of real or imaginary situations in which language occurs or is used The primary purpose of this syllabus is to teach the language that occurs in real-life situations A situation usually involves several participants who are engaged in some activity in a specific setting The language occurring in the situation involves a number of functions, combined into a plausible segment of discourse Here, the emphasis is

on the learner, who it is expected will actively participate in different situations where L2 is being spoken Examples of situations include, seeing the doctor, making an appointment, meeting people at the party, buying clothes and so on One advantage of the situational approach is that motivation will be heightened, since it is learner - centered rather than subject-centered

1 1 2 4 Task-based syllabus

Task-based syllabus, which consists of a series of complex and useful tasks,

is described by Richards, Platt, and Weber (1985: 289): “a syllabus which is

organized around tasks, rather than in terms of grammar or vocabulary.” The learners have to complete a variety of different kinds of tasks when they want to

use their language in the different fields of everyday life such as applying for a job, filling out a form, making an airline reservation, etc And Robinson‟s major concern about this syllabus is that “students understand the task and what they are doing, and do not act in mechanical way.” (Robinson 1991: 39)

Learners perform various tasks together in a co-operative environment Task-

based syllabus promotes and encourages collaborative learning Since language learning is considered subordinate to task performance, therefore, language teaching also occurs as the need arises during the performance of the particular task Although the development of task-based syllabuses presents a change of focus rather than a revolution in syllabus design, it leaves some difficulties for syllabus designers, for example the degree of contextual support provided to the learner, the cognitive difficulty of the task, the amount of assistance provided to the learner, the complexity of the language which the learner is required to process and produce and so on

1 1 2 5 Skill-based syllabus

This syllabus focuses on teaching some specific skills such as listening, speaking, writing, reading… that are considered necessary or useful in using a language And the gradual development of skills gives learners the confidence While situational syllabi group functions together into specific settings of language use, skill-based syllabi group linguistic competencies (pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and discourse) together into generalized types of behavior The primary purpose of skill-based instruction is to learn the specific language skill A possible secondary purpose is to develop more general competence in the language, learning only incidentally any information that may be available while applying the language skills This syllabus must be designed and implemented keeping in mind the learners‟ cognitive levels After all, in order to infer meaning from context, or to understand discourse signals and clause relations, there are linguistic operations to be made, and words to be learnt, not just skills to be

performed More or less any text could potentially be used for any skill, and when reading or speaking we don't normally use only one skill at a time

1 1 2 6 Content-based syllabus

This syllabus is designed when the purpose is to teach some content or information in a language that students are also learning In this type of syllabus, the language is enhanced through different contents and/or in the context of various types of information With content-based instruction learners are helped to acquire language through the study of a series of relevant topics, each topic exploited in systematic ways and from different angles, as outlined in Mohan's

"knowledge framework", (Nunan, 1988:49-50.) Content syllabuses certainly give

learners a lot of exposure to the language, which is good

Content-based language teaching is concerned with information, while task-based language teaching is concerned with communicative and cognitive processes Examples of content-based language teaching might be other subjects

in a school curriculum such as science or social studies, or specialist subject matter relating to academic or technical field such as mechanical enginnering, medicine,

or computing

In general, a language teaching syllabus involves a combination of subject matter (what to teach) and linguistic matter (how to teach) So, these types of syllabuses cannot work independently even though each one is of great significance Actually, syllabus designers combine some of the types presented above to make the best one for their learners My proposal ESP syllabus will be a combination of the Situational and Task-based syllabus

1 1 3 The approaches to syllabus design

Among many different approaches to syllabus design of different syllabus designers, I would like to present the approaches which were classified by Hutchinson & Waters

1.1.3.1 The language-centered approach

According to Hutchinson & Waters, the language-centered approach is the simplest kind of course design process and the most familiar to English teachers

“The language-centered course design process aims to draw as direct a connection as possible between the analysis of target situation and the content of the ESP course.” ( Hutchinson & Waters 1987: 65)

Although it may seem as logical and straightforward, this approach has some weak points Firstly, it is considered a learner-centered approach, but in fact,

it is not learner-centered in any meaningful sense of the term Because the learner plays no further part in the process, their learning needs are not accounted for at all, it is a simply learner-restricted, not learner-centered Secondly, this process can also be critisized for being a static and inflexible procedure Thirdly, this approach seems to be systematic, it engenders the false belief that learning itself is systematic Fourthly, data which is produced by a needs analysis is not important

in this kind of approach Finally, the language- centered analysis of target situation data is only at the surface level It reveals very little about the competence underlying the performance

1.1.3.2 The skills-centered approach

This kind of approach to ESP has been applied in many countries It is founded on two fundamental principles, one theoretical and the other pragmatic

The basic theoretical hypothesis states that certain skills and strategies, which the learner uses in order to produce or comprehend discourse, underlie

language Hutchinson & Waters supposed that “A skills-centered approach aims

to get away from the surface performance data and look at the competence that underlies the performance.” (Hutchinson & Waters 1987: 69)

The pragmatic basis for the skill-centered approach derives from a distinction made by Widdowson (1981) between goal-oriented courses and process-oriented courses

The skills-centered model is a reaction to the idea of specific registers of English as a basis for ESP as well as to the practical constrains on learning

imposed by limited time and resources Its aim is to make the learners into better processors of information And in this approach, the role of needs analysis is twofold, so it takes the learner more into account than the language-centered approach

Additionally, the skills-centered approach approaches the learner as a user

of language rather than as a learner of language The process it is concerned with are

the processes of language use not of language learning

1.1.3.3 Learning -centered approach

Hutchinson & Waters explained why they have chosen the term „Learning centered‟ instead of „learner- centered‟ as follows: Firstly, “learning is seen as a

-process in which the learners use what knowledge or skills they have in order to make sense of the flow of new information Learning, therefore, is an internal process, which is crucially dependent upon the knowledge the learners already have and their ability and motivation to use it.” (Hutchinson & Waters 1987: 72)

And then, “Learning is not just a mental process, it is a process of negotiation

between individuals and society.” They considered a learning-approach “an approach with the avowed aim of maximising the potential of the learning situation Such an approach is inevitably more complex: it is based, after all, on a regconition of the complexity of the learning process.”

For the emphasis on the learner, Hutchinson & Waters made a distinction between the three approaches: The skills-centered approach does not fully take the learner into account, because it still makes the ESP learning situation too dependent on the target situation Then, as with the language-centered one, the learner is discarded and the target situation analysis is allowed to determine the content of the course with little further reference to the learner Meanwhile, a learning-centered approach takes account of the learner at every stage of the design process

All in all, it is not easy for any designers to determine an appropriate approach to the syllabus I would like to apply the learning-centered approach in designing the ESP Nursing syllabus for the first year students at Haiphong Medical College because of its significant strong points

1 1 4 The steps in syllabus design

To design a syllabus, designers have to follow some obligatory steps This depends upon each designer‟s view Hughes (1983: 7) supposed that the first important step must be the choice of aims and objectives But Brown (1996), Richard (1984), Munby (1978) and Nunan (1988) agreed that needs analysis should be the first step with other different ones In my paper, I would like to apply the following steps:

1 Needs analysis

2 Goals and objectives identifying

3 Content selecting and grading

4 Teaching methods suggesting

1 1 4 1 Needs analysis

The key stage in ESP is needs analysis (NA) Needs analysis is the corner stone of ESP and leads to a vary focused course (Brown, 1995; Chambers, 1980; DudleyEvans & St John, 1998; Ellis & Johnson, 1994; Jordan, 1997; West, 1994)

Nunan said that “needs analysis refers to a family of procedures for gathering

information about learners and about communication tasks for use in syllabus design” (1988: 75) According to Robinson (1991: 7), “needs analysis is generally regarded as critical to ESP, although ESP is by no means the only educational enterprise which makes use of it” Strevens (1977) suggests that needs analysis is

a necessary first step for specific purposes language teaching; it is more concerned with the nature of scientific discourse Dudley-Evans and St John (1998: 121) state

that “needs analysis is the process of establishing the what and how of a course”

One of the purposes of needs analysis is to involve learners and teachers in exchanging information so that the agendas of the teacher and the learner may be

more closely aligned Information provided by learners can be used to guide the selection of content and learning activities Moreover, by providing learners with detailed information about goals, objectives, and learning activities, learners may come to have a greater appreciation and acceptance of the learning experience they are undertaking or about to undertake And Hutchinson and Waters (1987:53) argue that any language course should be based on needs analysis They also make

a basic distinction between target needs (what the learner needs to do in the target situation) and learning needs (what the learner needs to do in order to learn)

1 1 4 1 1 Target needs

According to Hutchinson & Waters “target needs is something of an

umbrella term, which in practice hides a number of important distinctions It is more useful to look at the target situation in terms of necessities, lacks and wants.” (1987: 55)

a Necessities

Necessities can be called the type of need determined by the demands of the target situation, that is, what the learner has to know in order to function effectively in the target situation The learner will also need to know the linguisctic features- discoursal, functional, structural, lexical- which are commonly used in the situation identified

c Wants

The learners have a view as to what their needs are As Richterich (1984:

29) comments “…a need does not exist independent of a person It is people who

build their images of their needs on the basis of data relating to themselves and their environment.”

There is no necessary relationship between necessities as perceived by sponsor or ESP teacher and what the learners want or feel they need Since the learner motivation in the learning process is important, learner perceived wants cannot be ignored

1 1 4 1 2 Learning needs

Hutchinson & Waters see analogy of the ESP course a journey, what we have done so far is to consider the starting point (lacks) and the destination (necessities), although we have also seen that there might be some dispute as to what that destination should be (wants) What we have not considered yet is the route And how we are going to get from our starting point to the destination indicates learning needs

1 1 4 2 Goals and objectives identifying

Identifying learning goals and objectives is one of the most important steps

in designing a syllabus, because it helps the designers select an appropriate content and activities for the learners

According to Nunan (1986:61) “objectives can be useful, not only to guide

the selection of structures, functions, notions, tasks, and so on, but also to provide

a shaper focus for teachers, to give learners a clear idea of what they can expect from a language programme, to help in developing means of assessment and evaluation, and so on” And he also states that “the term „goal‟ refers to the general purposes for which a language programme is being taught or learnt.”

Actually, goals are long-term aims that you want to accomplish and objectives are concrete attainments that can be achieved by following a certain number of steps

Jenkins & Unwin (1996) and Arreola (1998) agree that: “A learning

objective is one of several specific statements that when achieved contributes to

achieving a general goal of the course.” They suppose that a learning objective

has three major components:

a A description of what the student will be able to do – behavior

b The conditions under which the student will perform the task - condition

c The criteria for performance evaluation – measurable criterion

A learning goal is defined by Arreola (1998) “a broad statement of the

intended general outcome of an instructional unit or program.”

But Nunan (1988: 24) considers learning goals “may be derived from a

number of sources, including task analysis, learner data, ministry of education specifications.”

In short, goals and objectives play an important role in development of a language programme as they provide a specification of what learners should be able to do as a result of instruction and they determine the selections of content and activities

1 1 4 3 Content selecting and grading

Like goals and objectives identifying, content selecting and grading is a vital step in course designing

In the field of content selecting, Nunan (1988: 85) argues: “synthetic

syllabuses were described as those in which content is selected and graded according to discrete point principles.” Wilkins assumes that these would be

grammatical, but Widdowson claims that any syllabus which consists of inventories of discrete point items, be grammatical, functional, or notional, is basically synthetic Thus, selecting content means selecting grammatical components and functional and notional components

And Richard, Plat and Webber (1985: 125) define grading content as “the

arrangement of the content of a language course or textbook so that it is presented

in a helpful way Gradation would affect the order in which words, word meanings, tenses, structures, topics, tasks, skills are presented Gradation may be

based on the complexity of an item, its frequency in written or spoken English, or its importance for the learner.”

Traditionally, items in a grammatical syllabus are graded largely according

to whether they are easy or difficult, and that difficulty is defined in grammatical terms On selecting an appropriate content, syllabus designers have to grade it effectively so that learners find it easy to achieve learning goals and objectives

1 1 4 4 Teaching methods (suggesting)

A teaching method comprises the principles and methods used for instruction Each method has its own strong and weak points Commonly used teaching methods may include class participation, demonstration, recitation, memorization, or combinations of these The choice of teaching method or methods to be used depends largely on the information or skill that is being taught, and it may also be influenced by the attitude and enthusiasm of the students A good unit plan will have a variety of different methods in it

1 2 An overview on ESP

1 2 1 Definitions of ESP

English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has grown to become one of the most prominent areas of English as Foreign Language teaching today In the field of ESP, there is a series of definitions depending on researchers‟ standpoints and approaches to the target issue or their different emphases on the variety of elements that characterize ESP

Hutchinson & Waters (1987:19) state: "ESP is an approach to language

teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based on the learner's reason for learning."

In their definition, Dudley-Evans and St John (1998:4) use absolute and variable characteristics:

1 Absolute characteristics:

- ESP is defined to meet specific needs of the learners,

- ESP makes use of underlying methodology and activities of the discipline it serves,

- ESP is centered on the language appropriate to these activities in terms of grammar, lexis, register, study skills, discourse and genre

2 Variable characteristics:

- ESP may be related to or designed for specific disciplines,

- ESP may use, in specific teaching situations, a different methodology from that

of General English,

- ESP is likely to be designed for adult learners, either at a tertiary level institution

or in a professional work situation It could, however, be for learners at secondary school level,

- ESP is generally designed for intermediate or advanced students,

- Most ESP courses assume some basic knowledge of the language systems

The definition Dudley-Evans offers is clearly influenced by that of Strevens (1988) although he has improved it substantially by removing the absolute characteristic that ESP is "in contrast with 'General English'" (Johns et al., 1991: 298), and has included more variable characteristics

And Robinson‟s definition is based on two key defining criteria and a

number of characteristics that are generally found to be true of ESP: “ESP is

normally goal-directed and an ESP course is based on a needs analysis, which specify as closely as possible what exactly it is that students have to do through the medium of English.”(Robinson, 1993: 3) Sharing the same idea, Richards &

Platt (1983) propose that the content of an ESP course are fixed by the specific needs for a particular group of learners

In short, the common point of most of the definitions is that an ESP course must be based on the learners‟ needs, or an ESP syllabus has to be designed to meet the learners‟ demand so that it can stimulate their learning

1 2 2 Classification of ESP

ESP has traditionally been divided into two classified main branches such

as English for Academic Purposes or EAP and English for Occupational Purposes

or EOP (Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998; Hutchinson and Waters, 1987; Munby, 1978; Robinson, 1991) Dudley-Evans & St John (1998: 6) divides EAP and EOP according to discipline or professional area

EAP (English for Academic Purposes) refers to any English teaching that relates to academic study needs (Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998; Robinson, 1991; Hutchinson & Waters, 1987: 2) Dudley-Evans & St John (1998: 7) argue that in EAP, English for Science and Technology (EST) has been the main area, but English for Medical Purposes (EMP) and English for Legal Purposes (ELP) have always had their place More recently, English for Management, Finance, and Economics (EMFE) has increasingly been important to Master of Business Administration (MBA) courses

According to Robinson (1991: 21), EOP (English for Occupational Purposes) involves work-related needs and training EOP includes professional purposes in administration, medicine, law and business, and vocational purposes for non-professionals in work or pre-work situations (Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998: 7)

Kennedy & Bolitho divide ESP into EOP and EAP as they explain:

“EOP is taught in a situation in which learners need to use English as part of their work or profession Instances of EOP students would be doctors in casualty

or technicians servicing equipment They need English, in the first case, to talk and respond to patients and other staff, and, in the second, to read technical manuals.”

“EAP is taught generally within educational institutions to students needing English in their studies The language taught may be based in particular disciplines at higher levels of education when the student is specializing (in-study)

or intends to specialize (pre-study) in a particular subject.”

CHAPTER II: THE STUDY

2 1 The setting

2 1 1 The teaching and learning conditions

Although English is a difficult and compulsory subject, the English teaching and learning conditions in our college have not got much attention from the administrators The facilities for teaching and learning are old and damaged In the lab room, there is a television and 30 cabins, some of which do not work any more Besides, there are only three classrooms which are equipped with projectors,

so it is not easy for the teachers to apply new methods and technologies in teaching and learning In the library, there is one or two reference English books, not any ESP books And our timetable is arranged weekly, so that the students find

it difficult to follow the learning process Additionally, the average class-size in our college is between 50- 70 students, which causes many problems in English

teaching and learning We cannot organize communicative activities and students

do not have chances to practice in these large classrooms

2 1 2 The current syllabus

We have two training systems: College (150 periods, learning English in the first term of the three years) and Vocational training (120 periods, learning English in the first term of the first year) The college students learn Headway elementary as their GE in 60 periods, then they learn English for Nurses by David Austin & Tim Crosfield in 90 periods The students of vocational training learn

GE from our self-designed coursebooks in 60 periods, and then they have to learn

30 periods of ESP We think that coursebook English for Nurses by David Austin

& Tim Crosfield is not proper for the intermediate students because of many reasons

First of all, this coursebook has 24 units, and students have to learn each unit in 2 or 3 periods But they have only 30 periods for learning ESP, so they can only learn some selected units from this book Secondly, there is a huge amount

of vocabulary in one unit, which is difficult for the students of vocational training

to absorb and digest Thirdly, all the new words and grammar structures are explained in English, which causes many challenges for the students when mastering ESP because after learning 60 periods of GE, they cannot read the whole books in English And finally, English for Nurses was designed by David Austin & Tim Crosfield in 1960s, so it is dated and does not interest the learners

For the above reasons, I wish to design an appropriate syllabus that meets not only the students‟ needs but also the requirements of the curriculum

2 1 3 The teaching staff

There are four teachers in our English group, aged between 30-38 All of us were graduated from Universities Among us, one has got M.A degree and one is studying for M.A degree at Vietnam National University All of the teachers are rather young and enthusiastic, so they are eager to learn and implement new methods in teaching The problem is that none of us has taken any ESP course, but

we have to teach ESP for the students That‟s why we face challenges in teaching ESP

2 1 4 The target students

The English level of our students is a big problem because the students are

of different ages, and different language background Most of them have left schools, they are young and active as well as get used to involving class activities They can absorb and digest knowledge fast and easily Moreover, many students have rather good command of English because they have taken English courses

in English centers or at higher secondary schools meanwhile the students from rural areas learnt little In contrast, some older students, aged from 30 to 50, have lower level of English They are slow in getting new things and information, so they hardly catch up with their classmates Furthermore, they did not have English learning background because they learnt Russian when at school The different levels of the students have caused many difficulties for the English learning and teaching process In addition, not all students are fully aware of the need of English for their future jobs, some of them need to learn English only to pass the end-of-term examination, so the motivation in studying is not the same

2 2 The study

2 2 1 The subjects

The first subject of my study is 40 students who are sampled from the Nursing department at Haiphong Medical College, 30 female and 10 male students aged between 18- 19 They have similar English learning background They all have been learning English as a compulsory subject at secondary school

The second subject is 4 English teachers (one of them has been teaching English for 9 years, one for 8 years, one for 7 years and one for 5 years)

And the third subject is 5 teachers of specialized subjects at the Nursing department

2 2 2 Instruments for collecting data

Three questionnaires and an interview are conducted to get the data

The first questionnaire for English teachers has 4 sections designed to identify the suggestions on the objectives of the syllabus, the topics needed, the grammatical structures and the exercises

The second questionnaire designed in Vietnamese for the students is also divided into 3 sections:

- Section 1 finds out the expectations, opinions on the objectives of the ESP course

- Section 2 concerns on the topics needed for the syllabus

- Section 3 focuses on the grammar, structures for the syllabus

The third questionnaire for specialized subject teachers is about topics needed in the syllabus The questionnaire is in Vietnamese so that the teachers can understand and answer the questions correctly

I delivered 49 copies of 3 questionnaires at the beginning of July, before the summer holidays, and all of them were returned with reasonable answers Then I started to analyze them to take the findings for my syllabus

2 2 3 The findings

2.2.3.1 Analysis from English teachers’ questionnaire

2.2.3.1.1 Teachers’ opinions on objectives needed meeting at the end of ESP course

Priority Numbers of teachers/ % Items Objectives 1 st 2 nd 3 rd 4 th 5 th

1 To build up English terms of

medical field used in books,

documents and special newspapers

and magazines

0 0%

0 0%

3 75%

1 25%

0 0%

2 To understand a number of

concepts relating to medicine

4 100%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

3 To communicate with specialists in

the field of medicine

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

2 50%

2 50%

4 To consolidate and improve basic

grammar used in specific texts

0 0%

3 75%

0 0%

0 0%

1 25%

5 To translate books, documents and

newspapers relating to medicine form

English to Vietnamese and vice

versa

0 0%

1 25%

0 0%

3 75%

0 0%

Table 1 Teachers’ ranking of the objectives in the ESP course

Section I of the questionnaire contains five objectives needed at the end of the ESP course (see the table above) As can be seen, most of English teachers choose the second item (with the high percentage of 100%) the most important one that our students have to achieve in the ESP course With the percentage of 75%, the item 4 is ranked the second The item 1- building up English terms of medical field is considered necessary in learning ESP so it is got the third priority According to the results, translating books, documents and newspapers relating to medicine is ranked the fourth with the percentage of 75% And the last item with the percentage of 50% ranked the fifth in terms of the importance because we think

that communicating with specialists in the field of medicine is difficult for students From the above results, I will focus on the 3 items that receive higher percentage in terms of the important ones as the objectives of the ESP course

2.2.3.1.2 Teachers’ selection of topics needed in the ESP syllabus

Chart 1 Teachers’ selection of topics needed in the ESP syllabus

Section II shows 9 topics relating to medicine Topic 1: Pulse, Topic 2: Faeces, Topic 3: Instruments, Topic 4: Disinfectants and antiseptics, Topic 5: In the casualty, Topic 6: In the ward, Topic 7: Observation of the patient, Topic 8: Admissions, Topic 9: Sterile procedures

Our students learn ESP in only 30 class periods, so I will select 7 topics that

have the high positive responses of the students and teachers

The charts indicate that most of English teachers choose 8 topics with the high percentage over 50% (both very appropriate and appropriate) With 100% of choice (very appropriate), the topics 2, 3 and 8 ranked the first Coming next is the topic 1 with the high percentage of 75% Ranking at the third priority, the topic 9 and 7 are achieved 75% of the teachers‟ supports Together, the topics 5 and 6 get 50% of the teachers‟ agreement However, with the percentage of below 50%, the topics 4 is considered not appropriate, it is not included in the syllabus

2.2.3.1.3 Teachers’ selection of grammar and structures needed in the syllabus

Items Grammar-structures Very Appropriate Not

Table 2.Teachers’ selection of grammar and structures needed in the syllabus

It can be seen from the above table that 8 grammatical structures are chosen by most of the English teachers Obviously items 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8 and 10 are considered necessary for the students and are completely agreed with the percentage of over 50% The item 5 is considered very appropriate with 25% and appropriate with 25% , so it should be taken in the syllabus And the rest two items with 100% teachers think that they are not appropriate, they are not included in the syllabus Overall, our teachers agreed that these 8 grammatical structures will help the students consolidate and improve their English they have learnt from the General English

2.2.3.1.4 Teachers’ selection of skills and language exercises

%

Reading

skills

a choosing one of the titles that fits the text best

b choosing key words or sentences relating to the topics of each paragraph

c recognizing the topics that are dealt with in the text

d choosing the text that deals with the topics

Scanning

e scanning the bibliography and pick out the text which is likely to yield information on the topics in a given text

f scanning the text for specific information presented by the teacher before reading

Identifying the topics of the paragraph

g choosing the correct topic sentence

h deciding which sentence fits into which paragraph

Recognizing and interpreting cohesive devices

i Interpreting reference and substitution

j Ellipsis

Utilizing non-text information

k Filling in the table with information from the reading text

l.Completing a text using information from the diagram

m.Writing down all information a diagram represents

n Drawing a diagram or a graph to present information in the text

Types of questions

o Short answer questions

p Long answer questions

4(100%) 3(75%)

2(50%) 2(50%)

3(75%)

4(50%)

4(100%) 3(75%)

4(100%) 1(25%)

4(100%)

1(25%) 1(25%) 1(25%)

4(100%) 4(100%) 4(100%)

q Multiple choice questions

Other exercises

r Summarizing the text

s Deciding whether the statements are true or false according to the text

3(75%) 4(100%)

d Completing the sentences

e Combining the sentences using connectors

4(100%) 3(75%) 3(75%) 3(75%) 2(50%)

Table 3 Teachers’ selection of skills and language exercises

To improve students‟ reading skills, the designer suggests seven skills which usually appear in reading comprehension tasks English teachers were asked

to tick the skills they think necessary for students From the table, it can be said that the English teachers agree with most of the items the designer gives with the percentage of 50% and more Significantly, items 1a, 1f, 1g, 1i, 1k, 1o, 1p, 1q, 1s get the positive supports of 100% from the teachers In the contrary, the item 1g, 1l, 1m, 1n get only 25% of the teachers‟ agreement, so it will be omitted from the syllabus because most of the teachers think it is not appropriate

There are four kinds of vocabulary exercises and all of them are chosen by the teachers, especially the item 2c with the percentage of 100% And the rest