Teaching ESP to students of accounting major at Hai Duong College of Economics and Technology Dạy tiếng Anh chuyên ngành cho sinh viên chuyên ngành kế toán tại

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES PHAN THỊ HIỀN TEACHING ESP TO STUDENTS OF ACCOUNTING MAJOR AT

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

PHAN THỊ HIỀN

TEACHING ESP TO STUDENTS OF ACCOUNTING MAJOR AT

HAI DUONG COLLEGE OF ECONOMICS AND

TECHNOLOGY: PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

(Dạy tiếng Anh chuyên ngành cho sinh viên chuyên ngành Kế toán tại trường Cao

đẳng Kinh tế- Kỹ thuật Hải Dương: Vấn đề và giải pháp)

M.A Minor thesis

Field: English teaching methodology

Code: 60 14 10

Hanoi, 2010

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

PHAN THỊ HIỀN

TEACHING ESP TO STUDENTS OF ACCOUNTING MAJOR AT

HAI DUONG COLLEGE OF ECONOMICS AND

TECHNOLOGY: PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

(Dạy tiếng Anh chuyên ngành cho sinh viên chuyên ngành Kế toán tại trường Cao

đẳng Kinh tế- Kỹ thuật Hải Dương: Vấn đề và giải pháp)

M.A Minor thesis

Field: English teaching methodology

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certificate of originality of the thesis ………i

Acknowledgements ……… ii

Abstract ……… iii

Table of contents ……… …iv

List of abbreviations ……… vi

List of tables and charts ……… vii

PART A: INTRODUCTION ………1

1 Rationales ……… … ……….……… 1

2 Aims of the study ……….………1

3 Methods of the study ……… ………….……… ……….2

4 Scope of the study ……… …….… ……… 2

5 Organization of the study ……… ……… …….……….2

PART B: DEVELOPMENT ……….3

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW ……… …………3

1.1 Overview of ESP ……….… ……….…… 3

1.1.1 Definition ……… ………….………… ……… 3

1.1.2 Classification of ESP ……… ……….4

1.2 Roles of ESP teachers ……… …….……… ……… 5

1.3 Development and approaches to teach ESP…….……… ………… … … 6

1.4 Difficulties in teaching ESP ……….….……… ……… …… 8

CHAPTER 2: THE TEACHING CONTEXT … ……….…………11

2 1 ESP course and the objectives of teaching and learning ESP … … …… 11

2 2 The teachers ……… ………….……… 11

2 3 The learners ……… ………… ………12

2 4 The materials ……… … ………… 13

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ………… ……….……… … 15

3.1 Research questions ……… ………15

3.2 Participants ………… ……….……… ….….… ……….……… 15

3.3 Data collection instrument ………… ……… ……… ……… … ………15

3.4 Data collection procedure ……….……… ………16

3.5 Data analysis procedure ……… ……… … ………16

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ……… ……… 17

4.1 Teachers’ and students’ attitudes toward the ESP course ……… … ……… 17

4.2 Difficulties in teaching ESP ……… ………… 18

4.2.1.Difficulties in terms of teachers ……… …… 18

4.2.1.1 Teachers’ background knowledge of the subject matter…… ……… 18

4.2.1.2 ESP teaching methodology ……… ………19

4.2.2 Difficulties in terms of students ……… ……… 23

4.2.2.1 Students’ background knowledge ……… ……… 23

4.2.2.2 Students’ competence in reading skill ……… ………25

4.2.3 Difficulties in dealing with the current teaching material ……… …… 26

4.3 Teachers’ and students’ expectations ………… 27

4.3.1 Teachers‟ opinions of the further training courses ………… ……….……27

4.3.2 Students‟ expectations in terms of teaching method …… ………….………….28

4.3.3 Teachers‟ and students‟ expectations in terms of teaching material ………….29

4.3.4 Teachers‟ and students‟ views of using supplementary materials …… ………30

4.3.5 Teachers‟ and students‟ opinions about the time of ESP course ……….… … 31

CHAPTER 5: RECOMMENDATIONS … ……… ……… 32

5.1 Improving teachers’ professional knowledge ……… … 32

5.2 Improving ESP teaching methodology 32

5.3 Improving teachers’ classroom techniques ……… ……… 33

5.4 Helping students to enrich their background knowledge ……….….…… 36

5.5 Developing teaching materials ……….….…… 37

5.5.1 Adapting the current course book……….….…….37

5.5.2 Providing appropriate supplementary materials ……….………… …….38

PART C: CONCLUSION ……….………….….… 39

1 Conclusion of the study ……….………… …….….….39

2 Limitations and suggestions for further study ……… ……….….….40

REFERENCES ……… …41 APPENDICES……….I Appendix 1: Questionnaire for the teachers ………I Appendix 2 Questionnaire for the students ………V Appendix 3: Sample Unit 13: Liabilities ………XIII

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ESP: English for specific purposes

GE: General English

EAP: English for Academic Purposes

EOP: English for Occupational Purposes

HCET: Hai Duong College of Economics and Technology No: Number

Ts: Teachers

Sts: Students

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

Table 1: Teachers‟ training in Economics and Accounting fields

Table 2: Teachers‟ frequency of enriching specialized knowledge

Table 3: The teachers‟ focuses in ESP lesson and students‟ responses

Table 4: Forms of practice in ESP lesson and students‟ responses

Table 5: The frequency of using pre-reading techniques and students‟ responses Table 6: The frequency of using while-reading techniques and students‟ responses Table 7: The frequency of using post-reading techniques and students‟ responses Table 8: Students‟ background knowledge of subject matter

Table 9: Students‟ English competence

Table 10: Teachers‟ and students‟ opinions about the current course book

Table 11: Teachers‟ opinions of the further training courses on Economics and

Accounting

Table 12: Students‟ expectations in terms of teaching method

Table 13: Teachers‟ and students‟ expectations in terms of material

Table 14: The reasons for using supplementary materials

Table 15: Teachers‟ and students‟ opinions about the time of ESP course

Chart 1: Attitudes toward the importance of ESP course for the students‟ future job Chart 2: Teachers‟ and students‟ opinions about the current ESP course

Chart 3: Students‟ competence in reading skill from the views of teachers and students Chart 4: Teachers‟ and students‟ opinions of using supplementary materials

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationales

The turn of the century has witnessed the dramatic growth in Vietnamese economics and the ensued reforms in its education sector, specifically, the reform of its language education In every school curriculum, English has become a compulsory subject and in higher education, “English majors” have been set up in many Vietnamese universities English education then has since been divided into two phases; one being devoted to the general education of English knowledge and the cultivation of English skills, the other being devoted to English education for specific purposes The coming into being and the development of English for specific purpose (ESP) education can be seen as a natural

response toward the socioeconomic development of contemporary Vietnam and the

globalization of the international community With the purpose of providing vocational English knowledge in specific disciplines, the ESP courses train the graduates to become the comprehensive language talents that are urgently needed in many sectors in today‟s Vietnamese society

Being aware of the importance of ESP, Hai Duong College of Economics and Technology

(HCET) has introduced the ESP course into the college curriculum since 2002 Since then,

the teaching ESP at HCET has been improved, however, some problems in teaching ESP have emerged and need to be solved This current situation has aroused the author‟s interest

For the reasons above, the author has decided to carry out the study of “Teaching ESP to students of accounting major at Hai Duong College of Economics and Technology: problems and solutions”

2 Aims of the study

The study aims at:

- Investigating the teachers‟ and students‟ attitudes toward the ESP course

- Examining the difficulties in teaching ESP to students of Accounting major at HCET

- Offering some suggested solutions for the current ESP course

It is hoped that the findings of this study will make some contributions to the improvement

of teaching ESP at Hai Duong College of Economics and Technology in particular and teaching ESP in general

3 Method of the study

In order to achieve the aims mentioned above, the author conducted the study in the form

of a survey research The major method used in this thesis is quantitative one All the problems and suggestions given in this thesis are based on the analysis of data collected from the questionnaires responded by both teachers and students at Hai Duong College of Economics and Technology

4 Scope of the study

Teaching ESP is a broad issue Due to the limited time, the researcher just focuses on the problems in teaching ESP to the first - year students of Accounting major at Hai Duong College of Economics and Technology The problems explored are limited in terms of the students‟ and teachers‟ background knowledge, teaching methodology and teaching material

In addition, the emphasis of the current ESP course is reading skill Therefore, when examining the problems concerning with teaching method, the researcher focuses on the method of teaching reading ESP

5 Design of the study

This study comprises six chapters as follows

Part A: Introduction presents the rationales for the study and set up the aims, the method,

the scope and the design of the study

Part B: Development consists of 5 chapters

Chapter 1: deals with the theoretical background of the current study that is relevant to

the research topic including the overview of ESP, roles of ESP teachers, the development and approaches to teach ESP and some difficulties in teaching ESP

Chapter 2: describes the current situation of teaching and learning ESP at the Accounting

Department in HCET

Chapter 3: introduces the research methodology

Chapter 4: focuses on analyzing the collected data and discussing the findings of the study Chapter 5: provides some suggested solutions for the current problems

Part C: Conclusion summarizes the issues addressed and points out some limitations and

makes some suggestions for further research

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

Much time and energy has been devoted to the study of teaching ESP so far This chapter reviews some authors‟ viewpoints concerning with ESP and ESP teaching in order to build

up the theoretical background for the study, which consists of four main parts: overview of ESP, roles of ESP teachers, development and approaches to teach ESP and difficulties in teaching ESP

1.1 Overview of ESP

1.1.1 Definition

Despite the fact that it is an approach which has been widely used over the last three decades, there has been considerable recent debate about what ESP means Definitions of ESP in the literature are relatively late in time, if we assume that ESP began in the 1960s Hutchinson and Water (1987:19) emphasized that ESP should be seen as an approach, not

a product It is an approach which is directed by specific and apparent reasons for learning Likewise, Strevens (1988: 1) stated that “ESP is a particular case of the general category of special – purpose language teaching ” He defined ESP by making a distinction between its absolute and variable characteristics

Four absolute characteristics are:

1- designed to meet specified needs of the learner;

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

3- centered on language appropriate to those activities in syntax, lexis discourse, semantics and so on, and analysis of the discourse;

4- in contrast with „General English‟

Two variable characteristics are:

1- may be restricted as to the learning skills to be learned (for example reading only);

2- may not be taught according to any pre-ordained methodology

The second absolute characteristic may confirm the impression held by many teachers that ESP is always and necessarily related to subject content Dudley-Evans and St John (1998) modified Strevens‟ definition by suggesting the following absolute characteristics and variable characteristics

The absolute characteristics are :

1- ESP is designed to meet specific needs of the learner;

2- ESP makes use of the underlying methodology and activities of the disciplines it serves;

3- ESP is centered on the language (grammar, lexis, register), skills, discourse and genre appropriate to these activities

The variable characteristics are:

1- ESP may be related to or designed for specific disciplines;

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

of general English;

3- 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 used for learners at secondary school level;

4- ESP is generally designed for intermediate or advanced students Most ESP courses assume basic knowledge of the language system, but it can be used with beginners

To sum up, all the above definitions show that ESP is a language skill course However, its domains not only relate to distinctive content, but also to discipline- specific lexis, genres and registers (Munby, 1978) Therefore, in terms of ESP teaching methodology, there could be some differences in comparison with that in the General Purpose English class

1.1.2 Classification of ESP

Traditionally, ESP can be classified into two major groups according to when they take place: English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) Robinson (1991) showed a distinction between these two areas in the following tree diagram

Pre-experience

EOP Simultaneous/ in- service

Post-experience ESP Pre-study

For study in a specific discipline In-study EEP/EAP Post-study

Independent

As a school subject Integrated

Figure 1: ESP Classification by experience

(Robinson, 1991, taken from Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998:6)

The diagram above indicates that the specific ESP course will depend largely on whether is

it categorized as EAP or EOP The divison of ESP into EAP and EOP according to when they take place is very important because “they will affect the degree of specificity that is appropriate to the course” (Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998:6)

Another division of ESP divides EAP and EOP according to discipline or professional area

in the following way:

English for specific purposes

English for Academic Purposes English for Occupational Purposes

English For Management Finance and Economics

Figure 2: ESP Classification by professional area

(Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998:6) From the figure above, it is obvious that ESP which is taught to students of Accounting major at Hai Duong college of Economics and Technology belongs to English for Management Finance and Economics and it is a type of English for Academic Purposes

1 2 Roles of ESP teachers

As ESP teaching is extremely varied, some authors (Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998) use the term “practitioner” rather than “teacher” to refer to those who are in charge of ESP teaching This also emphasizes that ESP work involves much more than teaching According to Dudley-Evans and St John (1998), ESP practitioner can have several roles as follows:

- The ESP practitioner as a teacher: ESP is a practical discipline with the most important

objective of helping students to learn However, the ESP teacher is not in the position of being the primary knower of the content of the material (Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998: 13) The students may know more about the content than the teacher Therefore, the

English for

Professional Purposes

English for Vocational Purposes

English For Medical purposes

English For Business Purposes

Pre- Vocational English

Vocational English

teacher has the opportunity to draw on students‟ knowledge of the content in order to generate communication in the classroom ESP teachers need to have considerable flexibility, be willing to listen to learners, take interest in the disciplines or professional activities which the students are involved in, and to take some risks in their teaching

- The ESP practitioner as a course designer and material provider: Dudley-Evans and St

John (1998:14) stated that it is rarely possible to use a particular textbook without the need for supplementary material and sometimes no really suitable published material exists for identified needs Therefore, ESP practitioners often have to provide the material for the course This involves selection of published material, adapting material if it is not suitable,

or even writing it ESP teachers also need to assess the effectiveness of the used teaching material whether it is published or self-produced

- The ESP practitioner as a researcher: In Dudley-Evans and St John‟s opinion (1998:15),

“Research has been particularly strong in the area of English for Academic Purposes” and

“ESP teachers need to be aware of and in touch with this research”; “those carrying out a need analysis, designing a course, or writing teaching materials need to be capable of incorporating the findings of the research, and those working in specific ESP situations need to be confident that they know what is involved in”

- The ESP practitioner as a collaborator: It is believed that subject-specific work is often

best approached through collaboration with subject specialist (Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998: 16) The fullest collaboration is where a subject expert and a language teacher team-

teach classes

- The ESP practitioner as an evaluator: The ESP practitioner is often involved in various

types of evaluation: testing the students, evaluating the courses and the teaching materials (Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998: 16) Doing these kinds of evaluation, especially through discussion and on-going needs analysis can be used to adapt the syllabus

In brief, ESP teachers as a practitioner have many roles in ESP teaching Hutchison and Waters (1987), hence, assumed that “adaptability” and “flexibility” are the foremost requirements of an ESP teacher

1 3 Development and approaches to teach ESP

In the past forty years or so, for ESP to attain its current status, five phases have evolved The first stage took place mainly in the 1960s and early 1970s This stage was marked by

the register analysis, called the register analysis approach Analyzing specific registers

aimed at identifying the grammatical and lexical features These features were taken into

teaching materials In fact, several early ESP materials designers analyzed large corpora of specialized texts to establish the statistical contours of different registers

The reaction against register analysis in the early 1970s brought about the concept of text: the discourse analysis, which focused on the communicative values of discourse rather than the lexical and grammatical properties of register Allen and Widdowson (1974) set out the approach and made it a major development in ESP in the 1970s They introduced the basic hypotheses of this stage that the learners‟ needs “can not be met by a course which simply provides further practice in the composition of sentences, but only by one which develops a knowledge of how sentences are used in the performance of different communicative acts” Therefore, the discourse analysis approach focused on the way sentences are used in the performance of acts of communication and developed materials based on functions Such functions included definitions, generalizations, inductive statements, deductive statements, descriptions of processes, descriptions of sequences of events, and descriptions of devices Nevertheless, the discourse analysis approach soon came under attack for being too fragmentary to combine these functions to make longer texts Robinson (1981) stated that "We are given little idea of how these functions combine

to make longer texts." The concept of text - the genre analysis approach - came to make up

for this shortcoming This approach considers text as a total entity, rather than a collection

of unrelated units Hutchison and Waters (1987:11) conveyed the idea in the following way: "…but now attention shifted to understanding how sentences were combined in discourse to produce meaning” This, as Johnson (1993) said, can be achieved by seeking

to identify the overall pattern of text through a series of phases or moves

In the mid-1970s, materials developers came to see learners' purposes rather than specialist language as the driving force behind ESP The conception of need - the target situation analysis - was to lead the way This phase did not add anything new to the knowledge about ESP but set the exiting knowledge on a more scientific basic by “establishing procedures for relating language analysis more closely to learners‟ reason for learning” (Hutchinson and Water, 1987:12) The learners‟ needs since then have been placed at the center of the course design process

All the above stages of the developments of ESP focus on the surface forms of the languages (at the sentence level or beyond the sentence), the next stage has attempted “to look below the surface” and “consider not the language itself but the thinking processes that underline language uses” (Hutchinson and Water, 1987:13) This stage drew attention

to skills and strategies – the skills-centered approach The focus of this approach should be

on the underlying interpretive strategies rather than on the surface forms of the language and “a focus on specific register subject is unnecessary in this approach because the underlying processes are not specific to any subject register” (Hutchinson and Water, 1987:13)

Finally, the attention to strategy analysis gave rise to a new generation of ESP materials based on the conception of learning, that is, learning-centered approaches:

"Our concern in ESP is not with language use-although this will help to define the course objectives Our concern is with language learning We cannot simply assume that describing and exemplifying what people do with language will enable someone

to learn it … A truly valid approach to ESP must be based on an understanding of the processes of language learning." (Hutchinson and Waters, 1982:14)

In short, the development of ESP is in accordance with the development of ELT Moving from the register analysis to a more task-based and learning- centered approach, ESP today

is a branch which is gaining increasingly important role in both academic and business world

1 4 Difficulties in teaching ESP

According to Robinson (1991), teachers may encounter many problems in number of aspects of ESP teaching The difficulties come from students, teachers themselves, teaching materials and other teaching and learning conditions

Firstly, teachers have problems in teaching ESP to students of different language background Strang (1972) asserted that the readers would have different levels of comprehension of the same text because they start from different positions Moreover, Dudley-Evans and St John (1998:5) stated “ESP is generally designed for intermediate or advanced students Most ESP courses assume basic knowledge of the language system” However, many students do not acquire that level of language proficiency when they take ESP course, though they have taken part in General English course before As a result, ESP students are not motivated enough to learn ESP In Vietnam, this problem becomes worse because not all students study English at school and normally, there is a big gap in terms of language proficiency between students from big cities and ones from rural areas The second problem concerns with teachers themselves According to Hutchison and Waters (1987:161), ESP teachers “must know something about the subject matters of ESP materials” It means that ESP teachers must acquire the basic knowledge of the subject

matter However, many ESP teachers have limited background knowledge of specialized subjects Most ESP teachers are shifted from General English teaching “They need, therefore, to orientate themselves to a new environment for which they have generally been ill-prepared” (Hutchison, 1987: 157) Robinson (1980:83) also mentioned this problem of the ESP teachers as “lack of sufficient preparation time” The major problem that ESP teachers deal with is teaching method Dudley-Evans and St John (1998:4) stated that “all ESP teaching should reflect the methodology of the disciplines and professions it serves” and “interaction between teacher and learner may be very different from that in general English class” It means that “ESP teaching has its own methodology”, which must be different from that of General English teaching Teaching methods must be learner oriented In other words, ESP is concerned, first and foremost, with satisfying the real needs of the students and not with revealing the knowledge of the teacher Therefore, the intensive and efficient teaching of grammar, vocabulary, translation, etc must be scientifically grounded and concentrate only on those items which students actually need for the purposes specified at the beginning of the university or college course This is an important statement which, in theory, is universally accepted but in practice is hardly ever followed

Another aspect connected with difficulties in teaching ESP is teaching and learning material According to Tom Hutchinson and Alan Waters, “the ESP syllabus is usually derived from a detailed analysis of the language features of the target situation” (Tom Hutchinson and Alan Waters, 1987: 92) However, many ESP materials have been limited

to specialized lexicon and sentence structures This demonstrated that the ESP syllabus designers have ignored learners‟ personal interests when designing these materials This, in turn, resulted in learners‟ low motivation in English studies and poor performance later when they started to use English in their future profession

Some other teaching and learning conditions may be the challenges for both teachers and students such as the class size, teaching and learning equipments, psychological factors, etc Teachers have problems in teaching in large classes There is a fact that large class has negative impact on both teaching and learning, not only in EGP but also ESP course Large class size reduces students‟ participation, and leads to lowered motivation Or, considering psychological factors, learning a foreign language, like no other subjects, requires a special psychological approach, the atmosphere of relaxation, trust even love and faith Indeed, learning a strange language, a strange world picture, strange (often – alien) mentality is a

difficult psychological barrier for many learners Teaching foreign languages to students of non-philological specialities is complicated by the fact that for these students a foreign language is not a part of the special, professional education, which may result in a lack of motivation

To sum up, this chapter has presented a brief theoretical background of ESP regarding the definition, classification, roles of ESP teachers as well as the development and approaches

to teach ESP This chapter has also reviewed some difficulties that ESP teachers may cope with when teaching ESP

CHAPTER 2: THE TEACHING CONTEXT

This chapter describes in detail the context of the study, which is a description of ESP course and the objectives of teaching and learning ESP, the students, the teachers and the ESP materials used at HCET

2.1 ESP course and the objectives of teaching and learning ESP

At Hai Duong college of Economics and Technology ESP, the compulsory subject in the college curriculum, is introduced to the first year students of Accounting Department in the second term The time for ESP course is 75 periods The course must totally cover 17 units, each of which lasts from 4 to 5 periods, in the course book “English for Economics and Accounting” (see 3.1.4) Students learn ESP in large classes with more than 60 students Each week, they have 3 or 5 periods to study ESP

At Accounting Department, ESP, though compulsory, is not considered as a main subject

In addition, the target of teaching ESP for students of Accounting major is to provide them with English in Economics and Accounting; that is, after ESP course, students are able to read books and materials related to their major Therefore, teaching ESP aims at improving students‟ reading skill and familiarizing them with specializing English language in Economics and Accounting fields

For the students of Accounting major, taking part in the ESP course can satisfy their own needs The first and foremost purpose is to pass the final exam at the end of the term to complete the college curriculum Besides this, they study ESP to meet the demand of the society, which is language competence, in order to find a good job after graduation

In short, the objectives of ESP courses is to provide students with basic knowledge of English used in specific fields such as Economics and Accounting

In terms of methodology, the teachers in our college usually employ the traditional methods of teaching especially Grammar-translation method They often apply this method

in teaching General English courses, even with the textbook designed according to

communicative approach as New Headway In other words, they focus on analyzing the grammar rules, not on the acquisition of language skills In ESP course, due to the features and contents of the text book (see 3.1.4), the requirement of the ESP course is to teach mainly reading skill to all students However, ESP teachers at HCET, who are used to traditional teaching method, spend most of the classroom time explaining new terminologies, analyzing grammar structures and translating texts into Vietnamese Students often listen and take notes passively This leads to low motivation in students and creates very few chances for them to improve their communicative competence, especially

in their major

2.3 The learners

There are several specific features relating to the students of Accounting major at Hai Duong college of Economics and Technology First, all of them study ESP as a compulsory subject of their academic studies They start to learn ESP in the second term of the first year In the first term, they study General English course using New Headway Elementary by John & Liz Soars Therefore, they are supposed to acquire the most basic English at the Elementary level Second, it is difficult to say that their language competence is of the same because they all failed the university entrance exam and were enrolled in the college, basing on the total marks of Maths, Physics and Chemistry, which they got in university entrance exam As a result, many of them are at the low level of English proficiency Another fact is that most of the students are from rural areas in Hai Duong province, some from Hai Duong city and very few from other provinces Consequently, individual differences in learning styles, identities, attitudes, motivation, etc are unavoidable and may cause the teachers some problems during their ESP teaching

In addition, those students start to learn ESP without having learnt any specialized subjects This, according to Marry Schleppegrell and Brenda Bowman (1986:7), does not “enhance their ability to acquire English” because, in Marry Schleppegrell and Brenda Bowman‟s opinion, “subject matter knowledge gives [the students] the context they need to understand the English of the classroom” In other words, when the students lack knowledge of their major, they will have difficulties in ESP classroom

Apart from that, students at HCET have problems in learning ESP reading, which is the most focused in the ESP course The reason is that, in General English course, reading skill

is ignored and all the reading texts are only for reference Therefore, students are lack of reading skill competence when learning ESP reading

Another problem is their bad habit of learning Many students tend to depend too much on the given textbook and the teachers for knowledge This dependent habit of learning makes them more passive in English class

2.4 The materials

It is known that there are two sources of materials in teaching and learning ESP, which are published materials and in-house materials The published materials have been officially published and are available in the markets These materials are written by the experts who have a lot of experience and expertise in the specific field Obviously, this kind of materials is useful for both teachers and students However, they are often criticized for not satisfying students‟ specific needs The second kind of ESP materials is in –house materials which are collected form various popular books by the teachers in the college The writers of in-house materials understand well the situation of teaching ESP to their students, so the texts in these textbooks were shortened and simplified and adapted to fit the language level of students Therefore, it can be said that this kind of materials can make

up for the shortcoming of the published textbooks

The material “English in Economics and Accounting” used to teach students of Accounting major is in- house material However, the problem is that this material is also used for students of Economics major It is the collection of seventeen reading texts taken mainly from two books: English in Finance (Cao Xuan Thieu, 2006) and English in Economics and Business (Sarah Bales, Do Thi Nu & Ha Kim Anh, 2003), with topics related to both Economics and Accounting fields However, the topics in Economics are not the interests of students of Accounting major This does not only lead to students‟ low motivation but also causes them many difficulties when using the textbook

The current course book consists of seventeen units Each unit is divided into four parts The first and also the most important part is the reading text with comprehension questions Each reading text is adapted in such a way that makes the content “learnable” to all students The second part is the language focus This part explains some grammatical points in the reading text There are also some related exercises for students to practise The third part is word-study with some vocabulary exercises designed for students to practice the new terminologies in the reading text such as matching, gap-filling At the end

of each unit are some new words or terminologies extracted from the reading text with the Vietnamese equivalences

The textbook is rather ineffective in some ways Firstly, the material focuses only on reading and writing Other skills are neglected Secondly, it is rather monotonous as it

provides students with the same types of exercises to practice In this current course book, comprehension questions and the same kinds of word-study exercises are found in every unit Finally, some topics in this material are not related to students‟ major The topics in Economics are not the major concerns of the students at Accounting Department This shortcoming demotivates students

In summary, although it has a number of good points, the current ESP text book for students of Accounting major does not satisfy both teachers and students at HCET Basing

on these facts the researcher carried out the study following the research methodology which is mentioned in the next part

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter clarifies the methodology that the researcher used to conduct the study, which includes a thorough description of respondents and of the way data were collected as well

as the analytical procedure to draw conclusions

3.1 Research questions

Before presenting a thorough description of the participants, data collection instrument, data collection procedure and data analysis procedure, it is necessary to reconfirm that the study was conducted to answer the three following research questions:

- What are the teachers‟ and students‟ attitudes toward the ESP course?

- What are the difficulties in teaching ESP to students of Accounting major at HCET?

- What do teachers and students expect to change for the current ESP course?

3.2 Participants

The target population for this study comprises 1053 students at Accounting Department and 10 teachers of English at Department of foreign languages in HCET The sample included 7 full-time teachers of English who have taught ESP and 100 first year students at Accounting Department, who were selected at random from 4 classes: K90301, K90203, K90303, K90304

The participants in the survey were those who have taught ESP and 100 students All the teachers were female and have had at least two or more years‟ experience teaching ESP Six teachers were ranged in age from twenty- seven to thirty- six Only one teacher was at the age of forty-nine They all have had Diploma degree in English One teacher had the Master degree and one was taking the Master course in English

100 students involved in this study were the first year students Of these 100 students, 75

of them were female and 25 of them were male Their age ranged from 19 to 23 All the

students have been learning English for at least 3 years or more The study was conducted

at the end of the second semester in the first school year Thus, the students were likely to finish the ESP course

3.3 Data collection instrument

Questionnaire is chosen as a form of data collection instrument Two forms of survey questionnaires were devised for two groups of respondents (one for teachers, one for students) Most questions were multiple-choice questions 13 questions written in English were designed for teachers and 13 questions written in Vietnamese were for students The

survey questionnaire aimed at seeking information concerning:

- Teachers‟ and students‟ attitudes toward the ESP course

- Teachers‟ background of the subject matter

- Students‟ background of the subject matter and students‟ language competence

- The teaching method employed in ESP lesson

- Teachers‟ and students‟ views about the current course book

- Teachers‟ and students‟ expectations for an effective ESP course

As mentioned in part 3.1.1, the emphasis of teaching ESP at HCET is ESP reading skill Therefore, in order to find out the teachers‟ methodology in ESP lesson, the author designed the questions about the teachers‟ focus in ESP lesson, the forms of practice and the techniques used in teaching reading ESP

3.4 Data collection procedure

Data collection was conducted via questionnaire for both teachers and students First, the author developed the questionnaire basing on three aspects, which were considered before the survey, including attitudes toward ESP course, difficulties in teaching ESP and expectations for an effective ESP course Then, the data were collected during the last week of ESP course The researcher met students in class time, explained the pedagogical goal of the survey and asked them to answer the questionnaire Differently, the teachers were requested to complete and return the questionnaire in one week to ensure that they would have enough time to give detailed and accurate information

3 5 Data analysis procedure

The data collected from the questionnaires for teachers and students are synthesized in the

form of tables and charts The percentage method has been used because it has the advantage of ease and clarity Because of the relatively small size of the sample, there is no need to use sophisticated statistical methods

The results of questions in questionnaire are presented by ratios of options chosen and are analyzed in detail in the next chapter

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION This chapter is a detailed analysis of collected data The data will be presented in tables

and charts in order to answer three research questions about the teachers‟ and students‟ attitudes toward the ESP course, the difficulties in teaching ESP and expectations for an

effective ESP course

4.1 Teachers’ and students’ attitudes toward the ESP course

These two charts below summarize the answers to the first two questions in two questionnaires ( see appendix 1 and appendix 2)

Chart 1: Attitudes toward the importance of ESP course for the students’ future job

As can be seen from chart 1, the majority of the teachers and students ( 71.4% and 75% respectively) shared the same idea that ESP course was very important for the students‟ future job The scale of „important‟ reached the agreement of 28.6 % of teachers and 25%

of students None of them thought that ESP was not important This result can be explained

by the fact that both teachers and students at HCET are aware of the job requirements in today‟s society, which is an urgent need for the comprehensive language talents in each specific discipline Thus, they consider ESP important

Chart 2: Teachers’ and students’ opinions about the current ESP course

Chart 2 shows that 71.4 % teachers and 79% of students thought that ESP was a difficult subject for the first year students None of them (0%) considered it “easy” This could result from the fact that ESP is taught quite early in the academic curriculum (in the second term of the first school year) Therefore, the knowledge about the subject matter remains limited In addition, their low level of English proficiency is a real challenge for them to learn a new academic subject in English

4.4 Difficulties in teaching ESP

Questions 3 to 9 (in appendix 1 and 2) were used to seek the answer to the second research

question, which is about the difficulties in teaching ESP to the first year students of Accounting major at HCET The data collected are analyzed basing on 3 aspects: difficulties in terms of teachers, in terms of students and in terms of teaching material

4.4.1 Difficulties in terms of teachers

4.2.2.1 Teachers’ background knowledge of the subject matter

Table 1: Teachers’ training in Economics and Accounting fields

As regards the teachers‟ knowledge of Economics and Accounting fields, which is presented in table 1, 100% of teachers asked said that they had never been trained or taken any course in Economics or Accounting before This fact causes many difficulties when they deal with new terminologies in a text as well as its content As a result, they can not make them comprehensible to the students

Opinion Numbers of teachers Percentage

Ways to enrich knowledge Usually Sometimes Never

Table 2: Teachers’ frequency of enriching specialized knowledge

Table 2 indicates how often the teachers enrich their specialized knowledge It can be seen clearly from the table that most of ESP teachers (57.1%) usually read books in Economics and Accounting and searched the related information on Internet Only one teacher replied that she never accessed the Internet The explanation for this fact is that books and internet are available nowadays, teachers find it easy to get the useful information by these forms Meanwhile, only 14.3% of the teachers chose asking lecturers of accounting as a way they usually enrich their knowledge and a majority of them (71.4%) did not prefer to attend the Economics or Accounting lessons with students It can be said that although ESP teachers

at HECT are not trained in Economics or Accounting fields, most of them are active to

enrich their knowledge of the subject matter However, in order to self- equip the basic

knowledge of the subject matter, the teachers need to be more active and should employ various ways to enhance their knowledge

4.2.1.2 ESP teaching methodology

The methodology employed in ESP lesson is presented in the teachers‟ focuses in ESP lesson, the forms of practices and the techniques that teachers use in an ESP lesson

To the question of the teachers‟ focuses of teaching ESP (see question 6 in appendix 1 and 2), more than one choice is acceptable Table 3 displays the percentage that opinions are chosen

It can be seen from table 3, 85.7% of the teachers asked said that when teaching ESP, they focused most on new terminologies This viewpoint was shared by a large number of students (89%) It can be said that most teachers and students of Accounting major at HCET keep in mind that teaching and learning ESP are the teaching and learning new

terminologies The table also indicates a majority of teachers (71.4 %) choosing grammar

as their focus in ESP lesson This viewpoint was confirmed by 63% of the students Meanwhile, only 14.3 % of the teachers paid attention to the “language skills”, which was also chosen by 15% of the students It can be inferred from these findings that that in spite

of the improvement in method of foreign language teaching, teachers at HCET still focus

on such language items as grammar and vocabulary The language skills are neglected

This point of view results from the traditional method of teaching and learning that the teachers have used for a long time As a result, students can not obtain the language competence, which is also of great importance for an ESP learner

Table 4: Forms of practice in ESP lesson and students’ responses

Table 4 indicates the frequency of using different forms of practice in ESP lesson It is apparent that the form of individual practice is the most frequent choice with 57.1 % of the

teachers and 66 % of the students Ranked the second is “practice in class” that was often

used by 57.1 % of the teachers and 40% of the students confirmed this fact Two forms of practice ( in groups and in pairs) were not used frequently Only a small number of

students (17 % and 12 %) said that they usually practised in groups and in pairs

Meanwhile, a considerable number of teachers and students (28.6 % and 45 % respectively) said that they never used these forms of practice in ESP lesson As it has been proved in many studies (Long, 1985; Krashen, 1985), pair work and group work have brought many benefits to language learners in general and to ESP learners in particular However, ESP teachers at HCET do not employ these benefits frequently As a result, students have very few chances to practise the language skills, especially those which are related to their

profession

Tables 5, 6, 7 below illustrate the frequency of techniques used in ESP lesson As the focus

of ESP course is on reading skill, the techniques presented in these tables are those that the teachers apply in three stages of ESP reading lesson

the text

57.1% 46 % 28.6 % 32 % 14.3% 22%

Asking students to predict

the content of the text

Using games to introduce the

topic

Using visual aids to

introduce the topic

14.3% 25% 28.6 % 23 % 57.1% 52 %

Table 5: The frequency of using pre-reading techniques and students’ responses

Table 5 illustrates the degree to which the teachers use the pre-reading techniques and students‟ responses As can be seen from this table, in pre-reading stage, “using pre- reading questions” and “giving brief introduction of the text” were the most frequently used techniques with the choice of 57.1 % of the teachers A considerable number of students (42% and 46 %) admitted this fact These two techniques are used more often because teachers do not have to spend much time preparing as well as delivering them in class 71.4% of the teachers asserted that they sometimes used pre-teaching vocabulary technique, only 14.3% of them often used this technique Teachers believe that it is not necessary to apply this technique in all lessons because in their opinion, students can deal with the vocabulary themselves when preparing the text at home Other techniques such asasking students to predict the content of the text, using games or visual aids to introduce the topic are reported to be the least frequently used The number of teachers who never

used these techniques accounts for 71.4 % and 57.1 % This idea was supported by more

than half of students The explanation for this fact is that it takes much time to prepare such techniques as games, visual aids Moreover, predicting the content of the text seems

to be a hard task for students of not only low level of English proficiency but also insufficient knowledge of their major

While -reading techniques

Table 6: The frequency of using while-reading techniques and students’ responses

Table 6 displays the frequency of using while reading techniques in ESP reading lesson 85.7% of the teachers usually chose the technique of answering the comprehension question, which was confirmed by 83% of the students A small number of the teachers (28.6% and 14.3%) usually used other techniques such as skimming, scanning and inferring The reason for the frequent use of answering the comprehension question is that

it is considered as an easy task The questions are not very tricky and all the answers are available in the text Besides, this is the only task of while reading stage given in the

course book It can be said that the reading techniques have not been taught sufficiently;

therefore, the ESP texts have not been explored thoroughly In other words, teachers do not pay much attention to the development of students‟ reading competence as well as the exploration of ESP texts

Post –reading techniques

Table 7: The frequency of using post-reading techniques and students’ responses

In post- reading stage (table 7), all the teachers are reported to use the first two techniques frequently or sometimes A majority of teachers (57.1 %) often controlled this stage by asking students to translate the text and 59% of the students confirmed this fact 42.9 % of the teachers usually asked students to summarize the reading text These two techniques are used so often because they are good ways to help the students to gain deep understanding and memorize the text after reading As for the technique of “having discussion”, which is also useful not only in dealing with the content of ESP reading texts, but also in developing students‟ communicative abilities, quite a large number of teachers (57.1%) said that they never used this technique and 55% of the students responded the same idea

In brief, the findings of the frequency of using techniques in 3 reading stages reveal that the majority of teachers usually use some certain techniques For example, in pre-reading stage, they often prepare students for the reading texts by asking pre-reading questions or giving brief introduction of the text In while reading stage, answering the comprehension questions, which are written in the course book, is reported as the most frequently used technique And in the last stage, most teachers are in favour of asking students to translate the text The techniques such as using games, visual aids or having discussion in groups or

in pairs are not often used or are never used, although they are proved to be good for the ESP learners It can be said that, to some extends, ESP teachers at HCET are successful in helping students to comprehend the content of the text However, they do not pay attention

to developing students‟ language competence in specific disciplines It can be inferred from these findings that the teaching method employed by the teachers at HCET is a traditional one and need to be improved

4.2.2 Difficulties in terms of students

4.2.2.1 Students’ background knowledge

Two questions are given to ask about the students‟ background knowledge One is about students‟ knowledge of the subject matter (question 3, appendix 2) Another is about students‟ English language proficiency (question 4, appendix 2) The data collected are presented in tables 8 and 9 below

Table 8: Students’ background knowledge of subject matter

In response to whether or not students had learnt the subjects of Economics and Accounting fields before ESP course, 100% of the students ( table 8) asserted that they had not learnt the specialized subjects yet According to Schleppegrell and Brenda Bowman (1986: 12), “knowledge in speciality areas enables the students to identify a real context for the vocabulary and structures of the ESP classroom” Thus, the students‟ poor knowledge in subject matter field is a challenge to both teachers and students It is difficult for students to understand even the Vietnamese equivalence of specific terminologies and teachers have to take more time to illustrate them and explain the content of the text

Table 9: Students’ English competence

Table 9 displays the students‟ existing English competence basing on the scores they got in

General English course It is necessary to recall that in General English course, the syllabus

used was New Headway –Elementary Therefore, students just got elementary level after

this course However, only a small number of students (26 %) were good at English Meanwhile, a large proportion of students (63%) were fairly good at English The given figures imply that many students of Accounting major are at low level of English proficiency This is a big disadvantage that students have to cope with when they learn a new academic subject in English To teachers, they need to adjust their teaching method in order to make it suitable to their learners‟ proficiency and make the lesson comprehensible

to all learners

4.2.2.2 Students’ competence in reading skill

Chart 3: Students’ competence in reading skill from the views of teachers and students

Reading skill is the most focused in the ESP course (see 3.1.1) Therefore, to succeed in ESP course, students are required to have certain reading skill competence Chart 3 above displays the evaluation of students‟ competence in reading skill from the views of teachers and students From this chart, it is evident that none of the teachers thought that students were good at reading skill Only 7 % of the students thought that they were good at reading The number of students who were not good at reading skill made up 47%; and 42.9 % of the teachers had the same idea This finding implies that students of Accounting major are

lack of reading skill competence As a result, they will have many difficulties in reading

ESP text For instance, they do not know how to use the appropriate ways to read, they look up every new word and read slowly They do not know how to make use of grammatical, logical and cultural clues to guess the meaning of new words One of the causes of this problem is that in General English course, because of the limited class time, the reading skill is not taught sufficiently and all the reading texts in New Headway – Elementary are for reference Therefore, there is an urgent need for the changes in General English course to improve students‟ reading skill competence