TEACHERS’ BELIEFS AND PRACTICES ABOUT ESP TEACHING a CASE STUDY AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSTITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ---***--- ĐÀO THỊ MAI HƯƠNG TEACHERS’ BELIEFS AND PRACTICES ABOUT ESP TEACHING A CASE STUDY AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY MỘT NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ QUAN NIỆM VÀ VIỆC GIẢNG DẠY TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC CÔNG NGHIỆP HÀ NỘI M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60.140.111 HANOI - 2015 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSTITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ---***--- ĐÀO THỊ MAI HƯƠNG TEACHERS’ BELIEFS AND PRACTICES ABOUT ESP TEACHING: A CASE STUDY AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY MỘT NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ QUAN NIỆM VÀ VIỆC GIẢNG DẠY TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC CÔNG NGHIỆP HÀ NỘI M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60.140.111 Supervisor : Dr. Mai Thị Loan HANOI - 2015 CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: TEACHERS’ BELIEFS AND PRACTICES ABOUT ESP TEACHING: A CASE STUDY AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY is the result of my own work for the Degree of Master of Arts at University of Languages and International Studies, Hanoi National University. The material in this thesis has not been submitted for assessment in any other courses of study. Hanoi, March 2015 Signature Đào Thị Mai Hương i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to present my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Ms. Mai Thi Loan, for her generous guidance, constant encouragement and precious advice which take important part in accomplishing the study. I am most thankful to all the lecturers of the M.A course at ULIS-VNUH for providing me foundation knowledge through their invaluable lessons. I would also like to send my sincere thanks to my colleagues at the English Department of Hanoi University of Industry who were enthusiastic about participating in my research and willing to share their experience. Last but not least, I owe a big debt to my loved family who always stand by me as well as give me strength and encouragement during my three-year course and during the time I fulfilled the research. ii ABSTRACT The study aimed at investigating teachers’ beliefs and practices about ESP teaching at Hanoi University of Industry. The objectives were to investigate teachers’ beliefs about teaching strategies applied to ESP classes, to find out the most common ESP teaching strategies used by teachers and to explore the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and practices when teaching ESP. Interviews and classroom observations were used as the instruments to collect the data. The interviews were delivered to seek teachers’ beliefs about ESP teaching strategies and classroom observations were applied to explore their actual practices. The findings revealed that the teachers’ actual practices did not always correspond to their beliefs. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 1. EFL: English as a Foreign Language 2. ELT: English Language Teaching 3. ESL: English as a Second Language 4. ESP: English for Specific Purposes 5. HaUI: Hanoi University of Industry 6. GPE: General Purpose English 7. EAP: English for Academic Purposes 8. EEP: English for Educational Purposes 9. EOP: English for Occupational Purposes 10. EFL: English as a Foreign Language iv LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES LIST OF FIGURES CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT i PART III: CONCLUSION 38 APPENDICES .I v LIST OF EXCERPTS CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT i PART III: CONCLUSION 38 APPENDICES .I TABLE OF CONTENT CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT i PART III: CONCLUSION 38 APPENDICES .I vi vii PART I: INTRODUCTION 1.1. Rationale There is a fact that English is needed for every field such as technology, medicine, business and education. As a result, the demand for ESP is increasing in many countries where people speak English as a foreign language. Besides, people need English for passing the exams, promoting at work and developing their career. Therefore, ESP has been taught in most of universities in Vietnam for recent years. Teaching ESP has become one of the most important features of English teaching process, which is necessary to meet the demand of the changing world. According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 19), ESP is an approach for language teaching in which all decisions regarding content and methods are based on the learners’ reasons for learning. They can use English effectively in different fields like economics, literature, law, and medicine. Compared with General English, ESP has both similarities and differences. Although teaching ESP has much been concerned by researchers who have tried to develop its own methodology, it is still really hard for teachers to decide the effective strategies for their students. In context of Hanoi University of Industry (HaUI), students start learning ESP in the second semester of the third year. In fact, with the students’ low proficiency of English, it is extremely challenging for teachers to provide a successful ESP course. Besides, Vietnamese students keep a passive way of studying which makes the teachers’ methodology become the most important factor in teaching ESP. In spite of long duration of 60 class hours, ESP teaching and learning quality has still been far from satisfaction. Therefore, the teachers’ beliefs and practices in teaching ESP should be worked out as soon as possible to improve the situation. 1.2. Aims and objectives of the study This study aims to research on teachers’ beliefs and practices about ESP teaching. The objectives of the study were: 45 APPENDICES APPENDIX A Semi-structured interview I. Starter 1. What activities you normally use to lead in your ESP lesson? Which ones you found effective? II. Presentation 2. Do you present the problem (vocabulary, reading text, writing tasks, speaking tasks, …) inductively or reductively? Which one is more effective? Then, what language you use? 3. Is your lesson coherent (Is it logical? Does it have smooth transitions among stages)? In your opinion, is it necessary to have ESP lessons coherent? 4. What you to involve students into your lesson? 5. Do you think that students’ cooperation influences teaching quality in general and ESP class atmosphere in particular? If yes, what you to have their co-operation? 6. What you to maintain enjoyment in your class? III. Practice and production 7. What kind of exercises, activities or tasks you believe that they can help students practice what they have learnt? 8. Besides those, you prefer to use communicative activities like case studies and project work to help students produce their own language? I APPENDIX B Classroom Observation Checklist Teacher __________________________Observer _____________________________ Number of students present ____________Date/time of observation ______________ Lesson topic________________________ Y (applied) N (not applied) Criteria of assessment Result I. Starter 1. Prediction 2. Discussion 3. Gathering information 4. Brainstorming 5. Checking homework 6. Revising previous lesson II. Presentation 7. Inductive approach 8. Reductive approach 9. Using the first language 11. 10. Coherence 11.1. Asking questions Variety of 11.2. Medium: text, tape, pictures, speech 11.3. Classroom organization: whole class, pair, individual, group 11.4. Learner roles: presenter, evaluator, receiver, thinker, negotiator 11.5. Exercise, activity or task 11.6. Skills: reading, listening, writing, II Observer note Involvement speaking, graphic skills 11.7. Topic 11.8. Focus: accuracy, fluency; 12. Get students’ cooperation 12.1. Waiting for the answer 13. Enjoyment discourse, structure, pronunciation, etc. 13.1. Game 12.2. Giving individual work 12.3. Marking students’ work 13.2. Joke 13.3. Quiz 14. Gaps III. Practice and production 14.1. Information gaps 14.2. Media gaps 14.3. Reasoning gaps 14.4. Memory gaps 14.5. Jigsaw gaps 14.6. Opinion gaps 14.7. Certainty gaps 15. Matching 16. Writing a summary 17. Translation 18. Listening exercise 19. Reading comprehension 20. Communicative activities 20.1. Role play 20.2. Case studies 20.3. Project work III Overall comments: . . . . . . . IV APPENDIX C Sample of semi-structured interview Extracted from the interview on April 10th, 9a.m. A: author T: teacher A: What activities you normally use to lead in your ESP lesson? Which ones you found effective? T: Before the main part of the lesson, normally there is an activity to help students be ready. They will watch a video in which the situation is set and they will guess what is going to happen. Or they will discuss a problem. They help to activate students’ mind and motivate them to think. Sometimes, if I had time, I would check their homework. Studying in class is not enough, students need to homework. I need to check whether they it well. A: Do you present the problem (vocabulary, reading text, writing tasks, speaking tasks, …) inductively or reductively? Which one is more effective? Then, what language you use? T: I use both depending on the lesson content and students’ ability in each class but no matter what approach I used, I saw that problems were presented clearly. I had to make it very clear. ESP is much more difficult than general English so the lesson should be clear…uhm, well, I use both English and Vietnamese. A: Is your lesson coherent (Is it logical? Does it have smooth transitions among stages)? In your opinion, is it necessary to have ESP lessons coherent? T: I think that yes, it is. When we make lesson plan, we know that it is necessary to make it logical. Students can understand the lecture easier if it has a right order. A: What you to involve students into your lesson? B: I always want my students to keep thinking during the lesson. They have to find the answer, I just lead them there. I mean, in presentation, I give them questions and they have to think about the answer, the problem. Besides, if students get bored with my V lesson, I cannot involve them into the lesson. Therefore, they should be offered more practical tasks and activities such as role play, interview, presentation, discussion, pair work and group work. A: Do you think that students’ cooperation influences teaching quality in general and ESP class atmosphere in particular? If yes, what you to have their co-operation? T: It directly influences the lesson. A lesson can’t be successful if students don’t get on with the teacher. I need to be very flexible, sometimes easy going but sometimes need to be strict. For example, if they refuse to a task I give, I tell them I will give mark on that task. A: What you to maintain enjoyment in your class? T: Well, young students are always eager to discover new things. They start studying their major deeply in their third year when ESP is taught parallel. I normally turn my lessons into quizzes how to say a terminology in English. Games are also a good idea. A: What kind of exercises, activities or tasks you believe that they can help students practice what they have learnt? T: I use exercises or tasks in text book. Or I use exercises written by ESP group to help students to prepare for the final exam. A: Besides those, you prefer to use communicative activities like case studies and project work to help students produce their own language? T: Yes, it’s necessary. You know, interaction should be maintained in a language lesson. If you teach your students a million of specific glossaries and terminology but you don’t teach how to use them in context, those words are only a dead language. Normally, I usually let the students play roles. VI APPENDIX D Extracts from classroom observations Excerpt 1[Data extracted from the class on 2014/5/22] (The topic of this class is about automobile and the teacher is explaining the word endurance.) Turn Transcript T: [the teacher shows a slide of a car race] Now look at the photo in slide and guess the meaning of “endurance” SS: [Silence….look at the photo and think for some seconds] T: Ok, there are some cars in a race. Do you think how long the cars can work if they run extremely fast for a long time? [stop for several seconds and then call a student to answer] What you think, SA? SA: I think not a long time. T: Ok, so you’re talking about the endurance of the car. So what does endurance mean, SA? Can you guess? SA: T: SA: T: I think it refers to a period of time in which the car can work. Can you tell me a Vietnamese equivalence? [smile] uhm…uhm…thời gian chạy xe Oh, almost correct. Now, I have an example for you. I have car A and car B. Car A was used for 10 years and car B was used for 15 years (draw two cars on the board). I say car B’s endurance is longer than car A’s (underline endurance). So what does endurance mean? Ah, bền, độ bền. SB: T: Yeah, sức bền, độ bền. Well done, good try, SA. Ok, now, class, give me another example for this word. VII [stop for students thinking in a minute] Can you, SB? This machine has good endurance. [Write the sentence on the board] Good. Now, take note in your notebook the word and example, everyone. Note: T = Teacher S (A, B) = Student (A, B) SS = All of the Students Excerpt [Data extracted from the class on 2014/5/22] (The teacher is leading in the main content of lesson “breaking points”. She shows a slide and asks students to discuss in pairs.) Turn Transcript T: Now, let’s work in pairs and discuss the technical challenges of endurance car races. SS: [quiet] T: Do you understand, class? No. What does endurance mean? SS: [the teacher shows a slide of a car race] T: Now look at the photo in slide and guess the meaning of “endurance” SS: [Silence….look at the photo and think for some seconds] T: Ok, there are some cars in a race. Do you think how long the cars can work if they run extremely fast for a long time? [stop for several seconds and then call a student to answer] What you think, SA? SA: I think not a long time. T: Ok, so you’re talking about the endurance of the car. So what does endurance mean, SA? Can you guess? SA: I think it refers to a period of time in which the car can work. VIII T: Can you tell me a Vietnamese equivalence? SA: [smile] uhm…uhm…thời gian chạy xe T: Oh, almost correct. Now, I have an example for you. I have car A and car B. Car A was used for 10 years and car B was used for 15 years (draw two cars on the board). I say car B’s endurance is longer than car A’s (underline endurance). So what does endurance mean? SB: Ah, bền, độ bền. T: Yeah, sức bền, độ bền. Well done, good try, SA. Ok, now, class, give me another example for this word. [stop for students thinking in a minute] Can you, SB? SB: This machine has good endurance. T: [Write the sentence on the board] Good. Now, take note in your notebook the word and example, everyone. Ok, now let’s discuss. You have minutes. SS: [discuss and give their answers] T: [check the answers and present some new words] Ok, now turn to next page. We have a listening exercise here. Look at the questions and work in groups of three. Try to understand the questions and in groups predict three possible answers for each question, please. [translate into Vietnamese and write possible answers] Note: T = Teacher S (A, B) = Student (A, B) SS = All of the students Excerpt [Data extracted from the class on 2014/5/30] (The topic of this class is about automobile and the students are doing a matching exercise to review new words they have learnt. Students need to match the words with their definitions in English.) Turn Transcript IX T: Who can give the answers, please? SS: [Silence….5 seconds] T: Ok, SA, please. SA: I can’t it. T: Oh, why not? SA: I don’t understand. T: You don’t understand what? SA: Uhm uhm…I know the words but I don’t understand the definitions . T: Ah, It’s ok. Now tell me what word is new each sentence. SA: [Silence…5 seconds] T: Now, come on. SA: Rate, surface, against, damage, steady, friction. T: Ok, who can help him with these words? SB, please. SB: Rate means tỷ lệ, surface is bề mặt, against is chống lại, damage is a noun means hư hại, steady, I think is dần dần, từ từ. And friction is độ ma sát. T: Ok, thank you, sit down please. Now, SA, can you match? SA: I’m not sure. I think one and D T: Ok, speed is the rate at which a car runs. Is it correct, class? Ss: Yes. T: Next. SA: Two and…I don’t know. T: Ok, what you think, class? Ss: Two and E. T: Yeah. Breaks are designed to slow down vehicles and moving parts. Phanh thiết kế để giảm tốc độ xe cộ phần chuyển động. What X about number – friction, SA? and A. SA: Yes, well done, can you read full sentence? T: Friction is an action of one object or surface moving against another. SA: Ok, thank you. Sit down, please. T: Note: T = Teacher S (A) = Student (A) SS = All of the Students Excerpt [Data extracted from the class on 2014/5/29] (The teacher is giving instruction to a multiple-choice listening exercise which is a short news story about airport delays.) Turn Transcript T: Now, let’s read the questions and choices, then underline key words, please. You have three minutes. SS: [Read and underline for three minutes] T: [go around the class and observe] Have you finished? SS: [quiet] T: Now, class, have you finished? Yes or no? SS: Yes. T: Ok, some say yes. Maybe you’ll have two more minutes. SS: [Read and underline for two more minute] T: Ok, now, can you answer me? XI SS: [quiet] T: Let’s check together. First, tell me what the key words are in the questions and choices. SS: [quiet] T: Now come on. SA, can you? Number and 2, please. SA: Number 1, I think is why, airport delays, cost billions, lost productivity. T: Ok. What about the choices? SA: a. quit buying ticket, b. losing time at work, c. lose their jobs, d. airport employees, earn overtime pay. T: SA: T: SA: T: SS: T: SS: T: Good job. Now, you understand the question? …a little. Can you translate it into Vietnamese? Vì sân bay tốn…uhm…sorry, what does productivity mean? Ok, it means suất. Ah, sân bay tốn hàng tỉ đồng suất? Ok, almost correct. Who can help him translate again? [quite] Ok, let’s see. The subject here is airport delays not the airport. So we can say việc trì hoãn chuyến bay ngành hàng không làm ngành khác suất trị giá hàng tỉ đồng? Although we don’t see any words refer to other fields, we have to read the choices to understand the question correctly. Now you get it? Yeah. SS: Ok, SA, translate the choices, please…. T: XII Note: T = Teacher S (A) = Student (A) SS = All of the students Excerpt [Data extracted from the class on 2014/6/3] (The teacher is giving homework to the students before they leave) Turn Transcript T: Before you leave, I’d like you to read a short passage in a magazine about “update technology” and summarize at home. Ok? Remember the topic “update technology” and an English magazine. SS: SA: SB: T: Oh, no… It’s too difficult…where can I find it. I’m out of money to buy a foreign magazine, teacher. Don’t worry. Now just find on these websites: engineeringmagazine.co.uk, engineering.cornell.edu/magazine or theengineer.co.uk. (Write the website on the board). I just need you to choose a short passage in an article and summarize. SS: (Take note) Note: T = Teacher S (A,B) = Student (A, B) SS= All of the students Excerpt [Data extracted from the class on 2014/6/2] (The teacher asked students to read the new lesson which is about engineering materials at home and gave an oral report on it.) Turn Transcript T: Who can come to the front and talk about kinds of engineering materials? XIII SS: [quiet] T: No one? Ok, I’ll pick a name in the list. SA, please. SA: Teacher, can I bring my paper there. I prepared an outline. T: It’s ok. SA: As I read, There are two kinds of materials used in engineering. Uhm… uhm…They are metals and non-metals. Metals are divided into ferrous and non-ferrous metals. Some examples of ferrous metals are cast iron and steel. Non-ferrous metals are aluminum, copper, alloys, bronze and brass. Non metals are classified into plastics and ceramics. In that, plastics includes thermoplastics and thermoses. And ceramics is a material which can T: SA: withstand high temperature. Ok, well prepared. But it will be clearer if you can draw a diagram. Can you? Yes. [draw a diagram] Note: T = Teacher SA = Student A SS = All of the students APPENDIX E Sample of post-observation interview Extracted from the interview on July 1st-,2014 A: author T: teacher A: I saw that in the previous interview, you agreed with the importance of checking homework in leading into the lesson. Why didn’t you apply it in your class? XIV T: I had applied several times before but I realized that it was boring and my students seemed to be very nervous. They did not feel excited about new lesson any more. A: In while-teaching part, you said that using game was a good way to maintain enjoyable class atmosphere but you did not organize game in your actual class. Why? T: You see, it is difficult to conduct a game to involve all 50 students in class. Moreover, I not have enough time to cover all activities. I want my class to focus on practice to prepare for the examination. A: Ok, last question for you, why did you employ variety of classroom organization in your ESP class meanwhile you had not mentioned it in the previous interview? T: I think students still need to work in pairs and groups in ESP class. ESP class still needs very communicative. XV [...]... strategies applied to ESP classes? (ii) What are the most common ESP teaching strategies used by teachers? (iii) Is there a relationship between the teachers’ beliefs and practices in terms of ESP teaching strategies? 1 4 Scope of the study The research focuses on investigating the teachers’ beliefs towards teaching strategies applied to ESP classes and their practices It was conducted among ESP teachers... Cortazzi and Jin (1996:169) strongly believed “behavior in language classrooms is set within taken-for-granted frameworks of expectations, attitudes, values and beliefs about what constitutes good learning, about how to teach or learn, whether and how to ask questions, what textbooks are for, and how language teaching relates to broader issues of the nature and purpose of education” The importance of. .. previous related studies In fact, teachers’ beliefs and practices about teaching strategies have drawn much attention of researchers in Vietnam as well as other countries recently First of all, Anderson (1999) wrote anecdotes of how life experiences had impacted his thinking about teaching, learning and reading in a second language He pointed out the importance of teaching strategy in a reading program From... kinds of evaluation – testing of students, evaluation of courses and teaching materials Tests are conducted to assess how much learners have gained from the course Course design and teaching materials should be evaluated in the middle or at the end of the course to assess the 14 learners’ abilities of using what they have learned and to find out their commands that the course has not met Evaluation... were transferred into their classroom practices Then, the author recommended some ways to adjust classroom practices in order to meet the learner’s satisfaction Next, Al-Siyabi (2009) did a research on teachers’ practices and beliefs about explicit grammar teaching among grade 8 teachers in Oman The result shows that explicit grammar teaching is and will be an important strategy to teach grammar and the... teaching ESP Throughout their career life, two of them participated in teacher training workshops which were held by British Council Three of them graduated from University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University of Hanoi and the other graduated from Hanoi University Half of them were awarded a Master’s degree in Teaching English as a Foreign Language from universities in Vietnam... the literature and informal talk with teachers Each interview lasted 20 – 30 minutes and was audio taped under teachers’ permission Since the interviews aimed at seeking an in-depth understanding of the teachers beliefs about ESP teaching strategies, they consisted of three categories in accordance with a lesson procedure: Category 1 – Starter, Category 2 – Presentation, Category 3 – Practice and production... proficiency One of the teachers said, “Although they are third-year students, there are many of them bad at grammar and structures Only a few of them are good at English in my class Most of students can’t comprehend an ESP text I want to make sure all students in my class understand a passage correctly so I had them translate it into Vietnamese They kept complaining that it was difficult and translated... classification by professional area (Hutchison and Waters, 1987:6) Hutchison and Waters (1987:16) believed that EOP and EAP could not be separated because “people can work and study simultaneously; it is also likely that in many cases the language learnt for immediate use in a study environment will be used later when the student takes up, or returns to, a job” In general, it is impossible classify ESP. .. supposes that teachers’ beliefs refer to the way they think which is operated by some major factors such as characteristics, knowledge, teaching experience and students’ demands 1.4 Relationship between teachers’ beliefs and classroom practices There has been a plethora of research in English language teaching proving the existence of relationship between teachers’ beliefs and practices Borg (2006) realized . research. ii ABSTRACT The study aimed at investigating teachers’ beliefs and practices about ESP teaching at Hanoi University of Industry. The objectives were to investigate teachers’ beliefs about. today entitled: TEACHERS’ BELIEFS AND PRACTICES ABOUT ESP TEACHING: A CASE STUDY AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY is the result of my own work for the Degree of Master of Arts at University of. VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSTITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES *** ĐÀO THỊ MAI HƯƠNG TEACHERS’ BELIEFS AND PRACTICES ABOUT ESP TEACHING