Problems in teaching esp vocabulary to automobile technology students at college and suggested solutions

It is known that, in learning a foreign language in general, and English inparticular, the knowledge and mastery of vocabulary play an extremely importantrole.. In the context of Vietnam

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

English learning has experienced its popularity in Vietnam over the last fewdecades The demand for learning English even gets stronger when Vietnam fostersits international relations Every day an increasing number of people start learningand use English for different purposes

From the early 1960’s, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has grown tobecome one of the most prominent areas of EFL teaching today Hutchinson andWaters (1987) defines ESP as an approach to language teaching in which alldecisions as to content and method are based on the learner’s reason for learning

In ESP, it is a need analysis that determines which language skills are most needed

by the students and the syllabus is designed accordingly During the last fewdecades, ESP has been developing vigorously for the reasons that there has been anincrease in vocational training and learning throughout the world and the spread ofglobalization has resulted in the increasing use of English as the language ofinternational communication, more and more people are using English in a growingnumber of occupational contexts In teaching and learning English as a foreignlanguage in Vietnam, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has recently received agreat deal of attention

It is known that, in learning a foreign language in general, and English inparticular, the knowledge and mastery of vocabulary play an extremely importantrole Pyles and Algeo (1970) noted: "When we first think about the language, wethink about words It is words that we arrange together to make sentences,conversations and discourse of all kind" It has also been said that “withoutgrammar very little can be conveyed, but without vocabulary nothing can beconveyed” (Wilkins, 1992) In order to communicate well in a foreign language,students should acquire an adequate number of words and should know how to use

In the context of Vietnam – Korea Industrial Technical College (VKTC),students at the Vocational Training level study English as a compulsory subject.

In particular, students of Automobile Technology (AT) start learning English at thebeginning of the second year The short period is mainly aimed at improvingreading and translating skills However, with a limited background knowledge ofvocabulary and English grammar, many of them have to struggle keeping up withthe course requirements They often learn vocabulary passively through theirteachers' explanation, thus finding it hard to memorize new words They, thereforeneed a great deal of help from the teachers

Being an ESP teacher of Automobile English, I have always been aware ofthe importance of developing vocabulary for Automobile students and I myselfhave a few difficulties in teaching vocabulary These difficulties arise from my lack

of specialized knowledge of the field, my students’ lower English level comparedwith those at colleges or universities, their needs, interests and motivation

For that reason, this research was carried out to examine the challengesteachers and students at VKTC face, and to look at some possible solutions to theseproblems

1.2 Aims of the study

The study aims to examine the problems in teaching ESP vocabulary toAutomobile Technology students at VKTC and to discuss suggested solutions tothese problems

The objectives of the study include:

- To explore problems that ESP teachers at VKTC are facing in teachingEnglish vocabulary to students of Automobile Technology

- To find out the causes of the difficulties the teachers and students have whileteaching and learning vocabulary of Automobile Technology

- To suggest some solutions to the problems in teaching and learning ofvocabulary to students of Automobile Technology effectively

1.4 Scope of the study

The study limited itself to the investigation of problems in teachingvocabulary to students of Automobile Technology at Vietnam – Korea TechnicalCollege Solutions were provided to help improve teaching and learning Englishvocabulary of AT in particular at VKTC

1.5 Methods of the study

With the aim of detecting problems in ESP vocabulary teaching to thesecond-year students at VKTC, diagnosing the causes of these problems andproviding possible solutions, I adopt the survey approach A questionnaire andinformal discussions were used to collect the needed data

1.6 Design of the study

The study consists of four chapters:

Chapter 1 is the introduction, which presents the background to the study, the

rationale, the aims of the study, the research questions, the scope of the study, themethod and the design of the study

Chapter 2 is the literature review, which provides the literature review of theresearch, which includes vocabulary in second language acquisition, vocabulary

Chapter 3 is the study, which focuses on the methodology of the research,including the methods, the participants and the instrument and data collectionprocedure This chapter also presents preliminary results, data analysis and researchfindings

Chapter 4 is the pedagogical implications and conclusion, which offer some

suggestions to improve the teaching and learning of ESP vocabulary andsummarizes the issues addressed in the previous parts and presentsrecommendations for improvement and suggestions for further research

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Definition and types of vocabulary

So far, the term vocabulary has been defined quite differently according to itsvarious aspects such as criteria, features and functions Each linguist gives his owndefinition According to Lewis (1993, p.89), vocabulary " may be individual words

or full sentences - institutionalized utterances - that convey fixed social orpragmatic meaning within a given community” Penny Ur defined vocabulary as

"the words we teach in the foreign language However, a new item of vocabularymay be more than a single word: a compound of two or three words or multi-wordidioms” (1996, p.60) Along similar lines, Richards and Platt see vocabulary as

“a set of lexemes, including words, compound words and idioms” (1992, p.400).Meanwhile, Pyles and Algeo argued that “when most of us think about language wethink first about words It is true that the vocabulary is the focus of language It is inwords that we arrange together to make sentences, conversation and discourse of allkinds” (1970, p.96)

The mentioned researchers provided a general look at the notions ofvocabulary At a deep level, vocabulary can be interpreted as knowledge of wordsand word meanings Firstly, words are virtually manifested in the two forms:spoken form and written form Oral vocabulary including words, phrases orsentences are used for listening and speaking, and the words we recognize and usefor reading and writing can be identified as written vocabulary Secondly, our wordknowledge is also represented in two forms, receptive and productive The wordsthat we use to write and speak are considered as productive vocabulary and thewords that we hear from the people around us and see or read from stories, books,newspapers, etc… are recognized as receptive vocabulary In language learning andteaching, the term vocabulary is used with different meanings by different teachers

at different levels of education Therefore, it is possible to state that vocabularymeans both the knowledge of words and word meanings in both oral and print

from context to context In language communication, there are many cases in whichthe lexical meaning cannot be deducted from analysis of the individual components

of that word For this reason, in foreign language teaching and learning, helpingstudents to gain vocabulary from the different contexts is a must for all theinstructors If this is regularly done, the learners will not only know how to useappropriate vocabulary in communication, but also develop their vocabularyrepertoire themselves

In short, vocabulary is an essential part of language, as Wilkins emphasizedwith his saying: "without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabularynothing can be conveyed” (1972, p.110)

Vocabulary refers to the words we must understand to communicateeffectively Educators often consider four types of vocabulary: listening, speaking,reading, and writing Listening vocabulary are the words we need to know tounderstand what we hear Speaking vocabulary consists of the words we use when

we speak Reading vocabulary refers to the words we need to know to understand

what we read And writing vocabulary consists of the words we use in writing

2.2 The importance of vocabulary in language learning

More and more people have become aware that besides their first language,they need to acquire several foreign languages in order to take full advantages of theadvancement in information technology For many people, the first thing to do inlearning a foreign language is to acquire its vocabulary, which is perceived asbuilding blocks upon which knowledge of language can be built In fact, vocabularyalways holds a significant place in foreign language teaching and learning.According to Troike “vocabulary is most important for understanding and knowingnames for things, actions and concepts” (1976, p.87) In addition, vocabularyknowledge can help language users perform and develop language skills since

“substantial vocabulary knowledge is always a prerequisite to the performance oflanguage skills Vocabulary enables language use, language use enables the increase

of vocabulary knowledge and language use and so on” (Nation, 2004, p.19).Therefore, it is undeniable that vocabulary plays an extremely important role inmaking a success of language learning and that the acquisition of adequatevocabulary is essential for successful second language use.

The main objective language learners usually set is to be able to use thelanguage to communicate well with people around them To achieve this objective,they have to master enough vocabulary of that language; if not, they will find itimpossible to express themselves in most circumstances Indeed, as studentssucceed in obtaining wide knowledge of vocabulary, they often get more confident

in using language and they can perform other language skills for variouscommunicative purposes Thus, vocabulary knowledge always holds an importantrole in performing language skills For example, vocabulary has a close relationshipwith reading skills that in turn have an interconnection with reading comprehension.This relationship seems logical because of the fact that when students get meaningfrom what they read, they also need both many words in their vocabulary repertoireand ability to use various strategies to establish the meanings of new words whenthey encounter them It is the case that most of the weak students who do not haveenough vocabulary or effective word-learning strategies often struggle to achievecomprehension in reading Also, as they do not have sufficient word knowledge tounderstand what they are reading, they often avoid reading As a result, studentswho do not read very much do not have the opportunity to see and learn very manynew words in various contexts while students who read more can become betterreaders and gain more words The very particular relationship between vocabularyknowledge and language skills highlights the significant position of vocabulary inlanguage learning and teaching

2.3 ESP and ESP vocabulary

Understanding about ESP and ESP vocabulary plays an important part in theprocess of teaching vocabulary

2.3.1 Definition of ESP

What is ESP? This is a big and complicated question that requires much effort

in seeing how ESP at the present relates to the rest of English Language Teaching(ELT) If we take a look at the tree of ELT (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987, p.17), it isclear that ESP is a big multi-levels branch of ELT being nourished by the learningand communication roots Hutchinson and Waters regard it as “an approach tolanguage teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based on thelearners’ reason for learning” (1987, p.17) ESP must be seen as an approach, not as

a product and is directed by specific and apparent reasons for learning ESP.Students' goal of learning a second language might be to acquire not only generallinguistics competencies but also academic and job-related skills

Strevens (1988, p.1), by contrast, stated that “ESP is a particular case of thegeneral category of special - purpose language teaching” In his work, he pointedout four absolute characteristics of ESP as follow:

- ESP is designed to meet the learners’ specified needs

- ESP has the content relating to particular disciplines, occupations andactivities

- ESP is centered on language appropriate to those activities in syntax, lexis,discourse, semantics, and analysis of the discourse

- ESP is in contrast with General English

In order to make the above mentioned absolute characteristics of ESPdistinctive, other two variable characteristics are set up Firstly, ESP may berestricted to skills to be learnt (for example reading only) Secondly, ESP may not

be taught according to any pre-ordained methodology All of the characteristics ofESP make us come to an end that teaching and learning ESP is a challenging taskfor both teachers and students

Widdowson (1983) argues that the purpose for ESP and EGP is the same, but

he clearly points out that what distinguishes ESP from EGP is “the way in whichpurpose is defined and the manner of its implementation”(p.5) He furtherdistinguishes the two by their differences in relation to education and training Thedesign of ESP is based as precisely as possible on what learners need Courses aredesigned to provide learners with the restricted competence they need to cope with acertain clearly specified set of tasks

It can be deducted from the above mentioned viewpoints that when dealingwith ESP, it is necessary to identify two central areas in ESP which: content andmethodology Regarding content, it is important to concern about the scope of aparticular course in comparison with the totality of the language to make the ESPcourse balanced in content so that it is not either too narrow or broad In terms ofmethodology, ESP courses aim to develop linguistic skills relating to particularspheres of activity, not only the nature of the linguistic items introduced, but theways in which they are introduced and how they are practiced It is therefore alsocrucially important for teachers to apply good methods in ESP classes because goodmethods decide most of the success in the classroom

Generally speaking, due to the characteristics of ESP, in ESP courses,activities to be carried out during learning the process should take place asauthentically as possible The requirement of authenticity means that learningmaterials should use actual texts produced by people working in the ESP field underconsideration The texts involved in learning materials should be content-basedones That means they should focus on specific problems that people are likely toencounter in their everyday working lives in the ESP field If the learning materials

of ESP courses cover these two areas, many important linguistic items relevant tothe ESP field may be introduced and practiced

In short, we can come to a conclusion that vocabulary in EGP somehowdiffers from ESP vocabulary in terms of the purposes, the teachers, the students, the

2.3.2 Differences between ESP and EGP

English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and English for General Purposes (EGP)differ not in terms of theory, but in terms of practice (Hutchinson & Waters,1987)

On the face of it, ESP differs from EGP in the sense that the words and sentenceslearned, the subject matter discussed, all related to a particular field ordiscipline - for example, a lawyer writing a brief, or a diplomat preparing for apolicy paper ESP courses make use of vocabulary and tasks related to the field such

as negotiation skills and effective techniques for oral presentations The entireprogram is designed to meet the specific professional or academic needs of thelearner A balance is, therefore, created between educational theory and practicalconsiderations ESP, in this sense, also increases students’ skills and confidence inusing English

The most important difference lies in the learners and their purposes forlearning English ESP students are usually adults who already have someacquaintance with English and are learning the language in order to communicate aset of professional skills and to perform particular job-related functions An ESPprogram is therefore built on an assessment of purposes and needs and the functionsfor which English is required

ESP concentrates more on language in context than on teaching grammar andlanguage structures It covers subjects varying from accounting or computer science

to tourism and business management The ESP focal point is that English is nottaught as a subject separated from the students' real world (or wishes); instead, it isintegrated into a subject matter area important to the learners

However, ESL and ESP diverge not only in the nature of the learner, but also

in the aim of instruction In fact, as a general rule, while in ESL all four languageskills: listening, reading, speaking, and writing, are stressed equally, in ESP it is aneeds analysis that determines which language skills are most needed by thestudents, and the syllabus is designed accordingly An ESP program, might,for example, emphasize the development of reading skills in students who are

preparing for graduate work in business administration; or it might promote thedevelopment of spoken skills in students who are studying English in order tobecome tourist guides.

As a matter of fact, ESP combines subject matter and English languageteaching Such a combination is highly motivating because students are able toapply what they learn in their English classes to their main field of study, whether it

is accounting, business management, economics, computer science or tourism.Being able to use the vocabulary and structures that they learn in a meaningfulcontext reinforces what is taught and increases their motivation

The students' abilities in their subject-matter fields, in turn, improve theirability to acquire English Subject-matter knowledge gives them the context theyneed to understand the English of the classroom In the ESP class, students areshown how the subject-matter content is expressed in English The teacher canmake the most of the students' knowledge of the subject matter, thus helping themlearn English faster

The term "specific" in ESP refers to the specific purpose for learning English.Students approach the study of English through a field that is already known andrelevant to them This means that they are able to use what they learn in the ESPclassroom right away in their work and studies The ESP approach enhances therelevance of what the students are learning and enables them to use the English theyknow to learn even more English, since their interest in their field will motivatethem to interact with speakers and texts

2.3.3 Types of ESP vocabulary

In terms of teaching vocabulary in ESP, it is most important to make adistinction between the two types of vocabulary: technical and semi-technicalbecause they are of great importance to learners studying English for specific andacademic purposes Dudley-Evans & St John (1998, p.83) suggest resolving the

a) Vocabulary that is used in general language but has a higher frequency ofoccurrence in specific and technical description and discussion

b) Vocabulary that has specialized and restricted meanings in certaindisciplines and which may vary in meaning across disciplines

It is quite clear that the first area would be referred to as semi-technical andthe second area would be regarded as technical vocabulary Examining thefollowing text will help to illustrate the difference between them

We report a double blind, placebo controlled, crossover trial of an angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor, enalapril, in patients with chronic fluid overload dialysis We used a crossover study and carried out procedures within the study according to the standard of the ethics committee of this hospital Each patient was given either enalapril or placebo in the first period

of treatment and the alternative treatment in the second period; the order in which treatment was given was randomized, 13 patients receiving enalapril and 12 placebos first Randomization was carried out by suppliers of the drug (Ferguson, 2002)

The technical vocabulary items are: angiotensin, enzyme, inhibitor, enalapril, chronic, dialysis and placebo

The semi-technical vocabulary items are : report, double blind, control, crossover, trial, convert, fluid, overload, receive, study, carry out, procedure, standard period treatment, randomize, randomization, supplier and drug.

2.3.4 Characteristics of ESP vocabulary

Strevens (1988) defined ESP by identifying its absolute and variablecharacteristics His definition makes a distinction between four absolute and twovariable characteristics of ESP vocabulary as follow:

a) Absolute characteristics: ESP consists of English language teaching which is:

 designed to meet specified needs of the learner;

 related in content (i.e in its themes and topics) to particular disciplines,occupations and activities;

 centered on the language appropriate to those activities in syntax, lexis,discourse, semantics, etc., and analysis of this discourse;

 in contrast with General English

b) Variable characteristics: ESP may be, but is not necessarily:

 restricted as to the language skills to be learned (e.g reading only);

 not taught according to any pre-ordained methodology

Anthony (1997) notes that there has been considerable recent debate aboutwhat ESP means despite the fact that it is an approach which has been widely usedover the last three decades At the 1997 Japan Conference on ESP, Dudley-Evansoffered a modified definition The revised definition he and St John postulate is asfollows:

a) Absolute Characteristics:

 ESP is defined to meet specific needs of the learner;

 ESP makes use of the underlying methodology and activities of the discipline

it serves;

 ESP is centred on the language (grammar, lexis, register), skills, discourseand genres appropriate to these activities

b) Variable Characteristics

 ESP may be related to or designed for specific disciplines;

 ESP may use, in specific teaching situations, a different methodology fromthat of general English;

 ESP is likely to be designed for adult learners, either at a tertiary levelinstitution 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 system, but

Dudley-Evans and St John have removed the ESP is in contrast with GeneralEnglish absolute characteristic and added more variable characteristics They assertthat ESP is not necessarily related to a specific discipline Furthermore, ESP islikely to be used with adult learners although it could be used with young adults in asecondary school setting.

From a broader perspective, Hutchinson and Waters (1987) theorized: "ESP is

an approach to language teaching in which all decisions as to content and methodare based on the learner's reason for learning" (p 19) Anthony (1997) notes that, it

is not clear where ESP courses end and general English courses begin; numerousnon-specialist ESL instructors use an ESP approach in that their syllabi are based onanalysis of learner needs and their own personal specialist knowledge of usingEnglish for real communication

2.4 Vocabulary teaching and learning

The status of vocabulary in language teaching and learning has changeddramatically in the last two decades “Since the mid-1980s there has been a renewedinterest in the role of vocabulary in second language learning” (Coady & Huckin,

1997, p.ix) There have been studies on the nature of the bilingual lexicon,vocabulary acquisition, lexical storage, lexical retrieval, and the use of vocabulary

by second language learners Coady and Huckin believe that “vocabulary is anessential component of language and words are of critical importance to the typicallanguage learner” (1997, p.1)

McCarthy stated that “the biggest component of any language course isvocabulary” and “no matter how well the student learns grammar, no matter howsuccessfully the sounds of L2 are mastered, without words to express a wide range

of meanings, communication in an L2 just cannot happen in any meaningful way.”(1990, p viii)

2.4.1 EFL vocabulary learning

EFL vocabulary learning consists of definition of knowing a word, explicitand implicit vocabulary learning

2.4.1.1 What is involved in knowing a word?

There have been many definitions as to what it is exactly to know a word

“Knowing” a word does not simply mean being able to recognize what it looks andsounds like or being able to give the word’s dictionary definition Knowing a word

by sight and sound and knowing its dictionary definition are not the same asknowing how to use the word correctly and understanding it when it is heard or seen

in various contexts (Miller & Gildea, 1987)

Penny Ur (1996) said that when vocabulary is introduced to learners, whatneed to be taught are form-written and spoken; grammar; collocation; aspects ofmeaning: denotation, connotation, appropriateness, meaning relationships; and wordformation

According to Nation (1990, pp 30-33) , knowing a word incorporates a largeamount of information It involves not only knowing its spelling, morphology,pronunciation, meaning, or the equivalent of the word in the learner’s mothertongue but also knowing its collocations, register, polysemy, and even itshomonym There is also the issue of precision with which we use a word, howquickly we understand a word, and how well we understand and use words indifferent modes, receptive or productive; and for different purposes In addition, it

is important to consider how well the students need to know a particular word inrelation to their needs and current level

It is generally agreed that knowledge of the following is necessary in order to know

a word:

- form, pronunciation and spelling

- word structure, bound root morpheme and common derivations of the wordand its inflections

- meaning, referential, affective/connotation, pragmatic.

- lexical relations, synonymy, antonym, hyponymy

- common locations

There are two factors that have great impacts and help to create the lexicalcompetence: Explicit Vocabulary Instruction and Incidental VocabularyAcquisition Each of these has influences on different stages of vocabulary learningand cause explicit vocabulary learning and implicit vocabulary learning

2.4.1.2 Explicit (or direct) vocabulary learning

In direct vocabulary learning, learners do exercises and activities that focustheir attention on vocabulary (Nation, 1990, p.2) For example, when students aredoing word-building exercises, guessing the meaning of unknown words in contextwhen this is done as a class exercise, learning words in word lists, or playingvocabulary games, they are learning vocabulary explicitly Such activities usuallytake place in class with a lot of help and instruction from teachers To makesuccessful instruction for explicit vocabulary learning, teachers often consider thefollowing: to teach high-frequency words, to maximize vocabulary learning byteaching word families instead of individual words, and to consider meaningassociations attached to the word Thanks to such careful explanations and guidance

of teachers, students at low and intermediate levels may acquire vocabularyexplicitly before they begin implicit learning mainly by themselves

Explicit vocabulary learning plays an important role in vocabulary acquisition.Thus, many theorists and researchers recommended that implicit vocabularylearning should not be used without explicit learning at the low and intermediatelevels

2.4.1.3 Implicit (or incidental) vocabulary learning

Implicit vocabulary learning has been explained by researchers as incidentalvocabulary learning It is the learning of new words as a by-product of a meaning-focused communicative activity, such as reading, listening, and interaction

It occurs through “multiple exposures to a word in different contexts” (Huckin &Coady, 1999)

In implicit vocabulary learning, learners are able to pick up vocabularythrough extensive reading, through communicative interactions, through exposure

to natural input such as movies and television However, for implicit vocabularylearning to be successful, the learners should have a sight vocabulary of 2,000 to3,000 As well, the input should be comprehensible and interesting to the learners;unknown words should be no more than 2% Besides, input enhancement may bebeneficial, guessing should be encouraged, and guessing strategies should betrained

If exploited in a suitable way, implicit vocabulary learning will have manyadvantages Firstly, it is contextualized, giving the learner a richer sense of a word’suse and meaning than can be provided in traditional paired-associate exercises.Secondly, it is pedagogically efficient in that it enables two activities – vocabularyacquisition and reading – to occur at the same time Thirdly, it is moreindividualized and learner-based because the vocabulary being acquired isdependent on the learner’s own selection of reading materials Lastly, presentation,consolidation and lexical/semantic development occur at the same time

In summary, at the beginning level, explicit learning seems more importantthan implicit learning, and the more advanced students become, the more theimplicit learning becomes practical It is also important to consider what Schmitt(2000, p.141) declares “ for second language learners, at least, both explicit andincidental learning are necessary, and should be seen as complementary”

In fact, many students at Vietnam- Korea industrial technology college tend to

not reached the high enough language level to guess words from contexts, thuswaiting for explanations from the teacher Instead of trying to understand of newwords in English both meanings and sense, they usually attempt to translate thewhole phrases and terms into Vietnamese and feel satisfied when they succeed indoing this They spend little time on self-study and have little language exposureoutside the classroom In addition, they do not have motivation to use practice usingEnglish This results in their inability to guess words or involve in the implicitlearning process.

To acquire vocabulary through implicit learning, students have to improvetheir own knowledge and studying methods Teachers’ instructions can help toinfluence the explicit learning process so as to provide them with precise wordmeanings and usage, to make them practice using the words, to make them aware ofthe advantages of learning strategies and to motivate them to spend more time andenergy on vocabulary so that they will somehow develop implicit learning

2.4.2 EFL vocabulary teaching

This part is to describe the information about the role of vocabulary teaching,methods and approaches of teaching vocabulary

2.4.2.1 The role of vocabulary teaching

Teaching vocabulary, being an important part of teaching foreign language,has the goal to help students not only to improve and extend their vocabulary Thewide choice of a word causes the language to be flexible, it assists in avoidingrepetition and monotony of speech, and it gives the possibility to express the ideamore exactly and understandably Nowadays it is generally accepted thatvocabulary teaching should be part of the syllabus and taught in a well-planned andregular basis Lewis (1993) argues that vocabulary should be at the center oflanguage teaching, because “language consists of grammaticalised lexis, notlexicalized grammar” (p.80) As a result, new course-books now include word studysections Consequently, learners have to make a conscious effort to acquire the

target language not only in the classroom but outside it as well In effectivelanguage teaching, students are exposed to the target language in multiple ways, andteachers’ aim is to make the vocabulary lessons not boring and above all encouragetheir students to be autonomous in their language learning.

2.4.2.2 What needs to be taught while teaching vocabulary?

To teach or to learn a word means to teach or to learn its form, meaning and usage.

Form

pronunciationspellinginflectionsderivations

Meaning

basic and literal meanings

derived and figurative

meanings

Usage

sub categorization collocation

sociolinguistic and stylistic restrictions

From the illustration of what should be taught about a word via an isoscelestriangle above, we can see the balance between three aspects of vocabularyteaching: form, meaning and usage In other words, these three aspects should bepaid equal attention to

2.4.2.3 Methods and approaches of teaching vocabulary

Of many factors which measure the success or failure in learning and teaching,methodology is considered as one of the most important Methods are held to befixed teaching systems with prescribed techniques and practices, and approaches arelanguage teaching philosophies that can be interpreted and applied in a variety of

different ways in the classroom “A method is theoretically related to an approach,

is organizationally determined by a design, and is practically realized in procedure”(Richards & Rodges, 1996, p.89) Additionally, according to Prator (1991, p.17)

“…in the teaching situation it is the method used, more than any other factor, thatdetermines the results achieved”

Methodology of vocabulary teaching/learning has undergone too many

changes With the grammar translation method, vocabulary is taught by means of

translation when students are given lists of words with their translation to belearned Language is seen as a collection of words which are isolated andindependent and there must be a corresponding word in the native tongue for eachforeign word students learn This method has been commonly applied in teachingvocabulary to non-English majors at training institutions in the north of Vietnam

With the audio-lingual method, teaching vocabulary is also tuned up to grammar

and words were presented and learned in structures Also, great attention is paid to

pronunciation Vocabulary according to Total Physical Response is emphasized

over other language areas by using commands to direct behavior and actionsequence This method involves a substantial amount of listening andcomprehension in combination with various physical responses Teachers often usegestures, body language, facial expressions to illustrate the words to students

2.4.3 Teaching and learning ESP vocabulary

Teaching vocabulary especially in ESP courses is becoming a challenge forEnglish Language Teachers Vocabulary is an inseparable part of any teachingsyllabus and vocabulary should be taught in a well-planned and regular basis It is

essential to carefully decide what vocabulary will be selected for teaching, and whatapproach or activities will be used to teach it to the students Such languages asRussian and French are losing their power in Vietnam and English is becoming theprimary foreign language English has been taught in primary schools from the thirdgrade for several years From 2007, it is a required subject throughout the 12 years

of schooling The traditional textbooks have been replaced by more modern booksthat include pictures and focus on language skills However, the big class size ofaround 30-40 is still an issue that should be resolved in the near future Englishteachers are being trained to use modern methods of English teaching and attendinglocal and international conferences Old teaching methods are rapidly beingreplaced with modern ones University curricula are usually designed based on thestudents’ needs and interests Vocabulary learning is a very important part of thecurricula designed for students who learn English for different purposes: to dealwith foreign business partners in their jobs, to know it for their studies, to travelabroad, to read documents in English, etc

2.4.3.1 Learning ESP vocabulary

From my teaching experience, I can say that many of my students facedifficulties while learning new English words It is difficult to learn wordsespecially ESP words because they are low frequency words and are notencountered very often

Vocabulary acquisition is incremental in nature and this means that words arenot learned instantaneously but over a period of time The number of words learneddepends on numerous exposures to a particular word McCarthy (1990, p viii)points out that “No matter how well the student learns grammar, no matter howsuccessfully the sounds of L2 are mastered, without words to express a wider range

of meanings, communication in an L2 just cannot happen in any meaningful way”.Schmitt (2000, p 131) emphasizes that “the object of vocabulary learning is to

transfer lexical information from short-term memory, where it resides during theprocess of manipulating language, to permanent long-term memory”.

Short-term memory is also called working memory Working memory is a

kind of gateway where the information is transferred to long-memory Workingmemory is linked to human consciousness and its characteristic is that it holds alimited amount of information for a limited amount of time The role of the workingmemory in this case is to extract visuals, for example, that are relevant for ongoingcomprehension but the capacity of the working memory is always limited

Long-term memory serves as the storage area of information The amount of

information that people hold there is not known but the information can be storedfor a long period of time However, instead of words being representedalphabetically, concepts are represented according to their associations to oneanother An example is the word “blue” and what usually comes to mind is the skywhich is closely associated with blue or “red” usually associated with love

Driscol (2005) gives a detailed explanation of two kinds of memory: episodicmemory refers to specific events such as in specific events as remembering thecircumstances of how one learns to read a map; whereas semantic memory refers toall the general information stored in memory and recalled independently of how onehas learned the information The circumstances under which reading a map islearned are not memorable but the skill is remembered The long-term and workingmemories are also important in producing speech where the material is accessed andassembled from the long-term memory

Learning concrete words is easier than learning abstract words Learners can

more easily remember words like: peach, house, and horse if they appear on a list than words such as freedom and injustice The reason is that the verbal system

represents the meaning of the words, but the imaginable system represents images

of the words The concrete words are remembered better with two memoriesavailable at recall, as opposed to one for abstract words (Driscol, 2005)

A recent trend in higher education is ESP (English for Specific Purposes)courses These courses are designed around students’ needs based on their field ofstudy The goal is to strengthen students’ proficiency and help them to get ready tocope with everyday situations and deal with professionals in many fields such as:engineering, medicine, education, IT, etc There are many training sessionsorganized by international experts whose goal is to train local teachers to teachthese courses successfully.

In order to develop an ability to learn new vocabulary, for both generalEnglish and technical vocabulary in learning ESP (English for Specific Purposes),students should become aware of the importance of language learning strategies and

be trained to use them appropriately Teachers should put a lot of effort towardhelping them to learn vocabulary related to their field of study

It is widely believed that reading is the major source of vocabulary growth inL1 Students with strong reading skills who read a variety of texts may realizesubstantial gains in their vocabulary without direct instruction These students mayalso realize some incidental vocabulary gains through independent reading,however Teachers should neither ignore nor rely solely upon incidental acquisitionbut rather seek to enhance its effectiveness with vocabulary logs, word walls andother techniques Words occur in written texts in four different categoriesdistinguished by Nation (2001):

1) High-Frequency words including many content words, e.g., government, forests, production, adoption, represent, boundary.

2) Academic words include many words that are common in various kinds of

academic texts, e.g., policy, phase, sustained.

3) Technical words are closely related to the topic and subject area (words

from the field of agriculture) in the text, e.g., indigenous, beech, podocarp, regeneration,timber.

4) Low-Frequency words include words like pastoral, aired, perpetuity, zone.

2.4.3.2 Teaching ESP vocabulary

Dudley-Evans and St John (1998) advocate the idea that ESP teachers shouldnot teach technical vocabulary but should check if the learners understood technicalvocabulary that appears as carrier content for an exercise

I believe that ESP teachers should teach words I agree with Strevens (1998,p.89) who points out that “learners who know scientific field may have littledifficulty with technical words; but a teacher who doesn’t may have a great deal” Asuitable approach for teaching ESP words is the lexical approach The lexicalapproach follows the principle that lexis is the most important part of any languageand should be treated that way Chunks are also very important in learning ESPbecause the learners should be able to identify them and should be aware of them.The usage of lexical chunks helps students write and communicate better and theyshould be able to distinguish high-frequency and low-frequency lexical items It isalso widely believed that language fluency and accuracy is achieved largely byretrieving and combining ready-made chunks of language

Most of the students taking ESP identify it with specific terminology related

to their field of study There are degrees of technicality depending on how restricted

a word is to a particular area (Nation, 2001, p.198) ESP is seen as an approachrather than a product, by which is meant that ESP does not involve a particular kind

of language, teaching material or methodology Hence, ESP relates to the learners,the language required and the learning context, and thus establishes the primacy ofneed Need is defined by the reasons for which the student is learning English(Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998)

Nation claims that “technical vocabulary” is a type of specialized vocabularyand its occurrence is affected by factors that influence the use of all vocabulary.Language teachers should prepare their learners to deal with the large numbers oftechnical words that occur in specialized texts (Nation, 2001) It is my opinion thatlanguage teachers who teach ESP courses should be familiar with the corevocabulary of the field of study and design curricula that integrate both content area

and English language Dudley-Evans and St John (1998) distinguish two types ofESP vocabulary, general vocabulary with higher frequency or with specific meaning

in a particular field

Dudley-Evans and St John (1998) are convinced that teaching ESP vocabulary

is the same as teaching English for General Purposes The only distinction thatshould be made is between the vocabulary for comprehension and the vocabularyfor production There are also other distinctions: grammatical vs lexical words,cognates vs non-cognates, etc They further suggest using cognates to deal withtechnical vocabulary They suggest that the lexical approach is very useful inteaching ESP Most learners equate ‘vocabulary’ with ‘words’, and there is atendency among learners to translate any professional text word-for-word, i.e theyusually try to simplify most lexical phrases to separate words The role of teachers

is to raise students’ awareness of the existence of larger lexical items It is believedthat ESP combines subject matter and English language teaching This approach can

be highly motivating for students because students are able to apply what they learn

in their English classes to their main field of study, whether it is law, computing,business, tourism, etc Being able to use the vocabulary and structures that theylearn in a meaningful context reinforces what is taught and increases theirmotivation Nevertheless, ESP concentrates more on language in context than onteaching grammar and language structures

Another interesting fact is that ESP words are perceived as more complex thangeneral words and they should spend more time learning them This is probably due

to the fact that collocations are very frequent in ESP and combining them correctlyrequires more effort There are specific types of collocations in ESP which causestudents’ errors due to a lack of translational equivalence between the students’ firstlanguage and the target language Teachers must help the learner become familiarwith ESP collocations, and such familiarity will develop best when the learner is

Morgan and Rinvolucri (2004) believe that the new words are not learnedmechanically, but associatively Sysoyev (2000) points out that “Vygotskyintroduced the notion of a mediator - a person who helps students achieve what theycannot do by themselves In teaching ESP, the role of mediator will be placed on theteacher, who will start from students’ current stage and bring them to the next stage

of their needs” The challenge for teachers is to systematize the vocabulary inEnglish Development in technology will help us in collecting and analyzing currentand specialized corpora (ESP), and both spoken and academic English in order todevelop better descriptions of lexical phrases and collocations

Language learning strategies can support all aspects of language learningtherefore the teachers should encourage students to use different strategies to learnESP and general English words Many strategies are non-observable but studentsand teachers can discuss them or design questionnaires to find more informationand make more use of it Researchers and scholars should put more effort intodesigning tools that could provide more information on the usage of non-observablestrategies Nation (1997) was among the first researchers who developed vocabularylearning strategies and he points out that vocabulary learning strategies shouldinvolve choice, i.e., there are several strategies to choose from; be complex, i.e.,there are several steps to learn; require knowledge and benefit from training;increase the efficiency of vocabulary learning and vocabulary use Therefore, some

of the possible vocabulary learning strategies that can be used in teaching ESPvocabulary are the following: learning synonyms/ antonyms, learning words bycategories, by topic, by word families and vocabulary cards

2.5 Factors affecting ESP vocabulary learning and teaching

There are many factors, which affect ESP vocabulary learning and teaching Inthis study, the author only refers factors as follow:

2.5.1 Learner-related factors

Lightbown and Spada (1999) state that factors include age, language aptitude,intelligence, attitude and motivation and personality Rubin and Thomson (1994)share the same ideas about the factors including age, aptitude, attitude, personality,learning style and past experiences

Ellis (1994) explains those factors as individual differences that affectdifferent aspects of second language learning Her report on the effect of age showsthat learners who start as children achieve a more native-like accent than those whostart as adolescents or adults The younger is better in the case of phonology but not

in the acquisition of grammar There is no clear evidence that age has great impact

on vocabulary acquisition

Caroll (1965) identified four factors in language aptitude: phonemic codingability, rote learning ability, inductive language learning ability and grammaticalsensitivity; of which the first three are hypothesized to be involved in vocabularylearning

Ellis (1994, pp.507-522) explains a number of learning styles used by adultESL learners such as concrete learning style, analytical learning style,communicative learning style and authority-orientated learning style etc Sheeventually concludes that “Learners manifest different learning styles but it is notyet clear whether some styles result in faster and more learning than others.”

But in this study the author mainly involves five learner – related factors:motivation, personality, students’competence, memory and storage system andlearners’ needs and interests

There have existed many different points of view on the definition ofmotivation in second language learning However, many scholars share the sameview that motivation combines effort and desire plus favorable attitude and occurs

as a result of a combination of internal and external influences William and Burdendefine motivation as follow:

“…motivation may be construed as a state of cognitive and emotional arousal,which leads to a conscious decision to act, and which gives rise to period ofsustained intellectual and/or physical effort in order to attain a previous set goal orgoals”

(William and Burden, 1997, p.120)Motivation plays a significant role in the process of learning a secondlanguage and thus in vocabulary acquisition as well SLA research also seesmotivation as a key factor in L2 learning According to Ellis (1994, pp.508-525),motivation can be categorized into integrative motivation, instrumental motivation;resultative motivation and intrinsic interest Integrative motivation involves aninterest in learning an L2 because of a sincere and personal interest in the peopleand culture represented by the other language group It contrasts with aninstrumental motivation, which concerns the practical value and advantages oflearning a new language Learners with either integrative or instrumentalmotivation, or a mixture of both, will manifest greater effort and perseverance inlearning Resultative motivation is explained by Ellis as an interactive effectbetween motivation and achievement A high level of motivation stimulateslearning and success in L2 learning can help to maintain existing motivation.Conversely, low motivation leads to low achievement, then lower motivation candevelop Other internal sources of motivation, such as self-confidence, may be moreimportant than either type of motivation in some contexts “ Motivation can alsotake the form of intrinsic interest in specific learning activities and may be moreeasily influenced by teachers than goal-directed motivation” Ellis (1994, p.523)

2.5.1.2 Personality

Second language acquisition may be more difficult for some people due totheir personality Personality can affect SLA in general and vocabulary acquisition

in particular Studies have shown that extraverts (or unreserved and outgoingpeople) acquire a second language better than introverts (or shy people).Extroverted learners will be willing to try to communicate even if they are not surethey will succeed, while students that are afraid of embarrassing themselves byspeaking incorrectly or by not being able to speak may try to avoid opportunitiesthat would otherwise aid their learning Those who avoid interaction are typicallyquiet, reserved people, (or introverts) Logically, fear will cause students not to tryand advance their skills, especially when they feel they are under pressure Just thelack of practice will make introverts less likely to fully acquire the second languagevocabulary

These person-dependent factors produce variation in the rate of learning andthe ultimate level of L2 attainment They differ from person to person anddetermine to some extent how a learner approaches a task

2.5.1.3 Students’ competence

ESP is designed to meet the specific needs of learners Learners are expected

to perform with adequate language skills in target situations at the end of the ESPcourses However, the performance of ESP learners have been consideredunacceptable or poor in many cases (Bacha & Bahous, 2008; Chia et al, 1999;Wang, 2004) Students’ overall English language competence has usually beenconsidered the indicator of the success or failure of English learning (Shi, Corcos &Storey, 2001) Some teachers inputed the low achievement of ESP to the students’poor English language skills They argued that the student’s poor English languageskills were inadequate to cope with the ESP courses and make ESP coursesinefficient

By contrast, the students often declare themselves to be suffering from

researchers also reported that students suffer from learning difficulties relating tothe content of ESP (Gatehouse, 2001), the instruction of ESP (Bacha & Bahous,2008) and the tasks involved in the ESP courses (Ferris & Tagg, 1996) Thestudents had difficulties participating in class discussion, asking and responding toquestions Learners have difficulty coping with the ESP vocabulary because ofweak English skills (Jacson, 2004) The weakest language skills are reported moreoften in the previous studies, such as inadequate vocabulary (Tsao, Wei & Fang,2008) and grammar (Chang, 2000).

2.5.1.4 Memory and storage system

An important part of learning is the storage of what has been learned in thelong- tem memory The human mind effectively has three kinds of memory: sensorymemory, short-term memory (or working memory), and long-term memory (Peet,2006) Sensory memory has the capacity to hold a limited number of items for aperiod of only a few seconds, for immediate tasks that require little or noprocessing, such as remembering a phone number long enough to dial it, or a wordlong enough to repeat it Our short-term memory, in contrast, retains items for up totwenty seconds, and is used in circumstances where information needs to bemanipulated or processed at a deeper level Actually, short-term memory is acontrolled processing procedure at which the learner can retrieve their newlyknowledge with effort Finally, there is our long-term memory, which has the ability

to store items away indefinitely This is an automatic processing procedure thatensures retrieval without effort

Thus, learning new items involves storing them first in our short-termmemory, and afterwards in long-term memory However, our long-term memorycan hold any amount of information because it is highly organized and that semanticrelated items are stored together so once a word is stockpiled in long-term memorystorage, it can be taken back for use easily Information is transferred from short-term to long-term memory basing on the principle of seeing – hearing – touching –saying, so after a word is presented to students, it should be met again and again in

different discourse contexts, whether visually or orally so that it can gradually bepicked up into the learners’ mind In the condition of limited natural target languageexposures, classroom activities such as repetition, pair work and group work, peertesting, sentence making or presentation contests, doing crosswords…andautonomous learning (mainly reading, self testing, using stick- notes anddictionaries… ) are of effective application However, “human memory works mostefficiently when it deals with structured information rather than a port-pourri offacts and information.” (Katamba, 1994, p.229), so these activities and materialsshould be constructed in a systematic procedure to present a selection of connectedwords for easy storage.

2.5.1.5 Learners’ needs and interests

A lexical item is most likely to be learned when it is relevant to a learner’sneed to know it or use it to accomplish his/her communicative purposes Therefore,the decision to incorporate a word in one’s productive vocabulary is entirelypersonal and varies according to each student’s motivation and needs In manycases the teacher decides what words should be taught to his/her students becausehe/she is more experienced in language use and often knows what is better for alearner However, it is important for teachers to be sensitive to the learner’ needs(Peet, 2006) and it is a good idea to let the learners decide what words should be ofmore attention In other words, when learners encounter a soar of words in theircourse book, they have the right to decide on the number of words that they reallyneed to learn and make use of either for receptive or productive purposes.Vocabulary building and using activities should be therefore interesting to thestudents and offer them opportunities to use both the newly and previously acquiredvocabulary

2.5.2 Teacher-related factors

The history of second language teaching has experienced many teachingmethods and approaches: grammar - translation, direct method, reading, audio-lingual, community language learning, the silent way, total physical response, andcommunicative - each of which aims at improving learners’ certain language skill.Grammar-translation method, community language learning, and communicativeapproach work well with language learners whose natural language exposure islimited (Moras, 2002).

However, there is no absolute answer to the question: "what is the best way toteach vocabulary?" because the results of teaching and learning process are affected

by not only the teacher’s teaching method, the learners’ learning styles andstrategies but also many other factors beyond language education such aspersonality, intelligence, aptitude, attitude, motivation and age of the particulargroup of students (Lightbown & Spada, 1999, p.49) In terms of vocabulary,learners need multiple encounters with words (Hulstijn, 1992; Folse, 1999); thus,the most important point in teaching and learning vocabulary is the number of timesthe learner has to retrieve the word - a factor that the teacher can influence throughclassroom activities

Vocabulary is acquired incidentally but it should be taught systematically andintentionally, especially in foreign language environments where learners havelimited exposure to the language outside of the classroom as in Vietnam Whatwords to teach and how to teach them effectively depends on the teacher’sunderstanding of his/her particular learners: what type of learners they are, whatlanguage environment they are in, what their needs and interests are and so on.The theories of comprehensible input and affective filter by Krashen (1982) inlanguage acquisition should be taken into account in deciding what words and howmany words to teach in each class meeting According to the former hypothesis, thelearners improve and progress along the 'natural order' when they receive secondlanguage 'input' that is one step beyond thier current stage of linguistic competence( what Krashen calls “i +1”) Since not all learners can be at the same level of

linguistic competence at the same time, Krashen suggests that naturalcommunicative input is the key to designing a syllabus, ensuring in this way thateach learner will receive some 'i + 1' input that is appropriate for his/her currentstage of linguistic competence The latter hypothesis refers to the learner’s state ofmind and disposition such as motives, needs, attitudes and emotion, which preventlearners from acquiring language from the available input The teacher’sunderstanding of these hypotheses in cooperation with applying suitable teachingmethods will bring about success to classroom practice and make the process oflearning new vocabulary fun and enjoyable.

2.5.3 Others factors

ESP materials, technical vocabulary, learning context are others factors whichaffect ESP vocabulary learning and teaching

2.5.3.1 ESP materials

Materials play an important role in teaching and learning process, especially

in teaching ESP vocabulary They are considered as a source of language and alearning support They are also used for motivation and stimulation and forreference

ESP is designed to meet specific needs of the learners, therefore selectingmaterials is very important The materials must be used for a given purpose -preferably some application or transfer of information, be designed to encourage theuse (or teaching) of good skills and have follow up language work that concentrate

on what is transferable Selecting materials involves making choices and decisions

To make good choices we need to have good criteria on which to base the decision.Numerous criteria such as factors about the learners, the role of the materials, thetopics, the language, the presentation have been put forward for the analysis ofmaterials and each of them has validity According to Hutchinson and Waters(1987, p 107), a good ESP material must contain interesting texts, enjoyable

existing knowledge, skills and content that they and their teachers can cope with;truly reflect what they think and feel about learning process; provide clear andcoherent unit structure to guide the students through various activities to maximizethe chances of learning; create a balance outlook which both reflects the complexity

of the task, yet make it appear manageable; introduce teachers to new techniquesand provide models of correct and appropriate language use

According to Coffey (1984), the main consideration in ESP is that ofauthenticity It includes authentic texts and authentic tasks The conception ofauthenticity is enlarged in two principal ways by skill-based approaches to ESP.First, authenticity of text was both broadened to include texts other than writtentexts and narrowed to differentiate between the different types of texts generated byeach skill Secondly, the conception of authenticity was enlarged to embraceauthenticity of task In effect, this meant designing tasks requiring students toprocess texts as they would in the real world In other words, ESP learners wererequired to use ESP materials which employed the same skills and strategies aswould be required in the target situation (Morrow, 1980)

The authors who support the use of authentic materials, although express indifferent ways, have one idea in common: “exposure”- the benefit students get frombeing exposed to the language in authentic materials (Martinez, 2000) Firstly,students are exposed to real discourse (Martinez, 2002), because authentic materialsprovide close contact with the language (Kaprova, 1999) In addition, languagechange is reflected in the materials so that students and teachers can keep abreast ofsuch changes Thus, it makes good sense to give our students exposure to authentictexts in the target language, both written and oral (LeLoup & Ponterio, 2000).Secondly, authentic materials introduce life into the classroom (arm students withfacts - Kaprova, 1999) as authentic materials keep students informed of what ishappening in the world, so they have an intrinsic educational value Teachers areeducators working within the school system, so education and general developmentare part of their responsibilities (Martinez, 2002 cited in Sanderson, 1999)

Thirdly, they can produce a sense of achievement (Martinez, 2002), provide abridge between the linguistic skills of learners and their professional knowledgegoals (Dumitrescu, 2000), help to substantially recognize the real language use (as aresult, they could increase their vocabulary and language structures) (Nonaka,2001) Fourthly, authentic materials, in their various formats, can provide a wealth

of linguistic and conceptual content to learners who are focused on specificapplication of their linguistic skills (Duquette et al, 1987) Books, articles,newspapers, and so on also contain a wide variety of text types, language styles noteasily found in conventional teaching materials (Martinez, 2002) Therefore, it isadvisable to use authentic materials because they provide the variety, which isessential in any language class, but we feel that it is particularly important in anESP class as there is sometimes the danger of the ESP class becoming rather a dryaffair that fails to motivate learners (Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998) What is more,the same piece of material can be used under different circumstances if the task isdifferent (Martinez, 2002) and can be used to develop tasks that depart from theformulaic language learning and can be used at all levels (Kaprova, 1999) Inaddition, they can enliven the classroom and are a powerful motivating factor(provide motivation through enjoyment) (Kaprova, 1999) They can encouragereading for pleasure because they are likely to contain topics or kinds of authenticmaterials to be used in class (Martinez, 2002) Finally, they can help increasestudent cultural background (Kaprova, 1999) and have an effect on culturalidentification

Although authentic materials have plenty of advantages as discussed earlier,there remain some reasons for that people are against the use of authentic materialsdue to some of their disadvantages One common complaint is that authenticmaterials are more difficult than non- authentic materials because of some reasons

as follows according to Martinez (2002):

Firstly, they may be too culturally biased, so unnecessarily difficult to

relevant to the student’s immediate needs Thirdly, many structures are mixed solower levels have a hard time decoding the texts Fourthly, there are manyabbreviations, slang, signs and the like that can require good knowledge of thecultural background to understand Besides the claim of being difficult, someteachers are against the use of authentic materials because the special preparation isnecessary which can be time consuming and the materials can become outdatedeasily Nevertheless, these limitations can be minimized by choosing the materialsselectively and exploiting them appropriately Many authors have given instructions

on how to select and use authentic materials effectively

Similarly, Bowker and Pearson (2002) mention that technical words andgeneral words can have some degree of overlap Technical vocabulary occurs inacademic texts with high frequency (Yang, 1986; Liu and Nesi, 1999; and Nation,2001) as well as low frequency (Liu and Nesi, 1999) Learners need to know thewords since they carry most of the content in the text This group of words thenneeds to be taught Yang (1986:93) states, “One of the specific features of Englishfor Science and Technology (EST) is the high concentration of terms Before alearner can have practical reading competence, he/she must have acquired a certain

number of scientific/technical terms Scientific/technical terms should be part of theteaching of EST, especially at the advanced level.” Yang’s statement provided nodirect comment on the difficulties of technical words However, with a highproportion of technical words, they can cause difficulties for learners in significantways Carter and McCarthy (1991, p.13) stated: “The difficulty of a word mayresult, inter alia, from the relations it can be seen to contract with other words…,from its polysemy, the associations it creates,…, from the nature of contexts inwhich it is encountered.” According to these statements, the difficulties of wordscome from the context in which they occurs as well as the relationship with otherwords This means a word by itself and a group of words can both provide somedifficulties.

Technical words, which carry the content of the discourse, occur with highfrequency in academic texts (Yang, 1986) Technical vocabulary comprisesindexical words, general scientific words, and loan words from common language

In their study, Liu and Nesi (1999) found that technical words provide moredifficulties to non-native learners of English than do academic words

Scientific texts use numerous noun phrases Those noun phrases might containsome technical words that make the phrases technical The technical wordsthemselves can provide some difficulties to learners The interpretation of a nounphrase the meaning can be problematic, especially with compound nouns Trimble(1985) asserts that compounding is a natural process and it can cause problems formost non-native students Learners might be able to handle a two-word compoundwhich may have technical meaning They might have learned how to analyzecompounds and translate them into their native language

With the difficulties technical terms provide or due to doubts whether theyprovide difficulties or not, there have been some studies focusing on identification

of technical terms (Tagliacozzo, 1975; Yang, 1986; Liu and Nesi, 1999; and Chungand Nation, 2003) as well as tests of knowledge of technical vocabulary (Liu and

proportion of technical vocabulary, even higher than that of academic vocabulary.However, most language teachers put more focus on teaching academic vocabulary,claiming that learners have fewer problems with technical words (Trimble, 1985)and giving responsibility to teach technical vocabulary to subject teachers Thismight be because technical words involve subject content which is too difficult forlanguage teachers to understand and that it has become a convenient excuse forpaying more attention to academic vocabulary Indeed, there have been very fewstudies to prove where the focus should lie, on technical or academic vocabulary.

2.5.3.3 Learning context

The learning context refers to the socio-cultural-political environment wherelearning takes place The learning context can include the teachers, the peers, theclassroom climate or the classroom interaction in general Many learning theoriesdescribe learning as an interaction between the learner and a situation within thecontext of a community which involves many things such as learners’ needs,learning content, teaching and learning materials, classroom activities and physicalenvironment (with or without technology assistance) etc, but this study the authormainly involves two factors of the context that directly relate to the result of thelearning process: language input and language output

In order to progress in learning a foreign language, learners need to be able tounderstand what they are hearing and reading That is, the input must becomprehensible in order for it to be useful and meaningful to the learner and helpwith acquisition (Krashen, 1982) If learners do not understand a sizable portion ofthe vocabulary in the language that they are reading or hearing, then this language isnot comprehensible and therefore cannot be useful for acquisition (Folse,2005, p.6).According to Krashen (1982), second language is most successfully acquiredwhen the conditions are similar to those present in first language acquisition: that is,when focus is on meaning rather than on form; when language input is at or justabove the proficiency level of the learner; and when there is sufficient opportunity

to engage in meaningful use of that language This suggests that the focus of thesecond language classroom should be on something meaningful, which is thenprocessed in the learners’ mind, and that modification of the target languagefacilitates language acquisition For example, when the second- year business-majored students are introduced to the topic “company”, they will be able to learnand use lexical items of headquarters, turnover, staff turnover, company strengths,running costs, subsidiary, take risk etc, not vasectomy, molar, infections, uterine,complications, ectopic pregnancy, tease out… because the latter items do not belong

to their professional background knowledge but to medical students’ in gynecologyand business students do not have opportunities to engage these words inmeaningful use

English language learners in Vietnam do not have an adequate naturallanguage environment to practice language skills that they have learnt or acquired.This limitation actually hinders their language development; thus, when being in areal contact with the target language our students produce very low reaction inbookish style This raises the necessity of providing students with opportunities andlanguage activities to use the target language extensively through practice, games,presentations, and eloquence contest

Input alone cannot directly affect the language development if students do nothave opportunities to use the target language productively Output brings aboutmental process of learning Swain (1985) first proposed the ‘comprehensible outputhypothesis’ in response to Krashen’s comprehensible input hypothesis, based on theobservation that French immersion students were considerably weaker in theirspeaking and writing production than in their reading and listening comprehension.She advocated more opportunities for learners to engage in verbal production, i.e.output Similarly, the results of Izumi & Bigelow’s research (2000) on the effect ofoutput on L2 vocabulary indicated that participants in the with output groupsoutperformed the non-output and the control groups on post-test measures