Aligning specialist english language curriculum in higher education with development imperatives and workplace communication needs in vietnam a case study of the vietnamese petroleum industry

ALIGNING SPECIALIST ENGLISH LANGUAGE CURRICULUM IN HIGHER EDUCATION WITH DEVELOPMENT IMPERATIVES AND WORKPLACE COMMUNICATION NEEDS IN VIETNAM: A CASE STUDY OF THE VIETNAMESE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY LE, Lan Phuong Bachelor of Arts in English Teaching (DNU) Master of Arts in English Linguistics (DNU) Supervisors: Dr Margaret Kettle Prof Hitendra Pillay Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Education Queensland University of Technology October 2016 Keywords Workplace communication Textual knowledge Participant knowledge Global, institutional and organisational knowledge Social action knowledge English for specific purpose curriculum Aligning Specialist English Language Curriculum in Higher Education with Development Imperatives and Workplace Communication Needs in Vietnam: A Case Study of the Vietnamese Petroleum Industry i Abstract Globalisation, the opening of an Asian trading bloc in 2015 and the recent Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement are pushing Vietnam to focus heavily on teaching and learning English for Specific Purposes (ESP) to support business and industry Designing ESP curricula, which are aligned with industry needs, is now an urgent issue for Vietnam It is especially important in the petroleum industry, which involves many joint ventures with international companies and is considered vital to Vietnam’s industrialisation and modernisation While ESP has evolved to meet specialist needs in many industry contexts, there are still few scholarly published studies on reforming an English language curriculum in higher education, especially for petroleum engineering to meet the demand in the changing labour market in Vietnam Therefore, the present study is a pioneer in this field The study aims to investigate to what extent the ESP curriculum in Vietnamese universities is aligned with workplace communication needs Specifically, the alignment of the English for petroleum engineering (EPE) curriculum at Nam Khue university (NKU) with the workplace communication needs of two joint-venture petroleum companies in Vietnam was explored In order to achieve this research objective, the study was conducted in three phases based on Huhta, Vogt, and Tulkki’s (2013) model of professional communication The three phases included (1) examining the kinds of knowledge required by the petroleum engineers for their workplace communication in the two petroleum companies, (2) investigating kinds of knowledge taught in the EPE curriculum at NKU to prepare the EPE students for their future workplace communication and (3) identifying the level of alignment between the university provision and the workplace demands The present study adopted a qualitative case study methodology to gain a comprehensive picture of workplace communication needs in the two petroleum companies and a holistic understanding of EPE provision at NKU In the company site, data was collected through document analysing, semi-structured interviews and audio recordings of daily calls while the university data was gathered through document reviewing, semi-structured interviews and classroom observations Aligning Specialist English Language Curriculum in Higher Education with Development Imperatives and Workplace Communication Needs in Vietnam: A Case Study of the Vietnamese Petroleum Industry ii The study revealed some important findings While the petroleum engineers in the two petroleum companies used textual knowledge; participant knowledge; global, institutional and organisational knowledge; and social action knowledge for their workplace communication, the EPE curriculum at NKU focused on teaching textual knowledge This result indicates that the EPE provision at NKU was misaligned with the workplace communication needs of the petroleum companies From a practical perspective, the study provides recommendations for a more effective EPE curriculum and also practical implications for the employers in the petroleum companies in their recruiting and training of petroleum engineers The study provides a new theoretical perspective to evolving workplace contexts in ESP curricula in Vietnam The research contributes to improving ESP curriculum design and implementation in Vietnamese universities in order (1) to increase the effectiveness of the teaching and learning of ESP in Vietnamese higher education institutions and (2) to provide graduates with workplace communication competence to improve their employability prospects and their effectiveness in industries Aligning Specialist English Language Curriculum in Higher Education with Development Imperatives and Workplace Communication Needs in Vietnam: A Case Study of the Vietnamese Petroleum Industry iii Table of Contents Keywords i Abstract ii Table of Contents .iv List of Figures viii List of Tables x List of Excerpts xi List of Abbreviations xiii Statement of Original Authorship xiv Acknowledgements xv Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Background of the study 1.2.1 Globalisation and higher education reform 1.2.2 Globalisation and English language education 1.2.3 An overview of the higher education system in Vietnam 1.2.4 Higher education reform in Vietnam 1.2.5 Foreign language education policy in Vietnam 1.2.6 National Foreign Languages 2020 Project (NFL 2020) 10 1.2.7 Current practice of ESP teaching and learning in Vietnamese higher education 11 1.3 Context of the petroleum industry in Vietnam 13 1.3.1 An overview of the Vietnamese petroleum industry 13 1.3.2 Development of workforce for the petroleum industry 16 1.4 Purposes of the Study 19 1.5 Significance of the Study 20 1.6 Scope of the Study 21 1.7 Summary of the chapter and structure of the thesis 22 Chapter 2: English for Specific Purposes 25 2.1 Introduction 25 2.2 An overview of English for specific purposes 25 2.2.1 The origin of ESP 25 2.2.2 The development of ESP 26 2.2.3 Understandings of ESP 28 2.2.4 Types of ESP learner’s needs 30 2.2.5 Approaches to needs analysis 39 2.2.6 Forms of ESP teaching 48 2.2.7 Problems in ESP 57 2.3 Summary of the chapter 64 Chapter 3: Conceptual Framework of the Study 65 Aligning Specialist English Language Curriculum in Higher Education with Development Imperatives and Workplace Communication Needs in Vietnam: A Case Study of the Vietnamese Petroleum Industry iv 3.1 Introduction 65 3.2 Language learning 67 3.2.1 Language, language teaching and language learning 67 3.2.2 Communicative competence 69 3.2.3 Communicative language teaching 71 3.3 Workplace learning 72 3.4 Workplace communication 74 3.4.1 Communication 74 3.4.2 Workplace communication 75 3.4.3 Kinds of knowledge needed for workplace communication 80 3.5 Curriculum development 93 3.6 Summary of the chapter 97 Chapter 4: Research Methodology 99 4.1 Introduction 99 4.2 Research design overview 99 4.3 Qualitative paradigm 101 4.4 Case study 103 4.5 Site and participant selection 104 4.5.1 Workplace sites 104 4.5.2 The university site 107 4.6 Data collection 110 4.6.1 Interviews 111 4.6.2 Classroom observations 117 4.6.3 Document reviewing 118 4.6.4 Audio recordings of daily calls 120 4.7 Data analysis and interpretation 121 4.7.1 Organising and familiarising 122 4.7.2 Coding and reducing 124 4.7.3 Interpreting and representing 129 4.7.4 Corpus analysis 129 4.8 Ethical issues 131 4.9 Trustworthiness 133 4.10 Summary of the chapter 134 Chapter 5: Kinds of Knowledge Required for Workplace Communication in Two Petroleum Companies in Vietnam 137 5.1 Introduction 137 5.2 Textual knowledge required for workplace communication in two petroleum companies in Vietnam 138 5.2.1 Communication situations required for workplace communication in two petroleum companies in Vietnam 138 5.2.2 Genres required for workplace communication in two petroleum companies in Vietnam 140 5.2.3 Texts required for workplace communication in two petroleum companies in Vietnam 142 Aligning Specialist English Language Curriculum in Higher Education with Development Imperatives and Workplace Communication Needs in Vietnam: A Case Study of the Vietnamese Petroleum Industry v 5.3 Participant knowledge required for workplace communication in two petroleum companies in Vietnam 158 5.4 Global, institutional and organisational knowledge required for workplace communication in two petroleum companies in Vietnam 163 5.5 Social action knowledge required for workplace communication in two petroleum companies in Vietnam 168 5.6 Discussion and summary of the chapter 172 Chapter 6: Kinds of Knowledge Taught in the English for Petroleum Engineering Curriculum at Nam Khue University 177 6.1 Introduction 177 6.2 Textual knowledge taught in the EPE curriculum at NKU 178 6.2.1 Communication situations taught in the EPE curriculum at NKU 178 6.2.2 Genres taught in the EPE curriculum at NKU 184 6.2.3 Texts taught in the EPE curriculum at NKU 186 6.3 Participant knowledge taught in the EPE curriculum at NKU 192 6.4 Global, organisational, and institutional knowledge taught in the EPE curriculum at NKU 193 6.5 Social cction knowledge taught in the EPE curriculum at NKU 196 6.6 Discussion and Summary of the chapter 199 Chapter 7: Alignment between the Workplace Communication Needs and the English for Petroleum Engineering Curriculum 201 7.1 Introduction 201 7.2 Textual knowledge 202 7.2.1 Communication situations 202 7.2.2 Genres 204 7.2.3 Texts 205 7.3 Participant knowledge, global, institutional and organisational knowledge and social action knowledge 208 7.4 Summary of the chapter 211 Chapter 8: Contributions and Conclusions 213 8.1 Introduction 213 8.2 Theoretical contributions 213 8.3 Practical contributions 215 8.3.1 Practical contributions for the EPE curriculum at NKU 215 8.3.2 Practical contributions for the two petroleum companies in Vietnam 224 8.4 Pedagogical contributions 225 8.5 Limitations and directions for further research 225 8.6 Conclusion 226 References 228 Appendices 257 Appendix A: Interview protocol for company participants 257 Appendix B: Classroom Observations 260 Appendix C: Ethics: Example of participant information and consent forms 261 Aligning Specialist English Language Curriculum in Higher Education with Development Imperatives and Workplace Communication Needs in Vietnam: A Case Study of the Vietnamese Petroleum Industry vi Appendix D: Language and communication policy in Company 265 Appendix E: Common word types in emails in Company and Company 267 Appendix F: Common word types in daily calls in Company and Company 271 Appendix G: Daily report - Company 274 Appendix H: Daily report Company 276 Appendix I: Example of reading task in the EPE course 278 Appendix J: Example of translation task in the EPE course 281 Appendix K: Example of describing a process 287 Appendix L: Example of end-term tests in the EPE course 291 Appendix M: Outline of the EPE course 294 Aligning Specialist English Language Curriculum in Higher Education with Development Imperatives and Workplace Communication Needs in Vietnam: A Case Study of the Vietnamese Petroleum Industry vii List of Figures Figure 1.1 Kachru’s Circles of English Figure 1.2 Core business sectors of PVN (PVN, 2013a) 13 Figure 1.3 Summary of Vietnamese oil/gas production (PVN, 2013a) 16 Figure 2.1 Classification of ESP by Huhta et al (2013, p 37) 27 Figure 2.2 Learner’s needs classification based on P C Robinson (1991) 32 Figure 3.1 Conceptual framework of the study 66 Figure 3.2 Canale and Swain’s (1981) model of communicative competence 70 Figure 3.3 Huhta et al.’s (2013) model of professional communication Retrieved from http://www.proflang.org/@Bin/138563/Marjatta+Huhdan+esitys.pdf Reprinted with permission 79 Figure 3.4 Model of textual knowledge, extracted from Huhta et al.’s (2013) model of professional communication 80 Figure 3.5 Model of participant knowledge extracted from Huhta et al.’s (2013) model of professional communication 85 Figure 3.6 Model of global, institutional and organisational knowledge extracted from Huhta et al.’s (2013) model of professional communication 87 Figure 3.7 Model of social action knowledge extracted from Huhta et al.’s (2013) model of professional communication 89 Figure 3.8 Activities for professional communication suggested by Huhta et al (2013) 96 Figure 3.9 Dimensions of a workplace communication curriculum 96 Figure 4.1 Research design of the study 100 Figure 4.2 Summary of all the data sets in the study 121 Figure 4.3 Steps of data analysis in the study 131 Figure 5.1 Textual knowledge used in the two petroleum companies 138 Figure 5.2 Participant knowledge used in the two petroleum companies 158 Figure 5.3 Global, institutional and organisational knowledge used in the two petroleum companies 164 Figure 5.4 Social action knowledge used in the two petroleum companies 169 Figure 5.5 Kinds of knowledge required for workplace communication in the two petroleum companies 174 Figure 6.1 Textual knowledge taught in the EPE curriculum at NKU 178 Figure 6.2 Example of teaching vocabulary in the EPE curriculum at NKU (NKU-ClassObservation 2) 190 Aligning Specialist English Language Curriculum in Higher Education with Development Imperatives and Workplace Communication Needs in Vietnam: A Case Study of the Vietnamese Petroleum Industry viii ... 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