Some implication to improve the teaching and learning reading English for banking in Banking Academy

This paper deals with existing problems in teaching and learning reading English for Banking and Finance in Banking Academy. Being a teacher of English in Banking Academy for more than 20 years, the researcher does realize that there are some problems encountering the teachers and students in Banking Academy, which leads to some unsatisfactory results in the teaching and learning reading English for Banking and Finance in Banking Academy.

v PHƯƠNG PHÁP GIẢNG DẠY MỘT SỐ ĐỀ XUẤT NHẰM CẢI THIỆN TÌNH HÌNH DẠY VÀ HỌC MƠN ĐỌC TIẾNG ANH NGÂN HÀNG TẠI HỌC VIỆN NGÂN HÀNG ĐINH THỊ BẮC BÌNH * Học viện Ngân hàng, ✉ binhdtb@hvnh.edu.vn * Ngày nhận bài: 24/4/2018; ngày sửa chữa: 28/5/2018; ngày duyệt đăng: 29/5/2018 TÓM TẮT Bài báo đề cập đến khó khăn việc dạy học mơn đọc tiếng Anh tài ngân hàng Học viện Ngân hàng Là giảng viên giảng dạy môn tiếng Anh Học viện Ngân hàng 20 năm, tác giả nhận giảng viên sinh viên Học viện Ngân hàng gặp phải số khó khăn dẫn đến kết dạy học mơn đọc tiếng Anh Ngân hàng không mang lại kết kỳ vọng Trong báo tác giả xác định số nguyên nhân dẫn đến việc thực giảng không mong muốn để sau đưa vài gợi ý nhằm cải thiện việc dạy học mơn đọc tiếng Anh tài ngân hàng cho sinh viên khối không chuyên Học viện Ngân hàng Từ khóa: đọc chuyên ngành, kiến thức chuyên ngành, ngân hàng, tài chính, thuật ngữ INTRODUCTION Students in six out of the seven faculties in Banking Academy (BA) are non-English majors who are trained to be bank clerks with either banking, law, accounting, or auditing profession For them, English is not taught with the purpose that the students will take it professionally in their future career but use it to complete some certain jobs like writing business letters, filling out some slips, giving credit or they may need it for their future training These students are attending English classes to improve their listening, reading, speaking and writing skills, of which reading is given the greatest 74 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 13 - 5/2018 account in almost every course book Moreover, in comparison with other skills, reading appears to be used most often on the students’ future work Being a teacher of English in BA for more than 20 years, the researcher does realize that there are some problems encountering the teachers and students in BA, which leads to some unsatisfactory results in the teaching and learning reading English for Banking and Finance in BA In this paper the author wishes to identify some reasons bringing about the unsatisfactory classroom performance then gives some suggestions in order to improve the teaching and learning reading English for Banking and Finance for non-English major students in BA PHƯƠNG PHÁP GIẢNG DẠY v LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Reading English for specific purposes1 A need analysis reveals that ESP learners need English in order to be able to read texts in their subject specialties (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987) Therefore, one important goal in ESP teaching is to increase the non-English major students’ reading skill Having good ESP reading skills enables the non-English major students to support their academic studies, personal development and professional success (Williams, 1990) In addition, reading is as a skill of great importance to the learner, because (a) it provides him with access to a great quantity of further experience of language, and (b) it gives him a window onto the normal means of continuing his personal education (Hammer, 1992) From the descriptions above we cannot deny that teaching ESP reading skill is very much needed by non-English major students not only for their academic studies, personal development and professional success but also experience of language and a window to further education 2.2 Reading in GE (General English) and in ESP classes Reading in GE classes and ESP classes both involve teachers, students and texts that are used to teach and to learn reading In general, these factors function similarly in two types of teaching English and they are all to cover the purpose of the reading programs However, the teaching and learning reading ESP and GE are not totally the same The teachers, the students and the purposes have individual features of their own Like teachers of GE, teachers of ESP have ability to work out the language command of their students, so that they can set objectives for the courses, select appropriate coursebooks as well as design classroom activities and handouts for their students At the same time, they must have some specialist knowledge to help their students acquire language objectives Beside the purposes of any reading program, “to enable students to read ‘without help’ unfamiliar authentic texts at appropriate speed, silently with adequate understanding’ (Nuttall, 1989, p.21), reading in ESP teaching and learning is normally aimed to improve reading skills for the students and the authentic purposes of reading are often submerged by the purpose of language improvement For them, language is merely the means of achieving a non-linguistic purpose 2.3 Factors affecting ESP reading skills 2.3.1 Reading purposes In ESP, it is assumed that the students are learning to use English as a study tool or research language (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987) Therefore, English is not only taught with the purpose of improving the students’ reading skills but also of familiarizing them with English language used in the field in terms of vocabularies, terminologies, registers… That is, after ESP reading classes students are supposed to be able to interpret texts of their specialist subjects in order to get information for further studies in the most appropriate way Although the purpose of ESP reading teaching and learning appears to be vocational, they share the same purpose with any other reading programs: that is to enable students to read ‘without help’ unfamiliar authentic texts at appropriate speed, silently, and with adequate understanding 2.3.2 Teachers Some people would so far say that reading cannot be taught but only learnt, that there is nothing for the teachers to in the reading class However, almost every ESP reading text in the books is not efficiently comprehended without the help of the teachers KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 13 - 5/2018 75 v PHƯƠNG PHÁP GIẢNG DẠY Methodology aside, teacher is the most important element in a reading class because his/her attitudes influence the students and their performance (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987) He/ she has to provide the students with the anxiety-free atmosphere so they feel to experiment with a new reading style He/ she also has to create a favorable environment in which the students are able to practice to master new reading strategies At the same time, the teacher usually gives the students pressure in the form of persuasion of timing In an ESP reading class, Dyes (1980, pp.58-59) stated, the teacher’s role involves getting students to perform a familiar task in a new way and for a variety of purposes To this, he suggested that the ESP reading teacher must assume the role of ‘empathizer’, first seeing things from the students’ perspective before leading them toward ESP approach, then it is the teachers who have to act as a researcher, a course designer, a material writer, a tester, an evaluator as well as a classroom teacher To cover all above requirements, the teacher of ESP reading needs to have some knowledge of, or at least access to information on, whatever it is that the students are professionally involved with on the subject that his/her students are studying So that he/she can select texts and design his/her own syllabus At the same time, it is the teacher of ESP who must know how to encourage his/her students to use their knowledge to interpret the texts Through that, the students acquire unfamiliar vocabularies or terminologies and new reading strategies for different text styles 2.3.3 Students The students in ESP reading classes have to develop a considerable range of habitual responses to a specific set of patterns of graphic shapes That is, they have to recognize with ease particular words, which clarify the function of other words close to them and words which indicate logical relationships among segments of sentences or sections of discourse This means that the students 76 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 13 - 5/2018 must learn to extract from the printed patterns three levels of meaning: lexical meaning (the sematic content of the word and expressions); structural or grammatical meaning (deriving from interrelationships among words, or parts of words, or from the order of the words); and also cultural meaning (the evaluation which people of his own culture attach to the words and groups of words he is reading) Apart from all above activities in a reading classroom, ESP students also have to become familiar with English used in their disciplines Having acquired basic English in terms of grammar, vocabulary and having familiar with the reading activity, these students attend ESP reading classes with the hope to improve their reading skills in their majorities In addition, in ESP reading, the students would tackle texts which are full of terminologies that can be comprehensively understood only in combination with their available specialized knowledge A statement of a bank requires students’ knowledge on Banking and Finance, whereas medical students need knowledge of heart operation and blood circulation to understand a medical research… That is, students in ESP reading class should have ability to combine their English competence with their background specialized knowledge Particulary, for vocational purposes, ESP students are in a more requirement of not only English language but also knowledge of the field 2.3.4 Reading materials In GE teaching and learning, the presentation of language through English texts (with appended comprehension questions) is well-established and very familiar practice These texts appear in structurally graded courses and they seem primarily to be used as a vehicle for usage; to consolidate a grammatical structure and to provide students with a chance to practise a reading skill etc There are two kinds of reading texts: authentic and non – authentic PHƯƠNG PHÁP GIẢNG DẠY v ESP materials are designed for the purposes of providing learners with language for their careers Besides, the target of improving learners’ language competence, ESP reading materials aim to supply learners with terminologies on specialist knowledge They, therefore, carry the language used in samples taken from real – life situations or simulations of them because it gives the students the most direct impression on how language is different from GE METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research methods The major method used in this study was quantitative one That is all consideration, comments, assumptions, suggestions and conclusions given in the study were largely based on the analysis of the statistical data collected from two questionnaires responded by the teachers and the students in Banking Academy Questionnaires were delivered to informants randomly then the answers were sorted out before the author had some discussions with her colleagues about what she had observed after she had studied some relevant publications 3.2 Data collection instruments The questionnaires were designed to investigate problems in teaching and learning reading English for Banking in Banking Academy The answers were collected from 300 students and 15 teachers in Banking Academy For analysis, the author really wished to investigate whether professional banking disciplines influence the teaching and learning reading English for Banking in Banking Academy, the teachers’ difficulties, whether the teachers and their students get satisfactory classroom performance and whether they are using appropriate course books In the questionnaires, the consideration for different options is considered very important The author looked into the perception of the teachers and the students about the purposes of reading classes, the awareness of the students about the importance of reading skills in their future jobs, the harmony of the teachers and the students’ performance in reading class as well as the coursebooks in the view of the teachers and the students 3.3 The informants This study was carried out among 15/20 full time teachers of English in Banking Academy and 300/ 500 students in their first term of learning reading English for banking in Banking Academy Of the teachers, all have MA degrees of which three have degree in Business Management, graduated from Foreign Trade University and 13 others have bachelor’s Degree in English language, have attended many courses of Banking offered by the State Bank of Vietnam and they all have at least – year’s teaching experience The 300 students under investigation have completed their General English courses which are supposed to qualify them with grade B1 as required by the Ministry of Training and Education for university and College graduates These students were randomly chosen from the six faculties of Banking Academy They are trained to be work in banking area after graduation and almost have no experience working as bank clerks They, however, are learning many subjects concerning to banking principles FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 The teachers and the students’ perception of the purposes of teaching and learning reading English for Banking This graph gives an overview of the teachers and the students’ perception about the purpose of reading classes for Banking and Finance It is noticeable that all teachers (100%) and most students (84%) students put banking terminologies KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 13 - 5/2018 77 v PHƯƠNG PHÁP GIẢNG DẠY and vocabularies to their foremost priority whereas ideas in reading texts and specialist knowledge draw attention of only 50% teachers and 54% students Only 8% of the teachers pay attention to types of texts That is both the teachers and the students stick to the purpose of the teaching and learning a reading English for banking is the teaching and learning terminologies They, as a result, are too busy with these and neglect other important purpose of any reading activity: to get information from the reading passages and drop proper strategies and skills for different types of text Graph 1: Teachers and students' perception of the purposes of teaching and learning reading English for Banking 120% 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% Grammar Ideas in the reading texts Banking vocabularies and terminologies teachers' perception Overrall specialist knowledge types of reading texts Others students'perception 4.2 The teachers’ difficulties in teaching reading English for Banking Graph 2: Teachers' difficulties Letters in banking transaction Conversations Newspaper articles about banking 78 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 13 - 5/2018 Texts about a banking principles Banking reports and reviews Bank cards PHƯƠNG PHÁP GIẢNG DẠY v As the illustration in this pie chart, teachers of English in Banking Academy are sharing the same problems with other ESP teachers They find it challenging to deal with reading texts about Letters of Credit, cheques or methods of international payment which require some background knowledge on banking principles However, the ones about simple specialist banking knowledge as bank cards or letters in banking transaction not challenge them that way This can be the result of their lack of specialized banking knowledge as 15/15 (100%) teachers admitted having problems when giving their students’ explanation of unfamiliar words and terminologies as well as choosing extra materials for the students Besides, the teaching and learning reading English for Banking in Banking Academy may not obtain its possible result owing to the teachers’ unawareness of their students’ reading habits and weaknesses (84%) As a result, their explanation of unfamiliar words and terminologies, pre – reading activities… may not receive positive response from their students At the same time, to the field – specific knowledge, students seem to know more about the domain than the teachers This certainly leads to the teacher’s inconfidence in their classroom performance 4.3 The students’ difficulties Graph 3: Students' difficulties Letters in Banking transactions Conversations Newspaper articles about banking operation The survey also reveals difficulties of the students when they learn reading English for Banking Like their teachers, these students are almost inexperienced to banking activities even though they have been attending many courses on specialist banking business However, about 84% of the students find comprehending texts about certain banking principles challenging and 45% have difficulties interpreting banking reports and reviews These two types of texts require both good English command to the extent of vocabularies Texts about a certain banking principles Banking reports and reviews Bank cards and grammar and good background banking knowledge Like their teachers, students are almost strangers to the field The students’ shortage of banking terminologies, their unfamiliarity with the types of reading text resulted in their unsatisfactory reading output At the same time, they haven’t been used to comprehending the texts by making use of their available knowledge on their majority which hinders them from achieving the possible reading ability KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 13 - 5/2018 79 v PHƯƠNG PHÁP GIẢNG DẠY Moreover, the incomplete results in reading were brought about by the students’ inadequate levels of English Their inconfidence in the language deters them from thoroughly comprehending the reading texts, which discourages them from exploring the reading texts to the extent of language, of specialist knowledge and maintenance of their reading habits 4.4 The reading materials As materials are considered to be one of the most important factors in teaching and learning in general They can either be linguistic, books, visual, audio… that is used to make the teaching and learning efficient to acquire defined objectives Reading materials in Banking Academy comes from publications of Oxford University Press which represent authentic language in credit cards, bill of lading, accounting principles, auditing both theoretically and realistically When asked about their views on text books they are using in teaching and learning reading English for Banking in Banking Academy, about 67% of the teachers find it difficult to deal with the reading text whereas only 20% of the students shares the same view on course books This can be explained for the fact that students have acquired some basic banking disciplines from other subjects taught in Vietnamese and they are better able to comprehend the texts (see Graph 4) Reading texts used in teaching and learning reading English for banking in Banking Academy are quite adequate They, however, are a little limit in quantity and therefore not give enough Graph 4: The teachers and the students' views on the reading texts 0,8 0,7 0,6 0,5 0,4 0,3 0,2 0,1 Too long 80 Teachers' ideas Boring KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 13 - 5/2018 Easy Students' ideas Difficult I have no idea PHƯƠNG PHÁP GIẢNG DẠY v opportunities to self-study and further practice The reason behind this is the limit in the publications which are for the purpose of improving students’ competence in specialist knowledge, language grammar and skills SOME IMPLICATIONS TO IMPROVE THE TEACHING AND LEARNING READING ENGLISH FOR BANKING IN BANKING ACADEMY The questionnaires give a close look into the present context of the teaching and learning reading English for Banking in Banking Academy It has identified problems encountered by the teachers and the students in terms of banking disciplines, language, materials… The author of this paper would like to give some suggestions so as to better the reading class performance for non – English major students in Banking Academy 5.1 To the teachers 5.1.1 Improving background knowledge on banking Ellis & Johnson (1994, p.31) argued that ‘it is really misconception that teacher needs to be an expert in the subject matter He or she is not teaching business strategies nor good management practice, nor economic theory” and it is his/her task to train their students to communicate in English about the subject they are specialized in They added that “it is learners who have the specific content knowledge and who are able to bring that knowledge to the classroom’ (p.26) However, it is also suggested that the teachers of Business English should be able to ask right questions and make good use of the answer Surely, in their second and third year, students in BA are somewhat be able to bring their banking knowledge into their comprehensive reading Teachers, thus, must be well – informed about banking specialist discipline Of course, the teachers, need not to be experts in the area and they if they only concentrate on the linguistic features and their students are responsible for interpreting the specialist content, it is impossible for them to handle a specialist material in acceptable manner either from a linguistic or conceptual point of view Therefore, it seems to be no doubt that, language teachers in BA would feel more confident in handling the specialist content if they have some background banking knowledge An effort, therefore, should be made to equip the teacher with general knowledge on banking Such training could be from either of in – service or self – study These all would familiarize teachers with banking specialist knowledge, language…, which build up their confidence and effectiveness of their classroom performance 5.1.2 Being aware of their students’ language level As the English command of students differed considerably, they may have certain difficulties in comprehending reading texts in terms of grammar, vocabularies and genres, which lead to unsatisfactory output of their learning to the extent of speed, reading strategies and finally fail to improve their reading skills Their teachers, therefore, are supposed to help them identify their language learning problems and find solutions for them At the same time, it is also the teachers’ job to identify the skills their students need to comprehend the reading texts and developing their reading skills These duties can be met only when the teachers can recognize their students’ language inefficiency and help to fulfill their incomplete language competence 5.1.3 Redesigning reading materials to meet their student’s needs and be suitable for their English language command It is clearly known that ESP course books are those designed for a specific group of students However, almost course books used in teaching English for Banking in Banking Academy are adopted from series designed by foreigners and for foreign students who may be far more familiar with banking transactions than those in Viet Nam KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 13 - 5/2018 81 v PHƯƠNG PHÁP GIẢNG DẠY The course books, therefore, should be made to be friendlier Teachers of English in Banking Academy may collect more reading texts from other relevant sources and design more tasks for their students to further practice in order to consolidate their specialist knowledge, vocabularies, terminologies in banking and fore mostly to improve their reading skills in terms of reading strategies adaptation to be efficient readers ESP reading in Banking Academy aimed to qualify the students so that they are able to cover non-English major jobs That is, they must have essential skills of communication in English within business contexts So, materials selected should be authentic to familiarize students with banking principles and language competence, which all together set a positive learning environment 5.2 To the students 5.2.1 Raising students’ awareness of the importance of reading in their future work The students should be aware of the fact that most of them will work in banks and have contacts with Vietnamese customers and therefore, speaking and listening in English is not of frequent use In the sense of getting information or knowledge from periodical, reports, journals etc , reading, however, is the most helpful for their work and further study In this way, the students may feel encouraged to pay more attention to reading activities 5.2.2 Encouraging students to read with the purpose of finding specific information from the reading texts Paying too much attention to linguistic features in teaching and learning reading English for Banking may bring about the neglect of the major purpose: getting information from reading passages At the same time, they appear to be confused in adopting a proper reading skill for each reading passage 82 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 13 - 5/2018 For this, Abott, G.: Green J & Doughlas Mc (1990, p.83) stated in their book The teaching of English as an international language” “efficient reading depends first of all on having a purpose for reading, knowing why you are reading a text” and “the purpose will usually determine the appropriate type of reading and the relevant reading skills to be used” For this, some improvement would be to set questions in the pre – reading state, which prepare students with vocabulary in the reading passage and set the purpose for the reading 5.2.3 Encouraging students to reading in English Reading is a skill which needs practicing rather than learning Reading classes not often provide adequate time to build it up as their objectives are to help students familiar with the language in terms of types of texts, language and appropriate reading strategies and reading speed As a result, to be efficient readers, students more reading outside classroom to improve their ability to deal with various types of Letters of Credits, promissory notes, balance sheets, Bill of Exchange etc CONCLUSION In this paper, the author looks closely into the present context the teaching and learning reading English for Banking in BA in terms of the teachers, the students and the course books and has identified some problems that lead to unsatisfactory result as the teachers’ performances in the class are not of the preference of their students All these are brought about by the teachers and the students’ background banking specialist knowledge, terminologies, their perception about teaching and learning reading English for banking… The author then has given some suggestions to improve the teaching and learning reading English for Banking and Finance in Banking Academy./ PHƯƠNG PHÁP GIẢNG DẠY v Note: ESP: English for specific purposes Reference: Abott, Gerry, Green, J., Douglas Mc (1990) The Teaching of English as an International Language New York: Collins E.L.T Hammer, J (1992) The Practice of English Language Teaching London: Longman Hutchinson, T & Waters, A (1987) English for Specific purposes Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Ellis, M & Johnson, C (1994) Teaching Business English Oxford: Oxford University Press Deyes, A F (1980) “The Role of The Teacher and The Role of The Student in ESP Courses” Nutall, C (1989) Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language London: Heinermann Paper given at the 2nd national seminar of the Brazillian National ESP project Williams, E (1990) Reading in The Language Classroom New York: Macmillan Publisher SOME IMPLICATION TO IMPROVE THE TEACHING AND LEARNING READING ENGLISH FOR BANKING IN BANKING ACADEMY DINH THI BAC BINH Abstract: This paper deals with existing problems in teaching and learning reading English for Banking and Finance in Banking Academy Being a teacher of English in Banking Academy for more than 20 years, the researcher does realize that there are some problems encountering the teachers and students in Banking Academy, which leads to some unsatisfactory results in the teaching and learning reading English for Banking and Finance in Banking Academy In this paper the author wishes to identify some reasons bringing about the unsatisfactory classroom performance then gives some suggestions in order to improve the teaching and learning reading English for Banking and Finance for non-English major students in Banking Academy Keywords: ESP reading, specialist knowledge, banking, finance, terminologies Received: 24/4/2018; Revised: 28/5/2018; Accepted for publication: 29/5/2018 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 13 - 5/2018 83 ... about teaching and learning reading English for banking The author then has given some suggestions to improve the teaching and learning reading English for Banking and Finance in Banking Academy. /... LEARNING READING ENGLISH FOR BANKING IN BANKING ACADEMY The questionnaires give a close look into the present context of the teaching and learning reading English for Banking in Banking Academy. .. AND LEARNING READING ENGLISH FOR BANKING IN BANKING ACADEMY DINH THI BAC BINH Abstract: This paper deals with existing problems in teaching and learning reading English for Banking and Finance in