An investigation into students’ communicative needs in english the case of university of labour and social affairs

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES CAO SƠN HÙNG AN INVESTIGATION INTO STUDENTS’ COMMUNICATIVE NEEDS IN ENGLISH: THE CASE OF UNNIVERSITY OF LABOUR AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS (NGHIÊN CỨU ĐIỀU TRA VỀ NHU CẦU GIAO TIẾP TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC LAO ĐỘNG XÃ HỘI) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 HÀ NỘI, 2012 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES CAO SƠN HÙNG AN INVESTIGATION INTO STUDENTS’ COMMUNICATIVE NEEDS IN ENGLISH: THE CASE OF UNNIVERSITY OF LABOUR AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS (NGHIÊN CỨU ĐIỀU TRA VỀ NHU CẦU GIAO TIẾP TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC LAO ĐỘNG XÃ HỘI) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Supervisor : M.A Văn Thi Thanḥ Binhh HÀ NỘI, 2012 TABLE OF CONTENT Part A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Scope of the study Aims of the study 4 Subjects and Methodology of the study Research question Design of the study Part B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 "COMMUNICATIVENESS" AND COMPETENCE 1.1.1 What is ―communicativeness‖? 1.1.2 Communicative competence 1.1.3 Communicative performance 1.1.4 Needs 10 1.1.5 Needs analysis 11 1.1.6 Changing the communicative needs 12 1.1.7 The impact of integrated language skills in communication 19 CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 21 2.1 Data and Methodology 21 2.2 Results and Discussion 23 2.2.1 Students‘ Needs and Actual Use 23 2.2.2 Students' Wants 28 2.2.3 Students‘ lacks 30 PART C: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION 34 Conclusions and implications 34 Limitation and suggestion for further study 36 References 38 APPENDIX…………………………………………………………………………I iv LIST OF TABLE AND DIAGRAM Tables Table 1: Students‘ needs of listening by type of job Table 2: Students‘ needs of speaking by type of job Table 3: Students‘ needs of reading by type of job Table 4: Students‘ needs of writing by type of job Table 5: students‘ wants by type of work Table Response percentages: Language proficiency (selfassessment) by type of work Table Response percentages: skills used in the workplace by type of work v PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale English is undoubtedly considered a golden key to open the door of such fields as commerce, science and technology throughout the world Therefore, it is necessary to teach this language in educational establishments of all levels One of the most important purposes of learning English is to communicate with other people especially native speakers while communication is mainly based on speaking in which intonation is an important aspect Therefore, how to speak English smoothly and fluently with an accurate intonation is essential to any learners of English including Vietnamese learners However, during the course of the research‘s study and teaching practice, it is found that little or even no attention is paid to the teaching and learning of communicativeness In addition, among many aspects of the teaching and learning English, communicativeness is often neglected at non-major language colleges Students are taught about this issue when they are in university or college; so many of them find it difficult to communicate because of their pronunciation or because they can‘t pronounce an utterance with accurate intonation As a result, their English does not sound native-like Similarly, students always have troubles in listening and understanding native speakers This leads to the fact that a lot of them feel shy and lack of confidence in speaking English During the past 20 years, the explosion in business and communications technology has revolutionized the field of English language teaching, and has radically shifted the attention of course designers from teaching English for Academic purposes to teaching English for more specialized purposes In the last few years, first (L1) and second (L2) language acquisition research into language teaching have led to an increased interest in investigating the most effective ways of improving the ability of workers in using English for specific purposes in the workplace (Li So-mui and Mead, 2000; Louhiala-Salminen 1996) Several recent studies of ESP have provided evidence of the importance of teaching English for specific purposes (Li So-mui and Mead, 2000; Edwards, 2000; Lohiala-Salinen, 1996; Huchinson and Waters, 1987) For example, it has been observed that the type of language used by each worker is influenced by the worker‘s working instrument (see for example, Pogner, 2003; Zak and Dudley-Evans, 1986), by his aims and professional constraints, as well as by his specialization and the type of duties assigned to him, and by the texts the worker produces and deals with (e.g., Edwards, 2000; Macintosh, 1990) These educational studies have been developing in tandem with a recognition that learning English for specific purposes play important roles in workers‘ and administrators‘ success in their fields of work and business environments Over the last few years, many researchers have offered a number of books and articles bringing out new insights and approaches from different theoretical perspectives For instance, an important survey was conducted in Finland in 1998 by the National Board of Education on the language and communication skills in the fields of industry and business It studied language/ communication needs of industry and business employees and was aimed at showing how language teaching could best equip students with the skills required in professional life The survey has revealed that compared with engineers, employees in production jobs, installation and repair workers not need to use foreign languages as much as the members of the other group However it is clear that they have to read instructions, socialize and travel They rarely get involved with writing formal papers, giving presentations or negotiating The study thus has shown that the need for oral communication overrides written skills (reading and writing) in the first group, while the discrepancy in the second is smaller (Reported in Viel 2002:1) Similar studies have been carried out in other European and Asian countries (see Perrin, 2003; Ponger, 2003; Edwards, 2000; Le So-Mui and Mead, 2000) In his study on writing and interacting in the discourse community of engineers, Pogner (2003:865) has concluded that writing in the discourse community of engineers cannot be isolated from its contexts, from the chains of communication of which it is a part, or from the interaction between the writers (consultants) or readers (Clients) On this issue, Pogner also adds: Text production and revision by consultant engineers are not only cognitive problem-solving and communication processes … but also means of negotiation professional standards and roles; defining strategic functions of texts and genres; establishing, maintaining or changing the text’s and interaction’s context by helping the readers/users of the text carry out their own complex technological and business tasks In like manner, in a study which took place in a specialized business context involving senior German bankers, Edwards (2000) has observed that there is a correlational relationship between the place of work and the effective needs of workers in terms of language skills practiced, terminology used, and syllabus design and materials preparation for the workers This work arose from a long-standing association between the on-going process of research in the field of teaching/learning English for Specific purposes in General, and the study plan towards a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Department of English for Applied studies at the University of Labor and Social Affairs (ULSA) More specifically, it developed from an attempt to revise the study plan continuously based on the results of other studies on ESP along with an authentic analysis of learners' perceptions of needs, wants and lacks in the workplace in the future The rationale behind choosing these two areas of students‘ future work (accounting and insurance) for the purpose of investigation is because they are two of the most important fields in which English is used extensively So, for a better understanding of the day-to-day activities and the ‗real world‘ needs of these students, an empirical investigation was carried out so as to see whether the type of material and skills being taught to our students suit their needs or not Another aim of this study is to see whether there is a need to modify our objectives or to update our programs in light of the results of this investigation So this study will concern itself partially with studying language use, and the workers‘ perceptions of ESP in light of their abilities and ‗real world‘ need Scope of the study The research is based on data collected from thirty respondents in four different classes at University of Labor and Social Affairs in Hanoi, Vietnam The participants in the survey were students in the major of accounting and insurance This paper is an exploratory study of the use of English by accounting and insurance students It attempts to examine the communication needs of the students in the workplace by shedding light on their perceptions of needs, wants and lacks Aims of the study This study was conducted for the purpose of achieving a better understanding of the communication needs placed upon Vietnamese accounting and insurance students Moreover, this study was to identify the students‘ needs, wants, lacks of English for the purpose of including in our curriculum what is needed by our students and excluding what deemed to be less important to them This study also was carried out so as to see whether the type of material and skills being taught to our students suit their needs or not Another aim of this study is to see whether there is a need to modify our objectives or to update our programs in light of the results of this investigation Subjects and Methodology of the study The design of this investigation is based on the work of Hutchinson and Waters (1987), and Dudley-Evans and Jo ST John (1998), in which they define needs in terms of ―target needs (i.e what the learner needs to in the target situation) and Learning needs (i.e what the learner needs to in order to learn).‖ The main concern of this investigation will be an analysis of the target needs of the subjects in these two areas of workplaces However, as all the subjects of this study are university undergraduates, no attempt will be made here to investigate their learning needs To understand the undergraduates‘ preferred ways of learning, it is highly recommended that such investigation to be conducted at the University of Labor and Social Affairs in Hanoi, Vietnam, where several ESP courses are taught to the university students According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987), and Dudley-Evans and Jo ST John (1998), the best methodology for studying the target needs of any particular group of students is to use such methods as Questionnaires, follow-up interviews, collection of authentic workplace texts, and visits to the workplace The corpus of this study was collected with the assistance of three ESP students enrolled in the Department of English for Applied Studies at University of Labor and Social Affairs (ULSA) by means of a questionnaire and interviews Data collection methods used in this study include calculating percentage of answers in the questionnaire Details of methodology applied in the study are discussed in part B, chapter Some of the interviews were conducted by me The present research is based on data collected from thirty respondents in leading positions in four different classes: accounting and insurance The participants in the survey were students in the major of accounting and insurance, all of whom are Vietnamese-English balanced bilinguals capable of using English for different purposes Fifteen of them study in the field of accounting and the other fifteen in the field of insurance The sample is composed of twenty-two males and only eight females Research question The main purpose of the study is to investigate the students‘ communicative needs in the workplace by shedding light on their perceptions of needs, wants, lacks of English and the use of English in the workplace To achieve this objective, the study seeks the answers to the following questions: What are the students’ perceived English communicative needs? How to they self-evaluate their ability to communicate in English? What is the gap between their perceived communicative needs and their self-evaluated communicative ability? Design of the study The research is divided into three parts as follows: Part A is the INTRODUCTION to the research This includes the rationale, the objectives, the scope, the methodology and the design of the study Part B- the DEVELOPMENT, the most significant part of the study, consists of two chapters: Chapter provides theoretical background knowledge of the studied issue touched upon in the research There are seven sub parts in this chapter This part outlines the evolving definitions of Communicativeness, and Communicative competence and performance, Needs, Needs analysis, Changing the communicative Chapter covers methodology applied in the study The research question comes first, followed by an introduction to the subjects of the research, the data instruments and the procedures and methodology used for data collection In this chapter, the discussion and interpretation of the collected data is given to find out errors made by the subjects of the research in producing the glide up based on an analysis of their performance in the listening and pronunciation tests Part C is the CONCLUSION, the summary of major findings of the research, followed by implications and suggestions for teachers and learners of English Limitation of the study and suggestions First, accounting students are heavier users of English than their insurance counterparts and this is clearly manifested through their uses of the four language skills; Reading (49%, 61%), writing (37%, 80%), speaking (33%, 61%), and listening (36%, 63%) by the insurance and accounting students respectively Second, asking about their needs the great majority of the respondents prefer getting information themselves, improving listening skills and sharpening their ability in speaking Third, in responding to a considerable number of questions on students‘ wants the accounting students showed a great deal of desire for improving language skills and competence for the future usage than insurance students because English is considered as an important skill as well as an instrument for achieving multipurpose activities This detailed study into the use of English in the workplace by two types of students recommends that course designers and the developers of teaching and learning materials should provide more specifically focused English courses to learners in their respect fields of work The study also helps us establish realistic measures for treatment which would be incorporated in the design of a particular type of courses and textbooks to ESP students in the Department of English for Applied Studies at University of Labor and Social Affairs The implications of this research for language teachers and for the administration in large institutions such as insurance and accounting among other workplaces is to find the ways of motivating both students and workers to lifelong learning, to negotiate with them on their priorities for various skills to be sharpened, to incorporate activities that trainees prefer, and to design courses that suit the needs of the concerned groups of learners Teachers should train the students in the speaking activities like greeting and wishing one another, introducing and briefing oneself, presenting about oneself, revealing personal profile, presenting a short lecture, public speaking, presenting on 35 any topic of interest, engaging in informal chatting with short dialogues, participating in mock interviews, performing a role play, presenting a business or technical paper, participating in meetings with an agenda of scrutinizing business developments, thinking logically and critically on any business or technical issues, providing a solution to the problem will make the students to literally develop their professional and technical communication Limitation and suggestion for further study There is an urgent need for materials to adopt an approach which fully reflects and promotes students‘ perceptions of communicativeness It is a consistent, simple and user-friendly pedagogical linguistic tool, which fully reflects the cognitive and interactive elements of communicative language teaching, appropriate to twenty- first century learner needs Outdated theories of language and learning incommensurate with the professed communicative nature of the courses suggest pronunciation is of token inclusion and value within the overall syllabus The virtual total lack of opportunity for students to observe, practice and communicate, means students will not progress beyond a superficial understanding of what communicativeness entails students and novice teachers (a significant proportion of course-book users) will remain blinkered as to the true nature of communication and its fundamental relationship to discourse and communication Sheldon notes the pressures of market forces, which is perhaps the largest restraining factor to progress in communication, ―Course-books are often seen by potential customers - teachers, learners as market ephemera requiring invidious compromises between commercial and pedagogical demands.” (1988, p.237) A self-perpetuating industry conservatism and need for financial survival maintains an anachronistic status quo However, change needs to occur at all levels for communication to be truly reflected as a pillar of spoken English From a macro perspective, the audio-lingualism institutionalized by publishers needs subjecting to 36 greater leaps of faith and incorporates research and communicative theory into their courses This must see a parallel adoption by teacher-training centers to adopt more proactive policies in focusing on questions of communication, intelligibility and so create greater demand from publishers Only then can communication become an equal and integrated skill to empower teachers to approach it as a meaning-focused and syllabus-wide function of communication At the micro level, course-books need to embody decisions, which focus at the very least on the traditional stalwarts of Communicative Language Teaching (the paradigm) even to begin to justice to communication A focus on communication would much to connect many of the fragmented exercises and activities which compromise the communicative efficiency of course-books, and thus make the teaching of language more cohesive and more globally communicative Its focus on rules of use and meaning constitute a consistent thread throughout a single course-book, or whole series, necessary to maintain momentum in acquiring phonological, and therefore communicative competence Materials must be engaging and interactive enough to motivate students to recognize this communicative importance and so invest more in their learning and increase learner independence This is particularly so for those students (and teachers) whose educational backgrounds have convinced them that sound and articulation are most important In introducing communication, materials must avoid the danger of maintaining their structural theory of learning and applying it to the dynamic and interactive theory of language and communication represented Learners simply by reciting and copying neatly transcribed discourse segments along structural lines, while ignoring the choice of prominence or tone, is a style similar to the structural approach on which it is intended to improve Change must not be cosmetic and choices need to be real 37 REFERENCES Allen, V.F 1971 'Teaching Intonation, from Theory to Practice' TESOL Quarterly Allwright, R 1979 'Language learning through communication practice' In Brumfit, C.J & Johnson, K (Eds.) 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Theoretical Linguistic Models in Applied Linguistics AIMAV/Didier Widdowson, H.G 1990 Aspects of Language Teaching' OUP 43 APPENDIX SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE The aim of this survey questionnaire is to help my research on examining the communicative needs of the students at the University of Labor and Social Affairs (ULSA) Your assistance in completing the following items is greatly appreciated Thank you very much for your cooperation! Please tick (√ ) where appropriate Can you evaluate your ability in the English language skills? Language skills Listening Speaking Reading Writing Which of the following English language skills you think is more important than the others for the success of your future work? Language skills 1.Listening 2.Speaking 3.Reading 4.Writing I Which of the following items you think is more important than the others for the need of listening? Items Words related to my future job Instructions on what to and how to it General English words, phrases and text Native speakers of English at work Non-native speakers of English at work Radio, films and TV programs Which of the following items you think is more important than the others for the need of speaking? Items Exchange information with others Discuss issues informally with others Have daily conversations others Make phone calls Which of the following items you think is more important than the others for the need of reading? Items Understand advertisements, catalogues and magazines Understand materials related to my future work Improve my knowledge about my future work Get information I am interested in on the internet Which of the following items you think is more important than the others for the need of writing? Items Take notes in class Fill out applications and forms Write resumes Write reports of my work Write short essays about my work Write personal letters to my foreign friends Write emails with my friends overseas Do you agree with the following statements? Statements I want to improve my conversation skills in English I want how to ask and to understand directions I want to learn more English words I want to learn more English grammar I want to improve my English pronunciation I want to improve my reading skills I want to improve my reading skills I want to improve my writing skills I want to improve my listening skills THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION!!! V ... at University of Labor and Social Affairs in Hanoi, Vietnam The participants in the survey were students in the major of accounting and insurance This paper is an exploratory study of the use of. .. programs in light of the results of this investigation Subjects and Methodology of the study The design of this investigation is based on the work of Hutchinson and Waters (1987), and Dudley-Evans and. .. sound and articulation are most important In introducing communication, materials must avoid the danger of maintaining their structural theory of learning and applying it to the dynamic and interactive