Esp at hanoi water resources university – recommendations and suggestions for the current course

Aims and objectives of the study In this field study, an answer to my research questions: “ What is the students’ evaluation of the current ESP course at Hanoi Water Resources University

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I certify my authorship of the Field Study Report submitted today entitled

in terms of the Statement of Requirement for Theses and Field Study Reports in Masters’ Programmes issued by the Higher Degree committee

Lam Thi Lan Huong

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This Field Study Report has come to fruition as the combination of knowledge drawn from all the lectures, reading, and discussion with friends during my M.A course (TESOL) at the Postgraduate Department at the College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University Therefore, I would like, first of all, to express my gratitude to all my lecturers at the College

I wish to acknowledge the support and encouragement of the Postgraduate Department, especially Mr Le Hung Tien, the Director of the Department

I would like to emphasize the fact that I am indebted to Mr Bui Duc Thuoc,

my supervisor for his valuable guidance, criticism, comments, correction and for his kind encouragement during the development of this study His suggestions and recommendations, genuine interest, endurance, patience in editing this thesis are highly appreciated

I am grateful to the leaders of Hanoi Water Resources University, especially Professor Le Kim Truyen, our Rector for granting me the scholarship and time for the thesis Without their support and assistance this study could not have been completed

My thanks also go to my colleges at Hanoi Water University, especially Mr

Le Van Khang, Dean of Department, for their encouragment and understanding

Finally, this thesis is dedicated to 210 students at Hanoi Water University for their time, patience and cheerful acceptance of the task of completing the questionnaires and those who have kindly advised and helped me towards the completion of my research

- Secondly, to find out the learners’ comments on the course organisation;

- Thirdly, to offer some suggestions and recommendations for the improvements of the course to make it more relevant to the learners’ needs and interests

The results of the study show that the learners at HWRU find the ESP course useful and relevant to their subject matter although they are not satisfied with the course very much The study suggests that in order to bridge such a gap it is necessary to develop ESP materials, to improve some classroom techniques and to train our students to become active learners

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1.3 The background and the scope of the study 2

2.2.3 Linguistic features of register in Water Resources 6

2.2.2 Material and course evaluation framework 11 2.2.3 Criteria for material and course evaluation 14

3.2 The teaching and learning situation at HWRU 17

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4.2 1 Learners’ ranking of the purposes in learning ESP 22 4.2.2 Learners’ evaluation of the current ESP course 23

4.2.3 Learners’ evaluation of the ESP classroom activities 27 4.2.4 Learners’ wants and needs of the ESP course 31

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5.2 Recommendations and suggestions for the teaching and learning

5.2.2 Improving teachers’ classroom techniques 37

5.2.3 Training students to become active readers by encouraging their

41 Reference

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I.1 Rationale of the study

The ongoing process of regional and global integration in Vietnam has resulted in

an increasing demand for English language teaching across the country Students in universities are taught English with a considerable length of time Some of the graduates are able to use English in their work: reading documents, writing articles or reports, communicating or attending international conferences… However, some others who also have certificates or degrees find it hard to use it in their daily work It should be noted that the syllabuses for non – gifted students at these universities have not brought real effects for learners Therefore, the quality of English training courses doesn’t often come

up to the expectation

English has been taught to undergraduates of Hanoi Water Resources University for many years As a technical university, one of the requirements for graduates is to be able to read professional documents in their fields for further study, or future jobs Therefore, ESP was first introduced into the syllabus nearly ten years ago However, the current course is not well – received by the learners because of its failure to match their needs, interests, and learning preferences This reality makes it necessary to have the course evaluated by the learners If appropriate, modifications are to be necessary made

for the improvement of the course quality

I.2 Aims and objectives of the study

In this field study, an answer to my research questions: “ What is the students’ evaluation of the current ESP course at Hanoi Water Resources University?” is intensively sought

The major aims of this study are:

To identify what the students think about the current ESP course, the inadequacies

in terms of the course content and delivery methods of the course with reference

to the learners’ needs and expectations

From the findings, hopefully the teachers at HWRU will be informed of how to improve the course by making the course more appropriate to learners’ needs and raising the quality of ESP teaching at HWRU

In order to achieve the aims of the study, the following objectives and activities were established:

Firstly, to find out the learners’ opinion on the current teaching material with reference to their needs and interests

Secondly, to find out what learners think about the time allocation and the delivery method of the course

Thirdly, to offer some suggestions and recommendations for the improvement of the course to make it an effective course for learners

I.3 The scope of the study:

This study is to provide information on Hanoi Water Resources students’ evaluation of the current ESP course The information is intended to be used as the base for improving the current ESP course at HWRU, making the course more effective

Also, the findings from this study will help ESP teachers at the college meet the learners’ expectation by narrowing the gap between teaching and learning Any other purposes would be beyond the scope of the study

I.4 Method of the study

In order to achieve the above-mentioned aims and to make my thesis both academic and practical, data were collected by means of survey questionnaires and then analyzed quantitatively The survey was done on 210 Learners in their second year at HWRU to investigate their evaluation of the current English for Specific Purpose course

Beside the survey, more information needed in the process of materials selection has been gathered from document analysis

I.5 The design of the study

The study is comprised of four chapters:

Chapter One, the introduction, provides information on the background, the scope, the significance and the aims of the study

Chapter Two reviews the literature related to ESP, material and course evaluation This literature review is aimed at establishing a theoretical background for evaluating and adapting material

Chapter Three presents an overview of ESP at HWRU, and then devotes to the research methodology and data analysis

Chapter Four presents the summary of the findings and some recommendations and suggestions for the current ESP course at HWRU

Chapter Two ())*+* %

II.1.1 How ESP is understood?

ESP has been defined with different emphasis on a variety of elements that characterizes ESP Different researchers and scholars have different views of what it is that counts in ESP

First, Fitzjohn in Robinson (1980:9) takes the time factor as a characteristic feature of ESP He notes:

“ The very concept of “ special purposes” implies that foreign language study is a subsidiary contribution to another, main interest, and that there will normally be pressure

to achieve the required level of linguistic competence in a minimum of time”

When Fitzjohn considers ESP as a subsidiary contribution to another main interest, he focuses on ESP as having an immediate, utilitarian purpose, not simply pleasure, or a long-term purpose There is usually a very clearly specified time period for the course This means that objectives should be closely specified and their realization to the timetable This also requires the collaboration of those involved in the course: organizers, teachers, sponsors, and learners

Second, the age of the learners is also a criterion of ESP Most of ESP learners are likely to be adults, not children Normally, they are students in tertiary education or experienced members of the workforce In this regard, Robison cited in Long (1980:9) points out: “ By and large these people have been students in tertiary education, and adults”

Because the learners are adults, their background knowledge and their way of learning are quite different from those of children For example, adult learners often learn

by “problem solving” not by mimicry or repetition which young children enjoy For this reason, in teaching an ESP course, the teacher should take the learner’s age into account

so as to find out appropriate materials and methods of teaching to suit the age of the learners

Thirdly, the learners’ needs are considered the most important factor in ESP Brumfit (1997:7) states that:

“ First, it is clear that an ESP course is directly concerned with the purposes for which learners need English, purposes for which are usually expressed in functional terms ESP fits firmly within the general movement towards ‘ communicative’ teaching

of the last decade or so”

Many researchers (for example Kerr, 1977; Munby, 1978) take Brumfit’s above position that need analysis should be conducted prior to course design and material development or selection For them, not only the syllabus, the materials, but also teaching methodology should be adapted to the needs of the learners Strevens (1988:1) also produces a definition that covers more detailed characteristics of an ESP course He states that:

“ ESP is a particular case of the general category of special - purpose language teaching The same principles apply no matter which language is being learnt and taught French for specific purposes, Russian for specific purposes, Chinese for specific purposes – all of these exist and are constructed on the same basis as English for specific purposes The vastly greater demand for English makes ESP more common that FSP, RSP or CSP, but the principles are the same”

From the above definition, Strevens goes on to maintain that in defining ESP, there needs to be a distinction between absolute characteristics and variable one The absolute characteristics of ESP are as follows:

ESP consists of English language teaching that is:

Designed to meet specified needs of the learners

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

- In contrast with “ GE”

According to him, ESP may, but not necessarily be characterized as being:

- Restricted as to the language skills to be learnt (e.g reading only, speech recognition only, etc )

- taught according to any pre-ordained methodology (i.e ESP is not restricted to any particular methodology - although communicative methodology is very often felt to be the most appropriate)

It is noteworthy that those definitions imply two factors: (1) the broad meaning of the term ‘purpose’ and (2) the syllabus basing on learners’ needs analysis to determine the content of the syllabus, the materials and methods of teaching / learning for these purposes

With specific purposes in mind, the learners know clearly what they need to learn, and they will learn with high motivation what they find useful for their work later, or at present For this reason, an ESP teacher should be aware of the learners’ needs so as not

to introduce irrelevant materials to the course

II.1.2 Types of ESP

There are many types of ESP, but the major distinction is often drawn between EOP (English for Occupational Purposes), and EAP ( English for Academic Purposes), and EST (English for Science and Technology)

Strevens ( 1977 cited in Munby, 1978:55) made a classification of various types of ESP in the following figure:

Simultaneous Post - experience

Occupational ( EOP )

Pre - study

In - study

Post - study

Educational ( EEP ) Other

ESP

According to Munby ( 1978: 55), ESP could be divided into two broad areas: English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) ‘where the participant needs English to perform all or part of his occupational duties’ and English for Educational Purposes ( English for Academic Purposes or EAP) ‘ where the participant needs English to pursue part of his studies’ EOP, therefore, can include both pre-experience and post-experience ESP However, Hutchinson and Waters ( 1987) claimed that there is no clear-cut distinction between EOP and EAP as people can work and study simultaneously and in many cases the language learnt for immediate use in a study environment will be used later when the students take up, or return to a job

Apart from the occupational / educational dichotomy which can be found in most classifications of ESP, Strevens ( 1977 cited in Munby, 1978) defined that those learners whose purposes are concerned with science and technology are usually referred to EST It differs from other courses in that it possesses a set of features that characterizes

‘scientific English’ including the linguistic rules for creating scientific text, the terminology of the particular scientific purposes appropriate to an EST course and the purposes of science Courses that do not possess these features are called ‘other ESP’

In fact, Strevens distinguishes the learner who learns English before he studies his discipline from the learner who learn English while he is studying or after he has studied the discipline This distinction is very important because learners’ experience has a great influence on his progress in study as well as the materials and method used in a course Thus, the content of an English program for someone actually engaged, for example, on a secretarial with its acquisitions for practical skills and theoretical knowledge is going to

be different from a program for someone who is already a qualified secretary but now needs to operate in English

II.3.1 Linguistic features of register in Water Resources

Various researchers (notably Swales, 1990; Hopkins and Dudley-Evans, 1988; Thompson, 1993) have shown very convincingly that there is a general pattern of organization that predominates in the different section of an article or thesis from any discipline, but there is also variation between different disciplines Writing in the areas of science and technology has, however, remained more strongly constrained by academic discourse convention and expectations of the relevant discourse communities

English for Water Resources is by no means out of the track The study of the lexicon of EWR writing has been conducted generally on three levels:

1 Ordinary vocabulary / core vocabulary

2 Technical vocabulary

3 intermediary (sub- or semi-technical) vocabulary

The first level includes ordinary content words, conjuncts and connectives The second level includes the language of taxonomy ( lexis with Latin and Greek roots required for the classifying of the infinite variety of natural phenomena) and the language of mathematical operations ( lexis as in mass, force, energy, required for the compounding

of simple concepts into complex ones by clearly prescribed rules

The third level may not prove difficult if the borrowed words from non-technical spheres as “ long-span structure”, “head loss”, “flood irrigation”, “seasonal flow”… have been studied at the source Two factors are involved in the study of scientific words (1) frequency and (2) presence/absence In subjects like Water Resources whose concept and content change rapidly, word frequencies do not remain stable They change over a period of time Words, representing new concepts, new phenomena, rise sharply from zero frequency (or rarity) to high frequency But these may decline as interest shifts away from their focal point Thus words like “ deforestation”, “ ozone layer”, “greenhouse effects” or “titanic waves” do not feature in books written several decades ago, but now they have achieved high-frequency status in most texts on water resources

Frequency counts of water resource words of the three levels mentioned cannot be said to be complete or useful unless the following factors are included in the frequency measurement:

1 defined semantic contexts

2 circumstances of defined formality

3 particular collocations

4 date of publication of texts

5 size and coverage of writer’s vocabulary

Scientists speaking to other scientists in specialist papers use a much smaller vocabulary than when they write for an undergraduate readership, where explanations have to be made clear to the less-informed

It should also be noted that water resource words constantly undergo ‘a process of semantic erosion’ so that words with highly specific meanings like ‘force’ and ‘energy’

in a water resource discourse become ambiguous Take, for example, words like

‘generally’, or ‘factor’ in hydraulic construction The word ‘generally’ has a unique significance in math and logic If a proof is a ‘general proof”, it means that the proposition is ‘generally’, i.e in all circumstances, true But the popular concept of this word is as a synonym for ‘usually’, or ‘in some circumstances’ The word ‘factor’ in the context of computer or mathematics means a divisor, which leaves no remainder, but we use it to mean component, aspect, circumstance, or cause ‘Principle’ in water resource is

an exact scientific concept, but the meaning as ‘rule’ is likely to confuse science learners

In the early days of ESP, register analysis led to conclusion about which verb forms and tenses predominated in scientific and technical English The main conclusion

by Barber (reported in Swales, 1988) was that “ any grammatical work done on the verb

in EAP should concentrate on the present simple, active and passive voice and the modal verbs” In water resource texts, however, frequency counts may produce results as shown

The idea that scientific or academic writing uses the passive voice more frequently than the active is a myth; what is true is that such writing uses the passive voice more frequently than some other types of writing In hydraulic texts, it is counted that approximately 60 per cent of the verbs were in the passive voice and 40 per cent in the active It seems that the choice of active or passive is constrained by functional considerations; writers tend to use passive voice when standard procedures are being described

“ Earth dams can be classified into plain earth dams, in which the bulk of the dam body (more than 50%) is composed of small size clayey, sandy or sandy-gravely soils; rock and earth-fill dams, in which the bulk of the dam body is composed of large-size gravelly-pebble soils or rock mass, and the antiseepage device is made from small-size material; soil rock-fill (stone) dams, in which the body of dam, like in rock and earth-fill dams, is made of large-size material and the antiseepage device, if need be, from other than earth materials”

Nominalization is a major feature of abstract language favoured by academic writers ( Mason, 1990) and it is also a major feature in WRU texts This use of nominalization enables complex information to be packaged into a phrase that is simple from a grammatical point of view and that can be picked up in the theme of the following sentence

“ Coastal land reclamation is a traditional form of agricultural development in our country The sea-dyke embankment and land expansion toward the sea are processes happening always at the estuary regions and forming newly-reclaimed areas, which have good conditions for economic development (agriculture, aquaculture and breeding of sea products)

In the above example, the norminalised phrases are used frequently This leads to another feature in EWR which is syntax The question of how syntactic structure reflects content or conceptual structure, and how the former affects comprehension, is of crucial importance within a theory of EST There is mounting evidence that the language complexity reflects a corresponding complexity of content The usual stereotyped observation of syntactic characteristics of scientific prose is that it is excessively dependent on passivization, nominalization, and apposition And these phenomena happen excessively in EWR texts

In short, English for Water resources shares the same linguistic features of register with other disciplines in EST except for the fact that passivization is so widely used in most of the WR texts

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According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987:97), textbook evaluation is basically a straightforward, analytical “ matching process: matching needs to available solutions” Evaluation can be obtained not only from course designers, material writers, teachers, but also from learners The material writers or teachers can learn a lot in term of ideas and techniques from evaluating existing materials and analyzing learners’ feedback on the existing textbooks Similarly, writing materials makes us more aware of what to look for

in material written by other people – and also more sympathetic to the efforts of other material writers

Tony Dudley-Evans and Maggie Jo St John (1998:128) suggest that “ evaluation

is a whole process which begins with determining what information to gather and ends with bringing about change in current activities or influencing future ones” They also believe that “ evaluation must be more than collecting and analyzing data: to have value the evaluation process must include action” From this definition, it is clearly seen that evaluation can be very threatening; it suggest change and change is often resisted The threat is greater when evaluation is seen as an imposed external act, over which there is

no control In fact, evaluation is a very constructive and powerful activity and a very stimulating one

Mc Dounough and Shaw (1993) suggest that teachers begin with an “external evaluation” which consists of an examination of the claims made on the cover of the student’s and teacher’s book, the introduction and the table of contents This, they suggest, should be followed by a closer and more detailed “ internal evaluation” which requires an intensive investigation into at least two units of the book or set of materials to investigate such aspects as a presentation of skills in the material, the grading and sequencing of material, the kinds of texts used and the relationship between exams and tests

Tomlison (1998) affirms that material evaluation is the systematic appraisal of the value of materials in relation to their objectives and to the objectives of the learners using them” According to him material and course evaluation can be:

Pre-use, therefore, focused on predictions of potential value;

Whilst-use, therefore focused on awareness and description of what the learners are actually doing whilst the materials are being used;

Post-used, therefore, focused on analysis of what happened as a result of using the materials

The author mentioned above seems to focus on defining material evaluation according to the different stages of work However, the evaluation suggested by Tony Dudley-Evans and Maggie Jo St John (1998) as well as Mc Dounough and Shaw (1993) mainly concerning evaluating the materials before and whilst using, therefore, does not cover the concept of material evaluation as fully as the definition of Tomlison (1998), which we in this research would like to follow

II.2.1 Why course evaluation

Evaluation plays an important role in the improvement of a language program In any kind of evaluation, all the important variables should be checked systematically for the decision finally made and the results of an evaluation will probably have certain impact

on the course itself and on the teachers and learners as well On the positive side, it can also help in justifying requests to sponsor or other members of a team for money to buy materials or time to write them

To be an integral part of a course, evaluation has to be built in as a part of the course design To evaluate everything is unrealistic; priorities can be set, the type of timing of data collection can be planned together with the resulting actions

While evaluating the resources available not only once have we wondered which out of a number of possibilities can represent the best solution Before answering the question of “why it is necessary to evaluate materials?” it should be borne in our mind that “ evaluation is concerned with relative merit There is no absolute good or bad; only degrees of fitness for the required purpose” ( Hutchinson and Waters, 1987: 96) Williams (1983) claims that no textbook can be completely useful to all teaching situations In the same view, Nunan (1985: 51) maintains that:

“ Evaluation is the systematic collection and analysis of all relevant information necessary to promote the improvement of a curriculum and access its effectiveness and efficiency as well as the participants’ attitudes within the context of the particular institution involved

Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 97) clarify their position that there will probably

be a large investment of money in a published course or a large investment of time in home-produced or adapted materials Once such an investment is made, one will probably have to live with the consequences of it for some time, even if it later proves to have been a bad choice A careful evaluation, then, can save a lot of expense and frustration

With any language course the course itself and the learners’ performance are necessarily assessed The results of the evaluation helps to assess whether the course works as what it was designed to do, enables teachers and learners to decide whether to use the materials again and how much adaptation and amendment is required to make the materials more useful This takes on a greater importance in ESP, because ESP is concerned with performance of particular communicative tasks

II.2.2 Material and course evaluation framework

The literature on the subject of textbook evaluation is not very extensive Various writers have suggested ways of helping teachers in particular to be more sophisticated in their evaluative approach, by positing “checklists” based on supposedly generalizable criteria These sometimes elaborate system use of a variety of “scoring” methods to assess how well specific textbooks measure up under scrutiny

Cunningsworth (1984) seems to make it easier for evaluators in practice by arranging the evaluation process in a framework of nine small and detailed steps as follow:

1 Briefly state the objectives of the materials

2 To what extent is it successful in achieving these objectives?

3 Note particular strength

4 Note particular weaknesses

5 Is there any notable omissions/ addition?

6 For what types of learning situations are the materials suitable?

7 For what types of learning situations are the materials unsuitable?

8 Compare with any other materials evaluated

9 General conclusion

Hutchinson and Waters (1987) divide their materials evaluation process into four major steps:

Defining criteria

Subjective analysis

Objective analysis

Matching

Figure 2: the material evaluation process by Hutchinson and Waters (1987)

The framework is rather easy to follow in practice but what we do having seen the degree of fitness of the materials is also very important, so this evaluation process would not be complete without some follow-up action This is because evaluation is basically a matching process: matching needs to available solutions If this matching is to be done as objectively as possible, it is best to look at the needs and solution separately In the final analysis, any choice will be made on subjective grounds Usually, our choice depends on what considered to be important An ESP textbook, for example, has to suit the needs of a number of parties: teachers, students, sponsors, so it is important that the subjective factors, which will admittedly play a part, should not be allowed to obscure objectivity in the early stages of analysis When commenting on the issue, Littlejohn (1998: 12) says:

-On what basis will you judge materials?

Which criteria will be more important?

What realizations of the criteria

do you want in your course?

How does the material being evaluated realize the criteria?

,How far does the material match your needs?

“ A preliminary framework for material and course analysis, evaluation focuses

on a clear distinction between an analysis of the material, an analysis of the proposed situation of use, the process of matching an evaluation, and subsequent action”

Then evaluation aims to set out precisely which aspects of the materials are appropriate or inappropriate and why The final stage involves evaluators in making decisions on what to do next in the light of matching and evaluation The procedure of evaluation is suggested by Littlejohn (1998) to follow the following framework

Figure 3: A preliminary framework for materials analysis and action by Littlejohn (19

It will be reasonable to make the overview of all the mentioned frameworks of course evaluation

the cultural context

Adopt the materials Reject the materials Adapt the materials Supplement the materials Make the materials a critical object

From analysis:

1 What is their explicit nature?

2 What is required by users?

3 What is implied by their use?

To description:

aspects of design aspects of publication

In Cunningsworth’s framework, strength and weaknesses, suitability and unsuitability were brought into focus to see whether the course objectives are being met

To make it easy to compare different sets of materials as well as to assess strengths and weaknesses, suitability and unsuitability, Hutchinson and Waters suggested defining criteria for evaluation Evaluating based on the set of criteria helps to see the degree of fitness for the required purposes as well as how much the course meets the learners’ needs The most important factor in course evaluation made in Littlejohn’s framework is the follow-up action It means that adaptation and adjustments can be carried out for the improvement of the course

It can be interpreted from the above processes of material and course evaluation that despite having different sample frameworks, all the researchers express the same common ideas which I will apply into this research framework

II.2.3 Criteria for course evaluation:

In a study by Cunningsworth (1984), a long and detailed checklist of evaluation criteria is presented His criteria can be summarized in the form of main points supporting by a number of smaller questions These points are:

Language context

Selection and grading of language items

Presentation and practice of new language items

Developing language skills and communication abilities

Supporting material

Motivation and learners

The next idea I would like to mention here is given by David Williams (1983) When introducing the “sample checklist for evaluation”, he notes that it is not meant to

be exhaustive Items on it, grouped for convenience under logical headings, were generated in the same way, and teachers can evolve their own sets of criteria for different educational levels or language teaching situations (See the appendix 1)

In a closer relation with research’s target situation (evaluating sections / parts of the book), an article by Sheldon (1988) provides us with textbook evaluation sheet On presenting his textbook evaluation sheet, he also believes that “ any culturally restricted, global list of criteria can never really apply in most local environments, without considerable modification”(See the appendix 2) He also states that we can be committed only to checklists or scoring systems that we had a hand in developing, and which have evolved from specific selection priorities So we need some points around which our thoughts can crystallize

Sharing the same attention to the issue, Mc Dounough and Shaw (1993) bring us

to make an overall assessment as to the suitability of the materials by considering some “ parameters” as follow:

1 The usability factor: how far the materials could be integrated into a particular syllabus as “core” or supplementing?

2 The generalizability factor: Is there a restricted use of “core” features which make the materials more generally useful?

3 The adaptability factor: can parts be added / extracted / used in another context / modified for local circumstances?

4 The flexibility factor: How rigid is the sequencing and grading; can the material

be entered with different points / used in different ways?

All those above authors remind us that their checklist is not an “exhaustive list” (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987), other evaluators may find other criteria for their own situation Here, the idea I got in mind is that all the different sets of criteria mentioned above are reliable and in practice, each set of the criteria can provide enough evidence to make clear the degree of fitness of the materials and can be detailed enough for us to apply into the related work However, as it has been stated previously, we - evaluators should consider which of the criteria are of more importance according to our own situation

In this section we have looked at materials and course evaluation, criteria for evaluation as well as the need to develop our own criteria for our own context In this case this is an evaluation of ESP program at Hanoi Water Resources University The evaluation of existing materials can provide the teachers and material writers here with a good source of ideas (of what to avoid and what to do) and techniques

For the target situation of this research, a checklist of the material and course evaluation criteria has been developed into four criteria inclusively:

the aim

the content and method

needs of the learners

the reality of learning and teaching ESP at HWRU

II.2.4 Learners as course evaluators

ESP is accountable teaching Learners who invest in the course want to see the results of their investment of time or money Therefore, ESP learners themselves are responsible for evaluating how appropriate, relevant and useful the course is Evaluation from learners reflects not just the learners’ performance but to some extents the effectiveness or otherwise of the course too Evaluation of and from learners is unlikely

to indicate exactly where a fault lies, but it will at least indicate the existence of a fault

somewhere Learners’ evaluation provides feedbacks on the ESP course Thus, learners must be seen as course evaluators

As defined by Sysoyev (2004), “evaluation can be done in two different ways implicitly and explicitly” In implicit evaluation which takes place during the semester, learners play an indirect role Their grades, their participation and motivation give clues

to the teachers on how their learning is going on and whether the course is doing what it was designed to do

Answering questionnaires, taking part in surveys, talks, interview, learners as direct evaluators together with teachers carry out explicit evaluation which may take place at the end of the course or after the learners have completed it The learners express their attitude toward the subject matter, instructional methods, activities, the teacher’s role and so on The learners’ feedbacks provide a good source of ideas of what to avoid and what to do and techniques so that more appropriate materials and methodology will

be made as well as content and delivery methods will be properly adapted

Chapter threeThis chapter provides background information about ESP at Hanoi Water Resources University The information presented here includes the reality of English language teaching and learning, the learners and teachers’ profile, and a description of the current ESP course of the University

III.1 The English teaching and learning situation at HWRU

Until 1990, little attention was paid to the teaching and learning of English at Hanoi Water Resources University The dominant foreign language taught at that time was Russian Meanwhile, English was only taught at a few classes because at that time there were only two teachers of English However, in 1990s, English took over the dominant position of Russian and became the most popular foreign language to be taught

in the university Since then, the teaching and learning of English has received greater attention and interest

From 1990 to 1999, the time fund for English course was 300 class hours At that time, the teachers often concentrated on teaching grammar and vocabulary instead of speaking and listening Students, therefore, did not have much practice in the classroom

Another problem is that the textbooks used are those written to teach General English, which is not relevant to water resource students Thus, most of the students find

it difficult to read materials in their specific areas after having finished their English course at the university

Since 2000, ESP has been introduced at HWRU However, due to the limited time, the students at HWRU can only have 45 periods of learning ESP The English program in the university is divided into three stages: Elementary, Pre-intermediate, and ESP Some years ago, the time allocated for the first two stages was 255 periods However, it has been cut down since 2004 to only 150 class hour Therefore, the whole curriculum of English is as follows:

Stage 1: General English with 75 periods

Stage 2: General English with 75 periods

Stage 3: ESP with 45 periods

With such a timeframe, the students cannot learn much but just come to know a number of technical terms or concepts in English All the teachers could do is to help students develop their ESP learning skills with focus on how to read specific document, how to write letters, contracts or reports, and so on

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In fact, the teaching and learning English at HWRU is affected by some constraints such as the class size, economic conditions and time allocation The average class size is 40-69 students, so it is too crowded for communicative English Besides, classrooms are not appropriately arranged for language classes In fact, they are designed

as lecture halls for other subjects Therefore, classroom interaction is always in the form

of question and answer All these constraints have negative effect on the quality of the English teaching and learning at the HWRU

Until 2004, the textbooks used for stage one and stage two were “ the New English Cambridge course 1, 2” and “ Listen carefully” and “Let’s listen” for the students

to listen in the two language labs In 2005, a new textbook, “ the New Headway course” has been introduced and simplified by the teachers at the English section The book has to

be simplified in order to suit the students’ level It should also be noted that this series only covers social topics for general purposes

For stage three, the ESP material at HWRU are also greatly criticized because they are little concerned with students’ specialization and they hardly help students remember technical terms There are only five reading texts alone with no exercise followed, so the main skill here is translation, which provides little help for students in memorizing technical terms Therefore, improving ESP materials for the students at HWRU is an urgent task for teachers of the English section

III.3 The water resources students Most of the students who enter HWRU are aged 18-20 and are male students (90%) This is a typical feature of the university Each class consists of about 40 to 69 students They have an average of 6 periods of English per week

Most of them are beginners although English has been introduced into the secondary school curriculum for years This is especially true for those from the rural areas who account for a large proportion of the total number of students each year Only a small number of the students who come from cities or towns have learned English for long at school or at English center This mixed ability has caused certain problems to the teaching and learning of English at the university In the same class, some students find classroom activities relaxing while others find too hard In such situation, it is obviously a challenge for teachers to satisfy all the needs of the students

The typical learning style of the students at HWRU is quite dependent on the teachers This learning style is characterized as rote learning of vocabulary and rules Another aspect of their learning style is that they prefer written work and private reading which means that in class students work individually Besides, they are profoundly influenced by their past learning experience For example, they prefer everything being translated It results in the fact that they pay more attention to forms than functions and meanings

In general, the students’ level of English proficiency is still very low as compared

to the requirements of the syllabus An analysis of these characteristics will help teachers

to make use of the advantages, limiting the disadvantages and find proper methods and techniques for teaching these learners

III.4 The teaching staff of the English department at

HWRU The English Department is staffed with 13 teachers aged between 25-55 Six of them are teachers of Russian whose English is the second foreign language, the rest are teachers of English one of which has M.A Degree and another one is studying for M.A Degree at VNU

One of the most obvious difficulties is that these teachers lack a language environment to develop their communicative abilities Another problem is that none of these teachers has been trained in teaching ESP All of the teachers at the English department have been teaching GE for a long time with a little or no specialist knowledge

of hydrology, hydraulic construction or water-resource planning and management… They sometimes find it difficult to deal with the content area

Teachers of the English department share the same problem with many other ESP teachers in the world These problems are described by Ewer (1976: 10) when he writes about the difficulties that a teacher of English for General Purposes may encounter when transferring to ESP These are “attitudinal, conceptual, linguistic, methodological and organizational” problems

III.5 The ESP programme at HWRU

For a long time, HWRU ran not only GE but also ESP course in their training program During mid 1990s, a collection of 5 reading texts of ESP came into beings In order to make the collection, the teachers had to adjust the syllabus on their own They had to collect materials relevant to the students’ specialists by themselves Texts from textbooks, extracts from journals,… were individually selected, compiled into the reading materials for the ESP course

The most common approach then is grammar translation one Although the main focus of this approach was on teaching vocabulary, grammar was always considered an important component of the whole process However, there were no exercises for the lexical items of the content area to be recycled and revised So the main activities to be carried out in an ESP classroom are bilingual translation and vocabulary rote learning

The situation has remained unchanged since then However, the time allocated for the language teaching at the university has been steadily reduced as mentioned above With limited time, it has been more and more difficult to make ESP learning as useful as

Teachers do not have experience in teaching ESP the traditional translation method of teaching is still dominating, which is very tiring, boring, and depressing

The material focuses only on reading skills The other skills are neglected The form and layout is too simple and badly designed There is no practice exercise followed to recycle and revise technical terms There is almost no learning activities for the development of the other language skills

Looking back at the development of ESP at HWRU, it can be clearly seen that the course fails to satisfy both teachers and students at the university The reason for this was simple: the course was not designed on the basis of a solid target situation needs analysis and a well-designed syllabus In order to develop a proper ESP course at HWRU, this study aims to identify the learners’ needs through their evaluation of the current course It

is hoped that the information from this evaluation by the students will help course designers as well as teachers to improve the course Chapter four presents the research

methodology and discusses the findings of the study

Chapter four:

This chapter presents the research method and techniques for the data collection The first section in this chapter will provide information about the subject, or the sample groups exploited for the study This is followed by a discussion of the instruments of the research and the procedure of the data collection, data analysis and comments

IV.1.Research Methodology

IV.1.1 Subjects of the study:

Of 210 students, 180 male students and 30 female in the second year at the university were invited to participate in the study The students are from three groups of the same English proficiency level At the time when the researcher did the data collection, these students were in the fourth semester All of them had finished three semesters of General English course in which they had to cover the New Cambridge English Course 1, 2 They had just finished their ESP course with their subject matter areas relating to water resources engineering

IV.1.2 Instruments

The research method applied is the survey The data collection instruments are questionnaire and document analysis The questionnaire has been chosen because it is widely known as the best way to collect data on phenomena which are not easily observed such as attitude, motivation and self-concept Document analysis is used since only through it can the information be gathered from the printed documents like the objectives of the courses and what in-depth of the materials evaluated

The questionnaire ( Appendix 3) was designed to get information about the students’ purpose of learning ESP and their judgment on the ESP course in terms of the syllabus, topics, time input, learning activities as well as on the teaching and learning practice The questionnaire consists of the following sections:

Section 1 was designed to gather the information on learners’ personal details and their purposes in learning ESP

Section 2 was created to gather students’ judgment on the current ESP course in terms of its usefulness and relevance, the material in terms of the topics, grammar, vocabulary, tasks,…

Section 3 was aimed at gathering the information related to classroom activities in terms of classroom practice, exercises, and delivery methods

Section 4 was supposed to collect the learners’ wants and needs of the course organization in terms of the time allocation in the ESP course, suitability of the course arrangement, the class size and provision of extra materials

The questionnaire was then delivered to the learners while they were in the classrooms They were asked to answer the questions in about 30 minutes After they finished, the teachers collected the questionnaire and get the data for analysis After all the data were collected, frequency analysis was used to count responses and results were then interpreted

IV.2 Data analysis and discussion

This section presents and discusses the findings that arise from the data collected Its outline is as follows:

• Report on the learners’ ranking of the assumed purposes in learning ESP;

• Report on the learners’ evaluation of the current ESP course;

• Report on the learners’ evaluation of the classroom activities;

• Report on learners’ wants and needs of the course organization

IV.2.1 The learners’ ranking of the assumed purposes in learning ESP

As mentioned above, the learners are the second-year students who had finished

GE at the pre-intermediate level They then moved on to the ESP course and at the time the survey being carried out, they had just finished the course 210 students from three classes provide us with a variety of answers to the question how long they had learned English Most of them (125/ 210 = 59,52%) had learned English for five years, another 12% have learned for 9 years, 14% - 2 years, 7% - 8 years, the rest had learned for 3, 6, 7 years Interestingly, there are six students who had learned English for 11 years The number of students who started learning English when they entered the university is quite big (14%) According to the curriculum stimulated by the Ministry of Education and Training not all of our students can be ranked at pre-intermediate level of English The reality and the time length of their English learning show that this target population is