Luận văn dificulties in memorizing esp vocabulary in the couse book english for finance faced by the second year non english major students at the academy of finance and some suggested solutions

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES PHAM THI TAM DIFICULTIES IN MEMORIZING ESP VOCABULARY IN THE COURS

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

PHAM THI TAM

DIFICULTIES IN MEMORIZING ESP VOCABULARY IN THE

COURSE BOOK “ENGLISH FOR FINANCE” FACED BY THE

SECOND-Y EAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT THE

ACADEMY OF FINANCE AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS

( Nưững khá khăn mà sinh viên nim thiv hai khong chuyén tiéng Ank hoc viện

tài chính gặp phải khi ghỉ nhờ từ vựng táng Anh chuyên ngành và một số giải

pháp)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 602215

Ha Noi— 2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

PHAM THI TAM

DIFICULTIES IN MEMORIZING ESP VOCABULARY IN THE

COURSE BOOK “ENGLISH FOR FINANCE” FACED BY THE

SECOND-Y EAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT THE

ACADEMY OF FINANCE AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS

(Nhitng khé khan ma sink vién năm thủ hai không chuyên tỗng Anh học viện

tài chính gặp phải khi ghỉ nhờ từ vựng táng Anh chuyên ngành và một số giải

pháp)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 602215

Supervisor: Le The Nghiep, M.A

Ha Noi - 2012

2 | Students’ opinion on their teachers’ vocabulary teaching methods 21

3 | Students’ opinion on their own vocabulary leanung 23

4 _ | Students’ vocabulary memorizing strategies used “

1 ‘The comparison between used strategies and effective ones 25

English for Academic Purposes

English for Specifie Purposes

second language G.O.D: cash on delivery

8.W.LF.T: Socicty for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications

GHQ: General Headquarters

LBO: leveraged buyout

‘The rationale of the study a Tho aims of the study ? Roscarch questions sinenenmuneinininaneineninennunanminaneemuninnnmiennnned

‘The scope of the StUdY ssnsmuetninnanteneniminneitemnnennenimneisnn The method of the Study

The design of the Study Nó

1.1 Vocabulary in second language learning and teaching 3

1.1.2 The status of vocabulary in language teaching and learning - cet

1.1.3 Main characteristics of vocabulary in business context 4

1.2 Vocabulary memonzation cccccssssuessnesesiaseustsiesstassieiasinasiniananstvanestieneD

B171 nh ốc ốc

1.2.3, Factors qfềcting NẠP vocnbuÍOFV HeiiOPINB cà coi, TU

1.2.3.2, Lecrmer-s related [NGÁOS ào

2.1.3 The teachers and their methods of teaching ee AF

2.1.2, The second-year non-English major giHÄPHS cute

2.3.1, Discussion of the results cesecsiesicneoisnesininminnansennniinnmnnananedD 23.1.1 The results collected by questionnaire on the target language input add

2.3.12 The results collected hy questionnaire on the teachers’ vocabulary teaching

24.1 Material writers and curriculum developers - - S 40

3 Suggestions for further siudy

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 The rationale of the study

More and more Vietnamese people are becoming aware of the importance of

English, which is duc to the increasingly glabal commmumicalions in the Fngliste language However, it is known that words play an indispensable role in human communication, Without words, the language would be inane, just as a building cannot

be constructed without bricks The methods for leaming and teaching English vocabulary well arc always heatcdly discussed in Victnam on purpose of helping teachers and students teach, learn and then acquire English vocabulary at an ease, for

example, Quach Thi Mai (2007), Nguyen Thu Iuong (2008) and many other aullrors TL

is still quite a problem Leamers fice difficulties in vocabulary learning in general and memorizing in particular Memorizing vocabulary has been discussed a lot in the foreign

context, however, itt Vietnam it is still a polential to exploil

a number of problems faced by students here These problems still exist in the process of learning ESP vocabulary when many of the students could not even give a simple answer or speak a simple sentence, They find it hard to remember, to correctly pronounce and use vocabulary Many students confide to the researcher that they spend lots of time learning vocabulary but they ean remember only few words they have learnt

‘As a result, English vocabulary becomes very challenging and threatening for them in learning English for specific purposes at university,

‘These Toasons urge the resuarchor io find out the diffionlties in mermoriving ESP vocabulary faced by the second-year non-English major students at the AOF and the possible solutions to help students improve their vocabulary memorization

2 The aims of the study

The study aims at finding out the difficulties in memorizing ESP vocabulary

faced by the 2™ year nan-Lnglish major students and then suggesting some solutions

to help the tsarners memorize ESP vocabulary better

3 Research questions

The study is done to find oul the answers for the two research questions

(1) What are the 2" year non-English major shudents’ difficulties in memorizing FSP vocabulary in the textbook “English for Finance”?

(2) What are the possible solutions ta help the learners memorize ESP vocabulary

better?

4 The scope of the Study

The study limits itself to the investigation of diffionlties in memorizing ESP

vocabulary faced by the sccond-ycar non-English major students at the AOF when

working with the course book “English for Finance” by Cao Xuan Thieu and his

colleagues at the English faculty of the AOK (2008) It also tries to seek for possible

solutions lo the current problems

§ The method of the Study

The study adopts the combination of both qualitative and quantitative research

methods This means that all comments, findings and suggestions given in the thesis arc

based on firstly analyzing the results of questionnaire obtained from 100 second-year

non-English major students at the AOF, secondly on analyzing the information gathering

from formal interviews wilh 16 teachers from the English faculty of the AOF

6 The design of the Study

‘The study is composed of three parts ‘The first part, Introduction, provides the

Talionale, aims, scopes, and method of the sludy, which offers readers an overview of

how the research idea is generated, what its goals are, and what research methodology is adopted The second part, Development, is divided into two chapters The first chapter, Literature Review, provides the theoretical background for the sludy It focuses on the

second language vocabulary learning, and some factors affecting vocabulary memorizing Ihe second chapter, Investigation, is the main part of the study It reports

the collection and analysis of the data and major findings of the study The last part,

Conclusion, summarizes the findings, draws teaching implications, states the limitation

of the research, and offers suggestions for further research

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW

LL Vocabulary in second language Icarning and teaching

LLL Definitions of vocabulary

There have been different definitions of vocabulary, Ur (1996) defined vocabulary as “the words we teach in the foreign language lowever, a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single word: a compound of lwo or three words or multi- word idioms” A similar definition fiom Richards and Platt (1992) is that vocabulary is

“a set of lexemes, including words, compound words and idioms” Read (2000) believes that vocabulary is considered as an inventory of individual words, with their associated, meanings From different detinitons of vocabulary, it indicates that vocabulary is “the total number of words in a language” (Homby, 1995)

11.2 The status of vocabulary in language teaching and learning

Vocabulary teaching and learning has changed dramatically in the last two decades, Me Carthy (1990) pomled oul thal the bigges! componenl, of any language course is vocabulary The fact is that no matter how well the student Jeams grammar, no matter how successfully the sounds of second language (L2) are mastered, without

words to express a wide range of meanings, communication in an L2 just cannot happen inany mcaringful way

Since the mid-1980s there has been a renewed interest in the role of vocabulary

in scoond language Icarning, There have been studics on the nature of the bilingual lexicon, vocabulary acquisition, lexical storage, lexical remeval, and the use of vocabulary by second language leamers Vocabulary is an essential component of

1.1.3 Main characteristics of vocabulary in business context

What vocabulary is and how important it is in second language learning: and teaching have just been discussed in the above sections In this section, what ESP vocabulary is and what major characteristics of vocabulary in business context are will

be mentioned

ESP vocabulary

English for Specific Purposes (SP) represents a specific reason for learning a

foreign language ‘There are two distinguished types of L'SP: Linglish for Occupational Purposes (EOP- leaming English for a job) and English for Academie Purposes (EAP - learning English for a study specialization), At present, these streams include many other fields, e.g English for Technicians, English for business, ete

Technical words arc specialized words closcly related to a specific arca or ficld

of study like engineering, medicine, linguistics, etc They are commonly used in specialized course bouks The meaning of a word siricl to the field in which it occurs identities this group of words and its high frequency of occurrence or use in that field and covers about

5% of running words in the text (Nation, 2001) Specialized words are made up of words thal occured frequently in a specialized lexl ar subject area but did not occur or were of frequency in other fields (Nation and Chung 2004),

Main characteristics of vocabulary in business context

Itis necessary to specify that the characteristics of specialized English, including

medical Fnglish, tecturical Drglish, bustnsss Dnglish, ele Hes in its lexicon, Nguyen Phuoe Vinh (2011) researches the main characteristies of Business English, Business English covers many subjects and professions, therefore; the meaning of a word is usually related to one/more than one subject such as accounting, finance, banking, markeling, cle Thes

foltowing parts will focus on the morphological and semantic characteristics of financial, accounting, and banking English vocabulary (Vink, 2011)

Morphologically he mentions:

Simple words: financial, accoumting, and banking English has simple words such

as “asscf, ‘bear’, ‘capital’, ‘debit’, ‘camings’, ‘fraud’,cte., and most words are composite in that they have a recognizable internal structure

ow

Compound words: according to Longman Business English Dictionary (2007),

compound nouns make up a large part of the vocabulary of business English Nguyen

and ‘lon (2010) point out that collocations (nouns plus nouns and adjectives plus nouns)

are one of the most typical (ealures of financial, accounting, and banking English The

corpus of the collocations of compound nouns in ‘Longman Business Dictionary’ given

by these two authors shows that the word ‘account’ has 65 collocations, ‘asset’ has 13 collocations; “balance” has 14 colloeations and so an

Some compounds consisting of’ verb + preposition also add to the terminclogy

of finance, accounting and banking such as buy-back, buy-in, take-out, take-over, Bơm

over, write-hack, write-down, write-off

The few compounds on the pattern count noun + adjective that take the plural

inflexion on the noun as in attomeys general, notaries public, court-martial are also presen in financial Tinglish such as acconnts payable, hills receivable, shares

Phrasal words: some phrases (conversion from phrases 10 adjectives), though

not common, also present in financial English as in above-par, below-par, above-the-

Hine, below-the-tine ‘Vere are also phrasal verbs and long premodified and postmodiñed noun phrases in this kind of vocabulary According to Close (1975), constructions on the

pattern of verb + preposition are very common in English However, only a few verbs

are seen in financial English as in to buy out, ta bring/ carry forward, to carry down, to

take out to take over, to write hack Another fairly common characteristic in nancial

terminology is long premodified ant postmodified noun phrases The long premodified

noun phrases are as in public sector borrowing requirement, pay-in-kind debenture,

accelerated cost recovery system, accounts receivable turnover, etc., Besides them, long

postinodificd noun phrascs arc also scen as in ender of fast resort, law of dimmishing

returns, return on capital employed, balance brought down, amount falling due after

one year, work(s) in process! progress

Abbreviations: the most common of all abbreviations in the arca of finance is the acronyms derived from the initials of several words as in C.0.L) (cash on delivery),

SW.LEY (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial ‘lelecommunications) or the

lellors represent slemenis in a compound or just paris of a word as in GQ (General Headquarters), LBO (leveraged buyout), deb (debenture), These ones are familiar to specialised English students but they are new to general English students

Culture in the terminology of finance, accounting, and banking’ whal is meat

by cadture here is crdture-bounnd terms Harvey (2003) defines culture-bound terms as the terms which refer to concepts, institutions and personnel which are specific to the

source language cullure, Any readers, Ioaruers, and translators for a financial text must

havc had some problems with a rangc of culture-bound terms as in éudidog market, becr, bull, bull market, shark, cats and dog, white knight, black knight, red herring, wildcat

The difference between British English and American English in the area of Jfinance, accounting, and banking, this is the most significant characteristic because the

difference between them sometimes faces learners, for example the British use debtors

as in assets / liabilities, credit / debil, income / expenditure, output / mut, supply /

demand Leamers should pay much attention to these oppositions because they are

typical of financial Pnyglish

The lexical productivity in financial English: by lexical productivity, firstly, we mean ‘derivatives: words that have been developed or produced fiom other words such a8 specalate (v), speculation (x), speculator (n), speculative (adj) This is ane of the

ways to cnlarge vocabulary, Sccondly, lexical productivity is also one of the main features in the types of specialised English owing to the new developments in the fields

of science, technology, economics, computing, etc In the field of business, lexical produclivity is clearly shown in subjects/ lopies as in accounting, finance, banking, marketing, lam, insurance, and is arranged in clear divisions and subdivisions Look at the arrangement of the subjects! topics and divisions and subdivisions in the book on the vocabulary and knowledge of finanec writlen by MaeKorơie (2007)

B Banking Products and Services

C E-Banking

For cxample, Subdivision B will give us a range of financial terms as in foan, overdraft, mortgage, standing order, bank transfer, banker's order, foreign currency, traveller’s cheque

Scmantically, he points out financial, accounting, and banking English contains:

General English words with specialised English senses: specialised terms such

as asset, balance capital, gain, honour, and many other terms, when combining with other lenns, usually make a collocafional paltern thal may sound odd in everyday

English but common in financial English The following four familiar verbs when

collocating with the noun debt easily make ambiguity in meaning, for example, fo

service a debt, to forgive a debt, to retire a debt, and to restructure? to reschedule a debt

and its collocations as compound noms such as debt service, debt forgiveness, debt

retirement and debt restructuring

Polysemons words with a specialised English sense: the word retan in Oxford

Advanced Leamer’s Dictionary has 10 senses, one of which refers to ‘financial

subjecU/lopic°, (he amount of profit or income thal you gel from a particular

investment), and the word ‘interest’ has 8 senses, two of which refer to ‘financial area”

(1 the extra money you pay hack when you borrow money or that you receive when you invest money, 2 a share in business or company and its profits) The following

examples will illustrate this point:

Ex 1 Shareholders are expecting to see some RETURN fiom their investment

Ex 2 Bond INTEREST is fixed, but earnings per share are growing

Ex 3 He has a 15% controlling INTEREST in the new company

Polysemous words with many specialised senses: the phenomenon of polysemous words is also one faitly common feature in the terminology of finance, accouting, and banking In Oxford Business English Dictionary, the word credit has 8 senses, four of which refer to specialised senses, (1) Commerce: an arrangement that you make with a bank, shop/store, etc, to be able to buy things now and pay for them later (2) Finance: money that financial institutions lend to business, governments and people (3) Accounting: an amount that is written in a company’s financial account to show an increase in money that the company owes or a decrease in the value of the assets (4) Accounting: an amount of money that is paid back or owed to you, because you paid too

much The following examples will be given in the order of subjects/topics:

Ex 1 I bought it on CREDIT

Ex 2 It is unlikely that the bank will extend additional CREDIT to the firm

Ex 3 Produce a trial balance to ensure that CREDITS equal the debits

Ex 4 We will issue you with a CREDIT for any damaged goods that you retum

1.2 Vocabulary memorization

1.2.1, Memorization

Language learning involves memorization, ie, the storage of the new

information in memory (Schmitt, 1997) Many definitions of memorization can also be

found in various studies and dictionaries For example, according to Richards and Platt

(1992), "Memorizing is the process of establishing information in memory The term

‘memorizing’ usually refers to the conscious processes." This means the learners use

memorization consciously and they think about the process of memorization when they

are applying it Another explanation can be found in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (2005) that "Memorizing is to learn something carefully so that you can

remember it exactly." This technique is similar to a description of a cognitive learning

strategy called rehearsal (O'Malley & Chamot, 1990) In short, memorization is the

process of committing something to memory The act of memorization is often a

deliberate mental process undertaken in order to store in memory for later recall items

such as experiences, names, appointments, addresses, telephone numbers, lists, stories,

poems, pictures, maps, diagrams, facts, music or other visual, auditory, or tactical

information

1.2.2 Vocabulary memorizing

Unlike the learning of grammar, which is essentially a rule-based system, vocabulary knowledge is largely a question of accumulating individual items During

the process of teaching and learning vocabulary an important problem occurs: How

does memory work? Researchers into the workings of memory distinguish between the

following systems (Thombury, 2002):

- short- term store

- working memory

- long- term memory

Short - term store

Short-term store is the brain capacity to hold a limited number of items of

information for periods up to a few seconds It is the kind of memory that is involved

in repeating a word you have just heard the teacher modeling However, successful vocabulary learning involves more than holding words for a few seconds To integrate

words into long - term memory they need to be subjected to different kinds of operations

Working memory

Alan Baddeley and Graham J Hitch (2010) define working memory as a limited

capacity part of the human memory system that combines the temporary storage and

manipulation of information in the service of cognition Klimesch (1994) points that

there exist four characteristics that are important in describing short-term memory; it’s

limited capacity, its primarily serial way of processing, its importance as temporary-

working store and its control processes Material remains in working memory for about

twenty seconds The existence of articulator loop enables this new material processing It works a bit like audiotape going around again It assures the short-

term store to be kept refreshed The ability to hold a word in working memory is

a good predictor of language learning aptitude The better ability to hold words in

working memory the smoother the process of learning foreign languages is

Long-term memory

Long-term memory can be seen as kind of filling system Unlike working

10

memory, which has a limited capacity and no permanent content, this kind of memory

has an enormous capacity and its contents are durable over time However, to ensure

moving new materials into permanent long-term memory requires a number of principles to be followed, described by Thornbury (2002}

Repetition - repetition of encounters with a word is very important, useful and effective If the word is met several times over space interval during reading activities, sludenis have a vory gond chance lo remember il for a tong firme

Reirieval - another kind of repetition Activities, which require retrieval, such as using the new items in written tasks, help students to be able to recall it again in the future

Spacing - it is useful to split memory work over a period rather than to mass it together in a single block

Pacing ~ lo respect different learning styles and pace, siudenls should be ideally given the opportumty to do memary work individually

Use - putting words to use, preferably in an interesting way, is the best way of

Jnvaging - casily visualized words are better memorable than those that do not

evoke with any pictures Even abstract words can be associated with some mental image

Mnemonics - ticks lo help retieve ilerns or tules thai are stored in

memory The best kinds of mnemonics are visuals and keyword techniques

Motivation - strong motivation itself does not ensure that words will be remembered Even unmotivated students remember words if they have to face appropriate tasks

Aktention - it is not possible to improve vocabulary without a certain degree of

conscious attention.

11

1.23 Factors affecting ESP vocabulary memorizing

According to Ur (1996), there are various reasons why we remember some words better than the others: the nature of the words themselves, under what circumstances they are learnt, the method of teaching and so on ‘The following paragraphs will discuss the factors in detail

1.2.3.1 Word- related factors

Nation (2001) points out that specific lexis is one of the key problems in teaching

and learning ESP As he states, then, specific lexis can be a problem for ESP language learners not only because t

da not knaw the correct words, tut because they lack experience of a “whole new way of conceptualizing” that is characteristic of discourse community using that word Similarly, ESP lexis constitutes a puzzle for ESP learners because it involves valucs and conventions shared by a discourse cormumily, which are not familiar to outsiders

Moreover, Bowker and Pearson (2002) mention that technical words and general words can have some degree of overlap When two words overlap in meaning, learners are likely to confusc them Words with multiple meanings can also be troublesome for leamers Having leamed one meaning of the word, they may be reluctant ta accepl a second, very differen! meaning Unfamiliar concepls may make a

word difficult to learn

1.2.3.2 Leaner- related factors

Vocabulary memorizing strategies

Research on the use of vocabulary strategies has revealed differences among learners

in terms of their strategy use Macaro (2005) states that a learner needs to be able to

consciously apply a slralcgy to @ cognilive process to strengthen the link between the

strategy and the achievement of vocabulary leaming In this regard, Cohen (1996)

indicates that many leamers do not develop sufficient mastery of a strategy repertoire that

will allow thern to make progress in language learning on Lheir own

Daller, Milton, and Tretfers-Daller (2007) propose that learning strategies and individual variation interfere with vocabulary memorizing to some extent In general, memorization strategies refer lo making cormections between the lo-be-leammed word and

some previously learned knowledge, using some forms of imagery or grouping Thus, memorization strategies play an important role in helping leamers to commit new’ words

inlo memery and in the whole pro

s of vocabulary lcaming Schmill (2000)

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includes twenty-seven memorization strategics in his 58-item vocabulary leaming strategy taxonomy, for examples “study word with a pictorial representation of its meaning” ‘here are many memorizing strategies; however, the problems here are in how to use and apply (hom so that they are the tosh cffective Lo individual loarriors Individual differences

Sun (2010) futher cxplains the way in which dividual leaner differences affect word storage in the memory Based on the arguments postulated by Sun, there are three main aspects of individual leamer differences play a role in remembering words

To bepin with, learners’ presence or lack of sclf-confidenee in Jeaming new words is of great importance If leamers are confident when memorizing new words instead of

anxious or worried, they will be more successful in remembering vocabulary Secondly,

is (1997) plaims that

interest and motivation are two additional and influential factors FI

motivation involves “the attitudes and affective states that influence the degree of effort

‘that learners make to learn an L2” If learners are interested in and have a positive

ailude lowards memorizing new words, they will be abdle 1o provide comedt translations cof more words, The final thetor is leamer’s language aptitude Language aptitude is believed to be “in part related to general intelligence but also to be in part distinct” (Ellis, 1997), Ia Icamer has a higher language aptitude, then he is considered lo be able tomemorize words more successfilly

1.23.3, Teacher- related factors

Vocabulary teaching methods

‘Teacher’s methodology is a pivotal factor that much influences on learners’ motivation and involvement in class activities, which much contribute to learners’ vocabulary memorizing success, Clearly, some language teachers are better than others

at providing appropriate and effective leaming experiences for their students in their

is therefore a motivalion for students to pay allention to and then store it in their lơng-

term memory However, this may be very difficult, when ESP teachers are rarely trained

a gnideline to help leamers in their lexical acquisition (Tllis, 1995) Thus, they need to

be given cyplicit instruction to become more aware of and proficient with the broad range

of strategies that can be used through the learning process (Cohen, Weaver & Li, 1998)

1.23.4, Learning context

‘The learning context refers to the socio-cultwral-political environment where

leaming takes placc The Icarning context can include the teachers, the pears, the

classroom chmate or the classroom interaction in general With regard to classroom

interaction and second language acquisition, Pllis (1994) concluded thal opportunities lo negotiate meaning may help the acquisition of vocabulary The leaming context can inchide the curriculum and the availability of input and output opportunities All of such factors may affect the ways leamers interact leaming tasks and acquire vocabulary

knowledge Krashen (1985) clarified s cond language is most successfully acquired

when the conditions are similar to those present in first language acquisition: thai 15, when focus is on meaning rather than form; when language input is at or just above the proficiency level of the leamers; and whan there is sullicicnl opportunities to cngage in meaningful use of that language Vocabulary is acquired and.retained through seeing, hearing and saying the words numerous times in many contexts then producing messages in communication Stecle (2005) justifies words are Icamed by individual, but through memorable presentation, personalization tasks, so how lexicon is presented and

activities are conducted in the class for practice is very important in anchoring new

words inlo students” memory (Hulstijin ,1997), especially when thoy do not have advantageous language environment outside the classtoom,

In short, there are factors affecting vocabulary memorizing Llowever, in the

scope of Ihis stuily, the rescarcher investigales how targel language inpul, voeabulary teaching methods and students’ own vocabulary leaming affect students’ vocabulary

memorizing.

14

CHAPTER 2

‘THE INVESTIGATION

2.1 The context of the teaching and Icarning ESP vocabulary in

“English for Finance” at the AOK

2.4.1 A description of the course book and the syllabus

“English for Finance” adopted by the AOF for the second-year non-English major students published by the Finance Publishing House is written by teachers of the English Facully of ths AOF This course book consists of 42 units taught irr 240 periods for many difterent tields at the AOF There are different topics discussed im this course book: economics, money and banking, finance, accounting and auditing, financial analysis, marketing and international business

As for the syllabus, the teacher and the students meet thuee times a week, each time for three 45 - minute periods to finish one unit Lach unit includes 5 parts: part I Reading lext, part IT: Comprehension questions, part IIT: Language focus, part TV: Word

study and part V: Vocabulary,

Tn dotail, itr part I, the reading texts have from 300 to 500 words for disemssing particular financial topies such as economies, money and banking, finance, accounting and auditing, and others These texts often mention the conceptions of the topics Kor example, the first unit is ahout economics including: what sconomics is, what the fields and subficlds of cconomics arc, Part Il, reading comprehension, designed to help

students understand the content of reading text, has from 5 to 10 questions related to the

reading texi, Parl TI, Language focus, presenls grammar issue in bolh theory and practice, Part IV and V are about vocabulary, Part IV focuses on vocabulary practice exercises I'he exercises in this part are often blank-filling, one word for each blank in

separale senlences or paragraph so that students can revise the contents and vocabulary

as well, finding the opposites, word- formation, grouping words Part V is a list of new vocabulary items and their explanation in English and then meanings in Vietnamese at

the end of each unit

The teaching syllabus is designed in the form of a form-tocused instruction Less attention is paid to vocabulary in the specific area because of time limit At the end of

the term, there is an oral test for students This oral test includes 4 main parks: reading ä

15

paragraph in onc unit, summarizing the main contents of a unit, presenting a topic related to the unit and answering teachers’ questions, These parts are included in one unit, which students choose at random

24.2 The second-year non-English major students

The second-year non-English major students arc approximately fiom 19 to 24 in age They come from different provinces of the country and have different English background Most of ther started Prglish al high school; excep! some of them Isarnt French, Before leaming “English for Fmance”, they have experienced one year learning, the material “Business Basies” - Oxford University Press, by David Grant and Robert McLarty (2002), which brings them a chance to leam and review grammar, vocabulary and gel familiar wilh language skills, Morcover, this book also provides students with many business vocabulary items- the basics for studying their ESP later In the thud and fourth semester, they work with the course book “Linglish for I"inance” for the purpose

of mastering Fngtish skills, especially transtating and reading skills in economies, finance and baking, ete However, the students are expected to speak well because they have an oral test at the end of the term

24.3 The teachers and their methods of teaching

English Icachers leaching ESP have been working al the English facutly af the AOE, aged from 30 to 50 All of them have graduated from a formal ELT training course ftom different tertiary institutions in Vietnam The oldest teacher has more than

25 years of teaching cxpericnec and the youngest one has 4 years, Sixteon of them have the responsibility to teach both general English (Gk) and ESP None of them, however, has been trained in teaching ESP 'herefore, they are facing many difficulties in their leaching process, of which the lack of the specific knowledge and the choice of approptiate teaching materials and methodologies seem to be the major concems

‘The common method of ESP teactting is the traditional teacher-centered one In

The major interaction pallerns in the classroom arc: tcacher-whole class (most of the time), tcachcr-student interaction (sometimes), and students’ initiating interaction: pair work, group work, questions and comments (oveasionally)

16

Through class obscrvation and small talks to ESP teachers and leamels, it is

obvious that most of the teachers teaching ESP at the AOK are deeply influenced by the grammar-iranslation method ‘here are few language activities for vocabulary learning This is aclually one of th

the specific field

(2 What are the 2 year non-English major students’ difficulties in memorizing ESP vocuhulary in the textbook “English for Finance”?

{2) What are the possible solutions to help the learners memorize ESP vocabulary

better?

222 The participants

There are lwo groups of participants: sludonis and tsachers Group 1 invelvas

100 students of 4 departments (31 ftom the Accounting Department, 23 from the banking and insurance department, 29 from the intemational finance department and the rest from the taxation and customs department) They are in the second term of their second year at the AOF, and had finished both GE and ESP courses, Most of these

students (78%) come from the countryside, 22% are from towns and cities Most of them

are femnale (79%), 87% have Icarnt English before entering the AOF Among 13% of the students who have not Icarnt English before, 2% have not learnt any forcign languages,

the rest have learned Krench Group 2 includes 16 teachers who are teaching ESP at the

AOR They have gol from 4 to 25 years of teaching experience

2.2.3 Data collection instruments

To collect data, two instruments, questionnaire for students and interview for teachers are used

The questionnaire was b

sed on the Tileratirs on ESP vocabulary teaming, the researcher's observation and experience during her 4 years of teaching at the AOF and the discussion with the other English teachers at the college ‘ihe questionnaire consists

of four main parts Part I collects information about the students’ background — place of domicile, the major and them status of learning English The other three parts collect

information about students’ difficulties in memorizing ESP vocabulary Part II is for getting students’ opinions on ESP course book and ESP vocabulary Part ILI is for getting students” opinions on their teachers’ vocabulary teaching Part IV is for getting students’ opinion on their own vocabulary Icamming The questionaire is presented in appendix 1

‘The semi-structured interview is designed to get teachers’ opinions on ESP vocabulary in the course hook, their students’ vocabulary memorizing, their vocabulary teaching methods, and recommendations to improve ther students’ vocabulary memorizing ‘he interview questions are added in appendix 2

224 Data collection procedure

To obtain the data for the investigation, the questionnaires were delivered to 100 students during their class time ‘The students were given clear instruction for each question so thal they could respond appropriately 1o cach one, Afler the questionnaire was administered, the respondents were encouraged to read it thoroughly and answer frankly and truly Then they will be instructed to take as much time as they need to complets the questionnaire

For teachers’ deep understanding, thorough answers and great contiibution, the interview questions were delivered before having interviews with them

225 Data analysis

The answers for the questions in the questionnaire were used for analysis Descriptive statistics were mainly employed to examine the collected data In addition, raw data were lransformed and iHustrated in tables and charts for casy understanding and comparison For the open-ended questions in the interviews, the common themes were identified and then analyzed

2.3 Data analysis and discussion

This part deals with the results trom the questionnaire to the students and from the interviews with teachers The findings from those results will lead to the suggested

solutions to make improvement for memorizing ESP vocabulary.

18

2.3.1 Discussion of the resulis

23.11, The results collected by questionnaire on the target language input

C very familiar 12

A many 63 According 1o you, reading texts conhin.new BL average 33

C boring 58

Table 1: Students’ opinion on the syllabus and ESP vocabulary in the course book

Regarding students’ opinion on the syllabus and TSP vocabulary, lable | shows

that:

In terms of topics of the reading texts, 61% consider they are strange while only

27% feel familiar Lo their background knowledge when they have finished their course

19

on these topics in Victnamese Evidently, it is a challenge for students to memerize what they do not know in their target language

‘The option that reading texts contain many new vocabulary items accounts for

the largest portion, 63% Thore ars anly 2 % chonse option C (few) The rest choose option B (average) Thus, there are too many new vocabulary items, which students are not able to remember all of them affer each unit Besides, 67% say there are many phrases, compornds in cach unit, This also conlzibulos to tho studsnls” worry and difficulty in memorizing new vocabulary items

‘The next question shows that no one thinks new vocabulary items are usually

somtimes”

repealed in the next unils, while 62% sluderd 1 choos

say “rarely”, the r

This reveals that students have few chances to come across new vocabulary items so that they can review and put them in their long- term memory

Tn terms of meariings, orly 5% students think meanings of vocabulary items in the book are very familiar, while 15 more times than that number (78%) are in favor of the option C (unfamiliar) It is difficult for student to memorize general English;

howover, ils even inuch mors difficult for thera to memorize FSP vooabulary ilzmns thal have numerous special meanings and many others overlap with general English, which results in students’ meaning confusion

More than a half (51%) of the students think there are few vocabulary practice

in cach umil, However, more than a, half (58%) think those exerc

exercis ae boring This indicates that although a large number of students want to do more vocabulary practice exercises while they are not interesting enough This prevents the

students from consolidating and then memorizing vocabulary items

131.2 The results collected by questionnaire on the teachers’ vocabulary

teaching methads Teachers play important roles in helping students acquire language knowledge in general, and vocabulary in particular, However, the figures in table 2 indicate that teachers at the AOF still cannot help students much in their vocabulary memorizing,

Your teacher teaches you to B sometimes 34

Your teacher tests your leamed B sometimes 34

vocabulary item © rarely 35

A very inleresting, 13

Your teachei’s vocabulary presenting | interesting 3

A using visual aids 9

B saying the words clearly and 34

What techniques for presenting new writing them on the board

words does your teacher often use? C translating all the words into 72

{you can chooss more thart one) Victnamese

D using mimes, gestures, and 3

facial expressions

E using target language {fo 17

define new words

part of speech amd sometimes the comotation of the vocabulary items in Vietnamese

Pronunciation is not paid mmuch attention to when 49% of the students revealed that their

teachers rarely teach them how to pronounce vocabulary and the rest (35%) chose

somelin

> Students’ bad pronunciation is one of reasons for their poor vocabulary

memorize

21

Asking students to do and then conesting for them vocabulary cxereises also help students in consolidating and reviewing what they have leamt, however, just 11%

of the students admitted their teachers often ask them to do and correct vocabulary

exercises, 34% chose “sometimes” and the rest with largest portion ($5%) chose

“rarely” This makes students inactive in their vocabulary pracomg, and reviewing,

Students themselves do not know how to apply memory strategies effectively if their toachers do noi instruct them, However, 95% confessed thal their icachirs do not

instruct them memory strategies, only very small portion (5%) said their teachers do it

‘This is also a great difficulty for students to memorize vocabulary,

With techniques far p

enling new wards, more than a hall (66%) do mot like theix teachers’ vocabulary presentation when they chose the option ¢ (boring) while

techniques like writing on the board or translating all the words into Vietnamese take the

largest proportions (34% & 72%), These dala show thal the teachers’ ways of presenting,

new vocabulary are no longer interesting to students

23.13, The results collected by questionnaire on students’ vocabulary learning

You use new vocabulary items to discuss and B Sometimes 17

commutieate during class and allor- clazs ime © Rarely 78

Memorizing ESP vocabulary items is B, Neutral 29

You learn RSP vocabulary al hame B after each class lesson 31

sometimes (ex: before tests) 33