Luận văn difficulties in reading english for finance of the second year students of accounting department at hanoi vocational training college for electro mechanics

LIST OF FIGURES, CHARTS AND TABLES, ESP classification by experience ESP classification by professional area Students’ perception on the purposes of leaning reading English for Finance

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, IIANOL UNLVERSLTY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

DINH THI TUYET THOA

DIFFICULTIES IN READING “ENGLISII FOR FINANCE” OF

THE SECOND-YEAR-STUDENTS OF ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT AT HANOI VOCATIONAL TRAINING

COLLEGE FOR ELECTRO-MECHANICS

TIM HIỂU NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN TRONG VIỆC ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANII CIUYÊN NGÀNIICỦA SINII VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI KHOA KE TOAN CUA TRUONG CAO DANG NGHE

CO DIEN HA NOL

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 601410

Hanoi— 2011

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, IIANOL

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

DINH THI TUYET THOA

DIFFICULTIES IN READING “ENGLISH FOR FINANCE” OF

‘THE SECOND-YEAR-STUDENTS OF ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT AT HANOI VOCATIONAL TRAINING

COLLEGE FOR ELECTRO-MECHANICS

TIM HIEL NHUNG KHO KHAN TRONG VIEC DOC HIEU

TIENG ANH CHUYEN NGANH CUA SINH VIEN NAM THU

HAI KHOA KE TOAN CỦA TRƯỜNG CAO BANG NGHỆ

CƠ ĐIỆN HÀ NỌI

M.A MINOR THESIS

Wield: English caching Mcthodology Code: 601410

Supervisor: Dr Duong Thi

Hanoi— 2011

iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATION

ESP Lnglish for Specific Purposes

FOP English for Occupational Purposes

EAP: English for Academic Purposes

EEP English for Educational Purposes

HVTCEM: Hanoi Vocational Training College for Electro-Mechanics

LIST OF FIGURES, CHARTS AND TABLES,

ESP classification by experience

ESP classification by professional area

Students’ perception on the purposes of leaning reading English for Finance Students’ focus when leaming Lnglish for Linanee

The difficulties in lerm of reading skills

The difficulties in term of vocabulary

‘The difficulties in term of grammar

The difficulties in lonn of cultural background knowledge Students’ views of sources of difficulties

"The students’ expectation in term of materials

The students’ expectation in term of methodology

Students’ preference in ESP reading Students’ perception on the importance of ESP reading

Students’ perecption on the necessity of reading English for Finance for their future job

5 Scope of the siuly

6 Orgunizations of tho sindy

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Basic concepts about ESP

1.1.1 Definitions of ESP

1.1.2 Types of ESP

1.2 Reading in ESP teaching and leamnin,

1.2.1, Reading skills in EBP

1.2.2 ESP teachers and their roÌes St nh khe

1.2.3 ESP students and thei roles

1.2.4, ESP reading materials and their rolas

1.3 Difficulties in ESP reading, c ch hư

vii

CHAPTER 2; THE CURRENT SITUATION OF TEACHING AND

TRAINING COLLEGE FOR ELECTRO-MECHANICS

2.1 Institution

2.2 The teachers and their methods of teaching con kireeeeree 2.3 The students and their backeround knowledge

2.4 The teaching and leaming English at IINVTCEM

2.5 General review of the couse book “English for Finance”

2.5.1 Rationale for choosing the course book and objectives of the course

2.5.2 Topies, lonminologics and grarumatical structures

2.5.3, Characteristies of reading texts

3.3 The data collection procedins

3.4 Data analy8is, sec

A.L.1, Students’ attitude towards TSP reading

4.1.2 Students’ perception on the purposes of reading lessons

4.1.3 Students’ focus when learning English for Finance

4.1.4 Students” difficulties in leaming reading English for liinance

4.1.4.1 In term of reading skills 4.1.4.2 In tem 0fV@ۊbtlaY nga rerre

4.1.4.3 In term of grammar

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4.1.4 4, In term of eultural background knowledgc

4.1.5, The eauses for these difficulties in learning reading English for Finance

4.1.5.1, From the reading materials

41.5.2 From the teachers,

4.1.5.3 From the leaIT9Ts cà in thoi

4.1.6 The leamers” expectation in term of materials

4.1.7, The lcamers’ expectation in tem of methodology

Discussion of the result collected by means of the interview, classroom

observation and journal keeping,

4.2.1 Toachers’ altitude towards ESP reading

4.2.2, Teachers’ opinion on the course book they are teaching

4.2.3 ‘Tsachers’ focus when teaching reading Linglish for Linanee

4.2.4, Teachers’ loctutiques to teach students it reading English for Finance

4.2.5, Teachers’ difficulties in teaching reading English for Finance

42.5.1 In term of euliural background knowledge 4.2.5.2, In term of methodalogy n.nssnesnnesemenenn instante

Trainang students to become efficient r2adetS csniensnseseesennmnenseie

3.1.1 Improving students with different rcading sưatcgies

5.1.2 Encouraging studzrlsto develop extensive reading habits

Improving teachers’ techniques in teaching English for Finance

Developing English for Finance reading matetials

Improving teachers’ professional knowladye about economics,

Improving teachers’ teaching methodology

Surumary

PART 3: CONCLUSION 42

REFERENCES 44

APPENDICES

TX

Appendix 5: Translated version of the survey questionnaire for students

PART |: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Learning English now is not only an interest but also # practical thing for many peaple Learning English means learning four related skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing In teaching and learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam, reading has always received a arcat deal of attention This is understandable becausc English is taught and learnt in non-English environment, so reading is not only the important means to get knowledge but also means of further study What is more, by means of Linglish the leamers can take it professionally in their future work as well as in reading their specialized materials, Tis cxwetly truc for stutenls of

accounting

At lanoi Vocational Training College for Electro-Mechanics (IIVTCEM), after finishing

120 goncral English periods, students of accounting, department begin to take 60 ESP periods Being an ESP teacher of economics, the researcher has always been aware of the importance of

For all the above reasons, the researcher would like to find out the areas of students” difficulties at HVI'CEM when leaming reading English for Finance and the cause of these difficulties I is also hoped that the study will make some suggestions for the teachers and Jeamers to improve the teaching and learning English for Fmance at college

2 Alms of the study

This study aims to investigate the diffieullics in reading English for Finance of the second

‘year students at HVTCEM To be more specitic, the objectives of this study are:

- To investigate the present situation of teaching and learning reading Linglish for Linanee

sở as to find oul the [cachers and leamers* arces of difficullics when tsaching and learning English tor Finance

- To suggest the ways to reduce these difficulties and help leamers to improve their ESP reading skills

Itis hoped that the findings from this study will be some benefits to teachers and students

ai TIVTCFM

3 Research questions

In order to achieve the aims mentioned above, two research questions were raised:

- What are the teachers and leamers’ areas of difficulties when teaching and leaming reading English for Finance?

- To what extent do the teachers” teaching methods help learners overcome the difficulties

5 Scope of the study

‘The study mainly focuses on some difficulties in USP reading experienced by the second

yoar sludents of Accounting al HVTCEM, and then suggests

overcome these difficulties and to improve their ESP reading skill

6 Organization of the study

This study consists of three main parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion

some techniques to help thơm

The first parl inchides the ralimate for choosing Ihe lepic of the study, the aims, the research

questions, the methods, and the scope of the study

‘The second part comprises five chapters Chapter one deals with the theoretical background

relevant to the research topic including Basic concepts about ESP, reading in ESP teaching and

leaming, difficulties in ESP reading Chapter two discusses the current situation of teaching and Jeaming English for Finance at HVTCEM Chapter three presents the research methodology,

which focuses on the participants, the data collection methods, the data colleetion procedure and the data analysis Chapter four presents findings and discussion, Chapter five provides some recommendations to reduee difficulties in reading Linglish for Linanee

The last part summarizes the mains issues of the study, pomts out the limitahons and presents some suggestions for further research,

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Basic concept about ESP

P-an approach not a product does not involve a particular kind of language,

varieties, but “is an approach to language in which all decisions as to content and method are based on the learners! reason for learning” $0 an ESP course should differ from a general English course in selection of skills, themes, topics, situation and function And, all ESP courses should be hased on the learners” needs and meel the learners’ needs

However, Strevens’ definition of ESP (1988) makes # distinction between 4 absolute characteristics and two variable characteristics;

- The absolute characteristics of ESP are

+ designed to mect specified needs of the leamers

+ related in context (that is in its themes and topics) to particular disciplines, occupations and activities

+ centered on Janguage appropiate to those activities in syntax, lexis, discowse, semantics and so on, and analysis of the discourse

- The variable characteristics are that ESP:

+ may be restricted to skill to be cleaned (for example reading only)

+ may not be taught according to any pre-ordained methodelogy,

The definition by Rebinson is based on lwo key defining crileria and a number of characteristics that are found to be tre of ESP, The key ciiteria are that ESP is “normally goai- directed” and that ESP courses develop from a need analysis, which “aims to specify as clased as possible what exacily it is that suedents have to do through the median of English” (Robinson 19913)

From the definitions above, it is clear that ESP courses are purposeful and aimed at the successfil performance of occupaliowal rales by an individual or a group whose need is

considered to be a distinguished feature to those of General English.

1.1.2 Types of ESE

FSP has been classified into different lypes, bul the major distinction is often drawn between the two main areas namely EOP (English tor Occupational Purposes) and EAP (English for Academic Purposes) EEP (English for Educational Purposes) The former involves work- related needs and training while the latter involves acadcmic study Following is Robinson’s tree diagram, which indicates a distinction between these two areas

Figure I: ESP classification by experience (Robinson, 1991: 3)

Another diagram is used by Dudlcy-Evans and Jo St John (1998) to subdivide ESP In this

diagram, ESP is also divided into two main areas: HAP and EOP, but they are further divided in

isrmns of discipline or professional area

English for Specific Purposes

English for English for English for English for English for English for

(Acnlermic) — (Aewdersic) — (Academis) Professional Vocational

English English, Prevocational Vocational

Medical Business Pumposes Purpuses

Figure 2: ESP classification by professional area ‘Evans and St John, 1998:6)

1.2 Reading in ESP teaching and learning

identifying for organizational pacers, understanding relations wilhin a sentence and bebween

sentences, using cohesive and discouse markers, predicting, interfering and guessing:

identifying, mam ideas, supporting ideas and examples, processing and evaluating, the

infoomation during reading; Lransferzing or using (he informaion while or afler reading

Alihough ESP reading is usually related lo particular content arcas such as lechnology or

engineering, the recent trends in ESP seem to share the assumption that readers’ strategies can be

generalized across subject boundaries This means general reading s

gies should he taught to

ESP students because, as Hulchinsen & Waters (1987) poinicd out, ESP is not different in kind

from any other form of language teaching and ESP teaching should be based on the principles of effective and efficient leaning

1.2.2 ESP teachers and their roles

Almost ESP teachers are teachers of General English (GE) who have unexpectedly found themselves required to teach English for a specific purpose They are jus! “new settlers in a new land” (Hutchinson and Waters, 1986) with no agreed maps to guide them, For the non-native teachers of English, they may have undoubtedly competence in English, but they may not cope with students’ areas of specialism, Therefore, wmlike a Gli teacher, an ESP teacher is required to have both compelenec in English and the knowledge of the students’ specialist arca, In addition

to the normal functions of a classroom teacher, “the ESP teacher will have to deal with needs analysis, syllabus design, materials writing or adaptation and evaluation” (uichinson and Waters, 1987.157) Also according to these authors, ESP teachers should have three factors: (1) a positive attitude towards the ESP content; (2) knowledge of the fundamental principles of the

subjocl matter; (3) an awarcness of how mnuch they probably know

Concerning to the roles of ESP teachers, Littlewood (1981:51) stated the ESP teacher is

expected to “perform in a variety of'roles, separately or simultaneously” In fact, the role of the

teacher will vary according to the type of syllabus and course, the teaching and learning

environment (Jordan, 1997) Thus, one of the tmost important qualities that an FSP teacher expects to have is flexibility which helps him to change from bemg a general language teacher to

being a specific purpose teacher, and to caps with different group of students at a very short

1.3.3 ESP students and their roles

Sludents come to an English reading class with different command of English and for

be comprehensively understood only in combination with their available specialized knowledge

In short, for vocational purposes, ESP students are in a more requirement of not only English knowledge but also specialized knowledge of the ficld,

1.24 ESP reading materials and their roles

Materials are very important in teaching and learning process, especially in teaching ESP

They are considered as a source of language and a leaning support They arc also used for motivation and stimulation and for reference ESP is designed to meet specitic needs of the leamers so selecting reading materials is very necessary Selecting materials involves making

choices and decision ‘lo make good choices we need to have good criteria on which to base the decision These criteria such as faclors about the learners, the role of materials, the Lopies, the

language, the presentation have been put forward for the analysis of materials and each of them has validity A good ESP material must contain interesting texts and enjoyable activities which make students think, opportunitics for them to use their existing knowledge, skill and content that they and their teacher can cope with; truly reflect what they think and feel about learning process, provide clear and coherent unit structure 1o guide the students through various activities to maximuze the chances of learning, introduce teachers to a new techniques and provide models of correct and appropriate language use (Hutchinson and Waters 1987; 107)

1.3 Difficulties in ESP reading

Reading in a forcign language is important to personal development, professional success and academic studies However, in learning reading especially in ESP reading, there are many factors affecting reading succes

s such as reader’s reading lubils, alliinds, molivation, exposure te the target language, textual cliaracteristics, the way reading is taught and the teacher’s classroom techniques or learning environment, ete ‘I'he previous studies by Jolly (1978), Coady (1979),

Yorio (1971) and others indicate thal problems with foreign tanguage reading may lic either on

learners’ reading skills, language proficicney or cultural and background knowledge

1.3.1 Reading skill problems

According lo Jolly (1978), one’s firsL language reading ability plays a more important role

in reading success than his level of the target language does because foreign language reading

requires the transference of old skills, not the learning of new ones ‘I'his view is shared by Coady (1979) who confirms that forcign language reading is a reading skill problem, nol a language

problem

Bemhard (1985:17) stated “Reading performance in a second language is largely shared

with reading ability m a first language” Sharing the same view, Sarig, G (1987) assumed that

“he same reading strategies types accounted for success and failure in both languages to almost

the same extent it can be concluded then, that reading processes fram the first language appear

to transfer to the foraign language”

It can be seen clearly that students’ limited reading skills create many problems such as

reading slowly, failing to understand and summarize main ideas of the reading text, and to enable

to guess or predict meaning of the words or phrases used in that context, etc ‘Therefore, such students find it hard ta be successful in their reading Finally, learners" molivation lowards reading

is also an important factor in reading process It may affect reading result such as good speed, enjoyment, and comprehension Lacking motivation, the readers do not want to keep on reading

1.3.2 Language problems

Problems of foreign language leamers in reading process, according to Yorio (1971:108),

are mainly caused by the imperfect knowledge of the largel Iangnage and the interference of the native language, In his view, reading mvolves four factors: knowledge of the language, ability to predict or guess in order to make the correct choice, ability to remember the previous cues, and ability to make the necessary associations between the different cues that have been selected Therefore, Icamers with limited knowledge of the target language might have considerable difficulty in reading in the target Ianguage This view is supported by other researchers (Alderson, 1984, and Clake (1980) who acknowledged that a lack of apprapriale Tinguistic knowledge prevents the transfer of reading skills and strategies from the first language to the second language

1.3.3 Cultural background knowledge problems

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Apart from language problems and reading skills problems, cultwal background knowledge can also affect students? reading ability Sludics by StofTensen of all, (1979); Carrell (1981) illustrated the effect of cultural knowledge on the product of comprehension, appealing to the processes of distortion and elaboration to account for the differences between a recall of a text and the original text, Readers facing with unfamiliar cultural content may mistranslate or misinterpret the text according to their own cultural experiences it can also be seen that the cultural origin of @ text has grealer effecl on comprehension than syntactic or semantic complexity of the text

For text structures, the impact of culture is less outwardly evident but apparently still present They will greatly affect readers’ comprehension Sometimes, the implicit cultural Knowledge presupposed by a text or from different assumption about meaning and comprehension held by the writer also causes difficulties to the readers For students of Accounting, although accounting rules or knowledge of sconomics are international applied, the

presentation of accounting and economuc texts may vary according to different countiies that

make students confused and misinterpret the reading texts

From what we have discussed, if ean be concluded thal there are three main factors that

affect reading comprchension: reading ability or reading skills, language proficicney or language knowledge; and cultural and background knowledge, Reading difficulties may be related to number of olher factors such as readers? reading hubils, altitude, motivation, and exposure to the target language, textual characteristics or the learning environment, Whatever kind the problems are, they are various in the reading process in a foreign language and great efforts must be made

†0 overcome them

14 Summary

In this chapter, the relevant literature which has helped to form the theoretical and conceptual framework for the present study is prescnted Fist, it provides basic concept about ESP in which detinitions, types of ESP are taken into consideration, Next, information of reading skills in ESP and factors in teaching and learning are discussed ‘hose factors include ESP

icachers, ESP students, anel ESP materials and their roles, Finally, il-presonts an insight inlo FSP reading difficulties, which include reading skill problems, language problems, and cultural background problems

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CHAPTER TWO: TITE CURRENT SITUATION OF TEACIIING AND LEARNING

ENGLISH FOR FINANCE AT HANOI VOCATIONAL TRAINING COLLEGE FOR ELECTRO-MECHANICS

2.1 Institution

HVTCEM was founded in 1972 Initially, il was only a Vocational School Gradually, it

was upgraded and became a Vocational Training College for Electro-Mechanics in 2006 Now, its mission is to train students to become workers in the major fields of Mechanical Engineering, Mechanical Dynamic Engineering, Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Automobile and Welding Trade, and accountants and IT technicians in two new fields: Accounting and Information ‘echnology

The students arz provided with a lot of gencral cduealed subjects and different specializations like other institutions, of which English has been regarded as a vital component in the program But in fact, the conditions for teaching and leaming English are not ideal due to the large class-size (more than 60 students in total), non-language environment, out-of-date reference documents, lack of facilities for language leaming and teaching such as videos, tape recorders, projectors, and so om

2.2 The teachers and their methods of teaching

There are 12 teachers of English at the HVTCEM, aged from 26 to 41 All of the teachers are female and have university diploma from different universities in Vietnam At present, one of thom is a MLA, the other 6 are doing a M.A course, They arc all teachers of GE who were not trained to teach ESP and they do not have knowledge of economics, either In fact, the teachers who were appointed to leach English for Finance hesitalad lo accept their lask because it did take time for them to become familiar with the ESP course material However, when being in charge

of an ESP class, they are energetic and willing to devote their time and ensrgy to teaching The problem is that they ars inexperionced in teaching ESP and they alse have no specialist knowledge on the subject matter So, they have to face many difficultics, of which the lack of the professional knowledge and the choice of appropriate teaching methodologies seem to be the

major concerns Whal is more, most of them have lille chance to access Lo the lalest alterations

of language teaching methods, Therefore, the majority of them still adopted the traditional

12

method of teaching in ESP reading lessons, which emphasizes translation activities, leamer

only ask the teachers when they encounter difficult structures or words that they cannot find in

the dictionary And the success is based on how flexible and adaptable the individual teacher is to

"ăn cxamination format, Students are pass

respond to the requirement of the new teaching situation

2.3 The students and their background knowledge

The students of Accounting Depariment al the ITVTCEM are full-time students, aging from 18-25 so they belonged to the same psychological age group They come from different parts of the country Most of them are from the rural or remote areas, where there are no good

opportunities for studying English so they are varied in terms of English proficiency The others,

who come from citics, theorctically, have all finished three years or seven years of Icarning

English at high schools before entering the college, but in fact, their levels are rather mixed

To some extenl, there are some siudems whose English is very good, but generally the

target students’ English proficiency is still of low level Moreover, the students come to the class

with different English background and different attitude, motivation, leaming style towards learning the language Some have learnt the Basic English af school, some have learnt Russian or

French and the others have never learnt a forcign language Thus, the first thing the teachers have

to do is to improve the students’ level of GE before they can deal with subject matters in this language In addition, although they had learnt the subjects of sconomics in Vietnamese, {heir

specialized knowledge is rather poor so they find it difficult to read texts of economics in

English Another issne is that most of the students do not have the habit of learning

independently and tend to depend on the lextbooks and the leachers for knowledge Finally, the

large class size also makes the teachers and students difficult to fulfill their task of teaching and

learning

2.4, The teaching and learning English at Tanai Vocational Training College for Electro-

Mcchanics

Due to the particular tasks of our Vocational Training College, English at HVICEM is

allowed to be non-aajor subject Like many other subjecls, English is taughl in a formal

classroom without language environment and the students have to do two English courses: 120- period GE and 60-period ESP, one after another

13

‘As far as the teaching materials are concemed, some textbooks for Gl such as

“Sirearrtins (Dparture)”, “New Headway (Elementary)” and “New Culting Bdge (Elcmenlary)" have been used recently In the stage for GE, the main objectives are to provide students with basic communicative skills Tims, the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) arc focused on At the cnd of this femm, students have to sit for a written cxam which includes mainiy grammar and vocabulary exercises

In the slage for ESP, the course books al ITVTCEM include “Tnglish for Automobile and Welding Trade”, “English for Electrical and Electronics Engineering”, “English for Finance” and “English for Computer Science”, which were compiled by the teachers of Basic Science Department of College The ESP textbooks were designed with the purposes of providing the students with an amount of vocabulary rolating to the investigation topics and training reading skills which would be helpful for their future job, I'hey focus on language skills: reading, writing, and tanslation The FSP textbooks put grealer enuphasis on content leaching — the knowledge of the specific areas than that on the language skills However, for most of the students leaning

these SP textbooks, reading is the most challenging task

In term of methodology, ESP teachers usually omptoy the traditional method of Leaching They offen play the key role in the lesson, being the main speaker whereas the students arc passive, only asking the teachers when the come actos with difficult structures and vocabulary

2.5 General review of the course book “English for Finance*

2.5.1 Rationale for choosing the course book and objectives of the course

‘As can he seen, materials can be classified into textbooks and in-house materials ‘Ihe lextbooks have been officially published and are available in the markels Teachers can choose them to teach students because these textbooks are written by the experts who have a lot of experiencs and expertise in the field and they will obviously be useful for the students Nevertheless, they arc often criticized for not satisfying students’ specific needs On the contrary, in-house materials which are compiled by the ESP teachers in the ecllege or University used locally can make for the drawbacks of the published books Robinson, (1991: 58) believed that in-house malcrials arc likely to be more specific and approprials than published matcrials and therefore have greater benefits Moreover they are more flexible than published materials hecause

the writers of in-house materials understand well the situation of teaching ESP to their students.

14

Vor all above reasons, the hook “Linglish for binanee” has been chosen to be the official course book for students of Accounting The book was written by Cao Xuan Thicu (Dean) and the teachers of Languages Department at Financial Academy, and first published in 2006, It was

compiled mainly based on couse book sources, books and references of some countries like Britain, America, Canada, Australia and so on in the ficlds of Economics, Finance, Banks, Taxcs,

Accounting, Marketing, ete

The book was writler with the aim of providing specialized knowledge of economics for different kinds of learners: those who have never learnt Economics, those who prepare for thew future job, and those who have ever leamt Economies and now want to improve their professional knowledge to adapt their study and firture job requirement

‘As aresult, by the end of the English for Finance course, students will be able to:

- Develop reading skills and strategies

+ Tinlange their economic vocabulary and terms in Engtish

- Master English terms for economies used in different kinds of documents

- Consolidate and enhance basic grammatical struetures used in specific texts

1

Topics, terminologies and grammatical structures

The book consists of 25 units covering 25 topics with reading focus only, Each unit discusses one basic issue closely related to economics such as The economic organization of socicty, Supply and Demand together, Pricing policics, Inflation, etc, related to accounting such

as Accounting, Financial statements, Assets, Liabilities, Depreciation, Audits, etc or related to finance like Public finance and business finance, Corporate finance (Please refer to Appendix 3)

Fach unit was artmged into five parts, The firsl is Reading text, The sceond and most important one is Comprehension questions, The third part is Language focus The fourth one is Word study which includes some kinds of exercises like gap filling, multiple choice, true/false,

15

and matching definition ‘he last one is Vooatrulary Lach unit has different length depending on

the complexity of the subject, mailer In every unit, conerele objectives are scl up al the

beginning For example, the objectives of Unit 17 “Financial statements” on page 94 (Please refer to Appendix 4) state that at the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

- Distinguish the tluce financial statements

- lmprove reading skills: scanning for details and skimming for main ideas

- Be mare confident, active and co- operalive

Concerning Terms in the reading texts, they can be classified into two main groups according to their structural patterns: single and compound terms

Single terms are made up of one word, usually a noun or a verb such as inflation dam phat), finance (tai chinh), accounting (hach toan ké toan), liabilitics (tai sin no), depreciation (khdu hao), ect, whearas the compound terms consists of two or more words hese words, which are of different parts of speech, combine together and create Lerms thal, have the form of nominal groups such as public finance (tai chink céng), business finance (tai chinh doanh nghiép), direct

taxes (thud truc thu), indirect taxes (thué gian thu), capital market (thi trong vốn), ñnancial

slalcments (cde bin bio cao tii ehinh), fixed assels (ai sản cỗ định), ete

In addition, the terms cxist in various forms They may be written in full such as “ower-

the-counter transactions” or using acronyms (initial letters of words that form a group of words)

such as OTC transactions (over-the-comler iamwactions), ECR (Exchange Control Regulations), GAAP (Generally accepted accounting principles), VAT (Value added Tax), ete One term may

be repeated several times in each text 'or example, “te end product of the financial accounting

process is a set of reports that ave called Financial statements GAAP require that such three

reports be prepared (1) a balance sheet, (2) an income statement, (3) a statement of cash flow”

(Unit 17, page 94)

Examining the grammatical structures of the texts, it is ncecssary to cover three sub-

units such as words, sentences and tenses, Normally, an English word may consist of three parts:

a prefix, a stem and a suffix Most of the words in the course book exist in the form of stem

(fitamce, balance, inferesl, teverme ), some use prefix (mflow, oulflow, inpuls, oulpnis, imperfect .) or suffix (shortage, allowance, cashiering, profitable, negotiable ) Furthermore,

taking a closer look at sentences in the reading texts, it can be seen that simple and complex

16

sentences are used regularly In some texts, complex sentences are used more often than the

simple ones The usz of Ihese senlsnecs wilh which/that clause is important itt content development as it helps in giving definitions or explanations or referring back to what is

mentioned For example, “There are roughly three ways to do it First it is setting interest rate cedings und floors, which means limiting, upwards or dewnwards, the fluchiations of the interest

rate The third one which is a bit more modern is those open-market operations, which are simply buying and selling government bonds to and from commercial hanks” (Unil 1, page 63)

In addition, the sentences are presented in both active and passive voice The passive sentences in

some texts outnumber the active ones such as “Planned economy: A system whereby the structure

of the market is deliberately planned by the state, in which production and consumption quotas

ave fixed beforehand ” (Unit 2, page 12)

In term of tenses, verbs in this book are limited to present simple, present perfect, or simple

future as the contents of most unils share the same fealure as to introduce to the readers and

students the true knowledge related to economnes in present or future For example, “ylation is

an economic condition in which prices for consumer goods increase and the value of maney or

purchasing power decreases” Unit 6, page 37)

2.5.3 Characteristics of reading texts

The organization of information in reading texts of this course buok, ort one hand, strares

common characteristics of other reading texts, on the other hand, has its own characteristics, The

information is grouped into themes, in each of which there is the explanation of the main idea,

terms, definition, examples for illustration, and the summary of the main ideas The information

is organized in either deductive or inductive way However, it should be noted that economics

consists of some other fields such as accounting, finance so examples used to explain are rather imporlanl Normally, thanks to examples, readers can understand the explanation of the main

ideas thoroughly and can guess the meaning of the whole text

‘The summary of a sample unit, which characterizes the reading text of accounting: Unit

7 on page 94: Financial slaicrnents (Please refer to appendix 4)

The content of this unit covers financial statements (or a set of reports) so the first paragraph is about the presentation of three kinds of financial reports and the second paragraph is

the explanation of these reports in dotaits Tk can be said that the organization of information in

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the reading text is very clear explanation of the main idea is careful including examples to illustrate, Nevertheless, the explanation of the main idea sometimes makes readers canfused and difficult to understand because of the vocabulary, terms or sentence structures or even difficult specialized knowledge

In short, after having a look at a goncral review of the couse book “English for Finance” and introduction of some typical features of the reading texts, the researcher hopes to improve the isaching and leaving English for finance in the way that it will help RSP teachers to be aware of the complicated nature of economic reading texts so that suitable strategies to teach reading will

be applied to munimize the reading problems and to improve students’ reading skills

1.6 Summary

This chapter has provided an overview of the curent situation of teaching and leaning

English for Finance at Hanoi Vocational ‘Training College for Hlectro-Mechanics, given some

information abont the institulion, the teachers and their methods of Leaching, the students and their background knowledge, The researcher has also presented general review of the course book “Lnglish for Finance” and objectives of the course Some problems that the teachers and students at the College fice in the teaching and learning of ESP reading were pointed out

The participants of this study were 100 second-year-students of Accounting Department

of HVTCEM, aged 18 — 23, both male and female (mainly female), All of those students had finished a 120-period GE course and those who had just finished the ESP course with the total of

60 periods They were selected at random from 155 students of 2 classes K'T 3C and K'L3D to

participate in the research, Tl was difficull Lo selcet a random sample of individuals since students had already been assigned to different classes In this case, the researcher used cluster random sampling because this approach is more appropriate and convenient for the researcher to observe the participants to fill in/ or complete the questionnaire in elasscs Besides, 6 other teachers who have at least two-year experience in teaching English for Finance at the College were invited to participate in the study for informal interview

3.2 Data collection methods

‘To reach the primary aim of the study a survey questionnaire has been chosen as the main instrument for data collection One survey questionnaire with 12 questions was designed for accounting students to identify their opinions on reading lessons and to find out their oxpectation

to achieve better reading competence ‘[he questionnaire is constructed based on the literature, the difficulties in reading Tnglish for Finance, the researcher's observation of the students during some years of teaching at HVTCEM, joumal keeping as well as 10 interview questions with the other 6 teachers of the College

The questionnairs for sindents was wrillen in Vieinamese so thal they would nat

misunderstand the questions, The questionnaire consists of two main sections Section one aimed

to collect information about the students’ background which included their places of birth, the number of years they have learnt English or olher languages and the tualerial they are slndying Section two aimed at seeking information about the students’ attitude towards reading English for Finance, their difficulties in reading skills and the causes; and their expectations of the teachers’ methodology and malcrials

Survey questionnaire is intended to serve as the mam source of data because at is undeniable that question is valuabls tool for investigating the attitude, images, coneems, needs,

ete held by a group of interest Hanec, it will certainly be valuable for the author in exploring the

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subjects” difficulties in reading Linglish for lfinance Moreover, this research too! is also relatively more comfortable, time-saving and ceonomical as compared with offer siuvey methods Tike interviewing, telephoning, mailing, video taping Besides, adcitional data was obtained by other instruments such as classroom observation, journal keeping and informal interview with other ESP teachers

Classroom observation was employed to know the purpose of reading class, teaching methods, posi-reading activities, and unforeseen difficulties in reading class

Joumal keeping was used with the intention of recording the method of preparing ESP reading lessons and teaching techniques used in classroom, expected and unexpected problems the teachers are coping with while teaching, the solutions to unexpected problems and any brainwave to overcome to these problems

3.3 Data collection procedure

To collect the dala for the stuily, jownat keeping was the first instrument, The researcher has been teaching ESP for 3 years and has kept the jownal on her own since then with the purpose of recording difficulties during her teaching process in order to find out the solutions to

overcome these problems Besides, lwclve questions for students and ten imlerview questions for teachers were designed to collect more information supporting what the rescarcher has been

recorded in her journal from ESP teachers and 2 year students, respectively ‘hey were carried

oul afler revising carefully and receiving comments from colleagues as well as supervisor Classroom observation was catried out during my colleagues’ lectures wn 10 lessons

‘To make it easy in analyzing data, 100 photocopied copies of the questionnaire were delivered to the siudenls during the class line Before giving the questionnaires to the respondents, the researcher explained the purpose of the questionnaire, the requirements for the respondents and answered any questions asked by them Then, they were instructed to take as much time as they need to complete the questionnaire

To make sure the collected questionnaires were all correctly completed, the researcher

asked for permission to have another contact with the respondents after data collection so that she

could clarify any nnclcar responses

Dala from the questionaire wore classified into different, catego

attitudes towards reading English for Finance, their difficulties in reading in the areas of vocabulary, grammar, reading skills, and cultural backgroud the causes of their reading problems and their cxpectations of the teachers’ methodology Because the number of respondents is small, the data is manually analyzed using descriptive statistics (percentage) and interpretations The informalion was then displayed in forms of charls and lables, Resides, the discussion of the result collected by means of the interview with ESP teachers, classroom observation and journal keeping was presented,

3.5 Summary

This chapter presented the participants, the data collection methods, colleetion procedure, and analysis Given the aims and objectives of the study, the researcher decided to use the survey questionnaire, classroom observation, journal keeping and informal interview with ofher ESP teachers By employing these instruments, the researcher hopes to achieve a triangrlation of the data, which helps to make data more reliable

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CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Discussion of the results collected by means of the questionnaire

4.1.1, Students’ attitude towards ESP reading

The questionnaire for students consists of 13 questions, The information gathered by

means of these questions can be analyzed one by one as follows:

Chart 1: Students’ preference in ESP reading

(Please refer to question 1 in appendix 1)

53%

According to the result in Chart 1, we can see that not all the students like learning English for Finance and have positive attitude towards it Therefore, 53% of the students like learning English for Finance much, 40% of them like it very much and 5% of the students don’t like it much and only 2% don’t like it at all

Chart 2: Students’ perception on the importance of ESP reading

Please refer to question 2 in appendix 1)

44%

52%

As can be seen from the chart 2, nearly all the participants (96% including 44%-very important and 52%-important) considered reading an important skill in learning English for Finance, whereas only 4% did not find reading skill important None chose an “unimportant answer” This could result from the fact that the participants needed to be able to read English

Very important Important Not very important

materials related to their specific subject area In other words, reading helped them to enlarge

their knowledge of the world’s economics.

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Chart 3: Students’ perception on the necessity of reading English for Finance for their

future job (Please refer to question 3 in appendix 1)

Necessary

We can see that most of the students considered reading English for Finance necessary for

their job (97%) Only three students saw that for their future job, it was not very necessary to

learn reading English for Finance

‘The reasons for these positive attitudes reading towards reading skill in general and

reading English for Finance in particular derive from their understanding of reading for

accounting students in their future work in which they have to read a lot of specialized documents Thus, the teachers hope to help the students enrich their background knowledge,

increase their vocabulary and grammatical structures, improve their reading skill and gain

confidence when dealing with economic materials in English

4.1.2, Students’ perception on the purposes of learning reading English for Finance

To the question about the purpose of learning reading English for Finance, the result is

presented in the following table

Table 1: Students’ perception on the purposes of learning reading English for Finance

(Please refer to question 4 in appendix 1)

‘The table shows clearly that the students” primary purpose of leaming reading English is

to enrich their knowledge of economics 48% of the participants gave their priority to the knowledge of economics This means that the students always expect their teacher to be good at professional knowledge rather than a teacher who is only good at knowledge of language They really want their teacher to explain the related knowledge to the economies through the ideas in the reading part in details 36% of the students considered enlarging vocabulary and economic

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terminology their most important purpose Reading improvement was the choice of 10 students

3% of the students chose learning reading English for Finance as for enlerlaining, The rest 3% of them chose the item e (others’} Two out of these 3 students stated that their purposes were to work with foreigners after graduating One of them said leaming reading with no purposes at all The results arc likely to lead to the idca that the students are willing to lean English Economics because they hope to learn much more knowledge of this field

4.1.3 Students’ focus when learning English for Finance

To this question, more than one choice is acceptable The result in this table is presented

in percentage that the options were chosen

Table 2: Students’ focus when learning English for Finance

(Please refer to question 5 in appendix 1)

‘As can be seen from the fable, when being asked about their focus in leaming English for Finance, the muajorily of the students chose to focus on vocabulary and economic terminology (75%) whereas 25% of them paid attention to the meanings of the texts, The number of students laying the emphasis on grammar makes up for 20% of Ihe Lotal number Relating knowledge of economics was chosen to be the focus of 14% of the participants A litlle number of students gave their own opinion that they often concentrated on the types of the texts (3%)

4.1 tudents” difficultles in learning reading l¿nglish for Finance

Reading difficultics in English for Finance perecived by our second ycar students are categorized in terms of reading skills, vocabulary, grammar, and cultural background knowledge Four questions were designed to find oul siudents’ perception of learning reading English for Finance The students were asked to rate on a 4- point scale (4 being “very difficult”, 3 being

“difficult”, 2 being “easy”, and 1 being “very easy”) The responses were then calculated in terms

the perecntages

4.1.4.1 In terms of reading skills

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In the question 6, the participants were asked to point out the difficulties in term of

reading skill, The resulls of the respon

Table 3: The difficulties in terms of reading skills

(Please refer to question 6 in appendix 1)

Scale rating Level of difficulty (%)

D Scanning to get the specific information u 60 | 28 | 1

¢, Guessing the new words and predicting the content inthe text | 13 | 60 | 22 | 5 d@ Recognizing implication and making inferences, canelusion 75 | 22 | 3 | 0

¢ Summarizing the main ideas of the text 2% | as | 2s | a

‘The results shown from table 3 indicated that the responses in this section spread from

“very difficult” to “very casy” for all items, execpt for item Sd with nonc choosing the VE responses Item 6a showed that 74% of the participants found it “difficult” and “very difficult”, and 1% found it “very easy”, Followed this iter was ilem 6b and 6c, 6f ad 6g, which showed that a small percentage of the students found it very ditficult with these items but a rather high percentage of the students had difficulties with them (60% for 6b, 60% for 6c, 51% for 6g), except for item 6f, only 20% of the students found it difficult to answer the comprehension questions, and it was very casy to 15% of students, Obviously, a considerable number of students had no difficulties in answering the comprehension questions because they could find the information which was readily available in the lex!

Item 6d illustrated the highest percentage of students having so many difficulties in recognizing implication and making inferences and conclusion (97%), and only 3% of them found il casy The items 6c also had a high percentage of students who found it very difficull and difficult to summarize the main ideas of the text (71%) This is because the fact that in this task, they had to use their own words to take notes their understanding quickly as much as possible or summative [he lexl whils their number of vocabulary are nal good enough

4.1.4.2, In terms of vocabulary

In question 7, the students were asked to point out the difficulties in some aspects of vooabulary, The resnlls arc presented in Table 4