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

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 ac

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

‘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

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 3

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

43.) Memorisation - - - 9

B171 nh ốc ốc

1.2.3, Factors qfềcting NẠP vocnbuÍOFV HeiiOPINB cà coi, TU

1.2.3.1 Word ralatad factors fi

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

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

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

language “Vocabulary is central to language” and “words are of critical importance to

the typical language learner.” (Coady and Huckin, 1997)

Nowadays, vocabulary is considered an imporlant aspect of teaching and

learning a foreign tanguage 1.2 vocabulary acquisition has become an increasingly interesting topic of discussion for researchers, teachers, curiculum designers, theorists, and others involved in second language learning and teaching

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

language “Vocabulary is central to language” and “words are of critical importance to

the typical language learner.” (Coady and Huckin, 1997)

Nowadays, vocabulary is considered an imporlant aspect of teaching and

learning a foreign tanguage 1.2 vocabulary acquisition has become an increasingly interesting topic of discussion for researchers, teachers, curiculum designers, theorists, and others involved in second language learning and teaching

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

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

language “Vocabulary is central to language” and “words are of critical importance to

the typical language learner.” (Coady and Huckin, 1997)

Nowadays, vocabulary is considered an imporlant aspect of teaching and

learning a foreign tanguage 1.2 vocabulary acquisition has become an increasingly interesting topic of discussion for researchers, teachers, curiculum designers, theorists, and others involved in second language learning and teaching

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

language “Vocabulary is central to language” and “words are of critical importance to

the typical language learner.” (Coady and Huckin, 1997)

Nowadays, vocabulary is considered an imporlant aspect of teaching and

learning a foreign tanguage 1.2 vocabulary acquisition has become an increasingly interesting topic of discussion for researchers, teachers, curiculum designers, theorists, and others involved in second language learning and teaching

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

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

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

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

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

‘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

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 3

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

43.) Memorisation - - - 9

B171 nh ốc ốc

1.2.3, Factors qfềcting NẠP vocnbuÍOFV HeiiOPINB cà coi, TU

1.2.3.1 Word ralatad factors fi

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

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

24.1 Material writers and curriculum developers - - S 40

3 Suggestions for further siudy

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

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

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

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 3

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

43.) Memorisation - - - 9

B171 nh ốc ốc

1.2.3, Factors qfềcting NẠP vocnbuÍOFV HeiiOPINB cà coi, TU

1.2.3.1 Word ralatad factors fi

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

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

language “Vocabulary is central to language” and “words are of critical importance to

the typical language learner.” (Coady and Huckin, 1997)

Nowadays, vocabulary is considered an imporlant aspect of teaching and

learning a foreign tanguage 1.2 vocabulary acquisition has become an increasingly interesting topic of discussion for researchers, teachers, curiculum designers, theorists, and others involved in second language learning and teaching

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 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

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

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

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

language “Vocabulary is central to language” and “words are of critical importance to

the typical language learner.” (Coady and Huckin, 1997)

Nowadays, vocabulary is considered an imporlant aspect of teaching and

learning a foreign tanguage 1.2 vocabulary acquisition has become an increasingly interesting topic of discussion for researchers, teachers, curiculum designers, theorists, and others involved in second language learning and teaching

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

‘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

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 3

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

43.) Memorisation - - - 9

B171 nh ốc ốc

1.2.3, Factors qfềcting NẠP vocnbuÍOFV HeiiOPINB cà coi, TU

1.2.3.1 Word ralatad factors fi

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

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

24.1 Material writers and curriculum developers - - S 40

3 Suggestions for further siudy

‘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

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 3

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

43.) Memorisation - - - 9

B171 nh ốc ốc

1.2.3, Factors qfềcting NẠP vocnbuÍOFV HeiiOPINB cà coi, TU

1.2.3.1 Word ralatad factors fi

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 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

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

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

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 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

language “Vocabulary is central to language” and “words are of critical importance to

the typical language learner.” (Coady and Huckin, 1997)

Nowadays, vocabulary is considered an imporlant aspect of teaching and

learning a foreign tanguage 1.2 vocabulary acquisition has become an increasingly interesting topic of discussion for researchers, teachers, curiculum designers, theorists, and others involved in second language learning and teaching