KHÓ KHĂN của SINH VIÊN ĐHNN TRONG VIỆC TIẾP cận THUẬT NGỮ của KHÓA học TIẾNG ANH KINH tế

Aims and research questions The study intends to detect the potential problems that ULIS studentsencounter, to reveal the causes for such difficulties, based on which the study wouldprop

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

Globalization enhances the close relationship, and the mutual understandingamong nations It takes place in various areas such as economy, technology,environment, culture, and society The most remarkable area in globalizing period iseconomy In this area, the globalization is of necessity to foster the international andnational economic integration

To facilitate the integrating process, a global language – English is an efficientand indispensable means to seek the common voice among nations Therefore,learning English all over the world recently has been of great popularity As it hasbecome increasingly aware that general English courses frequently which focus ongrammar, structure do not meet learners’ or employers’ wants and needs Englishshould be specified and intensive in certain fields Therefore, from the early 1960's,English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has grown to be one of the most prominent areas

of EFL teaching today With the globalization of trade and economy and thecontinuing increase of international communication in various fields, the demand forEnglish for Specific Purposes is expanding, especially in countries where English istaught as a foreign language That is the true case in Vietnam; ESP has shown a slowbut definite growth over the past few years Its development is reflected in anincreasing number of courses offered to students Especially, increasing interest hasbeen spurred since Vietnam opened its doors and recently entered WTO (2007) with alot of well-paid job opportunities for English competent employees This has led to arapid demand for English courses aimed at specific disciplines, e.g English forEconomics, in place of the traditional 'General English' ones As one of the leadinguniversities in language training, ULIS – VNU has applied English for SpecificPurposes (ESP) course for the last 10 years, aiming at improving students’ skill inusing English as a tool to work in an international working environment and tocomprehend technology transference The course has been applied for seniors whose

English competence is upper-intermediate Their four skills: reading, listening, writingand speaking are nearly accomplished The course-book was written by Mr NguyenXuan Thom, a professor in ULIS This book consists of eight chapters; each chapterpresents an economic topic The texts give general background on economics’ itemsand definitions Besides, reading texts are followed by different exercises related to thetext The fist type of exercise is definitions matching; the second type is multiplechoices on text information Translating exercises are also given to help students toapply the new knowledge The objectives of the course are providing students with agreat deal of terminology, enhancing students’ ability in translating economicmaterials, building student’s knowledge of grammar, etc The objectives to achieve arevariable; however, the most desirable aim of students in learning and teachers inteaching this course is the acquisition of terminologies As stated in the data analysis

of Tran (2009) 70% teachers pay attention to teach terms, and 65% students want tolearn terms in ESP course

Due to the fact that term really plays an essential role in distinguishing ESPfrom other language branches, and forming the ESP course As Robinson (1991, p.4)claims “It may often be thought that a characteristic or even a critical feature of ESP isthat a course should involve specialist language (especially terminology) and content”

However, the proper attention has not been paid to this issue; studentsencounter many difficulties in approaching terminology in the course, which could beconsidered a major motivation to this study

1.2 Aims and research questions

The study intends to detect the potential problems that ULIS studentsencounter, to reveal the causes for such difficulties, based on which the study wouldpropose some possible suggestions and strategies for learning terms to answer thefollowing questions:

1 According to ULIS students, what are the difficulties they encounter whenapproaching ESP’s terminology?

2 What are the causes of the difficulties they encounter?

3 From the students’ perspectives, what are the solutions to overcome thedifficulties?

4 What are the solutions to student’s problems as suggested by the teachers ofESP?

1.3 Significance of the research

- Teachers, after going through this research will be more aware of the difficultiesfacing these students, and will be able to help them gradually overcome thesedifficulties

- For educational administrators, the study would provide them with a close view intothe current situation, which may then reveal some pedagogical suggestions

- The findings hopefully would contribute to the improvement of students in learningterms

- Last but not least, with regards to researchers who have the same interest in the topic,could find fundamental, and useful information to develop their studies

1.4 Scope of the study

Although the topic of study was “Difficulties facing ULIS’s students in approaching terminology in English for Economics’ course”, in the scope the study, theresearcher aimed at senior students in Faculty of English Language Teacher Educationwho had opportunities to learn ESP course in this semester Specifically, difficultieswere on each different process of approaching terms such as understanding,remembering, and applying

1.5 Organization of the study

The rest of paper comprises five chapters as follows:

Chapter 2 (Literature review) lays the theoretical foundations for the wholestudy including the definition of key terms as well as a concise review of relatedstudies

Chapter 3 (Methodology) elaborates on the research methods, participants,instruments, data collection procedure and data analysis methods

Chapter 4 (Results and Discussion) presents the results of the research andgives interpretation and analyses of major patterns found in data

Chapter 5 (Conclusion) summarizes the major findings and puts forward somepedagogical implications and recommendations

Summary

The chapter has provided the rationale for the study by stressing the importance of learning term in ESP course as well as disclosing the research gap The framework of the paper has also been elaborated on four research questions and clearly defined scope These elaborations have not only justified the major content and structure of the study but will also work as the guidelines for the rest of the paper

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Key concepts

2.1.1 ESP

2.1.1.1 What is ESP?

"ESP" stands for English for Specific Purposes Different authors have definedthis term so far Some people described ESP as simply being the teaching of Englishfor any purpose than could be specified Others, however, were more precise,describing it as the teaching of English used in academic studies or the teaching ofEnglish for vocational or professional purposes According to Hutchinson and Waters(1997), ESP is one important branch of EFL/ESL (English as a Foreign/SecondLanguage) system that functions as the main branch of English language teachingELT Specifically, Streven (1988, p.1) stated: "ESP is a particular case of the generalcategory of special purpose language teaching"

Since its importance, much effort has been made to give an exact definition ofESP There are many scholars who have attempted to define it Instead of answeringthe question of what, many authors start with the question of “why ESP” as theapproaching methods of Hutchinson and Waters (1997)

Why do learners need ESP? For which purpose do they learn ESP? The answerfor these questions will be the foundation to build “the syllabus, materials,methodology, and evaluation procedures” explained by Hutchinson and Waters (1987,p.74) Many of scholars share the common opinion on the learner’s need elements ofESP Mackay and Mountford (1978) defined ESP as the teaching of English for clearlyutilitarian purposes The purposes they refer to are defined by the needs of the learners,which could be academic, occupational, or scientific The opinion that student’s need

is essential to determine ESP course also be emphasized by Munby (1978) Similarly,Robinson (1991, p.3) discussing the criteria to ESP, also agrees that a need analysis tofind out exactly what students have to do is the foundation for ESP course

To sum up, ESP is “an approach rather than a product to language teaching”

(Hutchinson and Waters (1987)) which the focal point is on the learner’s need, andtheir reason for learning.

2.1.1.2 Classification of ESP

ESP is traditionally divided into EAP (English for Academic Purposes) andEOP (English for Occupational Purposes) Kennedy and Bolitho (1984, p.4) givefurther explanations on the above types: "English for Occupational Purpose (EOP) istaught in a situation in which learners need to use English as a part of their work orprofession", whereas, "English for Academic Purpose (EAP) is taught generallywithin educational institutions to students needing English in their studies"

Robinson (1991) provides the distinction between these two areas as follows:

For study in a specific discipline In-study

EEP/ EAP Post- study

Independent

As school subject Integrated

Figure 1 Types of ESP (Robinson, 1991:3-4)

However, Hutchinson (1987) does not totally agree on this division, he arguesthat there is “not a clear- cut distinction: people can work and study simultaneously

It is also likely that in many cases the language learnt for immediate use in a studyenvironment will be used later when the student takes up, or returns a job"

Figure 2 Types of ESP (Hutchinson, 1987:16)

On Hutchinson' ELT tree, there are three categories basing on nature of thelearners' specialism: English for Science and Technology (EST), English for Businessand Economic (EBE) and English for the Social Science (ESS) Though ESP isclassified by different authors, they are common that ESP can be divided into EAPand EOP

On the first classification, our ESP course is taught as an independent subject, in the branch of EAP (English for Academic Purposes) Students learnEnglish by ESP’s course to enhance their using English ability in different fields To

school-be more specific, the second tree indicates that “English for Economics” is a branch of EBE

sub-Regarding ESP’s course in ULIS, researchers found out that it was tough as anindependent school subject, and in the branch of English for Academic Purposes 2.1.1.3 Differences from ESL (English as a second language/ GE):

The above definitions have shown how broad ESP really is In fact, one mayask ‘What is the difference between the ESP and GE approach?’ Hutchinson et al.(1987, p.53) answer this quite simply, “in theory nothing, in practice a great deal”

The most important difference lies in the learners and their purposes forlearning English ESP students are usually adults who already have some acquaintance

with English and are learning the language in order to communicate a set ofprofessional skills and to perform particular job-related functions.

ESP concentrates more on language in context than on teaching grammar andlanguage structures It covers subjects varying from accounting or banking, toeconomics The ESP focal point is that English is not taught as a subject separatedfrom the students' real world (or wishes); instead, it is integrated into a subject matterarea important to the learners

In conclusion, English for Specific/Special Purposes (ESP) and General English(GE) are the two branches of English Language Teaching (ELT) The main differencebetween ESP and GE lies in the awareness of a need ESP learners aware their need;they know what exactly they need English for; they know what the ESP course shouldoffer them (Hutchinson and Waters (1987))

2.1.2 ESP course in ULIS

The project of launching ESP course was first initiated by the Head-master ofULIS- Professor Nguyễn Đức Chính He assigned Prof Nguyen Xuan Thom who is alinguistics expert, and also has deep specialized knowledge in economics to composethe book Receiving support from the Dean of English Faculty, the textbook was firstintroduced in 1996

ESP was a new branch in ELT although it did not have a long-term history asELT; however, learning ESP was a need in the context of globalization ULIS’steachers with a long-term vision recognized the importance of the ESP branch, whichcould be the motivation to form the very first ESP sector in ULIS Moreover, ULISbecame the first university in Vietnam launching ESP course The ESP textbooks ofULIS were very first ESP material composed by Vietnamese professor to servestudying purpose Professor Nguyễn Đức Chính , a principal of ULIS at that timeintended to compile textbooks for 19 different branches of ESP to teach in ULIS.Except the English for Economics, and English for Finance and Banking, all other ESPtextbooks which encountered the difficulty in composing process, or in the piloting

period, cannot exist till today It can be proved that English for Economics and Englishfor Finance and Banking were tested in reality, and proved to be effective

Today, the textbooks “English for Economics”, and “English for Finance andBanking” are widely used in ULIS, and also become learning material for many otheruniversities

2.1.3 Terminology

2.1.3.1 Definitions

There are various definitions of terminology by many linguists According to

Oxford dictionary, term is “a word or phrase used to describe a thing or to express a

concept, especially in a particular kind of language or branch of study” The meaning

of terminology can only be precisely understood when putting in a specific area Thespecialization and restriction on terminology’s expression also be stated on RussianEncyclopedia (1976)

This definition has many features in common with those approached by manyVietnamese linguists such as the one proposed by Nguyen (1960, p:176),

“Terminology is a word or combination of words that is used in science, technologypolitics, art… and it has a specific meaning, denotes precise concepts and names of theabove-mentioned scientific areas” Do (1998) claims “Terms are specialist words usedwithin a scientific field, a profession or any technological field” According to Nguyen(1981), “Terminology is a section of special lexis of a language It consists of fixedwords and groups of words which are accurate names of concepts and subjectsbelonging to different specialized fields of human beings”

The common point in these definitions is that “terminology is special linguisticunits in a specific area”

2.1.3.2 CharacteristicsSome main characteristics of terminology have been given by many linguists,

these are: accuracy, systematicity and internationality.

- Accurateness: Terms are often used in highly logic-required fields such as:

economic, science, law, medicine, etc; therefore, terms are required to be accurate.Each specific field requires its own terms, terms play the role of codes among users toconvey and understand the things, the phenomenon, and the event in the areas InGeneral English synonymy and homophone which are regarded as diversity oflanguage, are considered as ambiguity in ESP sphere and should be highly avoided

An example to illustrate: “cash book” which has the equivalent as “sổ tiền mặt”, orthe term “invoice” with a sole translated version as “hóa đơn”

- Systematism: Languge is science which also has its own system Terminology is a

language element, therefore it must be systematic When terms are put together indifferent systems and context, they convey one specific concept Some terms canappear in some different fields; hence, the systematism of term should be highlyconsidered to understand precisely and correctly the meaning of term The ignorance

on this relation will lead to the ambiguity for the term

- Internationalism: As mentioned above, terms are special words expressing common

scientific concepts Together with the growth of globalization, terms are internationalized

Besides these above main features, terminology also acquires other features related

to its culture Thus, terminology in Vietnamese is not an exception; according to Hoang(2005) they are nationalism and popularity

- Nationalism: is another core feature of terminology Terminology is not only used in

specific profession but it is also used in regional/ national area As a result, thecultures and characteristics of Vietnamese language will have an effect on theterminologies, so “the term should be appropriate to Vietnamese people from thelexicology to the grammatical composition” stated by Hoang (2007)

- Popularity: Language is a means of communication which conveys the ideas,

thinking, etc among people Terms also contributes to this value of language.Needless to say, term plays an important role in spreading scientific and technological

knowledge to all people The more popular, and understandable a term is, the moreuseful a term is for language learning

In summary, the general features of terminology have been reviewed

2.1.3.4 The distinction between terms and words

The distinction between terminology and ordinary words is important to fosterthe understanding on special features of terms Baker (1998) claims that “Terms differfrom words in that they are endowed with a special form of reference, namely that theyrefer to discrete conceptual entities, properties, activities or relations which constitutethe knowledge space of a particular subject field.”

When a term is placed in a specific context, its meaning will be in therelationship with other terms in its system A term only functions in a uniquereference, meanwhile words function in general reference or a variety of subject fields

However, the distinction sometimes disappears when terms are used frequently,became popular and familiar to people In other case ordinary words become terms.Hoang (2005)

For example: money (tiền) is an economic terminology which is widely understood byoutsiders

2.1.4 General understanding of approaching terminology

In this study researcher equated “approaching terminology” with “learningterminology” To learn a word in general or a term in particular, learners have to gothrough three continuous processes, which will be presented below

2.1.4.1 Three processes of approaching terminology or word in general

Specifically, approaching is the learner’s capacity to perceive, remember andapply words to communicate To learn a word, minimally it must be recognized as aword and enter it into our metal process According to Nation (2001), vocabulary

acquisition includes three processes, namely noticing, retrieval, and creative (generative) use Terminology is one element on vocabulary, so learning terminology

certainly imbued with these three processes In other words, there is no single process

of learning terminologies

Namely noticing is the very first process, involving learner’s detection of agiven terminology Learner may face unknown words or realize he/she has comeacross the word before, but it is used differently, in a new context Leaner starts toconsider the word to understand it In this process, the learner need the explanation ofthe term, its translation, a synonym, or target language definition to provide foundation

to understand the term Some types of terms which may be easier to explain asconcrete terms, while conceptual or abstract term are more difficult to understand

The retrieval, the second process of vocabulary acquisition distinguished byNation, reinforces the meaning of the term in the learner’s mind A term will imprintdeeper in the learner’s memory providing the term is frequently repeated The morestudents practice, the more they learn

The last process of vocabulary acquisition in Nation’s classification is that ofthe creative or generative use It takes place when “previously met words aresubsequently met or used in ways that differ from the previous meeting with theword” In other words, this process reflects the learner’s ability recall the term and useterm in appropriate situation and context

It is necessary to reemphasize the indispensability of each process to approach aterm Without understanding terms, learner cannot successfully remember terms;consequently, s/he has no chance to apply terms Especially, terminologies ofeconomics as a professional field, involving intensive research and frequent reading inorder to understand the layers of each term and how they can be applied in the context.Rotten learning without any attempt to use the word may lead to confusion and theforgetting of the word

2.1.4.2 Main factors affect the learning

In the process of learning, there are different factors that play a significant roletowards making it a smooth, pleasurable and constructive process As Oxford and

Nykios (1989) noted that the existence of interaction between learner’s internal factorsand external variables might be reasons for difficulties encountering learners Williamsand Burden's (1997) also agreed with this classification and outlined four aspects of

the teaching-learning process, i.e., teachers, learners, tasks, contexts; in which

learner is the internal factors, while teachers, tasks, contexts are external factors

Belonging to learner him/herself (e.g., attitudes, motivation, and priorknowledge), these elements can cause different difficulties If students are motivated tolearn to their benefits such as expanding knowledge, seeking better job, etc, they willfeel more interested in learning, then they will mentally prepare themselves to learnmore about this new knowledge, or subjects In this case learning becomes anincentive Besides, student’s awareness of their role in learning will help them have aright attitude in learning Motivation is an internal drive which encourages andenergizes students to achieve their goals In this case, students will be activelyinvolved in their education The saying goes: you can bring the horse to water, but youcannot make him drink In language teaching, teachers can provide all the necessarycircumstances and inputs, but the leaning can only happen if learners are willing tocontribute Prior knowledge can be understood as what people already know about thetopic, commonly named as “background knowledge” Students who have a great deal

of background knowledge in a given subject area are likely to learn new informationreadily and quite well

In term of learning task (e.g., type, complexity, difficulty, and generality) theseelements should be considered to figure out the difficulties; and the learningenvironment (e.g., the learning culture, the richness of input and output opportunities)also contributes to learning process The learners who have more term productionopportunities may be relatively likely to master new terms more quickly

The last factor- teachers are considered to be playing an important role forlearner’s language acquisition because they educate and familiarize the students withknowledge of language They are held responsible for bridging theories and practices

together in the classroom (Lawrence 2000) Furthermore, Wright (1987) believed that

a teacher performs multiple roles such as an instructor, a manager, a counselor, afacilitator, an organizer, and evaluator, a curriculum developer, a material writer andeven a friend Therefore, teacher’s teaching style will create certain impact onstudents’ learning While teachers’ personality, educational background, andprofessional experiences in life usually have a powerful influence on the development

of their teaching style as explained by Borg (1999), hence, these personal elementsshould be considered in this study

background knowledge, reading skills This research will be conducted on different

population; therefore, it will give different results Besides, these problems can be leastchallenging for ULIS students because their main major is English At this semester,ULIS’s students expected to be at upper-intermediate level in using English language

In addition, most of the pre-researches paid attention to reading skill, and found out thehighest concerned matter in ESP course is terminology acquisition It seems thatterminology is an attracting topic which received much attention from many writerswhich can be named but a few, Tran (2001) with “Translation of term in accountingdocuments”, Pham (2003) with “Translation of term in stock market”, Tran (2002)with “Translation of insurance terminology”, Tran (2005) with “Translation of medicalterm”, or Tran (2006) with “Transalation of auditing terminology” However, theresearcher found no studies on the same issue conducted in the ESP setting in ULIS.This obviously offers a gap for the researcher to carry out the study The present studyhopes to bridge the gap by providing a specific and detailed look at the third-yearULIS students, finding out the difficulties arisen, causes and proposing somesuggestions to improve the approaching of terminology

Summary

The chapter has provide theoretical background for the whole paper through elaboration on the key words “ESP” and “approaching terminology” , and the context of studying ESP’s course of senior students in ULIS The review of a number

of related studies in this chapter has revealed a research gap which the researcher is pursuing to bridge through this study.

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 3.1 Setting of the study

The study will be carried out among forth year students at FELTE, ULIS, VNU.There are 22 classes from 08E1 to 08E23 with nearly 600 forth-year students intwo majors That is, from E1 to E17, and E21, E22 are classes of English languageteacher education, which accounts for high percentage of students Classes E18 to E20are for students who would like to be translators and interpreters, who make up for asmall percentage of students in the total number of the final year ones

This research only involved students from classes whose major is Englishlanguage teacher, and some of ESP’s teachers In this research, the term “ULIS’sstudents” would be understood as seniors from English Language Teaching Educationmajor only

Seniors from ELTE major were chosen due to two reasons: 1) they account forthe majority of ULIS students, the difficulties they encountered would be greatconcern to both the university authority and teachers to better training quality; 2) Alsosolutions which were suggested at the end of the study be more useful for morestudents

At the time of study, the students are in the final term of school year In this lastsemester, students should spend 9 weeks instead of 15 weeks for each subject because

6 weeks in the semester is spent on internship Also, they have 9 weeks for ESP’scourse They have to study 5 periods a week instead of 3 periods to complete the ESPcourse in a shorter term (9 weeks), the intensive curriculum certainly put pressure onstudents Before attending practicum, students will spend 4 weeks for this subject, andthen they will finish 5 last weeks after practicum The course is quite short andintensive In addition, the disruption of the course also contributes to the difficulty forstudents in learning

3.2 Participants

3.2.1 Seniors from FELTE

As the main focus of the research, forth year ULIS students played a vital role

in contributing to the success of the study Seventeen classes were those who havechance to study English for Economics’ course in this semester; therefore, the number

of students was quite large nearly 500 students The population was just too large that

it was impossible to include every individual This was the reason why the researcherdecided to choose 30 of them to involve in the survey This number, to some extent,well represents the population of FELTE These 30 students were chosen viaconvenience sampling This sampling technique was chosen because it is fast,inexpensive, and easy and the subjects were readily available

The researcher distributed 20 questionnaires via email, and came to classdirectly handled 50 questionnaires The total valid respondents were 60; however, theresearcher did not analyze all these respondents, randomly picked up 30 among them

30 students were classified into two groups The first group (G1) included thosestudents who studied only a major of language While the second group (G2)contained those students who studied double majors (language and economics at thesame time) Students from G2 were supposed to have better economic background, as

in their curriculum they certainly attended more economic courses than G1’s students 3.2.2 Teachers of ESP

It is highly demanding to be an ESP teacher, teacher must be not onlyexcellent at knowledge of language but also good at economic professionalknowledge There are seven teachers in ESP division in ULIS All of those teachersreceived M.A or B.A in Economics besides their M.A or PhD in linguistics It can beconcluded that they are competent at teaching ESP

Due to the limited time and access, two teachers were chosen to beinterviewed, who are directly teaching ESP to forth-year students in FELTE Thereason is that those teachers clearly understand the state of learning, the students’performances in-class and thus can propose some recommendations for the students toovercome the difficulties One teacher who is highly experienced has been teaching

ESP for more than fifteen years The other has just been transferred to ESP division.The researcher expected to collect useful, practical solutions from an experiencedteacher, and fresh, innovative solutions from a new one

3.3 Data collection instruments

Both the quantitative and the qualitative methods were utilized in this studybecause these approaches are regarded by Mackey and Gass (2005) as

“complementary means of investigating the complex phenomena at work in second language acquisition” (p.164) Accordingly, it employs questionnaires, and interviews

as the instruments to collect data These two instruments aim at finding answers to theresearch questions, and supplement each other in collecting data

3.3.1 Questionnaires

Questionnaires, as defined by Brown (2001, cited in Mackey and Gass, 2005,

p.92), are “any written instruments that present respondents with a series of questions

or statements to which they are to react by writing out their answers or selecting them among existing answers”

Since questionnaire can “provide data economically and in a form that lends itself perfectly to the purposes of the study” (Verma & Mallick, 1999:17), it is taken as

one of the main data collection instruments in the research Another reason forresearcher’s choice is that this instrument has the ability to reveal a pattern among allthe respondents’ answers (Gillham, 2005:166) The questionnaire designed forstudents aimed to find out the following main points:

 Their encountered problems when approaching terms

 Their perceived reasons for above difficulties

 Their suggestions to overcome difficulties

Multiple-choice format is preferably employed in order to create a friendlyfeeling and helpful guidance for participants Because multiple choice questions werehighly structured, they are useful to calculate frequencies of response One more

reason for using this type of question for students was that normally, students werelazy at reading and writing long answers, and they preferred multiple-choice questions.

Besides multiple-choice questions, the survey questionnaires also makes use

of questions which asks the respondents to score a statement according to five-point

scale (Extremely important, very important, somewhat important, not very important, not important at all) which is adopted to reveal the participants’ perception of the

importance of learning terms, and terms in their future jobs The other questions weredivided into three groups to answer the difficulties and reasons in each process ofapproaching terms, namely understanding, remembering, and applying process Theitems for some questions were purposefully designed based on characteristics of terms

to identify which type of term would be the most striking obstacle for learners Theseother questions concerned with the reasons based on internal and external factors such

as learners, teachers, tasks, textbook, etc In the last question, the researcher tried tolist out all available and possible solutions which students may use to overcome thosedifficulties Besides, some other questions concerning their education are also utilized

to support the study

3.3.2 Interviews

Along with survey questionnaire, interview is also chosen by the researcher as

a valuable research instrument to examine the target population Vaus (2002) asserted

that “in-depth interviewing can give the researcher insight into the meaning of behavior and attitudes expressed in questionnaires This can help made more intelligent interpretations of the patterns discovered in the analysis of questionnaire data” A semi-structured interview will be exploited as this type of interviews could

bring about in-depth information and a wide range of responses from the interviewees(Hancock 1998) Based on the findings from the questionnaires, the interviews will beconducted for teachers

3.4 Procedure of data collection

The procedure of collecting data could be divided into three main phases

- Phase 1: The initial phase is designing student survey questionnaire and interviewschedules for teachers In any method applied, personal information of all participantswas ensured to be kept confidential and anonymous The first draft of thequestionnaire was designed based on theoretical background and the researcher’sassumption, in comprehensible English After the questionnaire had been adjusted, theofficial questionnaires were finalized and ready to be distributed The researcherpicked up a small size of population; therefore, the process of data collection occurredfairly conveniently and quickly in nearly two weeks

- Phase 2: Finally, after processing data collected from questionnaires, the researcherswitched to the next step, which was designing interview checklist The results foundout in the questionnaires would reveal the difficulties for students in approachingterms Teacher’s checklist interviews were purposefully designed to facilitate teacher

to propose recommendations to solve those difficulties

- Phase 3: Semi-structured interviews for teachers were conducted in this phase afterthe researcher got the permission from them Interviews were also successfullyconducted thanks to the teacher’s highly supportive attitudes and assistance

3.5 Procedure of data analysis

Firstly, responses from questionnaire were calculated into numerical form.Descriptive statistics were used to display the findings from the survey Secondly, thecollected data were classified corresponding with the research questions

Since the fact that almost all the data drawn from questionnaires werenumerical statistics, these data were put in categories based on the literature reviewand then principally transferred to percentages illustrated in charts for the researcher toexamine and comment more easily

Data collected from interviews were also summarized as a supportive source ofdata to answer question 9 The researcher with the hope that it would help providesome possible solutions for difficulties encountering students

Summary

This chapter has justified the methodology of the study by elaborating on the participants including the teachers and forth-year ULIS students as well as the data collection method Clarification has also been given to the data analysis methods and process The presentation and interpretation of findings from such analysis are going

to be made clear in the next chapter

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISSCUSSION

In the previous chapter, the methodology applied to conduct this study has been presented with descriptions and justifications of the choice of participants, research instruments as well as the process of data collection and data analysis In this chapter, all the collected data will be analyzed and discussed according to 9 survey questions respectively Charts and graphs are made use of for better presentation and elaboration

4.1 Findings

Before the findings are presented, a glance at the students’ perception towards

the overall importance of learning term would reveal their motivation and attitude tolearn

Question 1: How do you evaluate the importance of learning terminology in English for Economics course?

Figure 3 The overall importance of learning term in ESP course as evaluated by students

It was very clearly seen from the collected data, high percentages of students inboth groups admitted that learning terminology is very important, accounting for 60%and 67% in G1, and G2 respectively 13% of students in Group 1 considered learningterm extremely important, while this number was 33 % (nearly triple) in Group 2.Very small number of students in G1 supposed that learning term was somewhatimportant, and not very important No participants in G2 negated the essence ofterminology learning Which means in general, most of the students were aware of theimportance of learning term, however G2 evaluated learning term more necessarilythan G1 did

When interviewed, teacher B asserted that learning term was one of the mostimportant purposes in this course He explained that the aim of the course was not totrain students to be economic experts The aim of the short course just introducesgeneral knowledge as well as basic terms in Economics to students In term ofgrammar, there is no difference compared to other subjects, the most outstandingdifference was terminologies His opinion was echoed by the teacher A Specifically,teacher A evaluated learning terms to be very important He supposed that learningterms was similar to learning vocabulary A learner who lacked in grammarknowledge would be hard to explain his opinions sufficiently, but without vocabularyone can explain nothing He quoted “Without vocabulary you can say nothing”

Question 2: How do you evaluate the usefulness of learning terminology in this course for your future job?

Figure 4 The evaluation of students on the usefulness of learning term for their future job

As can be seen from the pie charts, these 2 groups evaluated the importance oflearning terms for their future job differently

G1’s students are trained to be English teachers, 13% of whom consideredlearning term not very important to their future career Some of them, which accountsfor 27% found that learning term was important to some extends However, a greaternumber of them (53%) thought that learning terms was very important to their futurejobs ESP courses have just appeared in Vietnam since 90s Thanks to the development

of economy, the demand for English teachers for economics also increases Inaddition, as teacher A shared that regarding to students who are trained to be teachers,learning terms is still important to their future job, because a vast amount of updatedinformation daily is in economic area, so undoubtedly terms become a necessaryinstrument to acquire knowledge outside Students who do not know terms would bedifficult to access the source of economic news More than half of G1’s studentsmight be aware of this issue, and they more concern in learning terms Even 13% of

them believed that learning terms in this ESP’s course is extremely important for theirfuture job

Meanwhile, those students from G2 who take part in double degree programwish to have more chances to find jobs related to banking, financing, or businessadministration, not only restricted to language, and education Therefore, they needeconomic terms to perform well in future working environment None of them choseoptions D and E (Not very important and not important at all) Majority of G2’sstudents agreed that learning term was very important for their future jobs (67%), and27% of they considered that it was extremely important to learn terms for future jobs

Teacher B held a slight different point of view from teacher A He stated that itwas unpredictable to evaluate the importance of learning terms for student’s future job.Some students might merely want to teach four English skills (reading, listening,writing, and speaking); thus, they would not need these terms to work While otherstudents who wished to extend their occupational opportunities in another field as:tourism, press, business, etc would find learning terms really necessary for their jobs

In a word, these above statistics somehow explain the result of very firstquestions The target-jobs of each group are quite different, which creates differentattitude to learn terms Students from G2 are more motivated to learn term becauseterm acquisition is very important to satisfy future occupation’s requirements

Question 3: When approaching terminology, you would find most challenging in…

The column chart below shows the differences in the students’ difficulty inapproaching term

Figure 5 Comparison between G1’s and G2’s evaluation on difficulty of each learning-term-process

From the G1’s viewpoints, the most difficult in approaching term is item A(understanding terms) (66.7%) 3 students among 15 informants from G1 whoaccounted for 20% selected option B (Remembering terms) The figure for applyingterms is 13.3%

Compared with the G1 in which almost all students encountered the difficulty

in very-first process of approaching term (understanding), the shares of difficulty inunderstanding terms and applying terms among G2’s informants are nearly equal 47%,and 40% respectively The difficulty in remembering terms in G2 perceived the lowestpercentage of respondents (only 13%)

In their second degree, students in G2 have chance to take part in someeconomic courses which certainly provide them with basic economic knowledge.Thanks to that, G2’s students find less challenging in understanding terms than G1’sstudents do However, the frequency of using or practicing these terms in their lesson,

or their-interested career cause them more obstacles than those in G1 who merely getacquainted with economic terms in an very general ESP’s course To the learners, thiscourse is simply an introduction to the very enormous field of English for Economics

It seems that both teachers agreed that understanding is the most difficultprocess for students to approach terms According to teacher A, the first consciousness

is very important to determine the happening of next two processes (remembering andapplying) In addition, teacher B also found that applying was no least difficult thanunderstanding For students in Translating and Interpreting division, sometimes theyhave to work with economic materials/texts, while students in English LanguageTeacher division have no opportunity at all except their ESP periods

As stated in the previous chapter, those research questions were mainlyanswered by the results from the questionnaires administered with thirty ULISstudents Each respondent was asked to identify the reasons preventing three differentprocesses of approaching terms which can be named as understanding, remembering,and applying In each process, the results are going to be presented below

Understanding process Question 4: It is difficult to understand terms because of…

Figure 6 Diffculty in facing different features of term in Group 1

The bar chart above illustrates the percentage of students who encounterdifficulties in understanding term caused by different features of terminology

It was apparent from the graph that each specific option A, B,C, D wasperceived its difficult by the same percentage of students (recording 33.3%), whilethere was only one student (6.7%) claimed that s/he had no difficulty related to term’sfeatures The result reveals that generally, no special feature of terms can be the mostchallenging for G1’s student to understand terms To give explanation for their choice,teacher A reasoned that it was not the matter of features which affected the process oflearning terms, it was the matter of known or un-known terms Being a teacher or astudent, the difficulties when approaching a new-term are the same, teacher andstudent both have to find out what the term is However, teachers who are moreknowledgeable and experienced would find the answer more quickly Teacher B addedthat all these listed terms’ features were difficult for students, but the least challengingfeature among them was terms used in rare and specific case He further clarified thatthis course did not train economics students, and did not supply too specializedknowledge, so this type of terms was not introduced to students

Figure 7 Difficulty in facing different features of term in Group 2

Differently, a large number of G2’s student found term refers to discreteconceptual items the most challenging to understand (60%) Only 27% of students

found it difficult in understanding old terms with new sense 47% of G2’s studentsconsider high-accurate, rare and very specific terms difficult to understand

It is not hard to understand this result, conceptual terms often refer to ideas orconcepts, and they have no physical referents Therefore, they are not easy to beillustrated by images, or items, and require the deep understanding beneath the cover

of language

QUESTION 5: What are the causes of the difficulties in understanding term?

Question 4 was designed to investigate the type of terminology hard tounderstand, the following question will focus on the reasons for the difficulty

The internal causes are to do with students themselves The external causes are

to do with materials and the teacher The results are calculated by percentage