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As a teacher of English for Electronics Engineering EEE, the teacher herself finds out many difficulties during teaching vocabulary.. Facing this problem, the teacher researcher of Engli

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Candidate’s statement ………i

Acknowledgements ……….ii

Abstract ……… …iii

Table of contents ………iv

List of abbreviations ……….vii

List of tables ………viii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ……… 1

1.1Rationale……….1

1.2 Aims of the study ……… 1

1.3 Research questions ……… 2

1.4 Scope of the study ………2

1.5 Methods of the study ………3

1.6.Design of the study ……… 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ……… 4

2.1 An overview of ESP ……….4

2.1.1 The Concepts of ESP……… 4

2.2.1 Classification of ESP……… 4

2.2 Teaching ESP vocabulary……….4

2.2 1 What is ESP and EEE vocabulary……… 5

2.2.1.1 What is ESP vocabulary……… 5

2.2.1.2 What is EEE vocabulary………5

2.2.2 Important aspects of ESP vocabulary teaching……… 5

2.2.2.1 Word formation ……….5

2.2.2.2 Word - form ……… 6

2.2.2.3 Grammar………6

2.2.2.4 Aspects of meaning………6

2.2.2.5 Pronunciation and spelling……….7

2.3 Terminology……… 8

2.3.1 Definition of terminology………8

2.3.2 Characteristics of terminology……… 8

2 4 Methodology in vocabulary teaching……… 9

2.4.1 The grammar- translation method……… 9

2.4.2 Direct Method………10

2.4.3 The communicative approach (CLT)……… 10

2.4.4 Audio-lingual method………11

2.5 ESP teaching vocabulary challenges for teachers……… 11

2.5.1 The roles of ESP teachers……… 11

2.5.2 Teachers’ linguistic challenges in ESP vocabulary……… 13

2.5.3 Teachers’ pedagogical challenges in teaching ESP Vocabulary………… 14

2.6 Summary……… 15

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY………16

3.1 The context of teaching and learning vocabulary at Ho Chi Minh university of industry……… 16

3.1.1 Brief introduction of Ho Chi Minh City University of industry based in Thanh Hoa……… …16

3.1.2 The teachers and teaching methods……… 16

3.1.3 The students and their background ……… 17

3.2 The course book……… 18

3.2.2 Book content……….18

3.3 Methods and procedures ……… 19

3.3.1 Research questions ……… 19

3.3.2 The participants ………19

3.3.3 Data collection instruments ……… 19

3.3.4 Data collection procedure ………20

3.3.5 Data analysis ………21

3.4 Findings and discussion .21

3.4.1 The teachers’ questionnaire ……….21

3.4.1.1 The teachers’ linguistic challenges in teaching EEE vocabulary …… 21

3.4.1.2 The teachers’ pedagogical challenges in teaching EEE vocabulary ….23 3.4.1.3 The teachers’ personal view of sources of their challenges in teaching EEE vocabulary ……… 24

3.4.1.4 The teachers’ suggestions to improve their EEE vocabulary teaching……….26

3.4.2 Findings from the interviews and journal writings……… 27

3.4.2.1 The teachers’ linguistic challenges in teaching EEE vocabulary ……27

3.4.2.2 The teachers’ pedagogical challenges in teaching EEE vocabulary 30

3.4.2.3 The teachers’ suggestions to improve their EEE vocabulary teaching 31

CHAPTER 4: SOLUTIONS……….33

4.1 Ways of training EFL Teachers for ESP teaching……… 33

4.2 Improving teachers’ professional knowledge……….34

4.3 Improving teacher’s activities in teaching vocabulary……… 34

4.3.1 Sample activity 1: Guess the meaning……….….35

4.3.2 Sample activity 2: Brainstorming………35

4.3.3 Sample activity 3: Group-work ……… …… 35

4.4 Teaching word formation………37

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS……….39

5 1 Summary of the study………39

5 2 Limitations and suggestions for further studies ………40

REFERENCES ……… 41 APPENDICES ……… I APPENDIX 1 ……… I APPENDIX 2 ……… IV APPENDIX 3………VI

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CLT: Communicative Language Teaching

EG: English for General

ESP: English for Specific Purposes

EEE: English for Electronics Engineering

EE: Electronics Engineering

HUI: Ho Chi Minh University of Industry

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1a: Teachers’ perceptions of their teaching EEE vocabulary

Table 1b: Rank order of difficult of teaching EEE challenges perceived by teachers

Table 2: The teachers’ pedagogical challenges teaching EEE vocabulary

Table 3: Teachers’ personal view of sources of their challenges in teaching vocabulary Table 4: The teachers’ suggestions to improve their EEE vocabulary teaching

CHAPTER1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

Nowadays, the English language has been widely used in many areas such as politics, economics, tourism, telecommunication, culture, science, technology, so on Since Vietnam carried out the open door policy towards the regional and global integration, the English language has become more and more important for people of all ages and careers nationwide Therefore, there is great demand for teaching and learning English throughout the country for different purposes

It is evident that teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has become one of the most prominent features of the English language teaching process (Hutchinson &Waters, 1987; Robinson, 1991) Hutchinson and Waters (1987) reported that ESP is an approach for language teaching in which all decisions regarding content and methods are based on the learners‟ reasons for learning It focuses on using English effectively in specific academic fields such as business, law, medicine, sciences, etc As Robinson (1991:4) stated the central role of vocabulary as carrier content in ESP: “It may often be thought that a characteristic, or even a critical feature, of ESP is that a course should involve specialist language (especially terminology) and content.”

In teaching English for Specific Purposes, however, no one argues that the scope of specialized vocabulary is a primary goal Up to now, teaching ESP, particularly teaching vocabulary, has still been far from satisfaction With many similar characteristics and a number of different features in comparison with General English, ESP is viewed as something hard to teach for language teachers

In the context of Ho Chi Minh University of Industry ( HUI ) based in Thanh Hoa province, students are taught English as a compulsory subject In addition, students of Electronic Engineering have to learn English for electronics at the beginning of the third academic year In fact, with a short duration of 30 periods, one of the most important aims of ESP course for these students is achieving basic ESP vocabulary However, in reality, the teacher researcher has seen students have troubled during their English learning process In the first place, most of the students said that they had to deal with a wider range of unfamiliar words and cope with their growing specialized vocabulary Consequently, it is hard for them to study with their limited knowledge of vocabulary They often learn vocabulary passively through their teachers‟ explanation There are also too many new words given in each lesson, too little time spent on memorizing and recycling those words

As a teacher of English for Electronics Engineering (EEE), the teacher herself finds out many difficulties during teaching vocabulary At first, in her opinion, the difficulties probably arise from the lack of specialized knowledge, which makes teachers fail to provide every reasonable explanation Moreover, the target students at HUI based in Thanh Hoa province are at lower levels

in comparison with those at colleges or universities on the ground of needs, interest and motivation In addition, it is difficult for teachers to understand a lot of terminology, complicated structures and countless expressions

Facing this problem, the teacher researcher of English of HUI made an attempt to do something to change the ways of teaching and learning vocabulary in order to improve the students' learning effectiveness to help them succeed in their future job In this study, therefore, the

teacher researcher has conducted a research namely: “Teachers’ linguistic and pedagogical challenges in teaching ESP vocabulary to the third-year students of Electronics Engineering

at Ho Chi Minh University of Industry based in Thanh Hoa province”

1.2.Aims of the study

The study aimed at:

- Giving a brief overview about ESP, vocabulary and its relevance in teaching English for Electronics Engineering at HUI

- Finding out Teachers‟ linguistic and pedagogical challenges that ESP teachers at HUI are facing in teaching English vocabulary to students of Electronics Engineering

- Suggesting some solutions to the teaching of vocabulary to students of Electronics Engineering effectively

1.4 Scope of the study

Dealing with all types of teaching ESP vocabulary is too large for studying this size Thus, this study focuses on investigating linguistic and pedagogy challenges that the teacher encounters in teaching ESP vocabulary to students of the third-year students of Electronics Engineering at Ho Chi Minh University of Industry based in Thanh Hoa province

Therefore, proper teaching methods can be adopted to help them overcome the difficulties The solutions are also provided to help to improve teaching and learning English in general, teaching and learning English Electronic vocabulary in particular at HUI

1.5 Methods of the study

In order to achieve the aims mentioned above, the study was designed to use varieties of methods including interview, questionnaire and teaching journal analysis The data were recorded both formally and informally The survey questionnaire to teachers is to get more information to support the study

1.6 Design of the study

The thesis consists of five chapters, with a list of references, and appendices

Chapter I: “Introduction”, presents the rationale, objectives, research questions, scope as well

as methods of the study

Chapter II: “Literature review”, deals with the theoretical background for the study The

focus of this chapter is vocabulary and ESP vocabulary, some important aspects of ESP vocabulary teaching, some techniques currently used in teaching vocabulary and ESP vocabulary

Chapter III: “Methodology”, is the main part of the study It gives a brief introduction on the

context of teaching ESP vocabulary at HUI, the data collection methods and procedures In addition, the data will be analyzed and the findings will reveal the difficulties in teaching ESP vocabulary to the third-year students at HUI Some suggestions to improve the teaching of ESP vocabulary will be given in this chapter

Chapter IV: „Solution”, deals with ways to improving the teaching ESP vocabulary at HUI Chapter V: “Conclusions”, summarizes the findings, refers to some limitations of the study,

and offers suggestions for further studies

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 An overview of ESP and English of Electronics Engineering

2.1.1 The Concepts of ESP

To talk about challenges in teaching English for Electronics Engineering vocabulary (EEE vocabulary), we need to begin with the definition of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) provided

by different authors Strevens (1988: 1) defined „ESP‟ as “a particular cause of the general category

of special purpose language teaching" At the same time, Perren (1974) suggested that an ESP course is purposeful and aims at the successful performance of occupational or educational roles It

is based on a rigorous analysis of students‟ needs and should be “tailor-made.”

According to Hutchinson & Waters (1987: 19), ESP is "an approach rather than a product to language teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based on learner's reason for learning" For Hutchinson and Waters, starting point in determining appropriate input for ESP course is identifying learners' need

These researchers believed that any ESP course might differ from another in its selection of skills, topics, situations and functions, and language As stated by Perren (1974), students may be at any level of competence in the language: beginner, post-beginner, intermediate, etc …they may also take part in their ESP course before embarking on their occupational or educational role, or they may combine their study of English with performance of their role in English as well as in their first language

2.1.2 Classification of ESP

Traditionally, ESP can be classified into two major groups: English for Academic Purposes and English for Occupational Purposes, English for Academic Science and Technology belongs to EAP and English in Electronics Engineering is one of branches of English for Academic Science and Technology Therefore, EEE has the following characteristics:

1) designed to meet specified needs of the learner in the field of Electronics Engineering 2) related in content (that is in its themes and topics) to Electronic disciplines, occupations and activities

3) centered on language appropriate to Electronic activities in syntax, lexis discourse, semantics and so on, and analysis of the discourse

2.2 Teaching ESP vocabulary

2.2.1 What is ESP and EEE vocabulary

2.2.1.1 What is ESP vocabulary

In general, English vocabulary includes grammatical words, basic lexical words, auxiliaries ESP vocabulary refers to a word or a group of words in the form of a noun phrase used as a special lexical unit in a specific field with specific meaning to the field (Nation, 2001) It varies according to different fields of study such as engineering, medical sciences, and applied linguistics

Similarly, Hatch and Brow (1995: 312) consider ESP vocabulary as “special lexical items appear in most professions, and every field has special vocabulary to cover abstract concept Kennedy and Bolitho (1984:56-58) provide the following specialized word categories for teaching purposes

- Technical Abbreviations- e.g AM, IC, km m3 they sometimes cause a problem for learners

- Symbols and Formulae- They are the subject matter of the learner’s specialty, and teacher

may explain their functions in the text: e.g KV ( Kilovolts) MΩ (Megohms)

- Sub- technical vocabulary as the Kennedy and Bolitho’s definition states “words which are not specific to a subject specialty but which occur regularly in scientific and technical texts – e.g

reflection, intense, accumulate, tendency, isolate and dense” (1984: 57-58)

2.2.1.2 What is EEE vocabulary

Electronics Engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism, therefore EEE vocabulary is a

technical term that denotes only general electro-technical expressions such as semiconductor, electric current, wire, capacitor, frequency, transistor, etc

Originally teaching English for students of Electronics Engineering was reduced to introducing specific vocabulary EEE teachers need some understanding of basic electronic concepts and work patterns in Electronics Engineering in order to best exploit this resource

2.2.2 Important aspects of ESP vocabulary teaching

2.2.2.1 Word formation

As stated by Harmer (1991; 157), students need to know how suffixes and prefixes work because many specialized lexical items either technical or sub-technical consist of a root, a prefix

and a suffix of Latin or Greek origin such as micro-, multi-, - logy, or -tion, -ate It is useful for a

student to guess the meaning of a word by using his/her knowledge of the meaning of a prefix or a

suffix For example, if students know the meaning of “micro”, “able” and “un”, this will help them guess the meaning of words such as “microprocessors”, “enable”, and “ungrateful”

According to Kennedy & Bolitho (1984; 59) presented two areas: the meaning of prefixes and suffixes, and the identification of word classes whereas Trimble (1985; 131) pays attention to compound noun Vocabulary items are built by combining two words: a noun and a verb, or two

nouns, or a gerund and a noun to make one item: a mixing desk, a sound engineer In short, “there

is a strong relationship between the root of the word and its suffix” (Kennedy & Bolitho 1984: 61)

2.2.2.2 Word - form

When teaching vocabulary The teacher has to introduce its pronunciation and its spelling for many students, the complex relationship between sound and spelling in English seems to make the language inexplicable When we give the number of homophones, it is easy to understand in

English such as nice/ nine, meat / meet, and the number of similar forms that differ wildly in their pronunciation like produce/ product

2.2.2.3 Grammar

As Gains & Redman (1986) stated, two main pedagogical issues such as the highlighting of regular and irregular from, and the role of source books can be used to allow learners to be self- sufficient If the new item is not obviously covered by general grammatical rules, its grammar will need to be taught In the classroom teachers need to clarify regular forms and common irregular

forms for students For example, when teaching the verb “to make”, the teacher has to give its past form “made” because it is an irregular verb Also, he/she might present a verb with its

constructions such as: the “infinitive” form, the “ing” form, a “that clause”, a “preposition” or nothing at all For example, the two words “to want” and “to enjoy” may be presented together with the verb forms that normally follow them (want to do/ enjoy doing) Similarly, when presenting a noun, teachers should clarify whether it is countable, uncountable or both Next, if the noun is countable, its plural form may be recognized as either regular or irregular forms

2.2.2.4 Aspects of meaning

Aspects of meaning include denotation, connotation, appropriateness and meaning relationships

The meaning of a word is primarily what it refers to in the real word, or its denotation This is

often the sort of definition given in dictionary For example, “bird” denotes an animal that can fly

“Rain”, “wind” denote phenomena of nature

A less obvious component of the meaning of an item is its connotation: the associations, or positive or negative feelings it evokes which may or may not be indicated in a dictionary definition Connotation includes stylistic, affective, evaluative, intensifying values, pragmatic communicative values, the word acquires by virtue of where, when, how, and by whom, for what purpose and

what in context it is or it may be used For example the word “dog” in England, it has positive

connotations of friendship and loyalty, but in Arabic, it has negative associations of dirt and inferiority

Appropriateness is a more subtle aspect of meaning that often needs to be taught It indicates whether a particular item is appropriate one to be used in a certain context or not Thus, it is useful

for a learner to know that a certain word is very common, or relatively rare, or taboos in polite conversation, or tends to be used in writing but not in speech or is more suitable for formal than

information discourse, belongs to a certain dialect For example, the word “sidewalk” in The United State has the same meaning as the word “pavement” in Great Britain

The meaning of a word can only be understood and learnt in terms of its relationship with other words in the language Meaning relationships can also be useful in teaching There are various relationships such as: synonyms, hyponyms, and antonyms

Synonyms: items that mean the same or nearly the same, for example, flat, apartment

Hyponyms: items that server as specific, for example: “apple”, “pear” and “plum” are hyponyms of fruits

Antonyms: items that mean the opposite: “big” is an antonym of “small”…

All these can be exploited in teaching to clarify the meaning of a new item for practice or test materials

2.2.2.5 Pronunciation and spelling

The concept of pronunciation may be said to include the sound of the language, or phonology, stress and rhythm, and intonation (Penny Urs,1991) In most languages, the difference between pronunciation and spelling may lead to difficulties in teaching and learning the vocabulary of a

particular language as a foreign one For example, letter „e’ in Vietnamese is always pronounced

/e/ whereas this letter is pronounced /e/ (engineer) or /i/ (equipment) in English According to Schmitt &McCarthy (1997:142-145) concluded that “There may be a gap between the learner‟s ability to perceive a word and his/ her ability to pronounce it correctly”

As stated by Ruth Gairns & Stuart Redman (1986) For many students, the complex relationship between sound and spelling in English seems to make the language inexplicable for foreign learners This can result in the learners failing to understand words in connected speech that he understands clearly in written English Careful attention to pronunciation is, therefore, an essential part of vocabulary teaching if new lexis is to be used effectively, or understood without difficulty, in spoken in English An English written word may give no evidence for its similarity in pronouncing Long words are considered as more problematical ones than the short because of the quantity of input

For all the above remarks, it has to be admitted that the lack of consistency between spelling and pronunciation makes it exceedingly difficult if not impossible to base pronunciation on the written form

2.3 Terminology

2.3.1 Definition of terminology

As defined by Cabre‟(1999), terminology is the process of compiling, describing, processing and presenting the terms of special subject fields in one or more languages It is „not an end itself, but addresses social needs and attempts to optimize communication among specialists and professionals by providing assistance either directly or to translator or to committees concerned

with the standardization of a language‟.(Cabré, 1999: 10-12)

Terminology may be considered as a system of words or symbols to name a typical phenomenon or phenomena in natural and social research fields in a scientific way It also includes necessary methods in language contents and study to reach sufficient and suitable terms In addition, there may be terms that are accepted and used by a large number of individuals and terms which are admitted by a restricted group of persons

2.3.2 Characteristics of terminology

Features of terminology have been mentioned in certain research works since the appearance

of this field One of the theories in terminology concentrates on assigning terms to concepts According to Cabre‟ (1999), this research field is primarily concerned with the relationship between the real objects in the real world and the concepts represent them Terminology also cares about the nature of things in the real world and the relationships formed in this world Subject specialists and terminologists may cooperate to arrange and standardize the concepts and terms for each special field

Another researcher also pointed out different characteristics of terminology As stated by Nguyen Thien Giap (1998), the first characteristic of terminology is preciseness, which mentions the concepts in terminology as accurate concepts of a particular science The second feature is systematization, which asserts that the terms cannot exist individually, but they are always present

as elements of a particular term system The last characteristic of terminology is internationality, which refers to terminology as special part of vocabulary presenting general scientific concepts for persons speaking different languages

In summary, terminology focuses on the process from the concept to the term It also concerns the features of things in the reality and the relationships in that real world, and may be used for

specific subject field Within the limit of this study, the author follows the viewpoint by Nguyen

Thien Giap (1998) on the basic characteristics of terminology

2.4 Methodology in vocabulary teaching

So far, many methods have been used for foreign language teaching However, not all of them are equally advantageous to the vocabulary teaching According to Mackey (1971), the method used has often been said to be the cause of success or failure in language learning; for it is

ultimately the method that determined the what and the how of language instruction Here are

some common methods, which have been widely used to serve the purpose of teaching vocabulary, especially in context of HUI

2.4.1 The Grammar- translation method

The grammar- translation method is one of the most traditional methods In major characteristic of the grammar- translation method is , precisely as its name suggests, a focus on teaching the rules of grammar, and their application in translation passages from one language into mother tongue, the classes are taught mainly in mother tongue, with little active use of English In terms of vocabulary teaching, much of it is taught in form of lists of isolated word Then students are expected to study and memorize that list of vocabulary together with their translation equivalents in the mother tongue What learners can benefit from the method is that translation is the easiest way of explaining meanings or words and phrases from one language into another A lot of time is wasted if the meanings of lexical items are explained through definitions and illustrations in the second language Further, learners acquire some short of accuracy in understanding synonyms in the source language and the target language Nevertheless, when laying emphasis on reading and writing, it neglects speech Besides, with little attention to pronunciation, this method brings students the wrong idea of what vocabulary is-knowing a word means knowing its form and meaning They are not aware of the importance pronunciation They cannot even use the words in a correct way- they do not see the interrelationship between one word and the others in a sentence or in paragraph, In short This method may cause a lack in learners‟ knowledge of vocabulary

2.4.2 The Direct Method

The end of the late 1800s is seen by many as the “dawn” of modern foreign language teaching A revolution in language teaching philosophy took place and led the appearance of a new method named the “Direct method” Diane Larsen- Freeman described it in details, in her book Techniques and Principles in language teaching (1986)

According to this method, the second language learning should be treated as the first language learning It associates directly foreign utterances with object and actions without the use of the native language During the process of teaching and learning, only target language is used, no mother tongue is allowed The teacher does not translate between first and second language, little

or no analysis of grammatical rules Besides, it lays an emphasis on correct pronunciation and grammar

This method is very useful for teaching vocabulary, the teachers introduce through objects and pictures The words used are very common, active and concerning daily activities By this method, concrete vocabulary is taught demonstration while the meanings of abstract words are made clear

by association of ideas

For students of EE, when teachers have explained the words in English, students still ask for the Vietnamese equivalents as well because of only a few of them can understand the English explanation

Finally, to tell the truth, even the teachers cannot assure that they can use English accurately in explaining legal terms and make students understand them in a correct way

2.4.3 The Audio-lingual method

The Audio-lingual Method appeared in World War 2 At that time, the “Army Method” was developed to build communicative competence in translators through very intensive language courses focusing on aural/oral skills This is combination with some new ideas about language learning coming from the disciplines of descriptive linguistics and behavioral psychological went

on to become what is known as the Audio-lingual method According to Brown (1994) and Prator

& Celce- Murcia (1979), the overall goal of the Audio-lingua Method was to create communicative competence in learners Thus, in this method, vocabulary is strictly limited and learned in context and there is much dependence on mimicry, memorization of set phrases, and over learning Furthermore, great importance is attached to pronunciation To carry out vocabulary teaching that way, some common techniques are exploited such as repetition drill, single slot substitution drill use of minimal pairs, etc

With such kinds of practice, students will have better memory of words, terms and phrases and know how to use them practically This way of teaching also makes the class more active and motivated in learning However, because of the lack of teaching and learning facilities, this method has not been commonly used in high schools in Vietnam

2.4.4 The Communicative approach (CLT)

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is an approach to the teaching of second and foreign languages that emphasizes interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of learning a language In this method, vocabulary is learnt through for “real-life” communication in classroom, through interaction in the target language and through enhancement of the learner‟s own experiences as important contributing elements to classroom learning and through an attempt to link classroom language learning with language activation outside the classroom

This method of teaching makes students more confident when communicating with one another Being motivated, they also become more active in class That is the reason why CLT is considered a good teaching method by a lot of Vietnamese researchers and teachers

In summary, the discussion has not yet covered all the approaches to language teaching that have been used around the world throughout history However, the above-mentioned are the most popular method that have been make better results in language teaching

2.5 Teachers’ linguistic and pedagogical challenges in teaching ESP vocabulary

2.5.1 The roles of ESP teachers

It can be seen that an ESP teacher has to improve not only the roles of General English teachers but also ESP course process That is why there are a number of studies, which have pointed out the roles of ESP teachers in teaching linguistic In learning process, it is obviously that the learner must be helped by teacher to achieve their goals effectively Especially, the teacher

should pay attention to words, idioms to express the topics like "component values or "radio", etc,

plus words in the general in teaching vocabulary In addition, the teacher must present the students with the anxiety- free atmosphere The comfortable environment should be created so that students are able to practice to memorize new words

Hutchinson and Waters (1987; 157) state that an ESP teacher will have to deal with needs analysis, syllabus design, materials writing or adaptation and evaluation Likewise, Martin (1992) continues by listing and explaining the different roles of the teacher He points out the role upon

the process of carrying out a task in ESP lesson" before, during and after a task A teacher wishing

to support learning throughout the various phrases of a task would need to be able to play an extended a set of roles including explorer, organizer, adviser, instructor and a guide.”

Furthermore, Little Wood (1981: 51) suggests that the ESP teacher is expected to "perform in

a variety of roles, separately or simultaneously” Nunan (1988) also found that an ESP teacher is

considered as an instructor, a manager, a counselor, facilitators, organizer, a curriculum developer,

a material writer, a material writer and even a friend Robinson (1991) agrees with that point and

highlights that the ESP teacher does not only teach but very often he or she is involved in designing, setting up, administering, evaluating and testing the ESP course

From above most of researchers admit that the ESP teacher‟s work involves much more than teaching Dudley Evans and St John (1998) use the term “practitioner” rather than “teacher” ESP practitioner can have several roles

Firstly, the ESP practitioner as a teacher, in learning process teacher must help the learner achieve their goals effectively However, the teacher is not the primary knower of carrier content

of the material The students in this course may know more about content than the teacher Specially, in teaching vocabulary, the teacher mostly focuses on words, idioms to express the topic, for example, how to identify the circuit symbols, It is vital that the teacher should adopt the position of consultant who has the knowledge of communication practices However, the teacher needs to discuss with students on how best to explore these practices to meet the objective they have Besides, the teacher also has to provide the students with anxiety- free atmosphere and to create favorable environment in which students are able to practice to memorize new words Therefore, ESP teachers need to have considerable flexibility, be willing to listen to learners and take some risks in their teaching

Secondly, the ESP practitioner can act as a course designer and a material provider (Dudley & John, 1998) Sometimes no really suitable published material exists for identified need- one of the ESP teacher‟s role is planning the course and providing materials for it This involves selection of published material, adapting materials if it not suitable, or writing his/her own material

Thirdly, the ESP practitioner as a researcher, the ESP teacher needs to be in touch with the research The teacher has to carry out a needs analysis, to design a course, to write teaching materials, and to find out the ESP students‟ particular interests

In addition, according to Dudley- Evan & St, John (1998) also see an ESP teacher as a collaborator This may involve cooperation in which ESP teacher finds out about the subject syllabus in an academic context or task the students have to carry out in their professional environment, or collaboration when there is an integration between specialist studies or activities and the language

Finally, The ESP practitioner as an evaluator, the ESP teacher is often involved in various types of evaluation- testing of students, evaluation of courses and teaching material This role seems to be very important Dudley Evans‟s statement that the evaluation of course design and teaching materials should be done while the course is being taught, at the end of the course, and after the course has finished

To conclude, depending on the type of syllabus and course, the teaching and learning environment, etc The roles of an ESP teacher must be flexible and variable

2.5.2 Teachers’ linguistic challenges in ESP vocabulary

Linguistics is the systematic and scientific study of human language Linguistics mainly

concerns itself with three major problems: how we learn languages, how language vary, and what

is universal to language In this study, the author addressed the teachers‟ linguistic knowledge in

EEE

From the roles of an ESP teacher presented in the previous parts, various difficulties appear to the ESP teacher According to Fries (1963) meaning at the social level is the meaning that exceeds the language code and is related to the background knowledge of the native speakers of that code Understanding the total meaning of a sentence occurs only when the linguistic meaning of the sentence is fitted into a social framework of organized information For the mastery of the foreign language Fries (1945:100) argues that “ one must find some substitute for the kind of background

he has in his own language” The teacher of English who can not meet the inevitable gaps in specialized lexis will constitute a very appreciable problem In addition, this, unexpectedly perhaps,

is far greater in size and degree of difficulty for a teacher than for a student This is for three reasons (a): The teacher will need to know the basic lexis of a wide range of different specifications, whereas each group of his students will be concerned with only a limited number of inter-related ones Then, (b) the students will be a acquainted with many items since they will be similar in form

to their vernacular equivalent or will be universally – used technical term Finally, (c) the teacher will in many cases have to learn the concept as well as its linguistic form Another problem for teacher is that even the comparatively small number of items which comprise the „core- language‟

of science and technology ( i.e those of high frequency and wide range over all discipline) are likely to contain numerous difficulties

According to Strevens (1988), one of the most common difficulties for ESP teachers is the gap between the learner‟s knowledge of special subject and the teacher‟s ignorance of it, except for some fortunate case where the ESP teacher actually does have specialist knowledge of the subject Actually, there is no other way to escape from this gap The teacher, therefore, has to accept it and come to terms with it That is the reason why an ESP teacher must have all the aspects of knowledge in the subject matter

As stated by Robinson (1980), ESP teachers often face such difficulties as: lack of sufficient preparation time, lack of personal and professional contact with subject teachers, and/or the content may be very specific indeed, requiring a high degree knowledge and skill from teachers

ESP teachers, therefore, have to struggle to master language and subject beyond the bound of their previous experience because most of them have been trained for General English teaching and have unexpectedly found themselves required to teach the texts whose content they know little or nothing about

The same thing is true to all teachers teaching at HUI They are teachers of GE who lack experience, the needed specialized knowledge and the choice of appropriate teaching methodologies seem to be the major concerns Obviously, it is not easy and does take time for the teachers to become familiar with the ESP course materials as well as the language of the subject

In order to achieve the expected outcome, the teachers are not allowed to give up Rather, they have to face with those challenges

2.5.3 Teachers’ pedagogical challenges in teaching ESP vocabulary

The challenges in teaching ESP vocabulary have attracted the attention of researchers, as they are one of the prominent issues that need analyzing and understanding Some researchers that have in- depth investigation about the matter are Flood (1975) Jones & Roe (1974), Bell ( 1996), Chung

& Nation ( 2004 ), Nation (2001) The results of these studies have shown the existing difficulties

in teaching and learning vocabulary such as lack of background knowledge and culture understand, poor ability to understand technology languages, unsuitable teaching material, etc Dealing with all types of teaching ESP vocabulary is too large for study this size Thus, this study focuses on investigating linguistics and pedagogy challenges that the teachers encounter in teaching ESP vocabulary

First, all the teachers have the responsibility to teach both GE and ESP They even have to deal with a number of different ESP subjects at the same time Therefore, they encounter many difficulties in their teaching process such as the choice of methodologies and teaching materials Second, they must be flexible because they have to perform different roles in different time to help the learner solve the problems in ESP lessons Further more, the great majority of ESP teachers have not been trained to be ESP teachers but General English teachers

More importantly, some unskilled teachers prefer traditional teaching methods When teaching vocabulary, they write the new words on the board, then translate them into Vietnamese and make sentences with them They sometimes make an attempt to get the whole class repeat the words in chorus, ask some students to read the words aloud and sometimes show some pictures on the projectors to illustrate new words As a result, the vocabulary learning activities are neither interesting nor motivating

2.6 Summary

In Chapter 1, I have discussed significant information about English for Special Purposes, terminology, vocabulary, methods of the teaching ESP vocabulary and some problems in teaching ESP vocabulary This theoretical review is necessary for the next chapters of methodology and data analysis

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 3.1 The context of teaching and learning vocabulary at Ho Chi Minh University of Industry

3.1.1 Brief introduction of Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry based in Thanh Hoa Province

Ho Chi Minh University of Industry based in Thanh Hoa Province (HUI) has been in operation for 3 years in Thanh Hoa Province Previously, its name was Thanh Hoa Teachers' Training School (THTTS) and its duty was to train only elementary school teachers, so English serves as a means that provides students with basic knowledge about grammar and vocabulary Since October, 2008, HUI joined with THTTS to become Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry based in Thanh Hoa Province Many new branches have been opened such as: Mechanical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Banking and Finance, Marketing studies, Accounting … Accordingly, English has become a major subject for the students of these fields

At first, the objective of the course is to provide students with general knowledge of English Secondly, the course aims at improving the professional knowledge of English to adapt their future job requirement At HUI, the teaching of English consists of two stages During the first stage (consisting of the first three terms), students study general English with four micro skills namely:

speaking, listening, reading and writing The second stage lasts one term from May to July in which students learn English related to their field

3.1.2 Teachers and teaching methods

Our school has15 teachers of English language aged from 24 and 45 Ten of them had formal ELT training in different universities inside VietNam, they graduated from College of Foreign Languages- Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Hong Duc University and Vinh University One

of them has a PhD in Russian and re-trained to teach English Another is taking MA course at College of Foreign Languages- Vietnam National University, Hanoi The oldest teacher has more than 15 years of teaching experience and the youngest teacher has one year The number of teachers is limited and there are no teacher teaching separately They are all teachers of GE who didn‟t attend any ESP courses before, nor do they have electronic knowledge They, therefore, find

it difficult to deal with unfamiliar subject matter Actually, those who were appointed to teach English for electronic hesitated to accept their duty because it did take time for the teachers to become familiar with ESP course materials They have to face with many difficulties concerning the gap of content knowledge and the choice of appropriate teaching methodology

At HUI, English teaching and learning activities are mostly carried out in fixed classrooms that make it difficult for teachers to make a change in applying new ideas of new teaching methods in language teaching Furthermore, there are often more than 50 students in each class It is not easy to carry out a communicative task in a large class with students of mixed ability In addition, one teacher may have to take over two or more different ESP courses, e.g English for computing, accounting, banking and so on The content burden has become double heavier to them To make it worse, these teachers do not teach ESP only Very often, they are involved in many other tasks at the same time, ranging from designing the syllabus, preparing the materials, frequently under the time pressure, and teaching GE courses

In order to meet the demands of the university as well as the students in teaching ESP, the teachers at HUI have to work hard and try to acquire the knowledge of ESP on their own in a

limited time In fact, they are rarely able to arrange time to observe each other‟s lessons or hold group meetings to share the experience in teaching and the knowledge of ESP vocabulary teaching

For most of ESP teachers, the common method of teaching in ESP vocabulary is the traditional teacher- centered approach In class, the teachers‟ duty is to explain every new word, new structure

to students In actual teaching vocabulary, they often employ three following steps in teaching vocabulary First, new words are introduced through some games, word maps, word groups, gap filling Sometimes, if possible, some visual aids or real objects related to the topic of the lesson

are taken to class Then students read the words and translate them into Vietnamese To help students practice the vocabulary, the teachers give some kinds of exercises such as: gap filling, word matching, technical term and definitions matching, etc However, the effectiveness of the given steps varies in accordance with individual teachers

As shown in the previous parts, the major concern of this research is to improve the quality of vocabulary teaching at HUI in order to overcome the difficulties mentioned above

3.1.3 Students and their background

Students of HUI come from all parts of Thanh Hoa province (Thanh Hoa city, districts and mountainous areas) The students who live in Thanh Hoa city and towns (Bim Son, Sam Son) seem better at English than those who come from mountainous areas such as Muong Lat, Quan Hoa, Ba Thuoc Some of them have learned English for 7 years at secondary and high school whereas others have only learned English for 3 years Specifically, some other students have never learned English before Most of students who learned English at school experienced traditional method of English teaching (the Grammar- translation method) the emphasis of which is on the learning of the rules of the language, not on the acquisition of language skills Furthermore, the majority of the students does not have appropriate learning strategies and have passive learning styles Therefore, their General English skills are supposed to be at lower levels

3.2 The course book

3.2.1 The textbook

After finishing the course of General English, the students are taught English for Specific

Purpose Students of Electronics learn the book “English for Electronics” which was written by

Eric H Glendinning &John Mc “English for Electronics” aims to provide students with basic knowledge and skill to work in electronic environment

Actually, this book consists of 30 units, designed in harmonious combination with EEE topics

to enable students to develop both their language skills in EEE world, from low to higher Clearly, each unit is divided into five parts, and each part lays a focus on grammar, function or vocabulary

As a result, in each unit, students have more opportunities to learn and develop their knowledge in categories of grammar, vocabulary, communication skill, and pronunciation through practice activities of, reading, writing, and speaking

3.2.2 Book content

The whole course for the third year EE students consists of 6 units from unit 1 to unit 6 in the first semester The syllabus consists of 30 periods (45 minutes per period) and is delivered within 6

weeks covering 6 topics as follows: Unit 1: Electronics in the home -Unit 2: Component Unit 3: Making a recording - Unit 4: Remote control-Unit 5: Alarm systems -Unit 6: Radio

values-The following unit structure is used throughout the book with some variation among 9 units:

1 Tuning-in : introducing the topic through picture description or fact discussion

2 Language study: revise structures and grammatical points necessary for students to deal with electronic documents in English i.e Actions in sequence, If sentences, Reduced time clauses

3 Word study: developing students ‟knowledge of electronic terms, vocabulary use and word form, i.e Prefixes, Word pairs, Transitive verbs

4 Technical reading: providing practice through various kinds of tasks as well as expanding students‟ vocabulary repertoire, i.e Understanding diagrams, Resistor values, Capacitor values, Diode codes

5 Writing: Provide practice in writing skills, i.e Describing diagrams, a process, a system

It is very effective to work with this book as it provides students with a great deal of technical terms and develops their reading comprehension and writing electronic documents However, the teachers and students have found it difficult in teaching this course book because of the following reasons

First, as each unit has five periods the students usually do not have enough time to practice in class Second, the vocabulary teaching integrated with other skills meaning that no separate vocabulary lesson is provided Consequently, the teacher have to decide themselves how to teach vocabulary, when and how much to teach as well Next, there are a lot of difficult abbreviations

and too many difficult and long terms in a task e.g R(1K)/ a one kilohm resistor: C (5-65PF)/a five-to-sixty-five-picofarad capacitor, BZX55C2V4./ a silicon zener diode which has 5%

tolerance and 2,4 V zener voltage

3.3 Methods and procedures

3.3.1 Research questions

The research is carried out with an attempt to find out the answers to the following questions:

- What are the main teachers‟ linguistic and pedagogical challenges experienced by teachers who are teaching ESP vocabulary to students of Electronics Engineering at HUI?

- What solutions should be offered to help teachers to find out the effective ways to teach ESP vocabulary to students of Electronics Engineering at HUI?

3.3.2 The participants

This study was conducted with the participation of 10 English teachers and 3 EEE teachers‟ writing journals These 10 teachers of English at the college are chosen for the investigation as all

of them have been teaching ESP They are 6 females and 4 males and have at least 2 years‟ experience in teaching ESP

3.3.3 Data collection instruments

In order to collect the most exact information for the study, the three types of instruments were employed as follows:

Questionnaire

The questionnaires to be completed by teachers were the instruments to collect the data The question items were both close-ended and open-ended The questions in order to find out what challenges they have to cope with when teaching EEE vocabulary, especially in terms of linguistics and pedagogy

The questionnaire designed for the teachers consists of four questions It aims at investigating the teachers‟ perceptions of teaching EEE vocabulary challenges for their third year students and their suggestions to improve ESP vocabulary teaching (See appendix 1)

Interview

Interviews are considered as “procedures used for gathering oral data in particular categories, but also for gathering data that was not anticipated at the outset.” (Brown, 2001: 5) In addition, the

interviews will be not time- consuming as the number of subjects limited (Only 4 ESP teachers)

The interview was organized to find out what teaching methods the teachers are using, what difficulties they are coping with in teaching English in general and teaching English vocabulary for EEE in particular, and the suggested ways to overcome them.( see appendix 2)

Journal writing

In addition, three other ESP teachers were invited to take part in the writing individual journals

for six weeks with the question “Write about the challenges happening in each week and solutions

in your teaching EEE vocabulary to the third-year students of Electronics Engineering at Ho Chi

Minh University of Industry based in Thanh Hoa province.”

Their journals were significant and essential sources, and their suggestions help to draw out the solutions for the problems in teaching ESP vocabulary at the college (see appendix 3)

4.3.4 Data collection procedure

In order to collect the data for the analysis, the questionnaire was delivered to each teacher individually to ensure that they would give their own ideas without being affected by their colleagues After the teachers had finished their questionnaire, they were interviewed for further information in the questionnaire

After each lesson, three teachers were invited to write journals to reflect what happened in class These teachers were asked to give careful explanation to each problem and were encouraged

to present their ideas truly and frankly

3.3.5 Data analysis

Data collected from the questionnaire was classified into different categories for teachers such

as their background, their attitude towards ESP vocabulary, their teaching techniques, their difficulties in teaching, their suggestions to improve ESP vocabulary teaching and learning Then the data was analyzed using descriptive statistics with percentage, mean and interpretations The results were then presented in the forms of tables

3.4 Findings and discussion

3.4.1 The teachers’ questionnaire

3.4.1.1 The teachers’ linguistic challenges in teaching EEE vocabulary

a Scoring procedure:

Table 1a shows the teachers‟ perceptions of their teaching EEE vocabulary in linguistics The figures in columns 1, 2, 3 and 4 represent the numbers of teachers who ranked the items in the questionnaire The procedure followed in the analysis of the findings was to allocate a score (see

column5) for level of difficulty to each item in the list A four- point scale was used, with 4 points for Very Difficult (VD), 3 points for Difficult (D), 2 Points for Easy ( E), and 1 point for very Easy ( VE) Using this method, we would obtain the highest scores for items that the teachers

perceived as the most difficult

b Findings

For most of the items, teachers‟ responses center mainly on Very difficult (VD).Difficult (D) and Easy (E) Only a few items were categorized as Very easy (VE).Details of the responses to the items are follows:

Scores in this questions range between 30 and 37 The high scores indicate that teachers think linguistics is one of the biggest challenges in teaching ESP vocabulary The responses to the items

in this question spread form Very Difficult (VD) to Easy (E) for all items but item 10 to which there is one response in the VD column Items 3, 8, 9, have only responses in VD and D columns

These facts add to the difficulty in the teaching ESP vocabulary area Item 8, Explaining the concept of electronic device, is the top of the difficulty list with 37 points 7 out of 10 teachers

(70%) think that it is very difficult for them to explain the meaning of the concept of electronic devices, the rest 30% put it as difficult Not any teachers at all consider it easy or very easy to explain the concept of electronic devices in teaching ESP vocabulary

Table 1a: Teachers’ perceptions of their teaching EEE vocabulary

Very difficult (VD) difficult (D) easy (E) very easy (VE)

Areas difficulties How difficult/ easy

VD (1)

D (2)

E (3)

VE (4)

Total score(5)

2 Understanding and explanation professional technical words 6 3 1 0 35

3 Understanding and explanation of idiomatic expressions 5 5 0 0 35

6 Finding the appropriate meaning for polysemantic 4 5 1 0 33

8 Explaining the concept of electronic devices 7 3 0 0 37

10 Using dictionary to find the meaning of the words 6 2 1 1 33

12 Understanding the meaning of phrasal verbs 6 2 2 0 34 Other ways ( please specify… )

Item 8 is followed by item 9, Explaining the block diagram, (36 point) and the item 2 Understanding and explanation professional technical words, (35point) item 3 Understanding and explanation idiomatic expression (35 point) Item1, 4, 10, 12 are the ones that have rather low scores of 32, 33, 34 points respectively This proves that Translation EE vocabulary in to Vietnamese, and Understanding the meaning of phrasal verbsappear to be the areas of difficulty

for students

Item1, Pronunciation and writing lengthy words, has the smallest score (30), which means that

it is the easiest for teacher Yet it is not easy at all, 2 teachers (20%) consider it very difficult, 6 teachers (60%) think it difficult, whereas 2 of them (20%) rate it as easy

Table 1b: Rank order of difficult of teaching EEE challenges perceived by teachers

Rank order of

difficulty items areas Total score

3 2 Understanding and explanation professional technical

words

35

3 3 Understanding and explanation idiomatic expression 35

5 6 Finding the appropriate meaning for polysemantic 33

5 10 Using dictionary to find the meaning of the words 33

3.4.1.2 The teachers’ pedagogical challenges teaching EEE vocabulary

a Scoring procedure:

Table 2 shows the teachers‟ perceptions of their teaching EEE vocabulary in linguistics The figures in columns 1, 2, 3 and 4 represent the numbers of teachers who ranked the items in the questionnaire The procedure followed in the analysis of the findings was to allocate a score (see

column5) for level of difficulty to each item in the list A four- point scale was used, with 4 points for Very Difficult (VD), 3 points for Difficult (D), 2 Points for Easy ( E), and 1 point for very Easy ( VE) Using this method, we would obtain the highest scores for items that the teachers

perceived as the most difficult

b Findings

Areas of difficulties How difficult

VD (1)

D (2)

E (3)

VE (4)

Total score(5)

1 Using visual aids (pictures, video, real objects… 2 5 2 1 28

2.Saying the words clearly one by one and writing them on the

board

3 Introduces a new words in context and gives examples 4 4 2 0 32

4 Using mimes, gestures and facial expressions 5 4 1 0 34

5 Using target language to define the new word 3 5 1 1 30

6 Ask students to list as many new words as possible on board 4 5 1 0 33

7 Fill in the blanks to complete sentences 4 4 1 1 31

8 Connect new lexical items with their correct definitions 6 3 1 0 35

Other ways ( please specify… )

Table 2 : The teachers’ pedagogical challenges teaching EEE vocabulary

As can be seen in table 2, scores in this question of areas of difficulty range between 23 and 35 According to the teachers‟ viewpoints, the most difficult skill they used to teach ESP vocabulary is

item 8 Connect new lexical items with their correct definitions (35 point) and the easiest way to teach vocabulary is using Saying the words clearly one by one and writing them on the board (23

point) It does not seem a problem for teachers, only 1 out of 10 (10%) thinks that using this strategy is very difficult As the scores in Item 4 and Item 10 are the same with 34 points, it seems that playing games is interesting to create an enjoyable atmosphere in the classroom, so the teachers have to try to use this strategy more effectively

Items 1 and 9 are the ones that have rather low score 28 points This proves that Using visual aids (pictures, video, real objects… and Making sentence with given words are not quite difficult

for teachers It is likely to mean the teachers are good at making sentences

Items 3,4,6,8,9,10 indicate that all teachers believe that using these types of activities seems to

be very difficult for them

3.4.1.3 Teachers’ personal view of sources of their challenges in teaching vocabulary

3 I sometimes find many difficult or

4 Too many new words are in each

5 My Students lack of ESP

7 I usually repeat my teaching

8 I sometimes can‟t understand and