Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng tài liệu do giáo viên thiết kế trong dạy học từ vựng tiếng Anh chuyên ngành cho sinh viên năm thứ hai khoa Thiết kế

- finding out difficulties faced by ESP teachers and second-year students of Fashion Designing Faculty at NUAE in using teacher-designed materials for ESP vocabulary lessons.. Research q

TABLES OF CONTENT

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CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF THE THESIS…….……… i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……… ii

ABSTRACT……… iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS……… iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATION……… vii

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS…… ……… viii

PART I: INTRODUCTION………

1 Rationale………

2 Aims of the study…….………

3 Research questions… ………

4 Scope of the study.……….………

5 Methods of the study ………

6 Design of the study………

1 1 3 3 4 4 4 PART II: DEVELOPMENT………

Chapter one: Literature review………

Introduction…… ………

1.1 An overview of supplementary materials in language teaching………

1.1.1 Supplementary materials.……….………

1.1.1.1 Definition of supplementary materials… …… ………

1.1.1.2 The role of supplementary materials… ……… …

1.1.1.3 Characteristics of supplementary materials…….….………

1.1.2 Criteria for evaluating supplementary materials on ESP….………

1.1.3 Material adaptation……….………

1.1.3.1 Why are materials adapted? …………

1.1.3.2 How are materials adapted? …………

1.2 Vocabulary teaching in ESP………

1.2.1 Definition of vocabulary.………

1.2.2 Main principles in vocabulary teaching………

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1.2.3 The role of vocabulary teaching in ESP………

1.2.4 What need to be taught in ESP vocabulary………

1.2.4.1 Word form……… … …… ………

1.2.4.2 Grammar……… ……… …

1.2.4.3 Collocation……… …….….………

1.2.4.4 Aspects of meaning……….…….….………

1.2.4.5 Word-formation….……….…….….………

Summary………

Chapter two: Research methodology………

Introduction…… ……….

2.1 Background of the study……… ……….…

2.1.1 The setting……… ………

2.1.1.1 Materials used in present teaching and learning ESP.………

2.1.1.2 Teaching staff and vocabulary teaching methods ………

2.1.1.3 Students and their vocabulary learning….…… ………

2.1.2 The participants……… ………

2.2 Research methodology……….………

2.2.1 Research questions … ………

2.2.2 Method of data collection: Using the questionnaire ………

2.2.3 Data collection procedure… ………

2.2.4 Data analysis procedure ………

Summary………

Chapter three: Findings and discussion ……… ………

Introduction…… ……….

3.1 Data analysis to answer the first question ………

3.2 Data analysis to answer the second question ………

3.3 Data analysis to answer the third question ……… …………

3.4 Findings……….………

3.4.1 Students‟ difficulties in ESP vocabulary learning ………

3.4.2 Teachers‟ difficulties in ESP vocabulary teaching ………

3.4.3 Students‟ difficulties in using teacher-designed materials for ESP

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vocabulary lessons……… ………

3.4.4 Teachers‟ difficulties in using teacher-designed materials for ESP vocabulary lessons ………

3.5 Possible solutions………

3.5.1 Possible solutions in term of materials … …….………

3.5.2 Possible solutions in term of teachers……… ………

3.5.3 Possible solutions in term of students.………

3.5.4 Possible solutions in term of facilities………

Summary………

36 37 37 38 38 39 39 PART III: CONCLUSION………

1 Conclusion……… ………

2 Limitations and suggestions for futher study………

40 40 40 REFERENCES……… 42

APPENDIX 1………

APPENDIX 2………

APPENDIX 3………

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EAP: English for Academic Purposes

EFL: English as a foreign language

EOP: English for Occupational Purposes

ESP: English for Specific Purpose

MA: Master of Art

NUAE: National University of Art Education

GE: General English

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

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Table 1: Ways of presenting new words teachers use in vocabulary teaching 21 Table 2: Teachers-finding difficulties from students‟ vocabulary learning… 22

Table 3: Ways of learning vocabulary for Fashion Designing……… 24

Table 4: What studenst find most trouble when dealing with an English word 25 Table 5: The preferences of topics in current teacher-designed materials perceived by teachers and students……… 27

Table 6: The opinions of teachers and students about the vocabulary content part of the teacher-designed materials……… 28

Table 7: Exercise-types of the current teacher-designed materials………… 29

Table 8: Teachers and students‟ prefered exercise-types accommodated in the materials……… 30

Table 9: Kind of vocabulary exercises students like most……… 31

Table 10: Teachers‟ techniques in vocabulary teaching lessons……… 31

Chart 1: The purpose of teachers‟ teaching English vocabulary……… 20

Chart 2: The teachers‟ objective of teaching vocabulary to students………… 20

Chart 3: The teachers‟ vocabulary teaching difficulties……… 22

Chart 4: The perception of the students about the role of vocabulary……… 23

Chart 5: The perception of the students about the necessary of vocabulary… 24 Chart 6: The students‟ vocabulary learning difficulties……… 26

Chart 7: The teachers‟ opinion on exercise-types to improve students‟ ESP vocabulary learning……… 28

Chart 8: The students‟ opinion on exercise-types to improve ESP vocabulary learning……… 28

PART I: INTRODUCTION

The present chapter of the thesis will be dedicated to introducing the basic principles of a thesis including the rationale, the aims of the study as well as the research questions It will also present the scope, the methods and the design of the study

1 Rationale

Nowadays, English has increasingly become one of the most popular languages with more than five hundred million speakers all over the world English is playing a key role in today‟s modern world because it is used as an international language in many areas such as: science and technology, business and commerce, international relations, diplomacy , etc Therefore, English teaching and learning have drawn a great concern of people in non - native nations of English Especially, in Vietnam, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is being taught as a compulsory subject at many schools, colleges and universities in the national education system

ESP teaching at National University of Art Education (NUAE) has partly met the students‟ interest and needs It aims at providing students with the best English learning skills for their further study and future job It also helps them to develop their communication competence in English in the area they are studying

Since 2008, NUAE have applied ESP to only students in Fashion Designing Faculty and Art Culture Faculty with two professions: Fashion Designing and Culture Management Fashion Designing is not a new field in the world, but in Vietnam it has become an important matter given much attention of people for recent years The number

of training places for Fashion Designing is not many NUAE is one of those places with the purpose of training a number of Fashion Designers for the whole country

It is undeniable that materials, including textbooks and supplementary materials, play a very important role in teaching and learning Many types of materials can be used during the process of teaching and learning to provide basic knowledge to students and improve their knowledge about and skills in the subject matter At NUAE, ESP teaching and learning have been ongoing for 2 years, however, there is still no official course book for ESP What the teachers provide students are testing materials which are edited collection from various sources The materials are developed solely by teachers of General

English at NUAE while they should be jointly developed by an expert team comprising both teachers of English and teachers of Fashion Designing General English teachers select their own materials, they choose whatever is available to them and suitable to their knowledge, thus in many cases the materials are not structurally coherent and cohesive Additionally, such materials have been used but no evaluation and consultation has been conducted Consequently, both teachers and students face many difficulties in teaching and learning ESP, especially in teaching and learning ESP vocabulary

Another problem adding to the lack of textbook in NUAE is the way vocabulary is taught in the university Although both teachers and students are well aware of the fact that vocabulary plays an important role in learning language especially in ESP learning because

it is the element that links the four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing all together The students cannot invest much time on vocabulary or have a good learning method for the element In the context of NUAE, the Fashion Designing students can only get acquainted with ESP in a short time through teacher-collected supplementary materials

in which vocabulary part is not carefully designed During this short period, teacher mainly aims at improving reading and translating skills Students often learn vocabulary passively through their teachers‟ explanation It is hard for them to memorize new words, terms and complicated expressions The teachers share same difficulties with students in specialized knowledge teaching, so they fail to provide every reasonable explanation

Additionally, self study is also out of question in NUAE ESP materials are not easy for students to teach themselves at home as well as do exercises because the

supplementary materials have not got Answer Keys For most of the lessons each week, the

teachers must go through 6 to 7 pages Their main activities are helping students with reading the text, translating the text, explaining necessary new words and correcting exercises Both teachers and students simply read whatever available in hand Consequently, their ESP vocabulary learning cannot get much improvement

The last difficult for teachers and students in the process of ESP teaching and learning is that they cope with the lack of various teaching technique, the lack of teaching

aids and reference materials Tomlinson (1998: 2) defined that “language teaching material is used to refer to anything which is used by teachers or learners to facilitate the learning of a language” At this level, it should be pointed out that language teaching

materials include not only course books or grammar books, as superficial thoughts of many

people, but also cassettes, videos, CD-ROMs, dictionaries, photocopied exercises, or pictures prepared by teachers, which is a long way from the current supplementary materials at NUAE, which are simply photocopied texts with exercises As a result, both teachers and students have trouble in their own business

All reasons above have inspired and encouraged the researcher to carry out this study with a hope to find out the main difficulties in using supplementary materials in ESP vocabulary at NUAE and offer some solutions to these problems Hopefully, suggestions can be made to change the ways of teaching, thus to improve students‟ learning effectiveness to help them succeed in their future job

2 Aims of the study

The study aims at:

- investigating the ESP vocabulary teaching to second-year students of teachers at NUAE

- investigating the ESP vocabulary learning of second-year students of Fashion Designing at NUAE

- finding out difficulties faced by ESP teachers and second-year students of Fashion Designing Faculty at NUAE in using teacher-designed materials for ESP vocabulary lessons

- suggesting a set of teacher-designed materials for teachers and students on how to make better use of the materials

3 Research questions

With the aim at finding out the difficulties in teaching ESP vocabulary to the second-year students of Fashion Designing at NUAE, the study was designed to seek answer to the following questions:

1 What are the difficulties that the teachers at NUAE face when teaching ESP vocabulary to second-year students of Fashion Designing?

2 What are the difficulties that the second-year students of Fashion Designing at NUAE face when learning ESP vocabulary?

3 What solutions should be offered to help teachers and students make better use

of the teacher-designed materials?

4 Scope of the study

Due to the limitation of time, this study has no ambition to cover all aspects of ESP material use The scope of this study is limitted to the teachers‟ exploitation of the supplementary materials only The study focuses on the investigation of difficulties in teaching ESP vocabulary to second-year students of Fashion Designing at NUAE The solutions are also provided to help to improve teaching and learning English in general, teaching and learning English vocabulary of Fashion Designing in particular at NUAE

5 Methods of the study

The method used in the study is mainly quantitative method In order to seek answers to the above questions, two sets of questionnaire were designed and delivered to the teachers and the second-year students The data were collected, synthesized and analyzed from the survey questionnaires on ESP vocabulary teaching and learning and using supplementary materials Beside, more information needed for the study was gathered by other methods such as class observation, information discussions with the teachers and the students at NUAE

6 Design of the study

This study is organized into three main parts:

Part I: Introduction: In this part the rationale, the aims, the research questions, the scope, the method and the design of the study are presented

Part II: Development: It consists of three chapters

Chapter 1 provides the theoretical background, which is relevant to the purposes of the study

Chapter 2 presents an introduction on the context of learning and teaching vocabulary of Fashion Designing at NUAE This chapter also includes the subjects, and the data collection methods and data collection procedure

Chapter 3 is the main part of the study In this chapter, the data will be analyzed and the finding will reveal teachers‟ difficulties in using supplementary materials to ESP vocabulary teaching to students of Fashion Designing On the basis of these findings, the solutions in teaching and learning will be suggested

Part III: Conclusion: This part offers a summary of the study and some suggestions for further study

PART II: DEVELOPMENT

Chapter one: Literature review

1.1 An overview of supplementary materials in language teaching

1.1.1 Supplementary materials

1.1.1.1 Definition of supplementary materials

It goes without saying that teaching materials play a key component in most programs They have drawn concerns of many teachers and researchers in designing suitable ones for their learners in order to increase the learners‟ knowledge and experience

of the language

Supplementary materials are what materials developers design from many sources of input “Supplementary materials” is one of the basic terms in a glossary proposed by

Tomlinson (1998, p xiii) In his opinion, supplementary materials are defined as

“materials designed to be used in addition to the core materials of a course They are usually related to the development of skills of reading, writing, listening or speaking rather than to the learning of language items”

From the definition we can find that supplementary materials can be anything which

is used by teachers and learners to facilitate the learning of a language They may include texts, photocopied exercises, newspapers, pictures, posters, CD-ROMs…

Teachers do not make their work by themselves Most of the times, teachers follow some methodological approaches to create effective learning environments, or they may follow course books designed by publishing houses to cover with their teaching needs However, those course books do not always fulfill their syllabi thoroughly So, teachers start looking for other sources to accomplish their tasks It is at this point when supplementary materials appear in the teaching and learning interaction Thus, ESP supplementary materials are things used for teaching and learning English for Special Purpose and they occur with the help to complement the teachers‟ work and provide with more ideas to understand the process of ESP teaching and learning Teacher-designed materials are one kind of supplementary materials which are edited collection from various sources They are developed solely by teachers with the aims at providing basic knowledge

to students and improving their knowledge about and skills in the subject matter

1.1.1.2 The role of supplementary materials

Supplementary materials - the components of language teaching materials-have certain contribution in language teaching They take on a very important role in language classes: they support instruction and learning, they influence the content and the procedures of learning The choice of deductive or inductive learning, the role of memorization, the use of creativity and problem solving, production or reception, and the order in which supplementary materials are presented are all influenced by the supplementary materials

Since the end of 1970s, there has been a movement to make learners rather than teachers the center of language learning Learners are more important than teachers, materials, curriculum, methods, or evaluation As a matter of fact, curriculum, materials, teaching methods, and evaluation should all be designed for learners and their needs It is the teacher's responsibility to check to see whether all of the elements of the learning process are working well for learners and to adapt them if they are not In other words, learners should be the center of instruction and learning The curriculum is a statement of the goals of learning, the methods of learning, etc Teachers have to follow the curriculum and provide, make, or choose the best materials for instruction especially they should adapt and make supplementary materials for the class in order to get more progress Thus, useful and effective supplementary materials can provide great assistance to teachers in teaching

In conclusion, supplementary materials take on an essential role in language teaching and learning Beside the core materials, teachers also want to use supplementary materials

in their teaching for more improvement

1.1.1.3 Characteristics of supplementary materials

According to Tomlinson (1998:7), the standard materials should have the following characteristics: First, they should influence the learners but raising learners‟ interests, curiosity and attention and help them feel at ease by providing unsual topics, pictures or illustrations and interesting activities and tasks, and sometimes authentic sources Second, they should take into consideration the issue of learner personalization and attitudes towards learning In addition, they should require and facilitate learners‟ self-investment,

or make discoveries for themselves Besides, they should provide the learners with opportunities to use the target language to achieve communicative purposes Last,

materials should facilitate teachers‟ critical thinking and desire to continue learning To sum up, Tomlinson (1998) focuses on the characteristics dealt with leaners‟ needs, attentions, preferences, confidence… and teacher development

Supplementary materials share similar characteristics which are described by Howard & Major (104) as follows:

- English supplementary materials should be contextualised First, they should be contextualised to the curriculum they are intended to address In addition, they should also

be contextualised to the experiences, realities and first languages of the learners Last, they should be contextualised to topics and themes that provide meaningful, purposeful uses for the target language

- Supplementary materials should stimulate interaction and be genarative in terms of language They should provide situations that demand the same Situations where learners need to interact with each other regularly in a manner that reflects the type of interactions they will engage in outside of the classroom

- Supplementary materials should encourage learners to develop learning skills and strategies

- Supplementary materials should offer opportunities for intergated language use

- Supplementary materials should be authentic When designing materials, teachers should aim for authentic spoken and visual texts Learners need to hear, see and read the way native speakers communicate with each other naturally

- Supplementary materials should be attractive and flexible Criteria for evaluating English teaching materials and course books frequently include reference to the “look” and the “feel” of the product Supplementary materials should be good to look at Factors to consider include the density of the text on the page, the type size and the cohesiveness and consitency of the layout They should be flexible in terms of content with comprehension exercises, grammar awareness, role play…for each lesson

1.1.2 Criteria for evaluating supplementary materials

According to Hutchinson & Waters (1987: 97), “Evaluation is basically a matching process: matching needs to available solutions” They also note that “evaluation is a matter of judging the fitness of something for a particular purpose”, thus a good

evaluation of materials can save expense Through evaluation, we can assess whether the course book is the most appropriate for the target learners at levels and in various teaching

settings In other words, through evaluation we can know about the advantages and disadvantages as well as the effectiveness of the being used materials

Materials evaluation is based on different criteria Cunningsworth (1984: 5-6) sets out the following four principles of evaluation, which are applied by many teachers and students in a great variety of teaching and learning contexts

- Relate the teaching materials to your aims and objectives

- Be aware of what language is for and select teaching materials, which help equip your students to use language effectively for their own purposes

- Keep your students’ learning needs in mind

- Consider the relationship between language, the learning process and the learner

In short, the teacher must be able to assess the strengths and weakness of the materials It is necessary for EFL teachers to be acquainted with the principles of materials evaluation They can be given practice in analyzing materials in order to find out whether the organization of materials is consistent with the objectives of the curriculam When teachers eximine the selection of items of speech, grammar or vocabulary in any teaching materials, they are improving competence in the language and at the same tme sharpening their skills as teachers

1.1.3 Materials adaptation

1.1.3.1 Why are materials adapted?

Dulley-Evans (1998: 170) states that supplementary materials are used in the process

of language teaching and learning “with the purposes for learning support, for motivation and stimulation and for reference”

+ As a learning support, supplementary materials needs to be reliable, that is, to work,

to be consistent and to have some recognizable patterns To enhance learning, supplementary materials must involve learners in thinking about and using the laguage The activities need to stimulate cognitive not mechanical process The learners also need a sense of progress

+ To stimulate and motivate, supplementary materials need to be challenging yet achievable; to offer new ideas and information whilst being grounded in the learners‟ experience and knowledge; to encourage fun and creativity The input must contain concepts and/or knowledge that are familiar but it must also offer something new, a reason

to communicate, to get involved The exploitation needs to match how the input would be

used outside the learning situation and take account of language learning needs The purpose and the connection to the learners‟ reality need to be clear

In order to stimulate and motivate students in learning ESP materials which need some requirements of activities in teaching and learning First, select the activities that are central to the core objectives The activities should be carried out everyone and graded/classified e.g for weaker learners and faster learners to practice Second, replace learners with activities which focus on real content This may mean preparing a new activity Third, add in an activity or two before those given in the materials

To increase students‟ motivation, a new exercise type should be familiarized In the context of Fashion Design Faculty, it is suitable and effective if a visual element is added

in an exercise as it both increases variety and avoids the danger of too much writing to be read and understood as input for a task It makes learners think when they do an exercise: this requires some drawing on the learnes‟ own knowledge, some pulling together of ideas from different sources and can both increase motivation and improve the chances of retention of the target language or skill It also needs to vary the amount of challenging material and the demands that it makes on the learner

+ Many learners have little time for class contact and rely on a mix of classes, study and reference material For self-study or reference purposes, supplementary materials need to be complete, well laid out and self-explanatory The learner will want explanation, examples and practice activities that have answers and discussion keys

self-1.1.3.2 How are materials adapted?

Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 97) suggested three ways of turning a course design into actual teaching materials:

-Selecting from existing materials: materials evaluation

-Writing your own materials: materials development

-Modify existing materials: materials adaptation

Materials adaptation is said to have direct relationship with materials evaluation and

to have equal importance in the process of materials development Materials adaptation can

be understood by Tomlinson (1998: xi) as “making changes to materials in order to improve them or to make them more suitable for a particular type of learner” As part of

the teacher-development process, materials adaptation and complication should be strongly encouraged

There are various techniques for adapting materials which include adding, omitting, modifying, simplifying, re-ordering and supplementing These techniques may overlap but the ultimate aims of adapting are to make the materials more relevant to the learners, the teaching and learning more effective and more fruitful

Every teacher is in very real sense an adapter of the materials he/she uses He/she may employ one or more of a number of techniques He/she adapts each time he/she uses a textbook in order to maximize the value of the book or the particular learners Therefore, it can be said that adapting materials is an inevitable task in the teaching process with a view

to maximizing the appropriateness of the materials so as to better suit a particular circumstance

1.2 Vocabulary teaching in ESP

Pyles and Alges (1970: 96) also state that “When most of us think about language we think first about words It is true that the vocabulary is the focus of language It is in words that sound and meanings inter-lock to allow us to communicate with one another and it is words that we range together to make sentences, conversations and discourses of all kinds”

In general, vocabulary is the total number of all the words that a language possesses, including a single word, two or three word items expressing a single idea and multi-word idioms whose meaning cannot be deducted from the analysis of the component words Vocabulary can be defined as the words we need to teach in the foreign language and a useful convention is to cover all such cases by talking about vocabulary items rather than words

English for Specific Purposes represents a specific reason for learning a foreign

language There are distinguished two types of ESP: English for Occupational Purposes (EOP - learning English for a job) and English for Academic Purposes (EAP - learning

English for a study specialization) The students at NUAE are studying English for Fashion Design which belongs to the first type

According to Hatch and Brown (1995: 312), “special lexical items are present in nearly all professions, and each branch has special vocabulary to cover abstract concepts.” This focuses on the importance of vocabulary used for each profession which is

different from one another and General English (GE) vocabulary as well Vocabulary in ESP is rather more complicated than that in general language ESP vocabulary has specialized and restricted meanings in certain disciplines and may vary in meaning across disciplines While most literature agrees on the need for teaching such vocabulary, there is not yet a satisfactory definition of the concept We can simply understand ESP vocabulary

as items in the following lists presented by Dulley-Evans & Jo St John (1998:82):

- items which express notions general to all specialised disciplines

- general language items that have a specialised meaning in one or more disciplines

- specialised items that have different meanings in different disciplines

- general items that have restricted meanings in different disciplines

- items used to signal the writer‟s intentions or evaluation of material presented

1.2.2 Main principles in vocabulary teaching

It can be seen that vocabulary should be selected in a suitable teaching setting That

is, every situation is different and so core items in one context may be useless in another Vocabulary is an essential element in learning a foreign language, so it is important to concern first the criteria for selection of vocabulary to help the teacher make valid decisions on the right vocabulary items to teach at every educational level Gairns and Redman (1986: 57-63) state some main criteria as frequency; students‟ need and level; cultural factor and expediency

Most teachers know that dealing with unknown words as they come up in class activities is a good and popular way to teach vocabulary, however, students can also benefit by doing direct and deep study of new and unknown vocabulary According to File (98) there are six basic principles of vocabulary teaching teachers should address when they plan a direct vocabulary teaching and learning programme

Principle One: Teachers should choose useful words that will be useful for their students

to learn Useful words are words that learners will meet often, or need to use often in their

language use situations

Principle Two: Teachers should let the learners do the work One way to approach this is

to set students the task of learning the words for themselves in preparation for class That way they can then bring along to class any questions or problems they are having with the words and the teacher can address these

Principle Three: Teachers should focus on different aspects of a word There is much

more to a word than just its meaning such as word‟s stress, its collocations and word family members, its grammatical patterns and word parts, etc Learners can enrich their knowledge of a word, and perhaps remember it better, by learning more of these different

aspects

Principle Four: Teachers should provide meaningful learning opportunities The main job

of vocabulary teacher is to challenge students to find out target words in meaningful

context and make opportunities to use these words in reading and learning task

Principle Five: Teachers should implement a regular testing schedule Students should be

tested regularly learning process Testing can be used to give students feedback on their success or failure to learn and use the target words and motivate them to study vocabulary

Principle Six: Teachers should be patient with their learners Students constantly forget

words they have learnt It is important that teachers remain patient with their learners and allow them a lot of opportunities to see, use and revise new vocabulary in a positive

learning environment

1.2.3 The role of vocabulary teaching in ESP

“ESP” stands for English for Specific Purposes and different authors have defined this term so far According to Hutchinson and 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 them, starting point in determining

appropriate input for ESP course is identifying learners‟ need

It is known to most second language learners that the acquisition of vocabulary is a fundamental and important component in the course of their learning A good master of vocabulary is essential for EFL learners especially for those who learn for specific purposes It is now clear that acquisition of vocabulary is as just important as the

acquisition of grammar Teachers should have the same kind of expertise in the teaching of vocabulary as they do in the teaching of structure and attach much importance to the

vocabulary teaching Greater attention to vocabulary learning by teachers and students will

result in greater overall language progress Therefore, we can find that vocabulary plays an

important role in language teaching

In ESP vocabulary, there are numerous terms as well as complicated structures The first thing to realize about ESP vocabulary items is that they frequently have more than one meaning which cause troubles for most learners Besides, students have difficulties in getting their meaning, their use, their formation and their grammar Thus, vocabulary teaching in ESP is a very crucial aspect in foreign language methodology It is a primary concern for ESP teachers who have to master well what word knowledge students need to know in learning words, what vocabulary should be selected to teach, what effective

techniques teachers should adopt to teach vocabulary and what strategies should be

introduced to students for self-learning

1.2.4 What need to be taught in ESP vocabulary?

After selection words for teaching purpose it is also indispensable to decide what to teach about each naming unit According to Penny Ur (1996), when vocabulary is introduced to learners, pronunciation and spelling, word form, grammar, collocation, aspects of meaning, word-formation need be taught

1.2.4.1 Word form

Vocabulary cannot be taught or learnt in complete isolation from the rest of linguistics components namely grammar, phonetics and phonology The learner has to know what the word sounds like (its pronunciation) and what it looks like (its spelling) when learning vocabulary This can be particularly problematic for learners of English because there is often no clear relation between how a word is written and how it is pronounced It is very important to use the phonemic script in such cases so the students have clear written record of the pronunciation The teacher needs to make sure that these aspects are accurately presented and learnt

1.2.4.2 Grammar

The grammar of a new item will need to be taught if this is not obviously covered by general grammatical rules An item may have an unpredictable change of form in certain grammatical contexts or may have some idiosyncratic way of connecting with other words

in sentences It is important to provide learners with this information at the same time as

we teach the base form

1.2.4.3 Collocation

A collocation is an expression consisting of two or more words that correspond to some conventional way of saying things Collocations of a given word are statements of the habitual or customary places of that word It refers to the restrictions on how words can

be used together in right contexts We can talk about “thick fog” and “dense fog” with the

same meaning However, we cannot say “dense hair” instead of “thick hair”

1.2.4.4 Aspects of meaning

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

Denotation is the ability of a word to identify all those things or objects that are

correctly covered by it For example, the word “computer” is used to help the speaker of a

language to see and recognize all the things in different shapes or sizes that may be called

computer Denotation refers to the literal meaning of a word, the dictionary definition

Connotation, on the other hand, refers to the associations that are connected to a

certain word or the emotional suggestions related to that word The connotative meanings

of a word exist together with the denotative meanings The connotations for the word

snake could include evil or danger

A more subtle aspect of meaning that often needs to be taught is whether a particular item is the appropriate one to use in a certain context or not Thus, it is useful for a learner

to know whether a certain word is very common, or relatively rare or taboo in a polite conversation or tends to be used in writing but not in speech, or is more suitable for a formal than informal discourse or belongs to a certain dialect

There are various relationships which show how the meaning of an item relates to the meaning of others: synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms, co-hyponyms or co-ordinates, superordinates and translation

1.2.4.5 Word-formation

In linguistics, word formation is the creation of a new word Many English words are formed from combinations of other words, or from combinations of words and prefixes or suffixes So if you know what each of the parts means, you will often be able to guess the meaning of a new word

The basic part of any word is the root By adding a prefix at the beginning a suffix at

the end of the root, you can change the word meaning For example, in the word

"unflattering" the root is simply “flatter” while the prefix “un-” makes the word negative,

and the suffix “-ing” changes it from a verb into an adjective

New vocabulary items are also built by combining two words to make one item Two nouns, or a gerund and a noun, or a noun and a verb can be combined together For

example, “racing-car” is a compound noun which is made from a gerund and a noun

Some new words are formed by combining part of one word with part of another For

example, “brunch” is a meal you eat in the late morning that combines breakfast and lunch, and "edutainment” is something such as a video, television programme, or software program that combines education and entertainment

Summary: In this chapter, the relevant literature which helps form the theoretical

background and conceptual framework for the study has been presented First, an overview

of supplementary materials in language teaching has been mentioned in order to provide the best way to evaluate and adapt teaching materials Second, definition and role of vocabulary, main principles in vocabulary teaching, the role of vocabulary teaching in ESP and what need to be taught in ESP vocabulary have been discussed The next chapter will bring about the heart of the study, which includes background of the study, instruments and procedures of data collection Data from two sets of questionnaires will also be thoroughly analyzed

Chapter two: Research methodology

This chapter deals with the choice of research methodology to achieve the aims and objectives of the study The first section of this part will describe the present situation of teaching and learning ESP at NUAE In the second part, data collection procedures are given in detail with the participants, instruments and methodology of collection the data

2.1 Background of the study

2.1.1 The setting

2.1.1.1 Materials used in present teaching and learning ESP

The materials used in teaching and learning Fashion Designing English at NUAE

is designed by the teachers who does not have much experience in teaching ESP

The so called course book is a collection from various sources The teachers collected many texts, and then designed comprehension questions, reading exercises, vocabulary exercises, grammar explanations and exercises The book consists of 6 units

Each unit is divided into three parts The first is Discussion The second and most important one is Focus in which comprehension questions, reading exercises, vocabulary exercises, grammar explanations and exercises are included The last part is Futher study

with one or two collected texts

The aim of this course book is to help students read more effectively and build up vocabulary of Fashion Designing However, it has not satisfied both teachers and students

because of some reasons as listed in the Data analysis part

2.1.1.2 Teaching staff and vocabulary teaching methods

The teaching staff of English section at NUAE consists of six teachers, aged from twenty five to fifty The number of teachers is limited and there are no teachers who are specifically in charge of ESP teaching Each of them is responsible for teaching both General English and ESP They have to teach more than twenty periods a week

All teachers are enthusiastic, serious in teaching and they have good attitudes to their obligations of teaching Being aware of the acknowledged importance of ESP, they are willing to take up ESP course although none of them had been trained to be the teachers of ESP or taken any course on Fashion Designing They, therefore, have to face such difficulties as the lack of professional knowledge and how to choose a suitable

teaching methodology are the major concerns As the result, they do not feel confident to teach ESP This leads to unsatisfactory class performance

In term of methodology, ESP teachers usually apply different kinds of teaching methods in ESP vocabulary lessons However, due to the age differences, sometimes there are not common ideas among teachers on how to renovate teaching methods or how to apply effective new ways of delivering lessons Young teachers always desire to try new things in teaching, whereas the old teachers think that it is not necessary Classes are conducted in the form of lectures, with most of the time the teachers playing the key role in the classroom being the main speakers working through the text They explain new words, terms and even translate into Vietnamese Therefore this Grammar-Translation Method can not motivate students to learn English in general and in vocabulary in particular

2.1.1.3 Students and their vocabulary learning

The students at NUAE, like at many other universities, are from different places in our country However, they share the same common in learning proffesion There are four main faculties in our university which are Fine Art Education, Music Education, Art Culture and Fashion Designing Therfore, the students are good at either painting or music Their main objective is to make progress in their chosen profession

The students of NUAE aged from eighteen to twenty two or over Most of them have learnt English before at schools or Foreign Language centres at Elementary level In other words, at this level the students‟ knowledge of English is only at beginner level After that, they have to learn English as a compulsory subject in NUAE during five semesters Firstly, they have to start with Basic English in three semesters and then continue with ESP in the next two ones After each semester, there is a final exam to test the students‟ English level Thus, the most ultimate purpose of their learning is to pass these exams Some of them learn to have a good competence of English in order to get much information in English documents as well as get a good job after university

Many students want to learn English well but find it hard to learn effectively Especially, it is not easy for them to learn ESP They all have difficulties in vocabulary and translation Moreover, they are not students of English and they do not devote to learning English They claimed that they do not know the best way to learn a foreign language The majorities of them do not have appropriate learning strategies or have habit to learn independently or creatively The fact is that many of them do not prepare the lesson at

home or review the lesson regularly Most of them lack a great deal of vocabulary so they cannot have a certain source of word to express their ideas in English The other problem is there is no language environment for students to practise English In class, they are not used to working in peers, groups or taking responsibility for their learning As a result, their actual level of English is still very low as compared to the requirements listed the course description

2.1.2 The participants

The study was carried out with the participation of 50 second-year students and 6 teachers in March 2009 These students were chosen randomly from 95 students of 2 classes K3A Fashion Designing and K3B Fashion Designing All the total number of 95 students in two classes have learnt English before at schools or Foreign Language centres

at Elementary level At NUAE, they started ESP term after having finished 150 periods of General English However, their level of English proficiency is not so high and it varies significantly due to the fact that they come from different places in Vietnam with different background knowledge The participants are selected randomly with the aim to get authentic results

The teachers are all female Four of them have MA degree in English language teaching methodology and two other teachers are going to finish MA course All of them have two years‟ experience in ESP teaching Due to the number of teachers is limited, the author would like to questioned all of them during the process of conducting the study

2.2 Research methodology

2.2.1 Research questions

With the aim at finding out the difficulties in teaching ESP vocabulary to the second-year students of Fashion Designing at NUAE, the study was designed to seek answer to the following questions:

1 What are the difficulties that the teachers at NUAE face when teaching ESP vocabulary to the second-year students of Fashion Designing?

2 What are the difficulties that the second-year students of Fashion Designing at NUAE face when learning ESP vocabulary?

3 What solutions should be offered to help teachers and students make better use

of the teacher-designed materials?

2.2.2 Method of data collection: Using the questionnaire

The questionnaires for teachers and students were designed with both closed-ended and open-ended questions The questionnaire for teachers consists of 17 questions which aimed at investigating the teachers‟ background knowledge, their perception of ESP teaching, their difficulties in ESP vocabulary teaching and their expectation about materials (Appendix 1)

The questionnaire for students consists of 17 questions It was designed to find out the students‟ difficulties in ESP vocabulary learning and their expectation about teaching materials (Appendix 2)

2.2.3 Data collection procedure

Data collection was conducted through questionnaire for both teachers and students First, the questionnaires were developed basing on the materials criteria evaluation and adaptation as well as basic principles in ESP vocabulary teaching Then the students survey was administered in the last session of the course (March, 2009) Before delivering the questionnaires to the students, the author explained clearly in both English and Vietnamese the aim of the survey questionnaires When the students received the questionnaires the reseacher went over them with the students in the class, question by question to the students to make sure that they could fully and clearly understand all the questions before giving their final answers The students were requested to complete the questionnaires in the last lesson so that they were more willing to do it and could return all the questionnaires immediately

The questionnaires for the teachers were also delivered in the last session of the course Unlike the case with the students, the questionnaires for the teachers were collected

a week later to ensure that they would have enough time and knowledge to give detailed and accurate information

2.2.4 Data analysis procedure

In the current study, descriptive statistics were used for data analysis After having collected data, the answers were synthesized and categorized in form of tables and figures where appropriate After that, an explanation of the descriptive statistics was written to report the results in the study.

Summary: This chapter provides information about the participants of the study,

the background, and the research methodology employed for this study Instruments and data collection procedures are also presented in this chapter The next one will present findings and discussions of the study

Chapter three: Findings and discussion

This chapter reports the results from the analysis of 95 students‟ and 6 teachers‟ questionnaires and discussion on the major findings The following results will be presented and based on the research questions of the study

3.1 Data analysis to answer the first question

The research question is “What are the difficulties that the teachers at NUAE face when teaching ESP vocabulary to the second-year students of Fashion Designing?”

The answer to the research question can be found through analyzing questions from

1 to 5 in the teachers‟ questionnaire

Question 1: What is your purpose of teaching English vocabulary?

Chart 1: The purpose of teachers’ teaching English vocabulary

17%

16%

67%

For communication: 17%

For school exam: 16%

For the improvement of students' reading & writing ability: 67%

The data on chart 1 illustrates that the highest percentage of teachers teach vocabulary with the purpose for the improvement of students‟ reading and writing ability ESP reading materials contain too many terms, complicated structures or difficult sentences that make students unable to interpret Thus, students should enrich vocabulary

in order to improve reading and writing skills Whereas, one of the teachers (takes up 16%) highlights the important of teaching vocabulary for examination and one teacher aims at teaching for communication

Question 2: What is teachers’ objective of teaching vocabulary to students?

Chart 2: The teachers’ objective of teaching vocabulary to students

have few words: 0%

have few words but know how to use them correctly: 33%

have many words and know how

to use them correctly: 50%

The result in Chart 2 shows that half of the teachers (50%) expresses their objectives of teaching vocabulary to students is to help them master as many words as well

as know how to use them correctly Although ESP vocabulary is not easy, teachers they expect providing their students with many vocabulary items 33% of them are less ambitious because they hope their students could get few words but know how to use them correctly in different sentences or context 17% shares the same objective of getting them having as many words as possible None of them wants their students to get few words in ESP vocabulary learning

Question 3: Which ways of presenting new words do you use in vocabulary teaching?

Table 1: Ways of presenting new words teachers use in vocabulary teaching

Ways of presenting new words teachers use in vocabulary teaching Percentage

d Using target language to define the new words 9 %

e Saying the words clearly one by one and writing them one the board 26 %

The table 1 tells us about ways of presenting new words teachers use in vocabulary teaching As can be seen in the table, most of the teachers often use the techniques of saying the words clearly one by one and writing them one the board (26%) and translating all the words into Vietnamese (22%) for new words presentation 17% of them chooses the presentation of new words by using visual aids Using mines and gestures is also a favorite

way which accounts for 13% Two other ways take up 9% for each are using target language to define the new words and using of word guessing 4% presents new words by using synonyms and antonyms None of them suggests other techniques

Question 4: What difficulties do you find from your students’ vocabulary learning when teaching English to students of Fashion Designing?

Table 2: Teachers-finding difficulties from students’ vocabulary learning

Teachers-finding difficulties from students‟ vocabulary learning Percentage

a Students have difficulties in understanding and remembering the

words and terminologies

38%

c The number of words in the materials is too large 5 %

d They lack sufficient practice of vocabulary 25 %

The most common trouble faced by teachers in the process of ESP vocabulary teaching is that students have difficulties in understanding and remembering the words and terminologies which makes up for 38% Due to the lack of sufficient practice of vocabulary, the students cannot improve their vocabulary effectively 19% of them have poor vocabulary, so they find practice hard Only 5% comment on the large number of words in the materials which causes an obstacle to students

Question 5: What difficulties are you coping with in vocabulary teaching for Fashion Designing?

Chart 3: The teachers’ vocabulary teaching difficulties

Chart 3 shows the difficulties of teachers in the process of teaching vocabulary for Fashion Designing at NUAE Three biggest difficulties are lack of knowledge on Fashion Designing when facing a new field with a lot of specialized terminologies and lack of teaching aids and reference materials which constitutes 27% per each Teaching ESP means that teachers have to take part in a new environment in which they have limited knowledge There are a lot of new specific vocabulary items that called specialized terminologies In order to know more about them, teachers have to look up the major dictionary and find the most suitable meaning for each vocabulary item However, some items do not appear in the dictionary, so it is very difficult for teachers to guess the correct meaning With little knowledge about the profession, they all feel crestfallen, confused and worried when first making acquaintance with a completely new field They are not confident enough to act the role of ESP teachers as well 19% of the teachers have not got enough time to teach vocabulary to students because the fact that each teacher has one‟s own teaching method

3.2 Data analysis to answer the second question

The research question is “What are the difficulties that the second-year students

of Fashion Designing at NUAE face when learning ESP vocabulary?”

The answer to the research question can be found through analyzing questions from

1 to 5 in the students‟ questionnaire

Question 1: What do you think of the role of vocabulary in learning a foreign language?

Chart 4: The perception of the students about the role of vocabulary

As shown in the pie chart, most of the students (88%) consider vocabulary a very important element in language learning Only 10% of them think vocabulary is important, 2% not very important None of the students thinks vocabulary is not important, this means that most of them are well aware of the importance of vocabulary in their English learning

Question 2: Please describe the necessary of Vocabulary for your study?

Chart 5: The perception of the students about the necessary of vocabulary

11%

2%

72%

I don't need it very much: 2%

I need a few but I know how to use them correctly: 72%

I need many and I know how to use them correctly: 5%

The result in Chart 5 shows that the highest percentage of the students (which accounts for 72%) expresses their need to have a few words but know how to use them correctly The second rank gets 11% of students who think that “the more words they have, the better their vocabulary is” Some of them need building up their vocabulary with many words as well as knowing how to use these words correctly The least percentage consider

it unnecessary in English learning In short, the students of Fashion Designing needn‟t acquiring a large number of words but with what they get they know well how to use them

Question 3: How do you usually learn vocabulary for Fashion Designing?

Table 3: Ways of learning vocabulary for Fashion Designing

Ways of learning vocabulary for Fashion Designing Percentage

b Write the words in English and Vietnamese many times 21%

f Write the words and their synonym or antonym 5%

As can be seen in the table, 30% of the students ensure that they can remember new words more easily if teacher connects the words with pictures It seems that it is visual aids that make students involved in and fascinated by the lesson Most students are influenced

by traditional ways in their learning habits such as writing the words in English and Vietnamese or writing the words in English many times in pieces of paper and trying to learn by heart Thus, nearly half of the students learn new words by rewriting them (21% & 20%) The percentage of students who learn by reading them aloud makes up for 13% Obviously, only writing or reading new words by memorization without understanding is not effective ways in learning vocabulary Two good but difficult learning ways are making sentences with new words and writing them and their synonym or antonym take up only 9% and 5% corresponding

It can be seen that students focus only on the spelling aspect of the words rather than how to use them in sentences or context Thus, they will failure in both speaking and writing skills

Question 4: What cause you the most trouble when dealing with an English word?

Table 4: What students find most trouble when dealing with an English word

What students find most trouble when dealing with an English word Percentage

c Collocation (the way in which words are used together) 28%

d Aspect of meaning (synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms…) 17%

As shown in the table 4, what students find most difficult is the collocation of the word They may remember the grammar rules and the meaning of new words but they do not know how to use them with other words to make meaningful sentences or utterances, Besides, 25% said that it is word formation, which they find very difficult to learn There are quite a lot of suffixes and prefixes in English and this can make students confused when they learn this part 20% of students have difficulty in learning word form

According to my own experiences, these students find it difficult to pronounce English words and they also do not know how to learn and remember their spelling They listen to

the teacher many times and repeat what the teacher say but they still state that their

pronunciation is not better What‟s more, they write the words many times to remember their spelling, but they fail Fortunately, the grammar rules of new words and their aspects

of meaning are not difficult for them Only 10% choose them to be the most difficult

Question 5: What difficulties do you have when learning English vocabulary for Fashion Designing?

Chart 6: The students’ vocabulary learning difficulties

Chart 6 shows that many students find it difficult to remember terminologies (41%)

In ESP vocabulary, there are numerous terms, complicated structures and countless expressions which are hard for both teachers and students In pronunciation, 19% students said that they remember words but cannot pronounce or pronounce correctly, especially terminologies are very difficult for students to pronounce correctly In addition, class time

is not enough for students to practice pronouncing 17% and 13% of the students make complaints about easily forgetting words and not knowing to use words in sentence and correct context

3.3 Data analysis to answer the third question

The research question is “What solutions should be offered to help teachers and students make better use of the teacher-designed materials?”

The answer to the research question can be found through analyzing questions from

Easy to forget words: 17%

Difficult to use word in sentence & correct context:

13%

Difficult to pronounce the word correctly: 19%

Question 6: What are the teachers’ and students’ preferences for the following topics in current teacher-designed materials?

Table 5: The preferences of topics in current teacher-designed materials perceived by

teachers and students

Teachers Students Teachers Students Teachers Students Teachers Students

Accessories 50 % 42 % 17 % 16 % 33 % 32 % 0 % 7 % Sewing

teachers, they put Clothes, Accessories and Fashion trend to their foremost priority (67%,

50% and 83%) The students also choose these topics for their most favourite which make

up 52%, 42% and 63% It may be assumed that the teachers and students tend to choose something easy to understand and practical for their daily life

The last three topics Fabrics, Sewing machines and Designers & models get neutral

ideas from the teachers (50%) The highest percentages of these topics students choose

belong to “So so” opinions 25% of them express that they dislike Sewing machines topic

whereas the less percentage lie on other ones These ones are difficult for them because there are many complicated and boring structures

From the above data, it can be drawn that most of the topics suit both teachers‟ and

students‟ interest Among them, three topics (Clothes, Accessories and Fashion trend) get

greatest preference Therefore, it is suggested that some kinds of suplementary materials chosen by teachers should include what dealt with these ones

Question 7: What do you think about the vocabulary content part of the teacher-designed materials?

Table 6: The opinions of teachers and students about the vocabulary content part of

the teacher-designed materials

Teachers Students Teachers Students Are the content of the materials relevant to

students‟ needs as an English language learner?

glossary, all answers are “No” In order to have a better set of materials, there should be vocabulary list or glossary at the end of the book

Question 8: What do you think about the exercises types to improve students’ ESP vocabulary learning?

Chart 7: The teachers’ opinion on exercise-types to improve students’ ESP