Sử dụng thủ thuật dịch vào việc dạy từ vựng chuyên ngành cho sinh viên nghề năm thứ hai tại trường Đại học Công nghiệp thành phố Hồ Chí Minh – Cơ sở Thanh Hóa

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* NGUYỄN NGỌC HẢI USING TRANSLATION TO TEAC

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*********************

NGUYỄN NGỌC HẢI

USING TRANSLATION TO TEACH TECHNICAL VOCABULARY

TO THE 2ND YEAR VOCATIONAL STUDENTS AT INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITY OF HO CHI MINH CITY – THANH HOA BRANCH

Sử dụng thủ thuật dịch vào việc dạy từ vựng chuyên ngành cho sinh viên nghề năm thứ hai tại trường Đại học Công nghiệp thành phố Hồ Chí

Minh – Cơ sở Thanh Hóa

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*********************

NGUYỄN NGỌC HẢI

USING TRANSLATION TO TEACH TECHNICAL VOCABULARY

TO THE 2ND YEAR VOCATIONAL STUDENTS AT INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITY OF HO CHI MINH CITY – THANH HOA BRANCH

Sử dụng thủ thuật dịch vào việc dạy từ vựng chuyên ngành cho sinh viên nghề năm thứ hai tại trường Đại học Công nghiệp thành phố Hồ Chí

Minh – Cơ sở Thanh Hóa

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111

SUPERVISOR: Associate Professor, Dr Lê Hùng Tiến

Hanoi, 2014

DECLARATION

This thesis is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education I certify that the thesis is the report of my own research, and that it has not been submitted for any other university or institution

Thanh Hoa, September, 2014

Student‟s signature

Nguyen Ngoc Hai

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to Dr Le Hung Tien - my supervisor for his invaluable advice, constructive criticism, precious correction and helpful encouragement in the completion of my minor thesis

My thanks also go to all of the lecturers and the staff of the Department of Graduate Studies at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their valuable lectures and supports

Post-I am also thankful to all the English teachers and students at Post-Industrial University of

Ho Chi Minh city (IUH) – Thanh Hoa branch for answering the questionnaires and interviews, which are indispensable for the analysis and discussion in my study Last but not least, I greatly appreciate the support and encouragement from my family and friends

ABSTRACT

This research was done to investigate the use of Vietnamese translation in vocabulary teaching and learning process This action research is aimed at finding out the teachers and students‟ perceptions of the effectiveness of Vietnamese translation in teaching and learning vocabulary at Industrial University of Ho Chi

Minh City – Thanh Hoa branch The study focuses on issues (1) the difficulties

encountered by English teachers as well as the second year vocational students at IUH – Thanh Hoa Branch when teaching and learning technical vocabulary (2) Exploring translation used in teaching technical vocabulary for the second year vocational students at IUH – Thanh Hoa Branch (3) Investigating how far translation improves teaching and learning technical vocabulary for the second year vocational students at IUH – Thanh Hoa Branch This study involves the

participants of 170 second – year vocational students who are in their first semester

at IUH The data was collected by a number of instruments including questionnaire for teachers and students, teacher‟s observation, informal interviews The result of the study reveals that there exist some difficulties in teaching technical vocabulary

to second-year vocational students at IHU However, the majority of respondents confirm that Vietnamese translation technique is an efficient method Vietnamese translation has big attributions in diminishing the difficulties in teaching technical

vocabulary to second-year vocational students at IHU

LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES, AND CHARTS

Charts

Chart 1: Teachers‟ and students‟ purposes of teaching and learning technical

vocabulary

Chart 2: Teachers‟ difficulties in teaching technical vocabulary

Chart 3:Teachers‟ commonly used techniques

Chart 4: Students‟ comments on technical vocabulary in the course book

Chart 5: Students‟ solution when they meet a new word

Chart 6: Students‟ ways of learning technical English vocabulary

Chart 7: Student‟s problems when learning vocabulary

Chart 9: Students‟ perceptions of the effectiveness of Vietnamese translation on their vocabulary learning

Chart 10: Students‟ perceptions of the roles of Vietnamese translation in helping them to learn vocabulary

Chart 11: Effect of using Vietnamese translation on the class atmosphere

Chart 12: Problems faced by students in learning vocabulary through Vietnamese translation

Chart 13: Students‟ perceptions of using Vietnamese translation

Tables

Table 8: Students‟ preference for Vietnamese translation use in technical vocabulary lessons

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ESP: English for specific purposes course

GE: General English

IUH : Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh city

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES, AND CHARTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v

TABLE OF CONTENTS vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Research questions 2

4 Significance of the study 3

5 Scope of the study 3

6 Methods of the study 3

7 Design of the study 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1 Theoretical background of technical vocabulary 5

1.1 Definition of technical words 5

1 2 Classification of technical words 5

1.3 Approaches to Technical Vocabulary Teaching 7

2 Theoretical background of L1 and Translation 8

2.1 Definition of translation 8

2.2 Function of Translation 9

2.3 Advantages and Disadvantages of Using L1 Translation in Teaching Vocabulary 10

3 Previous Studies on L1 Translation in Teaching L2 Vocabulary 11

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 13

2.1 Rationale for the use of a survey research 13

2.2 Context of the study 13

2.2.1 Textbook 13

2.2.2 Students 14

2.2.3 Teachers 15

2.3 Instruments 16

2.3.1 Interviews 16

2.3.2 Questionnaires 16

2.4 Data collection 16

2.5 Chapter summary 17

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 18

3.1 Findings from questionnaires 18

3.1.1 Teachers‟ and students‟ purposes of teaching and learning technical vocabulary 18

3.1.2 Teachers‟ difficulties in teaching technical vocabulary 19

3.1.3 Teachers‟ commonly used techniques 20

3.1.4 Students‟ perception of learning technical vocabulary 21

3.1.5 Students‟ perceptions of Vietnamese translation use in technical vocabulary lessons 25

3.2 Further findings from informal interview with teachers 39

PART C: CONCLUSION 33

1 Summary of major findings 33

2 Concluding remarks 34

3 Limitations and suggestions for further study 35

REFERENCES 37 APPENDIX I

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

English for specific purposes course (ESP) is new trend in English Language Teaching and the demand of learning ESP has been nationwide Due to the social needs, ESP is taught in almost universities, colleges and vocational schools Most of universities offer course in ESP after General English (GE) during the basic years Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh city (IUH) – Thanh Hoa branch is a typical example of the training institution that combines ESP within its current English teaching situation in response to the demand for specific language learning target ESP in IUH includes technical English, scientific English, English for medical professionals, English for waiters, and English for tourism

Vocabulary learning and teaching is very important in learning English; nevertheless, vocabulary was a neglected area in foreign language teaching for a number of years.I myself have experienced 4 years of working as a teacher of English at IUH – Thanh Hoa Branch Up to now, I find that teaching and learning ESP, particularly teaching and learning vocabulary has still been far from satisfactory With many similar characteristics and a number of different features in comparison with General English, Teaching ESP vocabulary is viewed as something hard to teach for language teachers Furthermore, most of students here find learning ESP vocabulary is the most challenging to them in acquiring English Their biggest obstacle in learning ESP vocabulary is that it is difficult for them to identify the meaning of, to understand the use of and to remember the words belonging to technical terms

Recently a lot of attention has been given to vocabulary English teachers are being trained in using modern methods of English teaching Old teaching methods are rapidly being replaced with modern ones However, among various kinds of

techniques, I would like to add the debate by discussing the usefulness of translation

in teaching ESP vocabulary Of course, translation has been given a bad name in modern language teaching In the past, the prevalence of grammar – translation method led to an extraordinary phenomenon: students were unable to speak fluently after having studied the language for a long time For this reason, translation has been defined as “uncommunicative, boring, pointless, difficult, and irrelevant” (Duff,1994) Recently there has been a revival of interest to translation due to the shift of its emphasis – to using a mother tongue as a resource for promotion of language learning Translation method develops three qualities essential to any language learning: accuracy, clarity, and flexibility (Duff, 1994) Therefore, translation can serve as a good tool for improving language skills, especially in teaching ESP vocabulary

The facts above explain the reasons why I carried out this study entitled, “Using

translation to teach technical vocabulary to the 2 nd year vocationl students at Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh city – Thanh Hoa Branch” The author does

hope that this research will help the teachers in some ways to find appropriate teaching method to improve technical vocabulary for their students

2 Aims of the study

This study is aimed at:

- Exploring the usage of translation in teaching technical vocabulary for the second year vocational students at IUH – Thanh Hoa Branch

- Investigating how far translation improve teaching and learning technical vocabulary for the second year vocational students at IUH – Thanh Hoa Branch

3 Research questions

In order to achieve these aims, the study is carried out with an attempt to answer the following two questions:

1 What are the major difficulties encountered by teachers and the second year vocational students at IUH – Thanh Hoa Branch?

2 To what extent can translation improve teaching and learning technical vocabulary for the second year vocational students at IUH – Thanh Hoa Branch?

4 Significance of the study

The present paper focuses on the role of translation in teaching and learning technical vocabulary from a pedagogical perspective including both translation from first language into second language and vice versa A basic premise of this study is that translation cannot be avoided in ESP vocabulary acquisition and it should not

be viewed as a negative interference but as a natural and useful tool in technical vocabulary teaching and learning This study also provide English teacher with an overview of translation as a perfect tool to use in teaching and learning technical vocabulary

5 Scope of the study

This study mainly focuses on improving teaching and learning technical vocabulary for the second year vocational students at IUH – Thanh Hoa Branch It involves the participants of 170 second – year vocational students who are in their first semester

at IUH.12 English teachers at IHU are also participants in his research Additionally, the kind of technical vocabulary which application of Vietnamese translation focuses on is IT vocabulary The findings and recommendations most appropriately applied to the teachers of English as well as the second – year vocational students at IUH – Thanh Hoa Branch

6 Methods of the study

This study is conducted in the form of a survey research The data serving the research analysis and discussion were collected by means of:

- Questionnaires for students

- Interview

In addition, to make the data collected more reliable and authentic, qualitative method was applied

7 Design of the study

The study is divided into three parts

Part A - Introduction shows the rationale for the research, the aims, the research

questions, the significance , the scope, the methods and the design of the study

Part B - Development consists of three chapters

Chapter 1 - Literature review, not only deals with an overview of background to

the study, including key concepts and theories to the research topic but also discusses previous studies of the field to reveal the research gap which needs filling

Chapter 2 – Methodology introduces the participants, instrumentation, research

process and plan of action

Chapter 3 – Results and discussion gives a detailed presentation of data and a

detailed description of data analysis Some explanations and interpretations of the findings of the study are also presented

Part C Conclusion presents the summary of major findings, points out the

limitations of the study and provides the suggestions for implication of translation

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Theoretical background of technical vocabulary

1.1 Definition of technical words

There are several approaches taken to the identification of technical vocabulary One approach is to use the intuition of a subject expert This can be done in three ways, by using a rating scale as used in this study (Baker, 1988; Farrell, 1990), by using a technical dictionary compiled by a subject specialist or group of specialists (Nation, 2001: 201; Oh et al., 2000), and by making use of clues that the most relevant specialist, the actual writer of the text, used to mark the words considered

to be important for the message of the text, since when new terms are introduced in

a text, the writers deliberately provide contextual clues to help readers manage new terminology (Bramki and Williams, 1984; Flowerdew, 1992; Williams, 1981) Another way is to use a corpus-comparison approach by comparing word frequencies in a technical text with those in a different corpus (Becka, 1972; Yang, 1986; Baker, 1988; Farrell, 1990; Sutarsyah et al., 1994) Technical words should

be much more frequent in the technical corpus Research on technical vocabulary (Sutarsyah, Nation and Kennedy, 1994; Chung, 2003; Chung and Nation, forthcoming) has shown a significant underestimation of the role played by technical vocabulary in specialised texts and a lack of information about how technical vocabulary relates to other types of vocabulary This article reports on the significance of this research for language learners and teachers

1 2 Classification of technical words

Vocabulary can be classified in different ways based on different criteria, features

or functions Semantically, it can be divided into notional words which are objects, actions, qualities, etc and functional words which are those whose meanings are grammatical Grammatically, vocabulary can be divided into different parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, etc Methodologically, there are two kinds of vocabulary classification They are active vocabulary and passive

vocabulary Active words consist of words which the learners can understand and pronounce the words correctly and use them constructively in speaking or writing Passive vocabulary includes words which the learners can recognize and understand while they are reading or listening to someone speaking, but they do not use the words in speaking or writing Recently, some methodologists of the Communicative Language Teaching approach have split vocabulary into productive and receptive vocabulary The productive vocabulary is concerned with the words that a learner can use effectively to express his/ her ideas both in speaking and in writing forms The receptive vocabulary refers to the words that help a learner to receive and understand information in listening and reading There are different types of ESP

vocabulary presented by Simon Fraser (2005).They are general vocabulary,

academic vocabulary and technical vocabulary General vocabulary consists of

words remaining after technical and academic words have been extracted Most of these will be high frequency words that are used in daily life as well as in a specific field Academic vocabulary consists of words used which are common in the academic world, irrespective of the subject Technical vocabulary is most obviously associated with specialized texts or discourse These words have their specific meanings and they seem to be very uncommon to people who are not related to their fields of meaning

It can be further divided in to fully technical vocabulary, crypto technical

vocabulary, lay- technical vocabulary Fully technical vocabulary comprises those

words whose meanings are clearly technical They are specific to the field and not likely to be known in general language Crypto technical vocabulary consists of

polysemous words like transmitter and relaxation which could be said to be

“cryptic” in that they have a hidden technical meaning Lay technical vocabulary comprises those terms which are obviously technical but are likely to be known by a layperson

Dudley Evans and St John (1998) are of the opinion that teaching ESP vocabulary is the same as teaching English for general purposes The only distinction that should

be made is between the vocabulary for comprehension and the vocabulary for production

1.3 Approaches to Technical Vocabulary Teaching

There are many different methods, approaches, techniques as well as strategies to vocabulary teaching In order to fully understand this development it is certainly worth giving a brief discussion of some major approaches in teaching vocabulary It can be easily seen that several hundred years ago, bilingual teaching was favoured, with students learning through translation Howatt (1984) tells us that the idea of using L1 in the L2 classroom was a respected view during the era of The Grammar

Translation Method The Grammar Translation Method had dominated late 19th and early 20th century teaching The aim of The Grammar Translation Method was to provide the students with a detailed literary vocabulary which is learned through long lists of translated items and a bilingual dictionary and practiced through sentence translation with little opportunity to try out pronunciation (Rivers, 1981: 28-30)

The second major foreign language teaching approach is the Direct Method The Direct Method stressed the ability to use rather than analyze a language as the goal

of language instruction or in other words, the main goal was to train students to communicate in the target language and to have an acceptable pronunciation It introduced vocabulary through classroom objects, mime, drawing and explanations (Rivers, 1981: 32-33)

The Reading approach attracted more importance than grammatical skill The vocabulary used in the reading passages is controlled at beginning levels and is chosen according to their frequency and usefulness The acquisition of vocabulary

is considered to be more important than grammatical skills and is expanded as fast

as possible through intensive and extensive reading The translation of vocabulary items and sentences are permitted (Murcia and Prator, 1979: 3)

The Audio-lingual Approach which was dominant in the United States during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s is known to be a major paradigm shift in foreign language teaching (Larsen-Freeman, 2000) In this method, the amount of vocabulary presented was kept low (Thornbury, 2002:14) and was chosen for its simplicity (Schmitt, 2000:13) It was assumed that when grammatical fluency was present, exposure to the foreign language itself lead to vocabulary development (Coady, 1993: 4)

The Communicative Language Teaching Approach is a renowned British Approach

to language teaching the emergence of which dates back to the mid-1960s Concepts like context, use, effective communication, communicative function, comprehensible pronunciation, etc were given importance in this approach Senel (2002: 243) emphasized that new words were not presented in isolation, but in the context of a complete sentence, and in a meaningful situation This way, the words acquired meaning when they appeared in a particular definition in a determined context Moreover, Thornbury (2002:14) stated that course books began to incorporate communicative activities specifically targeting vocabulary since the meaning-giving role of lexis was recognized in this approach

2 Theoretical background of L1 and Translation

2.1 Definition of translation

The definition of translation is not simple There are so many definitions about translation from many experts They define the definitions about translation in many ways According to Catford (1965:20), “Translation is the replacement of textual material in one language (SL) by equivalent textual material in another language (TL)” and Nida (1969:12) states that translation consists of reproducing in the

receptor language the natural equivalent of the source language message, first in terms of meaning and second in terms of style The definition of translation from the expert is not limited only on Catford‟s and Nida‟s point of view

Translation is the technique of explain the new word by the learner‟s first language This is considered the simplest and clearest way to show the meaning of a new word Moreover, it seems to be a favourable technique by teachers thanks to its time-saving nature However, several authors suggest that first language does not play an essential role in foreign language teaching (Tang, 2002) Hence, the use of translation as a teaching technique has been viewed with suspicion by many language teachers, and many proscribe it altogether as a matter of principle It has become a famous and well-accepted creed among language teachers that the translation hinders the acquisition of L2

Other professionals in the field of second language and foreign language acquisition agree that mother tongue should be used with students who are not highly proficient

in the target language such as Nation (2001) or Atkinson (1987) Schmitt and McCarthy (1997: 2) who note that “… a learner‟s L1 is one of the most important factors in learning L2 vocabulary.” Nation (1982) indicates that if we study the practice of vocabulary learning and teaching also, we can see its use At least with non-advanced foreign language learners, translation of the new words (that are introduced for the first time) is acknowledged as a preferable way to teach meaning (Nation 1982, and Laufer 1997) This may suggest that mother tongue plays an important role in language teaching, especially for the vocational students at IUH – Thanh Hoa Branch

2.2 Function of Translation

According to Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary (2000:546), Function is a special activity or purpose of a person or thing Basically, the special purpose or function of translation is as a medium of communications As Duff (1989:5) says,

“As a process of communication, translation functions as the medium „across the

linguistic and cultural barriers‟ in conveying the message written in the foreign languages.” In other words, the function of translation is a medium or a means to carry the message from the SL to TL And it is very helpful for people which come from around the world in communication to each other As Nida (1981:2) states,

“Translation means communication because it has three essential elements to form a process of communication The three essential elements are source, message, and receptor, and these elements must be found in all communication activities” To sum up translation is a means in communication, that has source, message, and receptor which must be found in all communication activities

2.3 Advantages and Disadvantages of Using L1 Translation in Teaching Vocabulary

in long tern memory As Grabe and Stoller (1997: 114) put it, “Perhaps, for adults, there are times when it is important to know that a word is understood accurately” What‟s more, using L1 translation may link a L2 word with well-established semantic and linguistic structure which help the learner retain the word better, because the L1 and its semantic structures are no doubt the steadiest “cognitive hook to hang the new item on”(Fraser,1999: 238)

Translation has also advantage of being the most direct route to a word‟s meaning

vocabulary that may crop up in a lesson Many teachers find it extremely effective

in case the new words are too complicated or difficult to explain in English, for example: to deal the word “patriotism” The teacher can say “patriotism có nghĩa là: lòng yêu nước”

One of the advantages is that it is not time-consuming and leaving more time for the study of some other important language aspects Using translation is the surest and most economical way to convey the meanings during the lesson Thus, translating new words into Vietnamese can save the teachers‟ time of unsuccessful explanation

in English Instead of going through a long explanation in the target language, it would sometimes be easier and more efficient to give a translation of a vocabulary item

However, this way is not considered as creative way because it makes students fail

to develop an independent L2 lexicon, with the effect that they always access L2 words by means of their L1 equivalent rather than directly

3 Previous Studies on L1 Translation in Teaching L2 Vocabulary

To investigate areas in which L1 translation is resorted to for teaching vocabulary, the researcher has reviewed a number of relevant studies conducted in different parts of the world and at different times

Laufer and Shmueli (1997) compared 4 ways of presenting the new vocabulary, that

is, words presented in isolation, words in a meaningful sentence, words in a text context and words in an elaborated text context Each of these ways contains half of the target words in the students‟ L1 and the other half was explained in English The results indicate that the words with the L1 translation were retained better than those with the L2 explanation

In their study, Ramachandran and Rahim (2004) attempt to investigate the effectiveness of using the translation method in recalling the meaning and retention

of the words with elementary level ESL Their results indicated that the translation method through using L1 was more effective than the non-translation method in enhancing ESL learners‟ vocabulary learning ability, and it could improve elementary ESL learner‟s ability to recall the meaning of the word learnt

In her paper on using translation method in teaching vocabulary, Abdul Rahim demonstrates the effect using translation method in teaching vocabulary She conducted her study among elementary level EFL learners in Malaysia In this study, learners‟ L1 was used as the medium of instruction The results showed that the translation method has a positive impact on learners recall and retention of the meaning of words that they had learned

The last study to be reviewed here is a case study conducted by Bouangeune (2009)

at the National University of Laos The study makes an important contribution to EFL teaching, particularly in the area of vocabulary for students with a lower proficiency level It shows the effectiveness of using L1 in teaching vocabulary through translation exercises and dictation The findings indicate that the experimental group achieved better performance in both vocabulary in direct translation and vocabulary in context In fact, the results could provide empirical support for the application of L1 in the FL classroom The researcher concludes that ''in order to prevent the misunderstanding of the meaning of the new word, teachers should provide clear, simple, and brief explanations of meaning, especially in the learners' first language'' (Bouangeune, 2009:189)

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Rationale for the use of a survey research

The author chose survey research for this study because of many reasons First of all, the author could gather a great number of opinions from participants As the aim of this study was to investigate the application of English - Vietnamese translation in IHU, the researcher needed a big number of participants to get the most reliable result The author could save a lot of time by getting the answers from delivering questionnaires in class and then interviewing some participants in person It took the author one month from May to June to collect the data The research adopted a mixed methodology – both qualitative and quantitative approaches in data collection and data analysis

The study consisted of 5 chapters which covered the introduction of the research, the literature review, the methodology, the data analysis and discussion and the conclusion chapter

There are three data collection instruments used in this study, namely questionnaire, interview and observation Therefore the author could have very reliable findings at the end The questionnaires were delivered to all participants with both close questions and open questions so that they can specify their opinions The researcher did the observation on her own with the checklist at class The informal interviews

are also used to collect data The researcher interviewed three teachers

2.2 Context of the study

2.2.1 Textbook

Textbook plays crucial roles in language teaching, which is indicated by different authors in the literature Obviously, the materials provide basic for the content of the lesson, the balance of skills taught, and the kind of language practice students take part in The course book “Infotech-English for computer users” is edited by Bui Trung Thanh, a lecturer at IUH and is used as an internal material at IUH to teach college students of IT in 45 periods Each week, teachers of English have to teach 5 periods of 45 minutes The aims and objectives of the ESP curriculum are to

help students consolidate, widen and enrich their English competence related to their majors including both language knowledge and skills which they have gained

at university From my own experience and other teachers‟ ideas and through my interviews with a lot of students at my school, the suitability of the textbook including knowledge points (information and vocabulary areas) is not very insufficient Furthermore, linguistic competence like listening, speaking, and writing is not covered in this textbook Therefore, it can not help students improve

their skills like listening, speaking, or writing except for reading comprehension Students find it hard to understand the formulas, express their understanding in

explaining the positions, functions or operations of the parts of machines by their

own words because they lack a great number of vocabulary about the matters Therefore, they have little interest in learning ESP and the teaching English at my university is not satisfactory This is obviously manifested in teaching methods used

by most teachers in my university

2.2.2 Students

Actually, there are 4 classes of IT, which made up totally 170 students at IUH All

of them are male students, aging from 18 to 24 The majority come from different parts of Thanh Hoa province Some are from several cities in Vietnam such as Thai Binh, Tay Nguyen, Vinh, Ha Tinh City The students coming from cities have finished three years or seven years of learning English at secondary schools before entering the IUH Therefore, they have better English than others from the rural or remote areas, where there are no good opportunities for studying English Most of students experienced traditional method of English teaching like “Grammar- translation method” at grade school, which emphasizes the learning of the grammar rules of the language, not the acquisition of language skills Now, most of them want to learn English to read specialized documents rather than to speak English to foreigners Some are under strong pressure to pass exams with high mark; the others

prefer enhancing their specialized knowledge to preparing for their future jobs In addition, it helps students feel more confident to interact with teacher in ESP class

2.2.3 Teachers

At present, the English Group at IUH based in Thanh Hoa consists of twelve time teachers All of the teachers graduated from universities of foreign languages such as University of Languages & International Studies - Vietnam National University, Hong Duc University and Vinh University Eight of them have a Master degree in English language teaching None of them has been trained in English speaking countries Two teachers are taking MA courses at University of Languages

full-& International Studies - Vietnam National University The teachers are quite young (aged from 27 to 42) The oldest teacher has more than 17 years of teaching experience and the youngest teacher has 3 years No teachers are trained to specialize in teaching ESP All of the12 teachers are responsible for teaching General English and ESP to nearly 7.000 students of four departments at IUH They even have to teach some different ESP subjects at the same time The teachers have

to teach themselves and learn ESP subjects from specialized teachers who are in charge of teaching these subjects in Vietnamese There are three teachers being responsible for teaching English for IT One of them has 5- year experience and 2 other teachers have 4- year experience They are energetic and willing to devote their time and energy to teaching However, they find it difficult to deal with unfamiliar subject matter Therefore, they encounter many difficulties in their teaching process such as the lack of the specialized knowledge, the choice of teaching methods and teaching materials

In terms of methodology, the teachers at IUH are intensively using the Grammar- Translation method Most of the spoken interaction in English classes is conducted

in Vietnamese

As mentioned above, the context of IUH reveals a situation whereby students are required to learn English, but the English they have learned in traditional language classes may not be used effectively in real life It is apparent that student-centered approach has not been widely used in teaching English at IUH The teachers still play the key role in classroom activities and corner the students to be active learners Therefore, we should apply more appropriate teaching techniques to improve the situation of teaching ESP vocabulary at IUH

2.3 Instruments

2.3.1 Interviews

Three teachers were interviewed for approximately 10 or 15 minutes The aims of using these interviews were to get the ideas, perception and evaluation from students toward teaching technical vocabulary with translation

2.3.2 Questionnaires

The questionnaires students were designed with both closed-ended and open-ended questions

Questionnaire 1 for teachers contains 3 questions designed to gather information

about the teachers‟ background knowledge, their perception of technical vocabulary teaching, their difficulties in technical vocabulary teaching (Appendix 1)

Questionnaire 2 for students consists of 13 questions It was designed to find out

the students‟ problems in technical vocabulary learning and their expectation about teaching materials (Appendix 2)

2.4 Data collection

With permission from the teachers, the author delivered questionnaires to them and their students at the last 15 minutes of their periods While respondents answered the questions, the teacher was there to clarify any questions that they did not understand clearly There were 12 teacher questionnaires and 170 student questionnaires that the researcher delivered and collected after they finished Then

the author analyzed questionnaires, conducted interviews with 3 teachers to get

deeper information

2.5 Chapter summary

This chapter includes the design, description of participants, research instruments and the data collection of the study This study was a survey research which used the mixture of methodology: qualitative and quantitative approaches 170 students and 12 teachers of IHU were the participants They not only answered the questionnaires but were interviewed to express their ideas about the use of translation in technical vocabulary teaching and learning

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 3.1 Findings from questionnaires

3.1.1 Teachers‟ and students‟ purposes of teaching and learning technical vocabulary

A To help students read specialized materials

B To help students enrich their vocabulary with technical terms

C To help students communicate with foreigners about specialized matters

D To help students pass the exam

Chart 1: Teachers’ and students’ purposes of teaching and learning technical vocabulary

The chart shows the teachers and learners' purposes of teaching and learning technical vocabulary As can be seen from the table,100% of the teachers pay attention to teaching technical vocabulary in the hope of helping their to enrich vocabulary with technical terms A little smaller number of the teachers (91.7%) want to help students pass the exam Besides, To help students read specialized materials also make up great percentage of teacher with 83.3% Only 66.7% of

foreigners Meanwhile, to pass the exams and to enrich their vocabulary with technical terms are the important goals of great proportion of learners, 71.2% and 26.5% respectively while to read specialized materials and to communicate with foreigners about specialized matters account for only 7.6% and 4.1% respectively This result is not very far from the teachers' goals It can be concluded that students just pay attention to their short-term goals as passing the exams, so after a very short time they will forget most vocabulary items they have learned That is why students‟ vocabulary is very limited

3.1.2 Teachers’ difficulties in teaching technical vocabulary

A Encountering too many new terminologies

B Understanding the nature of new terminologies

C Finding Vietnamese equivalents

D Having limited reference books in specialized matters

E Too large classes

F Students' low level of technical vocabulary

Chart 2: Teachers’ difficulties in teaching technical vocabulary