Some implication to improve the teaching and learning reading English for banking in Banking Academy

This paper deals with existing problems in teaching and learning reading English for Banking and Finance in Banking Academy. Being a teacher of English in Banking Academy for more than 20 years, the researcher does realize that there are some problems encountering the teachers and students in Banking Academy, which leads to some unsatisfactory results in the teaching and learning reading English for Banking and Finance in Banking Academy.

ĐINH THỊ BẮC BÌNH *

* Học viện Ngân hàng, ✉ binhdtb@hvnh.edu.vn

Ngày nhận bài: 24/4/2018; ngày sửa chữa: 28/5/2018; ngày duyệt đăng: 29/5/2018

MỘT SỐ ĐỀ XUẤT NHẰM CẢI THIỆN TÌNH HÌNH DẠY VÀ HỌC MÔN ĐỌC TIẾNG ANH NGÂN HÀNG

TẠI HỌC VIỆN NGÂN HÀNG

TÓM TẮT

Bài báo này đề cập đến những khó khăn trong việc dạy và học môn đọc tiếng Anh tài chính ngân hàng tại Học viện Ngân hàng Là một giảng viên đã và đang giảng dạy môn tiếng Anh tại Học viện Ngân hàng hơn 20 năm, tác giả nhận ra giảng viên và sinh viên tại Học viện Ngân hàng đang gặp phải một số khó khăn dẫn đến kết quả dạy và học môn đọc tiếng Anh Ngân hàng không mang lại kết quả như kỳ vọng Trong bài báo này tác giả xác định được một số nguyên nhân dẫn đến việc thực hiện giờ giảng không như mong muốn để rồi sau đó đưa ra một vài gợi ý nhằm cải thiện việc dạy và học môn đọc tiếng Anh tài chính ngân hàng cho sinh viên khối không chuyên tại Học viện Ngân hàng

Từ khóa: đọc chuyên ngành, kiến thức chuyên ngành, ngân hàng, tài chính, thuật ngữ

1 INTRODUCTION

Students in six out of the seven faculties in

Banking Academy (BA) are non-English majors

who are trained to be bank clerks with either

banking, law, accounting, or auditing profession

For them, English is not taught with the purpose

that the students will take it professionally in their

future career but use it to complete some certain

jobs like writing business letters, filling out some

slips, giving credit or they may need it for their

future training

These students are attending English classes

to improve their listening, reading, speaking and

writing skills, of which reading is given the greatest

account in almost every course book Moreover, in comparison with other skills, reading appears to

be used most often on the students’ future work Being a teacher of English in BA for more than

20 years, the researcher does realize that there are some problems encountering the teachers and students in BA, which leads to some unsatisfactory results in the teaching and learning reading English for Banking and Finance in BA In this paper the author wishes to identify some reasons bringing about the unsatisfactory classroom performance then gives some suggestions in order to improve the teaching and learning reading English for Banking and Finance for non-English major students in BA

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Reading English for specific purposes 1

A need analysis reveals that ESP learners need

English in order to be able to read texts in their

subject specialties (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987)

Therefore, one important goal in ESP teaching

is to increase the non-English major students’

reading skill

Having good ESP reading skills enables

the non-English major students to support their

academic studies, personal development and

professional success (Williams, 1990) In addition,

reading is as a skill of great importance to the

learner, because (a) it provides him with access to

a great quantity of further experience of language,

and (b) it gives him a window onto the normal

means of continuing his personal education

(Hammer, 1992)

From the descriptions above we cannot deny

that teaching ESP reading skill is very much

needed by non-English major students not only

for their academic studies, personal development

and professional success but also experience of

language and a window to further education

2.2 Reading in GE (General English) and in

ESP classes

Reading in GE classes and ESP classes both

involve teachers, students and texts that are used

to teach and to learn reading In general, these

factors function similarly in two types of teaching

English and they are all to cover the purpose of

the reading programs However, the teaching and

learning reading ESP and GE are not totally the

same The teachers, the students and the purposes

have individual features of their own

Like teachers of GE, teachers of ESP have

ability to work out the language command of their

students, so that they can set objectives for the

courses, select appropriate coursebooks as well as

design classroom activities and handouts for their

students At the same time, they must have some specialist knowledge to help their students acquire language objectives

Beside the purposes of any reading program,

“to enable students to read ‘without help’ unfamiliar authentic texts at appropriate speed, silently with adequate understanding’ (Nuttall,

1989, p.21), reading in ESP teaching and learning

is normally aimed to improve reading skills for the students and the authentic purposes of reading are often submerged by the purpose of language improvement For them, language is merely the means of achieving a non-linguistic purpose

2.3 Factors affecting ESP reading skills

2.3.1 Reading purposes

In ESP, it is assumed that the students are learning to use English as a study tool or research language (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987) Therefore, English is not only taught with the purpose of improving the students’ reading skills but also of familiarizing them with English language used in the field in terms of vocabularies, terminologies, registers… That is, after ESP reading classes students are supposed to be able to interpret texts of their specialist subjects in order

to get information for further studies in the most appropriate way

Although the purpose of ESP reading teaching and learning appears to be vocational, they share the same purpose with any other reading programs: that is to enable students to read ‘without help’ unfamiliar authentic texts at appropriate speed, silently, and with adequate understanding

2.3.2 Teachers

Some people would so far say that reading cannot be taught but only learnt, that there is nothing for the teachers to do in the reading class However, almost every ESP reading text in the books is not efficiently comprehended without the help of the teachers

Methodology aside, teacher is the most

important element in a reading class because

his/her attitudes influence the students and their

performance (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987) He/

she has to provide the students with the anxiety-free

atmosphere so they feel to experiment with a new

reading style He/ she also has to create a favorable

environment in which the students are able to

practice to master new reading strategies At the

same time, the teacher usually gives the students

pressure in the form of persuasion of timing

In an ESP reading class, Dyes (1980, pp.58-59)

stated, the teacher’s role involves getting students

to perform a familiar task in a new way and for a

variety of purposes To do this, he suggested that

the ESP reading teacher must assume the role of

‘empathizer’, first seeing things from the students’

perspective before leading them toward ESP

approach, then it is the teachers who have to act as

a researcher, a course designer, a material writer, a

tester, an evaluator as well as a classroom teacher

To cover all above requirements, the teacher

of ESP reading needs to have some knowledge of,

or at least access to information on, whatever it is

that the students are professionally involved with

on the subject that his/her students are studying

So that he/she can select texts and design his/her

own syllabus At the same time, it is the teacher

of ESP who must know how to encourage his/her

students to use their knowledge to interpret the

texts Through that, the students acquire unfamiliar

vocabularies or terminologies and new reading

strategies for different text styles

2.3.3 Students

The students in ESP reading classes have to

develop a considerable range of habitual responses

to a specific set of patterns of graphic shapes That

is, they have to recognize with ease particular

words, which clarify the function of other words

close to them and words which indicate logical

relationships among segments of sentences or

sections of discourse This means that the students

must learn to extract from the printed patterns three levels of meaning: lexical meaning (the sematic content of the word and expressions); structural or grammatical meaning (deriving from interrelationships among words, or parts of words,

or from the order of the words); and also cultural meaning (the evaluation which people of his own culture attach to the words and groups of words he

is reading)

Apart from all above activities in a reading classroom, ESP students also have to become familiar with English used in their disciplines Having acquired basic English in terms of grammar, vocabulary and having familiar with the reading activity, these students attend ESP reading classes with the hope to improve their reading skills in their majorities In addition, in ESP reading, the students would tackle texts which are full of terminologies that can be comprehensively understood only in combination with their available specialized knowledge A statement of

a bank requires students’ knowledge on Banking and Finance, whereas medical students need knowledge of heart operation and blood circulation

to understand a medical research… That is, students in ESP reading class should have ability

to combine their English competence with their background specialized knowledge Particulary, for vocational purposes, ESP students are in a more requirement of not only English language but also knowledge of the field

2.3.4 Reading materials

In GE teaching and learning, the presentation

of language through English texts (with appended comprehension questions) is well-established and very familiar practice These texts appear

in structurally graded courses and they seem primarily to be used as a vehicle for usage; to consolidate a grammatical structure and to provide students with a chance to practise a reading skill etc There are two kinds of reading texts: authentic and non – authentic

ESP materials are designed for the purposes

of providing learners with language for their

careers Besides, the target of improving learners’

language competence, ESP reading materials aim

to supply learners with terminologies on specialist

knowledge They, therefore, carry the language

used in samples taken from real – life situations or

simulations of them because it gives the students

the most direct impression on how language is

different from GE

3 METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research methods

The major method used in this study was

quantitative one That is all consideration,

comments, assumptions, suggestions and

conclusions given in the study were largely based

on the analysis of the statistical data collected from

two questionnaires responded by the teachers and

the students in Banking Academy

Questionnaires were delivered to informants

randomly then the answers were sorted out

before the author had some discussions with her

colleagues about what she had observed after she

had studied some relevant publications

3.2 Data collection instruments

The questionnaires were designed to investigate

problems in teaching and learning reading English

for Banking in Banking Academy The answers

were collected from 300 students and 15 teachers

in Banking Academy

For analysis, the author really wished

to investigate whether professional banking

disciplines influence the teaching and learning

reading English for Banking in Banking Academy,

the teachers’ difficulties, whether the teachers

and their students get satisfactory classroom

performance and whether they are using

appropriate course books

In the questionnaires, the consideration for

different options is considered very important

The author looked into the perception of the teachers and the students about the purposes of reading classes, the awareness of the students about the importance of reading skills in their future jobs, the harmony of the teachers and the students’ performance in reading class as well as the coursebooks in the view of the teachers and the students

3.3 The informants

This study was carried out among 15/20 full time teachers of English in Banking Academy and 300/ 500 students in their first term of learning reading English for banking in Banking Academy

Of the teachers, all have MA degrees of which three have degree in Business Management, 2 graduated from Foreign Trade University and 13 others have bachelor’s Degree in English language,

6 have attended many courses of Banking offered

by the State Bank of Vietnam and they all have at least 5 – year’s teaching experience

The 300 students under investigation have completed their General English courses which are supposed to qualify them with grade B1 as required

by the Ministry of Training and Education for university and College graduates These students were randomly chosen from the six faculties of Banking Academy They are trained to be work in banking area after graduation and almost have no experience working as bank clerks They, however, are learning many subjects concerning to banking principles

4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 The teachers and the students’ perception of the purposes of teaching and learning reading English for Banking

This graph gives an overview of the teachers and the students’ perception about the purpose

of reading classes for Banking and Finance It

is noticeable that all teachers (100%) and most students (84%) students put banking terminologies

and vocabularies to their foremost priority whereas

ideas in reading texts and specialist knowledge

draw attention of only 50% teachers and 54%

students Only 8% of the teachers pay attention

to types of texts That is both the teachers and

the students stick to the purpose of the teaching

4.2 The teachers’ difficulties in teaching reading English for Banking

and learning a reading English for banking is the teaching and learning terminologies They, as a result, are too busy with these and neglect other important purpose of any reading activity: to get information from the reading passages and drop proper strategies and skills for different types of text

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

120%

Grammar Ideas in the

reading texts vocabulariesBanking

and terminologies

Overrall specialist knowledge

types of reading texts Others

Graph 1: Teachers and students' perception of the purposes of teaching and learning reading English for Banking

teachers' perception students'perception

Graph 2: Teachers' difficulties

Letters in banking transaction Texts about a banking principles Conversations Banking reports and reviews Newspaper articles about banking Bank cards

4.3 The students’ difficulties

The survey also reveals difficulties of the

students when they learn reading English for

Banking Like their teachers, these students are

almost inexperienced to banking activities even

though they have been attending many courses on

specialist banking business However, about 84%

of the students find comprehending texts about

certain banking principles challenging and 45%

have difficulties interpreting banking reports and

reviews These two types of texts require both good

English command to the extent of vocabularies

and grammar and good background banking knowledge Like their teachers, students are almost strangers to the field The students’ shortage of banking terminologies, their unfamiliarity with the types of reading text resulted in their unsatisfactory reading output At the same time, they haven’t been used to comprehending the texts by making use of their available knowledge on their majority which hinders them from achieving the possible reading ability

As the illustration in this pie chart, teachers of

English in Banking Academy are sharing the same

problems with other ESP teachers They find it

challenging to deal with reading texts about Letters

of Credit, cheques or methods of international

payment which require some background

knowledge on banking principles However, the

ones about simple specialist banking knowledge

as bank cards or letters in banking transaction do

not challenge them that way This can be the result

of their lack of specialized banking knowledge

as 15/15 (100%) teachers admitted having

problems when giving their students’ explanation

of unfamiliar words and terminologies as well as

choosing extra materials for the students

Besides, the teaching and learning reading English for Banking in Banking Academy may not obtain its possible result owing to the teachers’ unawareness of their students’ reading habits and weaknesses (84%) As a result, their explanation of unfamiliar words and terminologies, pre – reading activities… may not receive positive response from their students

At the same time, to the field – specific knowledge, students seem to know more about the domain than the teachers This certainly leads

to the teacher’s inconfidence in their classroom performance

Graph 3: Students' difficulties

Letters in Banking transactions Texts about a certain banking principles

Conversations Banking reports and reviews

Newspaper articles about banking operation Bank cards

Moreover, the incomplete results in reading

were brought about by the students’ inadequate

levels of English Their inconfidence in

the language deters them from thoroughly

comprehending the reading texts, which

discourages them from exploring the reading texts

to the extent of language, of specialist knowledge

and maintenance of their reading habits

4.4 The reading materials

As materials are considered to be one of the

most important factors in teaching and learning

in general They can either be linguistic, books,

visual, audio… that is used to make the teaching

and learning efficient to acquire defined objectives

Reading materials in Banking Academy comes

from publications of Oxford University Press

which represent authentic language in credit cards, bill of lading, accounting principles, auditing both theoretically and realistically

When asked about their views on text books they are using in teaching and learning reading English for Banking in Banking Academy, about 67% of the teachers find it difficult to deal with the reading text whereas only 20% of the students shares the same view on course books This can be explained for the fact that students have acquired some basic banking disciplines from other subjects taught in Vietnamese and they are better able to

comprehend the texts (see Graph 4)

Reading texts used in teaching and learning reading English for banking in Banking Academy are quite adequate They, however, are a little limit in quantity and therefore do not give enough

0 0,1 0,2 0,3 0,4 0,5 0,6 0,7 0,8

Teachers' ideas Students' ideas

Graph 4: The teachers and the students' views on the reading texts

opportunities to do self-study and further practice

The reason behind this is the limit in the publications

which are for the purpose of improving students’

competence in specialist knowledge, language

grammar and skills

5 SOME IMPLICATIONS TO IMPROVE

READING ENGLISH FOR BANKING IN

BANKING ACADEMY

The questionnaires give a close look into the

present context of the teaching and learning reading

English for Banking in Banking Academy It has

identified problems encountered by the teachers

and the students in terms of banking disciplines,

language, materials… The author of this paper

would like to give some suggestions so as to better

the reading class performance for non – English

major students in Banking Academy

5.1 To the teachers

5.1.1 Improving background knowledge

on banking

Ellis & Johnson (1994, p.31) argued that ‘it

is really misconception that teacher needs to be

an expert in the subject matter He or she is not

teaching business strategies nor good management

practice, nor economic theory” and it is his/her task

to train their students to communicate in English

about the subject they are specialized in They

added that “it is learners who have the specific

content knowledge and who are able to bring that

knowledge to the classroom’ (p.26) However, it is

also suggested that the teachers of Business English

should be able to ask right questions and make good

use of the answer Surely, in their second and third

year, students in BA are somewhat be able to bring

their banking knowledge into their comprehensive

reading Teachers, thus, must be well – informed

about banking specialist discipline Of course, the

teachers, need not to be experts in the area and they

if they only concentrate on the linguistic features

and their students are responsible for interpreting

the specialist content, it is impossible for them

to handle a specialist material in acceptable manner either from a linguistic or conceptual point of view Therefore, it seems to be no doubt that, language teachers in BA would feel more confident in handling the specialist content if they have some background banking knowledge

An effort, therefore, should be made to equip the teacher with general knowledge on banking Such training could be from either of in – service or self – study These all would familiarize teachers with banking specialist knowledge, language…, which build up their confidence and effectiveness of their classroom performance

5.1.2 Being aware of their students’ language level

As the English command of students differed considerably, they may have certain difficulties

in comprehending reading texts in terms of grammar, vocabularies and genres, which lead

to unsatisfactory output of their learning to the extent of speed, reading strategies and finally fail

to improve their reading skills Their teachers, therefore, are supposed to help them identify their language learning problems and find solutions for them At the same time, it is also the teachers’ job to identify the skills their students need to comprehend the reading texts and developing their reading skills These duties can be met only when the teachers can recognize their students’ language inefficiency and help to fulfill their incomplete language competence

5.1.3 Redesigning reading materials to meet their student’s needs and be suitable for their English language command

It is clearly known that ESP course books are those designed for a specific group of students However, almost course books used in teaching English for Banking in Banking Academy are adopted from series designed by foreigners and for foreign students who may be far more familiar with banking transactions than those in Viet Nam

The course books, therefore, should be made to be

friendlier Teachers of English in Banking Academy

may collect more reading texts from other relevant

sources and design more tasks for their students

to do further practice in order to consolidate their

specialist knowledge, vocabularies, terminologies

in banking and fore mostly to improve their reading

skills in terms of reading strategies adaptation to

be efficient readers

ESP reading in Banking Academy aimed to

qualify the students so that they are able to cover

non-English major jobs That is, they must have

essential skills of communication in English within

business contexts So, materials selected should

be authentic to familiarize students with banking

principles and language competence, which all

together set a positive learning environment

5.2 To the students

5.2.1 Raising students’ awareness of the

importance of reading in their future work

The students should be aware of the fact that

most of them will work in banks and have contacts

with Vietnamese customers and therefore, speaking

and listening in English is not of frequent use In

the sense of getting information or knowledge

from periodical, reports, journals etc , reading,

however, is the most helpful for their work and

further study In this way, the students may feel

encouraged to pay more attention to reading

activities

5.2.2 Encouraging students to read with the

purpose of finding specific information from the

reading texts

Paying too much attention to linguistic

features in teaching and learning reading English

for Banking may bring about the neglect of the

major purpose: getting information from reading

passages At the same time, they appear to be

confused in adopting a proper reading skill for

each reading passage

For this, Abott, G.: Green J & Doughlas Mc (1990, p.83) stated in their book The teaching of English as an international language” “efficient reading depends first of all on having a purpose for reading, knowing why you are reading a text” and

“the purpose will usually determine the appropriate type of reading and the relevant reading skills to

be used”

For this, some improvement would be to set questions in the pre – reading state, which prepare students with vocabulary in the reading passage and set the purpose for the reading

5.2.3 Encouraging students to do reading

in English

Reading is a skill which needs practicing rather than learning Reading classes do not often provide adequate time to build it up as their objectives are

to help students familiar with the language in terms

of types of texts, language and appropriate reading strategies and reading speed As a result, to be efficient readers, students do more reading outside classroom to improve their ability to deal with various types of Letters of Credits, promissory notes, balance sheets, Bill of Exchange etc

6 CONCLUSION

In this paper, the author looks closely into the present context the teaching and learning reading English for Banking in BA in terms of the teachers, the students and the course books and has identified some problems that lead to unsatisfactory result

as the teachers’ performances in the class are not

of the preference of their students All these are brought about by the teachers and the students’ background banking specialist knowledge, terminologies, their perception about teaching and learning reading English for banking… The author then has given some suggestions to improve the teaching and learning reading English for Banking and Finance in Banking Academy./

SOME IMPLICATION TO IMPROVE THE TEACHING AND LEARNING READING

ENGLISH FOR BANKING IN BANKING ACADEMY

DINH THI BAC BINH Abstract: This paper deals with existing problems in teaching and learning reading English for

Banking and Finance in Banking Academy Being a teacher of English in Banking Academy for more than 20 years, the researcher does realize that there are some problems encountering the teachers and students in Banking Academy, which leads to some unsatisfactory results in the teaching and learning reading English for Banking and Finance in Banking Academy In this paper the author wishes to identify some reasons bringing about the unsatisfactory classroom performance then gives some suggestions in order to improve the teaching and learning reading English for Banking and Finance for non-English major students in Banking Academy

Keywords: ESP reading, specialist knowledge, banking, finance, terminologies

Received: 24/4/2018; Revised: 28/5/2018; Accepted for publication: 29/5/2018

Note:

1 ESP: English for specific purposes

Reference:

1 Abott, Gerry, Green, J., Douglas Mc (1990)

The Teaching of English as an International

Language New York: Collins E.L.T

2 Deyes, A F (1980) “The Role of The

Teacher and The Role of The Student in ESP

Courses”

3 Paper given at the 2nd national seminar of

the Brazillian National ESP project

4 Hammer, J (1992) The Practice of English Language Teaching London: Longman

5 Hutchinson, T & Waters, A (1987) English for Specific purposes Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

6 Ellis, M & Johnson, C (1994) Teaching Business English Oxford: Oxford University Press

7 Nutall, C (1989) Teaching Reading Skills

in a Foreign Language London: Heinermann

8 Williams, E (1990) Reading in The Language Classroom New York: Macmillan Publisher