An evaluation of the ESP materials for the 2nd year students of faculty of financial accounting, hà hoa tiên university in hà nam and suggestions for adaptation

POST-GRADUATE STUDIES *********************LÊ THU TRANG AN EVALUATION OF THE ESP MATERIALS FOR THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS OF FACULTY OF FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING, HÀ HOA TIÊN UNIVERSITY AND SUG

POST-GRADUATE STUDIES *********************

LÊ THU TRANG

AN EVALUATION OF THE ESP MATERIALS FOR THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS OF FACULTY OF FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING, HÀ HOA TIÊN UNIVERSITY AND SUGGESTIONS FOR ADAPTATION

Đánh giá giáo trình tiếng Anh chuyên ngành dành cho sinh viên năm thứ hai khoa Tài chính Kế toán trường Đại học Hà Hoa Tiên, Hà Nam và đề xuất

hiệu chỉnh giáo trìnhM.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111

Hanoi, 2014

POST-GRADUATE STUDIES *********************

LÊ THU TRANG

AN EVALUATION OF THE ESP MATERIALS FOR THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS OF FACULTY OF FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING, HÀ HOA TIÊN UNIVERSITY AND SUGGESTIONS FOR ADAPTATION

Đánh giá giáo trình tiếng Anh chuyên ngành dành cho sinh viên năm thứ hai khoa Tài chính Kế toán trường Đại học Hà Hoa Tiên, Hà Nam và đề xuất

hiệu chỉnh giáo trình

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111

SUPERVISOR: Dr TRẦN THỊ THU HIỀN

Hanoi, 2014

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I certify my authority of the submitted minor thesis entitled “An evaluation of the

ESP materials for the 2 nd year students of Faculty of Financial Accounting, Hà Hoa Tiên University in Hà Nam and suggestions for adaptation”, in terms of statement of

requirement for the thesis and the field study reports in Masters‟ programs, is the result of

my own work, except where otherwise acknowledged and that this minor thesis or any part

of the same had not been submitted for a higher degree to any other universities orinstitutions

Hanoi, August 2014

On the completion of this thesis, I would like to give my sincere thanks to manypeople for their encouragement and assistance during the preparation of my thesis

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor,

Dr Trần Thị Thu Hiền, who has been most willing and ready to give me valuable andhelpful guidance, advice and support during the most difficult time of thesis construction.Without her help, this thesis would not have been made possible

My special thanks also go to all the teachers in the English Department, at Hà HoaTiên University for their enthusiastic participation and constructive suggestions for thedevelopment of the study And I also wish to express my thanks for the great cooperationfrom the second year accounting students of the Faculty of Financial Accounting and thegraduated ones in the data collection of my study

My gratitude also extends to my lecturers for their interesting and helpful lessonsduring of working towards my master‟s degree

Last but not least, my sincere thanks go to my family who give me muchmotivation, energy and support in accomplishing this challenging work

Coursebook evaluation is of great importance in assessing how effective acoursebook is to the teaching and learning of foreign languages The thesis is carried out in

an attempt to evaluate the suitability of the coursebook “English for Finance” (Cao Xuân

Thiều, 2008, Publisher of Finance) for the second year students of financial accounting at

Hà Hoa Tiên University, in Hà Nam to the course‟s objectives in terms of aims, contents,and methodology The study makes use of survey research approach with data collectioninstruments of questionnaires in form of Likert rating scale type, informal interviews, andwith the involvement of 69 informants Type of summative evaluation was chosen to seekfor significant improvements for subsequent use The findings points out that thecoursebook is partially suitable to the course‟s objectives and would be subsequently usedfor incoming ESP courses at the university However, seeking for effectively andcompletely obtaining given objectives of the course, there should be necessaryimprovements to be made with the coursebook in terms of language components, readingtopics, types of exercises and tasks, guidance and suggestion for further study and practice

as recommended in the study

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ABBRIVIATIONS

LIST OF TABLES

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1.Rationale

2.Aims of the study

3.Scope of the study

4.Research question

5.Research method

6.Significance of the study

7.Design of the study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 ESP course evaluation 1.1.1What is meant by evaluation? 1.1.2Why should the evaluation be carried out? 1.1.3When should the evaluation be occurred? 1.1.4How can the evaluation be carried out? 1.1.5Who should be involved in the evaluation 1.2 Materials, coursebook and textbook .

1.3 Materials Adaptation 1.3.1Definition and principles of materials adaptation 1.3.2Materials adaptation techniques 1.4 Previous studies 1.5 Chapter summary CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .

2.1 Context of the study

2.1.1 2.1.2 2.1.3 2.1.4

2.2 Data collection

2.2.1

2.2.2

2.2.2.2 For the informal interviews .

2.2.3 2.3 Chapter summary CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS .

3.1 Subjective analysis 3.2 Objective analysis 3.2.1 3.2.2 3.2.3 3.3 Findings and discussions 3.3.1 3.3.2 3.3.3 3.4 Recommendations for the coursebook’s adaptation 3.4.1 3.4.2 3.4.3 3.5 Chapter summary PART C: CONCLUSION

1.Recapitulation

2.Concluding remarks

3 Limitations of the study

Hà Hoa Tiên University

Vietnam National University – University of Languages and

International Studies

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Statistics on the 2 nd year students‟ opinions on the coursebook in

terms of aims Table 2: Statistics on the 13 graduated students‟ opinions towards the

statement 1 (appendix 1) Table 3: Statistics on the graduated students‟ opinions toward statements 4

and 5 (appendix 1) Table 4: Statistics on the 13 graduated students‟ opinions towards the

statement 6 (appendix 1) Table 5: Statistics on the 53 second year students‟ opinions towards the

statement 6 (appendix 2) Table 6: Statistics on the 13 second year students‟ opinions towards the

statements 7 and 8 (appendix 1) Table 7: Statistics on the 2 nd year students‟ opinions toward statements 7

and 8 (appendix 2) Table 8: Statistics on the 53 second year students‟ opinions towards the

statement 9 (appendix 2) Table 9: Statistics on the 2 nd year students‟ opinions toward statements 10

and 11 (appendix 2)

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale

In the article “Today‟s students‟ gaps in English for specific purposes” on the

Labor newspaper, the director of Petech Corporation said that a number of today‟s youngemployees were not good at English for specific purposes and they were unable to getpromoted in their jobs He mentioned inappropriate trainings in ESP as the main reason forthe fact that lots of them were unable to read English specialized documents, or to translatetheir transaction documents from Vietnamese to English and vice versa, causingbackwardness in their jobs In another article (Mạnh Trường, 2014), the manager of humanresources of Panasonic System Networks Vietnam Company stated that knowledge of ESPwas a great barrier of many Vietnamese graduated students in career promotion, especially

at enterprises with foreign direct investment

The mentioned above facts raise out a question for educational institutions andeducators that whether or not the ESP training programs they offer are suitable for theirstudents and manage to skill them up to today‟s increasingly demanding employmentrequirements More importantly, as cited by Dudley-Evans and St John (1998: 13), it isreally necessary for ESP practitioners to follow up with their students after the course inorder to assess whether the students have been able to make use of what they learned and

to find out what they were not prepared for

Since the establishment of HHT University‟s Faculty of English Language in 2007,the faculty‟s teaching staff has compiled some ESP coursebooks, including one forFinancial Accounting, as materials for the ESP teaching and learning at the university TheESP coursebook for the 2nd year students of Financial Accounting was brought into use in

2009 with the aims of providing the students with English vocabulary relevant to theirmajor and skills marketable for their future employment However, whether or not thecousebook is suitable to the course syllabus is still of a great concern by the university‟smanagement board and ESP teachers This study on the ESP coursebook evaluation istherefore an effort to help them deal with this concern

2. Aims of the study

The study aims to assess how suitable is the coursebook “English for Finance” (CaoXuân Thiều, 2008) used for the second year students of financial accounting at Hà

Hoa Tiên University to the course‟ objectives in terms of aims, contents, and methodology.

It also aims to offer some recommendations for further improvements of the coursebookseeking for subsequent uses for in-coming courses at the university After all, it is carriedout in an attempt to help the university‟s management board to deal with its commonconcern about how well its university‟s students of financial accounting have beenprepared for their future employment with the ESP and whether or not they can use whatthey have learned from the course

3. Scope of the study

There are many criteria to be taken into consideration when evaluating thecoursebook, such as audience, physical appearance, needs, and so on However, the studyonly focuses on a summative evaluation on the suitability of the coursebook‟s aims,contents, and methodology to the course‟s objectives

4. Research question

This study is going to deal with the university‟s common concern about if theuniversity‟s graduated students of financial accounting are able to use what they havelearned with the ESP course and what they have been not prepared for Thus, the research

question to be answered is: “How suitable is the ESP coursebook for the 2 nd year students

of Financial Accounting at Hà Hoa Tiên University to the course‟s objectives in terms of aims, contents, and methodology?”.

5. Research method

The study follows a survey research approach The research question was addressed

by using both quantitative and qualitative data A survey questionnaire was used to collectthe needed data, and aimed at exploring the opinions and attitudes of the on-studyingstudents and graduate ones Besides, informal interview questions with the three ESPteachers were also used for better understanding of the participants, as well as theirlearning condition

6. Significance of the study

The results of this study will benefit the students, the ESP teachers, then theuniversity administrators This study is significant because it will provide valuable factsabout the students and teachers‟ needs, attitude and opinions over the in-use ESP material.The ESP teachers will better understand the difficulties and strength in using the material

thereby reconstructing their lessons, in terms of aims, contents, and methodology, to obtainthe course‟s objectives and to well prepare the students for their future jobs.

This study will serve as the basis for future plans of action by the universityadministrators with regards to the necessary actions for any investments in ESP teachingmaterials Furthermore, it will join a common effort in providing stimuli for further studies

of the same nature

7. Design of the study

The study encompasses three parts as following:

- Part A, Introduction, provides information on the rationale, aims, scope,

research question, methods, significance and design of the study

- Part B, Development, is comprised of three major chapters

i) Chapter 1, Literature Review, provides theories related to ESP coursebook evaluation and material adaptation

ii) Chapter 2, Research Methodology, represents the context of the study, theparticipants, data collection instruments, data collection procedure, and dataanalysis procedure

iii) Chapter 3, Data Analysis and Discussions, presents the subjective analysis onthe course‟s objectives, collected data analysis on the coursebook evaluation,and discusses the findings that arise from the data, then it presents some

recommendations for material improvement

- Part C, Conclusion, presents major findings, limitation of the study, and

suggestion for further studies

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter is to provide a literature review which serves as theoretical frameworkfor the study It is to provide basic understandings about ESP course evaluation; concepts

of materials, coursebook, and textbook; and materials adaptation

1.1 ESP course evaluation

According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 152), the ESP course, like any course,should be regularly demonstrated that its continued existence in its present form isjustified Since the ESP course exists to satisfy a particular educational need, evaluationhelps to show how well the course is actually fulfilling the need There are four mainaspects of ESP course evaluation (Alderson and Waters, 1983) and one more added byHutchinson and Waters (1987: 96) to be considered as below

1.1.1 What is meant by evaluation?

The term “evaluation” is introduced by Dudley-Evans and St John to refer to “the

process of establishing the effectiveness” (1998: 121) They put that “fundamentally evaluation is asking questions and acting on the responses” (1998: 128) More specific

than these linguists‟ definition, Hutchinson and Waters‟ one is concerned with “matching

needs to available solution” (1987: 97) Evaluation, in this sense, is basically a matching

process which should be done as objectively as possible In Brown‟s words (1989: 231),coursebook evaluation is to systematically collect and analyze all relevant information forthe purpose of later improving a curriculum It also concerns with a necessary assessmentregarding to the curriculum‟s effectiveness and efficiency, as well as the participants‟attitudes within the context

From the above definitions, evaluation can be understood as a systematic process ofconsidering whether the content, the language area, and the methodology of the coursebookare appropriate and useful to the learners, whether what they want and need is likelymaximized, and whether the goals of the course are matched Thus, it is indeed important

to take the ESP teachers and learns‟ opinions into account, not only the objectives sated inthe coursebook

1.1.2 Why should the evaluation be carried out?

There are a number of reasons for conducting coursebook evaluation Sheldon(1988: 237-246) has suggested several reasons for it The author states that the selection of

a textbook is indicator of an educational decision in which there is considerable

professional, financial, and even political investment Sheldon further argues that throughevaluation, teachers will become familiar with the content of available coursebooks andrecognize the weakness and strengths of them Ellis (1997: 36-42) cited that one reason forevaluating teaching materials is to make a choice of the most suitable material among theavailable ones before for the courses takes place The author also mentioned another reasonthat evaluation is carried out to decide whether to continue using the material or to replace

it with a better one after it has been used for a period of time

It can not be denied that the coursebook evaluation is an exceedingly complexactivity It is really important to the class-room teachers, supervisors and administrators indirecting as well as guiding teaching and learning Evaluation also helps to measure thevalidity and reliability of teaching techniques, aids in devising more effective instructionalmaterials, and helps teacher to discover the needs of students It stimulates students tostudy and is helpful to teachers indeed

1.1.3 When should the evaluation be occurred?

The evaluation can be taken place before an ESP course begins, or while the course

is ongoing, or at the end of the course According to Robinson (1991: 59), before an ESPcourse begins, the evaluation is namely preliminary evaluation Having much in commonwith Robinson‟s viewpoint, McGrath (2002: 14-15) defines the evaluation at the beginning

of ESP course as pre-use evaluation According to him, pre-use evaluation is to examinethe future or potential performance of a textbook

McGrath names the evaluation during the ongoing course as in-use evaluationwhich is designed to examine the currently used textbook (2002: 15) The evaluation at thisstage is termed formative evaluation by Robinson (1991: 58) The term is also reintroduced

by Dudley-Evans and St John (1998: 128), and they further argue that it consists of a series

of mini-evaluations and helps to make necessary modifications to the course includingmaterials and books

Sharing Robinson‟s viewpoint, they differentiate the formative evaluation fromsummative evaluation which takes place at the end of the course or when the course is

finished in a sense that the summative one is used to measure the usefulness of the courseand make improvement in subsequent versions of the course or materials Terming theevaluation post-use evaluation, Ellis (1997: 36-42) also puts that the evaluation of this typehelps to decide how to improve the given textbook for subsequent use Generally speaking,

in their argument, the evaluation is said to be valuable for durable course

1.1.4 How can the evaluation be carried out?

Ellis (1997: 41) advocates that evaluation should be taken place on empirical basis

It can be of benefit to teachers if they involve themselves in formalizing the proceduresused to carry out micro-evaluation as they must go beyond impressionistic assessments.Recently, Chambers (1997: 32-33) also looks at the evaluation on an empirical basis Hecites that it deserves mention as it attempts to be time-conscious and concise in its lay-out

However, Sheldon (1988: 241-245) provides the evaluator with more concise

“common-core factors” for choosing and evaluating texts The coverage includes very practically-based criteria such as “guidance” (how teachers and students should use the material) and “flexibility” (does the material require the teacher to do too much

preparation?) Such inclusion of even visual and financial criteria would be of directrelevance to many evaluators Rational use of checklist as a way to evaluate ESP courses isalso advocated by Hutchinson and Water (1987: 99-104) Their checklist is not exhaustive

in comparison with Sheldon‟s one, allowing evaluators to find other criteria which theyfeel are important They also introduce four steps of materials evaluation, includingdefining criteria, subjective analysis, objective analysis, and matching (1987: 97) Assuggested by them, evaluation criteria should be set out in a form which will make it easy

to compare different sets of materials, and the subjective analysis is seen as a fixed set ofrequirements

In theory, there are many ways in which the ESP course can be evaluated, rangingfrom stimulations to suggestion boxes (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987: 153) However,according to Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 153-154) in practice, most ESP courses areevaluated using one or more of such techniques as test results, questionnaires, discussions,interviews, informal means (unsolicited comment, causal charts, etc.) Which techniques to

be used will depend on what suits teaching situation best

1.1.5 Who should be involved in the evaluation

Chambers (1997: 34) advises that selection and evaluation of materials should be

conducted by a “wide range of users” in order to encourage “ownership” of any decision

made The extent of involvement of any group will vary, but in practice, it is likely that thebodies most closely concerned will be the ESP teaching institution, the ESP teachers, thelearners, and the course sponsors (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987: 154) Hutchinson andWaters put that evaluation will be concerned with people‟s perceptions of value and theirviews will vary according to their own interests and concerns They all agree that who to beasked and how to ask will affect what to be found out

1.2 Materials, coursebook and textbook

Tomlinson (1998: xi) defines teaching materials as “anything which is used to help

teaching language earners” The author adds that materials can be “in the form of a textbook, a workbook, a cassette, a CD-Room, a video, a photocopied handout, a newspaper, a paragraph written on a whiteboard” Both Tomlinson (1998: ix) and

McGrath (2002: 7) consider a coursebook as a textbook which provides the core materialsfor a course The core materials which are used in teaching are usually paper-based, then

coursebook is somehow the core material serving as „source of language‟ and learning

support, and used for motivation and reference (Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998: 171)

170-1.3 Materials Adaptation

1.3.1 Definition and principles of materials adaptation

Adaptations are stated as teaching and assessment strategies especially designed toaccommodate a student‟s needs so he or she can achieve the learning outcomes of thesubject or course and to demonstrate mastery of concepts (British Columbia Ministry ofEducation, 2009: 2) Concerning with determining how to best use an assigned textbookrather than how to best select an appropriate textbook, McGrath (2002: 59) describes theprocess of adaptation as the „extension or exploitation of the existing material‟ for use in aspecific teaching context that has its own unique demands McGrath focuses much more on

an exploration of current understanding of the benefits and drawback of textbooks and how

to evaluate them with the ultimate goal of adaptation of the textbook for use in a foreignteaching environment

Grant (1987) has listed the following principles for materials adaptation:

i) Making dialogues communicative

ii) Making learning activities relevant and purposeful

iii) Meeting your learners‟ needs, both external and psychological

iv) Using models of real, authentic language

In an investigation, Chunmei Yan (2007) states that teachers base their adaptation

on four principles, namely to integrate traditional and communicative methods, to cater forstudents‟ needs, to integrate as multiple language skills as possible, and to meet their ownpreferences and needs She advocates Grant‟s viewpoint in a sense that materialsadaptation should focus on meeting students‟ needs and preferences

Adaptation involves supplementation, that is, teachers add materials from otherresources to the textbook they are using It is believed that authentic materials are betterthan non-authentic materials for supplementation So teachers who make a point ofcollecting authentic materials find it much easier to adapt textbooks This is especially true

in ELT contexts where authentic English materials are not always readily to hand

1.3.2 Materials adaptation techniques

McDonough and Shaw (1993: 79-89) mention five techniques, including: adding,deleting, modifying, simplifying, and reordering

- By the word “adding”, the author implies that materials are supplemented by

putting more into them, while considering the practical effect of time allocation

- Deleting is the opposite process to that of addition This technique includes such

activities as subtraction (i.e the quantitative reduction of the content without anymethodological changes in the content) and abridgement (i.e influencing both themethodology and the content)

- Modifying includes such steps as rewriting and restructuring Rewriting is utilized

when the content of the materials needs modification; whereas, restructuringapplies to classroom management

- Simplifying can be utilized for the purpose of adapting language materials As

McDonough and Shaw put it, simplification can be used for such parts of coursematerials as sentence structure, lexical content, grammatical structure, and so on

- Reordering refers to the possibility of putting the parts of a textbook in a different

order This many mean the adjustment of presentation sequence within a unit ortaking unit in a different sequence from that originally intended

Maley (1998) also introduces a number of options for a teacher who wants to adaptmaterials, including omission, addition, reduction, extension, rewriting and modification,replacement, reordering, and branching In practice, language teachers will not use all thetechniques for a particular unit of a lesson Instead, techniques can be used individually or

in combination with others depending on the teacher‟s decision underlying the adaptationtowards particular part of a given teaching material

1.4 Previous studies

It is said that there have been a variety of studies on cousebook evaluation,particularly ESP coursebook evaluation Nemati‟s study published on a journal of language(2009: 91-99) has been introduced as one specialized in a systematic vocabularyevaluation Another study can also be mentioned here, that is a study on a textbookevaluation for the students of speech therapy by Jamshidi (2013) This study aimed toevaluate an ESP textbook in terms of McDonough and Shaw (2003) based on external andinternal evaluation This evaluation revealed that the ESP textbook would be appropriatewith some modifications and also with some additional materials to meet the needs of thestudents of computer sciences Differently from Jamshidi, Baleghizadeh and Rahimi (2013)

attempt to describe a process that was undertaken to evaluate the textbook English for the

Students of Sociology: Social Science Texts taught at the University of Tehran The purpose

of their research project was to determine the overall pedagogical value and suitability ofthe book toward this specific language program

In Vietnam, there seem to be not many M.A minor theses relevant to evaluation ofESP coursebook of financial accounting From the database of VNU-ULIS, the electronicrecords of M.A minor theses in 2010 show some typical evaluations of ESP coursebooksfor geography engineering (Nguyêñ Thi Kiềụ Giang , 2010), tour guide (Ngô Thi Myỵ̃Binh̀ ,2010), and so on , and in 2013 evaluations of ESP coursebooks for marine engine (LươngThị Minh Thu, 2013), pharmaceutical course (Nguyêñ Thi Thạạ̉o, 2013), and economics andbusiness management (Nguyêñ Thi Maị Hương , 2013) The common things among theseresearchers lie in their use of Hutchinson and Water‟s four major steps of evaluation, andtheir evaluations are summative

There have not been many researchers interested in evaluating ESP coursebook forfinancial accounting so far In HàHoa Tiên University alone , there have not been anyevaluation conducted in terms of coursebook in general and ESP coursebook in particular

Therefore, my study on evaluating ESP coursebook for the second year students ofFinancial Accounting at this university is really in need and plays a significant role.

1.5 Chapter summary

Though coursebook evaluation and materials adaptation are understood andpresented in different ways by different theorists or linguists, works relevant to coursebookevaluation and materials adaptation introduced so far by them have been found astheoretical framework for any researches in this area Under a summative evaluationapproach, the current study was underway basing on Hutchinson and Water‟s four majorsteps of evaluation For the purpose of the current study, rational use of checklist would be

of good choice, one presented by Hutchinson and Water would be adapted

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This section seeks to represent methodology of the study, including the context ofthe study, the data collection instrument, and procedures of data collection and dataanalysis

2.1 Context of the study

2.1.1 The ESP course

The study has been taken place in Hà Hoa Tiên (HHT) university, a privateuniversity established seven years ago in Hà Nam province The total university population

is accounted for 421, with 219 students majoring at financial accounting It has beenoffering the students of financial accounting a two stage course of ESP as below:

- Stage 1 (semester 3) consists of 45 credit hours of ESP1

- Stage 2 (semester 4) consists of 45 credit hours of ESP2

Accordingly, the ESP is taught to FOFA‟s students in the third and the fourthsemesters following 120 credit hours of English for general purposes (EGP) in the first andthe second semesters, 60 credit hours of EGP for each The course is compulsory to thestudents It is to train students with skills in English reading comprehension andtranslation, enhance their English grammar knowledge, and provide them with Englishtechnical vocabulary relevant to economics, finance, banking, accounting, marketing,business administration and so on Finishing the course, the students are expected to beable to read English written documents on financial accounting, translate financial andaccounting documents from English to Vietnamese and vice versa, and make transactiondocuments in English They are hoped to be skillful up to requirements of their future jobs

2.1.2 The ESP coursebook

The coursebook has been kept the same since it was first employed in the university

in 2009 Its title is „English for Finance‟ comprising of 42 units which are categorized into

six major topics including economics, money and banking, finance, accounting andauditing, financial analysis, and international business Of the 42 units, only twenty unitswere selected for the ESP course of FOFA‟s the second year students Ten units for the firststage of the course cover the topics of economics, money and baking, including:

Unit 1: Economics

Unit 2: Economic system

Unit 3: Microeconomics

Unit 4: Macroeconomics

Unit 5: Demand and supply

Unit 6: Raising money for investment

Unit 7: Money and its functions

Unit 8: Money and banking

Unit 9: Banks and interest rate

Unit 10: Banking business

Other ten units for the second stage cover the topics of accounting and auditing, financial analysis, and international business, including

Unit 1: What is accounting?

Unit 2: The balance sheet

Unit 3: Auditing

Unit 4: The roles of auditors

Unit 5: Distinction between accounting and auditing

Unit 6: Financial analysis

Unit 7: Financial evaluation

Unit 8: International business

Unit 9: Trade and surplus deficits

Unit 10: What is the balance of payment?

Each unit has three main sections, including reading comprehension, language focus, and word study

Types of tasks and exercises in the coursebook are pointed out as following:

- Reading comprehension: answering given questions, multiple choices, true or false

- Language focus: gap filling, sentence completion, sentence transformation, matching, mistake identification

- Word study: sentence completion, matching, gap filling, word formation, multiple choices

2.1.3 Other ESP materials resources

Since its establishment in 2009, the faculty‟s teaching of EGP and ESP has been underway by both permanent and non-permanent teaching staffs The permanent teaching

staffs cover an estimated 70% of the teaching jobs, and there are about three ESP teacherswho are the university‟s permanent staffs and in charge of teaching the second yearstudents of Financial Accounting with ESP courses There has not been a fully equippedlab for teaching English in the university so far Two CD players and the coursebook serve

as the main materials of teaching and learning ESP at the university As the coursebookconsists of no listening tasks, the two CD players play no role in this case

2.1.4 Participants

The participants in the study involve 53 second year students of financialaccounting who have just finished their ESP course Their age is ranged from 22 to 23 andthey are both male and female Most of these students have been learning English for noless than five years None of them starts learning English after being admitted to theuniversity

The second group of participants encompasses 13 graduate students who haveexperienced the ESP course at the university and are working as accounting staffs atdifferent companies They are selected at random to participate into the research via emailcontact

The third group involves three ESP teachers of the university They are from 32 to

35 years old and are female All of them have taught second-year students with thematerial They have experienced in teaching English for Financial Accounting at least for ayear It is noticeable that they are all non-majoring at Financial Accounting Two of themhave master degree and one is attending a master course

2.2 Data collection

2.2.1 Data collection instruments

The research made use of the instruments of questionnaire and informal interviews

to collect data

2.2.1.1 Questionnaire

The survey questionnaires were designed to evaluate the ESP coursebook fromperceptions of the targeted 53 the second-year students who have just finished the ESPcourse and 13 graduate students who have ever experienced the ESP course at Hà Hoa TiênUniversity The survey questionnaires consisted two parts The first was to get theparticipants‟ personal information The second one contained questions designed in the

form of Likert scale type making use of five scales ranging from strongly agree to strongly

disagree The survey questionnaires seeked to find out the participants‟ opinions toward

the coursebook The results from the survey questionnaires were used to assess the fitness

of the coursebook to the course‟ objectives in terms of aims, contents, and methodology

2.2.1.2 Informal interviews

These were unstructured interviews which were intentionally free talks with thethree ESP teachers seeking for their opinions on the coursebook in terms of aims, contents,and methodology They were conducted based on the teachers‟ agreement about where andwhen the interviews were convenient for them Their opinions were recorded on aninterview report

2.2.2 Data collection procedures

2.2.2.1 For the questionnaire

- Step 1: Designing questionnaires for the students in the form of Liker five rating scale type

- Step 2: Delivering questionnaires to the 2nd year students after their lessons andthe students were requested to complete the questionnaire during the class time;those to the graduate group were sent via email, they were kindly asked to replywithin three days

- Step 3: Handling the process of questionnaires‟ fulfillment by the 53 secondyear students who were gathered in one room, answering their questions, is any,

to make sure that the students clearly understood the survey questions, andcollecting the papers, 53 ones in total; keeping in touch with the selected 13participants of graduated group to ensure that the questionnaires would be sentback on due date, and to explain the questions if anyone were in need to makethem clear, 13 questionnaires were collected at the end

2.2.2.2 For the informal interviews

The interviews were conducted with the three ESP teachers during their relaxing time at their offices Open-ended questions were used to elicit the needed data

2.2.3 Data analysis procedures

The process was divided into three stages, objective analysis, subjective analysis, and the matching

The first stage aimed to subjectively realize the course‟s objectives by looking carefully at the course syllabus itself

The second stage was to objectively evaluate the coursebook from the targeted year students, graduate students, and the ESP teachers‟ perceptions It focused onexploring their opinions and attitudes toward the coursebook in terms of aims, contents,and methodology The stage made use of different tables to represent its results.

2nd-The last stage was to match the results of the stages of objective analysis andsubjective analysis basing on one-by-one comparison for the purpose of evaluating thesuitability of the coursebook with the course‟s objectives This stage made use ofHutchinson and Waters‟ way of awarding points (1989: 104) as below:

0 = does not match the desired feature

1 = partially match the desired feature

2 = closely match the desired feature

2.3 Chapter summary

In brief, the course of ESP for HHT‟s students of financial accounting is dividedinto two stages with 90 credit hours in total The study involved 69 people, including thesecond-year and graduate students of financial accounting, and the ESP teachers For thegiven purposes of evaluating the suitability of the coursebook to the course syllabus, theresearcher made use of two important instruments of questionnaire and informal interview

to collect the needed data Descriptive strategy and some analysis tools of tables were used

to present the results

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS

This chapter deals with the three stages of analyzing data including materialanalysis as an objective one, the coursebook analysis as subjective one, the matching ofsubjectively realizing the course objectives and coursebook evaluation‟s results It alsorepresents major findings in evaluating the suitability of the coursebook to the course‟sobjectives Some recommendations for the coursebooks‟ adaptation are also to beintroduced

3.1 Subjective analysis

This section puts its emphases on subjectively realizing the course‟ objectives bylooking carefully at the course syllabus itself; other points included in the course syllabus,like the prerequisites, time allocation, grading plans, tentative schedule, and so on are notintroduced, and may need further studies later The course is to:

- Introduce students topics on financial accounting which are closely relevant to theirbackground knowledge and beneficiary for their future career

- Introduce students to typical English concepts, terms relevant to financial

accounting, thus enhance their English technical vocabulary

- Introduce students to such certain points of English grammar as as if clause, the passive and active voices, result clauses with so…that… and such…that…, relative

clauses, compound nouns, verb tenses (past simple, present perfect), subordinate

clauses, the gerunds, use of must/have to, infinitive of purpose, preposition of

amount and difference, defining and non-defining relative clauses, adjectivemodification, and prefixes

- To provide students with opportunities to develop English reading comprehensionand translation skill, from English to Vietnamese and vice versa, in respect tofinancial accounting, thus help them to be able to read and translate Englishreference documents for updating their knowledge and serving well for their futureemployments

- To provide students with training in English writing comprehension, then they canmake and understand transaction documents in English relevant to their future jobs

- To raise students‟ awareness of the importance of the ESP to their future jobs

helps you to train

with English oral

comprehension and translation in the area of financial accounting, and improves theirEnglish grammar knowledge Likewise, data collected from the survey questionnaire forthe graduated students also shows a strong agreement among them with the statement thatwhat they have learned with the ESP, including English reading comprehension,vocabulary, grammar, and translation, are really useful for their works The statistic data ispointed out in the table below:

Table 2: Statistics on the 13 graduated students’ opinions towards the statement 1

Table 3: Statistics on the graduated students’ opinions toward statements 4 and 5

grammar because

there is no need for

oral

communication

with your job

As can be seen from the table, 76.93% in total of the students from the graduatedgroup agreed and strongly agreed with the statement that the coursebook‟s emphasis put onEnglish reading comprehension, vocabulary, grammar and translation is socially acceptedand suitable to their current job requirements The same statistic data was also collectedfrom the interview with the three ESP teachers The interview‟s reported result (appendix

3) shows that all of them shared the same idea that with the coursebook, their studentswould be able to comprehensively read English documents relevant to financialaccounting, improve their English grammar knowledge, and enrich their Englishvocabulary in financial accounting

The interview report (appendix 3) also points out that there was only one of themmentioning that the coursebook provides their students opportunities to practice Englishoral communication And 100% of them mentioned nothing about the idea relating toopportunities for their students to be trained with English writing comprehension.Meanwhile, there were not many graduated students who thought that they have been givenmany opportunities to train with English writing comprehension from the coursebook Thestatistic figures are clearly shown in Table 3.2.1.4 as following

Table 4: Statistics on the 13 graduated students’ opinions towards the statement 6

3.2.2 In terms of contents

In the interview, all three participated teachers had the same idea that their studentshave been provided with topics closely related to their major (appendix 3) Their point wasalso advocated by 37 out of 53 students from the un-graduated group, accounting for69.81% in total The following table shows the details about this

Table 5: Statistics on the 53 second year students’ opinions towards the statement 6 (appendix 2)

Table 6: Statistics on the 13 second year students’ opinions towards the statements 7 and

3.2.3 In terms of methodology

It is stated by the interviewed teachers that their students found it difficult toanswer reading comprehension questions given in the coursebook (interview report,

appendix 3) Relating to this point, the 2nd year students shared their viewpoint as being shown in the following table.

Table 7: Statistics on the 2 nd year students’ opinions toward statements 7 and 8 (appendix 2)

The teachers also said their students have not been motivated with grammar andwords study‟s tasks as individual works (interview report, appendix 3) Besides, there was

a consensus among the students from the un-graduated group with the statement 9(appendix 2) as can be seen in the table below

Table 8: Statistics on the 53 second year students’ opinions towards the statement 9 (appendix 2)