Challenges for teachers and students in the ESP course for police studies

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ---TRAN THI HUONG GIANG CHALLENGES FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS IN THE

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

-TRAN THI HUONG GIANG

CHALLENGES FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS IN THE ESP COURSE FOR POLICE STUDIES (Những thách thức đối với giảng viên và sinh viên trong việc dạy và học

tiếng Anh chuyên ngành cảnh sát)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

HANOI, 2019

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

-TRAN THI HUONG GIANG

CHALLENGES FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS IN THE ESP COURSE FOR POLICE STUDIES (Những thách thức đối với giảng viên và sinh viên trong việc dạy

và học tiếng Anh chuyên ngành cảnh sát)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Supervisor: Dr Tran Thi Thu Hien

HANOI, 2019

Hanoi, 2019

Tran Thi Huong Giang

Also, I would like to give my warmest thanks to all of the lectures and officersworking at the Postgraduate Faculty, University of Languages and InternationalStudies, for their supporting me while I was studying and conducting this thesis.

I would like to extend my special thanks to all the research participants, mydear colleagues and students Without their valuable opinions and ideas in thequestionnaires, the study would not have been accomplished

Last but not least, I owe my family their continuous support Their patience andlove have helped me go beyond what sometimes looks like an insurmountable task

This study was intended to investigate the challenges for teachers andstudents in the ESP course for police studies More specifically, the researcherstrived to (i) investigate challenges that the teachers and students encounter inteaching and studying the ESP course for police studies, and (ii) propose somesuggestions to overcome these challenges

To achieve the above mentioned objectives, a survey research was conductedwith the participation of 24 teachers and 100 students at an academy in Ministry

of Public Security The data came from a questionnaire for the teachers, aquestionnaire for the students, and interviews with some of the participants.The results from data analysis have shown that the teachers had suchdifficulties as knowledge of the subject, class organization, teaching methods, thelearners’ English proficiency, time-constraint, as well as the course book andteaching materials From the other perspectives, the students had to face up withchallenges like time-constraint, the students’ English proficiency, knowledge ofthe subject, motivation and studying habits On the basis of the findings, somerecommendations were given to help solve the challenges met by the teachersand the students

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii

LIST OF TABLE AND FIGURES viii

PART A INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale for the study 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

3 Research questions 2

4 Research method 2

5 Scope of the study 2

6 Significance of the study 3

7 Structure of the thesis 3

PART B DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 4

1.1 English for Specific Purposes 4

1.1.1 Definitions and characteristics of ESP 4

1.1.2 English for Specific Purposes vs General English 7

1.1.3 Types of ESP 7

1.1.4 Features of ESP courses 10

1.1.5 ESP teaching material 13

1.1.6 The roles of ESP teachers 13

1.1.7 The roles of ESP learners 14

1.1.8 ESP learners’ motivation 16

1.2 Previous studies 18

1.3 Chapter summary 19

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 21

2.1 Research setting 21

2.2 Participants 21

2.3 Research types 22

2.4 Data collection instruments 22

2.4.1 Questionnaires 22

2.4.2 Interviews 23

2.5 Data collection procedure and analysis 23

2.6 Chapter summary 24

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 25

3.1 Results of the survey questionnaires 25

3.1.1 The questionnaires for ESP teachers 25

3.1.2 Results of the questionnaire for the students 29

3.2 Results of the Semi-Structured Interviews 31

3.2.1 Teachers and students’ suggestions to improve their knowledge 31

3.2.2 Teachers’ suggestions for class organization 33

3.2.3 Teachers’ suggestions for teaching methods 33

3.2.4 Teachers and students’ suggestions to enhance students’ English proficiency 34 3.2.5 Teachers and students’ suggestions for time-constraint 35

3.2.6 Teachers’ suggestions for using the course book and teaching materials 37 3.2.7 Teachers and students’ suggestions to motivate students 37

3.2.8 Students’ suggestions to change their studying habits 39

3.3 Discussion 39

3.3.1 Challenges the teachers encounter in teaching ESP 39

3.3.2 Challenges the students encounter in studying ESP 42

3.4 Implications 44

3.4.1 Suggestions to overcome the challenges for the teachers 44

3.4.2 Suggestions to overcome the challenges for the students 47

3.5 Chapter summary 49

PART C CONCLUSION 51

1 Recapitulation 51

2 Limitations of the Study 52

3 Suggestions for further studies 52

APPENDIX 1

APPENDIX 2

APPENDIX 3

APPENDIX 4

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EAOP: English for Academic and Occupational PurposesEAP: English for Academic Purposes

EFL: English as Foreign Language

EGAP: English for General Academic Purposes

EOP: Occupational Purposes

ESAP: English for Specific Academic Purposes

ESP: English for Special Purposes

EST: English for Science and Technology

GE: General English

PPA: the People’s Police Academy

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 3.1: Training areas the teachers want to receive 27

Table 3.2: Challenging aspects in teaching ESP 28

Table 3.3: Challenging aspects in studying ESP 31

Figure 1.1: Tree of ELT (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987) 9

Figure 1.2: The Division of ESP (Carter, 1983) 10

Figure1.3: Factors Affecting ESP Course Design (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987) .11

Figure 3.1: Teachers’ ESP & GE teaching experience 25

Figure 3.2: Teachers’ subject knowledge 25

Figure 3.3: Formal training forms received by teachers 26

Figure 3.4: The use of a different teaching methods 26

Figure 3.5: Factors made the methods different 27

Figure 3.7: Students’ ESP studying experience 29

Figure 3.7: Students’ English proficiency 29

Figure 3.8: Students’ means of studying ESP 30

Figure 3.9: Teachers’ suggestions to improve their knowledge 31

Figure 3.10: Students’ suggestions to improve their knowledge of the subject 32

Figure 3.11: Teachers’ suggestions for class organization 33

Figure 3.12: Teachers’ suggestions for teaching methods 33

Figure 3.13: Teachers’ suggestions for students’ English proficiency 34

Figure 3.14: Students’ suggestions to enhance their English proficiency 35

Figure 3.15: Teachers’ suggestions for time-constraint 35

Figure 3.16: Students’ suggestions for time-constraint 36

Figure 3.17: Teachers’ suggestions for using the course book and teaching materials 37 Figure 3.18: Teachers’ suggestions to motivate students 37

Figure 3.19: Students’ suggestions to motivate their motivation 38

Figure 3.20: Students’ suggestions to change their studying habits 39

PART A INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the study

As a result of globalization and integration processes, English has become anessential part of international communication and exchange Especially, Englishfor specific purposes (ESP) has been steadily growing to meet to the demands ofpeople working in different fields Thus, with the national policy of renovationand international integration, there is an increasing need for teaching andlearning English in Vietnam More importantly, the idea of adopting ESP in theclassrooms at schools, colleges, and universities cannot be avoided

Having recognized the strategic necessity of ESP for its students aftergraduation, the academy’s teachers have applied the ESP course to its PoliceStudies for three years All freshmen enrolled at this academy have to take ESPcourses despite their majors The textbook used for the courses is “English forPolice” including specialized vocabulary, topics, and knowledge related to lawand police field It helps students enrich their vocabulary and get familiar withdaily situations they may encounter while working as police officers in the reallife

However, several complaints that they were not considered capable of takingESP teaching and studying responsibilities were expressed by both teachers andstudents at the academy To the teachers, it is vital that they must develop thecompetencies needed for the task of teaching ESP in Police Studies This isparticularly important as there are frequent complaints when they confront therealities of the classroom To the students, it is said that they have had enormousdifficulties in taking the courses of which vocabulary, topics, and knowledge aretotally different from what they studied at high schools Consequently, thestudents are at loss, which may create high levels of anxiety and stress among thestudents

For the reasons above, it is clearly imperative to explore the challenges ofESP teaching and studying at the academy, which helps find out solutions for theteachers and students to overcome the obstacles Thus, before sorting out suitablemethods in teaching and studying the ESP course at the academy, the researcher

would like to conduct a research paper entitled “Challenges for teachers and students in the ESP course for Police Studies”.

2 Aims and objectives of the study

The general purpose of the study is to investigate what challenges theteachers and students in the researched academy may encounter while teachingand studying the ESP courses

The specific objectives of the research are as follows:

- Investigate challenges that the teachers and students have to cope with while teaching and studying the ESP courses of Police Studies

- Propose some recommendations to help both the teachers and students achieve better results in approaching the ESP course of Police Studies

3. Research questions

This research aims at addressing the two following questions:

- What challenges do the teachers and students encounter in teaching and studying the ESP courses of Police Studies?

- What are possible suggestions to overcome the challenges?

4. Research method

Survey research was chosen as the primary method since it met the aims andobjectives of the study This method is also justified to offer significant benefitsfor the researcher, who is also an EFL teacher

5 Scope of the study

Within the frame of this study, the researcher would like to focus on findingout challenges encountered by the teachers and students working with the ESPcourses of Police Studies, and from the findings, propose some suggestions tohelp the teachers and students overcome and take advantages of the challengesfound All of the attempts to deal with ESP from other perspectives and othertypes of students in other contexts are out of the scope of this study

6 Significance of the study

The study is expected to contribute to the development of teaching andlearning ESP courses The study is meaningful in such aspect that it will provideteaching and studying implications for English as foreign language (EFL)teachers and students In other words, this is substantial for educators inproviding suggestions for overcoming the challenges and developing theirteaching and studying syllabus, methods, and assessment Lastly, this researchcan be used as a reference source for those who have interest in this issue and asupplement to related studies on teaching and studying ESP

7 Structure of the thesis

The study is composed of three main parts: Introduction, Development, andConclusion

Part A: Introduction states the rationale, aims, objectives, research

questions, research method, scope and significance of the study

as well as the structure of the study

Part B: Development consists of three chapters.

Chapter 1: Theoretical background provides theories of ESP and

teaching ESP, and previous studies related to the topic

Chapter 2: Methodology demonstrates the research methods applied in

the study with details on how and why these methods wereimplemented Besides, the data collection procedure anddata analysis are also described in this chapter

Chapter 3: Findings and discussion reports data analysis, the results

and discussions Part 3: Conclusion summarizes the main issues covered in the paper,

presents the limitations of the study and some suggestions forfurther studies in the research area

References and Appendixes are presented at the end of the research

PART B DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 English for Specific Purposes

1.1.1 Definitions and characteristics of ESP

Smoak (2003) regarded English for specific purposes (ESP) as an enormousand ever-changing area; that is why giving it an exact definition is a difficult task.ESP was defined as being simply the teaching of English for any purpose(Anthony, 1997) Meanwhile, Khan (2011) described ESP as what learnersneeded in the target situation or what learners wanted about their function oflanguage usage in the sense of linguistic terminology Hutchinson and Waters(1987) defined ESP as a language learning approach and not a product, whichindicated that no particular kind of language, teaching materials, or methodologygot involved in ESP, but it was based on the learners’ needs In other words, itfocused on how learners used English in the context, but not restricted to thatspecific one Sharing a similar view, Robinson (1991) stated that ESP was

“normal goal-directed” which meant that its courses are based on needs analysis.Needs analysis was not only knowing what the learners did with language butalso dealing with how to use that language in different contexts (Hutchinson &Waters, 1987) John and Price-Machado (2001) pointed out that ESP needsanalysis focused on both the specific language use and learning needs of aspecific group of learners Also, ESP learners’ needs made the set of skills, texts,linguistic forms, and communicative practices limited (Dudley-Evans & St John,

1998 and Hyland, 2009) Đỗ and Cái (2010) suggested that with the purpose ofdetermining the special activities and final goals that students have to do andachieve, ESP was English courses based on survey results and needs analysis.Thus, ESP was regarded as an English course of which the textbooks andmaterials were adapted to meet specific desires and purposes

According to Dudley-Evans and St John (1998), ESP characteristics weredivided into three categories: the first one was that ESP met specific purposes ofthe learners; the second one was that ESP made use of underlying methodology

and activities of the discipline it served; and the last one was that ESP wascentered on the language appropriate to these activities in terms of grammar,lexis, register, study skills, discourse, and genre.

In addition, there were some variable characteristics of ESP Firstly, ESPmight be related to or designed for specific disciplines Secondly, ESP might use,

in specific teaching situations, a different methodology from that of generalEnglish Thirdly, ESP was likely to be designed for adult learners, either at atertiary level institution or in a professional work situation It could, however, befor learners at secondary school level However, in some cases, ESP was alsodesigned for high school students Fourthly, ESP was generally designed forintermediate or advanced students Lastly, most ESP courses assumed some basicknowledge of the language system, but it could be used with beginners

ESP seemed to have quite flexible discipline so it had been defined differently

by different scholars We could count as many definitions as the number oflinguists who had defined it All these definitions appeared to cover variouscharacteristics of this approach (Master’s, 2005: 99) mentioned a very broaddefinition “ESP is a division of English Language Teaching (ELT), the only othermember of which is English for General Purposes.” McDonough’s (1998: 105)defined that “ESP describes language programmes designed for groups orindividuals who are learning with an identifiable purpose and clearly specifiableneeds.”

Moreover, Johns and Price-Machado (2001: 43) said that English for SpecificPurposes (ESP) is a movement based on the proposition that particular groups ofstudents with specific learning and language use needs could be met by adjustingall language teaching Also, the sociocultural contexts in which these studentswould be using English played a sensitive factor

Hutchinson and Waters (1987) defined ESP as an “approach” rather than a

“product” That means any particular kind of language, teaching material ormethodology was not necessarily involved in ESP The fundamental function ofESP was to answer why that learner needed to learn a foreign language Milevica

(2006) as well as Hutchinson and Waters (1987) stated that the core of ESP was

to the hypothesis of learning English

Dudley-Evans and St John (1998: 4-5) presented a modified definition ofESP containing absolute and variable characteristics of ESP that are as follows:

Absolute Characteristics

ESP has three main absolute characteristics First, it was defined to meetspecific needs of the learner Second, ESP made use of the underlyingmethodology and activities of the discipline it serves Lastly, it was centered onthe language (grammar, lexis), skills, discourse and genres appropriate to theseactivities

Variable Characteristics

The variable characteristics of ESP included: (1) ESP might be related to ordesigned for specific disciplines; (2) ESP might use, in specific teachingsituations, a different methodology from that of general English; (3) ESP likely to

be designed for adult learners, either at a tertiary level institution or in aprofessional work situation It could, however, be for learners at secondaryschool level; (4) ESP was generally designed for intermediate or advancedstudents; (5) Most ESP courses assumed some basic knowledge of the languagesystem, but it could be used with beginners

Although Dudley-Evans had improved it substantially by removing theabsolute characteristic that ESP was "in contrast with 'General English'" (Johns etal., 1991: 298), and had added more variable characteristics, his definition wasclearly influenced by that of Strevens (1988) In justifying arguments about whatwas and was not ESP, the division of ESP into absolute and variablecharacteristics, in particular, was very useful From the definition, it could beseen that ESP could be unnecessarily involved with a specific discipline, or beaimed at a certain age group or ability range ESP itself should be simply seen as

an 'approach' to teaching, or what Dudley-Evans described as an 'attitude ofmind' Hutchinson et al (1987:19) made a similar conclusion and he saw ESP as

an approach to language teaching in which all content and method making was based on the learner's reason for learning

decision-1.1.2 English for Specific Purposes vs General English

If the above definition was agreeable, it was time to to see how broad ESPreally was In fact, one important question, “What is the difference between theESP and General English approach?” was raised The question was answeredquite simply by Hutchinson et al (1987:53), "in theory nothing, in practice agreat deal" When the book was written, of course, the last statement was quitetrue At the time, General English teachers were also aware of students’ havingspecific purpose for studying English However, they would rarely conduct aneeds analysis to find out what was necessary to actually achieve it In contrast,modern teachers nowadays absolutely acknowledged the importance of needsanalysis, and certainly the goals of learners at all stages of materials productionwere carefully considered by materials writers Perhaps this demonstrated theinfluence that the ESP approach had had on English teaching in general.Apparently, the line between where General English courses stopped and ESPcourses gradually started to become vague

There was an ironic fact that while a learner needs analysis and teachers’specialist knowledge of using English for real-life communication were applied

in the syllabi of the so-called GE teachers, while many General English teacherscan be described as using an ESP approach, a large number of the so-called ESPteachers were using an approach furthest from that described above Many ESPteachers did not carry out interview with specialist in the field, or did not analyzethe language required in the profession, or even did not conduct students’ needsanalysis That was the reason why these ESP teachers became so dependent onthe available textbooks that they were incapable of assessing the adaptabilitybased in personal experience, and not willing to do the necessary analysis ofdifficult specialist texts to verify their contents

1.1.3 Types of ESP

According to Dudley-Evans and St John (1998), English for AcademicPurposes (EAP) fell into two divisions: English for General Academic Purposes(EGAP) and English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) While EGAP

referred to the teaching of language skills that were common in differentdisciplines, ESAP was related to the teaching of language features that werespecific for various disciplines Insights into the mutual relationship of EGAPand ESAP had been offered by research.

Skills and language functions learnt in EGAP programs might be transferred

to specific disciplines in ESAP programs (ibid.) The types of ESP had beendiscussed by many researchers and ESP had been categorized into two maingroups: English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) and English for AcademicPurposes (EAP) (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987; Robinson, 1991) whereas Carter(1983) had identified the following three types of ESP:

1. English as a restricted language;

2. English for Academic and Occupational Purposes (EAOP);

3. English with specific topics

According to Mackey and Mountford (1978), the concept of “restrictedlanguage” was clearly defined in the following statement: “ the language ofinternational air-traffic control could be regarded as 'special', in the sense that therepertoire required by the controller was strictly limited and could be accuratelydetermined situationally, as might be the linguistic needs of a dining-room waiter

or air-hostess The scope of this first type of ESP which allowed the learnerslearn English language for very restricted purposes was extremely limited and thelearners were trained to deal with specific situations in extremely limitedlinguistic settings This kind of ESP teaching let learners acquire limited number

of phrases and expressions, which made these learners incapable of using English

in any settings other than the ones they had been trained for

Carter (1983) regarded EAOP as the second kind whereas majority of otherresearchers had confined their classification of ESP to EAP and EOP These twotypes in the classification of ESP were also included by Robinson (1991) Englishfor Science and Technology (EST) had been enumerated in the list of types of ESP

by Kennedy and Bolitho (1984) It seemed to transpire that ESP had been separatedfrom EOP and EAP because of the fact that it was basically scientific andtechnological knowledge that this new approach of ELT was supposed to

transfer to non-native speakers of English (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987;

Gatehouse, 2001; Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998; Strevens, 1977) Hutchinson

and Waters (1987: 6) described the classification of ESP in detail by using “Tree

of ELT” which offered important insights into the broad scope of ESP

English for Specific Purposes

English for Academic Purposes

English (Academic)for Science andTechnology

English (Academic)for Medical

Figure 1.1: Tree of ELT (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987)

Hutchinson and Waters (1987) and Carter (1983) seemed to have similarities in

their belief that EOP and EAP are not entirely separate phenomena They argued that

people could work and study at the same time; it was also likely that in many cases

that the student could take up, or return the language learnt for immediate use in a

study environment to a job (ibid., p 16) What might be revealed from the above

discussion was that EOP and EAP had approximately common goals but their

dynamics were indeed different from their means to achieve the ultimate

goals Only EAP and EOP had been also included in their division of ESP by

Dudley-Evans and St John (1998: 5)

Carter (1983) categorized “English with specific topics” into the third type of

ESP Activities like post-graduate reading studies, working in foreign institutions

and attending conferences were mentioned as future needs for scientists Before

any ESP material was designed, the third category of ESP required that the

linguistic needs of the learners should be properly determined It was the target

future (linguistic) needs of the learners that was focused on to prepare the

learners for their future needs It seemed that this category of ESP was not very

distinguishable because all ESP courses had a proper need analysis procedure as

an integral component of developing ESP teaching material which targeted

situational language, including topics mentioned by Carter (1983) and others, in

present and target workplace settings (Gatehouse, 2001)

1.1.4 Features of ESP courses

Carter (1983) discussed the identification of the characteristics of ESP

courses He affirmed that there were three features common to ESP courses: the

first was authentic material, the second was purpose-related orientation, and the

last was self-direction

ESP

Pre-experience

Simultaneous/

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Dudley-Evans (1997) asserted that ESP should be offered at an intermediate

or advanced level, use of authentic learning materials is entirely attainable.Closer examination of ESP materials would follow; suffice it to say at thisjuncture that use of authentic content materials, modified or unmodified in form,were indeed a feature of ESP, particularly in self-directed study and researchtasks For Language Preparation for Employment in the Health Sciences, a largecomponent of the student evaluation was based on an independent studyassignment in which the learners were asked to scrutinize and present an area ofinterest The learners were also encouraged to carry out research using an array

of different resources, including the Internet Hutchinson and Waters (1987, p.22)provided the issue of how to reasonably structure such survey in the figureregarding factors affecting ESP course design

WHAT?

Language Description

Nature of particular target and learning situation

Purpose-related orientation indicated the simulation of communicative tasksrequired of the target setting It was Carter (1983) that cited student simulation of

a conference, involving the preparation of papers, reading, note taking, andwriting In his study, Students at Algonquin College were involved in English forbusiness courses in the design and presentation of a unique business venture,which was composed of market research, pamphlets and logo creation Thestudents were asked to present all final products to invited ESL classes during aposter presentation session For a health science program, a seminar onimproving the students’ listening skills was held They practiced listening skills,such as listening with empathy, and then utilized their newly acquired skillsduring a field-trip to a local community center where they would work in groupswith English-speaking dwellers

Finally, ESP courses had characteristic of self-direction, which meant thelearners would be turned into users in ESP courses (Carter, 1983: 134) In orderfor self-direction to occur, it was a certain degree of freedom to decide when,what, and how the learners would study that they must have Carter (1983) alsoadded that tear hers had to make a systematic attempt by introducing the learnersabout learning strategies to teach them how to learn It was necessary, though, toteach high-ability learners such as those enrolled in the health science programabout learning strategies It was argued that it was not essential In contrast, whatwas vital for these learners was to learn how to access information in a newculture

The main focus of ESP was how to teach English with proper and easy method

to attain the specific goals It did not emphasis on the language, but tried to meet theneed of a learner such as, English for the Engineers, Lawyers, Doctors and Tourists,etc For example, to teach a tourist guide English for communication, the class ofESP would be all about developing communication capabilities instead of otherskills Obviously, in tourism, communicative skills were really essential Withoutcommunication skills, one could not interact with others Therefore, English would

be taught in a distinguish way as per the field demands ESP put

more emphasis on the training and selection of suitable content The objectivecould be to develop a restricted English Proficiency.

1.1.5 ESP teaching material

Dudley-Evans and St John (1998) presented four reasons for using materialswhich seemed significant in the ESP context: (1) as a source of language; (2) as alearning support; (3) for motivation and stimulation; and (4) for reference

According to these researchers, in certain circumstances, where English was aforeign not a second language, the ESP classroom might be almost the onlysource of English Materials then played a crucial role in exposing learners to thelanguage, which implied that the materials needed to present real language, as itwas used, and the full range that learners required

As a learning support, materials needed to be reliable, that was, to work, to beconsistent and to have some recognizable pattern This need did not mean a rigidunit structure; there wouldn’t be a fixed format

To enhance learning, materials must involve learners in thinking about andusing the language The activities needed to stimulate cognitive not mechanicalprocesses The learners also needed a sense of progression

To stimulate and motivate, materials needed to be challenging yet achievable;

to offer new ideas and information whilst being grounded in the learners’experience and knowledge; to encourage fun and creativity The input mustcontain concepts and/or knowledge that were familiar but it must also offersomething new, a reason to communicate, to get involved The exploitationneeded to match how the input would be used outside the learning situation andtake account of language learning needs The purpose and the connection to thelearners’ reality need to be clear

1.1.6 The roles of ESP teachers

An argumentative question frequently raised regarding ESP teachers waswhether they needed to be experts in the subject area The general hypothesis wasthat language teachers should be primarily those engaged in Teaching English as

a Foreign Language (TEFL) and should, above all, be experts in the language and

language teaching, and they were not required to have specialist knowledge.However, it was extremely essential for them to have some understanding of thesubject area, which was ideally accompanied by a positive attitude towards it.Another significant factor was that ESP teachers did have the ability to activelyintegrate student knowledge about the subject matter or, as Ellis and Johnson (1994:26) claimed that it was the learners who had the specific content knowledge and whowere capable of bringing that knowledge to the classroom” Therefore, Ellis andJohnson (1994: 26) pointed out that good ESP teachers would be “experts inpresenting and explaining the language,” who also had the ability “to ask the rightquestions and make good use of the answers” Other valuable sources of informationfor ESP teachers are subject teachers and subject-matter textbooks.

To sum up, to make best use of the resources mentioned above when designing asyllabus, selecting, and/or writing materials, as well as teaching the course, ESPteachers could be ideally supported by a genuine interest in the subject to have atleast some basic knowledge about the subject matter in question It is even moreimportant that they act as facilitators and encourage pupils to share their ownknowledge about the subject matter with the class and to actively participate in thelearning process This characteristic of was cited by Harmer (2007: 107) that thewisdom of a teacher was shown by his not bidding the learners enter the house of hiswisdom, but leading them to the threshold of their own mind

1.1.7 The roles of ESP learners

The learners came to the ESP class with a specific interest for learning,subject matter knowledge, and well-built adult learning strategies They had thetasks to develop English language skills to reflect their native-languageknowledge and skills In short, Mary and Brenda (1986) categorized the students’roles to play in learning process into three groups

 Focus for Learning: Each ESP student had a particular purpose and

focus for learning People learnt languages when they had opportunities tounderstand and work with language in a context that they understood andfound interesting ESP was a means for such opportunities Students wouldrequire English when they worked with materials which they found

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interesting and relevant and which they could use in their professionalworking environment or further studies Successful learners paid attention

to the meaning of the language they heard or read and did not focusprimarily on the linguistic input or isolated language structures The ESPstudent was particularly well disposed to focus on meaning in the subject-matter field In ESP, English should not be presented as a subject or body

of facts to be learned in isolation from real use, nor as a mechanical skill

or habit to be developed In contrast, English should be presented inauthentic contexts to make the learners acquainted with the particularways the language was used in functions that they would need to perform

in their specialty fields

 Subject-Matter Knowledge: A real contribution to the language

learning process was able to be made by learners in the ESP classroomwho were generally aware of the purposes for which they would need touse English Having already oriented their training toward a specific field,they saw their English instruction as complementing this orientation Thestudents were enabled to identify a real context for the vocabulary andstructures of the ESP classroom knowledge of the special area In this way,the learners could make use of what they already knew about the subjectmatter field to learn English

 Adult Learning Strategies: An adult gained a lot of advantages

when learning - adults must work harder than children to learn a newlanguage, but the learning strategies they brought to the task enabled them

to learn faster and more efficiently The skills they had already developed

in reading and writing their native languages would make learning Englisheasier Although the English of the students you would be working withwould most likely be quite limited, the language learning abilities of theadult in the ESP classroom were potentially great Language learningcontinued naturally throughout our lives Educated adults were constantlylearning new language behavior in their native languages; expandingvocabulary, becoming more articulate in their fields, and modifying their

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linguistic behavior in new situations or new roles ESP students could tap these natural competencies in learning English.

1.1.8 ESP learners’ motivation

Motivation was considered as an important factor to determine the success or

the failure of learning It could be defined as “some kind of internal drive that encourages somebody to pursue a course of action If we perceive a goal and that goal is sufficiently attractive, we will be strongly motivated to whatever is necessary to reach that goal.” (Harmer, 1983:3) There might be different types

of goals: short-term goals and long-term goals Regarding English learning,short-term goals might be represented by wanting to pass an end-of-semesterexamination or to finish a unit in the textbook On the other hand, long-termgoals might include the desire to get a better job or to be able to communicatewith other people from a different community or culture As a generallyestablished remark, strongly motivated students with long-term goals were easier

to teach than those with other type of goals, namely with no real inner drive Thestudents with higher level of motivation succeeded much better in learning thelanguage They engaged in more detailed activities, put much effort in improvingall the skills related to language learning and apply them in their specialty

There were many factors that could affect learners’ degree of motivation inlearning ESP, such as:

 Attitude: The relation between motivation and learner attitudes had

been considered a predominant concern in language learning research.Teaching ESP was faculty-based and was intended to develop languagelearning skills and structural knowledge of English under the premise thatinterest in the content of the ESP language subject would motivate

learners Hence, Gardner (1985:1) stated that “motivation … refers to the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the

language plus favorable attitudes”.

 Interest: According to Woolfolk and Margetts (2013), there were

two kinds of interest personal or individual interest and situational interest

They considered the individual interest of the student as “students with

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individual interests in learning in general seek new information and have more positive attitudes towards schooling.” Therefore, the student’s

interest on the task or activity could affect student’s motivation to learn,and student’s interest was identified as one of the important motivationalconstructs that influenced students‟ engagement and achievement inlearning

 Learning Environment: Teaching and learning processes were

shaped by their physical, social and organizational environment, and thedesign of learning environments was, in turn, influenced by the processesthat took place within them Therefore, learning environment was thecomplete physical, social and pedagogical context in which learning wasintended to occur In a learning environment, developing motivation was adifficult task for the teacher considering that every student learnsdifferently and every student was diverse in their own ways But thestudents expected the teacher to guide and encourage them in aconstructive manner (Shadlyn, 2004)

 Teacher Responsibility: The major motivational factor in language

learning was the teacher; in fact, the teacher remained the best model formotivation Thus, the way of teaching and teacher’s attitude would affect

learners’ motivation Ames (1990: 421) asserted that “Effective schools and effective teachers are those who develop goals, beliefs, and attitudes

in students that will sustain a long-term involvement and that will contribute to quality involvement in learning” Therefore, it was important for the teacher to be mindful of the fact that how he/she structured the

course and the teaching methodologies he/she used could greatly affect his/her students‟ motivation to learn

In short, it was very important to motivate students to learn ESP by making asupportive environment in which they were stimulated, engaged in activitieswhich were appropriate to their age, interest and cultural backgrounds, and mostimportantly, where learners could experience success

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1.2 Previous studies

Mohammad (2014) carried out research on issues, tasks, and challenges facingthe ESP teachers Issues in ESP teaching were addressed as “Who are ESPteachers?” and “What do they teach?” Regarding the former question, they wereteachers at vocational schools, colleges, and universities, as well as any otherteachers who dealt with their students’ professional development Concerning thelatter one, they taught English for the profession and encouraged their students touse their background knowledge along with the academic skills in dealing with allsorts of authentic information in their profession Tasks of ESP teachers wereidentified as developing curriculum; designing ESP courses; determining approaches

to course designs such as language-centred course designs, skill-centred coursedesigns, and learning-centred approaches; needs analysis; and assessments Theresearcher based on a previous study of Abudulaziz et al (2012) to sort out thechallenges for ESP teachers The challenges were presented as follows: (1)pronunciation of certain vocabulary words borrowed from other languages; (2) theeligibility between the course title and the qualification of an ESP practitioner; (3)the inappropriate course design for the learners; (4) the teachers’ adaptation to thedemands of the world and learners; (5) the need for more trained teachers; (6) thestudents’ unfamiliarity with the format of the exam;

(7) the teachers’ unwillingness of teaching ESP; and (8) the teachers’ qualityassurance As a conclusion, ESP teachers’ role is a more complex and responsibleone than teaching GE

In Vietnam, Hoa and Mai (2016) conducted a study on difficulties in teachingEnglish for Specific Purposes at Vietnam universities There were more than 400teachers and students at 11 universities participating in the survey and 362 validreplies were received Most of the students were in third year and learned ESP insuch universities as Vietnam University of Commerce, University of Transportand Communications, Hanoi National University of Education, and HanoiUniversity of Science and Technology A questionnaire of 12 difficulties washanded to the teachers and students The results of the study indicated difficultiesrelated to the teachers and students The difficulties the teachers encountered

while teaching were the quality of lectures and textbooks, the teachers’qualifications and teaching methods It was found that many teachers had Englishcertificates but could not teach ESP due to listening skills while those who weregood at 4 English skills lacked specialized knowledge Also, the number of nativeEnglish-speaking teachers trained in their major was still small On the otherhand, the students run into such difficulties as language proficiency and the bigdifference between Vietnamese and English involving parts of speech,pronunciation, word usage and grammar Many long and difficult ESP words aswell as complex structures in scientific articles created difficulties in studyingESP This resulted in the lack of English vocabulary among Vietnamese students.

It was concluded that teaching ESP was facing numerous difficulties arising fromsubjective and objective factors These difficulties had a direct impact onteaching ESP and students’ ability to find jobs after graduation

Apart from these above studies, there are a plenty of works conducted related

to the challenges of teaching and studying ESP at schools and universities.Several conclusions could be reached from these studies To the teachers, theyencountered such challenges as the teachers’ qualifications, specializedknowledge, and adaptation to the new demands of the world and the learners Tothe learners, they had to faced up with difficulties in specialized vocabulary,complex structures, and quality of studying materials In conclusion, bothteachers and learners have risen to considerably serious challenges of teachingand studying ESP Thus, the researcher would like to do an intensive study on thechallenges for teachers and students in the ESP course specialized in PoliceStudies

1.3 Chapter summary

This chapter has presented the relevant literature, which has helped to form thetheoretical and conceptual framework for the study Firstly, a number of conceptsabout ESP, ESP’s characteristics, types, course features, as well as materials aregiven according to some leading scholars Secondly, the investigator has shown theroles of ESP teachers as a teacher, a course designer, a researcher, a collaborator, and

an evaluator Lastly, ESP learners’ roles and motivation are

demonstrated Through the demonstration, it is expected to set the framework forfinding out the challenges in teaching and studying for both teachers and studentsfor Police Studies.

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Research setting

The study was conducted at an academy in Ministry of Public Security Thereare 13 departments with about 700 lecturers, and 40.000 students in the academy.The Foreign Language Department there focuses on three languages, English,Chinese, and Russian General English and English for Specific Purposes are thetwo main parts of English language teaching There are 12 classes studyingGeneral English only for in-service students, and 3 classes studying English forSpecific Purposes for regular students

The research just focused on first-year students studying ESP In the students’first year at the academy, they had two semesters mainly studying four Englishskills (reading, writing, speaking, and listening) related to ESP The ESP materialused in the two semesters was “English for Police” In the first semester, therewere 14 topics taught in 102 periods, each period lasted for 50 minutes Beforesemester 1 started, a written test held by Center of Languages and InformationTechnology had been given to all of the students The test results helped classifythe students as their English proficiency in order to divide them into classes Thebest students would be put into the first classes At the end of semester 1, anothertest including four skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) was held tocheck their studying results All of the students were required to reach B1 level(CEFR) after finishing the course in semester 2 After using the textbook to teachthe first-year students in semester 1, the researcher received reflections from bothteachers and students which showed that they encountered difficulties whenteaching and studying ESP

2.2 Participants

Subjects under this investigation are 24 teachers and 100 first-year students atthe academy These students are from 3 ESP classes All of the participantscompleted the questionnaires Overall, the teacher group is a heterogeneous one.They are different from each other in terms of age, teaching, experience and thetime they have taught using the ESP textbook

In the academic year 2018 – 2019, there were 3 classes including 100 first-yearstudents studying ESP Thus, it could be concluded that the number of the students ineach class was rather equivalent to each other and all classes were quite large.

2.3 Research types

The research was conducted as a quantitative and qualitative study in order toachieve its goal which is finding out challenges for the teachers and students inthe ESP course for Police Studies Quantitative data were collected by usingquestionnaires while participants’ interviews were used to gather qualitative data

2.4 Data collection instruments

2.4.1 Questionnaires

The issues discussed in this paper are of a study that focuses on perceivedchallenges in teaching and studying ESP for Police Studies in order to givesuggestions and recommendations to overcome the challenges Based on theessence of the research questions, the researcher relied upon the quantitative andqualitative methods using survey questionnaires for some reasons Firstly,

“extensive and detailed” description, clarifications, and interpretations to form athorough understanding of the research questions were offered when using thistechnique (Burns, 1999: 22) In addition, questionnaires for the teachers andstudents can “capture the richness and complexity of behaviour that occurs innatural settings from the participants’ perspectives” (Trauth, 2001: 37) Finally,the collected data were inductively analysed to generate findings Hence, twoquestionnaires were delivered to the teachers and students to collect theinformation

The former questionnaire (See Appendix 1) delivered to the teachers

consisted of two sections: section 1 including 10 questions designed to getgeneral information about the teachers; section 2 including 11 sub-questionscorresponding with reasons for the challenges due to teaching methods,knowledge of the participants, teaching materials, teaching time, and learnerswas the main part of the survey: perceived challenges in teaching ESP for PoliceStudies

The latter questionnaire (See Appendix 2) delivered to the students also

consisted of two sections: section 1 containing 3 questions planned to findgeneral information about the students; section 2 composed of 9 sub-questionscorresponding with reasons for the challenges due to teaching methods, teachers’knowledge, learning materials, learning time, and learners’ own problems wasthe other main part of the survey: perceived challenges in learning ESP for PoliceStudies

2.4.2 Interviews

To collect more data, several semi-structured interviews were conducted withthe purpose of finding out the causes for the biggest challenges in teaching andstudying the ESP Also, it was expected to get the teachers and students’suggestions to solve these challenges The formats of the semi-structured

interviews for the teachers and students included some questions relatively (See Appendix 3 and Appendix 4).

2.5 Data collection procedure and analysis

Reference materials provided the researcher with valuable information todesign the questionnaires, which were later sent out to the teachers and students.After that, the questionnaires were revised in terms of the language used as well

as the instructions to make it clearer The research was carried out through thefollowing steps:

- The survey questionnaires were delivered to the teachers and students inDecember 2018 After all of the answers were collected, the authorembarked upon the calculation and analysis work All the returnedquestionnaires were carefully studied to make sure that no answers wereleft out Then the data were quantitatively and qualitatively analysed usingdescriptive approach The descriptive analyses were then reported inpercentages so that the findings were clearly demonstrated

- Apart from the survey questionnaires, the researcher conducted a structured interview with some of the targeted participants for more detailedexplanation to reasons or causes of the challenges in teaching and learning

semi-ESP of Police Studies ad well as recommendations for handling them.Especially, interview questions focused on some of the most difficultproblems that the teachers and students had to encounter in teaching andlearning ESP The participants’ answers were taken notes and recorded.Common themes of the answers were carefully analysed.

2.6 Chapter summary

This survey research was carried out in the ESP classes at the People’ PoliceAcademy with the purpose of investigating the challenges for the teachers andstudents in the ESP course for Police Studies The data were collected from thetwo questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews, which were analysed bymeans of descriptive statistic devices and content analysis methods It wasexpected that the combination of these instruments would enable to answer theresearch questions

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

To investigate the challenges for the teachers and students in the ESP coursefor Police Studies, two questionnaires and semi-structured interviews wereadministered to the participants The results were as follows:

3.1 Results of the survey questionnaires

3.1.1 The questionnaires for ESP teachers

a The teachers’ ESP and GE teaching experience

50

40 30 20

10 0

Figure 3.1: Teachers’ ESP & GE teaching experience

From figure 3.1, it was shown that 37.5% of the teachers had less than 3-yearteaching experience while 41.7% of them had from three to ten years’ teachingexperience Only 20.8% of them taught English for more than ten years

It could also be seen that all participants took part in teaching GE Of all theteachers, there were 25% of them teaching GE for less than three years.Meanwhile, 45.8% of them taught from three to ten years and 29.2% of them hadmore than 10-year teaching experience

b The teachers’ subject knowledge

Figure 3.2: Teachers’ subject knowledge

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The figure above revealed that all of the teachers had specialist knowledge.8.3% admitted that they had a little specialist knowledge while 58.4% of themfound their specialist knowledge satisfactory 33.3% thought their knowledge wasvery good.

100% of the teachers agreed that they gained their knowledge from attendinglectures, reading on their owns, and teaching experience Such other sources toacquire knowledge as taking part in real-life activities, dealing with specializedissues, and learning from the senior colleagues were also listed

All of the teachers affirmed that specialist knowledge played an essential partfor ESP teachers and the essence was very much

c The teachers’ ESP formal training

29.2

Having ESP degrees Having short courses 70.8

Figure 3.3: Formal training forms received by teachers

100% of the teachers received formal training to teach ESP 29.2% of themhad degrees while the rest, 70.8 %, got short courses The degrees and coursesmentioned by the teachers were Investigation, Workshop: Teaching ESP, etc

d The teachers’ teaching methods

12.5

Using different teaching methods

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New and different methods were used in ESP classes by 87.5% of the

teachers The others replied no to a different one There are some reasons for the

teachers’ applying different methods while teaching

100 80 60

40 20 0

Figure 3.5: Factors made the methods different

Among 21 teachers who applied different methods in their teaching, 76.1% of

the teachers shared that the learners’ age made the methodology different 95.2%

of them pointed out that it was the learners’ majors that made the difference

meanwhile 85.7% of them chose the subject itself as an important factor

e The teachers’ wishes in ESP training

Table 3.1: Training areas the teachers want to receive

From Table 3.1, it could be seen that the areas which the teachers were

interested in most were specialized terminology (87.5%), followed by teaching

methods (83.3%), and material development (79.1%) Meanwhile, other training